M3 Sweatt

It’s the end of another work week and guess what: it’s time once again to update our Daylight Saving Time 2007 web page on Microsoft.com. (Please see http://www.microsoft.com/dst2007.) In general, more on Daylight Saving Time can be found also at http://www.answers.com/topic/daylight-saving-time.

As I said previously, this public page on the Microsoft.com site will be revised regularly to include new product updates, compatibility information and links to Knowledge Base articles. This week we have a few new additions, including the details for the update to Windows SharePoint Services (KB article 924881).

And no, I’m not changing this blog to the DST blog.

My the factoid of the day: today, a quick query on Live.com Search for DST in 2007 lists 169,932 results, with 413,239 results for DST alone. My money is that the number will increase between now and March 11, 2007.

Interestingly enough as reported on Bloomberg News, “springing forward may not help save energy, according to a study by the University of California at Berkeley.”

“U.S. plans to cut electricity usage by lengthening daylight saving time may backfire, the report said. Lengthening daylight saving time by several weeks was included in energy legislation passed in 2005, with the goal of saving energy equivalent to 100,000 barrels of oil a day.

“Extending daylight saving time may actually result in increased electricity demand as additional usage during morning hours cancels out the reduced demand in the evening, according to the Berkeley study. The paper analyzed electricity usage in Australia, which lengthened its daylight saving time by two months while hosting the 2000 Olympics.

“There is no evidence that extending daylight saving time will lead to energy savings,” said Hendrik Wolff, one of the study’s authors, in an interview. “Actually, there is evidence that it may lead to a little higher energy consumption.” 

Now here’s the really happy news: we may go through this change again as “Congress retains the right to revert the Daylight Saving Time back to the 2005 time schedule once the Department of Energy study is complete.” This to be decided after the US Secretary of Energy (Samuel Bodman) reports back to Congress on what the impact of the change has been in the US. (That will be an interesting meeting.)

Whether you agree or disagree with the change to DST, what can you do? For starters, write your state and federal government officials and let them know: in the States, you can find more information on contacting your senators and representatives in DC by going to http://www.usa.gov/Agencies/Federal/Legislative.shtml. The EFF has a website to help you contact US policymakers: http://www.eff.org/congress/.

And remember: even though you may not live in the US or Canada where the changes will be felt, people around the world will be impacted, particularly companies with operations, offices, subsidiaries or connectivity to systems based in the US, Canada or Mexico. This change to US DST has a global impact, so if you live outside the US and Canada, consider contacting your own government officials and tell them what you think.

Tags: Microsoft, Windows Vista, Windows, Vista, Daylight Saving Time, DST.

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