User:PetesGuide

About Me
Depending on who you talk to, I am a technical writer, tech marketing expert, competitive product analyst, or Übergeek.

My career has included:
 * A decade as the Technical Editor of CADENCE magazine, covering every aspect of the Computer Aided Design industry, specializing in in-depth product reviews.
 * A technical marketing manager at NVIDIA, managing reviews of the Quadro FX graphics cards and the PureVideo HD technology in consumer cards.
 * The competitive analyst at Yammer, where I helped teach the sales team how to win against bigger, well-known competitors.
 * A stint in hobby electronics e-tailing and manufacture (HamStop.com)

In the Internet community at large, however, I am perhaps most famous for authoring a silly little article about Web typography, which seems to have given me an enduring mention on the features page of WordPress.

In my personal life, I am an amateur radio operator (K6WEB) and am most interested in ham-related technologies that push the envelope.

My Ham Radio friends call me “Spidey”, while the regulars at my favorite bar call me “Radar”. Both nicknames are related, and you have to know me to understand why. ;-)

Writing about broken tech was always my passion. But my true calling is to design things that don’t need fixing.

I am also passionate about standards of all stripes, as I believe that their appropriate use can enhance the usability, advancement, and interoperability of all kinds of technology.

A pet personal project of mine is exploring the best ways to harmonize visual, tactile, and audible symbols for improving the effectiveness of alerting systems.

Favorite Quotations
If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.

—Henry Ford

What Do You Care What Other People Think?

—Arline Feynman to Richard P. Feynman

Non issue. Just avoid holding it in that way.

—Steve Jobs (to samcraig in response to the iPhone 4 antenna blocking problem)

Don’t give them what you think they want. Give them what they never thought was possible.

—Orson Welles

It’s not what we don’t know that hurts us, it’s what we know that ain’t so.

—Will Rogers

Men have become the tools of their tools.

—Henry David Thoreau

To innovate, you must ignore the common wisdom, and regard well-known things as less known, and much larger than before.

—Alan Cooper

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

—Leonardo da Vinci

It takes five hundred small details to make one favorable impression.

—Cary Grant

Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

—Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu

Discovery is seeing what everybody else has seen, and thinking what nobody else has thought.

— Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

The world is only changed by people who are naïve enough to think that they can change the world.

—Eric Lander (Aspen Ideas Festival, 2009-07-02)

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

—George Bernard Shaw (in “Maxims for Revolutionists”)

Web Sites

 * Pete’s Guide to Technology My technology blog and overall main presence on the Web.

Draft Articles

 * Radiotelephony Voice Procedures
 * Radiotelephony message handling
 * Procedure sign
 * Windows time synchronization software
 * Vehicle spotter signals
 * GPS time synchronization accuracy

Articles Created
Key radio communications In chronological order:
 * Plain language radio checks
 * Time synchronization in North America
 * Message handling
 * 16-line message format
 * ARRL Radiogram
 * ARRL Numbered Radiogram
 * QN Signals
 * Radio codes
 * QSA and QRK code
 * Operating signals
 * Microphone connector
 * ICS 219 (T-cards)
 * 1) Mountain Locator Unit
 * 2) Coaxial power connector
 * 3) Cigarette lighter receptacle
 * 4) Electronic Industries Association of Japan
 * 5) Battery terminal
 * 6) Microphone connector
 * 7) U.S. Military connector specifications
 * 8) ICS 219
 * 9) Extended Channel Interpretation
 * 10) Plain language radio checks
 * 11) Aeronautical Code signals
 * 12) Maritime Mobile Service Q Codes
 * 13) 16-line message format
 * 14) ARRL Radiogram
 * 15) QN Signals
 * 16) FASTON terminal
 * 17) 1975 New York Telephone exchange fire
 * 18) Boker's Bitters
 * 19) Exchequer Standards
 * 20) Approximate measures
 * 21) North American Fire Hose Coupler Incompatibilities
 * 22) Convenient number (modified from a redirect page)
 * 23) System 32 (furniture) (enhanced after I translated it from the original German)
 * 24) Preferred metric sizes
 * 25) QSA and QRK code
 * 26) Operating signals
 * 27) ARRL Numbered Radiogram
 * 28) Time synchronization in North America
 * 29) NOTAM Code

Articles Translated

 * System 32 (furniture)
 * International Aeronautical and Maritime Search and Rescue Manual

Articles with Significant or Important Content Added

 * Radio communications
 * Radiotelephony procedure
 * Procedure word
 * NATO phonetic alphabet
 * Spelling alphabet
 * Radiogram (message)
 * 92 Code
 * RST code
 * Weather radio
 * Circuit Merit
 * VCard
 * DC connector
 * Hose coupling
 * EIAJ connector
 * Coaxial power connector
 * DC connector
 * Alcoholic spirits measure
 * Alcohol measurements
 * Scoop (utensil)
 * Cooking weights and measures
 * Shot glass
 * Gaffer tape
 * Crimp (joining)
 * Star of Life
 * MedicAlert or Medical identification tag?

Articles I think are Extremely Important Topics

 * Preferred number – how big shall the steps between sizes be?
 * Earthing systems – where does the earth connector in sockets go?
 * Extra-low voltage – for those scared of electricity, this describes the voltage levels and design standards used to provide electrical power in the proximity of people who are candidates for the Darwin Awards.
 * List of international common standards
 * International maritime signal flags
 * International Code of Signals
 * NATO phonetic alphabet
 * Standard Marine Communication Phrases
 * Q code
 * Aeronautical Code signals
 * Maritime Mobile Service Q Codes
 * ACP-131
 * Z code
 * Preferred number
 * No symbol
 * ISO 216
 * Technical pen
 * Metrication
 * Metrication in the United States

Infobox template testing
