QR Codes in the workplace

Is there a place for QR Codes in the Workplace?

First off, what is a QR Code?  

The Wikipidia definition is:

QR code (abbreviated from Quick Response Code) is the trademark for a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional barcode) first designed for theautomotive industry in Japan. A barcode is an optically machine-readable label that is attached to an item and that records information related to that item. The information encoded by a QR code may be made up of four standardized types ("modes") of data (numeric, alphanumeric, byte / binary,Kanji) or, through supported extensions, virtually any type of data.

So what kind of data can you advertise via a QR Code?

Website URLs - YouTube Videos - Google Maps Locations - Twitter Profiles - Facebook Pages - Telephone Numbers - SMS Messages - eMail addresses - eMail messages - Contact Details - Business Cards - Events - Free Text - and so much more...

Who can read them?

Anyone with a smart phone or a PC with a bar code scanner.

For the iPhone App I would recommend the Scan - QR Code and Barcode Reader - it is simples and easy to use.  Most other smart phones already have them built in...

Where can we use them?

Now we come to the crunch...

There are so many environments we could actually use them within our business.  I do not profess to know all of them, but I can see a use in many areas within IT and customer services.

We place analysers in hospital labs, ok they already have bar codes on them, but these hold serial number information etc. - what each country does, it also put a sticker on the machine with the Support Desk phone number on it, why not also have a bar code containing that number, so the lab person doesn't have to key in the phone number but just scans the bar code and the phone automatically rings the support desks.  IT Service desks could do the same with the laptops they send out to field staff...

We have major IT projects going on all the time, I always see big posters around the campus, want to find out more, put a bar code on the poster with the link to the portal for that project.

What is the alternative?

Yes there is an alternative, it's called NFC (Near Field Communication) - this is similar to bar codes, but instead of scanning a picture, you just hold your phone near the picture and the phone will pick up the information/URL/etc. - the one downside to this brillient technology s that Apple doesn't include it in their devices - so that is about 50% of the population ruled out...

Is it easy?

It is sooo easy to create your own QR Codes, all you have to do is use a simple service on t'internet, and there are many services out there....  The best service I have come across so far is QR Stuff, it has an easy interface to generate your codes in multiple formats, and a wealth of information on marketing, software, examples etc.

What are the downsides?

Well, there is always someone who will see the malicious side to a technology and there are people out there who will try to hack you phone via a QR code - you can read more information in the Wiki.

Another downside of the QR Code, is over use... check out the video, it explains it very well.

So what next?

From  my perspective, I am not sure how to propagate them into the business, I can see a place for them but only if the take-up is good, this can also be measured (if using URL links) by using short links and monitoring their use via web analytics - but the 1st step would be the education of our users on how to use them (not only for our business) in their everyday lives...

New Country, New Job - II

Well, it has been two weeks since I landed in Switzerland, a whole load of stuff has happened in those two weeks.

First was a trip to register my work permit at the Basel immigration office, then it was a trip to the tram office to order a tram pass, so I now have a photograph tram pass and then a trip to the bank to get my Swiss bank account.

I am really impressed with UBS, the interview was in English, the last went through what I needed from a bank account, went away for about 10 minutes, then came back with all the forms filled in, I just had to sign them. It took a couple of days for my Maestro card to turn up and half way through the 2nd week, my Visa and Mastercard turned up, with all the stuff for online banking, very efficient.

On the 3rd day (sounds like something out of the bible), I went to visit the house we will be renting and meet the owners. It was a very good meeting, we signed all the paperwork, and the owners showed me what furniture they were going to dispose of, and asked if I wanted it. So we now have a desk, a massive L shaped sofa, garden furniture, book cases and cupboards, this will make moving in very easy.

Instead of using the busses and trams to get around, I have tended to walk where I can, I feel I see much more of the city this way, and have been racking up more than 5km per day, so the old tummy is reducing too.

Last weekend I was invited to a party in Rheinfelden, the German side, so had the chance to use the train, which was great fun, then walked over the bridge from Switzerland to Germany, this is the 1st border crossing I have done on foot, but will not be the last.

This week has been a week of eating out.... Tuesday, Dave and Richard were over from the UK office, so I had dinner with them, Wednesday, I met up with an old friend and he took me to Germany for dinner and Thursday, I met up with the folks from the English Speaking Forum, so made some new friends there.

I am starting to get into the swing of things here in Basel, but can't wait to get Lynne over here with me. I am needing my partner, so that I can share the experiences with her, and we can explore together.

