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Announcement: Microsoft Windows update available for unconfirmed Pakistan daylight saving time change on April 15, 2009

Ever see the movie Groundhog Day? Well, I feel like I’m re-living a past event.

We have reports that Pakistan is changing their daylight saving time… but unfortunately all we have are news reports at this time (as noted here on the dailytimes.com.pk site). We still don’t have government confirmation that this is happening, but will provide information based on what we have assembled from news reports thus far.

And once again, this fast-tracked change came with little advance notice and little reason for a fast implementation.  Many customers, enterprises may not have enough time to make any changes or deploy any updates to their networks or systems. You should be aware of these changes and verify any meetings that occur in the country.  One challenge (as I have said a few times on this blog) is that when you install either DST hotfixes or cumulative updates, and governments make late-breaking changes to DST and TZ rules, appointments on your Office Outlook calendar and other systems could end up being be off by an hour until the problem is addressed.

As noted in several news reports, Pakistan will begin to observe to daylight saving time on Wednesday, April 15, 2009. The country will move one hour forward between April 14 and April 15 at midnight (00:00h). The offset will be UTC +6:00 hours (six hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time, or GMT) instead of the current +5:00h.

As noted on timeanddate.com, the story has been less than clear…

"Pakistan will observe daylight saving time on Wednesday, April 15, 2009, to alleviate the nation’s power shortages. Pakistan’s Ministry of Water and Power originally proposed for the country’s 2009 daylight saving schedule to start on April 1. However, the daylight saving schedule was delayed due to weather conditions. Early in April, May 1 was proposed as another date to start DST."

It appears that the information of this change has not yet been posted to any government sites in Pakistan.

Important information to note at the moment on these changes: a hotfix is available to update Windows Operating Systems, as these new DST settings for Pakistan are not included in current DST settings. The following announcement has been posted to the DST blog:

Notice:  Optional Hotfix Available for Pakistan 2009 Daylight Saving Time

As reported in various publications, including Daily Times, Pakistan has announced the start of DST for 2009 on April 15th at midnight.  This information is subject to change as it has not been officially confirmed by a Pakistani government source. 

Microsoft has produced a hotfix to implement this change for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.  If interested in downloading this hotfix, please refer to KB 970084 titled: "A hotfix is available to update the Daylight Saving Time for the "(GMT +5:00) Islamabad, Karachi" time zone for the year 2009 for Windows Vista-based and Windows Server 2008-based computers".

For other Windows versions, please refer to KB 914387 "How to configure daylight saving time for Microsoft Windows operating systems" on how to update the time zone registry key.

Public service announcement: As noted in a prior post, our product teams are moving to a regular rhythm to update their products and services to reflect these time changes. (For each update release, Microsoft accepts change requests up to a few months prior to the release date.) But changes such as these – and without official notification – are difficult for sysadmins and IT professionals around the world to manage.

And here’s my 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.

In addition – and this is important – we suggest that entities considering the changes implement changes at the next clock tick after 01:59:59 rather than at 00:00:00. Making the change at midnight can impact daily systems, such as back ups, data pulls or other automated tasks.

Tags: Microsoft, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, RSS, DST, Pakistan; 17,90,000 (up from 3.4M a year ago); 18,000,000 (up from 900K a year ago)

Also available via http://bit.ly/kMSk

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Protect yourself from the Conficker computer worm

Of interest today: Learn about the Conficker computer worm on Microsoft.com.

In short, most antivirus software could detect and prevent infection.

Here’s more info from the page Protect yourself from the Conficker computer worm:

The Conficker worm is a computer worm that can infect your computer and spread itself to other computers across a network automatically, without human interaction.

If you are an IT professional, please visit Conficker Worm: Help Protect Windows from Conficker.

Q&A:

Also see my post on thinking about computer security and your family PC.

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del.icio.us Tags: privacy, tips, howto, Microsoft, security

Technorati Tags: privacy, tips, howto, Microsoft, security

This post is also available via http://bit.ly/Ja36

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Daylight saving time changes in Palestine, with short notice and different from Israel

Reports today via the Palestine News Network (arabic.pnn.ps) reported that daylight saving time in Palestine will begin on March 26, 2009, and end around September 27.

Ever see the movie Groundhog Day?  Well, I feel like I’m re-living a past event.

I learned that Palestinian officials have decided to begin daylight saving time on Thursday, March 26, 2009, and expects to maintain DST until September 27, 2009 as noted here (in Arabic).

I learned a couple of years ago (and noted here) that the period of DST in Palestine often differs from Israel, the time of change is different each year, and provided with short notice.

As noted in a prior post, our product teams are moving to a regular rhythm to update their products and services to reflect these time changes. (For each update release, Microsoft accepts change requests up to a few months prior to the release date.)

We’ve also updated our page on Microsoft’s Policy in Response to DST/TZ Requests, providing recommendations in order to achieve more seamless transitions to new DST and time zones policies. We suggest that governments should provide the following when considering changing DST or making adjustments to time zones:

  1. Ample advance notice (1 year or more) of the planned change.
  2. Official published confirmation of planned changes to DST or time zones.
  3. Concentrated efforts on promoting the change to the affected citizens.

