h a l f b a k e r yA few slices short of a loaf.
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Easy. Take your computer and other stationary off of the top of your desk, unroll a large map, and then place the stuff back on top of the desk. |
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Probably best to get a little mat or board to cut onto, that will prevent cuts of any length disfiguring your map or your desk. |
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If you badly want it, I doubt it's something that will come to you while you wait. The Linux world is probably your only hope of such a thing, and all the big distros are moving to cellphones, while we wait for a less crappy interface to be invented. That means there's less work being done on desktops than previously. |
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So how could you improvise an adequate simulation? - How about virtual desktops? I don't think there's anything stopping you having nine of these, which is a nice number for obvious reasons. Here's the kludge: |
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1. Cut your map into 9 pieces. Put an ocean in the middle, where you have lots of icons.
2. Put the other pieces all around. |
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3. .. That's it, really. I'll skip the very most trivial of details. |
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[+] So you'll want a hotkey, that works when all the windows are minimized, to toggle the icons on and off and enter scrolling mode, and some map software. Sounds like a job for Google Earth/Moon/Mars. |
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Joining the advise given here you can unscrew the display
panel pour some clear glue on the interior in the shape of
the continents. Then pour water where the oceans go. I
have no idea how to make it hide your shortcuts but hey
this is the halfbakery. |
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</Deliberately misunderstanding comment> and + for
enduring those. |
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If you had desktop icons that looked like map features they
would blend in. You could have map labels in the same font
as your icon labels. Then only you would know where the
camouflages icons were. Anyone else trying to use your
computer would be helpless! HELPLESS! |
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Like they aren't already :P |
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[bungston] , oddly enough, that's one of my favorite interface ideas for the eventual augmented reality human-computer-interface we're postponing by straying down this smartphone blind alley. |
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Your file system is integrated with the next generation of Google Earth, and you use the maps in both a literal and metaphoric way. So,for instance, your photos of the holiday in Thailand are on the imaginary reef offshore from Phuket (? never been there, so the geography might be wrong, here). Your physics notes are all kept at CERN. Your copy of your favourite Natsume Soseki novel is at a temple in Kyoto .. and so on. |
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I haven't posted it because the underlying technology doesn't exist, really. |
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The only problem is that it is not falling-down easy to make icons look how you want them to look, and they tend to want to organize themselves in square ranks. |
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A map as desktop is easy. Scrolling around on it less easy. I am certain I would have trouble finding icons that had somehow wound up on Bouvet island and would wind up locating them in some other way. |
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Sorry, I didn't make it clear enough that my proposed spinning globe UI is iconless. You would simply define a convenient grid as a "hotspot" (and perhaps hyperlink a plethora of automatically generated such spots to honeypots for the kind of security you pointed out would become possible.) |
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Of course it's still possible to keep on losing things this way. |
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Choosing places for your executables might be more interesting than for your data. eg What country is a natural mnemonic home for word processor? |
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Google maps has only one site: Word Processor near Sparks, Nevada. |
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So how on earth does that take me to the Honeypot B & B in Umhlanga Rocks?? -- Art thou a necromancer? |
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Pronunciation: "oom-llahnga" (as with the "ll" in Llanelly). If you can never manage "Llanelly", you'll have to make do with "oom-shlahnga". (Long a's, please. As in father. But say them fairly quickly.) |
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why not just open google maps in full screen and
toggle
between your workspace and your computer. |
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If you want the last place you visited to be the
background simply "save as bacground". Until your next
visit to google maps. |
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Oh, and while looking at the map just pretend your
looking at the giant map in the background. |
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Oh, say, can you see, I just saw now that I already
posted on this in April this year. |
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