Meridian - The do-it-all timing program
Aug 20, '07 12:52:00PM
Contributed by: robg
The macosxhints Rating:

[Score: 9 out of 10]
A week or so ago, I was looking for a fairly flexible timer application -- I wanted to run and track a number of different stopwatches, with more than one potentially being used on at the same time. I dug around quite a bit, looking at various widgets and utilities until I stumbled on Meridian. This program is very much the kitchen sink of time-related tools. It's not necessarily designed to be used by consultants and others who bill by the hour, but if you need another time-related solution, Meridian may very well offer it.
So what all can you do with it? For starters, Meridian provides a more-capable menu bar clock that can show the time and date, with full control over font face, size, and color -- separately for the date and time, if you wish. Beyond that, you can create up to 10 instances of each of the following:
- Clocks: Add a mix of analog and digital styles, covering any time zone you wish. You can also make them show as drop-downs from the Meridian menu in the menu bar.
- Timers: Set the start time, window and font info, and notification options. Again, they can be show in windows, or as items in the Meridian menu.
- Stopwatches: Display with or without tenths of a second, change the background and foreground colors and font, and view in the menu or a window.
- Alarms: Set as once, daily, or selected days, and set notification options.
The stopwatches worked great; with different colored backgrounds, I was able to visually distinguish them while using up to five at a time. Notifications (for alarms and timers) can't be emailed, which would be a nice addition. Other than that, though, I was thrilled with Meridian. At $19.95, it's not something you'll purchase if you just need a simple stopwatch or timer, but if your needs are a bit more complex than that, it's worth the price. The demo version works just like the full version, but you're limited as to the number of each type of timing device you can create.
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