TechHub: GrayMatter CEO Thanks Co-Innovators, Versiondog, MyToaster Turns 10

Giving Thanks in the Spirit of Innovation

GrayMatter CEO Jim Gillespie offered his thanks to GrayMatter’s partners in innovation in 2018. Here’s an excerpt:

There’s a concept called “hidden capacity” that emerges when our company, GrayMatter, co-innovates with a company going through a digital transformation.

Unlocking that capacity is partly about optimizing existing technology, but it’s mostly about helping equipment operators, managers and executives foster a company culture that values innovation, empowers employees to try new things and appreciates their successes.

It’s a great reminder this holiday season that I’m thankful for the opportunity GrayMatter has had to work with companies who embrace innovation. It’s an important part of our core values to express gratitude for the contributions and successes of others.

Read the full post.

Q&A: Version Control and Data Management With VersionDog

GrayMatter partnered with versiondog this year to offer a full suite of version control solutions. We dug a little deeper into how versiondog work with GrayMatter’s Joel Purl and Dave Geiger.

Q: What are some of the advantages of having a change management solution like versiondog?

A: Change management solutions will tell you automatically if something in the system has changed and who did it and when. It also generates a backup that helps detect and reverse unintended changes. Anomalies can be flagged in an email or other alert that’s sent to the appropriate team member.

Q: What role does GrayMatter play with change management solutions?

A: We help assess a customer’s needs and are there to assist with installation.

 Q: Who relies on it?

A: Maintenance supervisors, people who have a lot of contractors or technicians working with them or on their system. It’s all about having the most recent, up-to-date files whether they’re Excel files, Word files SCADA files, anything that needs to be stored.

Q: What can the system track?

A: It allows you to track how individual users interact with your system. It records time-stamped logs of who uses each asset and how. It can also provide you with a graphical representation of how the current version of a job on your server differs compared to the latest backup. It can plot those changes over time, as well. It can drill down, as well, to show you the individual adjustments made to a job’s settings.

Q: What other functions does it offer?

A: It’s always comparing the current with the backed-up version, and it’s also a disaster recovery option. It will make a copy of your system and you have the copy that was pulled the night before or at whatever time you specify.

Interested in learning more about versiondog? Contact us today at 1-877-741-2410 or visit our contact GrayMatter section at graymattersystems.com.

IoT Pioneer MyToaster Turns 10

WESA, the NPR affiliate in Pittsburgh, highlighted the 10th birthday of @mytoaster, a Twitter account that dutifully reports the status of Pittsburgh developer Hans Scharler’s toaster.

Even after a 10-year run, there are still just two options for the IoT toaster: “Toasting” and “Done Toasting,” according to the story, How A Tweeting Toaster Helped Bring The Internet Of Things To The Hungry Public.

Scharler’s innovation was simple, but it attracted quite a bit of attention, and it helped people understand the potential of connected devices.

“People were sending me messages of, ‘What else? What else can you connect to the internet?’” Scharler said. “The toaster was fun and it was a good conversation starter, but the conversation very quickly moved to other things.”

Happy Birthday, mytoaster.

Done Toasting

— mytoaster (@mytoaster) December 5, 2018