BigBen

Suppose you have a friend on holiday in some remote part of the globe and you want to know the right time to call him up: fine! Let BigBen show you at a glance the current date and time of twelve cities of your choice all over the world. The total number of cities you can choose is two hundred and eightyfive; and through the relevant Window Menu, you can modify their name (for instance, replacing Tokyo with Nagasaki, etc.). BigBen (in the Preferences window and the Vista menu) offers a variety of options, the most relevant being: • set the number of cities to be shown (from 1 to 12) • show any location-data in the Menu Bar (screenshot 1) • show also the name of the countries (screenshot 1) • country-based cities (screenshot 2) • modify Date and Time settings • show also the day of the week • change the color of time/hour labels • view locations in Apple Maps or Google. A Date and Time Simulator function (Window Menu) can turn out rather useful both for didactical and practical purposes: for instance, you can know the time in New York when in Bangkok it is 4.45 PM (screenshot 3). Through the View Menu you can change the look of the application (Aqua or Textured, as in screenshot 2), and have BigBen behave as a floating window. The application supports auto Light-Saving Time: the red bullets in the screenshot meaning that such cities are applying LST. In this regard, it happens that sometimes a country changes the timings, or in a particular year does not apply LST. In such case, if you think BigBen does nto reflect the real time, you can update the internal LST file (Window Menu): such process is made simple by the fact that BigBen shows the address of websites that will show you the right parameters to enter. And if you are travelling to a distan country, changing the Time-Zone in the Date and Time pane of System Preferences will be at once reflected in BigBen.