High Technology being used non-traditional ways becoming more the normal way for new technology advances.

Posted: 2014-02-27 12:00 Permanent Link

Automobiles with Bluetooth connectivity:

I have had my driver’s license since I was a teenager. That is a long time and many vehicles ago. However, with the last vehicle I purchased I got built in Bluetooth. I readily admit, that I have added Bluetooth devices to my other vehicles, but the built in works really well. I will never buy another vehicle that does not have Bluetooth built-in!

It is now the law in Ontario to use a Bluetooth hands free connection if you want to talk on your phone while you are driving. I do not want to ever miss a call or miss placing a call because I am driving. And I drive a lot. This is especially important since the Ontario laws will be shortly increasing the fine to $280 for using your handheld device while driving.

The ease-of-use and the calibre of the Bluetooth device built into the vehicle is so much better than even the best aftermarket Bluetooth devices. One thing is you do not ever have to plug in or charge the built-in Bluetooth. I especially like having the steering wheel buttons to answer/hang up a call. Voice control is a nice feature using either method, but the physical buttons are always where you left them and they always perform as expected every time you use them. Furthermore, you never have to take your attention off driving!

Wearable Technology:

Okay, so I am usually one of the first using new technology. It is what I am and what I do. However, for years now I have not been wearing a watch. Why wear a watch? There are devices showing the time all around me all of the time, so it had become redundant to wear a watch. Odd, because I am a very punctual person and make a point of always being on time or even a bit early.

Then along came the Pebble Watch. I, of course, was one of the first people to get a Pebble watch. I love it. The Pebble cost less than I spent on any of my last three conventional watches. So cost wise, it is good. It shows the date and time and this matters because I had forgotten how convenient it is to have this always available. However, The Pebble Watch also has in infinite number of different watch faces that can be displayed. Now this is cool. If I get bored with how it looks, it is quick and simply to change the watch face and some of the watch faces are really interesting.

Watch faces are watch faces, so what is the big deal? Right? Wrong! This is because the Pebble Watch can do more. The Pebble Watch becomes a Smart Watch by communicating with your Android or iPhone via Bluetooth. The result is that you can thus get the Smart Phone’s information on your Smart Watch. Let me explain. Every Smart Phone can display the weather; so can the Pebble Watch (from your phone). Your Smart Phone can “know where you are”, so can your Pebble Watch. Are you getting the idea now?

Let me put this in perspective for you. Say you are golfer. Most golfer know that high technology has made its way onto the golf course. Your phone can have an application that knows where you are and where you need to shoot the ball. So what is the big deal here? Taking out your cell phone is a pain. It gets dropped, left behind, the screen shuts off, on and on. It just is not the best solution. No let’s say we leave the phone in your pocket (or on your belt or whatever).

Now you have a Pebble Watch and are getting ready to grab a club. You ask yourself how far it is to the hole. You glance at your watch and then you know. That is correct, the Pebble Watch has a golfing app for it. And a lot more apps as well. In fact the Pebble watch has an App Store, with free and paid Apps and a SDK for free so that you can create your own Apps to suit yourself. You might even upload them to the App Store as well.

Other wearable technology:

Garmin makes handheld GPS for years now, but now they have a wearable one for runners, even with a heart monitor. This would work for anybody who wants/needs to know their heart rate while exercising as well as wanting to know where you went and for how long etc..

Google Glasses are coming soon, with all that this means, but having high technology on your glasses brings in an entire new view on wearable technology.

Please comment on your ideas about technology now coming to traditionally non-technology places.

How do you use Social Media?

Posted: 2013-08-12 12:00 Permanent Link

As a technology support professional, I try to understand how/why people do the things they do in order to better assist them with getting the most out of the technology usage.

Here are some questions that I ask people when helping them with their usage of Social Media applications:

What Social Media do you use? Why/Why not?
What do you get from it?
What would you like to see it do better?
What are your pain points with using it?
What platforms do you use it on?
Where do you use it?
Do you have personal and professional accounts? Why/Why not?

This leads to some amazing discussions about people’s current technology usage. As there are constantly new social media type applications coming out. All of them hoping to be the next Facebook or LinkedIn or whatever may be the next craze.

I usually create a login to every one of the new applications so that when help is needed I already know what to do to assist. However, it is getting increasingly difficult to keep up as more and more of these applications show up.

