One of our Sydney readers sent us a photo of a mobile phone charging station with a digital screen.

The company that developed this innovative system is actually from Australia and they are called ChargedMedia. Their idea is to provide a means of charging your mobile phone power for free but there’s a twist, you will be exposed to ads whilst you wait for the phone to charge. Now that’s quite a clever idea.

If you have klips you would like to share with the rest of our readers let us know by sending an email to info@digitalsignageblog.com

© AdvertiseMe.com.au for Digital Signage Blog, 2011. | Permalink | 3 comments |
Post tags: australia, Charging Station, Clever Idea, digital signage, Display Advertising, email, Free Mobile, Free Mobile Phone, Innovative System, klip, Photo Station, Sydney

Here’s a picture of a small screen located in a lift showing live TV:

If you have klips you would like to share with the rest of our readers let us know by sending an email to info@digitalsignageblog.com

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Post tags: Bathrooms, digital signage, email, Hotels, Klips, live tv, Public Venues, Reception Areas, restaurants, retail stores, Shopping Centres, Toilets, Train Stations

Here’s the image in the Darling Harbour Shopping Centre in Sydney Australia:

If you have klips you would like to share with the rest of our readers let us know by sending an email to info@digitalsignageblog.com

© AdvertiseMe.com.au for Digital Signage Blog, 2011. | Permalink | One comment |
Post tags: Darling Harbour, digital signage, email, Image, Klips, led screen, Led Screens, Shopping Australia, Shopping Centre, Shopping Centres, Sydney Australia

It’s official, after many years of blogging we have decided to open our doors and accept guest bloggers. After some discussions we decided to invite digital signage industry experts from all over the world to help us share their industry experiences and insights with the rest of the digital signage community.
It is an open invitation, however, we are selective on the content.

There are some guidelines that need to be taken into thought when producing each post.
We will NOT be accepting:

• Advertisements about your company
  We will include a short description about who you are and your company but we will not accept a post that is solely focused on advertising your company or your products.
• PRs that get splatted across the internet
  We want unique content so if it’s a PR that has already been submitted on the internet we will not accept it.
• Duplicate blog posts
  Please do not copy and paste content from your current blog, Unique content is what makes the digital signage blog different and we would like to keep it this way
• Posts that indemnify or scrutinise other people or companies
  As the title suggests, this part is pretty much self-explanatory.  Please keep your content professional.

We will be limiting to publish 1 post per guest blogger a week.
We are looking for guest bloggers that have a passion about digital signage and are not purely looking for an avenue to advertise their company – we have a paid advertising section for this! So if you think you fit in this criteria and are interested to become a guest blogger for the digital signage blog then send us an email at info@digitalsignageblog.com with a short description on what you can offer to this blog and we’ll get back to you.

© AdvertiseMe.com.au for Digital Signage Blog, 2010. | Permalink | 11 comments |
Post tags: Advertisements, Advertising Company, Amount Of People, blog, Blogger, Bloggers, Blogging, Copy And Paste, Current, digital signage, Doors, email, Golden Rule, Industry Experience, Industry Experiences, Industry Experts, Industry News, Insights, Internet World, Main Goals, Nbsp, Open Invitation, Passion, Paste Content, Peace And Harmony, Prs, Rule Of Thumb, Share Industry, Short Description, Signage Industry, Spam

It was by sheer luck that I stumbled (I literally didn’t really notice the screen) across two LED Screens – one was located on the main streets of surfers paradise whilst the other was at a plaza (it didn’t have many people walking past there). In any case out of habit I decided to take a Klip of these screens. Sorry if I don’t have the exact location or know what the location is for these screens. I’ll promise that the next time I take a photo I’ll include the GPS co-ordinates.

Here’s also a quick video of what I saw (sorry for the bad filming):

If you have klips you would like to share with the rest of our readers let us know by sending an email to info@digitalsignageblog.com

© AdvertiseMe.com.au for Digital Signage Blog, 2010. | Permalink | One comment |
Post tags: digital signage, email, Exact Location, Family Trip, Gold Coast, GPS, Habit, klip, lcd screen, Led Screens, Main Streets, panasonic, Panasonic 42 Inch Plasma, Photo, plasma screens, Promise, retail stores, Sheer Luck, Surfers Paradise

Thanks to Wendy for the photo.

If you have klips you would like to share with the rest of our readers let us know by sending an email to info@digitalsignageblog.com

© AdvertiseMe.com.au for Digital Signage Blog, 2010. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: C Gates, Caption, digital signage, email, International Arrival, klip, Klips, Map Of Australia, panasonic, Photo, screens, Sydney Airport, Wendy

Thanks to Angela an Aussie and a long time reader of the digital signage blog.

