Andy is anxious to hear about the 3rd quarter figures. However he failed to consult the staff’s vacation schedule.

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Rachel Yeomans Categories: Fun

Emma, the EPS Astek sends all our emails out through, had a truly excellent round up of mobile-friendly-email design and programming guidelines.  Really great nuts and bolts stuff for all of us.  For the designers, things like recommended pixel sizes for links, fonts, email layout and landing pages widths and more.  For the programmers, actual code snippets for forcing certain behaviors to keep emails and landing pages sized for readability and interaction.

http://myemma.com/blog/2011/07/27/anna-yeamans-6-mobile-design-tips/

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Katie Hawkey Categories: How To, Marketing, Web

On July 27, 1981 a six year old software company called Microsoft, known primarily for its BASIC programming language, purchased another company’s operating system, proceeded to tweak it, licensed it to IBM for use in a brand new computer system aimed at the home market (the PC), and set off on the path to world domination.

CP/M: The Pete Best of Operating Systems

IBM was originally angling to get a very popular operating system called CP/M for the PC but negotiations fell apart and IBM turned to Microsoft. Microsoft responded by purchasing an operating system called 86-DOS from a small company called Seattle Computer Products. 86-DOS was also known as QDOS or “Quick and Dirty Operating System” because it had been banged out over the course of four months and was, functionally, a knock-off of CP/M right down to the 8 character file name and 3 character extension. It’s difficult to say how things might have turned out if CP/M had gotten the job. CP/M’s creator, computer scientist Gary Kildall, became a rich man in his own right but was reportedly always bitter about Bill Gates’s fame and called MS-DOS “plain and simple theft.”

The Right Deal at the Right Time
Unlike IBM’s offer for CP/M which would have been an outright purchase, their deal with Microsoft left Gates, Paul Allen and company with ownership of the operating system and the right to produce their own version of it. Considering Microsoft is still making operating systems (still over 80% of the market) and IBM long ago left the home computer market that deal has made all the difference.

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Tom Hickey Categories: General, Technology

Check out this blog showing five awesome and even slightly practical modes of transportation. Ever wanted a flying car, batmobile, or just to ride more safely on your bike? Now you can!

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Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, Fun, Gadget, Technology

There’s not a lot of good that comes out of a recession – debt, foreclosures, decimation of retirement plans, etc., etc., etc. But one silver lining to every recession in American history is that moment when “…because that’s the way it’s always been done.” becomes “…well that’s what got us into this mess in the first place.” And when that philosophy finally shifts, when Americans really commit to finding new solutions, we can come up with really, really cool stuff.

Around mid-2009, I started hearing about this new focus in the technology world on “selling your by-products.” Manufacturers have been doing it for years, selling sawdust and fabric scraps. But now technology companies were starting to look at their work this way. And I don’t mean technology companies that manufacture products, I mean programmers. “What are the byproducts for programmers?” you might ask. Well in the case of the creators of Basecamp, 37 Signals, they count among their by-products a book, written from a foundation of the blog posts they wrote while building their product line, and a new programming language, Ruby on Rails. They wrote a great article on this idea that I still refer to today: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1620-sell-your-by-products

But the tech world weren’t the only ones exploring innovative by-products. Around the same time this blog post started getting circled around the Internets. It’s an article about finding new ways for non-profit theatres to create reliable streams of revenue and it focuses on the “by-products” of theatre. What does that mean?

“…It means you sell memberships, not tickets. It means that if I pay you ten bucks a month, I get access. I can visit every rehearsal. I get a guaranteed ticket to every show you do. I get unlimited empty seat passes after I use my guaranteed ticket. When a guest artists comes to do a Suzuki workshop with your acting company, I get a chance to sign up too. For free. When you have some down time, your company members teach a class, and I get to come. For free. It means that instead of throwing your unused costumes and props in the dump, you throw a souvenir party. I get to come take home a souvenir. For free. Because I am a supporter, and that special-purpose prop is just more sawdust to you. Could you sell these things in other ways? Sure. You could do a prop auction. You could sell seats in a summer acting workshop. You can sell individual tickets. But I don’t think that’s the best way to sell the sawdust. Remember: we’re trying to stay away from simple transactions. We’re trying to concentrate our value into a long-term relationship. Don’t encourage your customers to track dollar-for-dollar what they get out of every transaction. Encourage them to understand that theater is a process. A process that costs money, but produces hundreds of wonderful results. Let them invest in the process, and then let them reap the results.”

