Currently The Hot Iron is experiencing technical difficulties - only the home page will display! All links redirect to the home page, and I suspect the feeds are impacted as well.

I am, um, "hot" on the trail and will work to resolve this as soon as possible. As my Feedburner numbers have been increasing, this message means more than just to me.

Thank you for your patience.

Announcements • (0) Comments • Permalink

Dunkirk Systems bought me 2 presents for Christmas last year – a Fujitsu ScanSnap S510 scanner and a One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) computer. I have been using both for the past few weeks and both are worthwhile, and dare I say revolutionary gifts, even with their simplicity.

The ScanSnap is unique in its packaging of existing technologies. As the name implies, it is a scanner. I saw headlines for it in several trade magazines, and after reading information on several Web sites and its own – including watching videos of it in action – I knew this was for me. It is a full-color, duplex scanner with a paper auto-feeder. The accompanying software includes a full version of Adobe Acrobat 8 Standard, optical character recognition to create searchable PDFs and a business card scanning application that creates both PDFs of each side of a card and converts it to text.

I have written before about how I need to eliminate paper in my life and business - and the solution I developed has been working well for me. But then there’s the burgeoning files of paper in my office that needs to be dealt with. My goal is to scan documents and items going forward that I don’t need to keep the original of, and then to slowly go back and scan similar items I already have. And backups – all must be backed up!

As I have gone through and scanned some older documents, I have found things I didn’t know or forgot I had. As I scan these items I am creating a hierarchy of file folders on my computer to organize them, eventually allowing me to scan the text within the documents as well. So in addition to solving the problem of stacks of paper, I am expanding my knowledgebase of information!

So far so good with the ScanSnap – I’ll report back on how things are going forward.

Business • Technology • (2) Comments • Permalink

If you own a Palm device, I highly recommend you subscribe to the Official Palm Blog for one reason – I have found several posts over the last several months related to critical software and features for Palm devices I have not found elsewhere. Not that these come out on a daily basis, and the blog itself does not publish daily, but the few I have seen I feel are important.

What prompted me to write this was a post over the weekend regarding Java for PalmOS and that you won’t be able to download it from their Web site. It does not say if it will be available elsewhere though. It will still be supported though, according to the post.

I have been a loyal Palm user for over a decade and despite advances on other platforms and devices I like the line they have produced, and knowing as much about it as possible is a good thing. When I read this, however, I did not know Java was available for the Palm to begin with, nor do I know of any Java apps I could or would run on my Treo 680.

Do you run any Java apps on your Treo?

Technology • (0) Comments • Permalink

Join Blue Shampoo, the only improv troupe in Chicago to feature me as a member, in a fundraiser improv show on Thursday, January 17. Doors open at the Gorilla Tango Theatre at the corner of Milwaukee and Western in Chicago (just off the Western Blue Line stop) at 9 pm and the show starts at 9:30 pm. See Blue Shampoo perform and possibly some special guests. Tickets are only $10 and can be purchased online.

This show is a fundraiser as Blue Shampoo has been selected to perform at the Dirty South Improv Festival in North Carolina in February. Of course it costs money to get there, and funds raised will to go towards the costs of traveling south and spending a week outside of Raleigh.

So here’s your chance to see some amazing talent on the small stage, and me too! I will be at the fundraiser but won’t be going to the festival, but I wish I was. If you cannot attend but would still like to support our fundraising, consider buying a ticket or two online?

Hope to see you there!

Diversions • (0) Comments • Permalink

At the New Years Eve party I attended someone mentioned they want to start their own business, a retail store. The catalyst for this was a prime retail location becoming available. Of course I jumped on that topic, throwing as much encouragement as I could to fuel the spirit of entrepreneurship.

To no surprise, one item that came up in the dialogue was healthcare. I say to no surprise for whenever anyone contemplates striking out on their own, healthcare is always raised as a question – the great unknown of having health insurance. I would go as far as to say it is a concern greater than stable income!

But what if healthcare and health insurance was not an issue? Hypothetically, what if one did not have to worry about this, or have it as a barrier for going out on their own?

Now I am not proposing any type of solution to this issue. There are many parties involved here, not just the insurance companies and politicians. And if you are a regular reader of The Hot Iron, you will know my bias towards capitalism!

As we head into the weekend, here’s a “what if” to ponder. Feel free to share any thoughts in the comments to this post.

Business • (2) Comments • Permalink