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Advisory: Fiji plans to shift from daylight saving to standard time earlier in 2012

Post author By M3 Sweatt
Post date 20/10/2011
2 Comments on Advisory: Fiji plans to shift from daylight saving to standard time earlier in 2012

As you may have read, Fiji has decided to shift their move back to standard time earlier than originally planned in 2012. This from the Government of Fiji…

“The end of daylight saving scheduled initially for the 26th of February 2012 has been brought forward to the 22nd of January 2012.

“The commencement of daylight saving will remain unchanged and start on the 23rd of October, 2011. An official gazette reflecting this change will be released early this week.”

Technical Changes

The change will be a move from the original scheduled date of Sunday, February 26, to January 22, 2012. Folks in Fiji will then turn back their clocks one hour from 3:00:00 AM FJST (Fiji Summer Time) to 2:00:00 AM FJT (that’s Fiji Time).

Now, who wouldn’t want to be on Fiji Time? I thought it was always summer time in Fiji, where the temperatures in summer and winter are around 85-88ºF (or 30ºC for my shivering friends up north).

Associated challenges

There are also other social challenges as this change happens with only a few months warning. Here’s our regular advice for governments: in support of these types of changes, we provide guidance and Microsoft’s Policy in Response to DST/TZ Requests. It’s important for countries and territories to work towards seamless transitions to new DST and time zones policies, providing ample advance notice (of a year or more) with published confirmation of planned changes.

What’s Microsoft doing about this change?

Microsoft is aware of the upcoming change in time zone, ending daylight saving time earlier in Fiji, and we will work to minimize the impact this change has on our customers and partners. As with other changes to daylight saving time and time zones (like the impending change in Russia noted here), this will require an update to the OS, likely as part of the Windows December Cumulative Update. Most applications and services reference the underlying Windows OS for their TZ and DST rules, with some exceptions. This change in Fiji has the potential for worldwide impacts on time references for multinational customers. Updates will be important not only for users in Fiji but for connected systems around the world. Further information will be shared here and reported on our official Daylight Saving Time Help and Support Centre at http://www.microsoft.com/time as status updates are available.

Tags: Microsoft, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, RSS, DST, Fiji

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Posted: Information on preparations for daylight saving time changes and Microsoft Office 365

Post author By M3 Sweatt
Post date 13/10/2011

My friends over in the Office 365 team have provided some guidance on their community site about preparing for daylight saving time changes around the world…

If the country or region where your organization or some of your users reside has changed their policy of recognizing daylight saving time, or changed the local time offset from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), you need may need to update Windows, Exchange, Outlook, or other programs to accommodate these changes.

Even if your time zone hasn’t changed, if you interact with other computers or users globally, your computer needs to be able to do accurate date and time calculations for events elsewhere in the world.

Installing the time zone updates as soon as possible minimizes the number of Outlook and Exchange meetings or calendar events that are scheduled during the transition from the old to the new time and dates.

Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011

Post author By M3 Sweatt
Post date 05/10/2011

I’m sad today. Many of us knew this was coming with Steve’s recent departure from day to day at Apple. It still doesn’t prepare you for when the day comes.

Steve Jobs said in his infamous commencement speech at Stanford University…

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life… Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”

I wish him well.

If you would like to share your thoughts, memories, and condolences, please email rememberingsteve@apple.com.

As was posted on our corporate site today here, here’s a statement from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

“I want to express my deepest condolences at the passing of Steve Jobs, one of the founders of our industry and a true visionary. My heart goes out to his family, everyone at Apple and everyone who has been touched by his work.”

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Announcement: Late 2011 time zone changes for Armenia, Belarus, Ukraine

Post author By M3 Sweatt
Post date 05/10/2011

Important update October 21, 2011: Please note we have received reports that Armenia and Ukraine have canceled their proposed changes. (http://blogs.technet.com/b/dst2007/archive/2011/10/19/notice-ukraine-and-armenia-revert-2011-dst-cancellation.aspx).

According to reports in Rada and Kyivpost that we have confirmed through our offices in the region, Ukraine will not stay on permanent summer time and instead will fall back to winter time on October 30, 2011 as originally scheduled. If these reports become the plan of record, customers in Armenia and Ukraine will not have to adjust time zone settings on their computers that are running Windows operating system.

The Microsoft Knowledgebase article KB2625508 has been updated with this information.

[10/06/2011: See this blog post form the Windows team for more information on the changes.]

As I noted in a post last week, we confirmed that similar to the move in Russia, that Armenia, Belarus and Ukraine won’t fall back but also stay permanently on summer time on October 30.

Microsoft’s guidance for Windows to the affected countries will be to move to another time zone has been released in the KB Article 2011 time zone changes for Eastern Europe…

Ukraine, Belarus, and Armenia have decided to discontinue daylight saving time in 2011. According to the current Windows time zone rules, daylight saving time (summer time) is (UTC+3:00) in Belarus and Ukraine and (UTC+5:00) in Armenia. Summer time is scheduled to end on October 30, 2011 and move to winter time, which is (UTC+2:00) in Belarus and Ukraine and (UTC+4:00) in Armenia. According to the latest changes, they will remain on summer time (UTC +3:00) indefinitely and will not “fall back” to winter time. However, Ukraine, Belarus, and Armenia have now discontinued winter time and will remain permanently on summer time.

The native time zones for the affected countries will be updated in the next planned cumulative Windows time update in December 2011. No hotfix is planned for release in the interim. Users in these time zones should move to the following alternative suggested time zones:

(UTC +3:00) Kaliningrad

(UTC +5:00) Tashkent

Note To move to the “(UTC +3:00) Kaliningrad” time zones, customers must first install the August 2011 cumulative time zone update for Windows operating systems (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2570791). A new time zone will be created for Ukraine and Belarus in the December 2011 Windows time cumulative update, which users can move back to.

Affected Country Current Native Time Zone Current Standard Time Current Summer Time (DST) New Workaround Time Zone (no DST)

Belarus

(UTC+02:00) Minsk

UTC+2:00

UTC+3:00

(UTC +3:00) Kaliningrad

Ukraine

(UTC+02:00) Helsinki, Kyiv, Riga, Sofia, Tallinn, Vilnius

UTC+2:00

UTC+3:00

(UTC +3:00) Kaliningrad

Armenia

(UTC+04:00) Yerevan

UTC+4:00

UTC+5:00

(UTC +5:00) Tashkent

For more information, click the following article number to view Microsoft Knowledge Base article 2570791 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2570791/) August 2011 cumulative time zone update for Windows operating systems

Tags: Microsoft, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, RSS, DST, Russia

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