Are You Running Late

Ever since about mid-April, I’ve been running late. I thought the clock on my laptop was automatically updating itself via the NIST time server, but apparently not, and as the machine’s internal time always somehow runs slow (something to do with quantum effects at the chip connector level, no doubt), by the end of the month, I was a staggering ten minutes behind everyone else around me.

Obviously, this got embarrassing when other people asked me the time because they thought they had plenty to spare, and then when they too were late for an appointment or missed a scheduled conference call, it was me that got the blame

It turns out that NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), among the world’s most accurate timekeepers stopped responding to pings from machines looking for their time server time.nist.gov. So, with no atomic clock by which to check my laptop’s time, Windows XP simply got out of step with the rest of the world. A slow process that took about ten days to have a real impact on me and mine.

So, what can those of us who prefer punctuality to punctiliousness do about setting our clocks right?

Thankfully, there are alternative methods of keeping up to date. And, NIST has kindly provided a list of active time servers that you can plug in to your XP clock. How do you do that plugging in, then? I hear you ask.

First, visit the time keeper site and copy to your clipboard a likely looking server. Next, right click the clock in your system tray and select Adjust Time/Date. A dialog box appears, choose the “Internet Time” tab. Make sure the “Automatically synchronize” box is checked and then paste the server you saved to your clipboard earlier over the entry that’s already there (particularly if it’s the defunct NIST server). Hit Update Now and once it’s done it’s business drop out of the dialog box with a quick OK.

That should be it. You will never be late or too early ever again. At least not until switch of the new server.