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Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:12:00 GMT

What Ryan has been working on

David Ackerman Wannabe

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 03:36:00 GMT

So part of my job at AT&T is to reasearch new technology and evaluate if we feel it would fit well within the company. Since this "research" often involves getting new hardware and software to play with we thought we'd start an CNETTV type web site for internal use. So far we have about 13 videos created. The site goes live around June 23rd, wish me luck.

Good Day!
Ryan

PS David Ackerman is a very lively senior editor at CNET who reviews laptops.

Digital Signage from Cisco?

Thu, 01 May 2008 12:49:00 GMT

Digital sigange from Cisco??? Really??? 'tis true!

A while ago I wrote a blog post on a technology I am working on called digital sigange. In it nut shell this technology allows you to take a monitor, big or small, and turn it into an electronic billboard. A billboard not for a single ad but for multiple areas of content. It's really big in the hospitality industry and we're trying to see where it fits within out copany. At any rate the Cisco equipment came in earlier this week and we will be hooking it up and testing it today.

THIS is the fun part of my job! More to come on this topic I'm sure.

Good Day!
Ryan

Where's Ryan??!!

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 05:30:00 GMT

Where has Ryan been?

What I'm Working On: Digital Signage

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 03:12:44 GMT

So what the heck does a guy working for the Evolving Technologies Organization do all day? Work! Yes, as fun as the job is it is still work!

My first project with the new organization had to do with a technology that isn’t exactly new but it is new to AT&T. The technology is digital signage and it’s the idea of taking a wide screen monitor and filling that monitor with different streams of information. Seen more and more in the retail and hospitality industry, we’re looking at digital signage as another form of employee communications. As a society we are much more visual today that we were even 15 years ago. It wasn’t all that long ago that we read our news in the newspaper or listened to it on the radio. Today, cable TV and the Internet bring us our news and information on demand and in full color and full motion.

When I think of digital signage I think of a billboard, a billboard not for single ad but for multiple ads or multiple streams of information. Company news and events, rewards and recognition and even live TV can all be displayed on a single monitor. With the right software call centers can even use this technology to display their call statistics for their employees. Call stats like the number of calls currently on hold or maybe the number one employee in sales.

We are currently evaluating a product called TargetVision from Symon Communications for our digital signage needs. A basic set up would consist of a Symon Server a Symon Digital Appliance (SDA) and a large LCD Monitor. We are recommending LCD over plasmas at this point due to the likelihood of burn in on the plasmas. Content is developed on the server then downloaded by the SDAs then displayed on the monitors. More complicated set-ups obviously exist to include multiple monitor being fed from one SDA.

I’m really excited about this technology and it actually brings be full circle back into my first job with the company. Back then we made a similar home grown system called TechNet. With TechNet we deployed a CRT TV and computer to every garage in the Midwest region. These computers are connected to a web server over the company network. TechNet is used to keep the technicians informed of company news and to provide them with training. In a sense Symon’s product is the next generation of the TechNet project I helped to develop years ago.

Well that’s all I’ll bore you with for now. If you or your company is working on digital signage I’d be curious to hear how it is working for you. If you have any questions please let me know.

Good Day!
Ryan

Challenge Accepted!

Thu, 28 Sep 2006 14:09:05 GMT

I’ve been called a lot of mean things in my life some to my face and surely more behind my back. However the other day I got called a name by a guy I don’t even know! This guy, Todd, if that is his real name, called me a lurker!!! A lurker??!! How can you call me a lurker if you don’t even know me Todd??

Well Todd didn’t just call me a lurker he called A LOT of ColdFusion developers lurkers or takers. We can define lurkers or takers in this case as developers that take code from blogs or other community sites but don’t give back to the community. For whatever reason, either they are too busy or too lazy they just don’t give back. Therefor Todd proposed a challenge. The challenge was for us all to get more involved in the ColdFusion Community, write a blog, join a CFUG or mailing list. Do something to give back.

Well Todd, challenge accepted! I’m going to try my best to make time to give back. What I say here on my InstantSpot may seem silly to those more experienced than I, so for that I apologize and welcome all feedback.

If you are new to the ColdFusion or Blog thing, here are some of the hot spots I visit often,.

Dave Shuck
Aaron J Lynch
Matt Woodward
Todd Sharp
Robert Froehling
Ray Camden
Mark Drew
ColdFusion Weely
ajaxCFC Yahoo! Group

Good Day!
Ryan