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Tortus January Newsletter
January 24, 2008
Qwerty. Do you know the story?
Who sent the first email? The answer is in 1971 Ray Tomlinson sent the first email to another computer in his office. The email read quertyuiop. These are the top row of letters on your computer keyboard---take a look!
The QWERTY keyboard story is interesting. Christopher Sholes, a newspaper editor and inventor, patented the QWERTY keyboard layout in 1874, and immediately sold the patent to Remington in the same year. If you're seasoned enough to have used one of those old manual Royal, Monarch, Underwood, or Smith Corona typewriters you might know the QWERTY story but if you don't here it is.
The old hammer typewriters the first word processors jammed frequently. This was because as the operators improved their skills and typed more quickly the hammers would often strike each other. So ole Chris Sholes, the co-inventor of the original typewriter in 1868, rearranged the keyboard to help reduce this jamming. His new keyboard arrangement took into consideration common letter combinations such as th ed and tr, the letters that were most likely to be used in quick succession. This made it more difficult and slower for the operator to use the most frequent combinations. For example, the letters t and r are both struck with the left index finger. More proof that simple answers to problems are many times the best solution.
Now here is some real irony. There are competing keyboard layouts that have challenged for supremacy many faster to produce documents than QWERTY. In fact, the Dvorak keyboard has the world record for typing speed. However, the QWERTY has won the keyboard war, it is the world standard. Why you ask? The collective switching cost to retrain the world is simply to great a task. Hence, slower older technology wins the race, sort of like the Tortoise and the Hare!
Now you know the story!
See you next month.Tortus Talk
Were growing again! We have added a new account manager to our team! Her name is Ann Dawson and we're very excited she's joined the Tortus team. Ann received her Bachelors Degree in Economics from Holy Cross College in Worcester, MA. She has twenty years experience in technology and business consulting; primarily with Aetna Life & Casualty in Hartford, CT. Ann most recently worked for BusinessWest magazine as Senior Account Executive in advertising sales. Ann joined Tortus Technologies in January 2008 as Senior Account Manager.
On to standard pond fare. We are holding one executive seminar in February. The topic of this seminar is: Research, Revise, Review: Three Steps to Improve Your Search Engine Placement
Search engines consistently change their methods of indexing and ranking websites.
- Are you employing the best methods to keep your site prominently visible?
- Do you add content to your website at least weekly?
- Are you sure that the search engine phrases you've chosen represent the best descriptions of your products and services?
If you answered, "No", to any of the above questions, its time for a refresher course in search engine optimization. Do not obsess with SEO jargon like Meta Tags and non-comparative keyword density and frequency & focus on your content.
Come to Tortus' February internal seminar to learn how a little extra effort on your part and web analytics, can help you stay visible and prominent to your target audience.
RSVP soon, as spaces are limited. This workshop will be held at Tortus Technologies, Wednesday, February 20th, 2007 from 9:00 to 10:30am. To reserve your seat, please contact ccasali@tortus.com