[Dx4win] DX Spoting Window

[Pete Smith]

At 10:18 AM 12/15/02 -0500, Kurt W. Zimmerman wrote:
>Greetings all;
>         This subject might have been addressed before but I think it is 
> worth
>mentioning again.  I run a utility called Dimension 4.  You can find it at
>http://www.thinkman.com/dimension4/index.html ..  Since your logging
>software runs off the system clock, this utility keeps your system clock in
>sync with a time standard available on the internet.  One assumes that you
>machine is on the internet (dialed up, DSL or cable) when operating.  This
>way, you know you are going to be only a few milliseconds off the time
>standard.  Now if everyone syncs their clock off a time standard we
>wouldn't have any problems.  Hope this helps.

Let me put in a plug for another piece of freeware, Automachron from 
oneguycoding.com.  It does the same things as D4 and keeps a log of the 
corrections.

The rest is a little off-topic, but may be of interest to people having 
trouble with time accuracy under Win98SE.  I have been using Automachron to 
trouble-shoot a weird time-keeping problem on my new Win98 PC.  It holds 
good stable time for 12-18 hours at a time, and then starts losing 
time.  Even weirder, once the time loss begins, it grows for each interval 
thereafter.  For example, here's a little slice from the Automachron log 
(last two columns are seconds and milliseconds per 15 minute interval:

10:23:29 AM~0 142
10:38:29 AM~0 305
10:53:29 AM~0 497
11:08:30 AM~0 909
11:23:31 AM~1 242
11:38:32 AM~1 453
11:53:34 AM~1 878
12:08:36 PM~2 325
12:23:39 PM~2 834
12:38:42 PM~3 241
12:53:46 PM~3 889
  1:08:50 PM~4 541
  1:23:55 PM~4 910
  1:39:00 PM~5 434
  1:54:07 PM~6 395

After several false starts -- blaming a new KVM switch, bios/OS 
incompatibility, etc. -- I did a test deleting everything from the 
background task manager except for explorer and systray.  Bingo -- time is 
stable.  Then I added back in my firewall (Zonealarm), and next my 
anti-virus (McAfee).  Still stable.  I intend to reinstate the background 
tasks one at a time until I find the one that throws it off.  Automachron 
makes this job immeasurably easier!


73, Pete N4ZR
Happy Holidays