The article goes on to encourage the use of technology to stream events, gather feedback from your members, allow that feedback to influence a production in progress, use your members as dramaturgs, focus groups, critics, and fans to not only build excitement for opening night, but to make the performance better and to build relationships with your audience that last all year round – not just the few days or weeks that you have a play running.

Pretty cool idea, right? And in the last couple years since that article there have even been performing arts companies embracing this new business model and are having success with it! But this idea can definitely use some more support. Specifically technical support…

…enter the Audience Engagement Platform:

http://www.youtube.com/v/2243Dwwqv4A

I’ve heard it described as “The Facebook for the Performing Arts” but I think it’s really a way for performing artists to sell their “sawdust.” It’s still in beta and by invite only, but if you can think of a performing arts company or individual that is forward thinking enough to really use this program, I’d encourage you to send them to this link to get in on the ground floor of this way-cool new platform!

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Katie Hawkey Categories: Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Web

Are you on Google+ yet? What people are calling “Google’s take on Facebook” is already at 10 million users in the first few weeks of its full release. After digging into it myself, I have to say I’m really liking it. Personally, I am not the biggest fan of Facebook. That doesn’t mean I’m not on it, but I primarily use it as feed for people to see all the articles I write and stuff I post, etc. As for status updates and conversation – I leave that to Twitter.

Let’s start with the basics. You can create a Google+ account by going to plus.google.com. There you set up your profile which basically takes the place of your existing Google profile if you already have one. I set mine up similarly to my LinkedIn Profile actually, considering that not only can you find people to connect with through your address book, but also by searching for keywords. So for my ‘headline’ I entered in the keywords that apply to my industry and my interests in general.

As soon as I added all my web profile links and synched my contacts, it was time to start playing with Circles. Yes, Circles. Instead of putting your friends in a series of lists, Google+ has you put your contacts into different circles. They have the basic defaults of Friends, Family, etc., but you can also create your own. For example, I created a Social Media / Digital circle. I also created circles for different Twitter groups I’m involved in, a circle for my blog, a circle on fashion, etc. etc. Then when you are on the home page of Google+, you will see a stream of updates from people in your circles (very similar to your Facebook Wall). What’s really cool though is that you can select which circles you want to view, and when you update your own status, not only can you tag an individual but you can also only share it with that one person (again, ONLY that one person) or with just a select circle or two. And if you add someone to a circle who’s not on Google+, they will get an email from your account so they can still see the information you want to share with them!

The privacy settings are very well-tuned on Google+ versus both Twitter and Facebook. However for those of us who have 1,000+ pictures on their Facebook profiles, never fear, there’s a plug-in for that! If you use the Chrome browser, you can download the plug-in, Move2Picasa, and move all of your Facebook photos or just a few selected ones into your Picasa and/or Google+ account! Mine transferred with the click of a button!

There’s also a sort of ‘newsy’ portion of Google+ that I equate to either the LinkedIn news and headlines and also some Twitter lists you can make or even categories in your Flipboard iPad app. Instead, Google+ calls them Sparks. Sparks provides you with topics of interest that you can follow and glean from based on whatever topic you decide to follow.

And probably one of my favorite functions of Google+ is their Hangout platform. By starting a Hangout, you can actually video chat with up to ten people at a time, and see each person as sort of thumbnails on your computer stream. Talk about taking Skype to a whole new level!

On the mobile side (this is one instance I’m so happy I have a Droid vs. an iPhone besides the Google Maps turn by turn directions), the Google+ app features a GroupMe type quality with its Huddles function, which is essentially group texting to members of your circle. Definitely ideal when coordinating with a group of individuals.

There are many other features to Google+ including some shortcuts, typing tricks and even plug-ins to create your own Google+ vanity URL! For lots more tips and tricks, check out this handy topic guide via Mashable.

How are you using Google+? Thoughts? Ideas? Let’s compare  notes!

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Rachel Yeomans Categories: How To, Social Media

That’s what 25,727 passwords look like, displayed one per frame, or 25 per second.  These passwords were stolen by the hacker group LulzSec (link to Wikipedia entry on them, not their site) from a porn site, along with their associated users’ email addresses.  You may have heard of LulzSec recently for their role in hacking the PBS website in retaliation for their perception of bias in reporting about WikiLeaks.  They also attacked Sony Pictures, releasing tons of sensitive company and user information.  And this not long after Sony had recovered from attacks by hacker group Anonymous on their PlayStation Network.