Here are my answers to the questions and please feel free to comment on the blog with your answers as well:

Facebook

Facebook, it is the most common application of its kind and thus requires that I understand it well. Most of our staff and most of my friends, associates and family use it.

Facebook has evolved to be very much a communication tool as much as a social networking tool. For example, I have experienced wedding showers organized on it. People chat on Facebook instead of Messenger these days. I regularly keep up with happenings with my Facebook friends by the notices from Facebook.
While I do not post a lot on FB, I do share some things and that is probably a reflection of my own personal style.
I certainly am glad to see the posts that I do see on FB and I easily control to make sure that I am not inundated with FB posts that I do not want to see.
I occasionally use FB on computers, but more often on Smart Phones or Tablets. Sometimes I view FB pictures on my 60” HT TV. I even have FB pictures as my Roku’s screensaver.
I never use my FB login as authentication for other website applications, as this can result in FB posts for whatever I am doing in the other applications and I want to control when/how I make a FB post and not leave this to an automated application.
I never put anything on FB that I would be worried about if it was printed and put on the company Bulletin Board. As a result, I only need one FB account.

LinkedIn, this application is often described as totally different things depending upon who you talk to about it. Some people think of it is a job hunting tool, others think it is a business marketing tool, still others use it to network with other business professionals

Everybody at my work has a LinkedIn profile as do most people I know in the business world.
I use LinkedIn to maintain the Networking Group Halton IT Pros. We communicate using LinkedIn. We announce meeting using LinkedIn. We help each other using LinkedIn. Basically LinkedIn links in our networking group.
I would love it if LinkedIn made uploading files to their website a real thing
My biggest pain with LinkedIn is meeting invitations to my various groups and keeping track of responses. It seems like most people cannot or do not deal with LinkedIn meeting invitations very well.

Twitter

Twitter, now this is an interesting application that is seeing far different use that most other application in this discussion. Twitter was initially described as blogging in 128 characters, now there is so much more to it that it is hard to describe all of the uses. With Twitter, I am:

Mainly a consumer, rather than a contributor.
Follow many and varied other Twitter users.
Have installed and use TweetDeck for both computer and SmartPhone Twitter usage.
Love the OPP traffic Twitter feed.
Like most of the professional twitters feeds that I follow.
Ignore most of the non-professional feeds that I have followed.

Windows Live / Outlook.com

Windows Live / Outlook.com, has come a long way in a relatively short period of time. Microsoft is trying very hard to make your live.com authentication be the one stop for everything Microsoft. It can access your Microsoft based Instant Messaging, Blogging, Windows 8, TechNet subscription, MS online store and MS applications purchased directly from Microsoft. But is MS Live a social media? I think not, but it allows considerable access to social media.

FourSquare

FourSquare, is a social media application that uses your Smart Phone’s GPS capabilities to acquire your current location and allows you to see (and thus check into) things in the area. When you “check in” on FourSquare, you can publish these check ins on foursquare, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter etc.. When checking into locations you are encouraged to to take pictures on your Smart phone and upload them as well as to offer tips about the location. I find the tips very informative and some businesses even offer discounts for checking into them on Foursquare. Foursquare offers recognition for using them in the form of Badges for accomplishments. While they are amusing when I see that I have been awarded a badge, it is not something I care about one way or another.

Google+

Google+, Google automatically offered me this one and kept prodding me until I said okay. Furthermore, Google continues to suggest people I can collaborate with and I have okay a few times. However, there has not been anything compelling enough for me to put in the effort for yet another Social Media application

Pinterest, is an application that while I subscribed and checked out, I have never really gotten into it. I guess it is because I am a pretty ugly guy and as a result I am kind of camera shy. I do not know, maybe one day I will take this one more seriously

Yelp

Yelp, Restaurant reviews. Enough said?

MySpace

MySpace, I used to have a MySpace login, but forgot about it a long time ago.

Instagram

Instagram, I never bothered with this one.

Tumblr

Tumblr, while I am curious, I do not have the time for this one either.

As it must be apparent to everyone who has read this far, there are more Social Media applications then there are hours in a day available to deal with them. In order to get what you originally wanted from Social Media you have to pick the applications you like to use and just simply be aware of the others in case they become something of significance to you in the future.

Please offer your comments about your social media usage now.

