The Jacobian

Happy Holidays

2010-12-14T10:31:00.002-05:00

Random thoughts from 2010...

I continue to remain bullish on the economic prospects for Charleston, at least... From where I sit, I am still seeing tech businesses willing to spend money on R&D and there continues to be many opportunities for myself and Jacobian. For that I am very thankful.

This fall was extremely busy and I wasn't able to even think about taking on more work. With the project load relieved for the time being, I am taking a little R&R and gearing up for what I hope will be a busy 2011.

Debt. Why is it that most families spend what they make? Get a raise, buy a new car. Get a bonus, new golf clubs, etc. The list goes on. My family has been no different. Lately I have been thinking about this and we have taken the initiative to not do this anymore. We have made the commitment to live on 75% of our family income. We are paying off debt and have eliminated credit cards from our wallets. It won't be easy and there are some difficult decisions to be made (ie. "Do we really need this big of a house?"), but in the end it will turn out to be a good turn for us. Its funny how people think you are crazy when you discuss this.... I say "crazy...like a fox"

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year

Economic Recovery? Get ready!

2010-03-18T19:44:00.004-04:00

I have recently become very bullish on our economic prospects. Here's why: I have had many inquiries recently for projects coming from a variety of customers serving different industries, and...

On a more local note, the Charleston SC economy is poised for explosive growth, in my opinion. We have the following coming online: a Boeing 787 production plant, a wind turbine research facility, a new port facility, numerous warehousing facilities, many offshoot businesses, the only deep water port in the SE capable of handling the new freight ships, and the panama canal opening to these ships in 2014. Driving home from Summerville today, I noticed the Cummins plant constructing an addition, and the Daimler Sprinter van assembly plant with its parking lot full of vans. A year ago the lot was empty.

Strap you seatbelts on, its going to get busy soon. Of course, thats my opinion :)

10 Years...Already?!

2010-01-05T16:31:00.002-05:00

February 2010 will mark a very significant milestone in our history, 10 years in business!

Way back in 2000 I made the difficult decision to leave comfy corporate life for business ownership. In hindsight, I felt pretty clueless about running a business then, but I felt very confident in my abilities. Its been a fun ride, with many "peaks and valleys" as we metrologists like to say.

For this milestone, I am planning a "re-branding" of the business, including an overhaul of jacobiantech.com to better reflect our current offerings.

I think what has resulted in Jacobian's success has been my mix of experience, including being a plant engineer, manager, project engineer, trainer, etc. I think this allows me to anticipate and understand what customers want, because I was in their shoes. This, and knowing that my reputation as a business owner and engineer is everything. A good reputation is very difficult to earn, but very easy to lose.

I'm looking forward to the future, and even 10 years later, I love my job and still find it fun. I am very grateful to all my customers that have put their faith in my abilities. Thank you!

Fall in the Lowcountry

2009-11-18T15:19:00.005-05:00

Fall in coastal South Carolina is a great time of year. Weather is warm and sunny with "Carolina Blue" skies. The fish in the coastal marshes are biting aggressively, snagging the last bits of bait in the estuaries to fatten up for the winter. I'm guilty of taking the occasional day of playing hookie to go fishing in the fall. My family and I just got back from a camping weekend in the Blue Ridge mountains and my sons and I tried our hand at flyfishing in the trout streams. We did pretty good, with me getting a rainbow and my youngest son a brook trout. Anyway, I digress...

Business has been good, which is great, but its delaying my iPhone app development studies! That's OK because the studies are going well when I can find the time.

Thanksgiving is upcoming. Many have suffered greatly in 2009, with layoffs and general economic swine flu, but I have been very fortunate so for that I am thankful, along with the health and love of my family.

My best wishes to all my present and past customers this season...

Recession Ending?

2009-08-07T09:04:00.003-04:00

After a slow Summer (business-wise, anyway), my phone has begun ringing again. Indicators from the media suggest we have hit the bottom of the recession. Hopefully these are all signs of economic recovery...we'll see...

I've been keeping busy, improving my iPhone development skills. I hope to have an app for sale on iTunes by the end of the year, and soon after to "hang my shingle" as an iPhone developer.

On that note, you should check out the iPhone apps created by my friend and colleague, Bruce Truax (www.DLD-LLC.com). He has a unique and cool app called "Vibration" that uses the accelerometer in the iPhone to measure vibration! I have been doing some beta testing on his latest app which I think will be a big success.

