Rim has many issues that the technology world is well aware about. First off the Playbook should be called the PlayFlop. Between recalls and the lack of 3g support if you do not already own a blackberry it has been one issue after another. Not a good way to enter the Blackberry market.

The Blackberry Torch from their signature line does not work as advertised. the device is extremely temperamental as well as hard to use. The keys are smaller and the device does not work really well. I find the touch screen on it not sensitive enough and hard to use. Blackberry is not even consistent from one model to the next on how the device works so the learning curve goes up.

Blackberry has also issues with there share price. Investors are getting concerned and the share price is going up and down like a ping pong ball. The reason for this is Rim needs a change at the top. The Co- Ceo’s need to step down and let someone else run the company. The time for this change is NOW.

In all of this how has Rim survived? Three things have helped Rim survive. The first is the Blackberry Enterprise Server. This offers business a managed solution for there devices and email. No other vendor even comes close to doing this. Secondly Blackberys offer the best encryption method of ANY device. The encryption is so tight that many countries have forced Rim to give them access to the back end. This really says a lot. The third reason is Black Berry Messenger(BBM). For BBM no additional charges are incurred on a Blackberry.

These are the keys to why Rim has survived. If they make a CEO change they will be an even stronger company in the future. How do you feel about Rim as a company?

Why do I think this way. First off Amazon never does anything half fast. They work on building their organization. They know how to build successful products. Look at the Kindle and Audible to name a few. Amazon did not jump into the tablet market without being prepared. They waited and watched the market unlike Rim who jumped in without the proper research. Amazon understands there market. They always have.

The $199.00 price point will give the Wifi only  version of the Ipad a run for it’s money. It will bring people who do not want to spend the money for an Ipad into the tablet market. For a lot of people the Ipad is out of reach from a price point point of view. Secondly the Android operating system is now mature. Which means it has stability and it has Google behind it.

The fact the Android tablet has the Kindle name behind it will not hurt it either.  The Kindle is well known for its price point and quality.

Just my quick two sense worth but I would get one. How do you feel about the Amazon Kindle tablet?

How We Purchased Music

When I was a young child I saved and saved to purchase the latest 45 record. At that time the cost was about $1.85 for one hit single and a B side. Usually the B side was a song that was not a hit but sometimes there were surprises. Today I jump on ITunes and download the latest hit for $.99 and it is on my pc and ready to listen to in 2 minutes. What an advantage.

It is so much advantage that music stores are closing up all over. The latest chain to be sold lately was HMV music in Canada. They have mentioned the digtial music revolution as being their number one competitor.

How We Listened To Music

In my younger days, I owned a boombox. After the boombox, I had a portable cd player. In between these I also had a record payer with speakers attached to it. Today is another story. I almost never listen to the radio anymore. I listen to most of my music on Groveshark or songs that I purcahse On ITunes. I listen to music on my computer, Ipod and IPhone. How times have changed!

Photography

As a youngster I never took many pictures. I never really saw the point and I hated to use the now almost defunct word called film. Today is another story. I own both a digital camera and a digital video camera. I use them all the time and shoot pictures on every trip and even which I attend. I even take movies and photos on my Iphone.

Television

When I was young we had an aerial to watch TV on. We also had a 19inch tv in the living room. After that came cable and of course the VCR. What do I have now. In our living room we have a 42 inch LCD. In my home office I have a 19 inch lcd. Plus we have an older 22inch tube tv in the bedroom. We have one digital cable box in my home office and a digital pv in the living room as well as a DVD recorder. Toss in a Blueray player and surround sound and we are all set.

Heating Up Food

In the old days we heated up food in the Oven. Now its into the Microwave it goes and less food wasted.

The Computer

I started off learning on the APPLE II+. My Dad had one for work and before long I was spending more time on it then he was. Back then it was just Apple Dos. In my time I have used a TRS80-Model 3, Radio Shack Color Computer, VIC 20 and various versions of the PC. I have used every version of Dos and Windows since early versions of MSDOS. Does anybody remember Dr DOS?

Today I use Lenovo T61 laptop running Windows 7. What a difference.

Spreadsheets

The spreadsheet that I first learned on was the pioneer in the industry called Visicalc. Today I use Excel 2007 for most of my spreadsheet needs.

Telecommunications

When I fist started doing telecommunications I was using a 300 Baud Modem to dial bulletin board systems. At that time email was specific to the system you were on and you could not email users of other systems. Today I am on a 15Meg down, 1 meg up cable connection. What speed.

