To celebrate this Christmas Season, the Trucking Nerd will randomly pick two lucky winners to receive complimentary coffee mugs. I am certain these fashionable mugs will make you the envy of your co-workers.
To be eligible for the give away, you must have contributed to the Trucking Nerd by sharing a comment on the site. The winners will be chosen randomly on Christmas day from the comments posted on the site. You must have a valid email associated with your comment so that I have a method of contacting you should you be one of the lucky ones!Â
Of course if you don’t want to take your chances and have to have a mug, you can always purchase one directly.
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!
I posted over at LifeOnTheRoad a brief article discussing the ever popular and useful Google SMS service.Â
I’m surprised to find that there are still a lot of IT people who don’t what this is nor have ever attempted to experiment with it. If you’re in IT and don’t know what it is, stop right now and go click this link to learn more. In short, you can shoot Google short SMS messags and get answers quickly back regarding just about anything such as phone numbers, weather, sports, stocks, flights, movie times, directions and tons more.Â
If you’re in IT at a trucking company, you’re drivers will appreciate all the tips you can give them, let them know about Google SMS, it’s a great tool when you’re out on the road!
As I mentioned previously, I am continually scouring for tools to make my life easier. Every now and then I find one that after a while I wonder how I functioned without it. Accountants can’t imagine how they’d live without Excel and Carpenters can’t imagine how they would live without their hammers. Well, IT professionals are no different! This posting focuses on the tools I use nearly every day (in no particular order).
Everyone has probably heard the hype about how bad unsecured wireless networks are. As tools become more sophisticated for exploiting wifi vulnerabilities, it is probably important to remember the importance of taking protective measures when plugging into an unsecured hotspot.Â
An article over at the truckthis blog caught my eye which basically demonstrates exactly how one would perform a technique where packets are sniffed and data contained within cookies is then replicated on a rogue machine basically granting that machine whatever access you have at the associated site. Many sites use cookies, sites like popular webmail accounts for instance! Imagine you sign onto your gmail account and then 5 minutes later, someone else is signed on as you with complete access to your email account.
I think of my children anytime I get some new piece of hardware or software…I can’t wait to get it out of the box and toy around with it. The day I received my action pack subscription with my copy of Microsoft Vista Business Edition, I had to dive in head first.
I of course had been messing with the beta releases all along in a virtualized environment, but I thought now that it was live, I might as well make the jump and load it as my primary operating system.
I decided to take a Friday afternoon and eagerly make the jump. I made an Acronis copy of my work machine (thank God I did this) and started down the path of doing the upgrade from Windows XP Pro to Vista. Everything seemed to be going smoothly, then all of a sudden I got the blue screen of death. When it rebooted, things just continued to go south, it wouldn’t boot anymore and the installer wouldn’t continue, I was completely hosed. After an hour of googling and trying different things, I gave up, since I had to be operational by Monday.  I ended up restoring my machine back to XP Pro. I wasn’t about to let one bad install stop me from persevering though. Read the rest of this entry »
This weekend I did a lot of research around the blogsphere, and found myself stumbling on to all kinds of good reading. I’d read one thing, then stumble onto five other things that peaked my interest…soon I found myself growing tired and wishing once again for more hours in the day to continue my studies. Being in a small IT shop at a trucking company and a developer at heart, this seems to be a common daily request, too many tasks, too little time. I’m sure this is something not unique to my situation.
I always think that maybe I should try to wake up earlier than I do and use this time for specific activities. It seems my day starts with me rushing to get to work and then once I’m there, it’s general IT mayhem until the day ends…not much time for deviations, tangents or keeping on any sort of track. As I was pondering this thought, a post caught my eye for two reasons. 1) it’s title was “how to become an early riser” and 2) the author is one that I have read a few posts from in the past, Steve Pavlina.
If you find this blog useful, there is no doubt you may find of interest the Private Fleets blog that is also a link on this sites blogroll. This site is maintained by a colleague, Aaron Huff, who is actually a senior editor over at the CCJ (Commercial Carrier Journal), which if you are in the trucking industry, you know this publication.Â
The trucking nerd is a blog that focuses on technology and other ramblings that relate to the trucking industry. There are many blogs that exist out there today that focus solely on technology, but not on the application of this technology to the transportation industry.  Here you will find periodic updates and general information as it relates to technology and trucking through the eyes of a technologist in the trucking industry.
Why
The start of this blog is for three main reasons.
To document - There are many times when I’ll be talking with someone and we will discuss a particular tool or technology that I have worked with and they’ll ask me for more information. Rather than having to regergetate the same information repeatedly, this blog will serve as my primary resource.
To collaborate - Sharing the problems, ideas and solutions that I encounter will hopefully inspire discussion and even open the door for some collaboration opportunities.Â
To learn - Documenting what little I know will open the opportunity for others to enlighten me. I am passionate about technology and its application to business, so hearing what other’s have done or how someone else solved the same problem is always of interest to me.Â
Who
I am Ben Becker, the CIO of a mid-sized trucking company called Tradewinds. I worked for a consulting company doing business intelligence work for fortune 1k companies for 7 years before joining Tradewinds as the CIO in 2004. I loved consulting work, however the hectic lifestyle and travel were something that I decided wouldn’t work well trying to start and raise a family. I am the father of four children and an avid technologist.
To celebrate this Christmas Season, the Trucking Nerd will randomly pick two lucky winners to receive complimentary coffee mugs. I am certain these fashionable mugs will make you the envy of your co-workers.
Aaron Huff who runs the 
I posted over at 
As I mentioned 
Everyone has probably heard the hype about how bad unsecured wireless networks are. As tools become more sophisticated for exploiting wifi vulnerabilities, it is probably important to remember the importance of taking protective measures when plugging into an unsecured hotspot. 
I think of my children anytime I get some new piece of hardware or software…I can’t wait to get it out of the box and toy around with it. The day I received my action pack subscription with my copy of Microsoft Vista Business Edition, I had to dive in head first.
This weekend I did a lot of research around the blogsphere, and found myself stumbling on to all kinds of good reading. I’d read one thing, then stumble onto five other things that peaked my interest…soon I found myself growing tired and wishing once again for more hours in the day to continue my studies. Being in a small IT shop at a trucking company and a developer at heart, this seems to be a common daily request, too many tasks, too little time. I’m sure this is something not unique to my situation.
If you find this blog useful, there is no doubt you may find of interest the 
