A word about Internet Explorer
This website utilizes elements from HTML 5 such as rounded-off corners, transparent color details and shadows, as well as the canvas and audio elements. It functions using all modern browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Opera or Safari) except for Internet Explorer. In other words, if you want to view this website in all its glory, then change the browser you’re using.
Most Requested Topics
Background patterns for websites
During the early days of the Web background patterns were a popular means of sprucing up the pages on a website. Back then every webmaster had their own collection of more or less tasteful backgrounds. The patterns presented here stem from that time and can be tried out right away.
Platonic solids
They have been known to mankind for over 4000 years. The 5 Platonic solids are perfect regular solids whose faces consist of equiangular and equilateral polygons of equal size.
Station Clock
Who doesn’t know what it’s like to wait for a train? The time refuses to go by yet the eyes stay glued to the second hand on the Station Clock. Slowly, steadily, the hand travels around the clock, then comes to a halt on the 12. For a brief moment time seems to stand still, but then the minute hand leaps forward and the second hand’s rotation starts all over again. Why this occurs and how you can display a completely individual station clock on your website can be read here…
“Metamorphosis II” by M.C. Escher
An animated depiction of the nearly 4-meter-long woodcut “Metamorphosis II” by Maurits Cornelis Escher. Escher created 3 printing plates comprised of up to 23 parts to accomplish the elaborate printing process in the colors black, green and brown.
iPhone/iPad Apps
“Those who do battle with monsters ought to watch out that they don’t become one in the process. And when you gaze into an abyss at length, the abyss gazes into you as well.”
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
Six weeks of work were put into the free “Clockmaker” App. Not just mine: graphic artist, photographer, musician and translator friends of mine contributed their efforts, too. The disillusioning result: several hundred downloads in the first 4 weeks and a dozen 5-star ratings. But that was it. Meanwhile the App is getting drowned out in the App Store roar, it’s more or less invisible, and it can basically only be found by chance.
The supposedly free App “OLD BOOTH MAGIC - AGING FACE” was released in mid-February 2012, accompanied by an enticing description. A few days later the App was already No. 1 in the Top Charts in the category “Entertainment” at nearly all the local App Stores. Yet the App is certainly not free of charge. Merely a functionless hull is for free at first. Application users are provided with the promised functionality only when several In-App purchases have been carried out. The user rating has turned out to be correspondingly poor. Of 221 ratings in the German App Store (status on February 27th), the App received the worst rating 219 times. The other two evaluations were advertising messages that have nothing to do with the App. So what is Apple doing about this? Nothing.
The placement of this bullshit App in the App Store is a slap in the face to every serious developer. Why should I go to all the trouble and design a nice, bug-free App, only to see it get elbowed out by such lousy pieces of craftsmanship? And Apple, the once fearless warrior against the monster, promotes this development and earns a solid chunk of the action on top. I still have a few nifty ideas for Apps on my mind, but for the time being I’m going to give up on iOS and take a look at Android. All in all, Java is no worse an alternative than Objective-C, either.
Clockmaker
Be your own clockmaker and use this free App to design over 1 million different clock faces. First choose an ambience scenario, then change the clock’s appearance and behavior as desired.
Platonic
Though the iPhone app “Platonic” might not have any practical application, it is aesthetically pleasing and looks cool on an iPhone. The app displays the 5 Platonic solids tetrahedron, hexahedron, octahedron, dodecahedron and icosahedron. The solids are prerendered in high quality and can be rotated with your fingertip. The app includes a brief historical overview, a compilation of mathematical formulas, a calculator and a group of links.
myReturn
The App “myReturn” (iPhone-Version and iPad-Version) was made for DONNER & REUSCHEL, a private bank. It can be obtained free of charge at the AppStore, at present only in German, and is targeted towards experienced users who can use the app to graphically illustrate the course of return for indices, commodities and shares, as well as for freely compiled portfolios.
Web Apps
Cuckoo Clock
Its origins lie in the dark depths of the Black Forest. Written mention was made of it for the first time in the mid-15th century, and to this day historians dispute who built the first Black Forest cuckoo clock. Abroad the cuckoo clock has become a symbol for Germany. Small factories based in the Black Forest continue to deliver their hand-made clocks all over the world.
The hour aglow
The Set Theory Clock, also known as the Berlin Clock, makes use of the principle of set theory to depict the time. The time of day is displayed in a 24-hour format and can be determined by simply adding and multiplying the glowing lights.
Let’s see, at the moment it’s glowing .
Web application loan calculator
The idea for the loan calculator Web application ─ an RIA (Rich Internet Application) to be more precise ─ arose during an extensive IT project. The users enter loan queries in a Web front end. These are first handed over to a Java back end, then transferred from there to another server via CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture). The loan is now calculated and travels the same route back. A process like this takes its time, of course, and errors of a technical or content nature can occur at any stage which must be communicated to the user. But in the end, why not let JavaScript calculate a loan in the browser?
Editorial Content
Rüdiger Appel
Christian-Förster-Straße 34
D 20253 Hamburg
Contact: ruediger.appel (at) me.com
Thanks to Leigh Hoch for the translation.
My work is published under the terms of the Creative Commons 3.0 Lizenz. It may be freely used for private and commercial purposes when indication of the author or a link to this website is made.