On Mon, 8 Mar 1999 04:27:16 -0800, Ole Juul <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, wrote:
> NetTamer is quite confusing that way. I think there is an
> error in the example given in it's setup screen. I used to
> use a version of NetTamer which had this problem, (perhaps
> they all do) but when I discovered it, I also saw that you
> could put in any value you like.
> In my mind the difficult part to understand was that the
> offset is for _my_ time and not for UT. That is to say,
> that "MY TIME" _minus_ the offset equals UT, rather than
> UT _plus_ the offset equals "MY TIME".
> I guess I don't understand the reasoning. It _would_
> make more sense to use UT as the time stamp and then quote
> an offset from that wouldn't it?
>
> Cheers,
> Ole Juul
>
Well, that was somewhat confusing. Don't you get the same result both
ways? *Your time*, which in this case was early in the morning, 04.27
minus the *negative* offset means you will have to add eight hours to
get the time in UT (GMT) which will then be 12.27 and UT 12.27 plus
the negative offset means you will have to *subtract* eight hours,
bringing the result of 04.27.
Anyhow, the timestamp always shows the *local* time when the mail
was written, and as this timestamp is dependent on the clock-setting
of your computer this is probably the most practical way of doing
it. That way, you will know when you wrote your mail without having
to do any calculations.
I don't find this offset terribly difficult to understand. Think of
it this way: If it's negative, your clock will be that many hours
*behind* UT and if it's positive, your clock will be that many hours
*ahead of* UT. As my offset is +0100, this means I should add *nine*
hours to find out when you wrote your mail in my local time.
Take another example. I received a mail yesterday from a friend in
Sweden who has a Hotmail-address. His mail was stamped:
Tue, 09 Mar 1999 04:25:38 PST
*This* I find confusing, and to find out when he wrote this mail in
local, Swedish time, I will first have to find out what offset "PST"
(Pacific Standard Time, right?) has from UT. Not so easy, if you're
not familiar with US timezones. On the other hand, the three-letter
abbreviation perhaps more clearly indicates you are dealing with
information showing which timezone the mail was written in, than the
four-digit variety. I can understand the temptation to e.g. subtract
eight hours from 04.27 in the example above but one should perhaps
regard the time-stamp and the offset as two separate entries. I think
this will simplify the understanding of the concept.
Anyhow, Nettamer's author clearly has also misunderstood this
concept, but I haven't found any negative side-effects of specifying
the offset in the common and *correct* way in Nettamer. NT doesn't
seem to use this offset-value internally in any way.
However, there are other mail-programs who use the offset to sort
incoming mail according to when they were written, recalculated and
displayed in your local time. I believe I've read that Pegasus for
Windows does this, e.g.
Lars-Einar Jansson
Stockholm, Sweden
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