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Heads Up - Daylight Saving Time changes in 2007

Joe HebertJoe Hebert Posts: 2,159
in AMX General Discussion
Starting next year Daylight Saving Time will begin on the second Sunday in March and end on the first Sunday of November.

http://tf.nist.gov/general/history.htm

Comments

  • pdabrowskipdabrowski Posts: 184
    Being one of the "sufferers" of daylight savings changes recently here in Australia, I offer my sympathy to everybody who has had to suffer with trying to implement changes to systems.

    Luckily here we have no critical AMX systems that rely on timing so being an hour out made no difference.

    But on the other hand, implementing changes at OS level in Windows and getting things like Exchange to run smoothly was a challenge. - I was tech lead for the team who had to devise solutions because we had very little guidance from Microsoft until it was too late.

    Us Aussies were the guinea-pigs (beta testers) for the change and you can have a good read up of the impending fun here this page is primrarily about calendaring systems, but it can be easily applied when evaulating the effect of daylight savings changes to any system that uses static time zone tables:
    http://freerepublic.info/focus/f-news/1565208/posts

    So, depending on the code you may use for auto-adjustment consider the consequences because as Microsoft have demonstrated their short-sightedness of having windows run to a single daylight saving rule created many sleepless nights for me!!

    - Paul (wishing I now had a Mac) Dabrowski
  • Thomas HayesThomas Hayes Posts: 1,164
    heads up, Joe.... I can hardly keep my eyes up. I've almost put 1 out with the tooth-picks.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0
    !iTimeManager should still work.

    Hopefully if your system can reference a time server there will be no problems.

    I bet that there are a bunch of AXCESS system out there that will need a revision.
  • pdabrowskipdabrowski Posts: 184
    B_Clements wrote:
    Hopefully if your system can reference a time server there will be no problems.
    not really applicable if time servers spit out GMT and it's up to the client machine to make the offset to show local time - im not sure how the itimemanager runs things, but if you are pulling time from a NTP server then it's something to consider.

    The issue here is now that the day of year the changeover occurs is different, so if code that makes the 1 hour offset is set to run on the last Sunday of October and last Sunday of March, the newly handed down change of day makes that code no longer valid.
  • Jeff LockyearJeff Lockyear Posts: 147
    I believe that i!Time Manager gets its info straight from the NIST, so as long as their clocks are right, TM will update the master.

    The rest of our systems will be a different story....

    Jeff Lockyear
  • Joe HebertJoe Hebert Posts: 2,159
    Thomas Hayes wrote:
    heads up, Joe.... I can hardly keep my eyes up. I've almost put 1 out with the tooth-picks.
    Try scotch tape, Thomas. It was a good look for Mel Gibson in Conspiracy Theory.
  • jeffacojeffaco Posts: 121
    Naw, that's not true. i!-TimeManager needs to know the timezone. The NTP protocol returns UTC time, so the local system needs to deal with timezone offset.

    So folks that use i!-TimeManager will need to get an updated version from AMX (and deploy this) prior to the change next year ...

    -- Jeff
  • HedbergHedberg Posts: 671
    So folks that use i!-TimeManager will need to get an updated version from AMX (and deploy this) prior to the change next year .

    I was looking at this yesterday and got the impression that daylight savings time rules are programmable.
  • Joe HebertJoe Hebert Posts: 2,159
    Rev up your compilers

    We?ve got some differing opinions here so I?ll go out on a limb and offer mine also.

    I believe the following statements to be true:

    1) Any U.S job (or any country that abides by the same rules as the U.S) that uses i!-TimeManager and observes Daylight Saving Time will need to be revisited after Daylight Saving Time ends this year and prior to Daylight Saving Time next year.

    2) AMX will need to create an updated version if they don?t want the ?US? option for strTmTzDstRules to break.

    3) If AMX does not update i!-TimeManager then users can ?fix? the code by modifying the strTmTzDstRules parameter.

    Unless the AMX module dynamically retrieves the current rules from the Internet if the ?US? option for strTmTzDstRules is used (does such a site exist?), then I believe there will be quite a bit of recompiling going on.

    Shouldn?t Daylight Saving Time be renamed to Daylight Shifting Time? We don?t save any daylight; it?s just shifted from the morning to the evening.
  • Matt BradleyMatt Bradley Posts: 7
    99% of the time in my jobs, I don't get internet access, so !Time-Manager is not useful. I pretty much have been sticking the old Axcess system call 'DAYLTSAV' for years now. It's quick, simple, and works--until now. I haven't figured out yet how I'm going to take care of the new change.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0
    Tech note 811 available

    In case you missed it.

    Daylight Savings Time Rules ? US changing in 2007
    Previous to 2007, Daylight Saving Time begins for most of the United States at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday of April. Time reverts to standard time at 2 a.m. on the last Sunday of October.

    Daylight Saving Time Schedule USA 2007 ? 2015, as prescribed by The Energy Policy Act of 2005:

    Beginning in 2007, Daylight Saving Time is extended one month and the schedule for the states of the United States that adopt daylight saving time will be: 2 a.m. on the Second Sunday in March (1st Sunday on or after March 8th) to 2 a.m. on the First Sunday of November.

    http://amx.com/techsupport/techNote.asp?id=811

    Only a month to go. Fix your projects now.
  • the064cobrathe064cobra Posts: 8
    Dst

    All the AMX systems I work on are 1st generation systems. UG. So I have to generate and recompile new code to work with this new DST changes. What a headache. And none of these companies want to upgrade their systems. They say, if it aint broke, why fix it...

    It's solid state stuff and lasts a long time, so I guess its all good....just a programming headache.
  • DHawthorneDHawthorne Posts: 4,584
    Funny thing, but this is one issue my customers have never let slide. DVD player not turning on? Fix it when you get a chance. Clock on the touch panel an hour off? DROP EVERYTHING and fix it NOW!
  • GSLogicGSLogic Posts: 562
    DHawthorne wrote:
    Funny thing, but this is one issue my customers have never let slide. DVD player not turning on? Fix it when you get a chance. Clock on the touch panel an hour off? DROP EVERYTHING and fix it NOW!
    I have the same experience with my customers!
    That's why I really like the new NI firmware - it goes to the Internet an updates the time ever four hours.
  • roognationroognation Posts: 138
    DST Tech Note ???
    B_Clements wrote: »
    In case you missed it.

    Daylight Savings Time Rules ? US changing in 2007
    Previous to 2007, Daylight Saving Time begins for most of the United States at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday of April. Time reverts to standard time at 2 a.m. on the last Sunday of October.

    Daylight Saving Time Schedule USA 2007 ? 2015, as prescribed by The Energy Policy Act of 2005:

    Beginning in 2007, Daylight Saving Time is extended one month and the schedule for the states of the United States that adopt daylight saving time will be: 2 a.m. on the Second Sunday in March (1st Sunday on or after March 8th) to 2 a.m. on the First Sunday of November.

    http://amx.com/techsupport/techNote.asp?id=811

    Only a month to go. Fix your projects now.

    Haven't had to delve in to this too much since we do not observe DST here in Hawaii. BUT, I am about to code something for the mainland, and of course I plan to use the TimeManager module. Upon reviewing the above, I am a bit confused and hopefully you guys can help:
    1 The TechNote shows Mar Sun>=3 (third or later Sunday in March)
    2 The legislation and above post calls for 2nd Sunday in March

    Any help? Thanks in advance!
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