Cool Tech - Back Lighting

I was on stage at my church on Wednesday night. I noticed that we have lights positioned just in front of fabric sheets at the back of the stage. The lights, which are made up of probably 50 to 100 bulbs, change colors and light up the fabric panels behind them. It really cool to watch the effect. I'm going to talk with our technicians to get some more details, but just watching the lights work produces an always changing, almost never ending background on stage. It's pretty cool to watch!

Great Tech - Wrinkle Free Living

I really like simple technology that has a certain, WOW, to it. I was amused by my wrinkle free dress shirts this week. You might be asking yourself, "What does a dress shirt have to do with technology?" It's really simple. Someone recognized a problem with needing to iron or press all those dress shirts that men and women wear to work. The idea that a shirt (blend cotton and polyester - another great tech product) could be 'wrinkle free' just seemed too good to be true. The reality is that a wrinkle free shirt really is in all respects wrinkle free. You have to follow the laundering instructions to get the right result. Truly this is great technology!

Separating the Work from the Play

I recently opened a new blog on Wordpress.com to talk specifically about continuous process improvement. I want to keep the fun technology posts separated from the more business like posts related to process improvement. If you read the blog for process improvement, there will be a link on the right side of the page to the new blog.

A Bad Weekend for Retro-Tech

Like so many things in modern life, retro-tech took a beating this weekend. We have an air handler which houses a set of cooling coils. Come to find out, when the system is low on freon, the A/C stops working! The coils freeze up and the fan stops moving air altogether. Thank goodness for friends in the business who get you back to 78 degrees in Miami during the late spring.

Good Technology from My Job

When I worked on cruise ships, I was able to manage a data center (the big computer brains as my wife liked to say). It was cool. It was good technology. One system in particular turned out be be really nice and for me is an example of technology with a purpose. The system is the interactive TV which is now in most major hotel chains. It allows you to rent movies, purchase shore tours, view your bill (not for the weak of heart) and other neat stuff. I liked it because is served several purposes and it made complete sense. Leverage some retro-tech, the TV, and turn it into an information center. Brilliant!

Retro-Tech

It's funny how when you need to buy a new razor, you think about options in the same way you would buying a car. For instance, power versus manual which could be compared to an automatic transmission versus manual transmission. Both are great technology and both work well to get the job done. Sometimes the ease of power makes the morning prep work move faster, other times its just nice to know that you can lather up and see the shaving cream disappear. I like the saying that few moving parts generally means less opportunity for failure. I'm still on the fence about the razor, I'll let you know once I've decided.

Thank Goodness for Working Tech!

I'm sure that everyone will be happy to hear this news. I have a working (quite well) tankless waterheater! Now I have another challenge ahead with trying to figure out how to avoid getting burned in the shower, but at least I'm not having flashbacks to camping in the mountain. My wife is very happy as well. So, when shopping for technology that will help make your life easier, consider the warranty length. I'm certainly going to contact the distributor if we have another failure like the first. Also, be sure to register your new device, application, hardware with the distributor or manufacturer within their required time window. Now I'm off to wash some dishes with rubber gloves on my hands!

The Tale of Two Heaters - Good Tech/Bad Tech

Be careful if your going 'green' with a tankless waterheater. As it turned out, the first heater I purchase only had a one year warranty on the electrical parts. Wouldn't you know, the electrical parts went bad! So the new heater has a life time warranty on the electrical parts. I'll tell you the total on this whole experience once the final totals come in. I still have to get my new heater installed!

Living in the Forrest without Technology

I'm having second thoughts about the tankless waterheater. It hasn't work in two days which is exactly two days after it was installed. Maybe you can overestimate the effectiveness of technology and that's why it does work like its expected. It's something to think about. In the meanwhile my morning shower feels like I'm camping in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and I bathe in a stream each day. That's a pretty powerful visual, don't you think? Time to call the electrician!

Retro-Tech

I'm always amazed by the technology that seems so ordinary or "low-tech" in comparison to what is considered "hi-tech" today. A great example is the microphone. Think about it, they're in laptop computers, desktop computer monitors, telephones, etc. At one time over 100 years ago, they were just being introduced as a way to capture and record sound! I think I might have to credit Thomas Edison for the modern microphone. Today it's a really simple device, but yesterday it was truly complex. The bottom line is that the microphone is technology that really works!

Better living through Technology

We just had a tankless waterheater installed in our condo. Let me tell you, the water gets hot! It's a great piece of technology that really works. We had a half-sized waterheater which took up some space. Now, I have my tools under the airhandler and my wife has space in our daughters' closet for more stuff! The only drawback to using this technology is it take about five minutes to get the water hot first thing in the morning. If that's the only problem I encounter and it ultimately saves me a ton of money in the long run, I'm happy! This waterheater is really good, working technology.

Thank God It's Friday (TGIF) and for workable technology

I have been evaluating small and medium sized business technology with a the friend I dropped off at the airport the other day. We have been trying to figure out which system would be best to run the back office and be easiest to implement. Three candidates were chosen.

Microsoft Small Business Server - Powerful and fairly complete with an email server, database server, collaborative workspace, and web site all built in. No sales or project management pieces.

Intuit QuickBase - Web based, multi service platform with sales, project, and service management pieces just to name a few. No email server or real way to keep the data in the business' hands.

NetSuite Small Business - Similar to QuickBase in feature and lack of features.

The bottom line is pricing and existing software always drive the decision. We concluded that based on the last two factors, QuickBase was our best solution. They simply make technology work!

Good technology and bad technology

There's a format that is recommended when helping people overcome a bad or unacceptable behavior: praise, correct, praise. Well, technology isn't human and doesn't know the difference between praise and correction. So, here's one example each of good and bad technology.

Good technology is my USB memory stick (aka thumb drive). 2 gigabytes of data storage that I have on hand to store all kinds of personal files. I really like my drive simply because I can transfer files quickly from computer to computer in order to get my work done. Brilliant technology that is really easy to use.

On the other hand, bad technology is almost too easy to spot. Right now I'm going to cite my laptop which runs an operating system (O/S) created by a very large and powerful company that will remain nameless. I have been have trouble with the O/S for nearly three weeks. It freezes or move slowly. I have shut down and restart it almost as often as I change my two-year-old's diaper. This is simply bad technology.

So, based on my examples, do you have any you care to share? More over how do we go about making good tech, great tech? Or bad tech, better tech? I'm interested to read your posts.

Working Technology - Miami International Airport

I just dropped a friend of mine off at the airport and noticed some really great technology at work. They have a new multi-million dollar terminal and some really great light emitting diodes (LED) signs outside for the airlines. I like the idea of having a brightly lit and very visible sign to make my life easier when I'm trying to navigate in an area where I don't normally travel. That's good tech and it makes life a lot simpler.