There were primarily two types of T-1′s sold, one was a digital T-1 line the other an analog T-1 line. The digital was the newer technology while the analog was old and outdated. The engineering department didn’t want to sell the analog T-1 lines anymore because they were costly to support. They also wanted the marketing department to set the price higher on the analog T-1 because of the greater cost to deliver and run it. Engineering also wanted marketing to charge less for the digital T-1 since it cost substantially less to deliver and support. Seems like a logical argument as engineers usually are.

However the marketing department refused on the grounds that the industry charged more for digital T-1′s despite the lower costs. They also wanted to keep the analog T-1′s at a lower price to boost the perceived value of the digital T-1.

How does this tie into publishing? I see a similar trend happening with ebooks versus paper books. Clearly paper books cost substantially more money to produce and sell. The difference in cost is staggering when you think about the entire process it takes to produce and deliver a paper book. An ebook has little to no production cost per each book sold. It’s an all digital format versus the paper book which is an analog. Yet watching the pricing trends you can see publishers pushing prices higher and higher on the digital format while they push down the prices of the analog.

I’m sure there is a team of engineers arguing to drop the rates on the digital books and raise the prices on the analog book. After all it seems only logical to pass on the wonderful cost savings of a digital format to your customers. If only there were more engineers running our companies.

I also like the layer option that the Inkling does. This would be nice for when you rough in something and then you want to tighten it up, just tap the new layer and when you import the file you can easily edit it in Photoshop.

I can’t give this thing a full review yet until I have one. Hopefully Wacom paid attention to the aesthetics of the pen. The thing looks large and may not be great to draw with. The other challenge I see is that you can’t cover the bottom section with your fingers. This maybe really difficult if you are used to holding your pen way down at the bottom. Evidently this is where the sensors are. Yet another possible problem is what if you bump the clip-on sensor, it clearly wouldn’t track correctly after that I’m sure. Despite all that I’m going to grab one and give it a go. I like all of my other Wacom tablets so I’m sure I’ll enjoy this one.

http://wacom.com/en/Products/Inkling.aspx

http://www.chriscameron.com/2011/08/building-a-rails-app-from-start-to-finish

In the first post I detailed how the workflow in the business worked. In this next post we will look at the application architecture and plan out the data model and screens.

Here is the drawing I created to plan out the application:

The app I will be building is already running, but needs a complete overhaul as the business logic has changed and the current app is on an old version of Rails. For this app I will build it on Rails 3.0. I know Rails 3.1 is right around the corner, but since it’s not officially released yet I’m going to stick with 3.0.

App Overview

The need for this app is an order / job tracking system. The business receives orders through a variety of sources and then needs to custom build the order and ensure it gets to the customer. This means there will be a variety of states the order has to go through as it is produced. The people building the order need to know when they have to work on their part of the order and move it through queues. An order can have one or more jobs attached to it, so the app will primarily track the jobs.

Here is a drawing of how the workflow looks which will help define the business rules:

Go to part 2

http://www.youtube.com/cosmicpanda

I also decided to try my own Cosmic Panda illustration:

Putting the iPad into DFU mode is relatively simple. First hold down the power and home button until you see it reset. Just a second or two after resetting let go of the power button. Continue holding the home button for around 15 seconds. If you have it hooked into the computer iTunes should pop-up and indicate that it sees an iPad in restore mode. Then just let it restore, it should pick 4.3.3 to restore with automatically.

The components you will need to get going are:

• A server – The server is the brains of your phone system. This is basically just a computer. Often people will use an abandoned old workstation. The kind of computer you use here is dependent on how many phones and simultaneous calls you plan to have.
• Phones – I prefer the Polycom phones in most all cases. Currently the Polycom 335 or the 450 are a great model.
• Ethernet switch – You can either purchase your phones with power supplies or without. When you purchase them without you can have the Ethernet switch provide the power. This requires a special Ethernet switch that uses POE (Power Over Ethernet). You will want to make sure you purchase a switch with enough POE ports to run all the phones you buy. Some POE switches have a mix of POE and non POE ports. Read the fine print carefully.

The other major element to setting up your business phone system is the service. You will need a phone service carrier to provide the service to your phone system. With traditional phone systems you would hook to the phone carrier via analog or T-1 type lines. This is how many businesses still connect and get their voice service. These days though there is a great alternative which is VOIP (Voice Over IP) providers. These phone carriers are really getting good, they have become more stable and have improved quality.

You also get more service options for a lot less money. Here is an off the cuff cost comparison based on my experience between traditional phone carriers and VOIP carriers:

Traditional Carrier

Bonded T-1 with 8 shared phone lines and Internet service
What the carrier does here is they bring in two T-1 lines and bond them as a single data circuit. You get a 3mbps Internet connection and 8 phone lines. You would use 7 of the lines for your phone system and the other line for a fax.

Cost:

Port charge – Typically around $200
Line charge – Typically around $25 / line (I’m being conservative)
Internet Bandwidth charge – Around $200

Total: $600 (I’ve seen bills much higher than this for less service)

VOIP Carrier

With VOIP carriers you typically pay for the DID (phone number) and then per minute for service. Although I’ve seen some selling service as unlimited and you pay for an inbound / outbound channel. If you have heavy call volume this would make sense, but for most people it probably doesn’t.

Cost:

Internet Service – I recommend cable modem if available, otherwise DSL – Cost: $130 (Could be as low as $80, depends on available options)
DID – $1.49 per phone number you want. Typically you may want a DID for each phone, this is a nice feature as it gives each phone on your system its own direct dial number.
Main Phone Number DID – $7.49 Unlimited inbound. The main number should be an unlimited inbound DID typically.
Average monthly usage: 5000 minutes (this is probably a high estimate, everyone’s will be different)
Cost: $55

Total Cost: $204.41

The VOIP provider I used for the example is Vitelity.net. As you can see the savings monthly on service alone probably justifies moving to a VOIP PBX from your current system. I know friends that have small businesses that were paying close to $1,000 a month for a few phone lines and Internet. They switched to the open source system and save the cost of the phone system every couple of months.

I love the magnetic case and the thinner / lighter form factor. The only problem I’ve seen with it so far is that it doesn’t seem to be as durable as the iPad 1. Especially on the edges, it comes to such a fine point that the metal there does not seem to be strong enough. I have managed to dent mine through normal use. Our previous iPad is used by our kids daily and they really beat it up. Yet the older iPad seems to hold up better and not dent quite so easily.

The worst dent on my iPad 2 is near the volume button, this is causing the volume button to be a bit sticky or sensitive. Word to the wise, get a case, don’t go with the magnetic cover and hope that the aluminum backing will be enough, it’s really not.