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CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

August 30, 2011

US Housing Market Really is That Bad
Filed under: Industry outlook — Tags: — nedpelger

This graph in The Economist illustrates how bad the American housing market has become. The housing market historically hangs around 5% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but the chart below shows our current doldrums.

I thought the take away line in The Economist article “The Economy’s Prospects: Waiting for the Earth to Open” was:

Whether recession is avoided will therefore depend heavily on luck and the wisdom of policymakers.

Are you feeling lucky?

You know what? For some odd reason, I think I am.

CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

August 29, 2011

The Changing Times
Filed under: Industry outlook — Tags: — nedpelger

The photo below by Chicago-based industrial photographer James Kay (click on it to really see the details) makes me think of two competing thoughts. On the one hand, there really is nothing new under the sun. This beautiful bell tower built in Cologne, Germany required all the wits the builders could muster. It’s complicated and precise, working good and looking good.

On the other hand, our newest challenges in design and construction push us to build more, better, faster and for less…as well as modeling it digitally to increase the long term investment. As we work for our current clients, we should be striving to provide value like the bell tower builders provided, but consistent with today’s environment.

Whether we do 3 D drawings, Building Information Modeling that ties into long-term operations, or just great as-builts, we need to be looking to the long term value we provide our Owners.

CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

August 26, 2011

The Laptop, The SmartPhone and the Cloud: Where We Stand
Filed under: Computers in Construction — Tags: — nedpelger

You’re probably busy trying to make a living (and a life) in these exciting times. Don’t make the mistake of letting technology get too far ahead of you, don’t miss the efficiencies  that can improve your life and expand your options.

Let’s start with the SmartPhone. If you don’t have an Android or an iPhone, you’re missing opportunity. The Blackberry just hasn’t kept up. The apps aren’t being developed quickly enough and the platform just has too many phones and too many holes to work well. Androids and iPhones, on the other hand, provide unlimited useful apps, and the ability to access all your files, drawings and the internet where ever you have phone service.

Tethering your laptop to your SmartPhone to have internet access (either with a chord or a local WiFi hotspot) is a must to really be able to adequately access your files and drawings. Of course, you need to be backing up all the “My Documents” info on your harddrive onto the cloud by using either Dropbox.net or Box.net. I find that Dropbox offers a better user interface and makes a constant web back-up easy.  It’s wonderful to have all your files and drawings available to you at any time or location, as long as you have phone service.

So that coordinates your hard drive data and makes it accessible to you, but what about collaborating with others? You can’t beat Google Docs for online documents that a group can work on, improve and complete. One superb feature of Google Docs is their Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. You can scan or import pdfs and the OCR software will turn them into searchable text documents for you.

So all of the above doesn’t take too much effort and really leverages your ability to resolve problems on the jobsite. Now what about the iPad and the new Google Chromebooks? Lex has been pushing me to buy a couple of these, though I just don’t see the value yet. I don’t get how they are an improvement from a tethered laptop to a SmartPhone. Especially when you can buy a great laptop for $225 and already have a SmartPhone.

Anyway, here’s Lex’s analysis, see what you think.

Features:
Boots in 8 seconds, resumes instantly
Connects to internet via Wifi or the mobile 3G networks that cover most of the nation
Can keep working on documents and emails even when not connected
If you lose your computer, all your settings and apps are saved in Google. Just need to log in to your account and everything is back.
Easy to share – people can log in with their own google accounts and never see any of your stuff

Computers:
Only two manufacturers – the Samsung Series 5 line and the Acer AC700
PCWorld seems to favor the Samsung. It’s 80 bucks more but has bigger brighter screen, a VGA port for plugging in a monitor (amazing tool for efficiency if you haven’t tried it) and slightly longer battery life
Acer has HD audio support and an HDMI output (HD video)

Components:
comes in silver or white case
reviewers agree that it feels solid and well built
2 USB 2.0 ports
comes with 16GB SD card
SIM card slot for plugging in phone network card for 3G internet
VGA output for plugging in a monitor
small power charger
strong display
mouse trackpad – reviewers not too impressed, I recommend a logitech wireless mouse
keyboard – the F keys along the top replaced by function keys – backward, forward, and refresh buttons, along with ones for toggling between windows and entering / exiting full-screen mode. You’ll also volume, mute, and multimedia keys, as you would on most any other laptop.
1 megapixel camera for video skyping
nonremovable battery – 8.5 hrs – uses no juice when closed

use:
netbook like processor – handled a dozen open tabs easily – only faltered once opening a bunch of Youtube videos
no harddrive/local storage – this means your only apps come from the web and the Chrome app store – still small but growing – contains the basics like image resizer, audio recorder, crude media player and file manager for downloads
doesn’t support Skype or Netflix yet…
can’t print yet – must printto computer on your network or use the HP ePrinter that supports google’s beta Cloud Print

an app called Citrix reciever still scheduled for near release – will allow any app sitting on the a computer on your network to be run – can run your accounting software, adobe photoshop, etc

costs:
$430 for Wifi only version – prolly good enough for a casaul user that has Wifi at their home – most apps still available when not on the internet and will sync later

$499 for 3G version – prolly needed for Dad & I – 3G handled by Verizon with 100 MB/month free for two years (but that’s a token amount)
even to get free amount, must provide name and credit card info to verizon

3G costs:
$50 for 5 GB
$35 for 3 GB
$20 for 1 GB
$10 for unlimited day pass

So, should I pull the trigger and buy one of these to see how it works? Or wait for a better sense of the value? You get to vote.

CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

August 25, 2011

A Revolution in Learning
Filed under: Productivity — Tags: — nedpelger

A Wired article, How Khan Academy is Changing Education, begins with:

“This,” says Matthew Carpenter, “is my favorite exercise.” I peer over his shoulder at his laptop screen to see the math problem the fifth grader is pondering. It’s an inverse trigonometric function: cos-1(1) = ?

Carpenter, a serious-faced 10-year-old wearing a gray T-shirt and an impressive black digital watch, pauses for a second, fidgets, then clicks on “0 degrees.” Presto: The computer tells him that he’s correct. The software then generates another problem, followed by another, and yet another, until he’s nailed 10 in a row in just a few minutes. All told, he’s done an insane 642 inverse trig problems. “It took a while for me to get it,” he admits sheepishly.

Carpenter, who attends Santa Rita Elementary, a public school in Los Altos, California, shouldn’t be doing work anywhere near this advanced. In fact, when I visited his class this spring—in a sun-drenched room festooned with a papercraft X-wing fighter and student paintings of trees—the kids were supposed to be learning basic fractions, decimals, and percentages. As his teacher, Kami Thordarson, explains, students don’t normally tackle inverse trig until high school, and sometimes not even then.

The software package this 5th grader was using wasn’t some expensive, highly researched package. It was a free website, KhanAcademy.org, that one man developed in his free time. Sal Khan has a knack for presenting challenging concepts in a clear manner. Take a few moments to watch the video on Simple Equations below to get a sense of how Sal teaches.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ek61w1LxSc&feature=player_embedded#!

Then go to the KhanAcademy.org website and look at the 2,400 lessons Khan has already created. Bill Gates was so impressed with his teaching that he funded him to continue. With almost 72,000,000 lessons delivered around the world, he must be doing something right.

I challenge you (and me) to get in the habit of watching lessons. Brush up on some things you did know and learn some new things. Exercise that brain.

And spread the word to young folks entering this great construction business that don’t have a good educational background. Here’s a way for them to level that field.

CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

August 24, 2011

Church in a Tree
Filed under: People Skills — Tags: — nedpelger

Lex sent me a BoingBoing post about a tree in small village near the Normandy region of France. Apparently, in 1696 lightning burned a hole through the tree and the local priests saw divine intent. They built a small worship space and a staircase to provide access. When that proved popular, they constructed a second small chapel in the tree. The sketch below gives a sense of the cool structure. I love the look and feel of the church in a tree.

As the times have changed, the tree church went from being beautiful to an eyesore.  The cable stays and other bracing, the cheap siding and the lack of greenery illustrate a desperate holding onto the past.

As we consider our businesses and our lives, we need to look hard at now, this very moment. How are things working now? We need to let go of sentimental attachments and other silliness. We need to make the best possible decisions for what to do in the present moment. It’s not easy, but it’s an adventurous and rewarding way to live.

CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

August 23, 2011

Mining the Forum: What’s Mine is Urine
Filed under: Ned Weirdness — Tags: — nedpelger

TBW and I were at our niece’s wedding this past weekend. Our nephew was an usher. I had to smile when I saw him and thought of this story.

My nephew John works as a leadman, and sometimes foreman, for a paving company. He loves practical jokes (must be genetic) and played a real doozy this past week. A buddy of his was real worried one day because his back hurt the previous night and he’d taken a painkiller from his Mom. He worried that the random drug test van might pull up and then he’d test positive for a drug with no prescription.

John saw the opportunity and pounced on it. He mentioned that someone called from the office and warned that the drug testing van, in fact, was on the way to their jobsite. The worried guy freaked, debating if he should hide on the jobsite or just go home. They convinced him these options weren’t practical.

John had a better idea. He’d heard of a guy who had a bag of clean urine taped to his thigh, so when he went in to give the sample, he could tap from that bag. Being a good friend, John then offered to provide such a bag of urine. When John handed the worried guy the quite full bag of urine, he warned him that he had to keep all of it taped to his thigh, because the testers also checked the temperature of the sample and having this much would keep the temperature up.

They then gave him a roll of Duct tape and sent him into the portable toilet. Since the worried guy is also a real hairy guy, the thought of all that Duct tape on his thighs made it even funnier (kindness isn’t the first attribute that springs to mind on most construction sites). Now word had spread around the site, so lots of people were chucking and waiting for the worried guy to come out of the toilet, walking a little funny, with a bulge in his pants.

