Jun 18, 2013
Because I like to dine out, some folks think I am a wine expert.
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May 21, 2013
What does the audiovisual designer become when every piece of equipment
needs only power and an ethernet connection?
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May 20, 2013
It took less than two seconds for
the LA Clippers’ DeAndre Jordan to
prepare, formulate, and execute one
of the most aggressive slam-dunks
of the NB A season earlier this spring.
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»
May 17, 2013
It seems the latest luxury item to adorn corporate lobbies is the somewhat inglorious hand-sanitizing station covered with interior-design friendly finishes such as faux brass or imitation marble. The sentiment seems to be that if they have to be there, and they probably do, then at least they can look like they were carefully and intentionally selected, rather than dropped off by some impersonal sanitization team.
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May 07, 2013
There is a very specific glory reserved
for those honored with a ticker tape
parade in Manhattan.
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Apr 30, 2013
Google has been getting a lot of media attention around its augmented
reality (AR) internet-enabled glasses—Google Glass.
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Apr 15, 2013
Learning technology in classrooms has been proven to
increase comprehension, test scores, and retention.
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Apr 02, 2013
I’m a systems contractor, why should I have to spend resources on marketing?
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Mar 27, 2013
At the foot of a giant, shiny condominium
tower in downtown Dallas stands a shy,
diminutive structure with a design far
more complex than one would imagine
upon first seeing it.
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»
Mar 14, 2013
What areas of the healthcare
market do service?
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Mar 14, 2013
There are many skeptics when it comes
to using social media for business-tobusiness
(B2B) selling.
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»
Mar 14, 2013
What do Massachusetts General Hospital,
Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St.
Louis, and University of Michigan
Hospital all have in common?
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»
Mar 14, 2013
For the duration of my college career, I
worked in a small library on the big campus
of Boston University.
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Mar 12, 2013
WorldStage, the new brand for Scharff Weisberg and Video Applications Inc., developed and installed an innovative live, moving LED display system for the new studio design for ESPN’s premier NBA show.
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Mar 07, 2013
The latest innovation in healthcare
involves the use of walls and surfaces
as computing devices.
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»
Feb 26, 2013
For some time now I’ve been trying to come to terms with Facebook,
Twitter, blogs, email newsletters, and all other variety new-age media.
Are these legitimate vehicles for our marketing efforts?
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»
Feb 21, 2013
How many cups of coffee does it
take to screw in a light bulb?
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Feb 07, 2013
Historically, most user grievances with conference phones have revolved around the poor quality of the audio experience.
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Jan 30, 2013
The retail experience stores (think Apple or Microsoft retail outlet) are increasing in popularity. In these stores, a combination of screens, tablets, laptops, and phones are deployed to engage the consumer.
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Jan 23, 2013
This month, SCN is debuting a quarterly feature delving into the
ongoing convergence of AV and IT. We’ve selected two experts in
their respective fields, John E. Stiernberg for AV, and Bill Murphy
for IT, to answer questions that many integrators have on this subject.
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Jan 21, 2013
Dear Professor Phil,
One of our video encoders has a connector
on the back that is a serial
port.
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Jan 15, 2013
Is it true that data, audio, and video can travel only about 300 feet on twisted pair because of external interference?
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Jan 14, 2013
For those who see piles of snow
undulating across the horizon at this
very moment, the thought of a beach
probably carries with it the notion of
warm sand and brilliant sunlight.
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»
Jan 01, 2013
Early this year we adopted the phrase “flat is the new normal.” Hoping
for a decent recovery in 2012 we all seemed grateful that 2011 was in the
history books and we looked forward to improving business conditions.
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Nov 30, 2012
Just when you thought it was safe to buy a television, the 4K LCDs are coming—and there's no stopping them. In fact, 4K is being called the next generation television standard. The term 4K refers to an LCD flat panel or projector that has four times the resolution of HD (high definition) video. Some manufacturers are using the 4K name, while others, including the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) are calling them Ultra HD (UHD) devices.
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Nov 28, 2012
Dear Professor Phil,
At lunch several of us were discussing
our new videoconferencing deployment.
A debate developed.
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Nov 28, 2012
Video should not be left
marooned on its own
island.
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Nov 12, 2012
If you and your team dread meetings not for their content, but their duration, it’s possible the format needs to change.
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Nov 08, 2012
The future poses much opportunity specific to the AV industry.
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Oct 23, 2012
Ask a movie director and they’ll tell you that the audio track
is worth just as much if not more than the visuals on the
film itself.