A Recent trip to my cottage in Muskoka resulted in my seeking this article

Posted: 2013-06-05 12:00 Permanent Link

Everything you didn’t want to know about black flies
By David Foote (as posted on CottageCountryNow.Ca)

It’s been said (By who I don’t know) that if there weren’t any black flies, the cottage areas that are north of the Severn would truly be God’s country. But in his or her infinite wisdom, he or she decided to test our wills by dropping these very annoying bugs on us every spring.

Some facts about black flies:

First, a black fly’s lifespan is about three weeks, and it’s the female that does the biting.

So how come we can have the pesky devils around from mid-May to the end of June and even into July?

It all depends on the weather and how fast the spring run-off creeks and small rivers dry up.

One myth has it that as soon as dragonflies are in the air, usually a week or two later than the black flies, they then eat all the black flies, thus putting an end to these annoying creatures. While it’s true that dragonflies gorge themselves on black flies plus other flying insects, they are not the cause of the black flies demise. Another is when the buds of all the trees finally burst open, that’s the end of the black flies. Not so.

There are many species of black flies (165 in Canada) but only two that swarm and annoy and bite us Ontarian’s. They are both similar, although breeding habits differ slightly. I’ll blend the two together as it will make easier reading and understanding of what these little devils are all about.

Their life cycle start when the female lays some 150 to 600 eggs on vegetation or other substrates such as rocks or stumps or simply scattered over the water’s surface of streams or creeks. And always on bodies of water that are moving, unlike mosquitoes, which thrive on stagnant waters.

And interestingly enough, they only lay on waters that are uncontaminated and free of any kind of organic pollution. Since the waters in our area are clean running, we in turn get an abundance of black flies.

The name black fly is also a misnomer, as world-wide there are some 1,800 varieties and of different colours, although, for the most part, the flies that are biting you are black in colour.

The eggs then hatch into larvae as they attach themselves to anything that’s convenient and underwater. Then over the next months and through the winter, they eat algae and small organic particles that pass by them in the running water.

The larvae then develop into the pupae stage where, as time goes on and the water temps warm up, 5 to 10 degrees (40 to 50 F.) they develop into adults where they will float upwards in a bubble of air and are ready to fly as soon as they reach the surface.

Adults mate almost immediately and while the male then goes off looking for some kind of nectar to drink in as nourishment, the female goes hunting for a blood meal, as she needs this so she can lay her eggs.

They find their blood meal by the scent of carbon dioxide and body heat, mostly from animals, birds and, if they get real lucky, from the flesh of some hapless human.

Dark-moving objects, like a bear or moose, will catch their attention – the same with humans wearing dark clothing. Lactic acid as produced by a victim’s skin will also attract the thirsty females.

A bonus to these flies is a smell that pulls them in is when humans douse themselves with soaps, lotions, aftershave, perfumes and hair products. For the fly, it’s like a bear to honey.

Once she has fed and digested her blood meal, she will lay her eggs, usually back into the same stream or creek where she emerged.

Unlike mosquitoes, who leave their barb in your skin, thus inviting disease, the black fly simply takes a chunk of your skin, which means the flies we experience that are north of the Severn, pose little health risk to humans, although they do pose a risk to animals.

Now to why these pesky things can hang around for a lot longer and why the running water or the lack of it can lengthen or shorten their life span.

As the water temps warm up, not all of the pupae have developed to the stage of emergence. As time ticks on and the waters keep running, more will emerge in drips and drabs, until finally they all have hatched or the waters dry up, thus killing off whatever pupae that didn’t make it to the emerging state.

What speeds this whole process up is if there is several late May to early June days of hot weather to dry up the streams and creeks that they live in. And then they are gone until next year. But if we have an ultra-cool spring as we are now experiencing, they may still be biting on into July.

Some more facts:

A black fly’s lifespan is about three weeks
They emerge mid-May and die off after the spring creek run-off has ended
Wear light coloured, high neck, long sleeve and pants with the rubber bands at the end of the arms and the leg end tucked into socks.
For the flies that swarm, a protective head net should be used.
Use generous amounts of insect repellent such as Muskol or other insect repellent that have at least 30 per cent of DEET as part of its formula. The higher the percentage, the longer it lasts – 20 to 30 per cent will last three to six hours.
Clear away low hanging leaves and long grasses where they rest till they fly again.
They are most active in the morning, late afternoon and on warm, overcast days.
Black flies are most bothersome in the bush rather than open country.