He came out walking normally, but a closer look showed wetness all down his pant legs. Seems the pee bag broke as he was taping it on. Isn’t it wonderful to have good friends?

CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

August 19, 2011

Learning From Tom Waits
Filed under: People Skills — Tags: — nedpelger

My son Lex sent me this video (a favorite song of his sister Anna) and it made me think of the Tom Waits brand. I’m one of the many raving Tom Waits fans. He combines his whiskey voice, amazing lyrics and a continual effort to create better music through innovation.

He doesn’t have many lukewarm fans. Either you love Tom Waits, you dislike him or you don’t know about him. If you’re looking to build a business in the construction industry, that’s the type of branding you want. It’s not important to be well-known, just to be loved and respected by your loyal customer base.

In the Chocolate Jesus video below (which I hear as a respectful song), Tom produces a nice live version complete with voice distorting bull horn, confetti and twisted dancing.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wfamPW3Eaw&feature=player_embedded

We need to look outside our daily workload and grab inspiration from unlikely sources. Think about how others succeed and what success may look like for you. Remember, as the Industrial Age ends and we catapult into the Information Age, there’s a place for us.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taeFKIKfnZU

CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

August 17, 2011

more on passwords
Filed under: Uncategorized — pelger

In a followup to my old man’s post about passwords, I’d like to share two of my favorite password tricks:

LastPass:

LastPass website
This is a handy little application that installs directly to your web browser in a minute or two. It stores any passwords that you tell it to and can even automatically sign into sites. It’s very handy for your less important websites like Facebook, shopping sites, Netflix and other places that no one would particularly care to hack anyway. I need a lot of accounts for our construction phone app development and I like not having to remember user names or passwords. LastPass fills it all in for me.

This is only to be used on a computer that you consider to be secure and has a password because once somebody is on it, they can log into any sites that you have saved. So even though I keep my computer locked up tight, I memorize my Gmail and bank passwords because they’re just too important to trust to anybody else.

How to create & remember easy passwords:

By looking at the XKCD cartoon from two posts ago (by the way, XKCD is the best and dorkiest comic on the web), you learn that a series of four words is better than a jumble of letters. The easiest way to remember all your passwords is to write them all down in one place right at your desk so you can glance at it when needed. But of course that breaks the first rules of computer security.

Unless you create a code. And who doesn’t take a childlike delight in creating codes that only you know?

So here’s my trick: Create a series of word associations that signify the real word to you. For instance, on the password sheet at your desk, you write:
color vehicle flower love

But you know that really means:
red boat rose sarah

For every new site, change the order of the words so you don’t have the same password for any one site. It often happens that a hacker figures out a password from a data breach somewhere on the web and then can apply it to your other accounts if you reuse passwords.

Some passwords require letters to be capitalized so make sure to write them correctly on your sheet: ie (Flower love Vehicle color). If numbers are required, you could write them just as they are or for an added measure of security, always write the number 1 higher or lower than the real number.

I recently went through and increased my password security for all my important sites and I encourage you to do the same. Especially if you have a bunch of similar passwords that you have never changed. But if you only do this for one site, do it for your email. If someone gets into that, they can reset the passwords for every other site – then hijack your digital life for sending spam, draining bank accounts or sending fake proposals of marriage to ex-girlfriends (true story, don’t ask).

CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

August 16, 2011

Quebec House that Fits on a Hill
Filed under: Cool Projects — Tags: — nedpelger

This beautifully apportioned house located in Quebec, Canada looks perfect on a hill. Designed by yh2 Architecture, the roof gives both striking lines and a practical shade.

The interiors are uncluttered and simple. I love the TV that folds up out of the coffee table shown below.

The bathroom also has an inviting feel to it.

The sleeping arrangements shown below remind me of when I worked as a rock and roll roadie and slept in the sleeper of the tractor trailer. If there were two guys in the truck, we’d sleep head to toe (which is much less disconcerting than sleeping face to face). But if your bunkmate’s feet stank, this was not so good.

What do you think of the sleeping concept?

CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

August 13, 2011

Up Your Password Strength
Filed under: Computers in Construction — Tags: — nedpelger

As I become more a disciple of cloud computing, I realize that my Gmail and Dropbox passwords have become tremendously important. It’s wonderful to have access to all my current files and drawings, real time anywhere I have my phone. Makes me look smart.

The potential downside, though, would be some yahoo getting access to those accounts and creating chaos. Lex sent me the graphic below which surprised me. I suppose I was thinking about a person trying to hack into my account by reading things about me online. I didn’t really consider computers working with random number generators at 1000 tries per second.

Their conclusion bears repeating:

Though 20 years of effort, we’ve successfully trained everyone to use passwords that are hard for humans to remember, but easy for computers to guess.

The take away from the XKCD article on password strength is that we tend to make passwords complex, which makes them hard for us to remember. We should make passwords long (and simple for us to remember), because every additional digit in the password hugely increases the strength.

So, ilovedebbysince1975 would be a pretty good password. It would also be true.

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