2007 marks a time of change for Daylight Saving Time

Prior to this year the last Sunday in October was that date that Daylight Saving Time ended. Starting this year it will be the first Sunday in November.

*Republished from Spring 2007

For those who don’t know the rhyme we spring ahead an hour in the spring and fall backward one hour, in the fall. Some people mistakenly call it Daylight Savings Time, but it is Daylight Saving Time.

In 1986 the dates for DST in the US was established as the first Sunday in April and the Last Sunday in October. In 2007 with the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that President George Bush signed into law in 2005, the new dates for Daylight Saving Time will begin on the second Sunday of March and end the first Sunday of November.

It all depends on who you ask whether Daylight Saving Time is a good idea or not. One study done in the 1970s by the U.S Department of transportation shows that the country’s electricity usage is cut by about one percent each day with Daylight Saving Time.

Why is this? One of the biggest uses of energy is for electricity for lighting our homes. By moving the clocks ahead in the spring, it gets darker later in the day and the need for lights in the house are less, since they need to come on later. Also with sunlight later in the day, the plans for outdoor activities rise meaning less electricity would be used, since people aren’t in the house to use it.

Daylight Saving Start and end dates beginning in 2007.
Year – Begins – Ends
2007 – March 11 – November 4
2008 – March 9 – November 2
2009 – March 8 – November 1
2010 – March 14 – November 7
2011 – March 13 – November 6
2012 – March 11 – November 4
2013 – March 10 – November 3
2014 – March 9 – November 2
2015 – March 8 – November 1

Unlike it was years ago, when I use to have a list of clocks that I needed to manually set when I arrived early to work on the Monday after DST change, many systems will automatically reset to the correct time. With the change of the dates for DST, it is possible older devices will not change correctly. Hopefully by March of 2007, patches for systems will be developed otherwise you may be setting clocks again. (There was some problems with this and apparenty there was also some problems in October too)

Daylight Saving Time is not a modern idea. Benjamin Franklin first mentioned it in a letter to the Journal of Paris in 1784.

It wasn’t put into practice until the German government put it in place in 1916.

The U.S. Congress established it at the same time they formally adopted the Rail Road Time Zones in 1918. It became so unpopular that the law for DST time was repealed in 1919.

In 1942, during World War II, DST was reinstated in the U.S. although from the end of the war in 1945 until 1966, there wasn’t a Federal Law that addressed DST.

In 1966 DST was established and has been in place since, although the law gave states the capability to exempt themselves and a few, such as Arizona and Hawaii have. Many countries follow some sort of DST plan.

Hopefully your clock will be changed correctly. If not you’ll be walking into work an hour late on Monday in the spring or an hour early in the fall.

Along with the change of clocks with DST, Fire departments recommend that the battery in fire and smoke detectors be changed. There are studies that show that a working smoke detector can more than double a person’s chances of surviving a home fire. It’s also estimated that as many as 1/3 of the homes with smoke detectors have dead or missing batteries.

© 2007 Steven G. Atkinson – All rights reserved – Technology Tips for Small Business – tt4sb.com

Slam, Cram and Scam

Does it ever seem as if there’s always someone trying to get your money? Even in telecommunications it’s that way. Some people may be trying to get your money to help your business, such as consultants, while others are nothing more than crooks trying to steal.

Here are some helpful tips to try to keep your money in your pocket. Some of these may seem like ancient history, but could still happen.

Don’t be slammed. Slamming is when your long-distance telephone service is switched to another company without your permission. This could happen in many ways, it could be in the form of what appears to be a check, cashing it will allow them to change your present service to theirs, usually at a much higher rate. Another way is to receive a telephone call offering you lower rates, even declining the service you may have been switched.

Watch for Cramming. Cramming is when optional services such as voice mail, paging, a personal 800 numbers or club membership appears on your telephone bill. This can happen, like slamming, by filling out a contest entry form, failing to respond to a negative option sales pitch, or calling a 900 number. It can happen simply by the crammer picking your telephone number out of the blue and placing charges on your bill through your local telephone company by claiming that you agreed to purchase the services.

Be aware of scams. Two of the most common ones are the “809 area code” and the “90#” scam. The 809 scam is a valid concern since 809 appears as a usual US area code but you’re actually connected to a phone number outside the United States, in the Caribbean, and charged international call rates to some number. Other area codes associated with this are 284 and 876. Because they are outside of US they are not under any US regulations. The “90#” is also true, but only to a degree. It only works on systems that require a user to dial a ‘9’ for an outside line and there aren’t any other restrictions placed on the service.