Today is Sunday, a day of rest and relaxation in Switzerland, so after a hearty breakfast of sausage and egg, I decided to go down to the river and find out what this Rhein Swim is all about... The basics, is you start at the East side of Basel, jump in the Rhein and float downstream, getting out before you hit the border...

It was cold at first, but I very quickly got used to the temperature (I think the wet suit shorts helped), then you just have to float, the current takes you quite quickly, you just need to keep a distance from the shore, otherwise you are grazing your shins on the rocks, but you also have to stay close enough to the shore, so that you don't cause a menace to any shipping... It was a great way to spend a morning, just watching the city go by.

 

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New Country, New Job

Well it has come at last, I am sitting in Heathrow Airport waiting for a plane to whisk me away to a new country and a new job.

I am on the way to Basel, Switzerland, where I will start as the Head of End User Services for Roche Diagnostics Global IT.

The last few weeks have been a roller coaster ride of emotions, from the sadness to leaving all my friends and colleagues in Roche UK, to the excitement of house hunting in Basel Land and actually getting a dream home Maisprach, about 30 minutes drive from Basel Town ( the picture is the view from the top terrasse ).

I have lost count on how many trips to the dump I have made over the last month, it is amazing what crap you collect over the years. Another sad day was getting rid of the motorbike, it was not worth the hassle of importing it to Switzerland, I suppose I will just have to buy a new one, what a chore....

So the house in the UK is rented out, the bike and car has gone, the guns have gone, the removal company is set to come in on the 9th September, I have cleared up my crap, the dog has it's passport and everything should be ready for the move.

Lynne will follow me out in September, so she is home alone for the next 3 weeks, doing the final clearing and cleaning.

So here I sit, wondering what the next weeks will bring - one thing is for sure, I want to start blogging about my experiences, so watch this space....

 

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Test Podcast 2

This is a test podcast holding the mp3 file in my Roche GDrive, so that only Roche employees can access the podcast for security reasons

So it was tested and didn't work, obviously because the mp3 is behind a firewall the RSS feed couldn't find it, even though the blog post was public.

Back to the drawing board...

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Test Podcast

Test Podcast to see if I can play it back on iTunes

Travels with the Google Project

Just as an exercise in Google Maps, I have had a go at creating my own map, containing my travels with my Google Project - hopefully it should update here as I add more travels to my custom map.



View Google Project in a larger map

Which Roche building today

Which ROCHE building am I in today???

 

 

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Belkin WeMo

Well for Christmas I received a Belkin WeMo Switch from Santa and I can say it was a great present for a gadget guy like me...

Within minutes of ripping the paper off, it, I had it plugged into the wall and configured on my iPAD - of course I had the Christmas Tree lights plugged into it, so was happily switching them on and off from my tablet.

I then tried it via the 3G instead of the house WiFi and it failed, I could not see the device...
A quick troll through the support pages in the internet, and I power cycled the WeMo (turned it off and on again - typical IT resolution) and low and behold it was seen on the iPAD via the 3G - superb!

From your phone/tablet, you can program the switch to turn on/off at times during the day and if you have a
WeMo Motion, you can set the switch to turn on/off when it detects that someone is in the room.

Belkin have also teamed up with ifttt.com so that you can get the switch to operate via triggers from time of day, the weather, SMS messages and e-mails, the possibilities are amazing (i.e. you can set the WeMo to turn on, via ifttt.com, when the sun sets).  I have set my iPAD up, using the Find My Friends app, to send an e-mail to turn on the WeMo when I get near my house, so that a light is already on when I walk in - I have seen another 'recipe' on the ifttt.com site where someone is controlling their Christmas tree lights using the WeMo, and has set them to flash when they are tagged in a photo on Facebook...

I will definitely be buying some more of these devices plus the WeMo Motion to automate more things in my house and garage...

You can follow the Belkin WeMo on Twitter or Facebook

LightCycler

IOS6 - iTunes U

So what did I find in the IOS6 update from Apple, well SIRI appeared on the iPad, but after a brief exploratory encounter, we decided to agree to differ, it would not understand me and I was exasperated by it.

One App I did find, that was new to IOS 6 was the iTunes U, having a 'delve' into this revealed a wealth of information, it seems to be a training centre for all kinds of things, brought into one, easy to use, bookcase.

There are hundreds of courses to choose from, from applied mathematics (not for me) to zoology (also not for me).

A quick browse through and I have already subscribed to a course in Management and another in DNA, pretty random you may think, but I manage a team and am always open to new ideas, plus I work for a bio medical company, and we have many 'boffins' who I have no clue what they are on about.

