One of the changes in Tiger I’ve found very difficult is in Date and Time, or more specifically, in International custom formats for Date and Time. I’m officially confused and stumped. I’ve been using computers for more than 20 years and Macs for the last 16 years and I can’t get the date and time formats to work right for me under Tiger.
Here’s what I like: 24 hour clock, leading zero, 4 digit year. I like these dates and times, for example:
- 07:32 on 04/12/2005
- 21:47 on 04 December 2005
In earlier operating systems I could just choose a check box for 24 hour and leading zero. Done. The new Custom Formats window has a bunch of little blue ovals and several pop-up menus for short, medium, long and full. I can add in AD and week 2 and whatnot. I figured out that I could click on the blue oval to get the leading zero, but then it doesn’t seem to stick. Am I supposed to set all the formats, or just one? If I set a leading zero and close the Prefs then reopen them that leading zero seems to have disappeared.
Eudora’s busy displaying times with AM and PM — I hate it! Moneyworks complains I’ve changed my date format. I’m nervous about updating my accounts as the GST report relies on the date.
The extra possibilities are great — I guess people who use other calendars will be thrilled they can set their computer to the Islamic, Civil calendar and all power to them. This new method of setting it up though is a real dud: I want my 24 hour clock and leading zeros everywhere on my Mac.
And what are they thinking, choosing the 5th of January 2005 as the sample date? For heaven’s sake, there’s enough confusion in the world about exactly what 01/01/05 represents. January 01? 01 January? 05 January 2001? How about using a sample date like 14 February 1999?
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