Archive for August, 2007
Timeplot and Exhibit
The folks over at MIT’s SIMILE have two new projects that are just mindbogglingly awesome. I used the Timeline Project for my research project a few semesters ago about World War II.
Now they have a new time line type tool called Timeplot. This project uses a plot graph to display numerical data along with historical events. Sort of a mix between numbers and dates. Analytic history, if you will. I love the simplicity of the look, the ease of use, and the way it merges cold, dead data with live historical events. I have always wondered what historical events were happening at the time when I see graphs of data. This is an awesome tool to allow that to happen.
The other project, Exhibit, is a digital historians dream. Do you have lots of spreadsheets of info, perhaps all your dissertation data stored in the old JSON file? Wondering how to show that on the web without creating an extensive database solution? Exhibit takes care of it for you. And it’s dynamic! Sort and search the data automatically included. Crazy goodness! Now I just have to think of where to use this too….
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The history of a software application
While doing some work today I stumbled upon a bit of history. The author calls it a story, but that’s what history is, right?
Anyhow, it’s a very entertaining and enthralling look at the birth and death (or retirement) of a software program. It provides a lot of insight into the process of making an application, building a software company, and some intriguing behind the scenes information about the coming forth of major Apple products like iTunes, iPhoto and the iPod.
Read “The True Story of Audion” the application that could have been iTunes. Link: http://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/
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