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Oct 22, 2012
Dear Professor Phil,
We’re trying to select a video conferencing
system. The locations that
we will be conferencing are interconnected
by the Internet.
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»
Oct 22, 2012
One should not underestimate
the value of having a
standardized, pre-defined
set of tools for ingesting,
editing, managing and distributing video
content.
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»
Oct 11, 2012
Q. The audio category is brimming with products for just about
every application, including assistive listening. How and when did
you notice a need for a new product—loop technology?
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»
Oct 11, 2012
Most of today’s video
technology platforms can
produce an amazing array
of metrics tracking the
extent to which audiences are engaged
with the rich media content they consume.
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»
Oct 11, 2012
Dear Professor Phil,
One of our network technicians wants
to place a sniffer on our IP video network
to try to troubleshoot some problems
that we’ve encountered.
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»
Oct 11, 2012
Some years ago, the school
of music, of which I am
a part, sold our remaining
large-format analog
recording console and
analog multi-track tape recorder in an
effort to provide our students some
hands-on time with newer digital equipment
they would likely encounter in the
field.
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»
Oct 08, 2012
I became an audiovisual professional largely because I love technology. I especially enjoy new technology because it provides an opportunity to learn something, and hopefully improve how I do things. Sometimes I’m nostalgic for the old, but usually the appeal of the new is too great. For every new product, though, there is another that has become obsolete.
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Sep 24, 2012
Behind all those shiny new
iPads and Android tablets
that employees are bringing
into the workplace,
some troubles are arising
for the video pros who are trying to make
streaming video work in the enterprise.
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Sep 10, 2012
When 100-inch flatpanels become affordable, what comes next?
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Sep 06, 2012
Last week I attended a total
of 23 hours of online
classes.
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»
Aug 27, 2012
Dear Professor Phil,
We’re using IPTV at our school and
have discovered a situation that we
don’t understand.
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»
Aug 16, 2012
Admit it. We’re all in the same
boat.
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»
Aug 06, 2012
Digital signage is at the event horizon where audiovisual technology and IT merge. Nowhere is this more evident than within the implementation of cloud based computing in digital signage applications.
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Aug 06, 2012
We all use the term, but what is “the Cloud”? It goes by many names such as Managed Service, Elastic Computing, Utility Computing and also by acronyms such as SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS. For some, it can be a daunting topic making it difficult to know where to start.
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Aug 06, 2012
LCD flat panels continue to evolve–with thinner profile displays, thinner bezels/mullions, and LED backlighting developments. And there continue to be innovations in non-LED videowalls, OLED and a variety of display technologies. There have never been so many choices available for the market.
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Aug 06, 2012
Once in a while, I get to spend time engaging with really smart retail people—brands, retailers and agency lightning rods—and get way out of the day-to-day to just think. Think about what’s working at retail, what’s not and what we need to do to light a fire around some of the big opportunities.
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Aug 02, 2012
Earlier this year I wrote in this column about headwinds and tailwinds that
impact our businesses, making it difficult to predict the future while making
it imperative that we continually plan and prepare.
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»
Jul 31, 2012
Q. What do you steps or suggestions do you have for tech
managers who want to transition to video over wireless in
their facility?
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Jul 31, 2012
Is the tornado of digital acronyms making you dizzy? This glossary of easy to understand definitions will help you and your staff demystify digital media. Courtesy of Crestron and AV Technology editors.
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Jul 13, 2012
Surveillance operations continue to grow and change as technology evolves. The transition from CCTV to IP cameras has been largely successful, and many businesses, educational facilities, law enforcement agencies, and other entities are now strategizing how to keep an eye on things while on the move.
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»
Jul 12, 2012
Our social interactions are arranged on a graphic timeline, our weather
is beautifully mapped so we know when it will rain, and our brain is
explained with full-color fMRI images.
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»
Jul 06, 2012
“It couldn’t be… This is sport!
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Jun 18, 2012
Since yesterday streamed past us like a geek on a segway, I was kinda expecting Friday to be crazy. Full of, oh I don’t know... more geeks on segways or something epically superior to the wonderfulness that was Thursday at InfoComm. Well, that really didn’t happen.
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Jun 07, 2012
Motorcycles are probably not the first
thing that leaps to mind upon the
mention of mission-critical applications
for wireless technology.
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»
Jun 07, 2012
If you’ve been watching the
trade press recently, you
know that Panasonic and
NHK just unveiled a 145-inch ultra-high definition
plasma display.