A lot can be said about this recent rash of hacking, but I like the simplicity of this video.  It doesn’t show the associated usernames, so the identities of the people behind them are relatively protected.  Although you can find the leaked information from LulzSec if you put your mind to it.  But the video just reminds you about the volume of sensitive data seemingly being compromised almost constantly these days.  It’s also just fascinating to watch the patterns go by.  Since it’s one password per frame, popular passwords (or password prefixes) stay onscreen longer.  ’123456′ for instance stays up for about 25 seconds. That’s about 625 or 2% of the whole 26K passwords in this set.  People use some really predictable and unsecure passwords.  There are also some pretty funny ones in there, most of which are fairly vulgar, so I’ll refrain from giving examples.

Cheers to artist Joerg Piringer for such a simple, cool idea.

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Andrew Crowe Categories: Fun, General, Technology, Web

Wow…. just wow. Well, and ouch. And, HECK YEAH!

Ok, who wants one?

This post was featured in ePiphany, Astek’s Monthly Newsletter |  Other ePiphany Articles

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Katie Hawkey Categories: ePiphany Featured Story, Fun, Technology, Web

Computers do a million different jobs but, at heart, the only thing they REALLY know how to do is flip on-off switches. Fifty years ago those switches were vacuum tubes which were eventually replaced by transistors and then integrated circuits. At each stage of evolution the physical size, amount of power consumed, and waste heat generated by computers have decreased dramatically but they still function by running electrical current through circuits.

Here’s an interesting article at Science Dailey about how researchers at UC Berkeley are developing “magnetic computers” which would use nanometer-sized bar magnets as their switches. When packed close enough together these magnets can affect each other in predictable ways and carry out all of the same basic functions of current computers but without requiring electrical current to be run through them. It’s estimated that their power consumption could be almost one million times less than current computers, approaching 0.0178 electron volts which is the least amount of energy needed to perform a computing operation, also known as the Landauer Limit (follow that link only if you want to grapple with the laws of thermodynamics).

There would also, of course, be a commensurate decrease in waste heat.

So: less electricity to run the computer and, maybe more significantly, less electricity to cool the computer.

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Tom Hickey Categories: General, Technology

If you’re like me, you can’t have enough digital desktop space. However, if you’re like me, you switched to a laptop many years ago, and had to take a step back from desktop computers that could easily run as many monitors as you could fit on your desk. Macs have always had an advantage here, running dual monitors since the late 80’s. This was one of the reasons they gained popularity for desktop publishing.

While most laptops natively support one external monitor in addition to the built-in screen, I’ve found myself at times wanting two big displays since I usually don’t have my laptop open on my desk. I find it cumbersome and recently downgraded to a 13“ MacBook Pro since I typically use the laptop as a laptop on planes and in coffee shops where it’s cramped. I may even go AirBook next.

Low and behold, about a year ago the geniuses at DisplayLink invented a microchip (let’s call it a magic box) that allows you to run a monitor off nothing more than a USB connection. How does it work? It compresses the video signal to fit into the 480 Mb/s data stream that USB can handle. Back in the day you had to have a separate video card for every monitor or pair of monitors, which used far more power and generate more heat. No more.

So now they’ve licensed the chip and there are all varieties of magic boxes out there. I highly recommend this USB display adapter from Diamond Multimedia, which works on Mac and PC and also has a built in 3-port USB hub since you’d be losing a USB port otherwise:

Installation is a snap. Install one DisplayLink driver, which you can find here for free, then plug it in and go! The box has a DVI monitor port, so you may need an adapter for VGA, etc.

The only drawback is that the refresh speed is a little sluggish. You’ll notice this when you drag windows around or play a video. It can support HD resolution on up to six additional screens (one monitor per box), which is great, but I would not recommend it for watching movies or gaming. That’s what your main monitor is for!

At Astek, we’re completely laptop-based, which is great for a flexible work environment. And now the only significant limitation has been removed. I tested it out first on one workstation, and then bought them for the whole office. It’s $60 for the box, so around $300 total investment including a monitor for a significant increase in productivity. Here’s my current setup:

What would you do with two monitors?

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Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, Fun, Gadget, How To, Technology