Photo top, courtesy of Rampart Hydro Services. Graphic, bottom, courtesy of U.C. Berkeley Peer Center Data-driven Rampart Hydro Services long used FileMaker's databaseprogram to keep job information. Now it has used a new version to build an app. Related Links: FileMaker Product Line FileMaker techniques blog One hot IT market these days is developing business apps. But some contractors are using an old tool to build their own.Rampart Hydro Services, a hydro demolition firm in Coraopolis, Pa., has long used Apple's FileMaker product to manage project data. Recently, James Pierson, IT and facilities manager, began using a new version, FileMaker
Image Courtesy of Trimble Second-stage tests will use Trimble's Ti GNSS Choke Ring Antennas to improve multipath mitigation for even greater precision. Related Links: Commercial Warning Buoy Launched Shipboard researchers from the University of Hawaii whose instruments unintentionally recorded the passing of a tsunami propose that commercial ships be equipped with similar devices to create an ad-hoc tsunami detection network at a fraction of the cost of deep sea buoys.The scientists were returning from Guam, where they had been measuring sea elevation in February 2010, when their precision GPS picked up a long-wavelength, open-water tsunami generated by an 8.8 magnitude
A construction project in the Aleutians is no paradise. The remote island chain off the Alaskan coast has become well known for its dangerous high seas and unpredictable weather through the popular reality television show "Deadliest Catch." However, the Alaska Dept. of Transportation, or ADOT, took up the challenge when the state decided the growing Aleutian island of Akutan deserved an airport.Akutan is the site of a large seafood processing plant that operates year round and employs more than 900 workers. Boats and small seaplanes are used to transport people and cargo, but island and state officials have long sought
Bottom: PHoto courtesy of Lantronix, TOP: Photo courtesy of Air Burners Inc. Good FIT Air Burners Inc. puts QR codes on new equipment to get manuals, and sends out stickers for old rigs, too. At all hours, the staff at Air Burners Inc., Palm City, Fla., answers phone calls and e-mails about maintenance and repair questions from operators of the company's waste processing units around the world.The company's air-curtain burners cost up to $150,000 and are used in rugged environments such as landfills, construction sites and military operational zones—which leads to a problem. "They're usually far from where the manuals