Question about user defined control

I created the following control and added it to a form in the form design. I was curious about a couple of things. First, even in the IDE it is running and updating the time and date. Is this normal. Secondly, is this a normal way to add date/time to a user defined control?

HTML Code:

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Public Class MyStatusbar
    Inherits Windows.Forms.StatusStrip
    Private sslTime As New ToolStripStatusLabel
    Private sslDate As New ToolStripStatusLabel
    Private sslStatus As New ToolStripStatusLabel
    Private WithEvents ssTimer As New Timer

    Public Sub New()
        MyBase.New()
       
        Me.Items.AddRange(New System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem() {sslTime, sslDate, sslStatus})

        sslTime.AutoSize = False
        sslTime.Name = "sslTime"
        sslTime.Size = New System.Drawing.Size(120, 18)
        sslTime.Text = Now.ToLongTimeString

        sslDate.AutoSize = False
        sslDate.Name = "sslDate"
        sslDate.Size = New System.Drawing.Size(120, 18)
        sslDate.Text = Now.ToShortDateString

        sslStatus.AutoSize = True
        sslStatus.TextAlign = ContentAlignment.MiddleCenter
        sslStatus.Name = "sslStatus"
        sslStatus.Text = "No status updates available"

        ssTimer.Enabled = True
        ssTimer.Interval = 900

    End Sub

    Private Sub UpdateTime(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles ssTimer.Tick
        sslDate.Text = Now.ToShortDateString
        sslTime.Text = Now.ToLongTimeString
    End Sub

    Public Sub UpdateStatus(ByVal msg As String, ByVal fnt As Font)
        Dim sze As Single = fnt.Size
        If sze > sslStatus.Height Then
            sze = sslStatus.Height
        Else
            sze = fnt.SizeInPoints
        End If
        sslStatus.Text = msg
        sslStatus.Font = New Drawing.Font(fnt.SystemFontName, fnt.SizeInPoints, fnt.Style)
    End Sub
End Class

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You might like to check out this:

http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=418118

It's a custom status label that you can add to any StatusStrip. I think it provides a little more flexibility. You can then add an instance to a custom StatusStrip if you want to use it in multiple forms. I would think that it would only be your main form that would need it though, so a custom class would not be necessary.

Thanks! I've downloaded this code and will take a look and try to understand it. Hope you don't mind if I post questions about it.