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Archive for December, 2009

When Is A Holiday Not A Holiday

Tuesday, December 29th, 2009

Lately, it seems that the day before a holiday has become a de-facto holiday. That’s not exactly the way I would recommend digging out of the worst recession in 75 years.

Our UPS pickup driver just dropped by to let us know that UPS had decided to make no deliveries on Dec. 31 and that he had been ordered to take the day off. We have been shipping UPS this fall for the first time in several years, and, all in all, it has been a good experience.

Discovering that they would not be serving their customers (namely, us) on a day when we will be open and serving our customers (you) really caught us off guard.

It is difficult to see how a company whose third quarter 2009 revenues were down almost $2 billion can really afford to take off a holiday that no one else takes off. When your average daily package volume, your operating profit and your earnings per share are all down significantly from 2008 levels, the logic of this decision escapes me and will probably escape the logic of the stock market as well.

We spend much of our time making sure that we partner with businesses who have our customers’ best interests in mind. UPS’s unwillingness to deliver to our customers, many of whom will be involved in producing New Year’s Eve events, on what should be a regular work day makes our job a lot more difficult.

I’m glad we kept our FedEx account open. We’ll be happy to ship your order for Dec. 31 delivery even if UPS isn’t.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands. Meeting customer needs will always be job 1!

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A Big Loss For Pro Sound

Monday, December 28th, 2009

I was saddened to learn today of the death of Ross Ritto, one of the pioneers in the modern sound reinforcement industry. Ross had a direct impact on my entry into pro sound and it was always good to come across his name in trade journals and discussions about pro sound touring.

I have written a number of times about the “graying” of the pro sound industry, but losing Ross at the age of 60 really brings this home for me.

While best known as the founder and CEO of Sound Image, a major west coast touring company, I first encountered Ross back in the 1970’s. His company, Silverfish Audio, a sound company from Buffalo, NY provided a touring audio system for Jimmy Buffett.

Ross brought a football stadium sized sound system to my alma mater, UNC Chapel Hill, and by the end of the day I had a totally new concept of what major league sound reinforcement was about.

Although I was only one of many stagehands on the call, Ross took as much time as need to answer all my questions, no matter how ridiculous, and that Jimmy Buffet show as one of the most memorable of my career.

This was in the days of multi-component horn loaded sound systems, and with the information I learned from Ross, I built a “mini” system much like the one he brought to Kenan Stadium. In fact, there are probably a couple of pieces of this package still lurking in the back of our warehouse.

My decision to pursue a pro sound career was met at every step by patient professionals like Ross, and I consider knowing him one of the highlights of my 30 hears in a great industry.

He will be missed.

(link to the original Silverfish Audio brochure with pics of the sound system I am talking about)

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands. We appreciate those pioneers that built the pro sound business.

Posted in Other News, Pro Sound, audio visual, good business ideas | 1 Comment »

A Copper Top For My Rag Top

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

The saddest days of the year for me is the day in the late fall that I decide to put the removable hard top on my car in place of the convertible top. One of my guiltiest pleasures is long fall drives with the top down and it’s always depressing to see that come to an end.

All that is an intro to a new product announcement by Duracell. They are rolling out a new line of automotive batteries.

Duracell is positioning this product line as a battery intended to meet the needs of today’s automobiles that have so many electrical accessories. We gone from batteries that start your car and let you listen to the radio to needing a power source that will handle a two bedroom apartment.

There is no end to the electrical accessories that cars can have these days. Cars have become workplaces and auto batteries need to be able to power all sorts of devices when the engine is not running. That’s a prescription for a dead battery.

Oddly, this line of auto batteries does not yet appear on Durcell’s web site, so detail are hard to come by. They are currently available in limited areas and there has been no announcement about a national roll out.

We’ve been a distributor of Duracell Procell batteries for many years and are always surprised at how poorly this company uses the web to support product information. It is amazing to me that the day after you announce a new product line that there is no mention of it on your corporate web page.

Duracell may not understand how to use the web, but they sure understand the value of their brand. Auto batteries by Duracell is a logical extension of how brands are leveraged and if this is a good product, they should be able to grab a big percentage of the market.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords andOnStage Stand mic stands. You might enjoy our “How Not To Test A Battery” animation

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Your Local High School Needs You

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

We enjoy working with our local schools and are particularly proud this holiday season to be involved with the arts curriculum at Northwood High School, the school my daughter attends. They are finishing up a series of special events this week and we applaud them for their hard work.

Periodically, I have pointed out the phenomenon I call the “graying” of the concert production industry. Lots of hands-on techs who got their start in sound and lighting began their careers in the 1970’s and ’80’s and are now looking at retirement or career changes. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of kids ready to take their places.

If you read the trade journals that cover the concert production industry, you know that a very high percentage of the articles feature technicians in their 50’s or even 60’s.

My work at Northwood High confirms this trend. Northwood has a newly renovated auditorium with state of the art sound and lighting systems. Twenty years ago, there would have been students crawling all over each other to get a chance to learn to operate this equipment.

