This week, I had a talk with Scott Tiner  on THE WEEK on rAVe Radio. This interview followed Scott’s column in rAVe ED [Education] about safety and the tragedy in Alabama. We talked about safety in our industry, which, judging from the news, is declining. Since then, I have done a lot of thinking about […]

Well, as some of you know from the blog, I am just back from the annual InfoComm Live event in Dallas. While my blog entry was written immediately following the event, largely while on a very frightening airplane ride through winter storm Saturn, I have now had more time to reflect on this year’s event, […]

By Joel Rollins I’m back from ISE in Amsterdam, and after a blizzard upon my return, I am finally having time to reflect on the experience at ISE. Because, you see, I made an amazing discovery at the show: I Am Not Alone. Let me explain by beginning with a confession. I have a vice, […]

I sit here after the holidays, with (as usual) a list of people that I forgot to get gifts for, but I have figured out the gift that I am going to give everyone this year. For 25 years, I have been everybody’s tech support. My relatives, my employees, my friends all call me when […]

By Joel Rollins Yesterday, I was hunting through quotes by one of my favorite authors, Robert A. Heinlein. I was looking for the exact text of his famous quote about technology sufficiently developed being indistinguishable from magic. But I came across another quote, attributed to this groundbreaking author of science fiction, although I’m sure it is probably […]

By Joel Rollins Well, after last month’s column, I received a lot of email and even a number of telephone calls from old acquaintances. It tells you a lot about the issue that the calls accused me both of being pro- and anti-union. Please let me disappoint both groups to say that I am neither. I […]

Well, it’s January, and time once again for me to exhibit the same holiday-induced lack of imagination as every other columnist, and write a predictions column. OK, OK, I’ll do it. I’m as lazy as the next writer. But you’ll have to listen to me whine about it a bit first, because its harder work […]

By Joel Rollins, CTS-R Sometimes, there is little difference between the needs of the rental/staging company and the mainstream AV dealer. We use the same equipment (albeit sometimes in different ways) and are driven by the same technological changes in the overall market. But often, our special circumstances call upon us to deal with a […]

I’m sorry – I’m writing this article on an iPad, and auto-correct changed my text to the title above when I typed in “Buzzwords”.  But the example saves me the trouble of defining one of the biggest buzzwords: “Intuitive.” But now that THAT one is taken care of, I’d like to review the actual AV […]

Well, here it is again. Time for “The Show.” InfoComm time. And, as usual for someone in the rental portion of the industry, I go off to “the Show” looking for things a little different than the rest of the industry, a little different from the things the advertising and hype will attempt to direct […]

Well, the spring we were all waiting for is finally here. The trees are budding, the snow (for those of us who get snow) is melting, and hopefully the rental market is thawing out a little, too. For most of us, it was a pretty cold winter in that regard, and we’ve all been looking […]

In the movie “Ghostbusters, there’s a highly memorable scene where the three “heros” are called upon to remove an “obnoxious little spud” of a poltergeist from a hotel. The three, who are wearing illegal experimental nuclear accelerators, gather at the door of the haunted ballroom, but are stopped by Dr. Egon Spengler (Harold Ramos) with […]

Yesterday, I sat (like several others on my staff) waiting for Apple’s usual “insanely great” announcement of their latest “breathtaking” portable technology – the iPad. Let me first explain that I’m the starry-eyed type when it comes to portable computing. Gary once pointed out in a seminar (to a lot of laughs at my expense) […]