changing timezones and calendar appointments

[islandsnow]

is there a way to not have the appointment times shift when i change timezones? i enter appointments based on current timezone time, and not where i'm going to be. so if i have an appointment say at 3:00pm on the east coast, but i am currently on the west coast, i would enter it as 3:00pm on my calendar, but when i actually go to the east coast and change my timezone to east coast, that appointment shifts to 6:00pm. not good.

[Sven Johannsen]

No, there is no way to change that behavior. It is MS standard as far back as Outlook 98. Change the TZ on your desktop...it does exactly the same thing.

You essentially have two options.

1) keep doing what you are doing, and when you get to a new TZ, just leave the TZ alone and change the time, like you would on a watch.

A caveat to this is if you have a device that is capable of being set by the network, SmartPhone, some PPCPE devices, turn that off.

2) Learn to enter things based on the time zone in which they happen. You can do that manually...enter that appointment at 12 Noon on the west coast, and it will shift to 3PM when you change to Eastern time. Thewre are applications that make this easier. CityTime adds the ability to associate TZ with a new appointment, as do other add-ons. Outlook 2007 on the PC adds the ability to enter/change TZ when adding an appointment.

Drawback here, IMHO, is that the time shown in the calendar until you change the TZ is 'wrong'.

[islandsnow]

i had the palm treo 650 before and it didn't shift the time, but now that i think about it, i don't think it changed the timezone, it just took the network time from wherever i was.

the ipaq i have now does not have the network time feature, so i would manually change the time. what i did wrong i think was go into the clock and alarms settings and change to the visiting timezone. i should just always keep it on home, and just adjust the hour that way.

[Sven Johannsen]

i had the palm treo 650 before and it didn't shift the time, but now that i think about it, i don't think it changed the timezone, it just took the network time from wherever i was.
The 650 is of course not a WM device. Windows has always stored appointments in a Universal Time format and displayed based on your TZ. Hence if you change the TZ, or the network does, it shifts the appointments.

the ipaq i have now does not have the network time feature, so i would manually change the time. what i did wrong i think was go into the clock and alarms settings and change to the visiting timezone. i should just always keep it on home, and just adjust the hour that way. You didn't do anything wrong, you just weren't aware of the paradigm. If you enter a recurring telecon, and travel around the world, changing TZ, you will always be alerted at the right time for the telecon. So there are pros and cons to both methods. It would have been nice, IMHO, if MS had provided us a method of changing the TZ (Home/Visiting) and not mucking with the virtual appointment times. The reality is that would be no different than disregarding TZ (or leaving it alone) and just changing the clock time.

The issue is coming to light more now that we have much more portable device, some of which pick time up off the network, or are being used as clocks and appointment reminders, and provide an easy way to adjust TZ. The problem existed on laptops, but I would bet many fewer folks went into the clock function on their laptop and changed the TZ when they travelled. They looked at their watch for the time, which they adjusted when they arrived, and at the calendar on the laptop which showed a 9AM appointment that was entered with no regard for where it was happening.

I personally have been forced to enter appointments with the locale in mind. I can enter 9AM as 9AM and just change the time on my PPC when I travel, but my SPOT Watch has no good option to just change the time. It picks up TZ when I travel, and if the appointments aren't entered with the associated TZ considered, they will all be wrong. So, to appease that, I do TZ based appointments now, and make use of the 'Visiting' TZ feature. Still bothers me the times are 'wrong' on the calendar when I am home, but there isn't one good solution.

[islandsnow]

thanks for the explanation. funny how ms hasn't addressed this or some third party app. but you are right, on my laptop i wouldn't go into my clock and change the time and/or timezone. oh well, now i know...

i had the palm treo 650 before and it didn't shift the time, but now that i think about it, i don't think it changed the timezone, it just took the network time from wherever i was.
The 650 is of course not a WM device. Windows has always stored appointments in a Universal Time format and displayed based on your TZ. Hence if you change the TZ, or the network does, it shifts the appointments.

the ipaq i have now does not have the network time feature, so i would manually change the time. what i did wrong i think was go into the clock and alarms settings and change to the visiting timezone. i should just always keep it on home, and just adjust the hour that way. You didn't do anything wrong, you just weren't aware of the paradigm. If you enter a recurring telecon, and travel around the world, changing TZ, you will always be alerted at the right time for the telecon. So there are pros and cons to both methods. It would have been nice, IMHO, if MS had provided us a method of changing the TZ (Home/Visiting) and not mucking with the virtual appointment times. The reality is that would be no different than disregarding TZ (or leaving it alone) and just changing the clock time.

The issue is coming to light more now that we have much more portable device, some of which pick time up off the network, or are being used as clocks and appointment reminders, and provide an easy way to adjust TZ. The problem existed on laptops, but I would bet many fewer folks went into the clock function on their laptop and changed the TZ when they travelled. They looked at their watch for the time, which they adjusted when they arrived, and at the calendar on the laptop which showed a 9AM appointment that was entered with no regard for where it was happening.

I personally have been forced to enter appointments with the locale in mind. I can enter 9AM as 9AM and just change the time on my PPC when I travel, but my SPOT Watch has no good option to just change the time. It picks up TZ when I travel, and if the appointments aren't entered with the associated TZ considered, they will all be wrong. So, to appease that, I do TZ based appointments now, and make use of the 'Visiting' TZ feature. Still bothers me the times are 'wrong' on the calendar when I am home, but there isn't one good solution.

[Sven Johannsen]

thanks for the explanation. funny how ms hasn't addressed this or some third party app. but you are right, on my laptop i wouldn't go into my clock and change the time and/or timezone. oh well, now i know...
MS has. They provided the Home/Visiting option, for those that want to do times based on TZs. You can switch to the away TZ, put in the appointment, and switch back to Home. Bit cumbersome but doable. Third party folks have added extensions to the appointment entry process to include the TZ of the appointment, CityTime for instance.

If you don't like the side effects of using the TZ thing, just don't, and just change the clock when you travel.

There is not one good way for both camps to be appeased, IMHO.