Recent happenings

2009-06-26T10:28:00.002-04:00

I recently did some work for a new customer, ASCO valve, in Aiken, SC. It was nice to visit a "local" customer, within easy driving distance ~ 2 hrs. I decided to travel there by the back roads, and it was great to see some of the out-of-the-way towns in SC, such as Barnwell and Bamberg. Its beautiful farmland and big homes in small towns. People walking down the street will just wave, random chickens roaming the streets, etc :).

Also just got done upgrading another interferometer to full phase measuring capability at Sydor Optics in Rochester, NY. The system turned out well, and they now have double capacity for measuring their parts.

Looking forward to returning home and spending the weekend at Edisto!

"The ACE Basin is not God's country, its where he spends his vacation"

Back from Optifab

2009-05-18T15:54:00.002-04:00

Last week's Optifab show was...well...small. But, its a small world in the optical fabrication community. I was pleasantly surprised to see many faces that I had met or worked with at some point in the 18 years of my career. Wow, has it been that long? Anyway, many of these familar faces have worked for a few different companies between the one they used to work for when I met them and now. Still really good to get caught up.

I attended a few papers as well, and found a wide range of quality there. A few very good papers, a few very bad papers (or, rather, papers that described fairly routine lab metrology in great detail), and some that were blatant commercials rather than novel research. I guess you can't blame folks for trying new sales angles in this economy...

The outlook seemed to be cautious optimism, overall. Folks are worried, but hopeful.

Zygo was busy all week. Lots of interest in the new MetroPro, written in C#.NET. It is very visually appealing. I'm going to be on the team of beta testers for the new software, which I am looking forward to.

Also got to see some old friends from college who live in the Rochester area. Also great to catch up with them.

Its a cold day in Summerville today, seems like late winter instead of mid May!

Optifab Show

2009-05-07T09:50:00.003-04:00

I'm attending the Optifab show in Rochester, NY next week. It will be good to catch up with some of my friends and clients in Rochester, and hopefully meet some new potential clients. If you are there, look me up, I'll be wandering around the exhibits and attending some of the talks on Metrology. Hope to see you there -

Leverage your Zygo Investment!

2009-03-25T09:33:00.003-04:00

I was recently visiting a customer and was immediately aware of their interferometer operators working diligently on a labor-intensive measurement procedure. My immediate response was "you know, you can probably get that entire procedure down to a single button click". As I write this, I am working on the scripts to automate these processes.

Well, I was surprised because I have assumed that people who own Zygo's are aware of MetroScript, a scripting language that ships with MetroPro software. Folks may be aware of it, but don't really know what can be done with it.

MetroScript is not known for its user-friendliness, but it is very powerful in the hands of those with experience. You can do almost any automation task you can dream up using MetroScript, I can tell you from first-hand experience.

Here are some examples:
- Any combination of analysis steps that can be done manually
- Sending data to/from a database
- Copying, moving files across a network
- Appending data to an external file
- Driving motorized stages
- Doing external complex analysis by communicating with custom programs written in Visual Studio.NET or other programming languages
- Working with other programs like Matlab
- Etc!

Usually, the cost to write up a script has a quick return on investment in labor savings, increased productivity, and reduced human-error inconsistencies.

Alternatively, if you have a need for many scripts, we can offer you MetroScript training, which we have delivered many times to groups in the USA and internationally. This will train your own engineers to write their own scripts.

So, if you own a Zygo and you have a labor-intensive measurement task, please consider hiring Jacobian Tech to write you a MetroScript as a solution!

Upcoming Travel

2009-02-17T19:39:00.002-05:00

The last 4 months have been awesome. I've been able to stay at the home office and work on a large LabView project and some .NET programming. I'm getting ready to install next week which means back to traveling...Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

It will be gratifying getting this project done. Its been a long road. Before now, I have not considered LabView to be a strength, and to be sure, there are many out there much better than me. But, this project has been great in that I feel pretty competent at LabView now. This project also involved IMAQ, Vision and Real-Time. Its really a good tool, but those of us conventional programmers have difficulty wrapping our brains around "data-flow" graphical programming. Like most things, its a learning curve.

The week after next, I'm back to Rochester to install another Interferometer and do a little maintenance on them. It will be great to catch up with my customers in Rochester. While there, I'm planning to see my Sister's new (to her) house and maybe some old friends.

The importance of a team

2009-02-13T10:22:00.003-05:00

In the 9 years since I have run Jacobian Tech, I have come to realize the importance of a good team. Its so important to surround yourself with experienced professionals. The value is worth it.

