Congress legislated the earlier start to daylight-saving time in 2005. The rationale behind moving the date was that more natural light in the evenings would save energy by decreasing use of electric lights.
However, technology with software that was programmed before the 2005 legislation was passed will not automatically update to daylight-saving time on the correct date.
Regular cell phones should not experience any problems, but BlackBerrys and other PDAs that connect to a network operating system may have to be updated by going to their service provider's Web site. However, the Web site of Computing and Information Services states that BlackBerry users with OS 4 or above should not experience any problems.
Windows XP users who have enabled automatic software updates will not experience any problems, but users who have disabled the feature may have to download the appropriate update.
Most Mac users will also not be affected, but users with older operating systems may need to download an update to fix the problem. Users of iPods with the clock feature will have to update the device by connecting the iPod to a computer, as users normally would do to update music.
Timothy Thorp, manager of communications and education for CIS, told The Herald that the University should experience very few problems because "CIS has done a great job making sure every server is patched." He mentioned that CIS has only had from January to March of this year to fix the problem, because "most computers can only understand one set of time rules."
The only problem that University-based computers may encounter is with Microsoft Outlook calendars, Thorp said. If a user scheduled an appointment for between March 11 and April 1 before the daylight-savings time start date was fixed, the appointment may have incorrectly shifted one hour. But Thorp said CIS has made a significant effort to communicate the nature of the problem to users of Outlook's calendar.
Karin Freed '09 said she had heard of the technical problems anticipated with the earlier daylight-savings time start but did not plan to do anything to update her technology. "If it happens, it happens, and I'll deal with it then," she said.
