Apply Daylight Saving Time updates to all your mobile devices

On 8 August 2005, President George W. Bush signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005. This Act changed the time change dates for Daylight Saving Time in the U.S. Beginning in 2007, DST begins on the second Sunday in March, this Sunday 11 March, and ends the first Sunday in November. The Secretary of Energy will report on the impact of this change to Congress. Congress retains the right to resume the 2005 Daylight Saving Time schedule once the Department of Energy study is complete if a marked energy savings is not noted. This change in DST requires that every computer, mobile device, many software applications, servers, or other piece of electronic gear that automatically updates its time based on the old settings apply an update. There are updates for Windows PCs, Apple computers, Windows Mobile devices, Symbian devices, Palm OS devices, and BlackBerry devices.

Details on how to update these computers and devices is listed below, but a question a mobile device owner may ask is, "What happens if I don't update my mobile device and then sync to a computer that has been updated or vice-versa?" There is a chance you may get duplicate appointments synced between your device and PC and then you'll have to decide which is correct. Most likely the worst thing that may happen is that you miss an appointment or two, but if you look at more than one clock then you should be fine. If others use devices that haven't been updated and then send you appointments, there may be scheduling issues too. Your device clock will be off one hour between 11 March and 1 April (the date when the old system kicks ahead one hour) so recurring appointements will be off by one hour during this time period and any appointment created prior to 11 March that occur during this two week period will be off. The best solution is to spend some time applying the following patches to all your gear in advance of this Sunday morning and encourage everyone you know to make the updates too.

Windows PC: Visit the Microsoft Daylight Saving Time site and walk through the online wizard to get the correct update applied to your computer.

Mac OS X computer: Apple recently issued a DST update that you can easily apply by using the Software Update feature in the preferences pane of your computer. I rarely restart my MacBook Pro and missed the update, but after doing a restart the update was download and applied. The Apple support site give details on how to update earlier versions of Mac OS, with most being manual updates to the clock.

Windows Mobile devices: Microsoft has a page dedicated to DST updates for their mobile devices. The site gives you specific instructions and allows you to download and install the update through a PC or even directly to your Windows Mobile device with a .CAB file. If you happen to have a Windows Mobile 6 device, then the patch is already a part of that operating system.

Symbian S60 devices: Nokia has updates for their S60 devices and there is not a global update, but a specific update for each model of device. Visit the Nokia support site and then in the Phone Support section select your model number from the drop-down list. You will then need to select Software and then finally Phone Software and you should see a Nokia Time Zone Upgrader .SIS file in the list to download and install. For some reason, a few device model updates (i.e. Nokia E61) have been pulled from the Nokia site, but I found a page on the Symbianv3.com blog that has several updates. Make sure to restart your device after installation to have the update applied.

Palm OS devices: Palm posted a dedicated DST support page too and it informs you which devices are affected with a link to the DST update. Windows Mobile Palm Treo devices are also listed with a link to an update for those devices. Older Palm OS devices do not have automatic time change features so you just change the clock manually when the DST period begins.

RIM BlackBerry devices: RIM has also posted a dedicated DST 2007 update site with all the details on how to update your BlackBerry Enterprise Server or BlackBerry device. There are patches for users and IT administrators. RIM also has a good explanation of risks associated with not updating your device that can be applied to about any mobile device.

FYI, Daylight Saving Time is NOT observed in Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Arizona.