2007 Daylight Savings Time Changes for PDAs

In 2005, the United States congress passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which among other things extended the duration of Daylight Savings Time in United States, starting in 2007. Canada and Bermuda have followed suit.

The problem is that, during the extended periods of three weeks in the spring and one week in the fall, many clocks on systems which automatically to change to and from Daylight Savings Time will continue to operate on Standard Time, even though Daylight Time is actually in effect. These uncorrected systems will not be synchronized with other systems which have been fixed.

This page tells you how to correct that, so that the automatic Daylight Time changes take place on the correct date.

We have until March 11, 2007 to fix this problem in the U.S. and Canada.

• Handheld devices, PDAs
• Microsoft Windows CE and Windows Mobile
• Palm, Inc. Devices, including Palm and Windows Mobile Treos
• Palm OS
• BlackBerries
• HP 100LX and 200LX
• See Also

Microsoft has just released official end-user patches for Windows Mobile devices to correct the Daylight Savings Time change dates. It is well-described at Updating Windows Mobile-powered devices for the new Daylight Saving Time, with links to the software tools.

However, if you use your Windows Mobile PDA with Outlook Connector and UICalendar, Oracle recommends against running the Outlook tool that is included in the Windows Moble DST updates. For Windows Mobile 5.0 support for UICalender, it would best to first click on this link to upgrade Oracle Connector for Outlook on your PC to version 10.1.3.0.6. (The link is is also in Appendix B: UICalendar/Oracle Calendar Downloads.)

After the upgrade, run only ActiveSync version 4.2 or lower. Version 4.5 is not yet certified by Oracle.

Note also that the wireless SyncML capability for Windows Mobile 5 is not supported by the current version our Oracle Calendar Application Server. That support will come along with a Oracle Calendar V10 server upgrade that we hope we can install over spring break.

If your Windows Mobile device is a Treo 700w, 700wx, or 750, see Palm, Inc. Devices, including Palm and Windows Mobile Treos to get your DST update software.

Palm has a Web page with links to Daylight Savings Time Updates for Palm Palm and Palm Windows Mobile devices: Daylight Saving Time Updates. If you use Windows Mobile Treos with Outlook Connector and UICalendar, please see also Microsoft Windows CE and Windows Mobile before you install anything.

First, look up the company that made your device on the Web. The chances are good that they have an update patch for it on their Web site.

If not, in Palm OS 5, (4 also?) edit the characteristics of each location that matters to you in the Date & Time Preferences. Specify whether or not that location observes Daylight Time, and also the new start date (second Sunday of March) and end date (first Sunday of November). Don't forget that all locations in Indiana should be changed to observe Daylight Savings Time.

Earlier versions of Palm OS did not have a facility for automatically changing to Daylight Savings Time.

Tips for adjusting DST on PalmOS5.X

The first thing you should do if you have a BlackBerry is contact your service provider, for example, Verizon. The providers often, in Verison's case for example, want you to download customized Daylight Savings Time upgrades from their own Web site rather than directly from blackberry.com.

For a summary of your options , see:

Daylight Saving Time 2007

On www.blackberry.com for an overview

DST 2007 Patches for BlackBerry Devices

To apply the patches.

The Hewlett-Packard 100LX and 200LX Palmtop PCs are fully-programmable, MS-DOS based PDAs, which despite being over a decade old remain quite popular, with used units in good condition selling on Ebay for a premium price. A great many of these are in daily use, with new applications still being developed.

However, the rules for Daylight Time were different when these wonderful little machines were made. Here is how to correct that, so that the automatic Daylight Time changes take place on the correct date.

How to fix the 2007 Daylight Time dates

1. Using Filer, check to see if file C:\_DAT\TIMEZONE.DAT already exists. If it does, then some modification has already been made. Skip to Step 3.
2. If C:\_DAT\TIMEZONE.DAT does not exist, then copy file D:\_SYS\TIMEZONE.DAT to C:\_DAT\TIMEZONE.DAT. (You cannot modify file D:\_SYS\TIMEZONE.DAT directly because it is in ROM.)
3. Open the Memo program, and use it to edit file C:\_DAT\TIMEZONE.DAT.
4. If you have sections besides these, leave them alone. The order of sections is not important. The file should look something like this when you are done editing:

   European
   3:25-31  6 1:00  
   10:25-31 6 0:00  
   Northern
   3:8-14   6 1:00  
   11:1-7   6 0:00  
   Southern
   3:1-7    6 0:00
   10:25-31 6 1:00
   Mexican
   4:1-7    6 1:00
   10:25-31 6 0:00
   

5. Press F10 to Save the file and exit Memo.
6. If you previously had the World Time program running, close it.
7. Open the World Time program, find Indianapolis IN in the list of cities, and press ENTER. Indiana started observing Daylight Savings Time in 2006. For Indianapolis, change the Daylight Savings box so that Automatic and Northern are selected, and press F10 when done. Repeat this for any other cities in Indiana that you have defined.
8. Change all locations in Mexico so that Automatic and Mexican are selected.

Time Zone File Format

The next two lines define when to change time. For instance, under "Northern" above:

• 3 is for March (1=January - 12=December)
• 8-14 is the range of dates. The 2nd occurrence of a day in a month will be between the 8th and the 14th.
• 6 is for Sunday (0=Monday, 1=Tuesday - 6=Sunday)
• 1:00 means to set the clock 1:00 ahead of usual (i.e. spring forward)

Now that you know how to edit this, you can keep the HP 100LX and 200LX updated for any future changes in Daylight Time change dates.

Links:

• HP Palmtop Paper: World Time - New European Daylight Savings Time

The notes under 3. General Considerations on the introduction page. Various information are of interest.