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Daylight Savings Wreaks Havoc On Gadgets, or Does It?

by Terrence O'Brien on October 30, 2007 at 02:29 PM

Prep Your Gadgets for Daylight Savings End
Don't forget that this coming Sunday, Daylight Savings Time ends. Hopefully, you got your software fixes back in February or March before the clocks changed last Spring.

Some predicted the Daylight Savings changes signed into law in 2005 by President Bush would result in a mini-Y2K. And they were right, just as when the the year changed from 1999 to 2000, nothing of much note occurred. There was some anecdotal evidence of issues with BlackBerrys, and one kid went to jail for 12 days due to a computer glitch, but otherwise the clock change went without notice among the gadget owning public.

That said, some owners of older gadgets and cell phones, as well as people who just forgot to manually install updates (and some parking meters in Baltimore), have already experienced an early time change that messed with their schedules.

In case you were caught last time with your electronic pants down, here's a quick run down of how to make sure you're prepared this time around. Sadly, there's no simple fix for your confused biological clock.
  • Windows Mobile 5 Smart Phones: Microsoft released the update for Windows Mobile 5 in February that fixes the Daylight Savings issue. If your handset runs WinMo 6 then you're already set.
  • BlackBerrys: RIM also released the necessary update for the Blackberry software in February. Simply download and install and you're good to go.
  • Palm OS Treos: Palm was a little behind others but still had its fix out in time for March's clock change.
Microsoft Windows, TiVo, and Mac OS X all had their patches pushed to them automatically in February,
so you should be set.

If you've got a cell phone that's older than four years, you might consider calling the manufacturer to make sure you're set for the time change.

From USA Today

Related Links:

Tags: blackberry, daylight savings, DaylightSavings, fix, microsoft, palm, patch, rim, smart phone, SmartPhone, update, windows mobile, WindowsMobile

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