Update calendars for earlier clock change
Daylight-saving time occurs three weeks early this year and could cause problems for computers, cell phones and other electronic devices, warn technology experts.
Congress shifted DST from the first Sunday of April to this Sunday, March 11 in an effort to conserve energy. This could do more harm than good, said Greg Stauffer, Public Relations and Communications Manager for ITS at CU.
“If you don’t update your calendaring application, it could reflect an incorrect time when DST starts on Sunday,” Stauffer said. “So, if you’ve scheduled something for Monday, March 12, that could reflect an incorrect time if an update is necessary.”
Various reports are comparing the discord between the clocks and computers to the effect Y2K was supposed to have. Dennis Maloney, Executive Director of ITS, believes the lack of time people have to prepare for DST may make it harder to deal with than Y2K.
“With Y2K, we had so much preparation time that any of the problems we might have had were pretty well handled long before we hit that changeover,” Maloney said. “In this case, the time has not been years to prepare, but months or weeks. It’s been a shorter time frame, so it has the ability to cause some disruption to people’s calendars.”
Stauffer said people may be underestimating the significance of the new DST.
“I think there was a lot more hype around Y2K than there was around DST, but I think you might see more effects from this DST than from Y2K,” Stauffer said.
Electronic time and calendaring systems control some aspects of daily life that are often taken for granted. Since traffic lights are controlled for time of day by computers, there could be significant traffic problems in Boulder if the systems are not updated.
Maloney said the City of Boulder considered the traffic light dilemma a major issue and took care of the problem.
The new DST shift could also affect members of the CU academic community. Maloney said DST could especially be a problem for the CU faculty.
“The faculty and staff heavily rely upon electronic calendars,” Maloney said. “For students, it’s probably less so, although lots of students probably use the Outlook calendar, for example.”
Stauffer said businesses are also dependent on electronic calendaring.
“Lots of programs out there rely on kind of this DST shift and how it’s been all along, and now it’s changing this year,” Stauffer said. “To make sure this happens gracefully, these operating systems or applications need to be updated.”
Fortunately, most new computers update themselves automatically and should not be affected by the DST switch, Maloney said.
“The typical situation is where someone using a PC or a Mac has it set to where it does automatic updates,” Maloney said. “Those updates typically will handle the changes necessary.”
ITS is taking steps to ensure that all members of the CU community are fully aware of the possible dangers of the new DST by posting a vital student e-memo on the CUConnect Web site. The e-memo has a link to an ITS Web site with a comprehensive list of steps to update a wide variety of software.
Students seem skeptical the DST shift could cause a problem.
James Bautsch, a sophomore chemical engineering major, compared the hype around DST to Y2K.
“Was Y2K even a legitimate threat? I never heard of any problem associated with Y2K, which leads me to believe there won’t be too much of a deal with DST,” Bautsch said. “If there’s an issue, I’m sure my computer will figure it out for itself.”
David Thayer, a sophomore business administration and finance major, agreed with Bautsch and said he wasn’t even aware DST occured on Sunday.
“Y2K never happened, so this won’t happen either,” Thayer said. “I think this is just another panic attack with no validity behind it.”
Despite the nonchalance of CU students, Stauffer urges people to pay attention to the DST switch and treat it as a serious matter.
“We’ve been trying to alert people on the campus to pay attention to their applications and particularly your calendaring programs, and make sure they are compliant and update them,” Stauffer said.
Contact Campus Press Staff Writer Brian Beer at brian.beer@thecampuspress.com .
