16th November 2001
You've heard of Web servers and food servers, but what about time servers? Thanks to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), your computer will always be running on time. The correct time, that is. According to them, one second is the time it takes a cesium atom to vibrate 9,192,631,770 times. That's what they're referring to when they talk about an "Atomic" clock. It's nothing dangerous, mind you. In fact, you can sync your system with it automatically in Windows XP; we've featured several (free) third-party utilities to do this in other versions of Windows. Double-click the clock in your system tray, flip to the Internet Time tab, select a server, press the "Update Now" button, and you're (literally) set! Care to tweak the time when Windows will automatically synchronize next? In your Registry, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ ControlSet001 \ Services \ W32Time \ TimeProviders \ NtpClient. Edit the "SpecialPollInterval" entry and change its decimal value to any number you want (in seconds). My suggestion is for you to keep the syncs spaced no less than a day apart. If your system is losing too much time too often, it's time to replace the battery on your motherboard.