By this writing many of you may have heard of the changes in the begin and end dates for US Daylight Savings Time for 2007*. Brought to you by the energy Policy Act of 2005, this legislation changing the Daylight Savings Time period will mean that all operating system makers must update the information in their software by which time is adjusted, including Apple Inc.
So why do we care?
At first it might seem trivial that the date on a computer is off by one hour, but many, many important functions that we take for granted depend on the computer system time being correct. Examples of these are login and authentication technologies such as kerberos, encryption technologies such as RSA certificates for https web page security and ssl encryption for secure shell, sftp, etc, and calendar packages such as iCal, Oracle Calendar, Groupwise, Now UpToDate,etc. Without the correct system time it would be almost impossible to keep most of our financial, calendar and identity information private and correct.
So how do I know what the correct time is?
NC State ITD provides two time services to help with this. The first is a web page that show the time all ITD services are using which is synchronized with a GPS time server. To see the correct date and time use this url http://time.ncsu.edu/. The second service allows the computer's system clock to be set from the time server using the network time protocol(NTP server). Configure a Mac OS X computer to get the time and date settings from ITD's time.ncsu.edu server by following the instructions from this web page - http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=ServerAdmin/10.4/en/c7ns3.html.
However, setting the computer to use a time server WILL NOT fix the issue with daylight saving time period change because the computer uses local files to adjust the time from standard to daylight (or vice versa).
So how do I update for the daylight saving time issue?
For Macintosh computers running Mac OS 10.4.6 or newer this change has already been made** but ITD strongly suggests that you install the latest update packages using the Software Update from the Apple menu***. To determine which version of Mac OS a computer is running see this web page - http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303056.
To upgrade versions 10.4.0-10.4.5 for free to the latest 10.4.x version use Software Update from the Apple menu as explained on this web page - http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh292.html.
Apple also is providing software updates for 10.3.x of MacOS X****. In general it is a good idea to update to the latest version of MacOS when you can. If you are not running Mac OS 10.4 NC State ITD suggests you purchase and install and upgrade to the latest version of 10.4 or better using the free Software Update mechanism.
Purchase a copy of Mac OS X 10.4 by reading the information at http://www.ncsu.edu/software/available-software/product.php?software=106 and then following the procedures at - http://www.ncsu.edu/software/available-software/purchase/index.php?purchase=Apple.
Be aware that, as with any major OS upgrade, other software from 3rd party vendors like Adobe, Microsoft, etc. may need to be upgraded for compatibility with 10.4 or newer OS and/or to patch for date and time issues related to the US Daylight Savings Time changes. Consult web pages for the software vendor of your most used applications before upgrading and use software version tracking web sites like www.macupdate.com and www.versiontracker.com to make sure the latest versions of all 3rd party software are installed.
NOTE: Apple has now released a software update for 10.3 and 10.4 to address all DST issues as of Feb. 2007.
Additional Resources:
More information on changes needed to address this issue will be sent out so be on the lookout. Other good sources of information from NC State ITD are:
sysnews.ncsu.edu
and
brickyard.ncsu.edu
Java for Mac OS X 10.3 Update 5
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304585
Java for Mac OS X 10.4 Release 5
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304586
References:
* Wikipedia info on DST - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Policy_Act_of_2005#Change_to_daylight_saving_time
** Apple Update 10.4.6 fix - http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303411
*** Apple Software Update - http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305056
**** Daylight Saving Time Update (Tiger and Panther) - http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305056