Farewell to the Aughts
Posted by Mike Fahrion on Wed, Jan 20, 2010 @ 04:00 AM
Dear Reader:
The 2000's, or the Aughts if you will, are over. An entire decade zipped right by - and what a decade it was!
Remember Y2K? Seems like a quaint concern now doesn't it? It's almost symbolic of the "digital decade" of the 1990s - Y2K was about the biggest thing we could find to work ourselves into a tizzy.
Since then we've had 9/11, two wars, hanging chads, Google-ization, Katrina, a fierce tsunami, Climate Change®, and the Great Recession.
The Aughts were quite an ordeal. We just wrapped up the most difficult decade of our careers. And it shook us up. I doubt there is an irrationally exuberant bone left in your body. You're worried about your 401k and what your kids will need to do to meet or beat your standard of living.
It's time to get over it.
It's been tough, but it's over. And don't believe for a second that opportunities don't exist, for us or for our offspring.
There will always be successful people.
Take three steps back. Take two deep breaths. Now congratulate yourself. Survival of the Aughts was a notable feat. Now it's time to saddle up and make things happen for yourself, for your family and for your career.
Don't let the lingering haze of the Aughts cloud your vision. Technology continues to develop at a phenomenal pace opening new doors for pioneers and leaving a path of opportunities in its wake for anyone with vision and unrelenting dedication.
On your journey you will pass many who plod along, one foot in front of the other, staring down only at the sidewalk in front of them as they bemoan their IRA, or some other excuse not to achieve their potential. Don't let them drag you into their viper pit of discontent. You won't run into a single one of them on the sandy shores of your retirement beach house.
A few weeks ago I watched an interview of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, two men that understand success and overcoming obstacles. Buffett declared that "It's never paid to bet against America. We come through things, but it's not always a smooth ride."
My own version would be - never bet against Engineers. You have been trained to solve problems, big and small. And you're damn good at it. Put those skills to work and you'll solve whatever problem that you elect to pursue - as long as you do it with unrelenting dedication.
Enough of my soapboxing. What am I doing?
Lots. I'll skip the personal stuff, other than to say that it's imperative that yourself and family come first, otherwise you'll never be successful.
Here at B&B I'm cranking up the beans on the new product machine. New products not only do great things for B&B, but if I'm doing my job, they help you too.
Check your mailbox and find your brand new B&B Electronics catalog. If you haven't received yours yet, someone has already pilfered your copy. Click here to get your copy before they're gone.
Its chock full of great new products that just might help you and I kick off the Aughts with a bang. Here are a few of my favorites.
USB is a fantastic way to make quick and easy connections. But let's face it, when the folks were developing the USB specification they were thinking about speakers, printers and other namby pamby devices in comparison to the applications that you and I run into. When you use USB in a mobile, lab or industrial setting you have got to have isolation - USB doesn't have it. Sure B&B has had isolated USB to serial converters for ages, but what about the ever-growing list of other USB devices that are finding their way off of the desktop and into demanding applications? We now have a simple, plug it in and forget it, USB to USB isolator that easily isolates all kinds of USB devices from vicious surges and ground loops. Frankly, starting at only $99 I don't know anyone that shouldn't have one. The only question is do you need the 2000 volt or the 4000 volt model!
We just completed the most rigorous testing we've ever done for an industrial product line. Shock, vibration, humidity, intense RF and magnetic fields, 4000 volt surges, 15000 volt zaps just to name a few. All that testing was done to prove to ourselves, and to you, that we've developed our most rugged and reliable family of serial converters ever. The specs that we used were the worst case test levels from IEEE 1613 and IEC61850. Those are both specs for the construction of communications networks in electrical substations and represent some of the harshest electrical environments you'll find. So whether you're working on a smart grid project, or are in an environment where only a tough-as-nails converter will do, the new iLinx Hardened line will be just the ticket. There is a model for every application. 232 to 422/485 conversion, 485/422 isolation, 2 wire to 4 wire conversion, 232 isolation, and 232/422/485 to single or multimode fiber.
Have you ever needed to extend Ethernet into a hard to wire location - or beyond the 100 meter limit? Ethernet Extenders are a plug and play solution that allows you to extend the reach of your network using virtually any pair of unused wires. And now we've added a version that works over coaxial cable - making it easy to use that old network cable that's already lurking in your walls, or easily convert a video coax link over to Ethernet - and it works over 8000 feet!
Last summer I showed you a new mini version of our popular Ethernet to serial converters ("Ethernet Serial Servers" if you prefer the more uppity term) - and it was a huge hit. So now we've added two new versions, a RS-422/485 version and a version that supports RS-232, 422 and 485. If you're looking for a quick and easy way to hang a serial device on your Ethernet Network you won't find a better fit!
There's more, but that's enough for this letter. Take a few minutes to thumb through the new product section of your B&B catalog to check it out for yourself!
Comments and feedback are welcome.
Happy Connections,
Mike Fahrion
e-support@bb-elec.com
815-433-5100