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»
Jun 06, 2012
The high lumen video projector has always been at the heart of the staging and live events market. In fact the high lumen video projector was born in the staging market. But as we head to InfoComm, important developments in ancillary markets are creating big ripples across the industry.
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Jun 05, 2012
Where there is scarcity, there is money.
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Jun 03, 2012
In the June issue of Digital Signage Magazine, we explore in-depth one of the most interesting aspects of the digital signage and DOOH market: the use video projection in a market that many view as the realm of the flat panel.
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Jun 03, 2012
Retail according to Wikipedia: “the sale of goods and services from individuals or businesses to the end-user.” Shopping: “the act of buying products”. Go deeper and they list out the types of retailers by marketing strategy. Way, way down the list, just above vending machines, is Etailers. You’d think this was written 20 years ago—and it’s indicative to the struggle many retailers are facing today.
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Jun 03, 2012
Our executive editor has thrown down the gauntlet of reminding readers of the status of projection in the world of digital signage. I will gladly take this challenge– having grown up in the decades of projection long before flat panels were even a glint in the eye of display engineers and scientists. But this article is no exercise in nostalgia. Front and rear projection makes up a small but significant part of the digital signage industry reaching a penetration level exceeding 30% by some estimates. Let the challenge begin.
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Jun 03, 2012
The Cinema Market was one of the first to incorporate digital signage, and DOOH, into public spaces. The logic and logistics of narrowcasting to movie theater lobbies does not require much of a stretch, and several large digital cinema projector providers in the market leverage and cross-market their strength in providing images to both the big cinema screen (digital feature movie projection) and the smaller screens in the venue (movie promos, ads, etc).
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May 31, 2012
After more than a decade of “hurry up and wait” in the Cinema market, the analog-to-digital transition that most media started years ago is now achieving critical mass for movies. Yet today, many of the movies Americans watch at the local movie theater are still shown on 35mm movie projectors using the same technology that was in use when their grandparents were dating. Why the delay?
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May 29, 2012
By Bradley A. Malone, PMP - Many of the AV integration companies I’ve worked with have employed a range of sales strategies and styles. But overall, their approaches come down to this: short-term sale (hunt and kill it) versus long-term relationship (nurture and grow it).
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May 29, 2012
By Dan Daley, Special to InfoComm International® - Every lighting expert seems to have had his or her own LED epiphany. For Richard Cadena, a lighting educator and founder of the Academy of Production Technology, it was in December 2009 at a Daughtry concert.
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May 29, 2012
By Executive Editor David Keene - For the June issue of Rental & Staging Systems magazine, I asked lighting industry veteran Robert Mokry to update our readers on lighting control consoles– focusing on the big products from the big players. As Robert points out, “lighting console” is a dated term. We can’t simply say “lighting consoles” any more, because all the upper end products have evolved so much they are now “lighting control systems”.
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May 29, 2012
Exponation has announced the launch of a Digital Place-Based Network Showcase, an event designed to give brand marketers and advertisers the opportunity to meet with a cross-section of digital place-based networks all in one place for the purpose of better understanding this new media phenomenon.
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May 29, 2012
My InfoComm Wish List - By Joel Rollins - There are certain things that always prompt one to say "is it that time again?" Like renewing your driver's license. Or, writing the annual pre-InfoComm article– except this year– this year is a bit different.
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May 04, 2012
You can call a spade a spade, but
until there’s a market-researched
name attached to it, it’s not really a
spade.
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»
May 04, 2012
Joining some 400,000-plus other people, I recently finished reading Steve
Jobs by Walter Isaacson.
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»
May 03, 2012
What’s it like outside?
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May 03, 2012
The Viewpoint section of SCN is reserved for opinions and trends that reside
out there but just beg to be heard in a more formal sense.
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»
Apr 12, 2012
There is often a chill that runs up your spine when something is really well
done.
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»
Apr 12, 2012
It’s Mad Men season.
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Apr 04, 2012
Electrosonic’s Shanghai office has been designated a Wholly Foreign Owned Enterprise (WFOE), an officially registered limited liability corporation. This important step forward allows Electrosonic to continue to pursue new business opportunities in China as a legally licensed design consulting and systems integration c
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Apr 03, 2012
Putnam, CT-- Rational Acoustics has announced the integration of Smaart v.7 measurement data into the new Apex Intelli-Ware software control platform for the Intelli-X2 and the Intelli-Z system management processors.
