Ever noticed that the timestamps within Central Administration are in US Date format? If you think in months, days and years, that's OK. But for the rest of us it can be a little confusing. Has it really been 4 months since the Usage Analysis timer job ran? Why would the last backup have occurred on the 13th month of the year? And unless you live around GMT -08:00, you may also scratch your head at the times that SharePoint displays.
To banish this confusion, just change the Regional Settings within Central Administration. This is normally a piece of cake: Site Actions -> Site Settings -> Regional Settings. The problem is, the Regional Settings link doesn't appear in Central Administration. If you are feeling adventurous, you can access the settings page by going to /_layouts/regionalsetng.aspx on your Central Administration site.
Maybe there are a number of people taking care of the Central Administration site, and you are scattered across multiple time zones. Not to worry, to change just your own regional settings, go to /_layouts/regionalsetng.aspx?Type=User in Central Administration.
