Well I am not saying this technology is going to put to rest all these concerns, but I will say, lugging around a projector just got a whole lot easier.  The microprojector which is built-in to The Logic Bolt phone made by Logic Wireless is one of the first to provide this technology.  This phone projects an image with ”razor sharp” clarity upto 3000 percent of original screen size.  Here are the specs.

 QUAD Band GSM/GPRS 850/900/1800/1900
size for reference 115.6X23.3X48.6 mm
Talk time: 2-3 hours
Stand-by Time: 200-250 hours
Video play time under projector mode: More than 2 hour (Battery)
Battery: 1800mAH
Main Display Screen: 240×320 QVGA 2.4 TFT LCD
Resolution of projector:640×480 VGA
area/distance for projector :as TV screen of 34-64. 1-2m focus can be adjusted
External Video Interface: CVBS, support VGA Interface through a conversion line
that connects with PC
Camera: 3 Mega Pixels
mp3, mp4 player, support 3GPP/AVI
Support DVD, PMP, TV BOX, PC and Table computer to project.
Support Bluetooth.
Language: English and other languages supported!

As I indicated earlier, it might take care of all the concerns of presenting but, just open your mind to the possibilities with this technology.  Traveling with kids who are getting bored…no problem, project a movie to the back of the seats in your car, the roof, the floor or any other place your kids would desire.  Last minute need to present to clients, this would come in very handy. 

I think the Microprojector will be very big in the near future.  Stay tuned!

Redesigning the MIS class is not the purpose of my blog this week.  I have attached a few links to videos of some pretty cool new technologies that I found as I toured the CES website.  For instance, you will see a wireless application for the iTouch or iPhone for printing.  It is an application that you can down load for free from the iStore and you are ready to go.  All wireless printers will be found within range, it will default to the last one you used if it is in range.  Or how about the Casio High Speed Digital Camera.  It takes up to 1000 frames per second.  Watch the video it is pretty amazing what typically homes will have at their disposal very soon. 

There is other videos as well, but I would recommend you visit the International Consumer Electronics Show website to see additional videos in the area of your interest.  (As a side note, they have the different areas set up to mimic the iTouch screen.)

Enjoy!

I must warn you, Dr. Mac, would not approve of these numbers as a representative sample.  The “n” in this case was 4!  If you count my kids it was 7.  This poll does have a +/- 120% error.  Hell it might even be greater than that, however, it is believed that all respondents told the truth!

Without further ado, here you go.

• 75% of the respondent’s could here where it was applicable for their age.
• 25% of the respondent’s fell short based on their age.
• We did not get anyone responding that made us feel good about our ability to hear. (no twenty somethings that could only here 15kHz or lower.)

 I know those results were well worth the wait!  I had to follow through with my promise and post the results one month after the original posting.  If anyone wishes to chime in, please do so, however, I won’t be posting any further statistical results.  Thanks to both of you outside my family that participated.

Let’s get the easy ones out of the way.  If you currently have cable TV or a dish, you should not have anything to worry about.  Your signals will be converter by those providers prior to your getting them into your home.  However, if you still have the old rabbit ears antenna you will most likely have problems seeing the basic three channels you only receive at this point.  You will need to purchase a HDTV converter box.  You may buy these for about $50-$70 dollars from most stores that sell electronics.  If I am not mistaken, even Wal-Mart sells this product.  (by the way, you can get the i-Phone from Wal-Mart now!)  Once you have your box, you must connect up the box to your TV.  I have attached the instructions for those of you who might be challenged when it comes to connecting consumer electronics. 

Couple of more pieces of information before I close this blog:

1. You can get a coupon for a mail-in rebate for $40 for the converter box.  So, you should be able to come away with only spending $10-$15.
2. The local stations are testing the system each week so once you have your box connected you can see if you will be OK come Febuary 19, 2009.

I hope this information is useful to those of you who still only get three channels.

FACEBOOK:

So, I logged on got a user name, setup a password and I was off and running!  I began finding friends that I knew from class and my relatives.  Currently I have 55 friends that I can keep in touch with and communicate by directly typing something to them and by reviewing their book.  I must say, at first I thought it was going to be boring and something I would not be interested in doing at all, but as I got into seeing who was connected I found myself wanting find other people that use Facebook that I know.  My wife and I are attempting to find people that we knew from 10-15 years ago that we have lost touch with to see if we could reconnect.  I will only caution those that haven’t got into using Facebook, you might want to wait until after the MBA program.  It can be quite time consuming…some would say a waste of time, I would say it is only a waste of time if you have something better to do.

