Smart Grid Network

Today's utility is faced with ever increasing demands. Demands like reliability, conservation, economical, security, and the list goes on. They have been charged with keeping the lights on and world going. Because of this they are very conservative by nature and rely on proven solutions. Since Alternating Current voltage was accepted as the voltage of choice decades ago for power systems, not a whole lot has changed. To meet the demands and become sustainable uutilities are implementing new technological (or smart) devices and systems that create an environment of sustainability.

 Wikipedia says, "A smart grid is a form of electricity network using digital technology. A smart grid delivers electricity from suppliers to consumers using two-way digital communications to control appliances at consumers' homes; this could save energy, reduce costs and increase reliability and transparency if the risks inherent in executing massive information technology projects are avoided. The "Smart Grid" is envisioned to overlay the ordinary electrical grid with an information and net metering system, that includes smart meters. Smart grids are being promoted by many governments as a way of addressing energy independence, global warming and emergency resilience issues."

Smart Grid is the buzz word today. As the slide above demonstrates there are many facits to how a smart grid works but basically it can be broken down into three components; Hardware, Software, and the Network. All of these components make up an endless list of benefits that will ultimately reduce power costs and allow utilities to become sustainable.

The goal of this blog is to discuss how the network component of smart grid solutions. Although you need all of the parts to make up a smart grid, the network is the lifeblood of any solution.

These Smart Grid solutions are comprised of several layers of communications, or networks. The ultimate goal of these systems to install "smart" meters that gather and deliver useful data. Along with these smart meters a network infrastructure must be constructed to allow utilities to remotely access the meter's capabilities. The following is sort of busy but showes the different layers of the network that allow this. The infrastructure is made up of the receiving server, the WAN, the LAN and the HAN.

The Home Area Network or HAN is the network that resides within each individual home on the system. Manufacturers are already making smart thermostats and appliances with blue tooth and zigby radios to work in conjuntion with smart grids. Pioneers envision being able to control smart home appliances through online dash boards and smart phone apps. Access to this level of information would allow users and providers the ability to lower total consumption with the push of a button. 

These smart meters reside in the Local Area Network or LAN of the smart grid system. The industry is beginning to coin this section of the network as Neighborhood Area Network or NAN. Each meter has a radio installed that communicate with one another. These radio's can work on several frequencies like 900mhz. These communication are usually self-healing in the fact that if communications are blocked they are programmed with the capability of finding another path to communicate. The following diagram depicts just this style of systems. However, there are also systems that use the existing power line as the carrier for the system.

The Wide Area Network or WAN is commonly referred to as the back haul for the system. This is usually a high frequency with a robust pipeline. WAN communication can us radio frequencies like 2.4ghzs, data or Ethernet cables, or Fiber optics. The WAN function in the network chain is to connect a large section of the LAN to the server that resides at the utility office. The WAN can also be used to control other devices on the line that require more bandwidth to give the utility the ability to run the system most efficiently and reliably.

And that is how Smart Grid Networks work. There are many options to utilities today but the basic principles of the communication remain the same for each option. Below is a summary diagram that shows how the different components work together to make up the Smart Grid.

References

Diagrams and information was provided by Sean Dempsey, Smart Grid Specialists.

Wikipedia link for the definition is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_grid.

Secure Email Project

http://www.wallstreetdaily.com/2011/04/06/unsecure-mail-biggest-online-data-breach/

You’ve Got (Unsecure) Mail!

Published Wed, Apr 6th, 2011   Wall Street Daily Research

 

In what could become one of the biggest online breaches ever, hackers stole the email addresses of customers from a growing list of 50 companies. They broke into the information through Epsilon, an online marketing firm used by many big companies to broadcast emails.  Although they did not get specific financial information, cyber criminals can cleverly use the emails and shopping habits to trick customers into revealing their financial information. This article makes me wonder how many companies that I “know” and trust allow my information out to third parties, like Epsilon. And each time they do this do they check to see if the third party has a quality security plan? I think not.

