Status Boards

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This meetup is all about status boards. What are status boards? Computer screens that show graphs, counters and other data on a variety of topics. An airport has a status baord showing arrival and deptarture status. Wal*Mart greets you at the door with a TV hanging above showing the date and time with a 3 day weather forecast. Software companies use them to show graphs of membership growth, or alerts of server/services outages. Wall Street is a big fan of status boards.

Status boards allow you to, at a glance, take in a wealth of information. No clicking, no paging through. Just a heads-up-display of vital information to help keep you current. Information that will help you get things done™.

One of our favorite software companies, Panic has done a good job of bringing Status boards to the masses: http://panic.com/statusboard/. You can also build your own. It could be as simple as a full-screen web page showing some dynamic content. Or an old black and green CTR screen showing terminal output.

My status board at home shows things like calendar events, grocery lists, safe-to-spend bank balance, forecast, temp, etc...

What kind of status board would help you?

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