Web posted on March 10, 2007
In Ontario and, indeed, in most of Canada, we jumped ahead to daylight time three weeks earlier than in past years. Thanks to an attempt in the United States to save energy, we turned our clocks ahead one hour as of 2 o'clock this morning.
Gloom and doom end of the wold predictions have been rampant in the past few weeks. Experts (and some not-so-expert) have been predicting that the early time change will cause chaos with computers. While this will probably be a repeat of January 1, 2000 when not much went wrong despite dire warnings, you can expect a few glitches.
The two most likely problems most of us will encounter are the inability to do online banking and web-based email. Problems are likely to occur with these applications because cookies are set for a 30 minute time period. When this expires, the computer automatically logs off the user. If the computer clock does not correctly reflect the time change, you will be continually asked to log back on.
There is no simple solution to this problem. Windows Vista and XP with patches applied should adjust correctly. It appears that some Linux distros are also making the adjustment. Up-to-date versions of Ubuntu and Susi 10.1 have both changed the time correctly. Windows 98, 95, 2000 and ME are known not to work correctly. If you are running these versions, don't touch your clock. It will auto-adjust itself in three weeks.
Telephones and cell phones should change automatically with the first call.