VOIP

http://www.screencast.com/users/JoeyMcDonald/folders/Default/media/0482590d-c953-4f52-af43-be627bce94bf

This was my first time using VOIP and it was very simple. I used Skype and recorded the conversation with the free Jing tool. I found everything very intuitive and user friendly. I also found it very cool. As I was chating with some family friends with my 6 year old daughter over heard and came running in. She was so impressed and couldn't believe what was happening. She kept asking me if they could really hear and see us. Overall, it was a great experience and I believe it is just the start of my family using VOIP.

Tutorial 3: Virtual Life

Today’s economy is a true world economy and companies are forced to compete with businesses all across the world. More competition equals lower prices, which ultimately leads to lower profit margins. So companies are either going out of business or becoming a leaner operation to stay competitive. A leaner operation means less work force and the employees that are left have to find a way to be more productive. Front line workers must produce more, managers are managing a larger staff, and sales people are being forced to cover larger territories. (Competing for Advantage; A new Global Reality, by The Boston Consulting Group, Arindam Bhattacharya, January 2010, http://www.bcg.com/documents/file37656.pdf)

Here is where some very valuable solutions created by Web 2.0 come in handy. Not only socially but now business people are learning to use Web 2.0 for marketing, virtual meetings, keeping in touch with family while on the road, and many other useful applications. Today's Business person is asked to constantly multitask. Randy McDonald, a 30 year career outside salesperson in the utility electrical industry, describes a time in sales without cell phones or computers. A time when a salesperson was either working in the office, driving, or meeting with a customer; always one at a time. Time is no longer a barrier in business. Currently salespeople are expected to return calls, solve issues, and even answer emails between stops. This reality has trained customers expect answers now. (Interview with Randy McDonald, March 25, 2011)

Like it or not this is the expected pace, and it’s not going to slow down. If salespeople expect to be effective they must use web 2.0 tools. Companies like Citrix are capitalizing with great products like "Go to my PC". Much like salespeople are demanded to multitask, they are also supposed to be in more than one place at a time. Trainings, office time, and accommodating customer and vendor schedules can prove impossible by using a traditional approach. Even finding time for family can be impossible. However, salespeople 2.0 can virtually be many places at once.

I am an outside sales representative for a utility distributor in Florida. Next Tuesday I have to attend a mandatory sales training in Tennessee, the same day I have a customer in Central Florida that is expecting a presentation demonstrating my company’s ecommerce capabilities, and to compound matters my son is playing Tball in the afternoon. The best possible solution would be to attend all events in person. However, as you can see that is impossible. I plan to attend one in person and with the aid of Web 2.0 will virtually attend the other two. Here is the plan.

I have to physically be at the training in North Carolina so I will be giving the the full presentation to the customer while I am in another state.

How is this possible? I’m glad you asked…

• I recorded narration to each of my powerpoint slides by clicking Insert>Movies and Sounds>Record.  

• Then I made sure the narration will come in at the appropriate time for each slide. This is accomplished by using the Custom animation menu and choosing how you want the sound to begin. With mouse click, with previous animation, or after previous animation.

• At this point the file is much too big to email. The solution is a Web 2.0 style production. There are many websites that offer a free platform for powerpoint productions and other media formats. The trick is to choose one that allows both sound and other animation formats to function. For this presentation I am using Screencast.com. So head to Screencast.com and set up a free account and follow their instruction to upload your presentation.

• Here is the finished presentation at Screencast. http://www.screencast.com/t/MJenLm7O3pdG

Now for the most important activity, T-ball. I must admit the there is no substitute for being there in the action, but on Tuesday that is not an option. So my wife will be videoing the game and uploading on our families blogpost immediately after the game for me to watch.

How is this possible? I’m glad you asked….

• First she has to make the video using a camera that is capable of connecting to a computer.

