Burner Trouble » Technology

Summer finally arrived, blogging slowed to a crawl but I’m digging content management systems!

martin — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 20:14:39 +0000

It finally got hot here in Rochester and we actually had 3 days in a row without rain. Woot! I spent most of July building a wiki site about Rochester’s hopping entertainment district, quite a good project and one that really got me excited about how well some of the online content management systems work. Though I haven’t been doing the social media thing as frequently lately, I count building 120 pages of original content as a social media activity.

The CMS I’m using is Wetpaint and I’m becoming a default power-user. I highly recommend this platform. It has pretty powerful photo-editing software built-in (Picnic), supports widgets for things like slideshows, makes internal linking really fast and easy and makes SEO a snap with constant reminders to add tags. When I launched the site on its own URL it only took two weeks to get to 55% of visitors coming from organic searches. My SEO peeps will appreciate what this means- basically that Google likes the site!

I’m already building another site on the platform that will soon reside at WaterfrontRochester.com. It features all of Rochester’s varied waterfront neighborhoods- we have a lot of water: Lake Ontario, Irondequoit Bay, the Erie Canal, the Genesee River. When I’m done some lucky Realtor will be invited to sponsor this thing. Then I’m on to WaterfrontFingerLakes.com. If you’ve never been to the Finger Lakes you have to go- absolutely spectacular wine country, beautiful properties, rolling hills with vineyards, boating, skiiing, all within 60 miles of our airport. People from Napa have been buying up acreage at quite a clip with prices quadrupling in the past few years.

That’s my summer activity- tomorrow I get on a train and go to visit the girl in Albany!

solar

martin — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:31:40 +0000

Vinod Khosla has found a company that harvests excess heat from solar collectors and improves their total energy output by 50-100%, a huge gain that makes even regular panels financially viable.

Trying a new format to get blogging again

martin — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 18:37:02 +0000

Going to try Kottke style…

Simple device increases diesel engine efficiency by 19% for less than $200.

We’re trading carbon credits in NY now. Going for $3.07 per ton….

Solar power breakthrough funded by Rochester entrepreneur

martin — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 18:04:54 +0000

Scientists at MIT have unveiled what many consider to be the Holy Grail of alternative energy research. They have discovered a simple and inexpensive way to store the energy generated from solar systems. Storage is critical because it solves the night/clouds problem and the battery problem. Their method splits water into hydrogen and oxygen using the electricity generated by the solar source. The hydrogen can be stored and used in fuel cells for virtually any kind of power generation. Until now cracking hydrogen from water has cost more in power than the energy value of the hydrogen. Now, with this system, which the inventors claim is only a few years away from commercial viability, we could have an inexhaustible source of clean energy that can be used anywhere, at any time. It should be noted that the only byproduct of using hydrogen fuel cells is pure water.

While time will tell whether this is the huge breakthrough it appears to be, the reception among informed scientists and engineers is more positive than we usually see when someone makes these kinds of claims.

For me the really interesting local angle of this story is that this research was funded by a ten million dollar donation from a foundation created by Rochester entrepreneur Arunis Chaesonis, founder of Paetec, a very successful telecom based here. Wouldn’t it be great if a breakthrough energy story came out of innovative thinking in Rochester?

One other thing: GM has long had their fuel cell hydrogen car project based in Rochester at a skunkworks operation in Honeoye Falls. The only thing holding back their technology has been a lack of efficient hydrogen production and delivery infrastructure. So this is a double win for Rochester.