I am normally a moderately conservative implementer of new technology into production environments at work. There is one decision we made back in 2005 however that was a little before the mainstream, but has worked out rather well. I recently read this article from eweek regarding the cost savings and growing number of VOIP implementations.  Being a relatively early adopter of VOIP, I can attest that it is a worthwhile venture…and a little less risky now.
I get asked from time to time about our phone system and why I like it so much and why I’m so eagerly awaiting the next release of it in 2008 which we’ve got plans to upgrade to.
How many times have you come across a technical problem and have no idea where to even begin to start with it? My favorite is when you get an error that usually has some vague text and then a sentence that says “Please contact your System Administrator for further help.” I always chuckle since I am the System Administrator and I’m usually as perplexed as the typical end-user.
98% of the time, spending a few minutes applying deductive reasoning, googling or shooting an instant message out to my fellow nerds I usually get an answer or at least have come up with a few paths to explore. But what happens when the issue is very vague? Or if it is intermittent? Or worse yet, you’ve exhausted all leads and are still striking out?
I had the pleasure of chatting with Trevor Dunsford, a software developer from Canadian based Bison Transport last week. The topic of our discussion was a software application they had written to extend TMW Systems TMWSuite application to allow advanced appointment scheduling.
TMW’s Order Entry application leaves a little to be desired when it comes to the ability to optimize the appointment scheduling process.  The scheduling abilities in Order Entry are confusing and not intuitive. It also doesn’t take into account any sort of ability to administer appointment workflow when multiple people are responsible for setting appointments. Bison realized this gap and took matters into their own hands by developing a slick add on application they call the Appointment Queue (AQ) . Trevor has written a nice blog entry detailing the application.
When it first dawned on me that the deadline for analog cell service was coming to a closure in 2008, I didn’t think much about it. After all, it is reported that only 1% of the cell phone population use a cell phone that is analog only, so what’s the big deal?
The big deal is that there are millions of devices around the US that rely solely on analog, and many of them are not phones, they are devices like OnStar, GPS tracking systems, alarm system devices, etc. When the analog service is shutoff, these devices will be rendered useless. This could happen as early as February 18th, 2008 since this is the date the FCC says it is ok for cell companies to shutoff analog services.
This week Microsoft released Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET 3.5 Framework. While the 3.0 framework has been out for sometime now, the 3.5 framework builds on this and adds some additional features to the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and the Windows Workflow Foundation (WF). So why is this worthy of a blog entry?Â
The answer is simple! Microsoft’s latest strategy with the .NET platform is brilliant. At a recent MSDN event I attended, the presenter stated that they had basically concluded that the only thing developers should have to worry about are the elements that are unique to the business requirements they are programming. These fall into two simple categories, 1) the User Interface (UI) and 2) the business rules. All other code components are not unique across applications nor across businesses and industries.
Aaron Huff who runs the Private Fleets blog has just posted an interesting article based on an presentation from Dr. Joseph Salvo, the manager of the Pervasive Decisioning Systems at the GE Global Research Center. In this article Dr. Salvo discusses the end of the information age and the beginning of the systems age. He also makes reference to the fascinating topic of swarm intelligence and gives some real world insight to how these concepts apply to the transportation industry and what the future will hold, some very cool ideas and concepts!
At the last MSDN event I attended, there was some discussion of the new Microsoft Surface concept. If you are unfamiliar with this relatively new technology venture Microsoft is headed down I think you will be impressed with how neat the concept is. Basically it is bringing touch screen computing to a whole new level. Imagine a screen that is very large with software that is very interactive. You can start to explore and navigate in ways that a traditional mouse simply cannot.Â
Some say it is the future of computing, but I’m not sure. There is a great blog post here that actually discusses the technology behind it, it is pretty fascinating.
As you can see from the video below, the technology is amazing, but I’m not sure where it fits in my business. Don’t get me wrong, I think it would be sweet in my living room (so long as it could stand a few kids jumping, scribbling and spilling on it). I’ll be watching this technology, I’m sure it’ll be everywhere in the future as people start thinking of great ways to leverage it!
uShip.com is a free online marketplace where you can search for truck loads of nearly any type: furniture, freight, livestock, cars, even entire households. They have system that is very similar to eBay's in that it's an online auction. This makes it familiar and easy to use for both the shipper and the transporter.
I am normally a moderately conservative implementer of new technology into production environments at work. There is one decision we made back in 2005 however that was a little before the mainstream, but has worked out rather well. I recently read this article from eweek regarding the cost savings and growing number of VOIP implementations.  Being a relatively early adopter of VOIP, I can attest that it is a worthwhile venture…and a little less risky now.
How many times have you come across a technical problem and have no idea where to even begin to start with it? My favorite is when you get an error that usually has some vague text and then a sentence that says “Please contact your System Administrator for further help.” I always chuckle since I am the System Administrator and I’m usually as perplexed as the typical end-user.
I had the pleasure of chatting with Trevor Dunsford, a software developer from Canadian based 
When it first dawned on me that the 
This week Microsoft released Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET 3.5 Framework. While the 3.0 framework has been out for sometime now, the 3.5 framework builds on this and adds some additional features to the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and the Windows Workflow Foundation (WF). So why is this worthy of a blog entry? 
Aaron Huff who runs the 
