Why, yes, Lionel. It is. I am looking for you. By the way: I would absolutely take one of those little tabs. What are you looking for today?

My grandmother, Nonna, is 92 years old and one of the strongest and spunkiest people I know. She’s been through a lot; more than most. Despite years of hardships, accidents, death, cancer, etc, she has remained optimistic, faithful and kind. No bitterness remains.  In fact, I don’t think it was ever there to begin with. But […]

There’s no question or doubt that the VTC (videoconferencing) market has finally hit the big time. It took way longer than any of us expected (or hoped), but 2011 was a record year for VTC integration and 2012 promises to be 15-20% higher than last year’s numbers. And, the number of options since it debuted in the 1990’s has […]

There are few things I have observed in life that strike a more delicate balance than that of planning and execution. Depending on which hyped up book you’ve just read or seminar you’ve just attended you could be very well be praising one and cursing the other. Two weeks later, the next guru will come […]

It’s a new year and next month will be 8 years of running an Audio Visual company, can’t believe it has been that long. What have I learnt….. ·        That I don’t know everything about running a business…. ·        That I have to be patient when dealing with staff and of course clients – smile, […]

This is not a post about CES, No, not at all.  But as you brought it up – just a few thoughts CES is huge, I mean really huge.  You may think that Infocomm or CEDIA is large but neither one of these have left our dear friend Richard Fregosa curled up in tiny trembling ball on the plush carpet of the LG […]

The world is almost completely connected electronically now. By any yardstick that’s a good thing, and I’m just as plugged in as anyone else. But it’s important to remember that there is still no substitute for face to face interaction when it comes to building and maintaining personal, not to mention professional relationships. As you […]

Earlier this week in Paid Content there was a cogent analysis of the state of the home entertainment business, especially relating to the balance of hardcopy media and download sales. Best of all though was the headline, which read “The Bleeding In The Home Entertainment Business Slowed In 2011.” As headlines go, that’s on a par […]

If you are a technician in the AV field, you have to rely on software applications to help you set up and configure systems on a daily basis. Unfortunately there are some major incompatibility issues that occur when operating systems change. It’s just a fact of life that manufacturers don’t quite keep their software 100% […]

My 5-year-old daughter has a genetic disease that acts similar to a slow moving, incurable cancer.  It is called Hurler’s Syndrome.  There are only about 250 kids known to have the disease in the US, and roughly 1 in every 500,000 births.  She had a bone marrow transplant in November 2010 to try to slow […]

More on Kodak As I wrote in an earlier post, our industry stands on the edge of the demise of the Great Yellow Father in Rochester. Eastman Kodak Corp. arguably did more to create our industry (at least in its current form) than any other single company, and it’s current state is a sad but […]

With ever-changing energy prices, continuing developments in our awareness of climate change and a growing demand for energy efficient products, the AV community are one of the industries looking at ways of improving its efforts towards the environment. As a Custom Installer, we are increasingly being challenged by more clients to deliver energy efficient solutions to […]

Nicknames are funny things. More often than not, they are earned. Years ago I earned the nickname “Projector Boy” for my obsession with projectors, both loving them and selling them to other people. However, much earlier in my career I earned another nickname. It was my first month on the job at my first ever […]

No words. hahahahahaha oh my golly that makes me laugh. a lot.

How does that old saying go? Something like, “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” Well, that’s exactly what SMART Technologies did today by debuting its own interactive projector in the form of the LightRaise 40wi — a projector with a 0.30:1 throw ratio (ultra-short throw), 10-watt speakers, a mic input, an interactive pen-based system that’s integrated specifically for SmartBoard applications. Many […]

Fictional characters don’t make mistakes that they can’t overcome.  Real people do.  Fictional characters don’t have secrets.  Real people do.  Fictional characters don’t have traits that we don’t know about that suddenly come out to the public.  Real people do.  And unfortunately, this “real people” aspect often causes us to feel defrauded as fans of […]

