Daylight Saving Time 2007 (DST) --- Letter

To:             All Sotapop Customers

From:         Joel Satovsky

Date:          March 4, 2007

We are pleased to provide to our clients information about the upcoming Daylight Saving Time change scheduled to occur
three weeks early this year on March 11th, 2007.  It is due to the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which aims to save electricity because of the extra daylight. The only problem is that our electronics may not be ready for it. Anything that keeps track of time may not adjust because many of the existing electronics, computers and POS systems automatically adjust to Daylight Saving Time – the old Daylight Saving Time.

In order to keep all computers running smoothly, some preventative measures must be taken prior to the Daylight Saving Time change on March 11th. 

The Microsoft Website has explained this issue at http://support.microsoft.com/dst2007. It lists the steps that need to be made in order to update computers to reflect the new DST. You can go through the steps yourself as a “home user” and this should solve most issues on your home computer or business file server. The Microsoft patch is installed to accommodate the new DST. Macintosh users may simply be covered or need software updates, from what we understand.

If no action is taken, you may experience a problem on March 11th or early April, when the "Spring Forward" occurs and your current system is an hour behind. Subsequently, your system may try to "Spring Forward" (if not patched) on April 1st. For Point of Sale clients, terminals may start attempting to “correct” their Daylight Saving Time settings.  Results may range from “nominal” to effects upon “employee time punch out data" or “file corruption”.

If you have any questions, check our General FAQ’s and DST Tips. For instructions on several distinct point of sale systems, please see our POS-specific FAQ’s page.

We are available prior to the event on March 11, 2007 to guide you through this process, as necessary. Our documentation is here for you to not only to reduce our call volume, but also to provide your business a way to keep up with proactive changes. We can implement these changes for you, if you prefer.

We hope you enjoy the extra four weeks of sunshine!

Best Wishes,

Joel H. Satovsky
Sotapop Consulting
PO Box 192061
San Francisco, CA 94119
(415) 647-0550 office
(650) 996-6241 cell
support@sotapop.org