Slightly Sensible - B&B Insider

Green Bugs, Summertime Fun and Ethernet Switches

  

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Dear Reader,

A few summertime topics in today's letter.

Tales of a bicycle commuter

I’m now a couple weeks into being a bicycle commuter. What seemed like a grand idea over the cold, dark winter months is actually turning out well -- although it’s pretty steamy this week so best to keep your distance from me at the office. I’ve dusted off the vintage Trek - and promptly burst both its vintage tires. Those kinks are worked out now. It feels good so far and must be good for me despite the few extra calories from the occasional wayward flying bug (insider tip, don’t chew the green ones -- very bitter). We’ll see how this new practice holds up over time -- tips welcome.

What I did on my summer vacation, Part 1

I just got back from a week of camping on the eastern shores of Lake Michigan. Perfect coastline, great water, no laptop and no cell reception. Great trip - although I’m still extracting beach sand. Vacation Part Two is coming up and will take the clan beyond the cheddar curtain into Wisconsin for more camping. I hope you’re all taking advantage of the summer season too. Time flies. When you live in a land of four seasons don’t forget to take advantage of the best of them.

Travel Agenda

Summer vacation has gotten a bit in the way of my thirst for Chicago traffic, airport security and cheap hotel rooms. I’ve got to get a head of steam back up to spend some time on the road visiting with you, B&B’s influential customer. There are many of you that I’m intensely interested in meeting in person to better understand your current pains and visions for future communications needs. If you think that could be useful chat for both of us drop me a note. I’ll buy the margaritas.

What is an "accident" anyway?

A few recent stories of misfortune got me thinking a bit about accidents lately. "An unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally". For the most part, I think that definition is bullhockey. Was it an accident - or being careless, uninformed or just plain "I did something stupid."

It seems to me that nearly all unexpected incidents are a result of either poor circumstantial awareness or are a predictable outcome to a calculated risk. Fair warning, talk like this won’t get you a lot of dates and isn’t broadly appreciated by accident "victims".

If you truly understand your surroundings you’ll be (nearly) accident proof. You’ll still choose to take some chances with an understanding of the slim probabilities of failure and make your own risk/reward decision. Good engineers excel at this sort of thing on a technical level, but we’re generally inept at the emotional and social level. Best to utilize a social consultant for those situations -- better yet, marry her. It seems to me that successful business people are exceptionally good at this in many dimensions. It’s notable that nobody ever calls a failed business decision an "accident".

So, it’s best to understand your surroundings. Here is some B&B circumstantial awareness to sink your teeth into.

You know what a big product guy I am, so I get excited about the new things we’re cranking out here at B&B.

As the largest supplier of serial data converters around, adding another family of rugged, compact converters to our line doesn’t exactly stretch your imagination. The new SCP family of converters  gives you a tough metal enclosure, compact size and easy panel mounting capability with wide temp and isolation options. If you’re a machine or panel builder and aren’t enamored with DIN rail, you’ll love this line.

That one was easy and probably didn’t test your situational awareness of B&B one bit. You’ve seen serial converters from us for 3 decades now. But what about Ethernet? Did you know that B&B has more flavors and styles of rugged Ethernet switches than we do of any other product line? Rack mount, panel mount, DIN mount, a boatload of fiber options, PoE, PoE+, Gigabit. Oddly, I can’t tell you how many people I visit that say, "I didn’t know you had Ethernet switches."

Well, this month we’ve introduced yet another line of rugged Ethernet switches Frankly, these things are pretty sexy -- hands down our best switch line yet. Extremely slim line 5 and 8 port switches, metal enclosures with DIN and panel mount options, dual power inputs supporting both DC and AC. These buggers have passed heavy industrial EMC requirements as well as shock and vibration testing so they’re more than ready to handle any environment you can throw at them. Take a look, particularly if you ever need fiber. Adding fiber ports makes everyone else’s switches a bit portly, causing trouble in tight cabinets. Thanks to their LC fiber connectors, this line is slim with and without fiber.

Thoughts, opinions?

Happy Connections,

Mike Fahrion