As a long-time Mac user, I have the same complaint-- OSX doesn't work well for keyboard-centric users. I miss being able to do Alt-F-Whatever on the keyboard to do things that there aren't shortcuts for. I also hate the minimize behavior (what's the point?).
But all told, I much prefer using OS X to Windows...
Especially when it really isn't even "IT Professionals," but "IT Middle-Managers." Yes, IT Middle Managers finish last.
For engineers in the NCEES context, it is pretty much a case of the least competent finish last, but there are those exceptions for people that aren't much of an engineer but are great managers...
NO. Ground source heat pumps take advantage of the fact that the ground temperature is fairly constant year-round (equal to average annual temperature). Since a heat pump is compressorized, it takes about 30% of the input energy to heat a space relative to resistance heating (above ground temp). That is thermodynamicslly comparable to burning oil, but with the benefit of the higher input temperature.
Heat pumps are only effective with cold-side temperatures over 40, which works for ground-source.
Not quite. How many addressable devices on one Lon segment?
Lonworks was a good idea when first proposed, but by the time it caught hold it was far to under-powered compared to other options.
BACNet is much easier to use for most applications today where ModBus can't work (peer to peer functionality on a common network-- Modbus is purely client-server)
Even GFCI isn't enough; you have to also have active arc-fault detection, and you need all this fault detection throughout the entire system. It isn't as easy as stringing together 480 D-Size batteries...
It isn't half as many amps, it is only a 15% reduction since 208V is used in the US for data centers. The benefit (albeit at the expense of fault current) is eliminating one AC:AC transition in the process. The same could be said for getting equipment to operate at 277VAC similar to lighting in the US.
The concept is actually to go with a European 240/415V system rather than ever using US voltages of 480/277 and 120/208V; you step down from medium voltage directly to the 400V. "Best practices" would be to have an offline or line-interactive UPS.
The biggest gain is actually in the power supplies and not the electrical distribution system. I'm a fan of 600VDC in the data center from an engineering perspective, but there are huge safety issues that need to be resolved to make it viable. (DC arcs don't self extinguish as there is never a zero crossing.)
When discussions were first being done five years or so ago, my theory was that for it to be practical you would need a 3N design rather than today's 2N system, as all work would need to be done on cold busses and you still had to maintain 2N redundancy.
California's economy is larger than most European countries and a significant percentage of the overall US economy. Few companies can afford to ignore California.
The UI issue is an interesting one. I was playing with an index-card mock-up yesterday... you couldn't use the keyboard as a thumb-board (can't reach across half the screen with your thumbs in landscape mode), and it is too small to act as a full keyboard.
But, more space could potentially eliminate the random corner usage for successive input (bottom right to enter a menu item, top right to exit the menu, etc.)
It might be interesting as an alternative to Kindle (6" screen, 7.5x5.5" overall).
There are actually several reasons for the Unibody mac presentation-- setting the stage for Jobs to not be doing this keynote for one.
As long as Jobs is Salesman No. 0, he is too critical to the company and its stock price. Grooming others to be major salesmen is much better for a long-term strategy at this point.
How many companies really have a "personality figurehead?" Many might have charismatic leaders, several can even pull off the RDF, but the vast majority of CEOs are simply good businessmen that excel at operating their company. All CEOs can be replaced, although it might impact the image of the company some. Bad replacements on the other hand are a real problem.
Apple's biggest risk is that they suffocate people internally that could pull up to Jobs' level in time.
As someone who used to need a clip board for work frequently, I always pined for a tablet. That is, until I held one and tried to work with it for a day. Software and usage was clunky, and the weight was just too much to hold and take notes for several hours. There really wasn't a net benefit to using it over transcribing notes back at the office.
The initial rise in netbooks might have been about cost, but the next big driver will be in people that need to actually lug their laptop around all the time who only use fairly basic software.
While I am sure Apple could find some way to innovate to make a 7-9" slate computer attractive to consumers, I have a hard time understanding how it would work with an iPod class device where portability (and pocketability) is paramount. Without the options for standard connectivity-- bluetooth stack that supports computer functions, standard USB and display ports, ethernet... I can't see it work as a "laptop replacement" or even a "blackberry replacement".
What we usually recommend is a portable generator connection for the house so you can have a pre-wired connection inside. I'd recommend a 50A connection for flexibility, and use one of the construction distribution boxes for temporary power. Just run extension cords directly to it (don't string extension cords and overload one!).
It's the same kind of solution we provide for small server closets that need backfeed capabilities during a building outage or power-down.
