By Dave Marquard November, 2019 I had attended forty consecutive AWS Welding/Fabtech Shows until the streak was snapped a few weeks ago because of an important meeting elsewhere I had to attend. No one can physically be in two places at the same time, although todays technology allows us to beam up our presence from afar via electronic robot cameras. Its a technology my companies are investing heavily in because of the immense potential it has for allowing us to dramatically cut travel and expense costs. In my absence from physically being at Fabtech I thought a lot about what I missed most about it. I missed walking the aisles, meeting people and seeing the latest welding technologies a lotbut oddly enough I also missed the entertaining shows I often found while walking those aislesespecially the magicians hired by companies to attract people to their booths. Many magic tricks are based on illusions. The magician makes you think you saw something that didnt happen. The hand is quicker
By Dave Marquard, WEMCO Tech Chair June 8, 2019 Curiosity has often driven me to action.In 1982 I purchased one of the worlds first portable computers, the Osborne 1.It weighed almost 25 pounds and didnt have an on-board battery. It had to be plugged into a wall outlet to power up and use.However, it was still classified as a portable computer because it could be hand-carried. The Osborne 1 shipped with a large bundle of software worth almost as much as the computer.That software included some of the most powerful and pioneering programs of the day such as D-Base2 for data sorting; SuperCal, an early spreadsheet, and WordStar, a leading word processor application that had a dominant market share that lasted until the mid-1980s. I was a young VP at a small welding equipment manufacturing company, which while a market leader in its small niche, could never seem to break out of a slow growth cycle.My new computer aided ability to process large amounts of data, prepare what if scenarios,
WEMCO Technology Column: Check List for Making Your Website More Effective