Rational Acoustics’ Jamie Anderson shows off the Apex Intelli-Ware
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Mar 06, 2012
In the September 2011 issue of SCN (“Paperless Classroom”), I talked
about the revolution in education that’s impacting the way Higher Ed and
K-12 classroom systems are being configured and how the resulting designs
will radically reduce our environmental footprint in terms of manufacturing,
installing, and ultimately disposing of obsolete hardware, racks, wire, and
connectors.
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»
Mar 06, 2012
It may not seem like it when you’re
desperately awaiting the arrival of
a beverage cart on a long flight, but
air travel is still fairly miraculous in
its brevity.
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»
Feb 07, 2012
Pilots use a lot of terms to describe the laws and forces of nature that either
work for or against them during flight.
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»
Feb 07, 2012
Once expertise is gained in any arena,
it becomes impossible not to be upset
by shortcomings in that field.
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»
Jan 06, 2012
As talk of Oscar nods takes over the
entertainment conversation this winter,
we tend to think of the best things
we’ve seen all year.
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»
Jan 06, 2012
I’m fortunate to live in a city with a world-class music venue: the Walt
Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, CA.
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»
Dec 14, 2011
If you’ve ever wiled away your time on a
treadmill pondering whether the energy
you’re expending could be harnessed to
power the lights in the gym, you’re on to
something.
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»
Dec 14, 2011
Wow, it’s already the December issue of Systems Contractor News.
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»
Dec 02, 2011
In the ’90s, the idea of integrating sound, video, and lighting systems in the
church market was basically non-existent.
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»
Nov 16, 2011
Do you ever take the time to reflect on the history of your business,
why and how it started, and the milestones you and the business have
achieved?
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»
Oct 27, 2011
Is it just my imagination, or has most of the cool new technology that has
been invented over the past 20 years been in the world of audio and video?
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»
Oct 17, 2011
Increasingly, in both our home and work environments, we live in a world of automation. And, accordingly, our demands have risen just beyond the limits of reasonable expectation. Is it any wonder, then, that we frequently hear "What do you mean I have to adjust it? Isn't it digital?" With Digital Signal Processing u
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»
Aug 16, 2011
It is amazing that large buildings ever even get built.
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»
Aug 09, 2011
For many years I was an advocate of simplicity when it came to user interface
design, maybe to an extreme.
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»
Jun 08, 2011
Depending on your region, the education market today may be excellent
or non-existent.
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»
Jun 03, 2011
Today’s business environment has dramatically changed in the past few
years.
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»
Mar 18, 2011
How often have you heard the phrase “value engineering,” or even used the words yourself, in the context of an AV integration project? If you are like me, you are probably tired of hearing what probably started out as a term to describe good construction management practices, but over time has become overused to the p
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Feb 08, 2011
I’m writing this column following the loss of a dear friend and industry
leader.
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Feb 08, 2011
What kind of music do you like? It’s a
fairly innocuous question, one often
posed by those looking to pass the
time over cocktails or during the
“networking” segments of business
conferences.
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»
Jan 12, 2011
As I walked into the International Association of Amusement Parks and
Attractions (IAAPA) 2010 trade floor, it was clear that there was an
energy level on the floor that I had not felt in 10 years.
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»
Jan 12, 2011
Too many audience members seem
unaware that in an acoustically perfect
space, sound not only travels pristinely
from the stage to the audience, but also
fairly cleanly from the peanut gallery to
performers’ ears.
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Dec 16, 2010
The next time you find yourself stranded in the toothpaste aisle at the grocery store, trying to make a selection from the seemingly endless array of options, don’t feel bad.
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»
Dec 16, 2010
As we look forward to 2011, you may want to give some thought to Albert Einstein’s quote, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
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»
Nov 17, 2010
Four years after
a crate of Scotch
whisky was discovered
in the
Antarctic hut of Sir
Ernest Shackleton,
the parcel was
finally thawed and
opened this past
summer.
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»
Nov 17, 2010
It has been one of
those months—the
kind where there
seems to be a permanent
target on
your back.
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»
Oct 07, 2010
Watching the sound
technician swing
a shotgun mic
from left to right,
again and again, it
almost seems like
she’s mocking the
spectator sport most
likely to cause neck
strain.
More
»
Oct 07, 2010
Talk of the death
of the World Wide
Web seems to be a
popular subject at
this moment.
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»
Sep 09, 2010
Every month our
company pours
significant amounts
into high-speed
internet access for
the offices.
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»
Sep 08, 2010
“Always look for
the silver lining,”
sings Chet Baker
in an indefatigable
tone, “whenever a
cloud appears in the
blue.”
