Archive for the ‘Tools’ category

Firefox custom search engine: Pinboard

July 4th, 2011

pinboard.in is a great service, a cleaner, simpler alternative to delicious. After switching, I’ve added a lot of new bookmarks, so many that it’s getting harder to find ones I need. While I don’t spend a lot of time on the pinboard website itself, I found myself wondering what other bookmarks I’d already added.

Solution: custom search engine for the Firefox search bar.

It turns out that adding pinboard to the search engine list was pretty straightforward, once I figured out which website guides were out of date… » Read more: Firefox custom search engine: Pinboard

Old Testament/New Testament reference graphic

June 27th, 2011

Old Testament / New Testament Reference Map

I’ve struggled with a way to visually depict how often (and how) the New Testament writers used the Old Testament, whether explicitly (quotations) or implicitly (allusions). While trying to come up with something useful and visually appealing, I found two separate, yet very useful tools:

  • New Testament References to Old Testament Scriptures (http://mb-soft.com/believe/txh/ntot.htm) — a list of OT quotations. Thanks to Carl, at mb-soft, for permission to use their data in generating this graphic;
  • Circos (http://circos.ca) — a collection of perl scripts to generate radial convergence diagrams; originally designed for visualizing genomic data.

» Read more: Old Testament/New Testament reference graphic

GOOD.is | Political Climate – An Interactive Timeline Scaling

November 2nd, 2010

If you have been wondering how Americans’ concerns have changed over time and/or by party, look no further than GOOD.is | Political Climate – An Interactive Timeline Scaling. An interactive Flash-based infographic, the Political Climate chart shows how Americans feel about everything from the economy to healthcare to crime, morals, and immigration. You can select a composite view or break it down by political party (Democrat or Republican), year by year since 2001. Enlightening to compare the two parties’ views. Click back-and-forth between them and see how they fared.

Compact Calendar 2010 by David Seah

January 24th, 2010
David Seah's Compact=

David Seah's 2010 Compact Calendar

David Seah has updated his Compact Calendar for 2010 and posted it for download (both XLS and PDF versions) on his website: Compact Calendar 2010. At that link you’ll also find numerous international versions and last year’s version, too. [Note: If you feel compelled to spend $50 on a more typographically pleasing calendar, visit aisleone and slap your dough down on the table. I'll stick with Mr. Seah's solution. Thanks to him for making it available gratis.]

Create and Use Barcodes to Simplify Your Book List

January 9th, 2010
barcode example

barcode example (converted to png)

In keeping track of my books, I have been looking for a simple way to generate barcodes as individual graphics that I could embed in my book list. I think I’ve found it: Dan Bornstein’s Barcode Server, which I found at the BarcodesInc‘s UPC/EAN Barcode Generator.While the online version is nice, I wanted something a little more flexible and robust, so I downloaded the C source code.

» Read more: Create and Use Barcodes to Simplify Your Book List