There is actually more to the equation than lumens/watt. You have to look at the effectiveness of the light produced for the task and fixture at hand. My office desk lamp is incandescent, but is more efficient than the fluorescent fixtures because it puts the amount (and quality) of light in the place that I need it.
LEDs are great in applications where you really just need an accent and 1-5W of light is adequate. Mainstream CFLs are 11-42W in contrast. Things like lighting a corridor which could either be done by CFL downlights or 2-3x decorative LED fixtures can have a number of benefits. (Code requires a 1 foot-candle light level minimum in an exit pathway. In application, this generally means that you use about 3x as much energy as desired. Smaller, more economical fixtures targeting light where it is needed are much more effective.)
LEDs are also great where you want to actually see the bulb.
Over the next year or two you will see LED lights take off like the low-voltage cable lights did 10 years ago, mainly replacing the MR-16 halogen bulbs.
Lawyers basically consider anything unexpected an act of god. For this reason, you always have to be careful in entering into a contract with a broad FM clause.
Exactly. When internet usage was billed by the minute, I would use a text editor or my palm pilot to compose e-mails and my website, and log onto webmail from the internet cafe and cut-and-paste away. That was to save about as much as MS is proposing to charge.
People hate recurring charges, even when they are small numbers, unless it offers them more value than a single larger charge. Netflix is an example there.
The quintessential police car and taxi, the Crown Victorian, often makes it over 300-400,000 miles. A driver I rode with recently traded in his car with 540,000 miles. All this with minimal maintenance.
I don't get the point of asking green card holders for their fingerprints at the border; it is already stored in the green card itself. The only logical use is identity verification, which isn't really a privacy concern. The green card process pretty much kills any hopes of privacy!
Rolling your own solution?! All financial software (that I have ever used) is awful, because it is intended to be an accounting tool. We use QB as well, but mainly as a broad brush tool. Things like project-based accounting are stuck in spreadsheets. Is there really a better way yet? Curious about what you are doing for your solution.
Please, no 3.5kV electronics in any of my "consumer electronics." Especially an iPod; how the heck do you step up 5V USB power to 3.5kV effectively? For everything else, I just don't want a short if I drop it...
One of the side-benefits of the LEDs is that you can dim them down quite effectively either by staging lamps or pulsing. With that, you can dim the lights at "late night" to reduce light pollution without reducing visual acuity. There are a number of applications where this benefit can easily reduce the total energy consumption while maintaining good color rendering and safety.
LPS is a dog from the standpoint of visual comfort.
While I am quite comfortable toting an 85-pound rucksack, I can't imagine doing it just to carry a laptop to work. My 7-pound Macbook Pro is painful enough when you throw in a few project files and accessories-- it made me give up the messenger bag.
For an 11-pound laptop, I would hope the power brick is built in along with the roller blade wheels to move it around.
I saw some idiot in the airport with one of the 19" laptops... it just makes you wonder. The thing takes up the bulk of a rollerboard.
My company hires a lot of part-time people for engineering. They are entry-level, and the savings in pay and benefits are marginal compared to the added costs of supporting part-time people. We do it because it helps us find quality people and poses little risk for us (not hard to terminate someone part-time).
For people more senior that only want to work part-time, we hire them as independent contractors. They all have day jobs and moonlight, and their pay is really just 10-20% above their day-job salary. Again, we gain benefits at minimal risks, making it worthwhile.
It works for us because the tasks they are doing are between 2-10 hours, and can be done in one or two sittings. It works for them because they already have benefits and the money is generally extra cash.
Part time employees don't take the place of full time employees. There are tasks that part-timers can't be expected or trusted to do. You get disappointed with performance periodically.
So, converting a full-time job to a part-time job is generally impossible, especially on a long-term basis. (I pulled it off for 8 months once though.) You aren't going to get 2x the hourly wage to cover billing, benefits, and overhead if you are working part time and picky about hours.
What does work is recognizing a deficiency and understanding how it can be solved part-time or in a geographically-agnostic way by someone with your particular experience.
His phone system was configured to allow outbound call transfer and had no restrictions on international calls. If you actually use the call transfer function, it isn't especially easy to prevent someone in voicemail to do the call transfer. Likewise, if you make international calls, you either need to create an account code system to permit it, or another PIN code.
For a small business that needs outbound call transfer and international calling, you are spending a lot of extra effort to protect things.
I know with Asterisk none of this is especially easy, although we do restrict which users can make international calls. I don't imagine any of the bigger systems are easier to configure...
