I Know This Is A Totally Random Thought :l But..

[Floppy]

..why are phones' clocks changed automatically but not computers?

[Buffy]

Most are.

 

The primary reason that computers can get out of sync is two-fold:

1. Computers cannot be guaranteed to be on a network. Most still have date software and time zone/daylight savings rules that keep them correct even if they are not on a network. Cell phones on the other hand are by definition connected to a network and thus can pick up the time from a central source that is kept correct.
2. Computers have no geolocation information guaranteed to be correct, and thus even if they have a network connection, they don't know what timezone they are in. Conversely, cellphones can easily pick up the time of the nearest cell tower they connect to and pretty much be guaranteed to be correct for their location.

For many purposes this is a good thing. I know I like to be able to work on my laptop when I do not have a network connection.

 

 

A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure, :phones:

Buffy

[Bullocks]

Most are.

 

The primary reason that computers can get out of sync is two-fold:

 

• Computers cannot be guaranteed to

  be on a network. Most still have date software and time zone/daylight savings rules that keep them correct even if they are not on a network. Cell phones on the other hand are by definition connected to a network and thus can pick up the time from a central source that is kept correct.

• Computers have no geolocation information guaranteed to be correct, and thus even if they have a network connection, they don't know what timezone they are in. Conversely, cellphones can easily pick up the time of the nearest cell tower they connect to and pretty much be guaranteed to be correct for their location.

For many purposes this is a good thing. I know I like to be able to work on my laptop when I do not have a network connection.

 

 

A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure, :phones:

Buffy

buffy why can't the clock use the ip address though? Is it about GPS?

[Buffy]

buffy why can't the clock use the ip address though? Is it about GPS?

 

There's no assurance on a computer that it's going to be connected to the internet!

 

Even with wifi seemingly everywhere, in corporate/government settings access to the internet is completely locked down, and the OS can't assume it can get to the US govt or any other time keeping site.

 

This will probably change some day, possibly we'll get a standard spec for querying the LOCAL network connection for the time, since local networks are really the last problem here, and should be responsible for maintaining an official timekeeping role, but it's not built into all routers yet (although many do, albeit very unreliably! my home Netgear router--actually their high-end model--sucks at this).

 

It's hard to believe, but the first IBM PC made you fill in the time and date every time you booted the machine with MS-DOS on a floppy disk.

 

 

Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something, :phones:

Buffy

[Bullocks]

There's no assurance on a computer that it's going to be connected to the internet!

 

Even with wifi seemingly everywhere, in corporate/government settings access to the internet is completely locked down, and the OS can't assume it can get to the US govt or any other time keeping site.

 

This will probably change some day, possibly we'll get a standard spec for querying the LOCAL network connection for the time, since local networks are really the last problem here, and should be responsible for maintaining an official timekeeping role, but it's not built into all routers yet (although many do, albeit very unreliably! my home Netgear router--actually their high-end model--sucks at this).

 

It's hard to believe, but the first IBM PC made you fill in the time and date every time you booted the machine with MS-DOS on a floppy disk.

 

 

Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something, :phones:

Buffy

Whaaaaat?! You seem like some kinda IT expert lol. Ah well you work in IT COnsulting so... My point basically being that I don't understand a sentence you just said, so be nice to me please :P

[Buffy]

Well, let's try to start simply. Do you understand that a computer might possibly not be connected to the Internet?

 

 

Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice about them, :phones:

Buffy

[Bullocks]

Well, let's try to start simply. Do you understand that a computer might possibly not be connected to

the Internet?

 

 

Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice about them, :phones:

Buffy

yeah but mine is

[Buffy]

Can you come up with any reasons why that someone may not want or be able to connect one to the Internet? Name a few. Go for six.

 

 

The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary, :phones:

Buffy

[Bullocks]

Can you come up with any reasons why that someone may not want or be able to connect one to the Internet? Name a few. Go for six.

 

 

The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary, :phones:

Buffy

how's that relevant? I said despite my laptop being connected to WiFi the time doesn't update. Just out of curiousity

[Buffy]

It's relevant! You'll see! You need to be patient! C'mon, you can do it! :cheer:

 

 

Hard work is the price we must pay for success. I think you can accomplish anything if you're willing to pay the price, :phones:

Buffy

[Bullocks]

It's relevant! You'll see! You need to be patient! C'mon, you can do it! :cheer:

 

 

Hard work is the price we must pay for success. I think you can accomplish anything if you're willing to pay the price, :phones:

Buffy

awwwh thanks Buffy That quote put a smile on my face helping me to forget my unpredictable emotions I face on an everyday basis. Referring to real life rather than the communications between us.

 

Anyways, back OT:

1) People don't want their kids to be distracted

2) they can't afford it

3) the connection available May be so slow that ppl may not think it's worth paying.

