#24 Times they are a'changin

Next Sunday at 2 AM Daylight Savings time will be back with us. Your computer this year, may not know the time has changed though. Microsoft has an update on their site to keep your time up to date. This is a big issue for organizations that deal with money. Hopefully they have all updated their Windows to keep the clocks tidy.

Many customers would complain that their computer clock would not keep the right time. Slow or fast, never right. This was the case with Windows based computers until Windows XP. The older versions of Windows and DOS had no automatic update feature for the computers internal clock. The computer clock is a program running on your mother board that attempts to act like a clock. The program isn’t very accurate in comparison to a clock. With the advent of the Internet, Windows XP added the utility to update the computers clock with one of several internet clocks. The sites include a Microsoft site and a US government site. Just double click on your clock in the task bar and then chose the Internet time and Update Now. Viola, the correct time!

The “other” clock in your computer is the processor clock speed. This is the gigahertz, megahertz in the old days, speed that your processor is rated at. For many years the faster the processor the faster your PC would run. Processors are so fast now, that their speed is really not the slow down factor on your PC. The amount of RAM (random access) memory that you have installed in your PC and the speed of your hard drive are more important then the processor clock speed. You can find out how much RAM you have and your clock speed by right clicking on My Computer then left click on Properties.

Every new computer I set up, or every computer I restore, I have to change the time zone from Pacific to Eastern. This is the revenge of the Microsoft engineers. Since they all live near Redmond, Washington, they decided that every Windows operating system would default to Pacific time. Thanks for the aggrevation!

Have a great week!