In this case, I am talking about what I call my business team. I work with an outstanding team, including my Accountant, Financial Advisor and several experts in other fields that complement my skills. I am considering hiring a business coach as well.

What made me think of this is, we are nearing completion of a real-estate deal, and my team involved has been outstanding as well. The team consists of our realtor(s) and mortgage company, and lawyer.

Surround yourself with outstanding professionals. Its worth every penny.

Jacobian's Net Promotor Score

2009-01-28T15:54:00.003-05:00

I finally got around to soliciting feedback on my performance. One of the things I wanted to get was my Net Promotor Score, which is something I read about in Fortune Small Business magazine a while back.

If you've never heard of NPS, it's a measure of customer satisfaction and its very relevant to a consultant/contractor like me because it asks the following question:

"How likely are you to recommend Jacobian Technologies to a colleague or friend?"

The answer scale goes from 0 to 10, with 0=Not At All Likely, 5=Neutral, and 10=Extremely Likely. The score is calculated as the % of 9's and 10's (Promotors) - % of 0-6's (Detractors). Anything above 75% is considered outstanding.

My score (to-date) = 82.4

I was very happy and a little surprised at the feedback. I guess you're always most critical of yourself. I have posted some of the feedback on JacobianTech.com here.

Thanks for all your feedback!

The Coveted iPhone

2009-01-28T15:43:00.004-05:00

I finally got the iPhone 3G, after waiting patiently for my Sprint contract to expire. This is the one gadget that I have truly coveted, drooled over, etc. Why? Because it does everything you could want in a gadget. So, did it meet my high expectations of it, after 1 month + of usage? YES! This thing is the greatest. Sure, there are some things that could be improved on, but I have absolutely no complaints.

Also, we were concerned about the signal coverage for AT&T. Well, that turned out to be a non-issue as well. Its a couple bars better than Sprint at my office, which is where it matters most.

The App Store is also awesome. I have downloaded several useful apps, and have already begun plotting out some software I plan to write for the iPhone. I might as well put some of this software development skill I have gained over the years to work for fun and profit! That is, instead of some proprietary piece of equipment in a manufacturing plant that I can't even talk about, which is the usual case :)

So, in summary, I highly recommend the iPhone. Gotta go, my phone just told me I have an email :)

Back from China

2008-11-25T09:52:00.005-05:00

My trip to China was an amazing experience. The trip to Shenyang was about 30 hrs travel time, including layovers. Beijing airport was truly awesome. Its the worlds largest airport, completely redone for the Olympic games. The proportions from inside are staggering (see pic below):

Shenyang is an interesting city. Downtown is modern and thriving. Traffic has to be seen to be believed. The approach is much different than I have ever seen, but it works for the most part. The road is shared by cars, trucks, taxis (mostly Volkswagen Foxes), pedestrians, bikes, scooters, motorized bikes, 3-wheeled cars, etc. Cars will cross in front of oncoming traffic, and pretty much wherever there is an opening. They honk their horns to let others know they are there and others will slow down and let them squeak through. They all seem to be patient and tolerant of this kind of driving. See pic of 3-wheeled car.

Our hosts in Shenyang were very friendly and helpful. Many Chinese are very concerned about the American economy and the presidency, and who we voted for. They all like Obama. I think their perception of the American economy is a bit alarmist and must be influenced by media. One said that he heard our homes are worth nothing. They may not be selling too quickly, but to say they are worth nothing is a little extreme.

We ate traditional Chinese food for almost the entire week, and it was very good. Its a lot different than American Chinese food. Its much more healthy, for one.

While there, I asked my son's 3rd grade class for questions about China, and our hosts gladly answered their questions. I hope it served to demystify China to them. Our hosts encouraged us to send our kids to school in China and to learn Chinese. They asked if Chinese is offered as a language choice here, and I told them it is not common.

The installation went smoothly, and the workers and engineers are all smart and enthusiastic. Below is a pic of the metrology team.

All in all, this was a great life-experience and it only reinforces to me that, politics aside, people are all good by nature and have many things in common.

Off to China!

2008-11-13T14:44:00.002-05:00

I'm headed out to Shenyang, China on Saturday for the final installation of a JTI 300mm Fizeau interferometer at the Lapmaster facility. It will be a very interesting, if not comfortable, trip. I plan to take lots of pictures to document my experience there. From Charleston, SC to Shenyang will be over 24 hrs travel time, including layovers...

