Burglar Alarm Face book group

Sorry Nick,

I need to log on to view?? Which would mean that I need to be a Facebook member. Well I can't since I am NOT a Facebook member. I don't do that thing!!

A number of years ago, it was suggested to me by my cousin that I should be on Facebook. Bla Bla Bla. I objected, but she was so insistent that she signed me up to make it easy for me. Within about 3 weeks I was getting emails from people that I did not know "wanting to be my friend". Cancelled the account faster than holding a hot potato.

This "social media" thing is not for me. I have better things to do. It is just how it is. If you enjoy it and find value then great.

Sorry but no thanks.

Have a good weekend.

Les

Though I firmly believe Facebook is the devil, I finally gave in after nearly missing a family event that was seemingly planned and only discussed over facebook.

As it is, I rarely visit my page - though why it is referred to as my page is a mystery as I have no idea what the hell is going on there.

I have found it useful for a couple pages like this one - I think I will be visiting regularly.

Thanks Nick

A----man Brother... (my wife stays on the thing 24/7.....)

Link-in is nearly as bad, only less members... LOL

RTS

Les,

I've never used FB for my contracting company, but it definitely generates business for my mold making business. LinkedIn too. I periodically write an article or interesting social post, and then share it to other pages as well.

Recently I had a mold customer visit me here in my shop to discuss some designs we are working on. That's pretty rare since I ship molds all over the country and even around the world. I made a big deal out of it and shared it on fishing groups, tackle making groups, and even on his business page as a purely fun and social post. It resulted in about 700 visits to my FB page and two new custom jobs. I imagine if I did similar things for my contracting business I could drives new jobs that way too.

To go further an occassional fishing partner of mine uses socail medai and personal contacts to drive business his way. He is a new car salesman and since he started doing that he has been the number one new vehicle salesman in his dealership every single month. He doesn't even do the advertising side of it. Just has a huge friends list and does things like post smiling pictures of people with their shiny new pickup truck.

I hated Facebook and Linked-In just like you guys, but I have learned a little bit about how to use them to drive business also.

Add on that all my Aunts and Uncles and Cousins stay in touch through Facebook...

Bob

I almost forgot:

I hear you Bob, but........................

I guess that I am too much like my Dad. He was the top Ford mechanic at a local large dealership. He was the guy that could listen to an engine with a long screwdriver up against his ear and the engine block and tell you that a certain valve had a bad gap at the rocker and was tapping or the timing was off by a frog hair.

He retired at the right time since the new computer stuff was starting to takeover and he did not understand the new fangled thingies.

In those days nobody could make a engine cheat on a emissions test. Well, there were no emissions test even to consider cheating on. :-)

I know the new stuff can do this or that when applied and adjusted to meet the need and desires but I am just to old to strain my brain on the issue. For me it is a lot easier to ignore and move on with the workload that I presently have.............. which is significant.

Also, I was on LinkedIN for a period of time a number of years ago when I thought it might be a benefit. Well it wasn't and I cancelled it as well. As the saying goes; "It just ain't my cup of tea."

BTW nice slip in of the

Sorry, but I won't be visiting. I included here for the additional support.

Have a good next week Bob. I have another full plate. I have a security/camera/phone customer that thinks I might be ABLE to help them fix their dining area background music and order number paging system.

Well yeaaaaaa....................

Just have to figure out how to get something called Pandora connected via WiFi to a paging amp to drop in 2x2 ceiling speakers.

And they pay me to do this stuff???? Cool!!

Les

Yeah, but that back when engine ping was almost always bad timing and MTBE and Alcohol hadn't started ruining fuel systems.

My dad actually taught me how to listen to an engine like that.

Thank you. LOL.

Yea me too, but with all that learning does not help me any more since I lost high frequency sounds due to little guns, big guns and much bigger guns, model airplanes, etc. and working in noisy manufacturing for far too many years.

Oh you say, I should have been wearing hearing protection???????? Say what??? Never heard of it!!!

Les

Hi Les,

I do this kind of audio work on a regular basis. I don't know what your spe cifics are but here's a little bit of information that may be useful. Altho ugh Pandora is free or a paid service, the free service does have it's quir ks. You can only pick your category of songs but not specific songs. You ca n choose a performer or a style of music but Pandora plays pretty much what it wants to at random ..... keeping within a genre. The most annoying thin g about it is that the volume is not constant. Some music is loud some is t oo soft. When I set up music systems for people I try to use Sonos. This wa y people can play their own music from their Ipads/IPhones or computers as well as choosing from about 150 internet radio stations. Sonos is fabulous to work with and delivers lots of smiles to the end users. They love it.

One of the aspects of jobs like this is that their WiFi network needs to be pretty robust if they want to be able to control their music from all over the home. They usually don't want to go for the extra bucks up front but o nce they get a taste of being able to control their music from their I/Phon e/Pad they want to do if from anywhere in the house and then I get called b ack to enhance the WiFi network. I usually wind up installing wireless acc ess points or additional routers with DHCP disabled. Also, the Power line c arrier IP network extenders work pretty good in getting the network to othe r parts of the house without having to run wires. It takes some practice to learn how to install them quickly but once you've mastered it .... it work s great. There are new ones out now that not only carry the hardwire networ k but also create a WiFi area from the plug in unit.

