|
|
|
By Rich Castagna
Phones, fax, overnight mail and jet planes turn the eight-hour workday into a myth. Often, it's more important to know what time it is there than here. Masters of time and space will delight in Starfish's timely new utility program, EarthTime.
EarthTime, true to its name, displays a map of the world, with a curvy line depicting the edge of night (apologies, soap opera fans) as it inches its way around the globe. Around the map's borders, eight digital clocks are arrayed, each displaying the time in a different city.
You set one of the clocks as your "home" clock. Leave your home zone and you can designate another clock as the "local" time; EarthTime automatically resets your system's clock to the new local time.
EarthTime can also offer facts about the city you're visiting. I now know that Hong Kong's population is 5,858,000. The program also provides conversions for a slew of units of measurements.
If you want to feel like you're always the center of attention, you can right-click anywhere on the map to designate a new focal point and EarthTime will shift the display accordingly. In addition, you can change display colors, choose whether to display seconds and adjust the basis for a unit conversion. You can even take EarthTime into cyberspace with its Netscape 2.0 plug-in.
At day's end, EarthTime will show you the moon's current phase and the time of tomorrow's sunrise, so you can tackle another day's hectic schedule.
EarthTime can't tell where you're going, but it certainly knows when you'll get there.
Info File
EarthTime 2.0
Price: $19.95
Pros: Easy; Internet version
Cons: Online documentation
Platforms: Windows 95, NT
Disk Space: 2MB
RAM: 6MB
Starfish Software
800-765-7839, 408-461-5800
WinMag Box Score: 3.0
|
|
|