(Last edited March 4, 2008)

First, I’d like to thank Shaun of PDA 24/7 for mentioning my recent posting of Trip Boss at his PDA 24/7 site.

Second, I’d also like to thank Alex Matthews of Treobits for mentioning the same review at Treobits.

Welcome, to all new visitors to my blog. I hope you will find my postings helpful and come back for more. Please feel free to post comments and suggestions. You can subscribe to the rss Feedburner feeds for this blog or subscribe to receive it in an email via Feedblitz.

(Last edited June 25, 2006). Binary Clock been updated to 2.1 and now has its own website: http://www.palmbinaryclock.com

Upon request by Tam Hanna of Tamoggemon, I will be discussing a radically different looking clock named Binary Clock. If you love clock apps, you may be interested in trying this one out. I’m sure that you’ll certainly get a few “looks” from your co-workers or friends when they see this interesting and mesmerising clock.

At first, Binary Clock looks very confusing and seems almost impossible to figure out how to tell the time. But, upon closer examination of the manual (included in the zip file), it’s actually not very hard to figure out the time. There really is a rhyme and reason for why the blocks are where they are and it’s actually a work of art (and intelligence) for Tam to have come up with this idea and arrangement.

As you can see in the screenshots, you can customize the look of the clock by changing its shape, color and borders or “rims”. As well, you can also set an alarm with this clock application.

To decipher how to “read” the clock and demystify the secrets of how the time is displayed, here’s a graphical representation of what each block in the clock represents.

Explanation of how to “read” Binary Clock’s time

As you can see, the clock is divided into 4 rows of 8 columns. To make it easier to understand, I have created a table/grid and inserted the value each area in the grid highlighted the “blocks” that Binary Clock may have.

Each column represents a specific number or value in the time in the format (HH:MM:SS with HH being the two digit hour, MM being the two digit minutes and SS being the two digit seconds). To represent a specific number, a combination of different values may have to be indicated or displayed so that it will represent that number. For example, if you wanted to represent the value of 7, and you can only indicate a combination of 1, 2, 4, and 8. In this case, we would need to have the 1, 2, and 4 displayed (ie. 1 + 2 + 4 = 7).

The above Binary Clock time would read: 18:(4+1)(8+1):2(4+2+1), which would be: 18:59:27 or 6:59:27 pm. The main thing to remember is that the first 2 columns will always only show the 1 and 2 since we only have 24 hours in a day. The harder part is figuring out the minutes and seconds if you need to. There are settings that allow you to set a border (or rim) at each block so that it can be easier to distinguish between the rows and columns.

Screenshots of Binary Clock

As you can see, there are many options to customize and personalize how Binary Clock looks. You can easily increase or decrease the “rim” or border of the blocks. You can change the background and forground colors so that the background doesn’t have to be white. Also, you can display the date and time on the screen. And, you can set an alarm with this clock. And, Binary Clock also supports Palm devices with vibrate and LED. Since I own a Zire 71 that doesn’t support vibrate and LED, those options are not available.

To better explain how the clock works, here are a couple simulations of Binary Clock

Simulation of Binary Clock

Alternative Flash links: ImageShack

The simulation will play through to the end unless I’ve inserted a pop up note to explain specific points.

To continue playing the simulation, press the button.
To go back to a previous paused segment, click on the button.
To pause the simulation at any time, press the button. To continue after it’s paused, press the button again.

To scroll forward or backward in the simulation, click anywhere on the left (to go back earlier in the simulation), or right (to go forward in the simulation) on the progress bar.

PLEASE NOTE THAT MANY FREE HOST SERVERS MAY HAVE POP UP ADS. PLEASE ENSURE THAT YOU DISABLE POP UPS BEFORE CLICKING ON THE FLASH LINKS

This simulation will show a brief run through of a few seconds of Binary Clock to give you an idea of how it looks

Alternative Flash links: ImageShack

This simulation will go through the various menu options and settings to customize the clock

As you can see, this clock is quite interesting. There’s a lot of customization you can set to your liking and the clock is so interesting looking that I’m sure you’ll get a few looks of amazement when you tell your friends the time with this clock. Not only will you get a look of bewilderment, but I’m sure you’ll look smarter to them.

The program supports Lo Res, Hi Res and Hi Res+ screens in both portrait and landscape mode. Also, there’s an alarm clock built in! It also supports vibrate and LED if available on your device.

My wish list for this application would be to be able to set multiple alarms as well as having the capability to use the extensive Emerald Sounds alarms available if installed in the Palm.

You can download a trial as well as purchase the software at Tam Hanna’s Tamoggemon site.

Check out this very interesting application from Tam’s Tamoggemon’s site

Thanks for visiting and supporting Palm Discovery. If you are not reading this article from Palmdiscovery.com or Palmdiscovery.net, the website you are reading it from is guilty of copying and posting my content without consent. Please visit Palm Discovery for the original source of the material.

: archives categories palm binaryclock clock alarm

Try Spider On the Palm

Boxwave DirectSync Complete Essentials Kit (high output)