Hello Lewis & Everyone,

In addition to the many good suggestions already on this 'ongoing' thread on
computer clocks, I would like to add my 2¢ worth. A good CMOS (Complementary
Metal Oxide Semiconductor) battery under normal usage should last for 3-5
years. It's good practice to change it every 2-3 years before telltale
symptoms of the clock slowing or changes in other settings (program), etc.
start to appear. It's also a good idea to keep a record of any changes
you've made to the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) as these settings will
be lost when you change the battery unless you are extremely fast and lucky.

Two clock utilities I used with all my Win9X systems are Dimension 4 and
TClockEx. What I liked about Dimension 4 is that it can be set to
synchronize the time on startup, then exit automatically.

Dimension 4 - Synchronize Your Clock - Free
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/dim4.html

This is from the TClockEx Web site: "TClockEx enhances the standard Windows
taskbar clock, adding the ability to display the date, time and lots of
other information in any format you like. TClockEx is highly customizable,
from the format to the font and colour, and even the tooltip information."

TClockEx - Taskbar Clock Enhancer - Free
http://www.rcis.co.za/dale/tclockex/about.htm

For those of us using WinXP there's a neat utility by Doug Knox, Microsoft
MVP (Most Valuable Professional) that allows you to change the interval
(frequency) between the Internet Time Updates that XP does weekly by
default. You can choose weekly, daily, hourly, or custom settings. The
really neat thing about it is there is no install or uninstall. You simply
unzip the file, execute the program and the changes take effect on the next
restart.

Change Internet Time Sync Interval:
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_inet_time.htm

Sven Swanson, Sr.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Lewis C Emerson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, February 25, 2005 9:09 AM
Subject: [PCBUILD] Computer Clock Info - Battery life


There are a number of web sites that offer software that will synchronize
your computer clock to the world's timing standard, the Cesium atomic
clock at the National Institute of Technology (NIST), in Boulder, CO.
Years ago they were known as the National Bureau of Standards (NBS). The
signals are accurate (they say) to one part in ten billion.

You can download  SYNCCLK.EXE at www.answersthatwork.com and there's
another one at www.worldtimeserver.com/atomic-clock.

For those of you who set your computer clock manually here's another bit
of useful information.  You can buy, for a very reasonable price, a desk
or wall clock with a build-in radio that picks up the NIST timing signals
from their transmitters at Fort Collins, CO - they get the info from that
Cesium clock in Boulder - some 40 or 50 miles away.  An interesting
tidbit is that the 200 microseconds or so that it takes to transmit the
signals from the clock in Boulder to the transmitters in Fort Collins is
taken into account before they are sent out to the world.  Walgreens Drug
Stores are selling the clocks for between $5 and $20 depending on whether
or not you want the month, date, temperature, etc along with the time.
For those in the Far East there's another NIST transmitter in Hawaii.
(The fact that the clocks are made in China explains the low prices)

I'm a ham radio operator and occasionally check my Walgreen clock here
against the timing signals I can receive direct from the NIST
transmitters (I'm in Tennessee and can hear both the Colorado and the
Hawaii transmitters so the range is quite good) and there's never been
any discernable difference between the two in the past two years.

One other item - I had thought that there was a capacitor in the computer
battery circuit that holds the voltage up for the short time interval
that it takes to replace the battery so the computer doesn't lose it's
mind then..  Does anyone know for sure?

Best,

Lewis Emerson

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