Time zone change seems to mess up appointments

[gvenditto]

I just got back from my first trip with a new Windows Mobile phone (Motorola Q) and I was surprised that when I got home, appointments I entered on the west coast were changed by 3 hours to east coast time.

Is there some trick to working with the calendar when you move to a different time zone?

[James]

Gus,

The problem you’ve run into appears to be a common one. And from what I’ve read there’s no easy way to go through a time zone change and have your appointments correctly reflect the correct time in the right time zone.

One workaround is to only change the time and not the time zone when making a trip. In the case of traveling to the west coast from the east coast that means moving the time back 3 hours but leaving the time zone as eastern standard time.

However, some carrier networks will perform these changes (either time and time zone or both) automatically over-the-air to your phone upon arrival at a destination.

With some Windows Mobile devices (depending if the operator allows it) you can turn one or both of these automated changes off. If your Q does allow this, it would be under

Start--> settings --> Clocks & Alarms --> More

There are also applications available that are supposed to make time/time zone management easier to manage under Windows Mobile:

Here’s one:

City Time (http://codecity.net/)
http://www.pocketpccity.com/software/windowspoweredsmartphone/CityTime-for-Smartphone-2007-2-15-ce-windowspoweredsmartphone.html

James