Picons Archive
Steve Kinzler <steve@kinzler.com>
"picons" is short for "personal
icons". They're small, constrained images used to
represent users and domains on the net, organized into databases so
that the appropriate image for a given e-mail address can be found.
Besides users and domains, there are picons databases for Usenet
newsgroups and weather forecasts. The picons are in either or both
monochrome XBM and color XPM formats, plus a GIF format.
These databases have been compiled in hopes of helping make
cyberspace a more personable place. With them, software and services
can be developed to identify persons on the net by face (or, at least,
by institution logo) instead of by a cryptic e-mail address. Although
this software is still more potential than actual, much already exists
(see below). The picons databases themselves, of course,
are only a first step toward this goal.
| Random Sample Picons | |||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Click on a picon for a different random one, or on the arrow links
beneath to navigate your random sequence. [JavaScript] |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
| users | usenix | misc | domains | unknown | news | ||||||||||||||||||
| << | < | > | >> | << | < | > | >> | << | < | > | >> | << | < | > | >> | << | < | > | >> | << | < | > | >> |
Search the picons databases
This archive contains
- FAQ
- The Picons Frequently Asked Questions document.
- db/
- The
piconsdatabases. See theREADMEfile in here for version and content information. - demo/
- Sample window dumps of some
piconsapplications. - incoming/
- The directory for pending picons submissions. Subdirectories in here are for e-mail submissions. After being processed, submissions are deleted here and will appear in the archived databases within the next 24 hours.
- src/
- Sources for
piconsapplication scripts (apps) and icon utilities (bits). Note that these supersede older versions in the regularfacessource distribution (in thescriptsandfilterssubdirectories, respectively).
See also
- Faces Archive
- Sources for various applications that can use picons and/or
X-Facemail header entries, and archives for the faces/picons mailing list. - Picons Card Game
- A card game in JavaScript using picons, and fully configurable for players, size, and pictures.
- Picons Sonification
- A Java applet to compute and play auditory representations of images, including picons.
- WWW-Finger Gateway with Faces
- A finger service that displays picons for users and domains fingered.
- Debian GNU/Linux, ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/distributions/debian/
- Versions of the
piconsdatabases as Debian packages, though not as current. - Anthony's Icon Library
- Another large, diverse set of icon collections, including some picons, such as the country flag domains and the Olympic event logos.
- Gravatar
- A related service for 80x80 globally recognized avatar images.
- Personnel Directory for IU Computer Science
- A directory of information about users indexed with their picons.
© 1997 Kinzler.com