Thin Clients Technology

Industrial Monitors vs. Consumer Grade Monitors or TV's

2010-09-13T10:14:00.000-07:00

Why use industrial and commercial monitors instead of consumer grade TVs?
When looking to buy for a first time or to replace a flat panel display for your industry, you have probably been doing some research into all the brands, options and grades available in the general market today.

It is possible that you have gone on-line or even visited one of the local big box electronic stores and marveled at the possibilities and low prices. And with price driving the majority of big decisions these days you may be tempted to buy the biggest screen at the lowest price during the weekend blow-out sale. After all, outside of violating the “not for commercial use” clause of the warranty agreement, what is the real harm in putting a consumer grade LCD panel in your industry?

We urge you to read this article before making any big decision. If price was the only factor in your decision making process you may soon find that there are many other factors that could cost you big money in the short and long term due to loss of productivity, product life, compatibility and voided warranties.

Computer Compatibility
It is common knowledge that trying to connect your computer to your TV may prove to be more than a little challenging and with limited success. That is because consumer grade displays are designed primarily for TV/Video formats with very limited PC resolutions. Whereas commercial and industrial displays are perfectly suited to incorporate PC resolutions in a varied line of connections and ports, including wide formats and high definition (HD) resolutions.

Another point to consider is the lack of connector interface. Consumer grade displays do not offer RS-232 external display control/connectors, multiple configuration capability (video walls) and a full complement of connectors.

MIDCOM presents an ALL-IN-ONE solution where we provide integrated computer modules fully compatible with the display either in portrait or landscape mode (consumer grade can only be viewed in landscape mode), touchscreen capability, industrial power supplies and fans and long time motherboard solutions. We offer the ModPak removable unit in three versions: Full PC, Pro-AV and standard monitor. And the 1080PC computer module engine that will drive dynamic multimedia content, including video, flash, images, website, RSS messaging, alert messages, capture data, etc… Just Plug and Play!

Reliability and Durability
Unlike the consumer applications where they are used an average of a few hours per day, commercial and industrial displays are characterized by long hours of operation. Consumer displays are designed to have moving images at all times. In an industrial environment you may have static images such as production numbers, graphics and other slow moving data. Commercial and industrial displays have specific components and software that prevent and
eliminate the possibility of image retention or “burn-in images”.

Consumer grade displays are not designed to withstand longer operating hours without overheating and potentially permanently damaging its internal components. Commercial and Industrial have integrated cooling fans to help dissipate heat efficiently.

In fact, the most common reason for failure in consumer displays is the low grade power supply and electronics. Most power supplies are industrial grade and are covered by a 5-Year warranty and the displays are covered by a 2-Year warranty. We stand 100% behind our products.

So if you plan on acquiring consumer displays for your industry to be used more than 25 hours per week or even 24/7, you should definitely reconsider using the consumer model. With longer run times, compatibility, demanding applications and the warranties that support them are critical factors to operating your industry – take a second look at commercial and industrial displays. You will be glad you did.

View our white paper by clicking here.

Here is why a potential client ticked me off about my thin clients.

2010-04-12T12:20:00.000-07:00

I need to vent. I hope you don't mind.

I got so angry at this person that I was
talking to last week that it is still bothering
me.

This fellow told me that he would never
(don't you love that word--never) be able
to use any type of thin client terminal in
his operation because they just do not
have enough peripheral ports on them to
support all of his devices. He also said that
he needs dual monitors on his PC.

I tried to explain to him that thin client
technology, over the past few years, has
changed drastically and that I would like
to show him some of the new technology. He
said “no” and just would not open up to me
at all. So, I just walked away and shook my
head and tried to calm down.

Just for informational purposes, please
click here and go to page two to see what I
was going to show him. It may even make
me feel better.

I guess I am just too passionate about my
industry and the use of thin client terminals to
replace PCs. I really should not get my blood
pressure up over this type of thing. But, I was
just so frustrated because I knew that I had a
solution for him that could possibly help save
his company thousands of dollars each year on
support costs alone. He just was not interested.
Oh well, as they say, you win some and you
lose some.

Again, if you would like to see a picture and view
some information on this new product, manufactured
by the same company that installed over 7,000
thin clients at one of the largest rental car locations,
click here.

A Tutorial on Thin Client Remote Management Software

2010-04-12T12:05:00.000-07:00

One of the many benefits of using Thin Clint technology is the ability to easily manage from a remote location all the thin clients on a network.