Its amazing: Shenyang is a city of over 7 million people, yet no one I know has ever heard of it!

I'm gonna try to post while over there...

Jump to Mac

2008-09-17T17:45:00.003-04:00

This summer I needed to replace my business laptop. This time I made the fateful jump...to a MacBook. After reading about others who have done so and been happy, I decided to try it.

Well, after several months I can honestly say I am very happy with it. I use Parallels with Windows XP for my "absolutely no alternative" programs, like Visual Studio. Going back and forth is a little more effort, but the actual hardware is really nice and everything for the most part works really well and is intuitive - so I can figure it out easily enough.

No question there is a lot I don't yet know about the Mac, but really I think its a lot better than the Vista alternative, IMO.

Shrimping Season!

2008-09-10T20:39:00.004-04:00

If you are lucky and get to live in "paradise", you get to do fun things like go "shrimping". This is a fun thing for those of us in SC where we have a shrimp baiting season. You basically throw bait balls (fish meal mixed with clay) in the water, which attracts the shrimp. Then you throw a cast-net over the bait. You are allowed to keep a 48 qt cooler per day for the 2 month season. We always look forward to the season and filling our freezers with fresh wild shrimp. Its a lot of fun to introduce newbies to the activity. Its usually done at night, or in the day only where there is very silty water. Shrimp are the bottom of the food chain, after all! 1 1/2 more days....wooo hooo!

JTI 300mm Fizeau's SOLD OUT

2008-09-10T20:28:00.002-04:00

August brought the end of an era for me, with the last two interferometers being installed. The happy owners of these systems are LapMaster International (Chicago, China), Casecor Precision Optics (Rochester, NY), Sigma Space Corp (Lanham, MD) and Sydor Optics Inc (Rochester, NY). This project has been a really fun and challenging one.

It kind of fits a classic entrepreneurial story. Purchase systems at auction, take a risk by gutting them and refurbishing, have faith in their value, work a sales strategy, and ... it all worked out better than my best expectations. I wish I had 100 of them to refurbish and sell. Alas, there were only a handful ever made. It was a classic win-win, with my customers getting an unbelievable deal on these systems. The quality and workmanship of the optical systems was classic Tropel. Absolutely impressive. With the Zygo Visual Phase upgrades, and the new kinematic, transmissive universal mount - they are an awesome metrology tool.

I look forward to continue to support and service these systems in the future!

Solution to SPAM Hell

2008-09-05T16:24:00.002-04:00

I, like many others I am sure, had been getting inundated with spam since I have had my primary email address for at least 8 years. I was often having to spend much time sorting through hundreds of spam emails to get to the handful of "true" business or personal emails. In my haste to delete, I occasionally deleted some wanted messages by mistake.

It occurred to me that my Gmail account (That I use to receive messages as website administrator for the Summerville Soccer Club) had essentially no spam make it through their excellent filter. I wondered, is it possible to somehow use Gmail as a spam filter for my business email? The answer is YES and it works great. I now get essentially no spam and no spam-filtered legit emails.

Here is how to do it:

Make a new Gmail account. For example, youraccount@gmail.com.
Open your Gmail account and choose Settings
From Get Mail from Other Accounts, choose Add another mail account
Enter your email address, for example [insert your email address here]
Add the pop server address for your mail.
You can repeat the above 2 steps to add other accounts, for example, I have customerservice@, sales@, webmaster@ accounts all being filtered.
Add a new regular mail account through your website provider, for example I made inbox@yourmail.com,
Now under Settings, choose Forwarding and POP/IMAP
Under Forwarding, choose Forward a copy of incoming mail to: inbox@yourmail.com and keep Gmail’s copy in the Inbox
That’s it!

In a nutshell, the way it works is Gmail periodically checks your regular email server and downloads all your new email to your Gmail account. It then passes through Gmails spam filter. Then all “good” email is forwarded on to your new regular email account which is then downloaded by Outlook for example. I choose to keep a copy in Gmail account for a backup but you don’t have to.

I have had almost no spam, and no good emails being filtered. The spam that was getting through I chose to report to Google and it stopped getting through.

Worked wonders for me…

Launching "The Jacobian"

2008-09-05T16:02:00.000-04:00

Today, as I sit here awaiting Tropical Storm Hanna to graze South Carolina, I decided to start a blog as a companion to jacobiantech.com as a way to connect with current and potential clients, as well as to pass on random thoughts, tips, and such to whomever may pass along...So, here we go!