Because of these things it’s important that you check your telephone bill each and every month. It’s your right to dispute any charges you do not agree, but you should put those reasons in writing. Be sure to pay your bill on time, you may subtract the disputed amount and any taxes or fees associated with it along with written notice on the reason for your dispute. Your phone service should not be disconnected, but be aware that these charges could be referred to a collection agency.

© 2006-2007 Steven G. Atkinson – All rights reserved

*********
More tips like this can be found in the book - Technology Tips for Small Business – tt4sb.com

Office Email Tips

For most of us we will send one, or a hundred, emails a day. Following these tips may help eliminate some common mistakes. This has been posted before, but I’ve added some things since that original post.

Enter the addresses after the message is composed.
Many messages are sent before they are finished. Waiting to add the addresses will keep the message in your draft bin until it’s ready to be sent.

Attach the attachments first.
We have all sent or have been sent a message with a missing attachment. Also be sure that it is attached and not embedded in the email. I’ve made a recent mistake like that and embedded a 4 meg pdf file in the email to a group of people. They couldn’t see the file and on their reply back the large file was in their reply. Needless to say this used a lot of band width and storage space.

Remove large attachments from replies.
Band width and storage space, see above.

Use spell and grammar check.
Business letters have a professional look, so should an email.

Keep personal messages out of business emails.
It’s possible that the email may need to be sent to an associate or supervisor for additional actions. They won’t want to know how the fishing trip went.

Don’t add a new subject to an ongoing thread and don’t combine threads.
When new subjects are added to an ongoing thread it can be confusing to the reader. If the reader only needed to be advised of what was going on, but the added subject needed their action, that action could be delayed. Combining threads generally just confuses everyone.

Address correctly.
If it’s an informational message to many members it’s a good idea to use the Bcc: field to protect other people addresses. If sending to multiple persons with multiple assignments, or to let a supervisor or associate know the mail was sent, address the responsible person by name in the message.

Watch the Reply all.
Does everyone need to see your reply or only the sender? If it’s only the original sender it could save embarrassment.

Be sure to enter a subject.
The information that you put in your subject line can pass information to the recipient the importance of the message as well as how soon a respond may be needed. By leaving the subject line blank it may be ignored completely

Check before hitting the send button.
Once the send button is press the email is in the stream and on its way to its recipient. It’s always a good idea to proofread the message and check that you have attached the attachments and addressed the message to the correct parties.

© 2007 Steven G. Atkinson – All rights reserved – Technology Tips For Small Business

Got iPhone Envy, But Don’t Use AT&T

LG has announced a touch screen phone, the LG Voyager. It will be availale on the VerizonWireless network

The LG Voyager is the successor of the enV VX9900. It has a 320 x 240 pixels touch-sensitive display with a clamshell that opens in landscape orientation to reveal the display, stereo speakers and QWERTY for messaging.

It also supports V CAST TV for live digital TV viewing and stores as much as 8GB of media on a microSDHC card.

The Voyager is due to launch by the Thanksgiving holiday and pricing has not been announced.

For More:
http://www.infosyncworld.com/news/n/8405.html
http://www.slashphone.com/70/8480.html

Apple’s iPod Touch is not simply a phone less iPhone

When first hearing about Apple’s new iPod Touch, my first reaction was that they were releasing an iPhone without the phone. It looks like an iPhone has many of the same features, like built in WiFi and iTunes. What I have now discovered, thankfully before I purchased one, it’s really is nothing more than an iPod based on the iPhone’s Multi-Touch technology.

What does it do?
From the looks, it’s a great music and video player. Works great with iTunes and YouTube. It has an WiFi interface that will allow you to access the internet, through the slimed downed Safari application as well as WiFi access to the iTunes Store, making it easier to get your tunes when drinking your favorite drink from Starbucks.

What does it not do?
It’s not a replacement for a PDA. Apparently it does have a calendar and a contact list, but each of these needs to be created and updated on the computer. You can’t simply enter a new appointment while at a meeting into the iPod Touch and have it sync to the calendar on the PC. The same hold true for the contacts. In fact there isn’t any way to type any type of notes into it other than possibly via a web application through safari. And to use safari, you need to be on a WiFi network.

There is a rumor circulating that Apple is working on a PDA. There have also been rumors that engineers from the PDA project were moved to both the iPhone and iPod Touch so that those products could be delivered at the promised time.

A question now is, Does Apple plan on developing a PDA? I hope so. But for now I guess I’ll just have to replace my old Palm with a new old Palm until that day arrives.

© 2007 Steven G. Atkinson – All Rights Reserved – Technology Tips for Small Business