glmtblog

Crisis in the gaming community continues.  Last Thursday, the PlayStation Network, the backbone of they PlayStation 3s online features, mysteriously went down, and has yet to return. Sony has been reluctant to admit that its network was hacked.  Saturday, Sony announced that during this extended outage, they have been “rebuilding our system to further strengthen our network infrastructure.”

The PSN outage has hit my home particularly hard.  My fiancé is an avid Unreal Tournament 3 player, and I myself depend on Hulu Plus through the PS3 for television content.  Thankfully it was a holiday weekend, so we had many other activities to fill our time.  However, as this disruption persists, I fear that we may actually need to become productive in our free time.

While the PSN outage is mostly a personal inconvenience, another network failure hit this week, causing ripples in the business community. AWS, Amazon’s cloud computing service, experienced a 4 day disruption, also starting Thursday.  Some web based business, such as Reddit, Quora, and Foursquare, had their operations crippled by this outage. 

Both of these high-profile events are a reminder to us all to proceed with caution as our lives become more and more dependant on network-based technologies.  Remember, we are depending on others to keep everything up and running, and it’s humbling to see how little control we all really have.

Last week, Sony announced they will no longer manufacture 3.5″ floppy disks, signaling the nail in the coffin for this antiquated technology.  You mean they were still making those things?  I don’t even own a computer with an “A drive” anymore.  1.44 MB of space doesn’t get you far these days.  As a matter of fact, at my rummage sale last summer, I couldn’t even sell an 8MB compact flash card.  While I don’t think this news story will ruffle anyone’s feathers, it does give us an opportunity to wander down memory lane and remember life in the “old days”…

FLASHBACK:  Summer 1993:  Our family gets a shiny new Compaq 486 PC (that’s pre-pentium, folks), to replace our well-loved Commodore 64.  Time to install Microsoft Office (some crazy new program that’s supposed to be way better than Word Perfect).  The installation package came with TWENTY-FIVE floppy disks.  Being the youngest of 6 kids, naturally it was my job to baby-sit the computer all day long, feeding it disk after disk in 20 minute intervals.  To make things interesting, the Compaq engineers thought it would be a good idea to place the eject button right next to the power button.  All went smoothly until disc 17, when I absent-mindedly pushed the wrong button.  5 hours wasted.  Thanks floppy disks!

Today, that program would fit 1000 times over on a standard blu-ray disc, and install in about 25 seconds.  Despite this perspective, I’m sure we would still complain that it wasn’t fast enough.

The New Media department of Great Lakes Media was honored to create a digital highlight reel for high school athlete, Lewis Smith. Lewis is the Nephew of Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer extraordinaire, Chad Smith.

The digital highlight reel is a great way for high school athletes to capture the attention of college recruiters. The video is a simple 2-3 minute piece, highlighting the athlete’s abilities and stats. It can be uploaded to youtube, a website, or put to DVD.

The video can be seen here, and is part of our New Media March promotion. We are offering 20% off digital media services. We are now also offering new services, like the digital highlight reel, and encoding for portable media devices.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13845_3-10285229-58.html

Can LinkedIn Help Your Company Sell?

Are you diving into the networking craze that so many companies are now doing? Can social media websites such as LinkedIn help you sell your products? I say why not give it a try…LinkedIn is free, easy to use, low maintenance – and if nothing else you’re able to connect with colleagues, partners and friends that maybe you haven’t heard from in awhile. It’s free marketing, and during these tough economic times, surely can’t hurt.

Being in a sales/marketing role here at GLMT, there is no doubt that LinkedIn has been a great resource for current and potential customer contacts. My goal is for people to think of Great Lakes Media Technology and myself when someone needs the products and services we offer – and LinkedIn can only help to increase that brand awareness. Not to mention that observing a contact’s profile helps you learn a little background about the person that you otherwise probably wouldn’t have known. Even tangible networking events usually don’t involve discussions of people who think highly of you (recommendations section of LinkedIn).

As far as me personally generating sales revenue as a result of being in touch through LinkedIn – to be honest I have yet to see any real results. You’re probably laughing by the way I was just talking up how useful the website has been, but believe me I have faith. Even if it does not directly result in a sale, I do believe it has helped me to better connect with existing customers. I’d love to hear your thoughts…

Eco-Friendly Disc Not So Friendly

You can turn on your television, tune in to the radio, or even open up your web browser and you are bound to see something about going “green.” We are all in the midst of a “green” generation and at Great Lakes Media Technology we’ve adopted the “ChooseGreen” packaging concept (made with 100% recyclable, 30% post consumer and all soy based inks on custom packaging), which has seen a HUGE increase in demand over the last few years. Anytime energy is saved and resources are conserved, no doubt we are all for it. Researchers are now experimenting to create an eco-friendly disc, although none have been successful.

Currently there are replication companies marketing what they are calling an “eco-friendly” DVD (or flex disc). Flexible because they are 0.6mm thick as opposed to the 1.2mm thickness of a standard DVD, and environmentally friendly because only half of the plastic is needed to manufacture the disc. Unfortunately there are some serious problems with this.

Going, Going, Going, GREEN!

It seems like everyone is going green nowadays. It is everywhere, so I think it is safe to say it is the “trendy” thing to do right now. In my opinion this trend is one that should stay. I think it is great that companies, not just citizens, are deciding that it is time to think about how we affect our planet. Even Apple has released their first family of Green Notebook computers.

Now I’m no tree-hugger, but I try to do my part in lessening my “carbon footprint.” Recycling is probably the easiest thing anyone can do to make a small impact on the environment. It takes two seconds to throw that can or bottle in a recycling bin instead of your trashcan.

Recently the Milwaukee County Zoo started using compostable plastic cups in the Flamingo Café. These totally clear cups are made from bioplastic. It’s really quite amazing that this plastic can be composted and not have any harmful impact on the environment. I hope they start using these cups in all of their Concessions once they reopen in the Spring.

GLMT has also taken steps in the green direction. We recently introduced our ChooseGreen option for our custom packaging. We have also started offering a recycled green jewel case. The clear green case is made of 30% postconsumer materials and the forest green tray is made of 100% postconsumer materials.

In addition, we are also reducing paper waste by giving our clients the option to receive their quotes and invoices digitally instead of on paper. Any paper waste we do have is recycled, along with plastic, cardboard, glass and scrap discs. It’s hard to imagine the amount of waste GLMT alone would be putting into the landfill if we did not recycle.

As you can see whether your company is making computers, serving concessions at the zoo, manufacturing discs or anything in between, we can all do something to impact the environment in a positive way.

Let’s turn this green trend into something more, and keep our environment healthy!