If you have klips you would like to share with the rest of our readers let us know by sending an email to info@digitalsignageblog.com

© AdvertiseMe.com.au for Digital Signage Blog, 2010. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: Aussie, blog, digital signage, email, Food Court, klip, Klips, Liverpool, Long Time, Photo, Projector Screen, Sydney Australia, Time Reader

Before you actually enter the show area you will notice a big led screen at the entrance:

Basically, digital signage was everywhere. There was quite a number of stalls which had digital signage and I believe that they were running the content from a CD/DVD player as I couldn’t find a PC or embedded appliance. By the way I didn’t see any kiosk or digital signage screens with directions or way finding. I actually hope to see this next year and if the organisers wants to contact us feel free to do so as we will be able to assist. Here are some photos of the digital signage screens:

If you have klips you would like to share with the rest of our readers let us know by sending an email to info@digitalsignageblog.com

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Post tags: Australia Pictures, Cooking, digital signage, Directions, Easter, Easter Flowers, Easter Show, email, Homebush, Kiosk, Klips, led screen, Olympic Park, Organisers, Park Flowers, Photos, screens, Sheep, Sydney Australia, Sydney Olympic Park

The first image is a photo of a large screen in one of the busiest corner streets in Sapporo. The second photo shows a screen next to the railway timetable in Sapporo JR station.

Many thanks to Jenny for sharing this with our readers.

If you have klips you would like to share with the rest of our readers let us know by sending an email to info@digitalsignageblog.com

© AdvertiseMe.com.au for Digital Signage Blog, 2010. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: digital signage, email, First Image, Japan Japan, Jenny, klip, Many Thanks, Photo, Railway Station, Railway Timetable, Sapporo Japan

As you can see from the pictures, the screens are located at the checkout. Obviously, this is the most ideal location as you have customers waiting in line to be served.

Thanks Frank for sharing this with our readers.

If you have klips you would like to share with the rest of our readers let us know by sending an email to info@digitalsignageblog.com

© AdvertiseMe.com.au for Digital Signage Blog, 2010. | Permalink | One comment |
Post tags: Checkout, digital signage, digital signage network, email, klip, Klips, Miami Florida, Miami Florida Usa, screens, supermarket, Supermarkets, Tv Network, Waiting In Line

Reviewed By: Advertise Me

The Product – Andrew’s Audio Tripper AS-7

The audio tripper is a two way automatic audio switcher. It has two audio inputs; a default input, a sensed input and an audio output.

In its initial state the tripper selects the default input through the output. Whenever an audio signal is fed to the sensed input, the tripper will automatically switch to this input. The LED (green light) indicates that the sensed input has been selected. Once the signal to the sensed input stops, the tripper will switch back to the default input.

There is a delay control that can be used to adjust the amount of time the tripper waits before switching back to the default input. A delay would be preferable in the case of a multi CD player, for instance, to allow for the time taken to switch between discs.

The Setup

For our testing purposes we connected the unit as follows (I thought I’d be different and sketch the diagram by hand):

In this particular setup, we used a mobile phone as a default audio input – we thought we’d be creative and use a portable device that everyone carries around.

For the sensed input, we used the audio output of a digital signage player. The digital signage player was connected to a 19″ LCD screen and played scheduled content in a playlist. The playlist contained three items:

1. Image of product review email – has no sound

2. 15 second advertise me promotional video created by Blue Pony – has sound

3. Image of John Mayer Listening to… – has no sound

The output of the audio tripper is connected to a speaker. So what basically happens is that when the audio tripper doesn’t sense any audio coming from the digital signage player i.e playlist item 1 & 3, it will play audio from the default input i.e. mobile phone.  All RCA audio cables were used for these tests.

Our Verdict

• We tested several audio input sources – mobile phone (Nokia n95, iphone, blackberry storm), a CD player and also a digital signage player and didn’t find any issues with the switching or the quality of the audio.
• We have actually used this unit for one of our clients and we haven’t had an issues.
• The only thing to consider is that if the unit looses power, it will not perform the switching but it will still continue to play the default audio input – so at least there will be audio
• We would recommend to decrease the delay to the minimum setting (rotate anti-clockwise)
• Can be used for many purposes – ie. backup audio for continuous music

Usage

You may ask yourself when would you use this type of setup and to be honest if you had a digital signage player, you could schedule the audio to play directly from the player but there will be certain situations and environments like a retail store, that you may need to give some control to the local store manager to play their own audio CD’s.