• Then she will connect the camera to her Mac and follow the prompts to transfer the file over to her hard drive.

• Now she will head to our family Blogspot, creat a Blogpost, and upload the video using the Video Icon on the Blogger controls.

• I can then log in to the website on my iphone or computer at the hotel and watch the game.

• The game has not happened yet so I am uploading an example for your enjoyment.

I’m sure you have caught one of the major themes of this tutorial. The Virtual life of Web 2.0 does not replace actually being there for the customer meeting or being there at the game. However, effective business people must learn how to utilize Web 2.0. The alternative could be falling down in production, loss of a job, or even divorce. Hopefully these couple of simple real world applications for Web 2.0 will help someone along the way.

All screenshots, pictures, and video were taken by me, Joseph McDonald, March 25, 2011.

Database Project - McDonald, Joseph

Gym Membership Database

This project was the hardest in this class so far. I have had little to no experience using Access in the real world. So, everything was foreign to me. At first I caught myself thinking of Access as a big Excel worksheet but quickly realized it is much more than that. I guess the most valuable part of this project was the "sink or swim" introduction I received designing the database. I also learned that Access can be very valuable in the right context. As a career salesman I have always thought that Excel is suffecient for tracking my data and that an Access document is overkill. However, the deeper I got into the project I began thinking of some applications for Acces in my job. I am currently considering starting a database to track many of the things that I use excel for now. This will allow for further functunality by being able to tie all of the information in one place.

There are a couple of enhancements that can be made to the Database in the project to make it more effective. First it seemed that each member should have an assigned number. I added it to the database to make it easier to filter and report data. Also, other tables can be created with other data that could be mapped together with this first table. Perhaps a table with more detailed information about workout habits for each member that would allow the gym to strategically offer more products and services. There are also many reports that might be helpful. For example, the gym could run a report to display gym members by age or gender. This information would help gym owners to understand their customer base and how to grow by targeting other ages or genders.






McDonald_Joseph_db.accbd

Avatar

This is my Avatar. It was pretty cool designing myself. I used Droppelme, simply because it was the first one on the assignment document. There is a huge variety of designs and it was very easy to use. I actually enjoyed the experience.

Joey

Presentation Project

Presentation Evaluation Rubric

Name of Presenter: Joseph McDonald

Your Name: Joseph McDonald

	Missing or lacking	Meets the minimum but could be improved	Excellent
Is there a logical flow and sequence of content? How could it be improved?			Problem, Solution, & request of the audience
Does the presenter anticipate questions and answer them in the right place? At what points did you have questions that were not answered?			I tried to Anticipate questions and answer them. It's hard to gauge non-interactively
Did the presenter grab your attention in the first 30-60 seconds?			With the busy family conversation
Did the presenter ask questions and spark your curiosity?		Probably could have done a little better.
Did the presenter set the context with a concise explanation? Is it clear what the presenter is trying to share?			Very clear.
Did the presenter validate any claims?			This is kind of NA. I plan to validate once I get the venture capital.
Did the presenter avoid inconsistencies and errors, typos and unbelievable claims?			NO
How well did the presenter avoid clutter?			Pretty well
What did the presenter do to ensure readability?			Large Clean font type.
Did the presenter say it, and then show it or did he/she read the slides?

I did my presentation project on a venture capital project that I have thought about for some time. Our economy is now driving toward more and more service oriented jobs. In order to give the people what they want and be successful one must supply what is demanded. In general people in the U.S. need to eat better and spend more time with their families. So, I think that if Americans are offered a convenient and affordable solution to help them with these to shortcommings, they will take it. It's also important to believe in what you are doing for a living and I believe in this.

It was very helpful reviewing some of my fellow students presentations. I thought I was finished a couple of weeks ahead of time, but after watching other presentations I made many changes to my presentation.

