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Don't sweat time change for electronics(Indianapolis Star, The (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Mar. 31--Is changing the clock on a computer just too scary? Scary like daylight-saving time? That's what retired state Rep. Richard Mangus thought years ago when he introduced an amendment that would have made changing clocks on PCs, VCRs and other electronics the duty of grandchildren. Well, there's nothing to be scared of, officials say. On Sunday morning, computers won't blow up. Servers won't sputter. Keyboards and mice won't rain from the sky. For anything connected to a network, the time will change automatically. This includes cell phones, cable boxes and some personal digital assistants if you sync them with a computer set for the proper time zone. Hoosier businesses of all sizes seem ready. The worst thing that might happen is people could miss some appointments. "I think it's going to be a lot like Y2K -- a whole lot of hype but nothing's going to break," said Todd Howenstine, director of information technology at OneBridge, an Indianapolis financial services company. "The world's not going to come to an end. Indiana is not going to explode at 2:30 in the morning." For the most part, resetting the clock on a computer running market leader Microsoft Windows is a short and simple process. It is similar for network servers, said Kevin Gartenhaus, president and owner of the Indianapolis staffing company IT Spire. "It's more that there's some manual work involved with making the changes. But the bigger companies have a way of going in through the back end and changing things," he said. "With the smaller companies, you know, with 20 employees, they can just walk around to everybody's desk and change things." The latter is how it happened at OneBridge. Howenstine said it was more of a nuisance than a problem to reset the company's couple of dozen PCs. Jerry Kerns said the same about his IT support services company, Fishers-based Netfor. "Ours has been very straightforward," said the vice president of technology. The only headache for companies, often the larger companies, has been Microsoft Outlook and its back-end companion, Microsoft Exchange. Changing the time zone to "Eastern Time" on a Windows PC will push all the appointments on Outlook's calendar one hour ahead. Sure, it's easy to move each one back an hour by literally clicking on each appointment and dragging it back one hour on the screen. But this could become cumbersome, especially if you have lots of appointments or recurring appointments linked to other people across different time zones. "Everybody was counting on Microsoft to come out with a patch and take care of Indiana," Howenstine said. Microsoft has released a software "tool" that automates changing the time zone for PCs on a network. But that "tool" won't help you if, say, you have a weekly 10 a.m. appointment listed in Outlook with co-workers in Los Angeles and Cleveland. You will have to change everything manually so your schedule jibes with your co-workers' again, or persuade the employee who scheduled the appointment in the first place to do it again. That could be difficult if that employee, say, left the company. "There is no way to create a tool that handles all changes because of various unknown factors," Microsoft said in an e-mailed statement. Besides, Microsoft said, Outlook isn't the problem. "Outlook continues to function properly. It is the unusual distribution of time zones throughout the state, along with the adoption of daylight-saving time, which is causing inaccurate times on some PCs," Microsoft said. But Scott Mills, IT director at Somerset CPAs, said Microsoft left Indiana in the lurch. So the Indianapolis company starting selling a separate program that automatically moves Outlook appointments forward or backward, depending on what you want. The program costs $5 per Outlook account, with a minimum purchase of 10. Mills said the program is getting interest from all types of companies, small and large. In the meantime, several universities and organizations across the state have put together daylight-saving time primers for computers, BlackBerrys, iPods, TiVos and other consumer electronics. Most of the step-by-step instructions are available on the Web for free. Mangus isn't surfing the Web for any of that, though. Needless to say, that amendment didn't fly in the Statehouse "I've got to change mine. I don't like it," the retired Lakeville lawmaker groused over the phone this week. "I've got to get my grandkids in here to do it." RESETTING CLOCK WITH WINDOWS XP Resetting the clock on a desktop or laptop computer running Microsoft Windows is a relatively easy, one-time affair. The following instructions are for Windows XP: --Step 1: From the Start menu, click on "Control Panel." A window with icons and text will open. --Step 2: Double-click "Date, Time, Language and Regional Options." Another window will appear. --Step 3: Click on "Date and Time." Another, smaller window will appear. --Step 4: Click on the "Time Zone" tab. A window displaying a map will appear. Above the map, you will see a text box showing the time zone your computer currently uses. It should say "Indiana (East)." --Step 5: Click on the tiny arrow to the right of the Time Zone text box, and select a new zone from the menu that drops down. Choose "Eastern Time (US & Canada)" or "Central Time (US & Canada)," depending on your county. --Step 6: Click the box that says, "Automatically adjust for daylight saving changes." --Step 7: Click "Apply" and then "OK." |