Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
2
This flaw in WordPress is important to be aware of, as having
the time be off by an hour is potentially confusing to you and
your blog visitors. Set a reminder to yourself to “spring ahead
and fall back” by an hour with your WordPress Timezone set-
ting as needed to reflect the actual current time.
•
Date Format
—If you ever expect to have a foreign visitor to
your site, use either of the first two date formats, with the sam-
ple dates given as August 20, 2009 and 2009/08/20. Both these
formats are clear as to which is the month and which is the
year, though the first is clearer. Avoid the latter two formats,
with the sample dates given as 08/20/2009 and 20/08/2009.
Americans and many others put the month first and the day
number second; Europeans and many others put the day num-
ber first and the month second. You're bound to confuse someone with either of these poten-
tially confusing formats, so stick to the first two.
•
Time Format
—Similar to the Date Format, Americans and others use times with AM and PM,
and Europeans and others use the format that Americans call military time, such as 23:41. Use
the format that suits most of your audience best, though AM/PM time is more easily understood
by military time users than military time is understood by civilians.
tip
If your audience is mostly mili-
tary, from any country, your
choice of time format is clear.
This is also one audience who
really hates it if you don't
change the time zone to
reflect daylight savings time
changes. You don't want peo-
ple with artillery and tanks to
hate your blog, do you?
Figure 2.3
Take care,
even the
General
Settings have
a few pitfalls.