The courses comprise of videos, podcasts and written notes, so they seem relatively easy to digest and everything is, as I say, in one place.

Go on, give it a try, I challenge you to learn something...

 

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RAS UK Customer Roadshow

The Roche Applied Science Customer Roadshow is about to start.

The RAS Roadshow Truck, has parked up at the Burgess Hill office for employees to look around before it starts it's tour of the country.

It is exhibiting our range of state-of-the art research instrumentation including the GS Junior sequencer, recently used to identify a deadly bacterial infection in the US. Instruments which are helping to deliver on the Roche personalised healthcare strategy will also be on display and you will be able to view the full range of our LightCycler PCR systems as well.

For more information about Roche Applied Science visit our UK website

Here is the 1st peek at a LightCycler 96

 

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Where's Tony?

A friend of mine, (I hope I am ok in calling him a friend), Ted Meulenkamp, always travels around, and takes the odd little snippets of Roche Buildings and asks where they are, so here I go with plagiarising that idea to see how it takes off...

 

 

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Apple TV and iPad AirPlay without router?

Well I am sitting here on holiday in Devon for two weeks, the rain is chucking it down outside the window (don't believe the photo, that was taken last year when the weather was glorious), the ducks are having a whale of a time, but I am resigned to either finding somewhere to go that it inside (almost impossible), shopping with the misses, or catching up on my films - the films win!

I have downloaded about a dozen films to my iPad plus a number of books, so I have enough entertainment you could say, but not for long term use, plus Lynne would like to watch the films with me, she has brought her knitting....

I know thinking to myself, I will go into Exeter and buy another Apple TV, we have a TV in the lodge with HDMI inputs, perfect idea, plus I can re-use the Apple TV when I get home for the bedroom. So off to Exeter we go to the Apple store and purchase a shiny new Apple TV.

This is when my problems started...

Of course the Apple TV has a network port and is WiFi enabled, what I did not have was a network in the Lodge where we were staying, the light worked during the day, gravity was there, we had electric, but no WiFi. Both Lynne and I were using 3G cards in our devices to connect to the Internet (GPRS only) but this was no good for connecting the Apple TV up. Then I had an epiphany, I could use Lynne's Windows7 laptop as a WiFi hotspot/router. A quick trawl of Google gave me the information on how to set it up, instructions below...




Users can activate the device and Wi-Fi hotspot through command line scripts (please run all Command Prompts with Administrative permissions) Start > Run > Cmd > (right click on Cmd.exe and choose run as adiminstrator)
a) Set the parameters for your Wi-Fi hotspot (first choose a name for your Wi-Fi hotspot and a password key)
run : netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=Hotspot key=passwordhere(where ssid = your Wi-Fi hotspot name, and key = your password key) (password key needs to be at least 8 characters)
b) Start the network adapter
run : netsh wlan start hostednetwork
c) Share the connection
- Open Network and Sharing Center, right click on "Microsoft Virtual WiFi Miniport Adapter",
- Go to Properties --> Sharing,
- Select 'Allow other network users to connect through this computer's Internet connection',
- Click 'Select a private network connection' and select your active internet connection,
- Click OK and close all tabs.
d) Disabling the Wi-Fi Hotspot
run : netsh wlan stop hostednetwork

This created a WiFi network that I could connect Lynne's iPod touch to, but the iPad and the Apple TV would not connect, they could see it but would not connect, (I have a feeling that they expected to see the Internet and they couldn't).

I then manually configured the IP settings on all three devices, so that they used the same IP range, with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 and the laptop's IP address as the default gateway.

Low and behold, the iPad and Apple TV both connected straight away, and the iPad could AirPlay my films to the Apple TV, perfect.

So what if it is raining outside, I now have my cinema set up, armchair in front of the telly, beer by my side, pop corn the otherside, bliss...

Happy holibobs!

 

Apple TV and my Media Player

Well I took delivery of an Apple TV yesterday, and yet again, whoever designs the packaging for Apple ought to have an award, even the packaging was a delight to open.

The 1st job was to connect the Apple TV to my television, which was really easy, two cables, one HDMI and a mains cable, then came the setup, again, fairly straightforward, then onto the iTunes to set up Home Sharing.

So I had a working Apple TV system, I had downloaded the 'Remote' App from the App Store and had connected my iPad 2, a quick whiz round my iPad and I sussed how the AirPlay worked, I could remote control the Apple TV from my iPad, everything was looking rosy...

