Out-of-this-world technology helps you stay on time
Q. How does my computer and my smartphone know when or how to adjust the clock for different time zones or daylight saving time?
A. When it comes to knowing what time it is, your devices use some remarkable technologies to keep track.
Mobile phones and computers use their data connections to communicate with internet time servers using a protocol called NTP to request and receive the current date and time.
Internet time servers keep track of time from various resources, usually from GPS satellites, and record Coordinated Universal Time — referred to as UTC — and transmit that information to devices connected to the internet.
Your devices then use location data to convert UTC to your specific time zone, thus giving you the correct time.
Location data comes from your devices based on where it’s connected to the internet.
And since your time zone and physical location also account for changes relating to daylight saving time, your phone and computer are able to seamlessly adjust as needed. Q. I recently changed the password on my Wi-Fi router, and now my computer will not connect. It simply fails and will not let me enter a new password. How do I fix
this?
A. Your computer saves your Wi-Fi connection settings to make it easier to reconnect when it’s time to get on your home network. When you changed your router password your computer keeps trying to connect with the password it has saved in the setting.
To solve this problem, you have to tell your computer to forget your network so that a new connection can be saved.
On a Windows PC simply click “Start,” then the settings icon and open “Network & Internet.”
Click on Wi-Fi and select “Manage known networks” and find the Wi-Fi router and select it and the click on forget.
Now, when you can, look for your home Wi-Fi and connect to it, and you will be prompted for the new password.
If you are using a Mac, it’s basically the same thing. Open System Preferences and then click on “Network.” Select WiFi in the left column and then click on “Advanced.”
Here you will see a list of all the Wi-Fi networks your Mac is keeping track of. Simply select the one you want to remove and click the remove button, which looks like a minus sign.
Click “OK” and you should be able to reconnect and provide your new router password.