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Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Techno Granny Show: Technologies that Teens Wouldn’t Know About, the Fifties

Blog 7-20-09, TG Show: Technologies that Teens Wouldn’t Know About, the Fifties

If you were born since 1989 your experience with science and technology is unique with respect to the speed and frequency of inventions and innovations. But it wasn't always that way. Things moved a little slower for most of the baby boomers especially those who were youngsters in the fifties.


The adolescents and teens of that area thought colored kitchen appliances and transistor radios, were a big deal. Aside from watching Star Trek which was science fiction we never anticipated the PC, cellphones, DVDs, flash drives or MP 3 players. It is often said that the science fiction of today is the science of tomorrow. We thought it was cool when 78 rpm (rotations per minute) records became 33s. We were astonished when records that they could be heard in stereo and 3 D movies were a rare treat that some mothers would not let us attend because they thought it would make us go blind at an early age.

Also just because something was an invention of the day did not mean that it readily trickled down to the average population. Initially it was probably too expensive for the workaday individual. It oten took time for prices to drop enough on an invention before the average person could afford it.

Here's a list of some of the major inventions and innovations of the Fifties that did not go main stream in the very beginning.

Between 1950 and 1954:

Zenith introduced "lazy bones" tuning. This was the first time that the channel changer was not called “Junior”. It could change all television stations from the comfort of your easy chair. It was a hand held device that plugged in to the TV.

Telephone Answering Machine was created by Bell Laboratories and Western Electric, very prominent companies who are not so prominent any more. As a matter of fact those were the only two brands of phones you could buy at one time. The first answering machines were as large as a man’s shoe box and office versions were sometimes larger.

The Eckert and Mauchly Computer Co. of Philadelphia (which was soon purchased by Remington Rand) sold the first commercial computer, the UNIVAC 1, to the U.S. Census Bureau. UNIVAC stands for Universal Automatic Computer.

Perhaps the most famous computer of the era was the ENIAC, a computer developed for the U.S. military during World War II. Other computers developed in the 1940s were mostly used by academia. But the UNIVAC I was the first computer to be widely used for commercial purposes - 46 machines were built, for about $1 million each.

Super glue was invented and it was touted as holding anything even a car weighing over two tons. Speaking of cars the American automobile manufacturer Chrysler Corporation introduces power steering., which they called Hydraguide. Until then you had to have some muscle to steer a car.


Mr. Potato Head was patented.

The original Mr. Potato Head toy consists entirely of pieces! We used a real potato for the body! The Mr. Potato Head toy is the first toy ever advertised on network TV.

Sony, a brand new Japanese company, introduced the first pocket-sized transistor radio Masaru Ibuka of Sony made profound improvements in techniques for manufacturing transistors, a new technology, and Sony was able to sell his radio more cheaply than any competitor.

This created a revolution! Now music was portable and just in time to play the soon to be introduced Rock and Roll.


The first 3-D movie was shown: Arch Oboler's Bwana Devil, starring Robert Stack. Movie studio executives worried that the new medium, television, would steal away their audiences. What was required was a hook to bring people back into the movie theatre. As the strippers sang in "Gypsy," you gotta have a gimmick.

Even though 3-D movies had been around as far back as 1922 and had lost favor, it was decided to try again. Arch Oboler's "Bwana Devil" started the 3-D craze of the Fifties. It premiered on Nov. 26, 1952 and starred Robert Stack, Barbara Britton and Nigel Bruce.

An African adventure film (A Lion in Your Lap, A Lady in Your Arms!) about man-eating lions which would jump off the screen at you, it made for pretty exciting watching when the process worked right. People were issued glasses which facilitated the 3-D effect.

Dr. Jonas Salk announced discovery of the vaccine for poliomyelitis
White Rose Redi-tea was s the world's first instant iced tea
Dow Chemical created Saran Wrap and women all over the world praised it while husbands cursed it for getting tangled.
TV color broadcasting began in 1953, but remember not everyone had color TV’s, a black and white then was often considered a luxurty.
1955 Zenith engineer Eugene Polley invented the "Flashmatic," which represented the industry's first wireless TV remote, now it no longer had to be plugged into the television and you could lose it in the couch.
The first home microwave ovens were manufactured by Tappan. They cost $1300 which really slowed sales!

1956

Secretary Bette Nesmith Graham got tired of retyping and invented "Mistake Out" later renamed, Liquid Paper

1957
Fortran (computer language) was invented
Velcro was patented by George de Mestral of Switzerland.
Eveready produces "AA" size alkaline batteries
The Hula Hoop was invented by Richard Knerr and Arthur "Spud" Melin. HULA HOOP
Richard Knerr and Arthur "Spud" Melin, founders of the Wham-O Company, were the architects of the biggest fad of all time - the hula hoop!