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As a long-time Mac user, I have the same complaint-- OSX doesn't work well for keyboard-centric users. I miss being able to do Alt-F-Whatever on the keyboard to do things that there aren't shortcuts for. I also hate the minimize behavior (what's the point?).
But all told, I much prefer using OS X to Windows...
Especially when it really isn't even "IT Professionals," but "IT Middle-Managers." Yes, IT Middle Managers finish last.
For engineers in the NCEES context, it is pretty much a case of the least competent finish last, but there are those exceptions for people that aren't much of an engineer but are great managers...
NO. Ground source heat pumps take advantage of the fact that the ground temperature is fairly constant year-round (equal to average annual temperature). Since a heat pump is compressorized, it takes about 30% of the input energy to heat a space relative to resistance heating (above ground temp). That is thermodynamicslly comparable to burning oil, but with the benefit of the higher input temperature.
Heat pumps are only effective with cold-side temperatures over 40, which works for ground-source.
In the summer, the benefit is even higher.
Not quite. How many addressable devices on one Lon segment?
Lonworks was a good idea when first proposed, but by the time it caught hold it was far to under-powered compared to other options.
BACNet is much easier to use for most applications today where ModBus can't work (peer to peer functionality on a common network-- Modbus is purely client-server)
Even GFCI isn't enough; you have to also have active arc-fault detection, and you need all this fault detection throughout the entire system. It isn't as easy as stringing together 480 D-Size batteries...
It isn't half as many amps, it is only a 15% reduction since 208V is used in the US for data centers. The benefit (albeit at the expense of fault current) is eliminating one AC:AC transition in the process. The same could be said for getting equipment to operate at 277VAC similar to lighting in the US.
The concept is actually to go with a European 240/415V system rather than ever using US voltages of 480/277 and 120/208V; you step down from medium voltage directly to the 400V. "Best practices" would be to have an offline or line-interactive UPS.
The biggest gain is actually in the power supplies and not the electrical distribution system. I'm a fan of 600VDC in the data center from an engineering perspective, but there are huge safety issues that need to be resolved to make it viable. (DC arcs don't self extinguish as there is never a zero crossing.)
When discussions were first being done five years or so ago, my theory was that for it to be practical you would need a 3N design rather than today's 2N system, as all work would need to be done on cold busses and you still had to maintain 2N redundancy.
California's economy is larger than most European countries and a significant percentage of the overall US economy. Few companies can afford to ignore California.
...Especially when his salary is only $1/year!
The UI issue is an interesting one. I was playing with an index-card mock-up yesterday... you couldn't use the keyboard as a thumb-board (can't reach across half the screen with your thumbs in landscape mode), and it is too small to act as a full keyboard.
But, more space could potentially eliminate the random corner usage for successive input (bottom right to enter a menu item, top right to exit the menu, etc.)
It might be interesting as an alternative to Kindle (6" screen, 7.5x5.5" overall).
There are actually several reasons for the Unibody mac presentation-- setting the stage for Jobs to not be doing this keynote for one.
As long as Jobs is Salesman No. 0, he is too critical to the company and its stock price. Grooming others to be major salesmen is much better for a long-term strategy at this point.
How many companies really have a "personality figurehead?" Many might have charismatic leaders, several can even pull off the RDF, but the vast majority of CEOs are simply good businessmen that excel at operating their company. All CEOs can be replaced, although it might impact the image of the company some. Bad replacements on the other hand are a real problem.
Apple's biggest risk is that they suffocate people internally that could pull up to Jobs' level in time.
As someone who used to need a clip board for work frequently, I always pined for a tablet. That is, until I held one and tried to work with it for a day. Software and usage was clunky, and the weight was just too much to hold and take notes for several hours. There really wasn't a net benefit to using it over transcribing notes back at the office.
The initial rise in netbooks might have been about cost, but the next big driver will be in people that need to actually lug their laptop around all the time who only use fairly basic software.
While I am sure Apple could find some way to innovate to make a 7-9" slate computer attractive to consumers, I have a hard time understanding how it would work with an iPod class device where portability (and pocketability) is paramount. Without the options for standard connectivity-- bluetooth stack that supports computer functions, standard USB and display ports, ethernet... I can't see it work as a "laptop replacement" or even a "blackberry replacement".
What we usually recommend is a portable generator connection for the house so you can have a pre-wired connection inside. I'd recommend a 50A connection for flexibility, and use one of the construction distribution boxes for temporary power. Just run extension cords directly to it (don't string extension cords and overload one!).
It's the same kind of solution we provide for small server closets that need backfeed capabilities during a building outage or power-down.
