Somehow it completely escaped my notice, until now, that in 2005 Congress decided to change the start and end dates of daylight-savings time this year. Now normally this wouldn't be a big deal since I rely on the newspaper to give me a heads-up the weekend the change happens. However, Microsoft isn't as indifferent to it.

If you have new software and electronic devices since this 2005 decision, you'll probably be fine. However, if you are a user of an older version of Microsoft Outlook and rely heavily on it for scheduling appointments, Microsoft says to watch it carefully during the periods of March 11 to April 1 and October 28 to November 4. This is because the beginning of daylight-saving time has been moved up 3 weeks (to March 11th) and extended a week longer (to November 4th). Since most of our digital and electronic "lifesavers" that keep us organized know that daylight-saving time is always on the first Sunday in April through the last Sunday in October, this change is going to be a glitch for all of our older devices that didn't get the memo.

I have a Treo PDA that is old enough to have this problem. Although, to be honest, I have to struggle with it every time change anyhow so this one probably won't be much different for me. Ironically, it asks me if I want to update the time when the time changes roll around but if I answer "yes" it magically ends up being an hour wrong in the opposite direction. Since I usually have a similar struggle with my cell phone time change, I think it's probably me rather than my equipment!

Microsoft says they have a fix for the Outlook problem. They have a program called "tzmove" (for time zone move) that you can download and it will retrofit your appointments to the new daylight-saving dates. However, just to be safe, I'd be tempted to print out a copy of what you have on your calendar before making any changes!