With the recent public display of Blackberry 10, RIM is back in the news. I believe that RIM has made many missteps and has been too slow to respond to changing market dynamics. Thus, my view is that RIM’s future looks dim and that they will struggle. Last week, my travels took me to Toronto and I met with a knowledgeable person (Let’s call him Bob for simplicity although that was not his real name.) who had a different opinion. To be clear, Bob was not a RIM employee but was knowledgeable about the company and the industry. I thought that it would be interesting to share his perspectives here because they are so different from mine. It is up to the reader to decide whether they agree or disagree. (Read More »)
A few months ago, my friend Ed sent an email encouraging me to join him in the RunForYourLives race. For those of you unfamiliar, it is a 5k race where you run through mud and various obstacles while being chased by people pretending to be zombies. At the time, it seemed like a great idea and with some additional encouragement from my friend David, I signed up. I completed the race yesterday, and friends and family keep asking about it and so I figured that I would create this blog summary. (Read More »)
Last December, I found that my old and reliable HP LaserJet 4 was on its last legs. My LJ4 is built like a tank and while it is not the fastest, it has dutifully served since 2000. However, the time had come to introduce a new printer. Given my changing needs, I decided to focus my search on multifunction devices that incorporate scanning, printing and faxing, and the first question was whether to go with an inkjet or laserjet.
Historically, the choice of inkjet versus laser printers was clear. Laser printers were more expensive to purchase, but were significantly cheaper when it came to buying toner and inkjets were the opposite – inexpensive to buy with expensive ink. Thus when it came to purchase a new printer, I assumed that these long held assumptions were still true and was I ever wrong!
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A business colleague recent tweeted a question about choosing a home generator. He was concerned about recent power outages in New England and worried that they would continue in the upcoming months and years. He was looking at options to protect his home in the case of a significant outage. I had recently considered adding a generator and wanted to share some learnings. The process is not that complex but there are four key questions that need to be considered:
1. Generator size
There are two differing perspectives on this question.
The first strategy is to use a very large generator (someone recommended a 20Kw to me). The benefit of this approach is that the large unit would power everything in the house and so you could run all your appliances including air conditioners, electric dryer and even electric stove without a problem. However, there is a trade-off. The larger generator typically means higher cost, more noise and increased fuel consumption.