I am a geek/nerd at heart (depending on your definition of each). I love data, and I think our digital world is going to explode with data. In fact, it already has. The problem to date, however, has been how to capture that data in a useful way and use good tools to manipulate that data. This is a hard problem. Fortunately, open-source software continues to evolve and tackle this pernicious problem by promoting open formats and better and better tools. This is a good thing.
Geeky Details
An AppleScript is called each day through the wonders of launchd on my MacBook Pro running Mac OS X Snow Leopard that counts the number of files on my desktop. It adds this number to a simple CSV file, which is then pushed to my web server. Here, a script parses the running count of files on my desktop and generates this slick SVG graph. I have other scripts on my computer that now use Google Charts, which I think is a nice compromise to creating charts dynamically from any data set. (It would be nice if Google was more aggressive in updating Google Charts with more options.)
DeskStat
DeskStat: How many files are on your Desktop?
Data
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Introduction
I am a geek/nerd at heart (depending on your definition of each). I love data, and I think our digital world is going to explode with data. In fact, it already has. The problem to date, however, has been how to capture that data in a useful way and use good tools to manipulate that data. This is a hard problem. Fortunately, open-source software continues to evolve and tackle this pernicious problem by promoting open formats and better and better tools. This is a good thing.
Geeky Details
An AppleScript is called each day through the wonders of
launchdon my MacBook Pro running Mac OS X Snow Leopard that counts the number of files on my desktop. It adds this number to a simple CSV file, which is then pushed to my web server. Here, a script parses the running count of files on my desktop and generates this slick SVG graph. I have other scripts on my computer that now use Google Charts, which I think is a nice compromise to creating charts dynamically from any data set. (It would be nice if Google was more aggressive in updating Google Charts with more options.)