Daylight-saving time starts but are you ready for something which could have similar implications as the millenium bug?
US congress have passed a change which will extend daylight-saving time for an extra month this year in the USA in an effort to conserve electricity. The new daylight-saving time will be kick-started three weeks early this year, on March 11, and will end a week later than normal, on November 4.
All of the United States except: Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa will be following the new rules.
“It’s going to be a pain,” says Gartner analyst Cameron Haight. “But it’s certainly not a Y2K-style event.” That is if everyone remembers to change their clocks accordingly. Software which can be used to automatically change mobile phones for instance to day-light saving time will not of course work as they are not programmed to change on March 11 but the first Sunday of April instead.
Due to this problem, the daylight saving time bug (aka Baby Y2K) could affect you in a number of different ways:
# VCR’s will record an hour late until changed
# You could be an hour late for appointments that you have scheduled.
# Stock trades set to trade or sell at certain times could occur later than intended, potentially costing millions.
# Buildings that are programmed to unlock at 8 a.m. could stay locked.
# Airline, train & bus monitors could display wrong departure/arrival times.
Not to mention, if your PC, mobile, PDA etc. automatically updates to summer time then it will look to update again on the 1st Sunday of April, not realising that it was already at summer time. To prevent this, you will need to disable this function
The website: Baby Y2K contains more information about what you can do to prepare yourself for Baby Y2K. It also very handily contains a free downloadable MP3 and PDF so you can be FULLY informed of everything and what to do.