There is actually more to the equation than lumens/watt. You have to look at the effectiveness of the light produced for the task and fixture at hand. My office desk lamp is incandescent, but is more efficient than the fluorescent fixtures because it puts the amount (and quality) of light in the place that I need it.
LEDs are great in applications where you really just need an accent and 1-5W of light is adequate. Mainstream CFLs are 11-42W in contrast. Things like lighting a corridor which could either be done by CFL downlights or 2-3x decorative LED fixtures can have a number of benefits. (Code requires a 1 foot-candle light level minimum in an exit pathway. In application, this generally means that you use about 3x as much energy as desired. Smaller, more economical fixtures targeting light where it is needed are much more effective.)
LEDs are also great where you want to actually see the bulb.
Over the next year or two you will see LED lights take off like the low-voltage cable lights did 10 years ago, mainly replacing the MR-16 halogen bulbs.
Lawyers basically consider anything unexpected an act of god. For this reason, you always have to be careful in entering into a contract with a broad FM clause.
Exactly. When internet usage was billed by the minute, I would use a text editor or my palm pilot to compose e-mails and my website, and log onto webmail from the internet cafe and cut-and-paste away. That was to save about as much as MS is proposing to charge.
People hate recurring charges, even when they are small numbers, unless it offers them more value than a single larger charge. Netflix is an example there.
The quintessential police car and taxi, the Crown Victorian, often makes it over 300-400,000 miles. A driver I rode with recently traded in his car with 540,000 miles. All this with minimal maintenance.
I don't get the point of asking green card holders for their fingerprints at the border; it is already stored in the green card itself. The only logical use is identity verification, which isn't really a privacy concern. The green card process pretty much kills any hopes of privacy!
Rolling your own solution?! All financial software (that I have ever used) is awful, because it is intended to be an accounting tool. We use QB as well, but mainly as a broad brush tool. Things like project-based accounting are stuck in spreadsheets. Is there really a better way yet? Curious about what you are doing for your solution.
Do they need to copyright the patches as well? That is the only logical explanation I can come up with.
Please, no 3.5kV electronics in any of my "consumer electronics." Especially an iPod; how the heck do you step up 5V USB power to 3.5kV effectively? For everything else, I just don't want a short if I drop it...
One of the side-benefits of the LEDs is that you can dim them down quite effectively either by staging lamps or pulsing. With that, you can dim the lights at "late night" to reduce light pollution without reducing visual acuity. There are a number of applications where this benefit can easily reduce the total energy consumption while maintaining good color rendering and safety.
LPS is a dog from the standpoint of visual comfort.
While I am quite comfortable toting an 85-pound rucksack, I can't imagine doing it just to carry a laptop to work. My 7-pound Macbook Pro is painful enough when you throw in a few project files and accessories-- it made me give up the messenger bag.
For an 11-pound laptop, I would hope the power brick is built in along with the roller blade wheels to move it around.
I saw some idiot in the airport with one of the 19" laptops... it just makes you wonder. The thing takes up the bulk of a rollerboard.
My company hires a lot of part-time people for engineering. They are entry-level, and the savings in pay and benefits are marginal compared to the added costs of supporting part-time people. We do it because it helps us find quality people and poses little risk for us (not hard to terminate someone part-time).
For people more senior that only want to work part-time, we hire them as independent contractors. They all have day jobs and moonlight, and their pay is really just 10-20% above their day-job salary. Again, we gain benefits at minimal risks, making it worthwhile.
It works for us because the tasks they are doing are between 2-10 hours, and can be done in one or two sittings. It works for them because they already have benefits and the money is generally extra cash.
Part time employees don't take the place of full time employees. There are tasks that part-timers can't be expected or trusted to do. You get disappointed with performance periodically.
So, converting a full-time job to a part-time job is generally impossible, especially on a long-term basis. (I pulled it off for 8 months once though.) You aren't going to get 2x the hourly wage to cover billing, benefits, and overhead if you are working part time and picky about hours.
What does work is recognizing a deficiency and understanding how it can be solved part-time or in a geographically-agnostic way by someone with your particular experience.
His phone system was configured to allow outbound call transfer and had no restrictions on international calls. If you actually use the call transfer function, it isn't especially easy to prevent someone in voicemail to do the call transfer. Likewise, if you make international calls, you either need to create an account code system to permit it, or another PIN code.
For a small business that needs outbound call transfer and international calling, you are spending a lot of extra effort to protect things.
I know with Asterisk none of this is especially easy, although we do restrict which users can make international calls. I don't imagine any of the bigger systems are easier to configure...