Important note for governments: Let me note that 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. In addition, we suggest that entities considering the changes consider implementing changes at the next clock tick after 01:59:59 rather than at 00:00:00. Making the change at midnight can impact daily systems, such as back ups, data pulls or other automated tasks.

Thanks to several folks who forwarded this information including Alexander Krivenyshev who maintains the private http://www.worldtimezone.com site.

Tags: Microsoft, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, DST, Palestine, Israel

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This page is available also via http://tinyurl.com/dstz032609

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Information on Daylight Saving Time, Time Zone and related DST changes for Microsoft Windows and other products in 2009

An update on some of the recent daylight saving time changes around the world coming this year to Morocco, Pakistan, Syria and Tunisia in 2009…

image It’s been a busy time, reflected in fewer than normal postings on this blog, but happily it’s due in part (when it comes to time) that there has been little to report in the area of changes to DST and times zones.

In past years, the move from Winter to Spring in the Northern Hemisphere would signal a change to clocks in much of Canada and the States. But as you may know (unless you’re an hour late to all your meetings) that the US and Canada "Sprang Forward" a few weeks ago:  March 8 marked the arrival of Daylight Saving Time.

So here’s a look at some of the changes we’re evaluating and how they would be included in future updates in various DST & time zone product updates (with provisions for semi-annual as needed as outlined here).

Morocco: As noted last year, once again the kingdom of Morocco plans to observe daylight saving time in the country, beginning on Sunday, May 31 at midnight, and ending on Thursday, August 20 at midnight. Not surprisingly, this coincides with the start of Ramadan. (I believe that Egypt will likely make similar changes, but we have no confirmed change in that country.) You can find more information on these changes on marweb.com and this post on medi1sat.ma.

Pakistan: Last May (2008), we learned of a change to the observance of Daylight Saving Time in Pakistan that could impact customers using local time zones, including entities engaged in business in or with the region.  Unfortunately, due to the short notice at which the change had been announced, Microsoft was unable to provide updates (hot-fixes) to support the implementation of DST and referred people to this post on the changes for more details.

For this year – unfortunately once again we don’t have any clear communication on changes in 2009. Through news reports, we estimate that we will learn more at the beginning of April. Once we receive an official notification, we will look at how to bet address the changes.

Syria: We have reports that daylight saving time will begin in Syria on March 27, 2009 at 00:00:00 this year according to many sources, this article in the Syrian Arab News Agency (English), and this article from alwehda.gov.sy, the government site. Guidance will be posted shortly on mitigating the changes in the country.

Tunisia discontinues DST in 2009: Recently we learned that Tunisia will no longer observe daylight saving time beginning in 2009, as noted by the Tunisian press agency here. Daylight saving time had been observed since 2006, beginning on the last Sunday of March, and ending on the last Sunday of October.

As noted in a prior post, our product teams are moving to a regular rhythm to update their products and services to reflect these time changes. (For each update release, Microsoft accepts change requests up to a few months prior to the release date.)

We’ve also updated our page on Microsoft’s Policy in Response to DST/TZ Requests, providing recommendations in order to achieve more seamless transitions to new DST and time zones policies. We suggest that governments should provide the following when considering changing DST or making adjustments to time zones:

  1. Ample advance notice (1 year or more) of the planned change.
  2. Official published confirmation of planned changes to DST or time zones.
  3. Concentrated efforts on promoting the change to the affected citizens.

Important note for governments: Let me note that 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. In addition, we suggest that entities considering the changes consider implementing changes at the next clock tick after 01:59:59 rather than at 00:00:00. Making the change at midnight can impact daily systems, such as back ups, data pulls or other automated tasks.

 

Tags: Microsoft, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, DST, Morocco

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This page is available also via http://tinyurl.com/dstz031909

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Do you have advice for President Obama on the 2009 digital television (DTV) transition? He’s listening…

Clip art from Microsoft Office OnlineAs I posted here, the House voted to delay the DTV transition today, which the President is likely to sign into legislation.

Now the Obama White House is fulfilling their promise to allow people to comment on new legislation, allowing a five day feedback period before President Obama signs the item. The first piece of legislation on the site? The revised and submitted DTV Delay Act.

Want to provide your comments?

Then go visit the new White House Briefing Room and click here to post your comment on the DTV Delay Act page on the White House site.

The DTV delay will move the transition date to digital broadcast to June 12, 2009.  Julian Sanchez noted in this post on arstechnica that…

"The DTV delay may have pushed the official national deadline for the transition to digital broadcast back to June 12, but there are plenty of broadcasters who don’t relish the added expense of maintaining both digital and analog signals for an extra four months. But thanks to a compromise provision inserted during drafting of the final version of the delay bill, they won’t have to wait: stations that want to go ahead and transition an early can, subject to a set of procedures released by the FCC today.

"For those who want to stay on course to transition on the original February 17 date, things are relatively simple, at least if they hustle a bit. Those stations have until Monday (yes, this Monday—four days) to notify the FCC of their plan to keep to the old deadline. Then they’ve got to run the "equivalent" of 30 days worth of viewer notifications for the following week—including a crawl, if feasible, and a heavy stream of PSAs, after which they can cease analog broadcast on the 17th."

More after the jump. 

 

Tags: Windows, Media Center, television, DVR, Obama, policy.

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Also available at http://tinyurl.com/dtvsnafu4