Below is the link to my presentation online.
http://www.screencast.com/users/JoeyMcDonald/folders/Default/media/8dbc2ee3-9066-4b2c-8178-54a90a08de10

Tutorial 2: Excel in the Real World

College teaches many things. So many of them seem to be conceptual and quite frankly not applicable to a true professional business person. However, there are some that are very useful. The class on computing in business introduces some key concepts that are essential for succeeding in the real world. Excel has quickly become a staple for business people today. This tutorial below is an example of how excel can allow you to position yourself above peers.

I have been in sales for many years but I recently started a new job. My new boss wanted to know more about my activity than any boss I'd ever had. At first he just wanted to know major wins and losses, then it moved into letting him know what actions had been taken on our team initiatives. Before I knew it I was sending him information on the previous week's sales activities, major wins & losses, the coming week's schedule, and other general updates. It was taking me hours to answer him in a variety of formats. Something had to change.

So I took inventory of all the different information the boss was asking me to report on and the various weekly conversations we'd had. Then I produced a very simple spreadsheet to track all of the information he was looking for, in one place.

Below is step by step instructions and explanation of  the different fields in the report.

For starters the report is assigned to the salesman, territory, and date. I set it up so that the dates in the body automatically populate from the date entered on top.

The Date initiated, Customer engaged, Subject and Description fields can be used later to track progress. The subject field is meant for sales initiative. It will usually contain a manufacturer name, new product, or new service that is being promoted. The description is typically the customer individual name and/or position, their reaction, and next action planned (dead-end or follow-up).

The Wins/Losses fields can be used to report on any major wins and losses of the week. I use this field for any win or loss over $20,000 or any significant accomplishment that will eventually result in wins.

After using this report a few weeks I new it was missing something. Their was always something more that didn't really fit in the report. Therefore I made a place for comments or "General Territory Update" field. I use this to report on industry trends, customer changes, impacts from competitors and other various information.

As I was getting to know my new boss it semmed like he was frequently asking where I was. So, I fill in the Schedule portion of the report with the coming week's schedule to save us both time and phone minutes.

So every week I'm filling in this report, my boss is thrilled and leaving me alone. After a few months I realized that I am quickly building a ton of useful data that is just sitting on my hard drive. Consequently I created the Master Sales Database to track all of the sales activity for my territory. By a simple copy function from my territory update spreadsheets and paste to the Master Database I am able to update the report with little effort. I also added a complete column for filtering purposes.

To mine the data for various purposes I applied a filter to the spreadsheet. I use several different filters for different reporting functions. For example, as I plan my sales calls I filter by customer and completed columns to see what I need to follow-up on with my customers. So I limit the possibility of forgetting or "dropping the ball" on.

Throughout the year our sales team meets with various manufacturers to make plans for promoting products to various customers. Typically the manufacturer and salesman are great out of the gate. Major targets are presented to and some marginal success is acheived. Unfortunatly, busy schedules typically kill the persistent activity required to be truely successful.

So here I am with all of this information in one spot just waiting to be used. Once again by copying and pasteing I created a tool to report to the manufacturers. After our initial plans I report activity quarterly to my boss and the manufacturers on the spreadsheet below.

I am the only sales representative in my field that does this for my manufacturers. Because of this the manufacturers that I work with help ensure my success. Many give me the best price and other useful information simply because my quarterly update specifically tells them the work that I am doing to sell their products.

 
Today's salesperson is constantly bombarded with customer requests, management tasks, and many other demands. By just managing the kaos, most salespeople end up jumping from task to task and never accomplishing anything. What started as a time cutting excercise to report to my boss, now separates me above my peers with my boss and above my competition with manufacturers.

So college students pay Attention! You never know when one of those UF professors are going to teach a principle that will give you that edge you need among today's professionsals.

All Screen Shots were created and supplied by Joey McDonald in February of 2010.

