I think I may be a bit dyslexic, because I sometimes have a hard time thinking about simple things like left and right. I need to stop and think a second about which is which. I also commonly make the mistake of calculating time the wrong way. I know that my sister in California is two hours behind Chicago. But unless I stop and think about it, I may set them in the other direction...two hours ahead! When I need to be in a phone conference with Microsoft, I have to stop and think about what time I need to make that call. Or Greg heads off to HQ in Boston and I have to think about time the other way. And don't even make me think about my colleagues in the UK or worse, Australia!
There had to be an easier way to quickly decipher what time it is in various locations at any given time. I went to Google.com and ran a search for world clock. Sure enough, I found a simple site that allowed me to punch in the cities I wanted. Now I could quickly check the time in these locations with a quick click on my shortcut to that site.
The site I found is: http://www.timeanddate.com/. If you have to deal with various dates and times, I suggest you check out this site. There are several useful tools on the site, including your own personal Count Down timer.
I found the Personal Clock the most useful for me. Through their simple interface I added the cities that are important for me to track.
This puts a cookie on your computer so that when you click to return to this same site, your settings will be saved and you can quickly see the clocks for the locations you want.
I frequently have phone conferences with people on the west coast, so I added Seattle. Chicago is my home. Greg often heads to Boston. And I have colleagues and clients in the UK. So these are the locations I added into my personal world clock.
If you don't want to deal with the Java applet or need a screen reader display, you'll probably want to choose the standard display as shown below. This display shows the text for the city names and time.
But if you prefer a slightly fancier display, you can set your default to the Java applet (make sure you have your browser set to allow applets) and then you can get a quick visual display of the clocks. This is my preference. I'm not sure if I have a dyslexic issue or just can make sense out of a visual display faster, but this view helps me a lot, because I can quickly see all the clocks and easily decipher what time it is in each location.
I then added a shortcut to my personal clock on the Links shortcut bar of Internet Explorer.
Now when I need to check the time, a quick click on my browser shortcut and I have all my clocks at hand.
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