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  • What Time is it There UPDATE
    Jul‣31‣09

    Thanks to Twitter friend James Socol What Time is it There has gotten a brand spankin’ new feature and a new home. Behold the new whattimeisitthere.info.

    wtiit-screenshot

    James kindly lent his javascript prowess to my little project and gave it a little backend makeover. He cleaned things up and added my #1 dream feature: the ability to change the time and see the change across the board.

    showthetimeboxNotice the new Show time box. Just type in what you would like to see. For example, say I’ve got a meeting at 9am Eastern time tomorrow. What time do I need to get up? I just type in “at 9am eastern” and bam I can see what time that is in my time zone. You can also type things like “in 6 hours”.

    This really puts the icing on the cake for me. Thanks James for the awesome work and the sweet domain!

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  • What Time is it There?
    Jul‣22‣09

    Every once in a while I need to know what time it is in another part of the country(USA). Now, I know in general what the differences between the time zones are but I always question myself. I always hit google and am always surprised at the lackluster results I find. All the best sites for seeing the times in all US time zones are content heavy and hard to look at. What I wanted is something I could easily just glance at and instantly know what time it was in a different time zone. Thus I began this project: What Time is it There

    wtiit

    Using some simple javascript and an Eric Carle inspired map I created a bright and simple visual reference that tells me swiftly what time it is in all US time zones. I’ve already found it to be incredibly useful to myself and I’m hoping to add a few features soon.

    The code is a little janky right now. The 12:00am/pm display is a little shaky, but it works for my purposes. The feature I’m looking to develop next is the ability to change the time. Its all well and good to know what time it is right now in other time zones but what if I need to know what time I need to get up for a 9am EST meeting? I’d like to be able to easily put that in and then see the relative times across all time zones. And then of course I’d like to extend it internationally but that’s a whole can of worms.

    If anyone who’s well versed in Javascript would like to help out I’d be happy to collaborate on this. I’d also like to give this project its own domain but my recreational domain purchase budget is wiped out so if anyone wants to donate that’d be great. :)

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  • Steep.it – the simplest internet tea timer EVER.
    Jul‣22‣09

    After giving the front page of e.ggtimer.com a makeover for the amazing David Lemieux, it occurred to me that I was using the timer a lot for tea. A tea-centric version of e.ggtimer immediately came to mind and I quickly found the perfect url: steep.it. I talked to David about it and he was totally into it and even made a few upgrades to the timer. So now, you have the easiest way to time tea steeping with the internet you’ve ever seen.

    steepit

    If you haven’t used e.ggtimer yet, you should go check it out. The great thing about it is that you type the time you want right into the url. This works great with Steep.it because you can type it just like you’d say it. Just type in steep.it/3minutes and you’re timing. You can even type in shortcuts like steep.it/black or steep.it/green for the best average steeping time for those kinds of teas. We’ve also provided a handy timing chart on the homepage in case you’re not sure how long to steep it.

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  • #followfriday Twitter list
    Mar‣20‣09

    I’ve been using Twitter for almost 2 years now. I can’t even believe that. Like most new Twitter users, I’m sure, I felt like Twitter was the silliest thing ever. Now, all this time later I’ve found Twitter to be an incredible asset and a nice replacement for the office environment I left to go freelance. I feel the network that I’ve become a part of keeps me sane in that I can get all the nerdy design and internet banter out and participate with people instead of  boring my poor wife with all of it. Through Twitter I’ve met many interesting people and have made some great friends and connections. Here, in no particular order, are some of the people in my network I’m proud to follow and I think you should follow too.

    @benrasmusen

    Ben Rasmusen is one of my best friends and is the guy who got me into Twitter. He is a most excellent code ninja and shares some great stuff.

    @rogieking

    Rogie King is an awesome designer and was an inspiration to me to get my site into gear and level up my CSS skills.

    @mattbrett

    Matt Brett is another designer who has been a constant source of inspiration to me.

    @MadGringoCEO

    This guy is a mad genius. He writes all the copy for MadGringo and he pimps Hawaiian Shirts all day. How awesome is that? He has been very supportive of my freelance switch and my silly little side project and is also a great role model for the proper attitude in the workplace.

    @Vonster

    Von Glitschka is one of my illustration idols. His work is amazing and he offers amazing tutorials and lessons on drawing vectors through his site IllustrationClass.com.

    @lemieuxster

    I’ve become good friends with David Lemieux through Twitter and several projects we’ve collaborated on. He makes all kinds of awesome stuff.

    That’s all for now. Please follow these peeps if you’re not already, you won’t regret it.

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  • benlew.com v2.1 is official
    Mar‣20‣09

    Welcome to the brand-spanking new benlew.com. This site is the convergance of my personal blog (n0s0ap.com) and my professional portfolio. Here you will find samples of my work as well as my musings as a roving web designer and crazed geek.

    This version of the site has been a long time coming and I am proud to show it to you. There are a number of solutions and plugins I found along the way and I’ll be blogging about them in the coming weeks. Wordpress is just such a powerful and flexible tool, I’ve been geeking out about it alot lately. I can’t wait to share some of the stuff I’ve found.

    Some of the blog archives are pretty old and have lived through several blog permutations so please bear with me if there are broken links or images. And I know there are some things to be polished and tested so if you see anything that you don’t like let me know and I’ll get right on it.

    Thanks for stopping by! I hope you have a great Hawaiian Shirt Friday!

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