The Wired Gadget Lab blog has an article about a restaurant in London (the other London, unfortunately) that projects touchscreens on its tables. You order your food by selecting menu items off the touchscreen projections, and view and pay your bill the same way. You can also see an image of each menu item before you order. And while you wait, you can play video games.
They also have cameras set up so you can watch your meal being prepared – but I’m not sure I really want to see that.
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It was inspired by Dan Pinnington’s Slaw post from yesterday.
It reads as follows:
Dan’s 10 essential technology skills and practices contains some good tips (although I must admit I’m not good with keyboard shortcuts – I think more graphically and tend to use the mouse).
I have a couple more to add.
When creating Word documents don’t use the “enter” key to create spaces between paragraphs. The right way is to use the paragraph settings to set the “before and after” spacing. Otherwise, you can’t make efficient use of things like paragraph numbering or bullets. And by using the “before and after” setting, you can often easily adjust the length of a document a bit to make it fit on one less page.
And don’t use page breaks to keep headings and paragaphs, or multiple paragraphs together. The “keep with next” feature within the paragraph settings does a far better job, and continues to work when things get moved around during editing. That’s assuming, of course, that you have used the “before and after” setting to create paragraph spacing.
And if you want to keep a consistent look and formatting among your headings and paragraphs, use “styles”.
One thing I like about Office 2007 is that the controls used to do these various things are very visible and easy to find. I highly recomend the upgrade.
That’s the title of my Slaw post from this am. It reads as follows:
Speaking of “Shouldn’t it just work“, I have been thinking that a sole practitioner or small firm actually is now at an advantage over larger firms regarding technology.
Software required to run law firms – such as accounting and document management – has typically been created specifically for law firms. That means it is not cheap, and is rarely cutting edge.
But tools are now available that give essentially the same functionality (or at least the 80% that one actually needs) that are low cost and easy to use. Online accounting services for example, or OneNote and search tools to locate documents.
If one has a few people in an office, that usually means setting up a server – which is simple for an IT person, but a daunting task for a lawyer.
One option is to set up a Windows Home Server. It essentially works like a normal server (WHS is actually a front end bolted onto Windows Server 2003), and allows up to 10 users. I can attest to how easy it is to set up and use WHS, as I just bought a new PC at home, and converted the 5 year old PC I replaced into a WHS.
Most people would just buy the Hewlett Packard WHS product and plug it in (which I would suggest for any office use) – but I saved a lot of $ by just buying a couple of hard drives and a few other bits. ( startech.com - a company based here in London – makes all kinds of parts to connect things together).
The WHS will automatically back up PC’s, or better still can be used as a true server to hold the files, and can be accessed remotely. Data can be duplicated accross multiple drives to give redundancy in case of hard drive failure. Capacity is measured in terabytes – which not too long ago was considered supercomputer territory.
And from a user perspective – it is extremely simple to set up and use.
Lifehacker points to an amusing post on the Put Things Off blog that bills itself as The laid-back prodcutivity blog. entitled Think Different â Buy a Bigger Envelope!, subtitled How to Tell if You Really Need New Hardware.
Its a reality check for those who just have to buy the latest and greatest gadgets. I admit I get caught up in that sometimes – but then I’m too cheap to spend the money.
Apple, for example, thrives on the want, rather than the need to buy new stuff – with the marketing buzz they create, their knack of getting unique (or at least the illusion of unique) products to the market at the right time, and cutting edge design. Why include user replaceable batteries, for example, when you will buy the Macbook Space before the battery on the Macbook Air dies?
Take a look at the Buy a Bigger Envelope post.
Rogers is offering a free upgrade to Windows Mobile 6 to those of us who have a Rogers HTC with Windows Mobile 5. I upgraded mine yesterday – it was easy to do.
That upgrade was welcome – now if only the data rates would come down so I could actually afford to surf the net using the Rogers network, instead of having to do that over wifi.
Read more about that in an article by Jack Kapica
That’s the title of a presentation I am giving for the TechAlliance on October 25th. Take a look at the TechAlliance web site for more detail, and to sign up.
This article is getting some attention in the blogosphere. Its worth a look if you are interested in where the Web might be headed, and how it might affect your organization, or how you might take advantage of it.
Of course like any predictions, its hard to know how, when, or if these will pan out, and whether they will be evolutionary or revolutionary. Good food for thought nonetheless.
On the device front, Apple announced a slew of new iPod models yesterday that will make any iPod owner want to upgrade. Microsoft announced a new media extender platform, with new hardware to follow shortly, to connect PC to TV. Note to self – need to buy lottery ticket to fund all these toys.
Read the Read/Write Web article
Read an engadget post about the new iPods
Read a gizmodo article about the media extender
For those that are counting – 9 days to go before the iPhone is available. Keep in mind that while there is no question that it is a cool and innovative device, it is aimed at the consumer market. It is not designed to play nice with the corporate desktop, where Blackberry’s and Windows Mobile devices reign supreme.
So if you want an iPhone for work purposes – check it out carefully before you buy to make sure it will meet your needs. I suspect lots of people will try to use them for business use, and perhaps web apps will be created for the iPhone browser that will bridge the gap. I’m sure we will see commentary on this soon after it is on the market.
For those that just can’t wait to get one – Steve Rubel points to an article entitled Waiting for Your iPhone: Five Ways to Handle the Unbearable Stress
Slashdot has a post that says that Business 2.0′s editorial system recently crashed, wiping out their June content. Seems their backup server didn’t do its job, and they had to redo it all.
The post points out the irony that this would happen to a publication that has written articles about the importance of backups.
The lesson is that unless you can actually restore from a backup, its not really a backup. The systems need to be tested to make sure.
Read the Slashdot post
This has been a good week for London, Ontario. In a survey titled North American Cities of the Future – Foreign Direct Investment, the business magazine for the Financial Times of London (the other London) – ranked London in the top 5 on three lists.
Top-10 small cities of the future. Best economic potential for a small city. Most cost-effective.
London is the only city to appear in the top 5 of those 3 lists. The survey covered all cites in Canada, the U.S., and Mexico.
That comes on the heels of a very successful âIT LIVES in Londonâ IT Week, sponsored by TechAlliance. All the events this week were well attended, some of them sold out due to venue capacity restraints. Many people attending were surprised at the number and diversity of IT busiesses in London, many of which have significant global reach. (Transparency disclosure: I am on the IT advisory counsel to TechAlliance.)
So for any IT business looking for a place to locate – consider London.
Read a London Free Press article on the survey
Look at the TechAlliance web site
Learn more about London from the London Economic Development Corporation (LEDC)
