“Spring forward, fall back.” – Yep, it’s that time of the year again, and even though it’s October, it’s officially the start of spring in the Southern Hemisphere, so it’s time to move the clocks forward by one hour. The time change happens this Sunday, October 19th, 2008 at midnight –the earliest it has ever occurred. This change is being pushed as part of an effort to save energy across Argentina. Changing the clocks will allow for increased sunlight and decreased electricity usage.
It also means that we’ll be two hours ahead of Eastern Daylight Time for two weeks. Then, when the U.S. time change goes into effect on November 2, 2008, we’ll be three hours ahead of New York and six hours ahead of Los Angeles.
As far as your computer knowing about the change, Microsoft dealt with the problems of having an Argentine time zone last December, when the Argentine government decided to follow Daylight Savings Time for the first time since 2000 – exactly 4 days before they implemented it on December 31. (It caused a lot of computer problems and issues with screwed up calendar appointments.) On Windows, the time zone for Argentina used to be “(GMT-03:00) Buenos Aires, Georgetown.” Now, if you have all the latest Microsoft updates, Argentina has it’s own time zone, “(GMT-03:00) Buenos Aires” to account for these new differences. Apple users may already be experiencing the new time zone as there seems to be a glitch which listed the time zone change as happening on October 5 rather than October 19. No word on whether that has been fixed or not.
I personally liked being an hour ahead of New York as it made it easier to get a few things done in the morning before people in our NYC office got in and the one hour difference was barely noticeable throughout the rest of the day. Working three hours ahead of New York is going to make things a bit more challenging though. I’ll have to be sure to remind people that 5pm there is 8pm here and I will definitely not be around…
– On Sunday the 19th Adjust Your Clock (english) | (español) [La Nacion]
– “Spring Forward” Comes Early this Year to Argentina [Argentina’s Travel Guide]