There’s a beautiful neighborhood in San Francisco called NOPA, North of the Pan Handle.  It’s filled with busy, creative, and the “go everywhere everyone else doesn’t” kind of mentality.  There are fundraisers at hair salons because, what better than to donate to a great cause that makes you happy too.  It’s filled with people who ride […]

If you have gone this long without thinking seriously about a data backup strategy, I encourage you to read on to save your future self a lot of frustration and wasted time. There is no question that as more and more information gets recorded digitally, there is an increased possibility of loosing a lot of […]

So this past Christmas our family welcomed a new addition to the household: A second iPad. With our entry into being a multi-tablet household it made me wonder: Now will the media categorize families the way they have with other metrics? From two car families to two (and I’m dating myself here) TV families, households […]

Admit it. You know that the Mona Lisa would totally be that girl on Facebook. “Like, OMG, I can’t believe my BF Francesco del Giocondo opened up a SILK shop. LAME. Silk is like SO 1476.” What Facebook status do YOU think she would have?

This morning, while reading my morning “paper” I came across this article that made me do a double-take. For the last couple of weeks, we’ve all been predicting the ups and downs of our business, but this one was enough to make me suddenly exhale half a cup of coffee through my nose. Report: Kodak […]

It’s five days into the New Year, and already it feels like Christmas was an age ago. I’m back in work sitting in the office, glancing at the remains of the tinsel stuck to my desk and I’m struck with that sense of sad realisation that it’s back to normal life. I sigh, sip my coffee and […]

I love Googling. And by “Googling” – I mean internet search. You know this. Whether you use Yahoo!, Bing, whatever… it’s all the same. It’s Googling. I also love Google analytics. For my personal blog I’ve been using Google analytics for a while and one of my favorite things to do is look and see what search terms people […]

At the end of 2010, while all the industry pundits were predicting a wave of 3D would sweep over the HomeAV market in 2011, I predicted the big trend in HomeAV would NOT be 3D, but would in fact be gaming room AV environments. And, as the year 2011 came to a close last month, you not only saw […]

2 Thoughts/Suggestions as you approach 2012. 1. It’s not about change – but improvement.  Change is tough.  It involves a complete shift, probably changing environment, habits, behaviors, and a lot of other resources and variables that may or may not be within our grasp.  What we should all really trying for is improvement.  Rather than turn […]

It’s New Year’s Eve… the end of 2011. It has been a crazy year in general – for the world, for our nation, for the economy, and both personally and professionally for AVDawn. I will not bore you with endless lists and recaps of 2011, nor will I take this time to play perfect prognosticator and […]

At this time of year, I always reflect on the past and what lies ahead. Like so many, I had big goals, dreams, and aspirations in 2011 and find myself wondering, how did I do, have I left the world a better place? Did I have the right priorities, am I am closer to the […]

Well, I sit here in my home office, contemplating the end of another year, and the beginning of a new one, in the way I always do. I’m going over my to-do list on my iPad, marking a few things as accomplished and updating the due dates on a lot of them to end in […]

Everyone has heard the phrase “Rome Wasn’t Built In a Day” We all understand that it took a LONG time to build an empire and this parallel is cliché in its application to long projects. Honestly, it can be downright annoying to have that statement pulled out right when you are in the middle of a stressful job! I think […]

So there I was, cruising the market of the Android apps (as I often do), when I happened upon yet another cool free control application. This one was just released by Western Digital, specifically for the use of its WD TV® Live Hub™ media center or WD TV Live™ streaming media players. This one (just like every other I […]

With sincerest apologies to Clement Clarke Moore, I hereby present, “A Pittsburgh Christmas” — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, All the family was scurrying like an A.D.D mouse. […]

I love Awkward Family Photos. Especially Christmas ones. I mean, check out the sweatshirts on these guys: Okay, and this next one isn’t really awkward… but it’s of me and my mom Christmas of ’99. Check out my sweet Christmas sweater. Man, that thing is awesome:  Merry Christmas! Do you have any photos you’d like to […]