In 1957, they heard from an Australian tourist that in his home country, children twirled bamboo hoops around their waists in gym class. That’s how they got the idea for the hoola hoop.

They found a winner in such an item could be and began to manufacture one made of plastic, Marlex specifically, a lightweight but durable plastic then recently invented by Phillips Petroleum. With the price of oil today would they have taken off so rapidly?

The name "hula hoop" came from the Hawaiian dance its users seemed to imitate. Wham-O sold 25 million hula hoops in two months. Almost 100 million international orders followed. They were manufacturing 20,000 hoops a day at the peak of popularity.

Not all nations thought this was such a great idea. Japan banned the hoops thinking they might promote improprieties. The Soviet Union said the hula hoop was an example of the "emptiness of American culture." They always were a bunch of fuddy duddies until they started exporting exclusive brands of vodka.
Maybe this is not politically or historically correct but then most teenagers have no idea what the “cold war” was about anyway.

1959
Joseph-Armand Bombardier of Valcourt, Quebec, Canada patented the Ski-Doo, originally christened the Ski-Dog, but renamed because of a typographical error that Bombardier decided not to change. You know it today as a snowmobile.

Above statistics, compliments of: http://www.fiftiesweb.com/pop/inventions.htm
Additional asides by Techno Granny herself.


Techno Granny, Joanne Quinn-Smith and self named “Nanno Granny,” JoAnn Forrester discuss this and loads of other “technologies of the fifties” on the July 20th episode of the Techno Granny Show which can be heard at:

http://tinyurl.com/TechnoGrannyShow

© Joanne Quinn-Smith, host and producer, Techno Granny Show™ This blog may be produced with this by-line intact. Archived Techno Granny Shows™ are available at: http://tinyurl.com/TechnoGrannyShow and also at: http://tinyurl.com/pospittlivemag Blog at: http://technogrannyshow.blogspot.com

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

TechnoGrannyShow, Another Tech Savvy Granny



This show was originally broadcast on Techno Granny Show on Monday 7-13-09 at 7 AM. Listen to archived version at: http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/tscmd/tc/30986or on it's own unique radio channel at: http://www.positivelypittsburghlivemagazine.com


• Yvonne spent 25 years in the garment industry, but in 2001 she saw the bottom falling out of the garment industry. I searched for an industry that would allow me to pursue my entrepreneurial dreams and went to school to learn computer technology.
• Her first job after leaving the garment industry was as a telephone tech support job for a tech company, and the second was as an IBM field computer consultant working on the Washington Mutual account.
• Yvonne worked late-night hours at IBM, leaving daytimes available to market her own IT support business. In April 2004, her IBM job was eliminated, so she turned to Computer Community Hospital as a full-time job
• Yvonne Graber was a recent finalist of the popular Make Mine a Million $ Business competition, a business-growth marathon designed to encourage women entrepreneurs to reach their goals.

About the Business
• Computer Community Hospital is a computer-services business providing a wide range of solutions designed for small to mid-size businesses (SMBs) and consumers with personal computers.

• The company’s tagline is “Where the Doctor is Always In.”

• Computer Community Hospital offers 24/7 service, human response to customer calls and a comprehensive suite of service offerings at $99 per hour for in-person support and less than $2 dollars per minute for remote support.

• The brand’s colorfully wrapped car serves as its most visible marketing channel and is a required component of the business opportunity. The popular computer logo with a thermometer in its “mouth” also has helped the company distinguish itself from other computer service vendors.


TECH TIPS:
• Backup Strategies-Inexpensive Flash Drive …How to use…Always check to make sure your backup WORKS!
• Unused Icons – What are they and do you need them
• How to keep you Computer running smoothly – self help PC Wellness: Defrag/clean Internet temp files/Cookies etc.
• Make sure you are running an Antivirus Program- Run Check regularly I CAN SUGGEST IF YOU LIKE
• Don’t run a lot of programs in the background – startup items
• ALWAYS have a Battery UPS hooked up to you computer in case of loss of power. So you do not get damage
• Always keep the disks that came with your computer in a safe place where you can find them….including Printer software.
About the CCH Franchise Opportunity

• Plans include regional growth in Florida, followed by national expansion.

• Computer Community Hospital is expanding initially in Orlando, Jacksonville and Tampa.

• The affordable $40,000 franchise fee includes ongoing training, car purchase/leasing guidance, the ongoing research and development of new service offerings, and continuing, effective marketing programs.

• The franchise opportunity is ideal for individuals in search of a business with low overhead and which allows independence.

