Incremental and Radical Improvements

Incremental and Radical Improvements   "To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often."  - Winston Churchill  Sometimes innovations and improvements, regardless of the technology or industry, come in barely perceptible incremental steps, and other times they come in large, no way you could miss it, type radical leaps. Take the iPhone for example. It first came out in June 2007. The first iPhone was a radical leap as compared to all other phones that existed at the time. It's been improved upon with a half dozen or so versions since 2007. Some of the newer versions have been incremental improvements and others more radical. I had one of the earlier versions of the iPhone and the improvement I would say I liked best was the ability to seamlessly sync the calendar and contacts on my phone with the calendar and the contacts on my computer and e-mail accounts. It may sound overly dramatic but it really changed my life. Regardless of where I entered information from it was almost instantly available on my other devices. It's been about 5 years now, but I remember entering an appointment on my phone while sitting in front of my computer just so I could see it pop up a minute later. I thought, "How cool is that?" As long as I remembered to enter it from somewhere, I would never miss another appointment or lose another contact. I could schedule events and appointments in a few strokes, and I would never ever forget my Wife's birthday or our anniversary again....not that I have yet, but I am getting older. To me that was a radical change....I would never want to go back to the old spiral paper "Day Planner" that I used to carry around. Now every birthday, phone number and meeting that is important is in my HTC EVO....yes I switched to Android a few years back....I like it better. And, if lose my phone or drop it in the water, which has happened, it's all available on my computer or wherever I choose to login from. Lately I've been doing allot of thinking about changing technology and how changes in technology, both radical and incremental, have and will affect how people do business. See, we just rolled out Version 2.0 of the SampleServe.com web software last week. It's a pretty radical improvement over the previous version. New Logo and everything. We had been making incremental improvements to the old version all along, but it was time to completely reinvent how we were doing business. In the past we pretty much identified ourselves as an environmental sampling company that alsohas cool software. Now we identify ourselves as "a software company that also does environmental sampling". Our main focus is on the software. The new version of the software allows our clients autonomous control over their projects. They use our software to manage their sampling projects from planning, through the sampling all the way to the regulatory reporting. The clients can use our software and do their own sampling. We will continue to make the incremental changes and improvements as we go forward. However, we will also be making a few more radical improvements in the not too distant future. We are working on automated ground water contouring maps and isochemical contouring maps, hopefully available by spring/summer 2013. We will also be developing Apps for iPad and Android Tablets. You can try our software for yourself. Go to SampleServe.com and login to view example sampling projects and generate the various reports currently available and produced in seconds. - Russell www.sampleserve.com USERNAME: customer PASSWORD: sampleserve

To Lock or Not to Lock? "Locks keep out only the honest."  - Jewish Proverb Well cap locks, are they worth it?   Although I haven't done a study on the percentage of wells that are the flush mount type versus the percentage that are the stick up type, it's my estimation that the vast majority of the wells out there are the flush mount, bolt on lid type, monitoring wells. From my experience I would say only 10 to 15 percent are the stick up type. As anyone that has sampled a well at one time or another, the typical well cap for either type is the compression cap. This is a good cap, especially for the Typical compression cap. flush mount type as it generally provides for a water tight seal against surface runoff that might infiltrate the well vault and subsequently the well head, if it did not have a water tight seal. Although some caps are better than others, for the most part, they all work as designed when new. The green caps with the galvanized mechanism generally don't work so well. They rust, and when they do, they tend not to want to tighten or loosen anymore. Some caps have taller profiles and can make it difficult to put the well vault lid back on in a flush mount situation. Not sure why but it seems many drillers tend to not leave enough room between the well top and the bottom of the vault lid. Many caps get damaged or destroyed over time in this situation when cars drive over the lid and the vault subsides over time, crushing the cap. I've always found it somewhat perplexing as to why people put pad locks on these types of compression fittings. It's perplexing for numerous reasons. 1) Again, in my estimation, about half the wells we sample do not have locks on them. 2) Of the roughly half that do have locks on them, the locks generally do not unlock. Because of the environment (below grade in constant moisture and many times submerged in water) the locks quickly rust and become  inoperable. Most locks used are generally low quality locks and are subject to corrosion beyond the operable stage inside of two years. 3) Even with a lock on a very tight compression fitting in a flush mount well, you can still take the cap off relatively easily. The locks in this case are a visual psychological barrier, not an actual physical barrier. 4) In my 26 years or working in the environmental industry, I've never heard of a case were someone has deliberately tampered with a well. I would be interested in hearing any "tampering" stories someone may have knowledge of. Now I've have heard of a few instances where a monitoring well at a residential fuel oil spill was filled with fuel oil when the delivery driver mistook the well for the fill port of a fuel oil UST, thus causing another spill. But like I said, I've never heard of a deliberate attempt to damage or tamper with a monitoring well. Locks on stick up vaults make sense to me. These locks tend to last much longer and remain operable for years as they are outside hanging in a generally dry environment, except during an actual rain. The locks on a stick up well vault also actually prevent anyone from opening the well (short of a bolt cutter). I would be interested in hearing your perspective on the lock for the compression well cap. Also if you have a recommendation for a quality lock that can handle the tough subsurface environment, please let me know. I've yet to see a really good one. - Russell

Special Offer Demo our software for free.  For the months of February and March 2013, sign up one site for a two month free trial. No obligation, no credit card required. 1 site for 2 months, Free. Fine Print: Limitations: -Site must have less than 30 wells/sample locations. -Historical data going back 10 years or less. -Two photo's per sample location. -2 usernames. Contact: Russell Schindler 231-933-7035 schindler@sampleserve.com

About SampleServe.com SampleServe.com specializes in environmental data management and reporting. Project Manager Inputs Project Details. All details are then instantly transferred   to all other documents and   aspects of the project. You can view an example of our data management and reporting system and generate example reports by logging in using the username and password below: GUEST USER LOGIN: www.sampleserve.com Username: customer Password: sampleserve Login on the home page or the top right of any page. We also provide sampling services when needed. Corporate Office: Traverse City, Michigan 49684 SampleServe.com 231-933-7035