Finding the Best Fit

Bobcat makes the search for a new piece of machinery a little easier with an improvement to its website, www.bobcat.com. By clicking on the “What's Your Job” tab, owners can select the industry for which they are looking to purchase new equipment, whether it be in rental, construction, landscaping or personal use.

Inside the rental section, Bobcat shares with rental professionals particular pieces of equipment and attachments that can be beneficial for business and maximize R.O.I. The site also features articles relating specifically to the rental industry along with photos. Under the excavating/grading tab in the construction section, users can learn how to decide what to clear on a jobsite in preparation for new construction. Customers interested in asphalt and paving can find the right type of tool for the application or learn what equipment is right for personal property maintenance.

Chatting Up Welding

Hobart Welding Products recently launched a redesign of its interactive website, www.hobartwelders.com. Weld Talk, Hobart's online user-forum, was redesigned to improve speed and access for its members. Forums of interest are organized under a new set of categories covering office, equipment talk, application talk, welding projects, classified ads and a Weld Talk topic archive.

In addition to Weld Talk, the Hobart website contains other educational benefits. The product area displays features and specifications on all Hobart products. There, visitors can access complete owner manuals and other product spec sheets, locate the nearest service provider or register to receive e-mail updates. Also, by visiting the E-Learning section, Welding 101 literature can be downloaded for various categories including MIG welding and self-shielded flux-cored welding.

Fleet Telematics

Three new option levels bring expanded capabilities to the JDLink Machine Monitoring System that allows construction fleet managers to control their fleet operations. These options are Advanced, Ultimate and Direct, and are available for field or factory installation on 46 models of John Deere construction equipment. The original JDLink standard level automatically collects, transmits and manages machine data, which can be viewed at a single password-protected website.

The Advanced option provides all standard-level features plus a percentage breakdown of machine idling hours versus working hours. Advanced also provides fleet managers dashboard alerts such as low-fuel-level warnings via Internet, cell phone or pager. With the Ultimate option, a maintenance manager can receive the kind of detailed information needed to extend the economic life of equipment, as well as improve productivity. Machine pressures, temperatures and speeds are captured and displayed in a format that can be downloaded to a spreadsheet for further analysis. The Direct option provides most of the same features as Ultimate and gives customers the ability to download data directly from a piece of equipment, rather than accessing it through the Internet, but it does not include the GPS locater that other levels provide.

Submit new technology, computer products and websites for consideration in Megabytes to Katie Eagan Ernzen at keagan@rermag.com.