Nibbles |
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by Charles Olsen |
If you have to communicate with people around the world _ or even around the country _ it can be helpful to know what time it is in those areas. EarthTime 2.0, from Starfish Software, can help with that.
The first time you start EarthTime, it brings up a screen allowing you to specify your home city, the city you're currently in, and other cities you're interested in. The primary display is a map of the world, showing the areas of daylight and darkness. Around the map are eight digital clocks showing the time in different cities. You can rearrange the clocks by clicking and dragging them to a new location around the map. You can also change the selected cities at any time, as your needs change.
There are over 400 cities in the EarthTime database. In addition to the current time, EarthTime will provide quite a bit of other information about the city: position (latitude and longitude), country, city and country phone code, language, currency, population, time zone, time of sunrise and sunset, how many hours of daylight the city has on that day, when Daylight Saving Time begins and ends, even the current and next phase of the moon. Most of this information can be edited, allowing you to update the city information if it changes.
To further assist in your international dealings, EarthTime can perform conversions between many different types of units _ for example, between English and metric measurement, or between numerous units of standard and scientific measurement. It will convert units of length, luminance, mass, magnetic flux, power, pressure, torque, velocity, time, volume, weight, and others.
If your PC connects to the Internet, EarthTime can automatically or manually synchronize the computer's system clock.
EarthTime is a simple program, designed for people who are doing business across time zones. It doesn't do a lot, but it is very good at what it does. It packs a lot of information into a small, easy-to-use program. If you're doing business across time zones, you should take a look at EarthTime.
EarthTime 2.0, Starfish Software, 1700 Green Hills Road, Scotts Valley, CA 95066. 408/461-5800 Requires: 386 or higher, Windows 95 or Windows NT Workstation 3.51, 2MB hard disk space, 6MB RAM, mouse or other pointing device. Street price: about $20.
Charles Olsen is a HAL-PC member and computer writer in the Houston area. © 1996 by Charles M. Olsen.
E-mail me at webmaster@hal-pc.org with any comments you have and tell me what you want to see here.
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