International preferences -- how to adjust daylight saving time there?

I live on the East Coast of the US, and the proper time zone at the moment is EDT. For some reason, my International preferences are set to use EST, and I can't find a way to edit this. Every application that looks to the International settings for time info is one hour ahead of the correct time (e.g., Entourage calendar). Fyi, the "regular" Date & Time preferences specify that the time and date be set automatically from Apple's time server, and applications that use the time info from there are fine. Does anyone know how to fix this? Is there a plist file that needs to be edited or deleted? I'm kind of grasping at straws here.

At first, I planned to wait until the time changed over to EST in November to see what would happen, but this situation is pretty annoying and is compromising the utility of several calendaring applications. Sorry if info about this is posted elsewhere, but I couldn't find anything relevant here or anywhere else. Thanks in advance...

Mac Mini, Mac OS X (10.4.11), One hour ahead at all times...

Posted on Aug 10, 2008 9:08 AM

23 replies

Aug 13, 2008 8:13 AM in response to pasfaux

As far as I can tell, Entourage will not directly import calendars from iCal.

I never had Office 2004, but I do have Office 2008, and I sync my Entourage calendar with my iCal using Entourage Preferences > Sync Services. Works a charm!

This wasn't available in Office v.X. I don't know about 2004: is there anything like that?

Aug 13, 2008 9:05 AM in response to pasfaux

voozy wrote:
The 3:00 PM event, if imported from iCal, shows up as 4:00 PM. BTW, the event's time does not specify EDT/EST.

Since daylight savings time adds an hour, if a 3:00 PM E DT event is simply converted to E ST, it should show up as 2:00 PM. So it seems as though it's exported from iCal as EDT, but Entourage 'thinks' it's EST and thus adds the hour.

Hmmmm....

I should confess that I'm flying half-blind here, as I'm not an Entourage user. I do know that as Michael suggests, you can use Sync Services in Entourage to sync to iCal. That will create an iCal calendar called "Entourage Calendar" or something similar, that will be actively synced with the Entourage calendar. This may not be the solution you're looking for.

I do notice that when I turn on time zone support in iCal, events that I previously created and new events do show as US/Eastern _in the event details_. However, events that I import into iCal from MS Outlook (mailed as .ics attachments) show "UTC/GMT" in the time zone field, and events exported from Outlook using an export utility (iAppoint) show "Floating" in the time zone field. So, it does seem that there are some differences in the way time zones are handled (note, however, that all of those events do show up at the correct times, regardless of method, but also note that my examples are MS product to iCal, and you're going the other way).

Aug 13, 2008 10:33 AM in response to pasfaux

OK, try this.

In iCal Preferences > Advanced, "Turn on time zone support".

Now create a new event in iCal, then export it, using whatever method you are used to, to Entourage.

Now see if the time in Entourage is correct.

It seems to me you've been pulling in events which weren't marked as using DST, so Entourage has been adjusting them. It may be that the iCal preference I mentioned will mark the events accordingly.

Now, for the future you might like to do this: Entourage Preferences > Sync Services > "Synchronize events and tasks with iCal and .Mac". I am told it is available in Entourage 2004 (although the wording may differ slightly from the 2008 wording I've posted here).

pasfaux Author

Level 1

5 points

Aug 13, 2008 7:42 PM in response to Michael Conniff

I turned on time zone support in iCal, and then exported a calendar and imported it into Entourage (by opening the exported ics file in Entourage). The time on imported events is still off by one hour. I did find out however, that events created in iCal show the correct time if I put them into the special Entourage calendar, which is the one that Entourage syncs with automatically. So, the mismatch is somehow happening during the export/import process.

The problem would be solved if I didn't mind putting all new events into iCal's Entourage calendar, but I don't really consider this a solution. I keep a number of different calendars in iCal and sync them with my iPod Touch, which I'm essentially using as a PDA. I think in the future I will have to add new events to the Entourage calendar (either in Entourage or iCal), allow it to sync, and then move the event to the "real" iCal calendar so that it will sync properly with the iPod Touch (I will not sync the Entourage calendar with the IPT because that calendar will end up containing every event). Of course, this means that I will need to do the reverse as well -- any event I create on the iPod Touch will be automatically copied to the corresponding iCal calendar on sync, and then I will have to copy it to iCal's Entourage calendar to make it show up in Entourage. Here it is graphically:

New event in Entourage calendar -sync-> iCal -move to correct calendar-> -sync-> IPT

or

New event on IPT -sync-> iCal -copy to iCal's Entourage calendar-> -sync-> Entourage

So in the end, I will have duplicates of each event. One set will be completely contained in the Entourage calendar (for syncing between Entourage and iCal) and the other set will be split up into categorized calendars in iCal and on the IPT. Then maybe I'll end up categorizing the events in Entourage too. Kind of a hassle that Entourage cannot deal with iCal's multiple calendars and vice versa! I guess I'm expected to use one or the other, but not both.