4)they don't know how to use it

5)they're paranoid as they believe the internet is dangerous, and misinterpret news about the danger of the internet to be true

6) their internet access has been suspended for harassing ppl online (which is only if it's like a threat of violence obvs or something serious so don't even consider me not that you care anymore haha )

Edited November 14, 2014 by Bullocks

[Bullocks]

My computer is connected through WiFi all the time though, so that's irrelevant imo but you're the expert who works in IT consulting, so who knows? I may be wrong haha

 

And its funny how the teacher at school stated the anthology that success comes before work only in a dictionary in reference to our A-Rodlevel preparation

 

Mhmmmmm are you from England btw?

Edited November 14, 2014 by Bullocks

[Buffy]

1) People don't want their kids to be distracted

2) they can't afford it

3) the connection available May be so slow that ppl may not think it's worth paying.

4)they don't know how to use it

5)they're paranoid as they believe the internet is dangerous, and misinterpret news about the danger of the internet to be true

6) their internet access has been suspended for harassing ppl online (which is only if it's like a threat of violence obvs or something serious so don't even consider me not that you care anymore haha )

 

That's why I wanted you to answer: you're thinking inside the box. The point of asking that question is to fish out answers that ultimately have to do with "your computer might not be connected to the Internet because it *CAN'T* connect to the Internet" an option that none of your six responses consider.

 

Where might this happen? 

 

• On an airplane (getting less so though)
• In the middle of the Amazon jungle
• In a top secret government facility with amazing firewalls

 

If there's a possibility that one might have a computer that *cannot* connect to the Internet, then programmers must not write software that *assumes* that the computer is indeed connected to the internet. 

 

And that's the reason why most computers today still do not come out of the box set up to sync to an internet time server.

 

Now in fact all modern operating systems offer this as a feature, but it's an obscure one, and because it's turned off by default, most users have no clue that it's an issue. Internal clocks are often set at the factory, and the OS activation usually will ask you what your time zone is and let you adjust that clock as necessary, and as even the cheapest quartz timers that you'll find in most PCs are pretty darned accurate, that once in 3 years time setting is close enough that most people never notice.

 

Obviously the Internet is getting more and more ubiquitous, and changing this default assumption is getting closer (note the intractability of the Amazon and very secure facility issues though), so we developers may soon start to change those default assumptions.

 

But not yet.

 

 

I am not from England, but I have spent enough time there that I am no longer allowed to donate blood here in the US for fear that I have Mad Cow Disease. And they may not be wrong in that assumption.

 

 

One of the most difficult things to contend with in a hospital is that assumption on the part of the staff that because you have lost your gall bladder you have also lost your mind, :phones:

Buffy

[Bullocks]

That's why I wanted you to answer: you're thinking inside the box. The point of asking that question is to fish out answers that ultimately have to do with "your computer might not be connected to the Internet because it *CAN'T* connect to the Internet" an option that none of your six responses consider.

 

Where might this happen? 

 

 

• On an airplane (getting less so though),
• In the middle of the Amazon jungle
• In a top secret government facility with amazing firewalls

 

If there's a possibility that one might have a computer that *cannot* connect to the Internet, then programmers must not write software that *assumes* that the computer is indeed connected to the internet. 

 

And that's the reason why most computers today still do not come out of the box set up to sync to an internet time server.

 

Now in fact all modern operating systems offer this as a feature, but it's an obscure one, and because it's turned off by default, most users have no clue that it's an issue. Internal clocks are often set at the factory, and the OS activation usually will ask you what your time zone is and let you adjust that clock as necessary, and as even the cheapest quartz timers that you'll find in most PCs are pretty darned accurate, that once in 3 years time setting is close enough that most people never notice.

 

Obviously the Internet is getting more and more ubiquitous, and changing this default assumption is getting closer (note the intractability of the Amazon and very secure facility issues though), so we developers may soon start to change those default assumptions.

 

But not yet.

 

 

I am not from England, but I have spent enough time there that I am no longer allowed to donate blood here in the US for fear that I have Mad Cow Disease. And they may not be wrong in that assumption.

 

 

One of the most difficult things to contend with in a hospital is that assumption on the part of the staff that because you have lost your gall bladder you have also lost your mind, :phones:

Buffy

Do you know where I'm from buffy?

Like, that's just rude.

This is why I feel like you dislike me... You, like, basically don't wanna spend time in the same country as me cos you don't wanna catch my alleged disease.

[Doctordick]

Buffy, I just finished reading this thread and and your arguments essentially hold no water. My wrist watch picks up the colorado broadcast whenever it can (most of the time, that is every night but not always) and corrects to the correct time to the second. It has a push button which can change the setting to most all time zones or can be shifted to any specific time zone if I wish. The settings include the standard daylight saving time settings for those various time zones.  None of that requires that my watch know where it is and my watch is never connected to the internet.

