Okay, I admit it. I'm a time freak. I hate to be late, and I usually carry backup means to tell the time. Sometimes though, it's not the devices in my pockets, but the websites.

We've discussed all sorts of things about time before. Simon posted a great list of alarm clock applications for various platforms, Tina let us know all about an online alarm clock, and Ryan helped out your efficiency with Qlock.

Clock sites can be both fun and useful. Here are some of the most interesting online time clock websites.

The World Clock

It's hard to beat The World Clock if you have any interest in the time in different zones.

A summary page lets you browse alphabetically through names of cities all over the planet, or you can resort the list by country or time zone. Clicking on a city name opens a detail page which goes way beyond just showing the time.

In addition to all of the standard functionality, it's also possible to build a personalised online time clock for yourself, add a selection of locations that you're interested in, and all of this can be anonymous, which is something of a relief in a registration-mad web. If you want to share your custom clock, there's a Java option better suited.

ClockLink

You get a selection of clock options including a clickable world map on which you can display the time, and it looks a whole lot nicer than The World Clock.

The focus at ClockLink is on a selection of Javascript clocks that can easily be embedded in your own webpages. Analogue, digital and just plain weird online time clocks are available. Most of them can also be configured to some extent, so you can easily match your website colour scheme.

To embed an online time clock, simply click the View HTML Tag button below the clock, accept the conditions, then copy and paste the Javascript code to your website.

Humanclock

This is a web classic. It's been around for a long time (2001). When this website was first created, some of the ideas were really radical. Things have moved on, and there's nothing technologically startling about what happens here now, but it's still very cool.

The idea is that the website creator, Craig Giffen, decided for some wacky reason, that he needed to collect photos of cardboard fake digital clocks in various settings and places.

It's all just snowballed from there. Since then, people have sent in images, and all sorts of other things have happened. Just take a scroll through the site to get a feel for it. Your inevitable questions can mostly be answered in the FAQ.

Industrious Clock III

Along similar lines, but both simpler and much more active, this is a digital clock animated down to the seconds by someone writing the digits on paper.

You really need to take a look at the site to get a feel for how much fun this is. I'm told if you don't appreciate it you need more coffee..

Online Time Clock

Need something simpler? This could be just the thing, and it was the weapon of choice to increase stress levels for an exam I sat last year.

Time.is

One more. This was just featured in the MUO directory. Simple display, really BIG font! The great thing about Time.is is that it checks out your PC to see how the internal clock is doing. There are lots of ways to do this, but this is the one to point your non-geek friends at.

You can configure things to display more or less information at various sizes, and it also works well on mobile devices.

So, have you seen these before? What online time tools do you use? How late are you? Questions and comments below. I better go. I don't want to be late.