Not today. Northwood has hundreds of kids involved in band, dance and drama but almost no students who want to work backstage or in the production booth. They simply don’t see it as a college or career track.

We have recently developed a series of “how to” animations related to teaching technical theatre skills, along with a set of printed guides.

It is our hope little things like this, along with our involvement in training students and teaching tech skills, will open the eyes of some of these high school students to the possibilities of an exciting career path that will soon have lots of employment opportunities.

If you have technical skills and are making a career change, give some thought to sharing all you’ve learned with your local high school arts program.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords andOnStage Stand mic stands. We’re passionate about arts education in the public schools.

Posted in Other News, Pro Sound, Pro lighting, audio visual, good business ideas | No Comments »

Google Eats Its Young

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

Hot on the heels of the roll out of the Motorola Droid, a smart phone that uses the Google mobile operating system, there are now confirmed rumors that Google plans to release its own smart phone-Google designed and Google branded-after the first of the year, possible as early as January.

The New York Times has reported that Google employees have been give the phones to test, in anticipation of a product roll out after the first of the year, perhaps as early as January.

Motorola desperately needs a hit product, having its market share of cell phone sales continue to erode since it introduced the Razr in late 2005. That’s a long time to go without making a serious impact on a fast changing industry.

Now it appears that Google intends to take on Apple directly, moving into the hardware business and forcing Motorola back to the sidelines.

No one sees this first version of the Droid as an IPhone killer, but those who have one like it, consider it a worth opponent to the Apple device, and love being able to cut their ties to AT&T.

I predicted that the next version of the Droid would be the smartphone that would match Apple toe-to-to, but I’m quickly backing off that prediction now that Google is throwing their hat into the ring.

You can be sure that Google had access to the Droid’s development months before it was released, and you can be equally sure that the Google phone will improve on every aspect of Motorola’s effort.

We hope you sell a lot of Droids for Christmas, Motorola. Chances are that next Christmas will belong to Google.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords andOnStage Stand mic stands. Share your ideas about cell phone development with our readers.

spokesguy Hot on the heels of the roll out of the Motorola Droid, a smart phone that uses the Google mobile operating system, there are now confirmed rumors that Google plans to release its own smart phone-Google designed and Google branded-after the first of the year, possible as early as January.

The New York Times has reported that Google employees have been give the phones to test, in anticipation of a product roll out after the first of the year, perhaps as early as January.

Motorola desperately needs a hit product, having its market share of cell phone sales continue to erode since it introduced the Razr in 2004. That’s a long time to go without making a serious impact on a fast changing industry.

Now it appears that Google intends to take on Apple directly, moving into the hardware business and forcing Motorola back to the sidelines.

No one sees this first version of the Droid as an IPhone killer, but those who have one like it, consider it a worth opponent to the Apple device, and love being able to cut their ties to AT&T.

We hope you sell a lot of Droids for Christmas, Motorola. Chances are that next Christmas will belong to Google.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords andOnStage Stand mic stands. Click here to sign up for our newsletter. Here’s a link to our new “How To” animation series.

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Is Your Church Breaking The Law?

Monday, December 14th, 2009

mike2 It seems that churches are being turned into lawbreakers by the FCC

It is certainly not news that churches, technically at least, are legally required to have licenses for their wireless mics.

At this time of year when so many churches produce special events that use wireless mics, this issue has been brought back into sharp focus.

A group called the White Spaces Coalition has come together to advocate for the use of unused broadcast spectrum intended for televison to actually be used for wireless internet. This is group of lightweights. Members include Microsoft, Google, Dell, Earthlink and Samsung among others.

While the FCC has turned a deaf ear to unlicensed wireless microphone users in the past, it is unlikely that those who make up the White Space Coalition will allow the FCC to continue to ignore the use of spectrum that is now seen as being so valuable.

I have written before about how these companies are pushing the FCC to build databases of unused broadcast spectrum nationwide.

The chances that a high school theatre or “Sunday only” wireless mic user will be able to stay under the radar if the spectrum they use is commandeered for wireless internet use, since these sorts of services are in as high demand in rural areas and secondary markets as they are in major metro areas.

If you don’t think Microsoft will turn the FCC loose on you, you don’t know Microsoft.

You can read more about the White Space Coaltion here.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords andOnStage Stand mic stands. Click here to sign up for our newsletter. Here’s a link to our new “How To” animation series.

Posted in Pro Sound, audio visual, mic cables, microphones & mic stands | No Comments »

Hey AT&T. What Part of “Unlimited” Don’t You Understand?

Friday, December 11th, 2009

One of the best parts of my day is the time I spend reading the New York Times. It seems to be one of the few daily papers that is holding its own, at least when it comes to generating lots of useful content.

I’m not sure how they are doing financially, but their bottom line has to be helped by the constant barrage of gaudy (orange!) full page ads that AT&T is running. Seems like there have two or three in the front section every day since the beginning of the month.

I ignore the ads (not easy to do) but my eyes were drawn to this article in the business section about none other than AT&T.