Anyway, If you need any help, let me know.

Jim, Thanks for the input. I just looked at the Sonos site and a quick look at the components. This equipment looks like it is geared more for the high end residential user. The project I am involved with is a commercial restaurant dining room for background music as well as paging for order numbers.

I have never used Pandora but the customer is using it an likes it. They also have some knowledge about another service called Spotify.

The comments you made about Pandora gives me a little concern but with equipment I am looking at should handle what ever service they want to use.

I am thinking that all of this new audio stuff will have its quirks of one type or another.

BTW the equipment I am looking at is:

Connected to a Episode commercial amp ECA-70MIXAMP-1-60 with 2x2 drop in ceiling speakers.

Just dropped a ball park number today and got a "THAT MUCH??" response.

We will see how it goes.

Again thanks for the extra input.

Les

On Tuesday, September 29, 2015 at 11:19:25 PM UTC-4, ABLE1 wrote:

specifics are but here's a little bit of information that may be useful. A lthough Pandora is free or a paid service, the free service does have it's quirks. You can only pick your category of songs but not specific songs. Yo u can choose a performer or a style of music but Pandora plays pretty much what it wants to at random ..... keeping within a genre. The most annoying thing about it is that the volume is not constant. Some music is loud some is too soft. When I set up music systems for people I try to use Sonos. Thi s way people can play their own music from their Ipads/IPhones or computers as well as choosing from about 150 internet radio stations. Sonos is fabul ous to work with and delivers lots of smiles to the end users. They love it .

o be pretty robust if they want to be able to control their music from all over the home. They usually don't want to go for the extra bucks up front b ut once they get a taste of being able to control their music from their I/ Phone/Pad they want to do if from anywhere in the house and then I get call ed back to enhance the WiFi network. I usually wind up installing wireless access points or additional routers with DHCP disabled. Also, the Power li ne carrier IP network extenders work pretty good in getting the network to other parts of the house without having to run wires. It takes some practic e to learn how to install them quickly but once you've mastered it .... it works great. There are new ones out now that not only carry the hardwire ne twork but also create a WiFi area from the plug in unit.

Hi Les,

Hey! That Gracedigital product is pretty neat. I'd never seen that before. I'll keep that in my arsenal for future reference.

As far as the Sonos is concerned, the "Connect Amp" is a 50 watt per channe l amplifier that can handle four 8 ohm speakers ( two per channel) It conne cts via WiFi to any IPad/Phone with the Sonos app. I've used it in commerci al and residential. Since the Connect Amp is a combination of controller an d amp all in one, it might be less expensive than the Gracedigital and an a mp. the Sonos Connect Amp is $499.00

I know the following is more than you need for this job but it may help in the future if this comes up again.

Another thing I've done for commercial installs is as follows: See if they have an old laptop and load ITunes on it. It doesn't have to be connected t o the Internet. Most people have songs recorded on their computers, IPhone/ Pads. Copy all their songs into ITunes on the lap top and then use the earp hone output of the Laptop into a Crown 3000 amp and a Russound impedance ma tching volume control to distribute to multiple speakers in four different rooms.I've got one restaurant with a lap top, a 4 position impedance matchi ng volume control feeding four different rooms. This gives them the ability to adjust the volume in each area according to the ambient noise. (soft fo r dinner or Party Time) I took their recorded music and added some of mine and loaded it into ITunes so they've got about 6 hours of songs. You start up ITunes and put it on repeat and it just plays forever. This one has been playing for about two years now. Since ITunes has a volume leveling featur e, it doesn't matter what level the music was recorded at, it all outputs a t the same level. It's not Pandora but they can listen to the music they li ke not what Pandora gives them. Also, the Free Pandora cuts off every once in a while because they don't want people just turning it on and then not l istening to it. It uses up their server space. So it has to be restarted ea ch time. It also has occasional advertisements. The paid Pandora doesn't d o that.

Again, let me know if I can help.

Is the service licensed for commercial use? You know that no matter what they say or even what you write down the customer will swear under oath to AZCAP and BMI that the you the professional contractor told them it was OK and they had no reason not to believe you since you are the professional. Since you are the professional everybody will say, "you should have known better."

Restaurants and grocery stores seem to always think they can get value added services for free. There is royalty free music available and I have periodically chased some down for background for MOH with a small player of some kind. That's not a broadcast a service though. Its pre-recorded royalty free music.

I seem to recall it was ok to "play the radio" , but I don't think that applies to on-line services. I think thats putting an FM aerial on the building and hooking it to a receiver.

"Jim" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com... On Tuesday, September 29, 2015 at 11:19:25 PM UTC-4, ABLE1 wrote:

Hi Les,

Hey! That Gracedigital product is pretty neat. I'd never seen that before. I'll keep that in my arsenal for future reference.

