The Well Engineered Life

It has been a considerable amount of time since I had posted anything to my blog, so I set aside some time to add some quality content. I have been doing lots of research towards personal and professional productivity, and making the work you do more effective and the time you have spent appropriately to achieve the best results. This is going to be the main focus of my book, in addition to saving you money and the philosophical realization that you do not need the “crap” most people spend their hard earned money on. In this research I came across this information on the www.energysavers.gov website, and I thought I would share the most appropriate tips for this time of year.

Save money this winter by being smarter and more practical:

· Caulk all windows and doors where practical, fill in holes, added vents and other air leaks.

· Plug dryer exhaust port to outside and vent dryer to inside to use heat and moisture. (Only for electric dryers.)

· Dress warmer all winter, this isn’t Florida!

· Use programmable thermostats, set as cool as you can take, and downright cold at night.

· Cardboard covers for the inside of windows that see no sun.

· Use centralized light bulb locations to maximize efficiency, and always use CFLs.

· Consider replacing your water heater: Water heating can account for 14%–25% of the energy consumed in your home. You can reduce your monthly water heating bills by selecting the appropriate water heater for your home and by using some energy-efficient water heating strategies.

· Purchase a water heater blanket

· Add pipe insulation to all accessible hot water lines, becoming even more important when lowering the inside air temperature during the winter.

· Add a tempering tank. This is a smaller tank attached to a water heater where cold water can sit and warm up to ambient air temperature before being heated.

· Consider Recirculation Systems – Making a long plumbing run part of the water heaters tank.

· Use sleep mode or hibernate on PCs, and set the monitor to power down quickly.

I am also formulating a plan for whole house sealing improvements including caulking (see above) and installing new weather-stripping on entry doors. To reduce allergens indoors, we use 3M Filtrete furnace filters and have had impressive results. There is sound reasoning to believe that the finer filtration reduces blower efficiency. However this has been an acceptable tradeoff for cleaner air during the winter months, and any added electrical costs have been negligible. The only downside to these filters is the cost. Fifteen dollars a pop, and even if you push changes to 45 days, this is a substantial investment into improved indoor air quality. If only 3M made these filters under 8 dollars each, I am convinced most homeowners would make them the standard for replacement, and forego the 3 dollar spun glass filters that only seem to filter out items larger than a Lego.

Our investment into our home and improving its energy efficiency will undoubtedly continue, and I will try to include this in future posts.

Completely unrelated to the above topic, I have done some thinking and I am wondering how important image is in the tech field. Who seems more competent, the guy with the new iPhone 3GS or the 8 year old Motorola? If you check your schedule on a Palm Pilot, does that make you less of an IT guru? In a day and age where everyone is trying to save money and have the latest and greatest gadget, it seems that we, as a society, are waging war against ourselves, in a way that ensures that we all lose. Why is there no honor for those of us that use some ancient device and do something profound with it? These people are the true innovators, not the ones that just throw money at something new to show that they are “in the know”. I am not in the position of proposing any solution, just an observation. My Bluetooth keyboard and mouse recently quit (the radio receiver didn’t recognize both input devices at the same time), and instead of replacing them with the same or better technology, I reverted back to the conventional wired USB keyboard and mouse. This gave some noticeable improvements, like zero latency with input characters, instant wake up and no interference of any kind. I do not feel less “tech savvy” for doing this, but does that change how I am seen by my peers?

Working on too many projects

I am still here, I just have been doing some catch-up on thing that need to be done without a monitor in front of me. I have changed my avatar to the company logo. I will be working on a new post in the near future, and I am keeping our newspaper look WordPress theme. We are not in graphical design, so I figure we should stick to quality content and not simply adding pictures. Just checking in, and thanks to all the viewers, more to come.

