The U.S. Energy Policy Act of 2005 extended Daylight Savings Time in the U.S. by approximately four weeks. Beginning in 2007, DST will start three weeks earlier (March 11, 2007) and end one week later (November 4, 2007). The goal of extending DST is so the sun will set one hour later, therefore minimizing energy use and the demand for electricity to light households.

The following everyday devices and programs will likely have incorrect time zone settings during the new four-week period: clocks, cell phones, PDA’s, fax machines, VOIP phone systems, computer operating systems, IT systems and more.

Most applications will be fixed with a simple patch. Here are some links to information and patches from major vendors:

Apple
Blackberry
Cisco
IBM
Juniper
Microsoft
MySQL
Novell
Oracle
Red Hat
Sun Microsystems
WordPress

A common workaround for many devices is to turn off the function that automatically adjusts the clock for DST. This can be done in Windows, for example, by right-clicking the time on the task bar; clicking “adjust date/time”; clicking the “time zone” tab; and un-checking the box that says “automatically adjust clock for DST changes”.

*Please note, DST is not observed in Hawaii, Puerto Rico or Arizona.