Thanks for all of the help. By the way, I'm still open to suggestions if anyone has any ideas as to why the export/import process results in a one hour time shift. At least I've learned that this probably had absolutely nothing to do with the International preference settings!

Aug 14, 2008 2:00 AM in response to pasfaux

voozy wrote:
events created in iCal show the correct time if I put them into the special Entourage calendar, which is the one that Entourage syncs with automatically. So, the mismatch is somehow happening during the export/import process.

Well, OK, thanks for letting us know that. I have only used the syncing with the special calendar, so never noticed any problem. I may try the other way when I get a chance, but for the moment I can't sync at all—my machine has decided it doesn't have Bluetooth 😟

The problem would be solved if I didn't mind putting all new events into iCal's Entourage calendar …

I agree it is a bit of a pain, but I just ensure the common calendar has everything I need on my mobile phone. The easiest way to do this is to enter them all there, but I do prefer a proper keyboard 😉

I'm still open to suggestions if anyone has any ideas as to why the export/import process results in a one hour time shift …

If I find out any more, I'll post.

Aug 14, 2008 2:56 AM in response to pasfaux

Another suggestion - above, you mentioned that you created a new user account on your Mac, and EST still showed up in the International preference pane, which (as I think we've mostly agreed) is not the cause of the problem.

In the new user account, did you (if not, can you) try creating iCal events, exporting them, and importing them into Entourage? If that results in the correct times in Entourage, then we'll know this is something about your settings which there's a chance we can fix (it may be as simple as a corrupt .plist file or files, and deleting the relevant preference files may correct it). Deleting plist files forces their re-creation by the app, and restores the default settings (it does not affect the data). If can be a pain to return your settings to where you want them, but it would probably be much less effort than the method you indicate above for getting all your events at the right time in the right calendars. Conversely, if the time is an hour off in the new user account, it suggests that there's something defective about the process itself (i.e. a bug).

Aug 14, 2008 7:19 AM in response to Michael Conniff

Michael Conniff wrote:
I may try the other way when I get a chance, but for the moment I can't sync at all—my machine has decided it doesn't have Bluetooth 😟

Turns out my Bluetooth died at the same time my wireless mouse battery died! No, I don't understand either 😟

I am unable to try export/import with Entourage 2008. I put something in the "Home" calendar in iCal, and exported that. When I try "Import" in Entourage, and click on various Help buttons, I eventually get to this:

Although you can sync Entourage with the Mac OS X iCal application so that events in Entourage show up in iCal, you cannot import information from iCal into Entourage.

Of course, what that statement omits is that the syncing is two way, but it definitely rules out export/import.

pasfaux Author

Level 1

5 points

Aug 14, 2008 6:29 PM in response to neuroanatomist

Neuroanatomist,

I've created another new user account (already deleted the one used previously), and tried your suggestion. Entourage still displays the incorrect times in the calendar overview, but the time is correct on individual events when I open them up by double clicking on them in the calendar overview. I had not noticed this behavior before. Then, I logged back into my regular account and discovered that it is like this for that account as well. This leads me to believe that the discrepancy is caused by an MS Office/Entourage bug.

Fyi, earlier I may have done a poor job explaining the procedure I use to import ics files (exported from iCal) into Entourage. I simply right-click on the ics file icon and select Open With -> Entourage. Crude, but somewhat effective. Anyhow, this is a pretty subtle software bug (and I do think it's a bug). It's kind of annoying, since I tend to use the overview to consult my schedule. I also checked to see whether reminders are affected by this bug, and it looks like they are. So I suppose I will have to enter every event twice in iCal (once in the intended iCal calendar and once for the special Entourage calendar, which will sync over to Entourage itself) in order to have identical event schedules in iCal, Entourage and on my IPT. Not that bad once the initial bulk copying has been completed (which it has).

Many thanks to all who provided suggestions. I'm going to mark this "answered" now.

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International preferences -- how to adjust daylight saving time there?