Current projects and plans for upcoming weeks

I am currently working on securing our wired/ wireless network by using ACL’s (Access Control Lists), this is not anything new to those in network security, it simply authenticates a device for use on a network, not simply the user. Example: If you were here with a wireless device, you would see our SSID (Service Set Identifier) beacon, and if you entered the correct passphrase, you would still have no functionality on the network, because your device MAC address is not listed in the permission table. This is simply a better way to secure our information, making it available to only authorized persons. In addition to this, I have been using Wireshark to analyze internal network activity to find bottlenecks and where there is latency that can be corrected. I am planning to rebuild our Debian server that hosts our internal intranet on Apache, and want to make it available with the highest priority, possibly creating a VLAN for wireless devices to authenticate directly to the server, but that will be further down the road. Also toying with the WLAN, and doing some packet sniffing, making sure WPA2+(TKIP+AES) is secure enough on our “802.11g” only network.
In addition, I am always polishing my skills in IT, Project Management, CAD and CAE in general, so I tend to have far more going on than I can post here. I simply try to post something interesting and useful every week or so.
Just a quick update of what is going on here, more to come.

Heavy Duty Highway Emissions 2010 Notes

Came across some information regarding the SCR vs. EGR debate. Follow this link to register for the free webinar.

http://www.truckinginfo.com/scr/

http://www.factsaboutSCR.com

If anyone has further info on good sources for this topic, please post a comment.

End of Summer 2009 Projects

Instead of once again posting a reason why I have not posted any information on the diesel emissions requirements for 2010, I will simply say my schedule right now does not allow for any recreational posts or items of personal interest. I am posting this link as the best form of analysis on the subject so far, so that those interested parties may get the information I would have otherwise gathered. Heavy Duty Trucking

That said, these are the relevant topics that I am currently acting on:
• Working with Aerotek / TEKsystems on new projects and contracts.
• Increasing use of Adobe products like Adobe Acrobat .pdf files as mentioned in the last post, and using Illustrator (Ai) for SVG files to reproduce graphics correctly in a .pdf, this will also involve some Photoshop (Ps) work as well.
• Completed a thermal analysis at home to determine the performance of our A/C unit in relation to sq. ft. Let me know if this is of interest to you and I can post my findings, and other data.
• Working on personal branding for the company and possibly a posting for that as well. I found a great print publication at http://www.personalbrandingmag.com Check it out, useful info if this applies to you or your interests. They also offer a free issue.
• Beta testing Solidworks 2010 beta 2. I hope to post my opinion when completed as time allows. (I know now not to over commit to a posting way in advance!)
• Custom designing a self contained utility room for custom built pre-fab homes. (No posts on this, sorry.)
More posts to come, but I am slightly backed up right now, that list alone is turning out to be quite an undertaking!

Online Document Publication Security

Over the years I have published many documents online. I have never had a document altered or stolen, but that does not mean that it cannot happen. My online publishing Best practices include:
1. Use a .PDF file type whenever possible.
2. Use a digital signature whenever possible to verify authenticity.
3. Use an overall publication safety strategy, such as only publish what is necessary and needed at any given time, withhold phone numbers, e-mail addresses and other sensitive info if you can.
4. Using Microsoft 2007 file types in place of 2003 versions or earlier. The XML based files offer the same options as the earlier versions and some additional features. Using the security features offered in the 4 letter file extensions is much more secure than the 3 letter predecessors. (.docx instead of .doc for a Word document, for example.)
In addition to these, using encryption of password protected files, and security certificates will further protect the integrity of published documents. Take a look at these links for more info, and develop your own Best Practices for publications. At the enterprise level, with high volumes, and/or version control, you may want to consider Adobe LiveCycle.
Adobe PDF Security
Verisign Authentication

Here is a great tutorial from Adobe for creating Self Signed Documents

Link

Check out our new company logo

Take a look at our new logo! You should be seeing this one more and the old one being phased out. Thoughts and comments? Drop us a comment or e-mail, thanks. More to come this week.

Schedule Restructuring

Even with the sluggish economy, out plate is never empty here at Burris Engineering, in fact it has been quite hectic ever since I returned from San Diego. The diesel post has been put on hold, as we are working on several projects that need immediate attention.

