[ TechnoCage | Caskey | clok ]
Clok is a new tool for visualizing time. It isn't for everyone though and it is not meant to replace clocks, it is meant to be used in concert with them. Clok runs as a Java application, however it is implemented as a JPanel so any Swing application can incorporate a clok into itself. Also, there is Clok/PHP which generates PNGs for incorporation into web pages.
Download | How To Use
This is clok being used to display the time in Los Angeles, where I work, and in Australia, where a co-worker works. The reason I have clok displaying those times is that I often must coordinate my schedule with theirs. Using the image above on my desktop (running live) I very easily manage my communication and interaction with my co-workers. Even more importantly, however, I can gain that mental 'image' of where they are in their day. Something that I can never do when I am thinking about the fact that it is (numerically) 9:37AM there. By glancing at the Clok, I can quickly see that for them it is in the morning and people have just started their day.
Many people find themselves needing to answer the question What time is it? What they really are trying to find out is the answer to one of the following questions:
The last question is the one that I find myself most needing answered. The coloring is currently set for human time. What that means is that the colors correspond to the cycles of human activity. This is in opposition to the cycles of internet or network activity which is more useful for system administrators--but more on that later.
In case you haven't figured it out, the red line is the current time.
Why are there divisions? Well, most people's day is broken up into time periods where they are sleeping, getting work done, driving, doing chores and the like. While each day is a little different, The day generally has five or so phases. Sleeping is obviously the least productive and so that is represented in black. The morning is the time between sleeping and lunch, lunch is a time of recovery and planning for the rest of the day. Then there is the afternoon, which for many is the time when the majority of their work gets done. Finally comes evening, which is personal time, time spent with family, or time taking care of those responsibilities that have to do with running our lives and not earning a paycheck.
While my characterization of what goes on during these times most certainly doesn't match up exactly (or even partially) with what your or anyone else's day is like, the fact that there is a division of the day into phases is most likely something we all have. Clok simply tries to represent these phases graphically.
The current version is 1.4.
You can download the source and/or the jars for all versions here. Each package has a GPG signature signed by the distributor, Caskey Dickson. You can get a copy of my key for verification here. For those without GPG, here are the checksums of the distribution. These are available in the file checksums.txt in the download directory.
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Steve Babineau has developed a PHP based implementation of clok. It is included in the distribution as of clok 1.2.
You can view a demo of clok/PHP in action here at Steve's web site. Above is a static image that was generated live via the Clok/PHP script. It does incorporate a blending effect on the color bars that is not available in the Java version.
If you download the jar, the easiest thing to do is just run the jar like so:
$ java -jar clok.jar
That will produce a list of time zones your java runtime supports. Pick the
one that most closely matches your locality and add that as a command
line parameter. You can actually add as many as you want. For myself,
America/Los_Angeles is the closest locality to me.
$ java -jar clok.jar America/Los_Angeles
You can select which banding set is used by appending a colon and the name of the banding set. The currently available bands are default, human, hacker and server. Here is the example whose output can be seen below.
$ java -jar clok.jar America/Los_Angeles America/Los_Angeles:human \ America/Los_Angeles:hacker America/Los_Angeles:server
If you really want to have control, you can append your own banding set to the name of the time zone. There can be only five times as currently only five bands are supported, and they are named (for historical reasons) startNight, startMorning, startLunch, startAfternoon, startEvening. Place them in that order after the colon and you'll get that banding set. Currently you cannot control the colors being used or the number of bands but that will come eventually. Also, the numbers must be in order. They can wrap around midnight anywhere you want, but you must not skip around. Here are two examples of using the default band set alongside a custom one.
$ java -jar clok.jar Africa/Nairobi Pacific/Fiji:2,10,15,16,23
$ java -jar clok.jar Asia/Yakutsk Asia/Ujung_Pandang:12,18,22,8,10
Human time means that the coloring corresponds to the cycles of human activity. The black section is between 2am and 8am, the time that it is most assured that someone will be sleeping and not available. The lighter colored sections are the morning and afternoon, with the lightest section being the noon to 2pm area when most people are having lunch, goofing off, surfing the web and least interested in work. Finally the dark blue section corresponds to the evening. For some that is personal time for others that is the most productive part of the day.
It is important to note that what I describe here as human time is not what is used as the command-line parameter for human time. What is described here is the default time banding scheme. human banding is actually a looser traditional business day beginning at 7am and ending at 11pm with a 1 hour lunch period. I wish I got that much sleep!
America/Los_Angeles showing off default, human, hacker and server time simultaneously.
