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Sun 15 Aug 2010
Liya - the more accurate time keeper
Category : Technology/TimeZone.txt
Liya for Snow Leopard just got updated to version 1.2.1. This version does something that I've always wanted - time zone support for the time stamp field in SQL databases. This is what I always wanted to do - you create time stamp fields in the SQL databases because you want to be very accurate about time - specifically, and very precisely, about when events are known to occur, or will occur in future. And what you want is that when you retrieve and review the information from a client - either from the iPhone or iPad, or from the Mac - when you're moving around the world, from one time zone to the other, you want these times to very specifically follow the local time, yet they still refer to the same precise points in absolute time. So when you land in LA after a flight from Singapore, and you update your landing time, someone in Singapore or anywhere else in the world will see that time mapped automatically to their local times zones. And you want it such that it doesn't matter where your database server is physically residing in the world. You want it all to just work even if you have to uproot the server and move it to, say, Turkey. You just move it and everything to do with time will continue to work, with no additional effort on the part of the database administrator. And so, we've worked very hard on time zones to make time zones disappear as a concern for the user. You just move around the world with your iDevices, and Apple happily updates your time zone automatically, and our apps will show you the times in the database in local times. You just don't have to think about it.
Posted at 8:44AM UTC | permalink
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