07.13.08

I Want That! Picks

Posted in life, tech at 12:44 am by mridley

There’s a fun television show on the Fine Living television network. It’s called I Want That! and it’s probably not a TiVo season pass pick for anti-consumerism activists. The show is pretty much explained by its title - they showcase a lot of “cool stuff”. I thought I’d post some recent items I saw on the show that appealed to me. Enjoy.

GeoChron is a wall map of the world that actually functions as a clock. It updates the view of the world showing current daylight and takes into account the rotation of the Earth on its axis and other factors that impact the “terminator” on the globe. At the top of the map it shows the current time in each time zone across the world. It’s quite pricey and there are free software programs that provide equivalent functionality. But I like the idea of having a “wall map” clock that doesn’t take up screen real estate. I do work and interact with people all over the world and keeping track of global timezones in my head can be a pain, especially with daylight savings time in the Northern and Southern hemispheres being opposite. I don’t see myself buying one any time soon, but if I had an extra $1800 that I had to spend, I’d consider it.

Reversica makes a hardware mount for cabinetry that allows you to have a cabinet rotate 180 degrees on its axis so that you can hide, for example, a plasma television with bookshelves on the opposite side. When I build my super hero hideout I’ll be sure to get one. But since I currently rent I don’t think I’m investing $3,000 in custom cabinetry hardware to hide a plasma TV I don’t have. But once I do finally buy a place I may re-evaluate.

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07.01.08

Follow Up on Using Mediawiki as a Personal Document Management System

Posted in life at 6:19 am by mridley

Several months ago I wrote about using my personal Mediawiki as a Document Management System.  I am writing to follow up on my experience with that.  It’s actually working out wonderfully.  I am always tempted to make things more complicated than they need to be, but for my needs using a wiki for document management works perfectly.

I have uploaded various documents of personal interest, such as time sheets, offer letters, tax information, etc. and I have access to these bits of information from any web browser.  Much more efficient than trying to look through my filing system at home, consisting of an underused file drawer and a highly used system of “piles of mail spread around”.