Driving complaint ... cell phones

My job is partly to drive. Today, I honked at a driver who changed lanes to be ahead of me without signaling and without giving what I thought was reasonable clearance. I had to slow down but was not really at risk of hitting the car. It was more an annoyance. It was then I noticed a cell phone was in use. Further on, I saw the car weaving and it hit the while lane lines for no good reason and the driver was still on the phone. Before passing on the freeway, I honked again before moving alongside this car. The driver gave me a dirty look.

I honked since it is used to warn drivers of a hazardous condition on the road and this driver was the hazardous condition. I needed more attention on the lanes as we both moved into a construction zone and was only hoping to get the driver to stay in the other lane.

(For what it is worth, the car was a blue Pontiac Vibe with Alberta plates and the driving was observed on 170 Street southbound from 87 Avenue to the Whitemud and then along the Whitemud Freeway of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.)

Glass Door Adjustment Screw -- See It Here!

I was at a condo building on a completely unrelated task but noticed the glazing channel was missing from the top of the inner vestibule door. This allowed a clear view of a device built into most of these doors which is seldom seen. At the top near the opening edge is a small block of nylon with a bolt pushing down on it from the top stile of the door. Here the block is turned almost a quarter turn since the glazing channel is missing and would usually hold it square and in place. The screw has also put enough pressure on the glass to form some curved fractures. (They are called conchoidal fractures and more detail is at Wikipedia.)

I would not wind this screw any further down but if you understand its function and limits, it can help you solve a common problem. Glass doors with aluminum frames are partly held up by the glass which always stays square. However, the frame can slip and sag at the opening edge and the block allows you to bring up the opening edge.

(OOPS! The frame is part of the building which is build into the wall and the door closes into it. The outside part of the door is called the stile. I know this. However, your customers will do just as I did and call all of it the frame.)



If you close the door, and see the header is level but the door sags and you see the crack at the top of the door as it progresses away from the hinges, then this may help you. Start by opening the door and take the pressure off the block by wedging up the bottom of the door. When you start to wind in the adjustment screw, their should be very little torque or turning pressure needed. You should have lifted the door with the wedge and are now just bringing the block down on the glass so when you take the wedge out the door will come to rest on it but high then it was before. (The screw may be hard to turn still but you should turn it slowly and listen for any bits of cracking. If you hear this, STOP!) Close the door to see how it sits now.

Questions? Toss a reply and I will try to answer it.

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The contents of this post are released for non-profit or educational use in whole or in part provided this statement and the attribution below are kept attached.

Laux Myth ... Thoughts From a Locksmith
By MartinB, Found @ http://lauxmyth.blogspot.com/

Backset Fail

I pulled all the photos off the 1 GB card inside my cell phone. I take numerous pictures and found this old gem. Somebody had installed a Weiser Powerbolt but had missed the step of changing the backset for the bolt. Since the bolt was 3/8 inch too short installed in this door so had set the face of the bolt into the edge of the door by 3/8 of an inch.

Seeing this old photo made me smile.

Locks versus Access Control

This topic came up with a friend and he suggested his workplace did not need locks since it had access control. WHAT??

Allow me to get back to the basics. If you have a building and all the staff go home, something has to keep a snoop or a criminal from opening a door and just walking in to take stuff. That task is called physical security and the door has to be held by some type of lock hardware. How good your physical security needs be depends on what is on the other side of that door. How good your physical security IS depends on the wall, the door, the hardware and the lock itself.

At some point the next morning, the first staff member returns and needs a way to open the door from the outside. If you are running conventional locks, this is a key. If you have access control, this could be a proximity card. (There are even system where you could send an special email from a phone to a server controlling the door and open the lock too.)

In all these cases, your key or the card or a PIN number are called credentials. If you have to show an issued ID card to a guard before getting into a building, that too is a credential. If you have the right credential, you can enter. Most places actually have both keys and cards. You need to plan for the possibility there will be some problem develop in the card reading system and leave you locked out. The most obvious is power failure for an extended period but vandals smashing the reader would do the same.

Access control is a good name as it really suggests its function. It does not do any better job of keeping out random people in the small hours of the morning, but does let many staff in and keeps a record of that. And more importantly, you can turn off the card for any one person without affecting all the others.

I guess in summary, access control replaces keys with cards and changes what has control of the locking hardware. At much higher cost, it gives an audit trail of all the people who moved through all the controlled doors. However, any good system has keys on a few doors too but with limited key distribution.


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The contents of this post are released for non-profit or educational use in whole or in part provided this statement and the attribution below are kept attached.

Laux Myth ... Thoughts From a Locksmith
By MartinB, Found @ http://lauxmyth.blogspot.com/

I could never be THIS passionate!

A different locksmith blog posted this commentary on being passionate and it is very funny. Do pop over there to watch it and ask yourself about your passion. I am perhaps compulsive about locks and for brief moments passionate, but it hardly sustains me.

http://www.discreetsecuritysolutions.com/blog/archives/176

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The contents of this post are released for non-profit or educational use in whole or in part provided this statement and the attribution below are kept attached.

Laux Myth ... Thoughts From a Locksmith
By MartinB, Found @ http://lauxmyth.blogspot.com/