As far as the Sonos is concerned, the "Connect Amp" is a 50 watt per channel amplifier that can handle four 8 ohm speakers ( two per channel) It connects via WiFi to any IPad/Phone with the Sonos app. I've used it in commercial and residential. Since the Connect Amp is a combination of controller and amp all in one, it might be less expensive than the Gracedigital and an amp. the Sonos Connect Amp is $499.00

I know the following is more than you need for this job but it may help in the future if this comes up again.

Another thing I've done for commercial installs is as follows: See if they have an old laptop and load ITunes on it. It doesn't have to be connected to the Internet. Most people have songs recorded on their computers, IPhone/Pads. Copy all their songs into ITunes on the lap top and then use the earphone output of the Laptop into a Crown 3000 amp and a Russound impedance matching volume control to distribute to multiple speakers in four different rooms.I've got one restaurant with a lap top, a 4 position impedance matching volume control feeding four different rooms. This gives them the ability to adjust the volume in each area according to the ambient noise. (soft for dinner or Party Time) I took their recorded music and added some of mine and loaded it into ITunes so they've got about 6 hours of songs. You start up ITunes and put it on repeat and it just plays forever. This one has been playing for about two years now. Since ITunes has a volume leveling feature, it doesn't matter what level the music was recorded at, it all outputs at the same level. It's not Pandora but they can listen to the music they like not what Pandora gives them. Also, the Free Pandora cuts off every once in a while because they don't want people just turning it on and then not listening to it. It uses up their server space. So it has to be restarted each time. It also has occasional advertisements. The paid Pandora doesn't do that.

Again, let me know if I can help.

The way I typically do commercial is with a 70V line amplifier. Put as many speakers with 70V line transformers in as you need tapped it appropriate power levels for each location. No impedance matching required. Just size your amp for the size of the premise. If you need branch volume cotnrols you just put them wherever you need them. In a restaurant with lounge you can have the bar on one volume control, the waiting area on another, and the floor can have as many seperately controlled branches as needed, and you can put the volume controls in places convenient for the people in charge of each area. 70V commercial speakers are available cheap enough. 70V line volume controls are cheap enough too. For an amp you can use Bogen, Toa, Crown, or even CSI. Speco. Toa is the most robust and capable of recovering from stupid things, but they all work ok if you don't do anything stupid except maybe for the smallest little 10 WATT units.

Also, one little trick that helps is never place a ceailing speaker directly over a manned work area. Those workers will tire out more quickly. Also never place a wall speaker so it points directly at a person's regular work location. Same thing. Even just a little off to one side makes a huge difference.

Bob, I changed the subject on this is this has gone way off topic.

I always that it was a problem if a radio station was used for MOH on a phone system so I don't do that when requested.

As for this new stuff like Pandora, Spotify, etc can now be an issue that I had not thought about before reading your post. Yes that could be an issue of sorts. The question is how to fix it??

Truthfully I do not know how that is done. Is it just a matter of not using the "free" service and set up a paying account??

Is this something that is covered in the fine print somewhere??

Oh!! the challenges.

More input, need more input.

Thanks,

Les

Music Licensing per the National Restaurant Association

I was going to list for various services, but this is a pretty good summary.

The only way around paying fees other than the limited amount listed in that is to buy a large library of Royalty free music or music published in the Public Domain and use a music player. While those items may be free to use you better have your paper work in order and be prepared to back it up if you want to avoid an AZCAP or BMI lawsuit.

Even though there is a pretty big body of royalty free music out there its not available from ANY commnon sources, and you will most likely have to buy copies from companies who specialize in the stuff.

Here are comments on the subject of MOH from a company that sells MOH service.

Since they are in the business they may overstate the position, but it does seem to indicate you are correct about radio on hold. I had believed radio on hold was allowed. I didn't realize it was considered a rebroadcast.

Its neither here nor there for me as I always try to talk my customers into a message on hold system for their phone systems. Some message on hold machines even include a small amount of royalty free music, but if somebody is hearing the music I think you are wasting valuable one on one advertising and conditioning time. You already have somebody who is your customer or is interested in becoming your customer captive and waiting on you. Why not tell them a little more about yourself while they wait. "Oh, Les can run netowrk cable for me too? Cool. I'll have to ask him about that."

Oh, and here is BMI on the topic of Music On Hold

And then of course there is the legnadary Muzak who made thir big punch into the background music industry by re-recording and butchering songs enough to no longer be covered under the original copyright. Muzak was the original remixer.

I would like to add that I just did a search and found there is a lot more music published in the public domain these days by new artists than there used to be.

Bob,

WOW!! All that is very good input. Thank you very much!! I need to pass the 11 Question link on to my customer. I assume that I will be shot or hung at noon, but I got to do it. I need to also bookmark the links so I don't lose for future.

As for the MOH issue, I hear it all the time. I have mentioned the issue to some but it falls on deaf hears. If I was a scumbag attorney I would have a field day. :-)

THANKS again!!!

Les