The Video

Here’s a  quick video demonstrating how the system works.

If you want us to review your product, contact Advertise Me via email: review@advertiseme.com.au

About Advertise Me:

Advertise Me is a privately owned Australian company specialising in all aspects of digital signage solutions.

Our team of highly skilled professionals is able to introduce innovative ways for businesses to communicate with their intended audiences for a variety of purposes including informing, educating, entertaining and selling.

You can expect us to:

• offer the most affordable and cost effective solutions tailored to your specific business needs.
• provide you with concise and accurate information and will ensure that you understand and are comfortable with our proposals.
• strive to make our clients happy and successful.

We have partnered with a number of key reputable organisations and will continue to build further partnerships to deliver the most effective solutions for our customers.

Visit our website at www.advertiseme.com.au for more information.

© AdvertiseMe.com.au for Digital Signage Blog, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments |
Post tags: 1918, advertise, Amount Of Time, Aud, Audio Input, Audio Inputs, Audio Signal, Audio Switcher, blackberry, Blue Pony, Caption, Cd Player, christmas, Default Input, Delay Control, digital signage, digital signage player, email, Initial State, Input Output, Input Sources, iphone, John Mayer, lcd screen, Mobile Phone, Multi Cd, nokia, Nokia N95, playlist, Pow, Sketch, Sound 3, Tripper, Video Camera

The toolbar looks like this and you will notice it at the end of the page:

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Post tags: email, Gigya, Myspace, Poll Id, Toolbar, twitter, What This Means, Yahoo

Alternatively, you can simply subscribe via email. Click here to subscribe via email.

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Post tags: Add Url, blog, digital signage, email, Rss Reader

I have been a valued loyal customer of Vodafone since 1998 (if a customer rep from Vodafone is reading this maybe they can give me a call and send me something for being a loyal customer – c’mon 10 years must be worth something) and have have kept my mobile number the same ever since I purchased my first mobile phone – so thinking about switching to another provider was always a dilemma. Fortunately, we actually purchased the  Blackberry Storm from Crazy John’s – a reseller of Vodafone because they had a special deal: for $69 a month the following included in the package:

• the blackberry storm (9500 model)
• Unlimited internet and email (this was one of the main reasons why we went with the blackberry product. Just keep in mind that even though the plan includes unlimited internet it does not necessarily mean that everything is free. Vodafone have a strict policy on this. Basically, if you will be charged PAYG rates for streaming video)
• $340 worth of calls, SMS, etc
• A $50 voucher to spend on Dealsdirect.com.au ( Australia’s largest online department store and save up to 80% off – you should visit this website if you want to save $$)
  
• A $300 voucher to spend for your holiday

NOTE: To date, I have not received the vouchers yet and it’s been over a month.  I’ve spoken to a Crazy John rep and he will chase this up with Vodafone. Hopefully, I should receive that email soon.

If you’re like me I like gadgets and one of the first things I did when I came home was to play with the Blackberry without reading the manual – who reads the manual anyways. I guess that was one of my first mistakes because after a couple of days I started realising that things were missing from my phone. For example, I didn’t have all the messaging applications like Windows Live, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, AOL Instant messenger and ICQ (the image of the blackberry in the advertisement poster had these). When surfing the Internet I also noticed that I kept getting an error message saying that my phone was unable to connect to the data network because I was not in the data coverage area - I found this very peculiar especially when I was able to access the Internet at the same location with my previous Nokia N70 mobile phone . Feeling frustrated I gave in and started reading the manual which didn’t help much.  I then ended up calling Vodafone support and after several minutes of explaining what the problems were I found out that my mobile number was not activated with the Blackberry Internet Services - how was I supposed to know that I needed to activate this service when there were not instructions to do so in the manual! The customer services representative also mentioned that I should have received a Message when I first turned on the phone to call Vodafone Support to activate the Blackberry Internet Services …. opps, I ended up clearing all my messages when I first received the phone so I didn’t pay any attention to that initial message. Maybe in future they could put a small leaflet or pamphlet with these instructions stuck on the phone. Once they activated the Blackberry Internet Services the phone starting working as it should have had.

The other thing I found out is  that you can actually manage your email boxes on the Australian vodafone website by going to this URL: http://www.mobileemail.vodafone.com.au/ You do have the option to set this up on the actual unit but we found it much easier going to the website.