 

In addition, it has always bugged me that people think clocks measure time: they don't, they  measure proper time along their path through the universe. That is why the half life of radio active particles are generally measured when they are moving at a high velocity. You got it? The time measure of that half life is along their path. The same reason the colorado clock would read differently if it is raised or lowered in the gravitational well where it exists. The common idea of time is just plane confused.

 

Have fun -- Dick

[CraigD]

My wrist watch picks up the colorado broadcast whenever it can (most of the time, that is every night but not always) and corrects to the correct time to the second. It has a push button which can change the setting to most all time zones or can be shifted to any specific time zone if I wish. The settings include the standard daylight saving time settings for those various time zones. None of that requires that my watch know where it is and my watch is never connected to the internet.

Your watch is almost certainly receiving the NIST time signal out of Fort Collins, Colorado, radio station WWVB which has been broadcasting the date and time since 1965. As the linked-to Wikipedia article summarizes, this and similar radio time signals in other countries have an interesting history. ‘Til 1999, WWVB was only 7000 W ERP, so only fairly large, high-gain receivers could use it. In 1999, its power was increased to 50000 W, allowing small devices like watches and clocks to use it, and sparking a fad of such devices (I bought my first one, a nice battery-powered alarm clock, in late 1999).

 

According to the Wikipedia article, the first radio time signal was used in 1905. The first electric one, using wired telegraphs, was in 1883,

 

Buffy, I just finished reading this thread and and your arguments essentially hold no water.

I didn’t get that impression of Buffy’s posts.

 

This thread’s original question was

..why are phones' clocks changed automatically but not computers?

To which buffy answered

1. Computers cannot be guaranteed to be on a network. Most still have date software and time zone/daylight savings rules that keep them correct even if they are not on a network. Cell phones on the other hand are by definition connected to a network and thus can pick up the time from a central source that is kept correct.

2. Computers have no geolocation information guaranteed to be correct, and thus even if they have a network connection, they don't know what timezone they are in. Conversely, cellphones can easily pick up the time of the nearest cell tower they connect to and pretty much be guaranteed to be correct for their location.

To the best of my knowledge (which is sketchy on this subject, because unlike most internet protocols and their common implementations, which are well documented, cellular phone protocols and their implementations are specialized, and not widely known by computer programmers (except for GSM, which has a agency-maintained standard)), the explanation “cell phones can always get the time because they’re always on a network” is essentially correct.

 

Surprisingly to me, standards and their enforcement for cellular networks are spotty (with the exception of GSM networks, which have had a time signal standard since their introduction ca. 1990) So while nearly every cellular network has a time signal, and there’s a standard for getting it (NITZ) it’s hard for programmers to know how to use it for a particular carrier (telecom company). This problem is reduced somewhat because most newer phones have internet connections, so can at least be configured to get a time signal via NTP.

 

Programming difficulties aside, nearly all cellphones, because they are by definition communicating via a cellular network, can get a time signal, while “computers” in general may not be connected to anything. An esoteric solution to this is to physically connect or build into your computed a cellular or GPS radio receiver. If you absolutely cannot have an internet connection on your computer (for example, if it’s super-secure), and you must have an accurate clock, such a solution may be best.

 

A key architectural idea to take away from the domains spanning the simple, 100+ year old world of raidio and the muddled and difficult to penetrate world of cellular networking, is that, on the level of the essential atomoids (my made-up term) of data, the packets, cellular data has timestamps built in, while internet (Ethernet) data doesn’t, and radio doesn’t always have packets at all, and when it does, tends to have nothing but one kind of packet, like the 1-bit/second, 60 bit amplitude modulated US NIST time signal DoctorDick’s watch uses. Getting the time via radio, then, is just a process of listening and decoding. Getting one from the internet is a client-server exchange – the client asks, and via various routing, a server matching the precision requested sends back a time. In most cellular networks, a timestamp (not necessarily a very accurate one, but accurate enough for the clock on phones) is included in every packet.

[pgrmdave]

Buffy, I just finished reading this thread and and your arguments essentially hold no water. My wrist watch picks up the colorado broadcast whenever it can (most of the time, that is every night but not always) and corrects to the correct time to the second. It has a push button which can change the setting to most all time zones or can be shifted to any specific time zone if I wish. The settings include the standard daylight saving time settings for those various time zones.  None of that requires that my watch know where it is and my watch is never connected to the internet.

Your watch picks up an external signal. Computers cannot be assumed to be able to pick up an external signal so the programmers writing the clock software cannot assume that the computer will be able to receive an external signal. Your argument holds no water.