Excel Project

Average of PctIncreaseHR	Gender
Subject Age	F	M	Grand Total
20-29	89.3%	89.3%	89.3%
30-39	90.0%	90.8%	90.4%
40-49	90.3%	90.6%	90.5%
Grand Total	89.8%	90.2%	90.0%

In today's business world Excel is the norm. I constantly utilize Excel to create reports for both activities and sales numbers. I have been in inside and outside sales for the last 8 years of my career. As I have developed as a professional I constantly find new ways to utilize Excel. As an inside sales person I began using Excel to track bid results for daily quotes that I submitted to my various customers. By tracking what price won the business on a simple spreadsheet I was able to improve sales results. As an outside salesperson I now use spreadsheets to track daily sales activities to report to management and track goals.


So, I have been using Excel for years and consider myself pretty spreadsheet proficient. That being said this lesson was very helpful. This self proclaimed Excel veteran picked up several new practices that will make my like easier. Specifically the functions portion was very helpful. Using the “IF” function for comparing values will be very helpful in tracking sales goals in my current spreadsheets. Another helpful hint I picked up is using the “$” to make a cell absolute.


So all in all I found this project very applicable to the business world today. I enjoyed the lesson and know that some of the things I learned will make my like easier.

Tutorial 1: Simple PC Revival

Recently I was faced with a dilemma. My family's home computer was acting sluggish, to say the least. Our home budget was not prepared for a new computer but a computer is essential to our way of life. We use our computer for family photos, school work (both college and grade school) and all of our financial documents. Something had to be done...


I come from the disposable generation. TV's, camera's, phones, and many other electronics are more expensive to fix than they are brand new. So not knowing any better, I of course went straight to shopping. That's when my brother-in-law, the professional computer tech, stopped me. It turns out that computers break the electronic throw away mold. Without even looking at my computer he purchased RAM, brought it to my house and 10 minutes later it was faster than brand new!! The craziest part is how simple it was. 


Even a caveman could do it!!

So, before you do something irrational... 

through personal experience I know that there is big money to be saved reviving that old PC. If the average consumer can save as much as I did, imagine how the savings add up when a big company's IT department is able to perform PC revivals. 




Your old computer. (It might have more than memory problems!!)

Step 1: Determine your present and your potential

  

The Present:

          Before you purchase RAM, or any other memory upgrade, find out how much you have and what type. You can find out how much memory you have in the System information dialog box under physical memory. The System Information can be accessed by clicking start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and finally System Information. Select System Summary and the amount of RAM is labeled Physical Memory in the list.


The potential:


            It's time to ask yourself how you use your computer. If you use your PC for surfing the Web and small word processing tasks the minimum required amount for your operating system. (Please refer to the manufacturer for this information). Oppositely, if you are into gaming, video editing, or normally leave several applications open at one time - consider upgrading.


Ram can be purchased in various sizes, typically 1-GB, 2-GB, & 4-GBs. There is also different types of RAM; RDRAM that is in pairs, DDR SDRAM has one notch, and SDRAM that has two notches. You can consult the your PC owner's manual to find out what type and how much RAM capacity it has. Or open the case and visual verify RAM capacity and type by the physical characteristics above.

Step 2: Open up




Turn off your computer and find what fastens the case. Some PCs will be tool-less that use "tabs" for a means and others will have a series of screws installed. Within the case of your PC is sensitive electronic equipment and by maintaining contact with the case ensures a ground that protects the various electronics.

Once the internal components are exposed locate your RAM located on the mother board and the currently empty slots.

Step 3: Plug it in


Now that you have a visual map and a plan install the new RAM card...

Insert new RAM card in open slot on the mother board.

Capture with tabs located on either side of the newly installed card.

Before you close up the case, give it a test run. 

Congratulations, give yourself a pat on the back with those hairy hand of yours because you just saved yourself a new computer.

Now, I realize that not everyone is as computer savvy as the test subjects in this blog. So for your convenience I have provided a link below to an instructional video published by the folks at "How Stuff Works".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiFIgSQOY7g