STUMBLE:

Stumble is a program that once loaded places an icon on your menu bar at the top of your screen.  During the loading process you select a list of items that you find interesting, these can be anything from movies to very complicated technology.  Once you have it loaded and made your selections of interest you are ready to go!  Next step, when you are bored, go to the Internet and click the button on the menu bar that says “Stumble” you are off and running.  It randomly goes to different websites in the areas of interest you selected during setup.  I have found it to be very interesting, if have found useless information like, USDA allows an average of eight bug legs in any chocolate bar made.  Also, my six year old and I watched a desktop top war.  This was an Asian website, where the Icons on the desktop began fighting, it was very funny to watch.  In addition, I “stumbled” across a website where it would demonstrate different electrical and mechanical theories.  Once again, I would only recommend this program after you are done with all your MIS assignments!

SKYPE:

My favorite of these three is Skype.  With this great communication tool, I have video phoned two sisters, one is located SC and the other in AZ.  We have communicated with some of my wifes relatives that live in Canada.  We are buying my father a web cam for his computer so he can be a part of this great method for keeping in touch.  We have used this in our small group on homework questions and other needs over the last month.  I attempted to conference call with multiple participants, but could only audio conference,  the video portion does not work.  I know web cams have been around for some time, but to my knowledge this is the best program to connect all your acquaintances.

So, over the last six weeks I have been introduced to three useful applications on the internet.  I look forward to the remaining six weeks of MIS to be introduced to more applications.

Once again, a blog regarding phones…this time a bit different approach.

My oldest daughter had a T-mobile phone that crapped out about two weeks before Christmas, so my wife decided she was going to get her a Behold made by Samsung.  I think it would be nice to have communicated this purchase and consider a purchase of a iPhone, given the fact that I had already purchased an iTouch for both of my older kids for Christmas.  In this case, I think if my wife and I would have discussed the phone purchase, we would have decided on a iPhone.  As I thought, the Behold is used only for text messaging and phone calls and the iTouch is used constantly for fun and games, music, and other applications that they find online. 

Both daughters have phones that will play music, however both require MP3 songs.  I did find a site where you can get “free” songs after you provide some basic personal information and willing to get email advertisements from their sponsors.  Perhaps I am just a bit shy from the Napster days, the only music shopping I have done for years is via iTunes.  I need some advice on a reputable website where I can buy MP3 songs.

So, now both daughters have the iTouch and I spent most of Christmas morning getting them set up on the Wi-Fi functionality.  The time spent was a primarily because of the mess of passwords we have for the various programs and applications we run.  This time it was my pass phrase for access to our internal wireless network.  I had three or four different passwords written down when I set up the router, but none were the one I needed.  Of course, if you have ever dealt with router passwords, they are about 26 characters and case sensitive, on top of all that, the iTouch replaces text with black dots so if you happen to mess up you really don’t know.  Finally, I called Linksys only to get a message that they were too busy to help me at that time.  So, I spent another hour attempting to come up with the right combinations of  passwords.  I decided I would go to Linksys website to get tech support help.  There I linked up with a online chat tech support.  From there the lady was able to walk me through how to get the pass phrase I set up when I originally setup the router.  (also, with tech support help)  It was a 20 something character list and case sensitive.  Even after she told me that was the security code the iTouch was looking for it took me three times for me to type it correctly.

Both girls are setup and running wirelessly with iTouch and they love it! 

Caring bridge not only keeps family and friends in touch with patients, my wife has followed many children at St. Jude’s hospital attempt to recover from cancer.  She has literally followed kids for years through their treatment, some have very positive outcomes and unfortunately many are taken too soon.  This use of technology not only has put my wife in touch with some extremely courageous kids, but has introduced her to the great things that St. Jude’s Hospital does for children and their families.

Looking forward, Caring Bridge seems to be limiting the number of photos and videos allowed to be published by the users.  What is the next avenue for these families…BLOGS!  Many of these families have broke away from the Caring Bridge and began their own blogs to document their loved ones fight with whatever ails them.  Blogs allows them to put videos, photos, links to other sites and even advertisements.  I know this is a serious topic, not funny, but is a positive use of the Internet and the technologies that are available to very much ordinary people.  It certainly gives us a look into the future of where the Internet will take us and as the applications become more user friendly, even the least computer savvy people will be connected.

