Oct - Big Blue and Cousins

Big Blue & Cousins
(Neither Chronograph nor Nistime made the Tucows list).
Get SymmTime from Tucows.
Tardis and K9
Tardis is an advanced and mature utility for “synchronizing
time using internet-based Atomic Clocks, networked
timeservers, GPS, radio clocks, and by listening
for time broadcasts over a LAN”. I started using Tardis soon
after I installed my first internet dial-up connection. Clocks
on older 286 computers, or mine anyway, were notoriously
unreliable and even a periodic dial-up synchronization was
helpful.
From the Tardis History page: “The idea for Tardis came
about way back in 1994 when...
www.bbc.org
Chronograph 4
the company’s Technical Director,
became frustrated with the way his
PC’s clock drifted. ... Having completed
the utility, which he named
“Tardis” after the time machine in
the 1960s cult sci-fi series ‘Dr Who’,
he decided to make it available as
shareware via the Internet.”
(Incidentally, it looks like the
BBC will be resurrecting Dr Who.
For more information on Dr Who
and the Tardis time machine see
www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/tardiscam/intro.shtml
— much more
interesting than this rather dry
discussion of ways to keep your
computer clock reasonably accurate.)
Tardis can act as both a server
and client for the supported protocols.
That is, it can get the time
from a timeserver and then make
the time available to local clients.
When running on a central server
(Windows 2000, 2003, XP Pro),
Tardis can act as a master time
source for the domain by running
the appropriate version of Tardis with the smaller K9 on the
other workstations. The K9 program (named after Dr Who’s
Another Opinion
Chronograph 4.0 for Windows
is software that will
accurately set your computer’s
time for you according to one of eleven
NIST time servers in the US.
Why should we worry about our system
clock being accurate in the first place? One good
reason is being able to rely on the time stamps
within your system logs. If your system clock
is out by a few minutes, you might not be able
to tell your ISP when an intrusion happened
or when an email was transferred.
Chronograph 4.0 is very quick and easy
to set up. It has a clean, easy to understand
interface, and with a few extra clicks it can
customized to run automatically. It can also be
set to act as a time server for other computers
on your LAN. You cannot pick your own source
server such as time.nrc.ca, however.
Brad Crockett
October 2004
robot dog) is a small program that runs in the background
and will synchronize other LAN computers, including Linux
machines with the main time server. www.kaska.demon.co.uk/
k9.htm. Also see www.ntp.org for Linux NTP time servers.
K9 is not normally needed for home networks.
Tardis can be set to query the time as often as once a
minute — but that seems excessive to me — I find a check
every two hours is sufficient. Tardis
also provides interesting ancil-
lary information like estimated
clock drift.
A pdf file, included with the
program, provides more detailed
information on Tardis and shows
how to connect various external
devices to obtain millisecond accuracy.
Tardis is shareware, $20
US. (There is also a version for
Win 3.x.)
Summary
So which is best? Well, Nistime
is free and has superior help
screens. SymmTime is also free
and can display clocks for several
locations on your desktop.
Chronograph has a fancy display
and, like Tardis, can act as a time
server for network computers and
offers dial-up connections. Tardis
seems to be the most advanced
and configurable of the bunch.
However, any would do — as
would most of the programs on
the Tucows website listed above.
As for me, I’ll stick with Tardis if
only for the Dr Who connection. Besides Tardis has served
me well over time.
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