 

LoveFilm

My main driver for getting the Apple TV, was to use the LoveFilm streaming service from my iPad via AirPlay, I know I can use LoveFilm on my XBox, but why should I pay another £35 a year for the XBox Gold so that I can connect to LoveFilm, I have LoveFilm on my Smart Tv, but it runs Android and always falls over halfway through the film. LoveFilm has always worked on the iPad though, so my thoughts were, "why not use it via the iPad to the Apple TV", until it tried it, and guess what, the LoveFilm Player, does not allow the mirroring. This sucks!

 

Media Center

I also have a Freecom Media Player, which I bought several years ago, this is a 500GB NAS box, capable of playing films, photographs and music, via HDMI, straight to my TV. Looking at the functionality between, this and the Apple TV, there is no comparison, this evening the Media Player will be consigned to the office, connected straight to my laptop, via USB, and I will start the process of converting all my digitised films to the Apple TV format using my Aimersoft Video Converter Application.

It may take me a while, to convert all my DIVX and AVI films, but at the end of the day, I will have the luxury of having all my films, music, photos, and iPad functionality in one place - my armchair in from of my TV - Nivarna!

 

Next Steps..

Do I REALLY want to look at the AirPlay games?

Well here is a really good resource on all thing AirPlay.

Another thing I will be investigating is setting up Apple TVs connected to the projectors in our office meeting rooms, this could well be an easy way for people to present, I will just have to figure out if the subnets will be a problem...

Blogsy App for the iPad

I have just downloaded the Blogsy App for the iPad. We shall have to see how easy and how good the App is to post to my various Blog sites.

160 x 50	220 x 70

Copying pictures straight from web pages is really easy, very impressed with that, although it did change the font size...

Dragging a video direct from my YouTube pages was a cinch, how easy is this...

Dragging a photo from my Picassa account is simple too.

Wow, even uploading photos from my iPad is easy, I can see why people like this App!

 

 

 

TimeLapse Video

Now I am not a photographic geek, I like taking photos and video as a remembrance of an occasion like everyone else, this is why I love this App to do Time Lapse recordings.

I read a blog at the weekend where a guy had set up his Mac to take a time lapse video of a party, then at the end of the party he just uploaded the results to YouTube so that every one could see what went on at the part - cool I thought.

After a search in the App store on the iPad, I decided to give Quick Lapse HD designed by CodeCraft Technologies a try - it is possible to install the free App, but it only gives 3 seconds of recording, so I went for the full App as the cost is peanuts.

I was very impressed on how easy it was to get up and running, I have a gorilla mount for the iPAD, courtesy of a birthday present from my son, so I just attached it to the handrail in the atrium of my office and recorded the coffee bar for 10 minutes, I was very impressed with the results.

This was recorded in the App complete with soundtrack and uploaded direct to YouTube.

On the way home last night I attached the iPAD to the rear view mirror in my car and recorded my journey home, this time I took the recording and made some minor edits using the Video Editor App and uploaded that to YouTube, still pretty good for a 1st attempt.

So far I only have one grumble about the App, and that is if a notification/alert appears, the recording stops - this can be a bit of a downer if you have set the iPAD up to record a day's event and someone send you a calendar invitation an hour into the event.

The only thing I would like to see on the App is an idiots tool for setting the recording by 'Expected Recording Time' and 'Prefered Playback Time', at the moment you have to do some mental arithmetic to figure out the Timelapse Interval by the Frames Per second.

I already have a plethora of ideas where I can use this neat little App.

Mixing Sounds

I wanted to create a new welcome message for Halloween when people call my Service Desk, the question was how to do it using Cloud Computing from my Windows 7 laptop.

A quick google search brought up the kind of sound bytes I needed, this was a really easy site to pick up royalty free stuff - http://soundbible.com/

Next I needed a sound editor, I wanted something simple but with multiple channels - a quick search brought up http://www.aviary.com/ it was 'relatively' easy to use, I could import the sound bites I had downloaded from Soundbible and then record my own voice direct from my headset.

As you have multiple channels in the Aviary suite, you can adjust the different volumes and add extra effects.

I was very pleased with the result

Halloween.egg on Aviary.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Video Conferencing - getting the right ambience

The powers that be have just enabled MS Office Communicator for Video Conferencing at our site, which means that anyone with a webcam can join in Video Conferences from their laptops in their office, this is of course, great news, it means less travelling, less cost and better communications.

Having a Video Conference from my office did get me thinking though, now that I have participated in a few 'VCs', some of the offices are, well a bit crabby, there are papers everywhere, old computers dotted about the place etc. so I have decided to improved the quality of how people see me when on a VC.

The 1st job was to find an appropriate photo on ebay, I picked up a large beach poster for £6.  The poster is stuck behind my desk on the wall.