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»
Aug 13, 2010
The last 12 months
have been an electrifying
time for the
videoconferencing
industry.
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»
Aug 11, 2010
When we are fortunate
enough to
indulge in a real
lunch break, we all
have a favorite spot.
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»
Jul 19, 2010
As the axiom goes,
in 1810 the savvy
entrepreneur should
have gone to London,
in 1910 they
should have been
in New York, and
in 2010 they should
be in Asia. Having
recently returned
from Shanghai, China and the
World’s Fair (Expo 2010), the saying
holds true.
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»
Jul 19, 2010
Wrap a phrase in
quotation marks
and it changes its
context.
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»
Jun 07, 2010
A few days ago one
of our sales people
covering a large
corporate account
received the following
email: “Please be
advised that, effective
immediately,
John Q. Champion,
supervisor security technologies, is on
special assignment and no longer in
this position.
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»
Jun 07, 2010
They’re onto us.
They’ve heard our
story and they
believe it.
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»
May 06, 2010
As the executive director
and CEO of Info-
Comm International,
I am often asked
about the effect of the
recession on the commercial
audiovisual
industry, and most
importantly, when
will the tough times end for business.
More
»
May 05, 2010
The scientific studies and tech blogs
are abuzz with the
theory that standing
is the new ergonomic
chair. Apparently
people who
stand at work are
healthier and burn
more calories than
those who sit. The
benefits also extend to the creative
mind, which seems to more freely
produce ideas when the body escapes
the confines of a chair.
More
»
Apr 01, 2010
Many of our most vivid memories, individually and collectively as a culture, are of great victories and defeats in sports. If you witness raised voices and waving arms at a group gathering, there’s a good chance that a game or match is being recalled. More than politics or anything else that makes people shout, sports
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»
Feb 26, 2010
Probably the most famous two words uttered by former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan are “irrational exuberance.” He used these words in 1996 to describe the run up in the stock market prior to the bust of the dotcom era. It’s too bad he didn’t take the necessary steps to avert the bust or the pending mortgage and banking
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»
Feb 26, 2010
As an image, the theater marquee has long represented one’s making it to the big-time. Countless movies, still photographs, and songs celebrate the glitz and glamour of seeing a name “in lights.” These twinkling icons of success can still be found glowing above the entrance to historic theaters in downtown neighborhoo
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»
Jan 06, 2010
When the term ‘quality’ is applied to AV system installations, some tend to first think only about the relative value or usefulness of the individual components that make up the system. Are they of “good quality?” However, the true overall quality of an AV system is determined by many factors. These include the design
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»
Jan 06, 2010
As the new calendar year begins midwinter, we are all looking for signs of spring. Not specifically the season welcomed with tulips and robins, but rather the advent of an economic recovery. The signs that trigger hopefulness will be a bit more difficult to recognize than the equally welcome arrival of warmer weather,
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»
Dec 18, 2009
Most professionals recognize that they have to network to build business, find opportunities, and move forward in their career. They also recognized that effective networking is not walking int
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»
Dec 18, 2009
We’ve all had a good chuckle at the oversized electronics of the not-too distant past. Often, those self-coconscious giggles erupt when viewing films or TV shows from way back in the 1990s, the first decade where technology began outgrowing itself at a strikingly fast pace. Catching a glimpse of the giant VHS cameras
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»
Sep 28, 2008
Is Bigger Really Better? Full Article 9 by Mike Bradley Mike Bradley (mcbradley@safeguard.us) is president of Safeguard Security and Communications, a security and communication systems integrator in Phoenix, AZ. Bradley is a past president and director on the board of the NSCA with 25 years’ experience in sa
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»
Apr 11, 2005
What's behind your brand? Another way to ask this question is, what could go wrong to hurt your brand? Every company, whether new or established, has a brand. A brand is a reputation, a promise, an expectation.
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»
Feb 28, 2005
In the days just before sound reinforcement products became widely available and the business of sound contracting was born, there thrived a phenomenon known as dance-hall music. Without speakers, amps, microphones or any processing in between, musicians played for crowds undistracted by mobile phones and various text messaging devices. And somehow, everyone was entertained.
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»
Jan 28, 2005
Everyone has their talents. Usually they become apparent through education or exposure to the everyday career opportunities that exist in modern society. But imagine if you were born a few centuries too late and your natural talent was for a task that really wasn't required anymore. You might never discover this truly unique ability, and hence your life would always feel empty.
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»