Charlotte Van Der Waals’ World Time Clock is an example of design that is thoughtful and ingenious. The clock manages to convey multiple timezones in a single clock face without the use of buttons, gimmicks and well, technology. Just roll the clock so that the desired city etched on the sides is on top. 12 sides with 2 cities per side represent the 24 global time zones.
For those of you who just have to aquire one now, it is available at Junro.
Not sure how many of you reading this are history buffs, (for that matter, I’m not a big history buff myself) but I LOVE a good map. Especially an old map. I guess it appeals to the treasure hunter in me. Not sure. So, when someone comes along and joins my love of old maps and technology, I become slightly giddy… well, not really, but either way you look at it, it’s damned cool.
If you are not interested in old maps in their own right, then know that this is an old map of Edinburgh (that’s in Scotland for you geographically challenged people out there).
We have all seen something like this at one time or another, some of you may have even played with something similar at one point. I have never seen something so thoughtfully implemented however. If I had a Tablet PC (which I dearly desire) this would certainly be a VERY useful replacement for the current standard desktop.
The only thing that I am having some difficulty seeing is how the file names are denoted. A grouping of Word Documents (for instance) would all look very much alike in this layout. This is just a proof of concept though, so I am sure that they are addressing things like that.
As Tim Anderson points out in his post on this topic, it is going to be interesting to see what effect WPF has on moving more applications toward 3D as a replacement for 2D applications. Typically 3D has been something relegated to the world of designers and modellers, but it is looking more and more like Microsoft has done their homework and brought this capability into the hands of the everyday programmer.
Regardless, take a look & enjoy.
I have used SlideShowPro on a few projects, and I have been uploading like crazy to Flickr lately… So, add that to a burning desire to redo my site (just a little bit. This layout has some issues), and I decided it would be cool to put the two together. Alas, while the new SlideShowPro supports flickr feeds, it does so only for the images that the RSS from Flickr provides, which is only the last 10 pictures you have uploaded… no good.
Enter this nice little app from Brian Sweeting. It pulls in each of your Photo Sets on Flickr as a Gallery along with ALL of your pictures… Great Job Brian!
For those of you who have hidden under a rock the past couple of days, there is a new browser making an attempt to enter the scene. Enter “Flock“. Interesting name for a browser until you realize that Yahoo is behind it.
Some nice things about Flock:
-Based on the Mozilla code base
-Built in NewsReader with a very nice “Frontpage” that aggregates a folder of feeds into blurbs on a single page allowing you to select which ones you have read or not.
-Built in interface to upload items to your Flickr or PhotoBucket account
-Built in interface to right click on selected text & automatically post to your blog
-… etc.
It looks like they are going to support the same extensions & theming that Firefox does which makes sense since it is based on the “same” codebase.
This is only a .7 beta release, but it is certainly showing a lot of initial potential. As this nears a 1.0 release, Firefox may have a serious competitor on its hands.