It does not matter if you are physically located in Chicago, if you want to manage thin clients in China, Australia, or France, the proper Remote Administration Management Software will enable you to easily and quickly manage every thin client terminal as long as the device is connected to your network. Think of the time and money this will save your company. Additionally, the ability to remotely manage your devices means greater uptime and increased productivity for everyone.

I have attempted to compile a list of many of the most important capabilities that I believe should be included in any remote management software that is supplied by the manufacturer of your thin client terminals. Take a close look at each one of these capabilities and see how they may be able to help you and save support time vs. supporting PCs.

Remote Administrator Management Software must allow IT managers and system administrators to rapidly deploy, configure and maintain thin client devices. The remote management software should be compatible with the entire manufacturers’ thin client product line. Remote Management Software will dramatically reduce deployment and ongoing support costs.

A Management Console provides robust, centralized command and control of all the thin client devices. Firmware / BIOS / patch updates or configuration changes can be performed in groups or done automatically, eliminating the need for system administrators to manage individual desktops.

The interface needs to provide a powerful, yet simple and easy way to manage the complete family of thin clients from a single, centralized management console. An intuitive Graphical User Interface (GUI) should allow you to get up and running in just minutes.

The software should use industry-standard protocols, including SNMP, FTP and TCP/IP, to manage the thin client devices.

The remote manager has minimal hardware and software requirements, making installation a snap.

Be sure your software has unrestricted, no-hassle licensing with unlimited scalability.
The Remote Management Administrator Software needs to have a comprehensive asset tracking capability, device discovery and automatic device check-in.

Asset-tracking databases need to allow IT managers to view the current device configurations including firmware version, device location, IP address and memory size which can be used to store or export the information for fast and easy report generation.

Remote problem trouble-shooting can greatly be simplified if your Remote Management Software has the ability to shadow individual devices (remotely displayed) with full keyboard and mouse control, reboot and rest to default state. All tasks can be scheduled for execution at later times.

Plus your Remote Administrator Management Software should support the following capabilities:

Device Cloning
Auto Configuration
Job Scheduling
Remote Shadowing
Grouping Devices
User Security
Wake on LAN
Multiple User Interfaces
Image Deployment
HIPPA Ready
Flash Updating
Reset to Default
Asset Database
Registry Edit
Automatic sub-netting
Automatic Discovery
Security Options

I hope that this tutorial has proven useful to you.

If you are seriously thinking about adding thin clients to your network in the near future, contact me and I can make arrangements for you to test drive a package like the one I described above, free. I will personally arrange to download the software package to you and ship a thin client evaluation terminal so that you can try it out yourself. It takes only a few moments to install and is extremely easy to learn with its user friendly dash-board.

The good news is that with many of the manufacturers that I represent, I can offer to our customers remote management software FREE. Give me a call at 1-800-643-2664 and let's talk.

The "Invisible" Thin Client Terminal

2010-04-12T11:54:00.000-07:00

Let me tell you about an “Invisible” Thin Client
Terminal which was created by a team from a
major Israeli aerospace company.
The other day I stopped at Best Buy® and purchased
an SD memory card for my new cell phone.

I found it amazing that I could purchase an 8GB
Micro card for 1/2 of what it costs me to fill my
gas tank. 8GB of storage on a card that was
smaller than the finger nail on my pinky? What
is next? Will we soon be seeing 10 Terabytes
on a Micro SD card? That would not surprise me.

Now, speaking of amazing, I would like to tell you
about another innovative product. This product was
developed by an advanced engineering team
from a major Israeli aerospace company.

This team, a few years ago, was assigned a project
in which they were to develop a thin client terminal

that would be an alternative to a PC. The real
challenge for the group was that this thin client
would need to be so small that it that would fit
into a wall socket the same size as a light switch
wall box.

Furthermore, their mission was to develop this
product so that it would allow full communications
with Citrix, Microsoft Terminal Services, and even
VMware. Also, this product was to contain Internet
Explorer, have terminal emulations available, be
100% virus proof, use very little power, have
Wi-Fi available and even Power over Ethernet
as an option.

The real challenge was to be able to operate this
unit with a RISC processor that did not cause a
reliability problem due to heat coming from the
processor in a confined space the same size as
a switch box in a wall.

This product was first introduced in Europe a few
years ago. Now this company has one of the
largest installed bases for alternative PC products
found in Europe. One major customer is a
German governmental group that took delivery
of over 20,000 units.

I have been working with this manufacturer
since they first introduced this product in the U.S.
a few years ago. To see what this amazing product
looks like, and to read some specifications on
very powerful and amazing alternative product
to PCs, click here.