• Project working on making a house an official “Green Residence.”
• Requests to do some automotive consulting.
• Project repairing and reinstalling COAX.
• Selling some assets to become a more lean company. (Even though we are not in manufacturing.)
• Working on a book that may be published, or may not. There are so many factors to consider here.
• Developing some software for tracking training, health and fitness.
• Making adjustments to the work/life balance.

Thanks to all that check in regularly, and hopefully I can get back to that Diesel Emissions 2010 post you have been asking about.

You may also follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/burriseng

Gadgets and Computers

I am often asked about the computers I have and gadgets I use, so I will just list them:

• Main PC – Dell Dimension 9100 – Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 4GB DDR2 RAM, 160GB Seagate Hard Disk, nVidia Quadro FX1700 Graphics Card, Samsung 22″ widescreen display at 1680×1050, 3Dconnexion Navigator, Bluetooth wireless Mouse and Keyboard. Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 THX Certified speaker set. Running XP Pro and sticking with it as long as I can.
• File Server – HP  Storage Server, Pentium 4 2.4GHz HT, 533MHz FSB, 1GB DDR RAM, Seagate 500GB Hard Disk x1, Seagate 250GB Hard Disk x2, 500W Power Supply running FreeNAS.
• Dell Precision 360 Workstation – Pentium 4 2.8GHz,  533MHz FSB, 1GB DDR RAM, Seagate 200GB Hard Disk, running Vista Ultimate for home media streaming.
• Compaq Presario 5900T – Pentium 3 866MHz, 133MHz FSB, 640MB RAM, Westerd Digital 80GB Hard Disk, running Debian Linux 5.0 and an Apache web server and XAMPP for development.
• Firewall/Router – HP Pavilion – Pentium 3 650MHz, 100MHz FSB, 384MB RAM, Seagate 40GB Hard Disk, running IP Cop with SNORT and traffic shaping, QoS, Running Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly logging files with RRD. Extremely fast with my Comcast cable connection, SO much faster than a desktop consumer router switch.
• Network – Home wired with 10/100 Fast Ethernet to a 24 port Cisco Switch, and a 8 port Gigabit switch to connect my main PC to the servers.
• Acer Aspire One Netbook 8.9″ screen at 1024×600 – Atom N270 1.6GHz, 1GB DDR RAM, 8GB SSD and 8GB SD Card running Ubuntu Xfce GUI
• Phone – Samsung Blackjack II with Windows Mobile 6.1 Std. and Office Mobile and a 4GB Micro SD card.
• GPS – Garmin Nuvi 205 (What more do you need?)

Radon, in your home, if you like it or not. Home, sweet radioactive home.

Doing some research yesterday, I came across some info that was a little unsettling. I thought I would share it for those of you concerned with indoor air and your health.

The wiki definition:

Radon-222 is the decay product of radium-226.
Radon-222 and its parent, radium-226, are part
of the long decay chain for uranium-238. Since
uranium is essentially ubiquitous (being or
seeming to be everywhere at the same time) in
the earth’s crust, radium-226 and radon-222
are present in almost all rock and all soil
and water. The amount of radon in the soil
depends on soil chemistry, which varies from
one house to the next. Radon levels in the
soil range from a few hundred to several
thousands of pCi/L (pico Curries per Liter).
The amount of radon that escapes from the soil
to enter the house depends on the weather, soil
porosity, soil moisture, and the suction within
the house.

Radon is a gaseous radioactive element having the
symbol Rn, the atomic number 86, an atomic weight
of 222, a melting point of -71ºC, a boiling point
of -62ºC, and (depending on the source, there are
between 20 and 25 isotopes of radon – 20 cited in
the chemical summary, 25 listed in the table of
isotopes); it is an extremely toxic, colorless gas;
it can be condensed to a transparent liquid and to
an opaque, glowing solid; it is derived from the
radioactive decay of radium and is used in cancer
treatment, as a tracer in leak detection, and in
radiography. (From the word radium, the substance
from which it is derived.)

RadonDecaySeries

RadonConversionFactors

For more information: EPA Information on Radon

Get a Radon test, and use it at least every 2 years, or more often if the levels are still high.

All data collected and shown from U.S. EPA 2009