Changing display of UTC time to local time

Well I do not have a Mac but here is a guess.
Go to the laptop and check the timezone settings and then go to the desktop and make it the same setting?

Setting tracks to local time no success

In System Prefs, under Date & Time, check what time zone is set and whether the box to set automatically by location is ticked.

-dan

I have check all that and both computers are the same. The onlt difference was that the desktop was running OS 10.7.8 whereas the laptop was running 10.8.2/ I downloaded 10.8 from the app store and this did not correct the problem,

I have check all that and both computers are the same. The onlt difference was that the desktop was running OS 10.7.8 whereas the laptop was running 10.8.2/ I downloaded 10.8 from the app store and this did not correct the problem,

Very strange problem. Try this little test.
Get the date and time of the first trackpoint using the laptop.
If your timezone is a minus (like -8 for the west coast) then you must ADD the 8 hours to the laptop time to get UTC time.
Now your calculated UTC time should be the same as the UTC time on your desktop.

If the times match then I suspect you have some kind of corruption in your desktop Date & Time software that is preventing it from applying the timezone correction.

If the times are off by 12 hours then something is haywire with the am or pm setting.

offset

Very strange problem. Try this little test.
Get the date and time of the first trackpoint using the laptop.
If your timezone is a minus (like -8 for the west coast) then you must ADD the 8 hours to the laptop time to get UTC time.
Now your calculated UTC time should be the same as the UTC time on your desktop.

If the times match then I suspect you have some kind of corruption in your desktop Date & Time software that is preventing it from applying the timezone correction.

If the times are off by 12 hours then something is haywire with the am or pm setting.

The offset is 7 hours (earlier) which is correct for MST and the time is labeled UTC. So it is correct. The issue is I would prefer to see it displayed as local ,which is easier to get my head around. This has to be a setting in Basecamp if not the software should give the option to change to local time.

The offset is 7 hours (earlier) which is correct for MST and the time is labeled UTC. So it is correct. The issue is I would prefer to see it displayed as local ,which is easier to get my head around. This has to be a setting in Basecamp if not the software should give the option to change to local time.

I hope someone with a Mac steps in here.
Obviously the PC version is different than Mac because when I open the track properties on any of my tracks the column with the date and time just says "Time". It does not label the timezone like UTC or MST.

Like your laptop, all my tracks display the date and time corrected from UTC to the timezone set in my computer.

I'm using an iMac running OS X 10.8.2 with Eastern Standard time selected in 24 hour display mode, using a tracklog created on my 276C and viewed in BaseCamp 4.0.4. The tracklog was created in the early afternoon on 9 January 2012.

Viewing it in BaseCamp it shows a selected point as as being created "01/09/2012 12:13:04"

If I look at the same point using TextWrangler (a great free Mac program from Bare Bones Software) it reveals the xml to be: "<time>2012-09-01T16:13:04Z</time>"

So, my iMac is doing the same as DATEZ's PC: displaying the date and time corrected from Zulu to local. The track was also recorded in the local timezone. I will look back through some non local time zone tracks and see what happens there.

In System Prefs, under Date & Time, check what time zone is set and whether the box to set automatically by location is ticked.

-dan

On the desktop, there is no need to check the box to have the location set automatically assuming your house stays in one location :)

I suggest that you uncheck that box and then manually select a timezone you are not in by clicking on the map in System Preferences and then select the proper timezone for your location. This should act to force the system software to flush out any bad location info and put the correct info into the proper locations.

I don't quite follow

On the desktop, there is no need to check the box to have the location set automatically assuming your house stays in one location :)

I suggest that you uncheck that box and then manually select a timezone you are not in by clicking on the map in System Preferences and then select the proper timezone for your location. This should act to force the system software to flush out any bad location info and put the correct info into the proper locations.

I am not sure what you mean by unchecking the box on the desktop to have the location set. I tried changing the time zone to EST and then back to MST and that did not work.

What I see in the time column is 1/22/13 4:26:27 PM (UTC). This time is correct since in MST it is 9:26:27 AM. I can't get the MST time to display. I need to do the conversion in my head every time. I would prefer the MST time was displayed. I am also using 10.8.2

I am not sure what you mean by unchecking the box on the desktop to have the location set. I tried changing the time zone to EST and then back to MST and that did not work.

What I see in the time column is 1/22/13 4:26:27 PM (UTC). This time is correct since in MST it is 9:26:27 AM. I can't get the MST time to display. I need to do the conversion in my head every time. I would prefer the MST time was displayed. I am also using 10.8.2

System Preferences:Date & Time you should have the set date and time automatically check box checked and it should be using "Apple Americas/U.S.(time.apple.com)" in the selection box.

Then go to the Time Zone Tab on that same screen and you should now be viewing the little map of the world. Just above that map is a little check box that says "Set time zone automatically using current location" If that box is checked AND wifi is turned on the system will automatically determine where it is and will set the proper time zone.

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The only other thing I can think of is that your actual system clock on the motherboard, i.e., the hardware clock (if Apple has such a thing) might have somehow been set to local time. IIRC most Unix/Linux/BSD systems have their hardware clocks set to UST and do the time zone correction to local time in software to the kernel clock.

In any event if you open a terminal window and type "date" (without the quotes) and hit return the system will respond with the day, date, the time and the timezone.
Mine looks like this: Thu 24 Jan 2013 00:07:33 EST

If I instead type "date -u" I get this: Thu 24 Jan 2013 05:07:37 UTC