Y2K deja vu?
Published 9:23 am Wednesday, March 7, 2007
By By LYDIA GRIMES – features writer
You get to sleep an extra hour this Saturday night - but will that early entry into Daylight Saving Time wreak havoc with your computer?
That's been the fear among some computer users who remember the confusion about whether the Y2K bug would infect their technological devices.
In 2005, Congress voted to move Daylight Savings Time up three weeks - but apparently no one told all the computers, cell phones VCRs and DVDs anything about it.
On Saturday night, while everyone sleeps what they call “an extra hour,” there are those who worry about what is going to happen to all those things that are programmed to change themselves three weeks later. Will they all stop working?
Not likely, say computer experts. Patrick Hale, a local computer repairman said he believes all the hoopla is not such a big thing.
Here's what Hale advises doing: “Double click on the time or clock that is displayed on the desktop or go to the control panel,” he said. “The date and time feature will come up. Open the time control and change the time manually.”
Of course this will take care of the immediate problem, but in the fall you will have to do the same thing as Daylight Saving time ends a week later than usual.
For those who would still like the change to be made automatically, there are Web sites that will walk you through the procedure of setting the computer.
Windows users can go to: http://support.microsoft.com/dst2007 and follow the instructions.
Macintosh users can go to: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305056