• Individuals with some tech knowledge who have been laid off or are in search of new work during the economic downturn are ideal candidates; they instantly become part of an organization which provides the support and tools needed to run the business.


QUANTUM EMR: Called Pwer
• Quantum EMR- I have partnered with them to do All the Assessments for any practice in Florida that will be using their web based EMR



QUANTUM EMR: Called Pwer
• Quantum EMR- I have partnered with them to do All the Assessments for any practice in Florida that will be using their web based EMR

• Quantum has developed and deployed PWeR™ (www.myPWeR.com), a cutting-edge, patent-pending healthcare technology system that has been designed to bridge the gaps of communication and exchange of patient information throughout the healthcare industry.


Yvonne Graber
Computer Community Hospital
Office: 561-852-0900
Cell: 561-239-3939
Fax: 561-892-3380
http://www.CCHPC.com

Monday, July 20, 2009

Techno Granny Show, Custom Designed Software with Microsoft Access

This show was originally broadcast on July 6, 2009 and archived version is available at: http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/tscmd/tc/30986 or on TechnoGrannyShow's unique radio channel at http://www.positivelypittsburghlivemagazine.com


Dana Del Bianco is president of DCDB Inc, a custom database development company. She is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, and has been designing databases for 12 years.

DCDB Inc designs databases for small- to medium sized businesses. We primarily use Microsoft Access as the development platform. Access is an incredibly powerful tool. It allows for sophisticated programming in Visual Basic. But—most importantly—it is very cost-effective for the client. Since Access is part of Microsoft Office, most companies already own it. There is no additional software licensing costs. Its very easy to maintain, so companies without full-time IT support can still take advantage of the benefits of having a custom software program.

Why custom software? Customized software works the way you do. Off the shelf software will make you adapt your business practices to the way it works.

Many people ask “What type of information can I track in Access?” The short answer is—anything! If you have data, you can track it. In many cases, people will have numerous linked Excel spreadsheets tracking their data. The problem with this approach is that Excel does not have data validity checking. It will let you type anything into a field. Someone can accidentally type text in a number or date field, and Excel will let it. Access allows you to control this type of data entry and more. It protects the quality and validity of your data.

Also, report generation is very difficult out of a spreadsheet. Reporting from a spreadsheet can be extremely time-consuming. You have to hide columns, sort columns and more. With Access, reports can be designed to run at the click of a button. They easily prompt for dates or other criteria, making it very simple to customize your data to answer the question at hand.

Access is a relational database. That means that data is stored in different tables, and the tables are related to each other using a key field. The beauty of the relational database is that you never have to type the same information more than once. For example, if you are entering customer contacts into a database, you would have the company name in one table, and the individual employees’ names in a different table. You would then just relate the employees to the company where they work. You would not have to type the company name for every employee. In addition to saving lots of time with data entry, this design also eliminates the chance of having a company’s address typed in many different ways.

You may have opened Access on your computer and been very intimidated by what you saw. You quickly closed it and just went back to entering information into the more familiar Excel. What you didn’t realize is that what you were looking at is the nuts and bolts of the database that developers use to create a database. The finished product is very different. When you open up a completed database, it will be menu driven, just like any other software. You navigate screens by clicking on the appropriate buttons. You easily tab through fields entering data. A well-written database is extremely user-friendly. Don’t be intimidated! You honestly don’t need to know a thing about Access development to use an Access database!

If, however, you would like to develop your own Access databases, here are a few basics for you.

Access is made up of different types of objects that work together to create a database.

Tables—this is where you store your data. You create different fields that belong to a single record. All of the fields in a record are always associated with each other—you can’t accidentally sort one column and lose the connection to the rest.

Queries—queries allow you to ask questions of your data. You can use multiple joined tables in a single query. You can also place criteria on a query to limit the data you see. For example, you can only show records that are within a certain date range. You can even use formulas in queries, much like you would use them in Excel.

Forms—forms display the data from tables and queries in a more user-friendly manner. They make data entry very easy. You can also place data integrity controls on forms. For example, you can put a drop-down menu on a field to limit the options that can be entered into that field. Forms are also used to create menus to help navigate your database. Virtually all of your database interactions is through forms.

Reports—reports allow you to take data from a table or query and format it in a more useful manner. You can use different sorts and different groupings with subtotals to make your data more meaningful.

Macros/Modules—macros and modules are where you can use more sophisticated programming to automate database tasks. For example, you can write a module in visual basic that looks up information in a table when a particular option is selected on a form. This is truly where Access is most powerful. You can use visual basic to write extremely sophisticated code to run in your database.

Dana Del Bianco
DCDB, Inc.
412-244-5370
dana@dcdbinc.com
http://www.dcdbinc.com