Technology, Books and Other Neat Stuff

I'm a big fan of the Transport For London web site.

It's a prime example of what a public service web site should be - with plenty of services, an excellent navigation scheme, and an expanding range of tools.

I keep a couple of services on my browser tool bar, and today I added the updated version of its Tube Real Time Disruption Map.

Now if only it ran on a mobile phone...

[link thanks to Davblog's del.icio.us feed]

Technorati Tags: tfl, web, tube

Looking for a plumber to come fix our ailing boiler (why do they go wrong in the middle of winter?), we came across a series of web sites designed by a company called Blue Halo, who seem to specialise in web presences for small businesses.

"But why call themselves Blue Halo?" asked marypcb.

"Sure", I said, looking at the images^* on one of their sites, and thinking of the early days of the web. "It's obviously the gas ring..."

^*they were all pictures of a lit gas hob

This map of the London Underground is an interesting experiment in information visualisation.

Click on a station (there's also a drop down where you can choose a station name) to watch the map reformat itself to show how far other stations are away in time...

Here's a capture of the view from East Putney.



You'll need Java 1.4 or better to view the Java applet

Vaster than empires and more slow, the thoughts move one atom at a time, crossing calcium synapses with glacial inevitability. Behind closed eyes the rock dreams.

Stone carving on the dunes near New Brighton. White limestone on a dark, grassy dune.

New Zealand
December 2004

I'm in the middle of writing a series of web development tutorials. Each one needs 25 to 35 screenshots, so I'm using the venerable RoboScreenCapture to grab whole windows, as well as sections of screen.

It's an excellent tool, that does a great job of capturing all sorts of application. Unfortunately, it's too good. Pixel perfect 1:1 images can be a little confusing at times...

I keep clicking on the save icons in the captured windows when I finally save my images.

Which, as you no doubt can imagine, doesn't work.

Doh!

...a paper model of the Serenity.

Something to make on a cold winter night...

[via maetang]

The Google Blog points at a new radio button on the Google Earth download page.

Yes, it's out for OS X 10.4. No word if it's a universal binary...

Time to get rid of your illicit copy of the beta!