new whiteboard

I like whiteboards too. How does yours erase? Drawing always works (once, anyway).

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

The new one erases great, with a dishtowel. Or a Q-tip for fine edits. The old one generally needed spray cleaner.

I think that some marker tracks harden after a few days exposed to daylight UV, and don't want to erase without the spray stuff. So wiping will erase some colors but not others.

I sometimes visit a quasi-billionaire (you know him) who has an actual chalkboard in his office, with colored chalk. Barbaric.

That would have to be along the lines of "doubling John Larkin's IQ isn't r eally good enough".

I liked the old-fashioned drawing boards. When I worked at EMI (1976-79) we had a bunch of drawing boards in the large open space where we also drank our coffee, and we'd gather around one of the drawing board and deiscuss ho w the design was going - it lead to situations where a lot of half-drunk cu ps of coffee got cold, and some good ideas emerged and got improved.

Futzing around with a patch of a hierachical circuit diagram - even on a la rge screen - doesn't offer the same access to your colleagues.

Whiteboards are fine for presentations, but work-in-progress benefits from exposure other peoples points of view - design reviews are vital, but they tend to take place after the engineers have committed themselves to a parti cular approach.

I knew you wouldn't disappoint. You're so dependable that way nowadays. :(

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Try a diffused light source, at an angle where reflections are away from camera.

These angles are important, both the light source and the camera. The SVFIG group has a monthly meeting and they put it on the Internet. But the ceiling lights gave such a bad reflection off the white board it was unreadable. I couldn't get them to raise the camera up so they wouldn't be in the field of view. They kept saying it wouldn't matter. Heck, I expect it would have worked if they just put the camera on a tripod rather than a desk.

I am afraid you are equally dependable - I post a potentially interesting supplement on group influence on design, and you react to the response you angled for, rather than the new content.

Actually, there is a non-lame criticism of this claim. The IQ is a rather n arrowly defined concept - how well you can do, on your own, with a paper an d pencil test. Unsurprisingly it correlates strongly with how well you do a t passing exams - more pencil and paper tests that you do on your own.

Correlations between IQ test scores and real life achievement are rather lo wer - pretty much everything we do in real life depends on collaborating wi th other people, which the IQ test really doesn't look at at all.

Whiteboards are tools for collaborating with other people, so if John Larki n thinks that one raises his IQ, he's just demonstrating that he's got a fa lse idea of what the IQ is.

Granting his known egocentricity, he probably means that using a white-boar d makes him feel clever, by offering a forum where he can exhibit his cleve r ideas to an admiring audience.

In most peoples reality, the whiteboard is a tool where concept can be pres ented to a group of people, all of whom can tinker with the image on the bo ard to make it represent something better than the original idea.

My sole reservation about the whiteboard is that you don't put anything on it that isn't intended to be seen by other people. Having a bunch of drawin g boards in a common area lets other people look at ideas as they are being evolved, which tends to reveal weaknesses and uncertainties that need help ing, but wouldn't be put up on a whiteboard precisely because they reveal u ncertainty and indecision, which don't play well to any kind of audience.

Anyone that says "it will not matter" clearly do not know what the F they are talking about and will refuse to be shown the facts. Ay which point either fire them or tell everyone what idiocy is in progress and suggest everyone walk out.

No gutter to hold drawing materials. All these things have to do is work long enough so as not be returnable. At least it doesn't need plugging in (though the camera does, of course).

My blackboard came from a church school that was being turned into some kind of retail tourist trap - a sign of the times. It's probably older than I am.

My guess is you also print on it, rather than write, as do I; also a sign of the times. Hows your handwriting getting on?

RL

The new one has a tray for holding markers ans stuff.

Whiteboards last for many years. There's not much to go wrong.

I never write longhand. Nobody could read it, including me. I always print.

narrowly defined concept - how well you can do, on your own, with a paper and pencil test. Unsurprisingly it correlates strongly with how well you do at passing exams - more pencil and paper tests that you do on your own.

lower - pretty much everything we do in real life depends on collaborating with other people, which the IQ test really doesn't look at at all.

That's funny coming from someone who keeps talking about the Baxanadall top ology and never actually build it (couldn't resist) ;-)

Cheers

Klaus

er narrowly defined concept - how well you can do, on your own, with a pape r and pencil test. Unsurprisingly it correlates strongly with how well you do at passing exams - more pencil and paper tests that you do on your own.

r lower - pretty much everything we do in real life depends on collaboratin g with other people, which the IQ test really doesn't look at at all.

opology and never actually build it (couldn't resist) ;-)

I've built a couple - one went into an AC bridge to measure the conductivit y of milk foam for the UK marketing board, when I was working at Kent Instr uments back in 1975. I don't know whether it ever went into production, but it certainly worked when tried on a milk tanker.

The more recent one was a variation that I put into the Metals Research GaA s single-crystal puller in 1986. That machine used a linear variable differ ential transformer to measure the extension of a precision spring to weight the single crystal of GaAs as it was pulled from the metal, and the origin al excitation and detection circuit from ten years earlier had depended on parts that had gone obsolete.

My circuit was a whole lot better, for a variety of different reasons, and went into new crystal pullers, as as well as getting retrofitted to old one s.

Tony Williams used the circuit a whole lot more, but he was in a different business.

Neither of them would have been mass market products.

Everyone and their hound used it for CCFL backlight inverters, didn't they?

Sure. But Jim Williams called it a current driven Royer inverter. I've been told a story about an LT rep getting a Baxandall circuit diagram from a UK company, and passing it on to Jim Williams when Jim was looking for a high voltage inverter to drive back-lights, which may explain why he never knew that Baxandall thought of it first.

I was just addressing Lasse's comment about my personal use of the circuit.

I've taken to making my own whiteboards lately. Giant glass plate, paint i t white on the back. The glass surface erases so much cleaner and easier.. .even ends up being cheaper than store bought. I do have to make my own fr ames and gutter out of wood, but it's worth the time.

The good whiteboards are enameled steel, which has a glass surface and magnets stick to it.

They make (or at least used to make back some 30-35 years ago) flexible adhesive backed plastic whiteboard film. The first roll of it I bought was imported "Velleda" brand, the second was "Sanford Expo Marking Surface". Must be teflon or something like that because it wasn't affected when I clean it off with acetone. Wasn't cheap, so they may not sell it anymore.

Mark Zenier snipped-for-privacy@eskimo.com Googleproofaddress(account:mzenier provider:eskimo domain:com)

That's what my new gridded Amazon board is. It has a beautiful slick shiny magnetic surface.