These are just a few ways that technology has changed over time. Please share with us your technology memories by leaving a comment below.

The reality is means many mangers have more connectivity to email and the Internet today they ever before. Most managers carry a Blackberry, Android or Iphone. This is so they have immediate access to information. Is this always really necessary? Personally I don’t think so in all organizations Some like hospitals have different needs but does the average manager in an office setting always need to be online? I would doubt that this is always necessary.

Some sectors of the business world including health care and warehouses have a great need for mobile access. Let’s exam these two industries and see where they are going and why mobile is growing in these two industries by the day.

Why Is Health Care Going Mobile

Health Care is an industry where mobile computing benefits patient care on a daily basis. When I worked in health care we had carts on wheels that had pcs on them. These carts had large batteries that basically functioned as UPS power supplies when not plugged in. What an expensive proposition.

In critical care areas there are computers on every bed side. This is not only expensive from a hardware/software standpoint but also very hard to maintain.

Today doctors and nurses use tablets. Often Ipads are used with custom applications to look up patient care results and diagnose patients directly from the bed side. Once the application is developed and the proper network infrastructure is put in place, hardware costs come down as well as space requirements. No longer do you need to find space in a tight patient room. A tablet can rest in the physicians hand and takes way less room then a computer.

if a tablet goes down, you hand the doctor or nurse another one. No more downtime of expensive critical computers. This is so much easier to maintain then computers all over.

In life threatening situations, access to timely information is critical. No longer do you need to run across the room to access a computer when seconds can make the difference between life and death. if you have a tablet, you can save time in these precious situations. These seconds can mean all the deference in the world.

Doctors can now make their patient notes directly on the tablet which will upload the notes to the server. The need is now gone for the doctor to sit in a dictation room and spend his valuable time dictating notes when he could be seeing patients. This is a much better use of health care professionals time in a budget and time strapped environment.

Conclusion

In heath care, mobile computing is very important. It often makes a difference in people’s live. Please share your opinions about mobile computing in health care with us by leaving a comment on the bottom of the post with your view points.

What mistake did Rim make you might ask? Rim made the Playbook not fully 3G If you take the Playbook out without bridging it to a Blackberry. So the key is you need a Blackberry to do 3G. What a pain this is. So now if I do not have a Blackberry I have to buy it as well as the Playbook.

The reality is Rim had to do something different. The iPad 2 WiFi only model is $519. That is only $20 dollars more then the Playbook. To add to it more the Itunes store is much better then BlackBerry App World. Itunes has may more applications available in it.

Rim has already mentioned that their will be a 3G version coming. Why coming? They are already behind the eight ball. The iPad has a big jump and so does the Samsung Galaxy tablet. They need to rethink their strategy NOW. Great products have failed due to bad marketing and timing. It looks like the Playbook might become the victim of bad management.

The question becomes what is the future for the Playbook. Time will tell.

Please share your opinion on the Playbook and their marketing strategy.

TWIR Special April 22, 2011 Amazon S3 Downtime from Rob Cairns on Vimeo.

Offline storage in the digital age is always an issue. Why is that you might ask? Media should last forever. Well that is not true and there are formats which are forever changing. How do we deal with this you might ask? Let’s take some time and examine these critical issues and I will make some suggestions on how you can protect yourself and your offline data.

Shelf Life Of Data

Certain media has what is called a “shelf life”. What that means is how long the media will hold data on it before it starts to deteriorate. Cds, tape, old floppy disks and even DVD’s all have a shelf life. The question is how do your protect yourself from data deterioration. The first is to check your media on a regular basis and put it in a machine and try and read it. If you can read it without error then you know you are not having issues with the media.

The second way is to keep multiple backups on external media. This way if one copy does go bad, you have something to fall back on.

The third strategy I employ is I copy all my old dvds to new ones every 6 months. Yes this is time consuming but it helps minimize data loss.

Changing Media

One of the biggest problems with with using external media is format changes. Remember the 8inch disk and the 5 1/4 inch floppy. They are no more and finding a device to read them is hard.

How do you avoid this kind of issue? When formats start to change, store your data on the new format by coping it from how you have it stored now. Yes this is a labor intensive process, but it is the only way to guarantee that you will be able to access your data.

Conclusion

If you are careful on how long you store media and what format that you store it in, you will always be able to access your data. Yes these processes are time intensive but the integrity of your data and having proper offline backups is worth it. Is it not worth it to you to have proper backups? The choice is all yours. Make the right one.