It has now been over a month since we’ve used the Blackberry and we discovered several good and bad points which we will detail below.  Although this device does not fall within the digital signage industry, we can see potential to use this device for remote managing a digital signage network. We won’t discuss this into too much detail in this blog post.

The bad

• Slow navigation – we have noticed that navigating through the applications and changing the orientation between landscape and portrait can be a bit slow. Doing a bit of research showed that hiding the logging can help to improve things (slightly). In order to do this follow these instructions:

In landscape mode - turn the blackberry to it’s side press the menu button (second button) and press Show Keyboard at the bottom of the list. Hold on to the !?123 button until you see the lock on the top left hand corner of this button. This basically means that it will be locked on the numbers and symbols keyboard. Press the / button, then “, then / and then ” again. You will notice the Event Log Warning on the heading of the screen. Press the menu button and then Clear Log. Then go back to the same menu and press on option – this will take you to the EventLogger Options. In this screen click menu and then press on Hide all types. This will disable all the logging.

• Slow capturing images – there seems to take a few seconds of delays when pressing the capture button but with a 3.2 megapixel camera the image of the quality is quite good. If you go back to some of our previous posts I actually took a couple of images with the Blackberry Storm.
• Not that many games or applications compared to the iPhone – there aren’t that many free games or applications that are available to download.
• The USB connector (micro USB) on the Blackberry Storm is not the same as the previous Blackberry units – so if you’re looking at upgrading your existing Blackberry and have existing accessories, you may have to upgrade these too. Also, be careful if you’re intending to buy a USB cable or a Car charger from eBay - just make sure that the item is actually for the Blackberry Storm. If you notice that the item description is also for other Blackberries then it’s most likely not compatible with the Storm.
• Streaming videos from youtube actually costs money! Read Vodafone’s fair use policy here.

We have also been advised that the next version of the firmware (4.7.0.90) will  improve speeds and rectify most of the above issues.

The good

• Nav4All – is a really good and free mobile phone navigation software for the Blackberry storm. The software is only free until the 1/1/2010.
• Good quality images – the quality is much better than the images I have taken with past photos.
• Watching video on the unit is awesome – I compared this to the iPHone and the video quality was much better.
• There are several cool features that we stumbled across and here’s our list:
  - When checking your emails you can filter your inbox by Sender or Subject – in order to do this you basically hold over the name or subject and you will see a bar scrolling to the left.
  - When listening to music, if you hold on to the up and down volume button it actually acts as a forward and rewind button.
  - GPS – this is a great feature to have especially when you get lost or need to search for the location of an address. Vodafone have a program called Vodafone Compass but once again this costs money.
• Emails – obviously the blackberry are renowned for this technology and we love this functionality to receive emails where ever we go
• Screen Push technology – something that people need to get use to but we like the idea of being able to push on to the screen to select something

Using the Blackberry as a modem

We actually spent quite a bit of time to work this one out but if you’re interested to setup your blackberry as a modem then follow these instructions:

Firstly, there are two options that can be used to connect to your laptop or PC – one is via the USB cable and the other is via the Bluetooth Dongle. You need to make sure that both of these connections are working (including getting the blackberry to communicate with the software Blackberry Desktop Manager) before trying to use the blackberry as a modem otherwise no matter how hard you try – it will not work. NOTE: we couldn’t really get the blackberry desktop manager to work with the bluetooth on our laptop but according to some documentation on the web we need to install the generic bluetooth drivers – the blackberry only works with the microsoft bluetooth drivers.

Once you’ve installed the Blackberry software go to phone and modem options in the windows control panel and click the Modems Tab. You will see the below screen:

Click on Standard Modem and click on properties and then the advanced tab. You will need to type the command string +cgdcont=1,”IP”,”vfinternet.au” – note you will need to replace vfinternet.au with your local APN (access point network):

Once that’s done go to network connections and create a new connection. Click Create a new connection – we won’t go into too much detail on how to set this up. But once you’ve set this up make sure you’ve included the below additional options (use the phone number *99#):

Click configure and make sure you have all hardware features turned off:

When you’re ready connect just dial the new connection. There you go hopefully this helped a poor soul out there.

Ever since we got the phone, we have received good feedback from our clients telling us how prompt and efficient we are with our email responses - I guess I just revealed one of our secrets for improving our Customer Services.

© AdvertiseMe.com.au for Digital Signage Blog, 2009. | Permalink | 5 comments |
Post tags: aol instant messenger, blackberry, crazy john, dealsdirect, email, google talk, internet, internet services, manual, nokia, review, shopping, sms, storm, streaming, usb, vodafone, windows live