The Must-Have Technology Tools

AGC TechBrief, April 2012
By James Benham, President of JB Knowledge Technologies, Inc., Makers of SmartBidNet

Depending on your age, the technology on your desk has probably evolved quite a bit since your first day there. Whether your beeper was going off at your hip or you were punching away at an encyclopedia-sized laptop, technology today makes those days seem archaic in retrospect. But the best part is there’s a good chance you haven’t even seen the best of today.

Every day, an innovation emerges with the potential to propel your work day into the Jetsons’ era faster than you could have predicted. Many of these developments will be bought by the likes of Google or Facebook, who will then find a way to incorporate them into something you already use or an unreachable luxury for high-class nerds. But some will find their way into what I will call your "Tech Toolbox." These are the technologies that can and will impact personal and corporate bottom lines and whose value far outweighs the minimal capital investment required to employ them. Most are cloud-based, some are free, some are $1.99 in the app store and some are business suites with annual subscriptions well worth the price tag, but all of them can transform your work day.

Click here to read the full article from TechBrief

April Events | SmartBidNet

April 12 - 10am & 3:30pm webinars with the Presidents of both SmartBidNet & Cloud Takeoff on how to seamlessly integrate bid management and estimating takeoff 
Click here for more details 

April 12 - Construction Industry Advisory Council Awards Banquet and Drinks Reception Hosted by SmartBidNet 
Click here for more details

Collaboration, Integration And Interoperability Through The Cloud

Featured in the April 2012 Jobsite123 Newsletter
Written by James Benham, President of SmartBidNet

The evolution of technology in your office probably looked something like this: copy machine, fax machine, microwave-sized personal computer, inter-office email, bulletin board systems, really slow websites with lots of blue hyperlinks, loaf of bread-sized cell phones…until finally instant messaging, laptops, smart phones, printer/scanners and now the occasional tablet came to save the day. No one wants to remember the black screen and green letters – but it’s important to understand how far we’ve come.

Now what exactly made it possible for you to abandon that pager and flip back and forth between your Angry Birds app and this article on your smart phone? Internet? Laptops? Steve Jobs? What if I told you they were all a part of this term everyone is throwing around as if it’s brand new… The Cloud?

Click here to read the full article

The Future of Online Plan Rooms

Constructech Magazine
April 6, 2012

The plan room has evolved from paper, to FTP (file transfer protocol) sites, to online collaborative platforms where partners can download files, and print only when necessary. The online plan room opens the door to new technology capabilities, such as integrations with other technology solutions.

This week, Barryhund Online Plan Services, www.barryhund.com, Sacramento, Calif., a Web-based plan room solution, and SmartBidNet, which is developed by JB Knowledge Technologies, www.smartbidnet.com, College Station, Texas, announced new integrations between the two platforms.

Click here to read the full article

Announcing SmartBidNet Integration with Barryhund Online Plan Services

COLLEGE STATION, TX (PRWEB) April 05, 2012

SmartBidNet construction bid software recently announced its latest industry alliance with fellow solutions provider, Barryhund Online Plan Room Services(OPS). Over 45 plan rooms across California, Montana, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah and Washington use Barryhund’s OPS platform to distribute details of over 45,000 projects per year to general contractors andsubcontractors subscribing to each plan room. The integration between Barryhund and SmartBidNet, launching this summer, will connect project news from Barryhund’s plan rooms across the United States with private bidding in the SmartBidNet system.

Click here to read the full article

ENR Readers Recommend Their Favorite Technology, SmartBidNet Among Them

SmartBidNet was recently featured in Engineering News Record's "Recommended Reading" release, listing "Products and services that ENR readers say they are now using with good results that have potential to improve their jobs, or even the entire industry."

Click here to see the entire list

18 handy tablet apps for AEC professionals | Building Design + Construction

The SmartBidNet Construction Bid iOS App made a recent Building Design + Construction list of helpful AEC industry tablet apps for everyday design, construction, BIM/IT and LEED processes. 

Click here to read the full list

SmartBidNet Construction Bid Software Wins Constructech 2012 Commercial Top Product Award

College Station, TX (PRWEB) March 27, 2012

JB Knowledge Technologies, Inc., a leading information technology solutions provider, announced that its SmartBidNet construction bid software is a recipient of Constructech’s Top Products Commercial Award in the Trusted Products category for 2012. This esteemed award recognizestechnology solutions that demonstrate the greatest innovations geared toward the commercial construction market.

Click here to read the full article

Construction Technology of the Week | SmartBidNet | Bridge Health Monitor

The Federal Highway Administration has released results on a five year study of using advanced technology to better assess corrosion on suspension bridges.

"The system was designed to detect the onset of corrosion as an early warning system by providing a corrosion rate for suspension-bridge cable so that the remaining service life and factor of safety can be reliably calculated."

The best sensor technologies available were combined into thousands of wires wrapped on suspension cables of major cities bridges like those in New York City. Acoustic, humidity, and temperature sensors also monitored conditions surrounding the cables. The data from real brirdges was combined from data obtained in the lab by simulating various extreme corrosive conditions. 

Researchers say the findings and responsibility to implement such monitoring systems on all bridges is now up to the owners. At only .001% of bridge cost, the system doesn't appear costly for the feedback it provides, and can even run off solar and wireless technology for minimal maintanence.

Click here to learn more about this bridge health monitoring technology  

Construction Tech of the Week | SmartBidNet | The Ultimate Materials Database

"This is a new concept, to compute the compounds of all known materials," says Ong. "The computing power has only become available recently."

Stated one of the MIT research assistants working on the 'Materials Project' - what will eventually be the Google of material databases. After making new discoveries in the components of various materials, the researchers realized a mammoth, central database of ALL compounds would help researchers around the world work with materials, determining substitute components and additions, and actually rendering digital models of their altered and new materials.

"Now the partnership is harnessing its computing muscle to host a growing database that catalogs nearly 19,000 chemical compounds. The site predicts how two compounds will react with each other. It does it for free, in real time, and for anyone that completes the registration."

It's only a matter of time before that databases brings new and improved materials from the supercomputer to the jobsite.

Click here to read more about this Materials Project technology