It seems that they are asking their customers who subscribe to unlimited data plans to limit their bandwidth usage or face the possibility of being forced to a “pay as you use” plan. Apparently, AT&T is unable to handle the data requirements that are being generated by IPhone users, even though they are the only service provider that works with the Apple smart phone.

Instead of expanding capacity and providing the service that they promised, mighty AT&T intends to “educate” their customers about their data consumption in hopes that they will “cut back”.

Hey AT&T! Instead of spending huge sums of money on luring new customers with full page ads, how about building some new towers.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords and OnStage Stand mic stands. If you’re frustrated with AT&T, share your story.

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‘Tis The Season To Be ……….. Scammed!

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

Even though our national economic woes continue to depress holiday retail sales, online sales are expected to grow 8% this year. That’s great news if you, like we, count on internet sales to sustain and grow your business.

Still, there is a big bump in the road before online sales can really take off. That problem is consumer concerns about security.

We get orders every day from customers who find us on the web, but then insist on calling us to place the order because they are uncomfortable with using their credit card at our web sites.

We’re happy to hear from them, of course, but they never seem to realize that placing an order at a secure web site is much safer than giving your credit card info to a stranger over the phone.

We host and manage our own e-commerce web sites and can always assure you that you want be presented by any pop ups or phishing scams that originate from our server.

Unfortunately, if you don’t know what to look for, it is difficult to know when you are at a web site where you can make a secure purchase.

When you move from the catalog portion of one of the goodbuyguys web sites to begin an actual checkout, you will see that the “http:” part of the web address at the top of the page, changes to “https:” That “s” means “secure“. The “s” is an indicator that the details of your purchase will be encrypted before they are submitted over the web.

You’ll also see a tiny image of a padlock at the end of the address line. Click on that padlock image if you want to know the details regarding who is certifying that the site is secure.

Here are some more tips to insure the security of your online purchase.

-Never provide your credit number in an email or instant message

-Use long, complicated passwords that use numbers, letters, upper case and lower case

-Purchase only from sites that have an “s” in the address line or show the padlock image

-If you have security concerns but still want to consider making a purchase, look for a phone number

-Check your credit card bill carefully every month.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords andOnStage Stand mic stands. Your security is our top concern.

Our (and your) security is certified by Usertrust. You can read more about it here.

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Internet Marriage To Intercom-Thousands of Offspring

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

My email in box stays stuffed with promotional material related to concert and special event production-mostly hardware. I’m lucky if I have a chance to look at one in ten messages.

I’m really glad I clicked on the one from Clear-Com. Clear-Com is a leader in intercom systems used in theatres, tv studios and touring production. Producing a show would be impossible without it.

On a complicated event, concert or television shoot each production company will usually have their own closed system that deals with one aspect of the production.

Unfortunately, one of the problems with a closed intercom system is that there is always somebody on a different system that you really need to talk to.

Clear-Com has released an intercom system (Clear-Com Concert) that uses internet protocol (IP) rather than standard xlr microphone cable for connecting users. This means that anybody with internet access and the proper clearances can join the conversation related to putting on the show.

The video director can include a follow spot operator in the conversation by adding him or anybody else to the work group. As long as internet access is available (wired or wireless) there is no limit to the number of participants.

There are multiple ways to administer the user group so that those who need to be included for only a little while can be managed, hopefully preventing what might be really chaotic. The software package developed for this system allows for a simple “drag-and-drop” method to build your temporary user group and users can also communicate by real time texting in addition to spoken word.

Perhaps most interesting, now participants who are not on-site for the event can be given access to the intercom loop. Imagine being able to bring in the original set designer or a qualified repair tech in real time to address an issue as the show unfolds.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords andOnStage Stand mic stands. If you know about a new innovation in concert production hardware, please share it with us.

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This Sounds Too Good To Be True

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

This article from ABC News had me reaching for my calendar to see if it was April Fools Day. Nope, it’s still December.

The headline said:

Scientists Say Paper Battery Could Be In The Works

We sell a lot of batteries, particular around Christmas, and I am always surprised at how much the shipping cost adds to the final price. Unfortunately, a 4 Pack of D Cell batteries weighs over a pound. 25 pounds for a case of 72!

ABC News reported on work being done at Standford University in developing a special paper coating that can be applied in a manner that creates a new type of high-performance energy storage.

This promising development in nanotechnology may some day power the electronic devices that today require alkaline or rechargeable batteries. You might even be able to “wear” the battery that powers your cell phone and notebook computer.

Perhaps even more important, the scientists working on this development predict that the cost will be low and that they can see bringing this technology to the commercial market in the foreseeable future.

Not just lightweight, small electronics will be impacted. This new way of storing power may someday. This combination of supercapacitors and nanotechnology might even be used in electric cars.

We’re really looking forward to sending you your battery order in a #10 envelope.

GoodBuyGuys.com is your online source for Permacel gaffers tape,Duracell Procell batteries, MagLite flashlights, Nashua duct tape, Bay State wire ties, Hosa and Entertainment One extension cords andOnStage Stand mic stands. New scientific developments in battery technology is always exciting news!

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