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Date:	Sat, 10 May 2003 10:19:05 PDT7
From:	Peter Skye <pskye@peterskye.com >
Reply-To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
Subject:	SCOUG-Help: More on setting clock from startup.cmd

Content Type: text/plain

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I posted my startup.cmd file a couple of days ago.

One of the commands in it runs Daytime which gets the "atomic clock"
time over the Internet and accurately sets the hardware clock on the
motherboard.

I've been meaning to add some additional time server sites to Daytime
because the various Internet clocks (technically Network Time Protocol
servers, or NTP servers) sometimes aren't available which means the
motherboard clock doesn't get set.

So yesterday I added some more time server sites to make sure at least
one of them is available when startup.cmd runs. Here is the updated
section of my startup.cmd:

daytime tick.usno.navy.mil
daytime time-b.nist.gov
daytime utcnist.colorado.edu
daytime clock.psu.edu

There are a _lot_ of NTP servers. If you want the best accuracy try to
pick ones that are close to you to minimize lag time (you can check the
routing and delay with tracerte, or just the delay with ping).

Remember that once Daytime sets your clock from startup.cmd your clock
will still "drift" a bit because it has nothing to synchronize to (my
machines have drifts of anywhere between 20 seconds and two minutes over
a 24 hour period). If you run a clock synchronizing program in a window
after your bootup is done your clock will always be correct. I use
OS2NTPD; one thing I like about it is that it uses a lot of different
NTP servers and averages their values which gives a higher accuracy.
Another OS2NTPD benefit is that it continues to keep the motherboard
clock synchronized even when you aren't connected to the Internet by
using a software phase locked loop to figure out the necessary
compensation per unit of time. A third thing I like about OS2NTPD is
that its resolution is 1/60 second which is much better than the others
I've looked at.

- Peter

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