MJ's Business IT Blog

My Latest Gadget Love

My latest gadget is the Motorola EQ5 portable bluetooth speaker system.  I am in love with this thing.  I carry a ton of stuff in my bag.  It's quite literally a portable office, so I am always looking to slim down and consolidate.  I've been very successful with these pursuits and over the last month have successfully moved from a rather large backpack to a more slender Targus vertical Messenger Bag.  It's lighter, smaller and is a much better fit under airplane seats.

I have been carrying both a nice pair of iHome portable audio speakers, for listening to music, DVD's or my SlingPlayer and a Polycom USB Speaker Phone for my Whaleback Softphone.  Both are great, but together they take up space.  The MOTOROKR EQ5 is a bluetooth, wireless speakerphone and stereo speaker set.  It's really innovative.  The sound quality is excellent and if you get a call while you're listening to music, the music is paused so you can take the call.  Now that's cool.  It's about the size of an iPhone, so it's lught and small.  The only thing I don't love about it is that the battery is not replaceable, but it's rated for 500 charge cycles and I'm sure there will be a better unit available by the time this one fails.  For under $100.00, this device is a bargain and will get a lot of use by me.  If you have a need for an excellent speaker system that can provide both audio and speakerphone features, check out the EQ5.  It's great! Nice job Moto!

A Fun and Humbling Evening

After a long day of educational sessions, panels and networking, tonight was the annual Awards Gala evening.  It's a glamorous and enjoyable evening that highlights the accomplishments of vaious CompTIA members, awards "best" in class awards to various vendors for the quality fo their partner support programs and technology.

The evening culminates with headline entertainment, this year provided by the incredibly funny Martin Short. I think his best role ever was that of Serge in Father of the Bride, which he of course did a reprise of.

I never new that Martin Short could sing, but he can sure belt them out.  Perhaps his funiest routine was when he brought an unsuspecting Brian Wiser, immediate past Chairman of the Association on stage to be his "guest" during a Jimmy Glick reprise.  Let's just say Brian was one heck of a good sport. 

Prior to Martin's performance, there was a warm presentation to John Venator, who has served as the Associations President and CEO for the past 18+ years.  John, for personal reasons, is handing the reigns of the Association over to Todd Thibodeaux and will be moving over to work full time for the CompTIA Educational Foundation, something John was instrumental in forming 10 years ago and focusses on charitable outreach on behalf of the IT industry.

And humbling for me, Jenaly Technology Group was awarded the honor of being named The ASCII Group Reseller of the Year during the awards program.  Our innovation in evolving our client services, the quality of our staff, growth of our business and my personal committment to the industry were all noted during a very gracious introduction by Doug Young, Vice President at The ASCII Group.  On behalf of our entire team, I can not express how grateful we are for this honor.