Getting the poster in the right place was a tad tricky, it needed two people, then I had to play around with the zoom function on the web cam, but eventually I managed to get the kind of result I wanted.

Now all I have to do is improve the ugly mug in the picture, and I will have the desired effect I was after - perhaps a George Clooney look would be better...

Jawbone Icon and Jambox on my PC

OK so I have been using my Jawbone Icon with my Avaya One-X Communicator for about a month now, and I am really loving it.  Gone are the Plantronics CS60 headset, the USB cable for it and the charging cable, that is another two wires removed from the desk.
The Icon is so small, it sits nicely on the edge of the keyboard, I still need a charging cable, but as it charges from a micro USB, I use the same cable to charge my Blackberry - cool.

So my next thought was 'how will the Jawbone Jambox fare with the One-X Communicator and Office Communicator on my Windows 7 laptop?'.
I decided to order one in for a test, if it was going to be rubbish I was sure I could find a good home for it.

Well on Thursday the package arrived, literally next day delivery, the packaging was so well designed I didn't really want to open it, but eventually I carefully peeled back the sticky back plastic and took out the Jambox.
This is really well designed and built, rubber top and bottom gives it a grippy feel with a mesh wrapped around the middle for a stylish look, it feels solid and looks minimalist - perfect.

I plugged it into the micro USB cable connected to my laptop, leaving it switched off, to charge, this was going to take about 2.5 hours so I went for a bacon sarnie and a coffee.
The first thing I did once the unit was charged was update it to the latest firmware via the MyTalk Jawbone Portal - the first attempt just hung at 1% but after unplugging and refreshing the portal, it saw the Jambox and took about 3 minutes to update - whilst I was on the portal I also renamed the Jambox.  Next I tried to pair the Jambox with my laptops Bluetooth, this was surprisingly easy, it immediately saw it as another headset and it also saw it as a Jawbone headset - I was a little worried about this, but it has proved to be perfect, here's why...

Now when I am using the Icon with the One-X Communicator, as soon as I turn the Icon off, the Communicator complains that it can't see the headset anymore, when I turn on the Jambox and it pairs, Communicator now sees the headset again - it doesn't realise it is a different device!  This means that when I want to make a conference call from my meeting table, I just turn the Icon off, turn the Jambox on and make the call - seamless.

Another set of cables and a Star Phone have now been removed from my meeting table. Next came pairing it to the iPad and Blackberry, both went very easily and even as I type now, Lynne is listening to Radio1 on the Jambox in the kitchen, via BBC iPlayer on the iPad.

I will need to run with it a while longer just to give it a stress test, plus see how far the Jambox can work away from the laptop, but the future is promising...

Converged Communications - who, why, where, when.

As much as ten years ago the buzz word in the telephony industry was convergence - no one was really sure what it was and what to do with it, it was a mixture of telephony and Instant Messenger in those days.

Riding my bike into the office in the mornings gives me a great opportunity to reflect on things, plus the oddest ideas just seem to pop into my mind, it must be something to do with wearing ear plugs and petrol fumes...  This morning I was thinking about conversations we were having in the office last week with Marketing and Communications people.

On one side of the fence we have the Marketer's (I always get this impression of a French gascoin, with feathered hat, sword, shouting "one for all..."), who want to 'get out there' and interact with the customers, and on the other side the Communication people, who need 'a strategy' before they will commit to interactions.

They are both right.  Yes we do need to interact with our customers.  Yes we do need a strategy.
But...

Who are our customers?

What medium do they prefer?

What content do they want?

Who is responsible for providing the content?

Who will do the 'interaction' thing?

Where does the return for the effort come from?

When is the best time to interact with the customers?

Who has the budget?

The biggest issue that an organisation faces, seems to be the possibilities for interacting with customers is expanding at a phenomenal rate, 10 years ago no one had heard of Facebook, it was Friends Re-united, 5 years ago no one had heard of Twitter, 2 months ago no one had heard of Google+ - so how can you come up with a reliable strategy when the playing field is changing on an almost daily basis?

The question I was pondering this morning is 'who will be doing the interactions'?  From the Marketer's perspective, they would need to interact with customers, should the Communications Department be the ones talking to customers?  In fact neither is the best option, most companies have already the perfect people for interacting with customers, those on the front line - Customer Services.  Our Customer Services Department already interact with our customers, by telephone and e-mail, all day every day - so they just need the tools to add the extra strings to their bow for Tweets, Video Calls, Hang Outs and whatever comes over the horizon tomorrow....