On Apr 19, 2006, at 12:08 PM, Steve Lewis wrote:
Bobby Rullo wrote:
Also possibly a 3rd:
3. System "guesses" initial timezone based on IP address to
location table for initial log in
[delurk]
A fourth possibility would be to detect their timezone every time they
log in. If the current client's detected timezone is different,
ask the
user if he/she would like to adjust the user's timezone, and the
calendar view, to use the detected time zone or continue to use the
stored timezone.
Interesting idea. We'd have to make it annoying proof so that the
dude who always wants their timezone to be EST even though they are
in CA doesn't get harassed.
You can determine the timezone without the IP address to location
table
which has a significant margin of error.
As a hint toward implementation, adapt or adopt this javascript
library:
http://west.ilrn.com/media/js/systemCheck/timezone.js
That only works if the system's time has changed. Like someone went
to the System Preferences panel and clicked "change timezone" Might
not always be the case for laptop users who are bouncing around a lot.
and then search java.util.TimeZone for a timezone that has the same
summer and winter DST offsets, then filter that down further by
timezones that switch DST at the amount. This will often give several
possible but equivalent matches. Programmatically solve this by
always
choosing one, e.g. the first.
The problem I see with this approach is that it would have to favor
some locale's over others - New York and Buenos Aires might have the
same offset, but which one would appear first in the list? Americans
would be annoyed if Buenos Aires always appeared first because it
begins with B and Argentineans would be annoyed if New York appeared
first just because it's American...
Is the margin of error for IP address tables really that bad? We
don't have to get within a block, just within the general region. I
thought they were ok for that, but don't really have any data to
support it either way.
Bobby
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