In 2005, Congress passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005. This Act called for various changes such as:
A tax credit of up to $3,400 for owners of hybrid vehicles.
Increases the amount of ethanol that must be mixed with gasoline.
And finally a favorite of the computer community, a change to Daylight Savings Time.

Starting in 2007, Daylight Savings Time (DST) will begin on the second Sunday of March (March 11th) instead of first Sunday in April (April 1st). Also, DST will end the first Sunday in November (November 4th) instead of the last Sunday of October (October 28th).

This change, though signed into law back in August of 2005, has flown widely under the radar. Until recently the change had not made many waves in the computer community, however as the dead line approaches more and more systems have been identified.

Is this Y2K all over?
Well, no. By No, I mean it is not as potentially serious as Y2K. (Thankfully Y2K was a dud because of a lot of hard work.) The fear with Y2K was that systems would simply stop or fail to function. The changes to DST are far less serious, but still will likely affect you in some way.

What should I expect?
The most obvious systems are computers. Computers have time zone “rules”. Based on your time zone, the computer looks at the rules to determine when to change the time on your computer from DST to normal time. Since the “rules” changed with the Energy Act of 2005 the computer will change the time based on the old “rules”. However there are updates available for all critical systems, including your personal computer. All the big name software manufactures, such as Microsoft, Novell, Oracle, Hewlett Packard, Java and many more have released updates that will address the changes to DST. As for your personal computer chances are you already downloaded the update as part of your normal automatic updates.

Great, everything is all set right?
Hopefully. There are still many systems and a variety of risks. On one extreme, a VCR or DVR might record (an hour early) the wrong program on TV. Some systems, such as scheduling systems, might have more serious repercussions. For example, the email and calendar system Groupwise, by Novell, has an issue that cannot be easily fixed. Appointments ended up shifting an hour off once some updates are applied. (A good example of a bad update!)

Now you know!
One week from today the new Daylight Savings Time will happen. Will you be affected? I bet you will. How seriously? I don’t know.

Hopefully “DST 07” will be as uneventful as Y2K!