I have attached a blog page of one such family my wife has followed.  This mother has endured all the same issues other families face, but her daughter named Peyton is in remission.  This author uses all of the options described above.     

http://www.hope4peyton.org/

I encourage you to visit this link, it will put some perspective on what you find as difficult in your life!

In the EMBA class you will remember, Dr. Ives was talking about cell phones and some of the newer features offered.  It seems that Dr. Ives has a knack for throwing out very useful tibits of information in a very subtle way.  During this particular lesson, he suggested there is a ring tone available on the market that only younger people can hear.  The older you get the less capable you are of hearing tones at this frequency. 

So, as I do with many of the items I learn in MIS, I take it home and try it out on the kids.  Last night on the drive home from picking my oldest daughter up from the airport we got into a discussion of cell phones and the new ring tones that are available, in particular this ring tone at the higher frequency.  My 13 year, chimes in and says, “I have that ring tone.”  She switches her tone to play that particular ring tone…well as many of you might have guessed, the only two people in the car that did not hear the tone was my wife and I.  Boy did that hit home…we are now part of the “older” crowd.  The story got more interesting when my wife asked my daughter to replay the chime, she replied, “it is still going!”  OUCH!  That really stung! 

My wife and I have requested an all out survey be done to see who falls into this category of not being able to hear this ring tone.  I think we are looking for 20 something types  to say they can’t hear this tone.  This would make us feel better.  But regardless of your age, I have added a link to this blog that will test your ability to hear these tones.  Please test for at least 17 kHz and below.  If you can here them, please select your age range and the yes button other find your age range for the no.  I will publish the results in 3o days from the posting of this blog.

www.freemosquitoringtones.org

View This Poll

Just so you know, I also learned that it matters what time you do your on-line shopping.  Better deals can be had either early in the morning or late in the evening when most normal people are in bed.  (this does exclude those people that have night shift positions) 

I don’t know how much this will help the retailers and their sales numbers, but it can’t hurt.  I will certainly be browsing to avoid getting in the middle of a bunch of mad shoppers.  Please remember, it soon will be Christmas day…don’t wait until Christmas Eve to do your shopping!

With Thanksgiving around the corner I think it is important to reflect on what we have to be thankful for this holiday season.  We are certainly all thankful for having food on the table, a safe place to live, good jobs, family, a great EMBA program.  Not to mention how thankful we are for Dr. Ives and Dr Adams or Dr. Adams and Dr. Ives!

This year I would also like to focus on something a little out of the ordinary that we take for granted until we don’t have it. 

How many of you have been talking on the cell phone and the battery runs out…Frustrating! 

How about when you discover you forgot your cell phone at home and you have to do without for a few hours…Very Frustrating! 

How about during the recent Hurricane when the network was absolutely overloaded cell towers were not functioning and you couldn’t get a signal…Extremely Frustrating!

This year I would like everyone to be thankful for your cell phone and appreciate those that have gone before us in getting us to the technology we have today.

At first glance appears like the hieroglyphics found in caves, certainly don’t know if this was a construction set of documents or merely a schematic design document.  Nevertheless it is Thomas Edison first sketch of his new invention, the telephone. 

I thought it would be good to give a visual pictorial of the history of phones and my minimal commentary of my personal memories of these phones.

  1                         2                         3                            4               

           5                      6                 7                 8

1. Only thought on this phone is from old reruns of Green Acres…Go Zsa Zsa!
2. Old movies in the 1950′s and 60′s…or cartoons where the handset actually vibrates when it rings.
3. The old Rotary phone…I recall in elementary school having these throughout our home.  Yes, those are cords on photos 1-5.
4. Usher in the push button phone.  Seemed like the rich kids always had push button phones in their homes.  (no hard feelings)
5. Upgrade from the typical push button phone, this phone had the capability programming phone numbers.  Notice the size difference from years past.
6. Oh…the first step to the cordless world.  I remember in high school being able to go outside on my back deck to talk on the phone…FREEDOM!
7. We all recognize this as the beginning of the modern cell phone.
8. Welcome Iphone!  Great things to come!

So in closing, I would like to thank Thomas Edison for paving the way for me to be available for work 24 hours a day.  Thank you for the inherent frustrations when my cell phone is not working properly.  Thank you for my kids not joining in conversation during dinner because they are texting their friends.  Last but not least thank you for all the great opportunities to come in the future!