Steganography

My technologies class had the assignment to learn a Steganography program.
Steganography is using cryptology to disguise information behind a picture. The program hides a color coded message within the picture, and uses a key to decode that message back into it's original format for the end recipient. Without the proper key, the coded message is un-decipherable.
I was able to learn a basic software program that does steganography. It was pretty interesting to discover the possibilities.

However, the program I used was too basic, and too tedious for a FM to use practically and effectively. Regarding teh FM industry, I don't think there would be a ton of use for such an application. At least not on a regular basis. However, if you were transmitting a confidential budget, or financial statement, that if it landed in the wrong hands, could be detrimental to your company, than it would be wise to code the information.
On a daily or even weekly basis, I wouldn't have need for such a program. It would need to be much more automated to be used correctly. I also don't work in an environment where our information is incredibly confidential. We are a relatively small invesment company.
Bottom line: cool tool, but in my experience, not entirely practical in the FM industry on a regular basis. I'm interested to learn more about it, and see if there are industry uses that I am not aware of.

Vektr Analysis

So our next assignment was to log in to Vektr, and give an analysis of the program.
It definitely seemed limited. Maybe I need some more formal training on the program, but it didn't seem incredibly comprehensive in my opinion. I couldn't discern whether it will store equipment specific information, so that you can track how many and what type of work orders that specific piece of equipment has generated. This sort of information can prove critical in managing your assets, and diagnosing their conditions.
I also thought that the prioritization of work orders was too general. There are only 3 categories of priorities you can assign a work order: low, medium, or high. If you are managing a large facility and do a high volume of work orders, you will want more than three categories to distinguish the severity of each work order.
It also doesn't seem like you would have a "completed on" field on the "add new work order" page. However, if you perform work on the spot, and want to document that work after the fact, then that field is merited.

Overall I wasn't incredibly impressed by Vektr. It seemed very basic, and didn't have the comprehensive coverage that I would want out of such a program. It seemed like a cheap web-based application to document and distribute work orders, without any real organization to the data being captured.

Better Place

I found it. I found a technology for my major project. I had searched for hours this week looking for something innovative. Something disruptive, with the potential to significantly impact our world. I "clicked" my way through hundreds of consumer products, gadgets, and software, but nothing seemed to have the degree of potential impact like "Better Place" (http://www.betterplace.com/)
The founder of this idea is Shai Agassi. He is a brilliant son of immigrant parents from Morrocco and Iraq. Shai was born in Israel, and has had a tremendously successful career mostly here in the United States.
Although he has no real experience in the auto industry, Shai is set to end our global dependence on oil. He is developing an extremely creative system of electric cars. Nothing like the Hybrid or Prius you may be familiar with. This is completely different. So different that even executives in the oil-based auto industry are feeling uncomfortable with their jobs. So different that the entire country of Israel is going to test the idea for Shai Agassi.

More to come...

Technologies Class

I'm taking a Technologies class at BYU this semester, which an assignment calls for me to set up my own blog. I will also be doing a major project on some sort of technology that interests me. Instinctively I think of consumer products. However, those are only a small portion of the general term of technology. The first step of the assignment is to pick 3 potential technologies as ideas for the major project.

Here are my 3:
1.) The famous $100 laptop for under-developed nations
2.) The "atom smasher" launched today (9.10.08) in Europe
3.) Digital TV


There are so many different types of technologies, it is hard to choose. I want to find something innovative and new. Something cutting edge that has tremendous potential to make an impact on our society. I will contine searching for such a technology for the major project.