Whatever you use, find out how to add the details for cities and countries you need. Just be aware about when these places move from summer to winter and vice versa. Don't expect them to do it at the same time as you do. For example, we in Europe don't make the switch at the same time that North America does. The Daylight Savings Time (DST) time change actually brings a whole raft of issues of its own, and some of these are, frankly, real hard to sort out. Such issues occur when a meeting is scheduled in summer time but actually happens in winter, or vice versa. Make an arrangement in March for a meeting on May 7 at 9:00. When you get to May, the Notes calendar will list the meeting as 8:00, and you'll be early.

How can you use this in Notes?
So, how can you use this in Notes? Actually this is quite simple. The key is to know what the time zone will be when the meeting actually happens. Then, when you type in the time to Notes, add the time zone abbreviation to the entered time. When you do this, Notes adjusts the displayed time to show the entered time as seen from your current location, and when you get to that time zone, it will show it with the correct local time. Figure D shows me entering such a meeting.

FIGURE D


Here, I've entered a meeting. Roll over picture for a larger image.

I'm in the UK GMT time zone, and I'm entering a meeting in Central European Time, CET. Figure E shows how Notes has adjusted the displayed time to my local time zone. This is what's stored. We'll talk about that again in a moment.

FIGURE E


Notes adjusts the displayed time to my local time zone. Roll over picture for a larger image.

So all you need to remember is to add the time zone details of where the meeting will actually take place when you enter it. You can do this in any Notes date-time field. If the time is in Daylight Savings, then also add a D to the time zone. So CET becomes CEDT, GMT becomes GMDT, but not in North America where MST becomes MDT.

Cop-out time. When I really need to be sure, I'm afraid I also write the time and time zone literally in the calendar entry. Then I get the best of both worlds. See Figure F for a better idea of what I'm talking about.

FIGURE F


I also put the time and time zone literally in the calendar entry. Roll over picture for a larger image.

If I miss that flight, it's not because I wasn't sure what time it was.

Gripes, or what could be done better
Notes does time zones well, but I think it could do better. The developer has the opportunity when specifying a time field to be able to have Notes always display the time in the current time zone, as defined by the current location, regardless of which time zone it was entered in. However, the time zone attached to the time and date is always that which prevailed when the entry was made.

We've seen above how you can specify the time zone of an entry so that the correct absolute time is recorded, but Notes still stores it with the offset to the current time zone, and not with the offset to the time zone entered. It would be, in my mind, so much better if there was an extra option to store the time zone that was entered. To make that clear, here's an example.