8 Apps, Gadgets To Keep IT Pros Awake On The Job
Working nights? Pulling long shifts? Stretched too thin during the holidays? Here's a list of apps and gadgets to make sure you don't fall asleep on the job.
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Most people think datacenters run on electricity, but, personally, I've found they run on caffeine. Servers and work stations really should dispense coffee, soda, and energy drinks right out of their sides. This is especially an issue during the holidays when vacations leave every IT department short-staffed. IT pros could find themselves doing longer shifts than normal or even covering the night shift for the first time in a long time.
To help you stay awake during those long shifts, I've pulled together a list of gadgets, apps, and products to help you stay alert through the days when you wish you were settling in for a long winter's nap.
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I can't personally endorse one over the other, but each offers a different strategy for keeping you awake, from relying on alarms and sensors to biofeedback. Depending on your role, not all of them will work for you because some could be distracting or too noisy to your fellow workers. But I've listed a lot of options. One might be perfect for you.
Of course, nothing can replace getting the right amount of sleep before clocking in. But when holidays or emergencies make that impossible, technology can bail you out. Take a look at the list to see if one of these choices is right for your needs, and then head over to the comments to tell us how you stay awake when you get stuck with the wrong shift.
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Like I said, the data center runs on caffeine. Before getting into the higher tech approaches to staying awake, there is always good, old-fashioned energy-in-a-cup. But if a cup of coffee isn't right for you, maybe you'd rather try toothpaste. Power Toothpaste, a product launching a crowd-funding campaign on Indiegogo this month after a site promotion, can freshen your breath and boost your energy at the same time. As the site says, you'll get a "rush when you brush."
If you're into energizing through your whole body, try Shower Shock, the caffeinated soap, which claims you can absorb 200 milligrams of caffeine through the skin with every wash. That's more caffeine than a short cup of Starbucks coffee. Either one -- the toothpaste or the soap -- promises to put pep in your step while also improving your hygiene for those long nights trapped in tight spaces with colleagues.
A lot of the gadgets and apps designed to keep you awake were originally for long-distance driving. But you should be able to adapt them for use in the data center. Have trouble with nodding off in the NOC? Try one of several products designed around an ear piece. This one, called the Nap Zapper (pictured) monitors your head position. If you lean too far forward, like you've fallen asleep, it buzzes in your ear.
Optalert has created glasses with tiny invisible LED built into the frames that measure your eye movement 500 times per second. The glasses measure how fast and how far you open your eyelids after you close them to determine your drowsiness level, which is recorded on an app. This is designed as an industrial application where drowsiness scores of entire teams can be sent to a foreman or other safety expert. Personally, I think it would be more fun to use whenever the CEO gives a speech.
Keep Me Awake is one of many apps designed to use the sensors in your smartphone to keep you awake. Put your smartphone in your pocket or on your lap. If it doesn't sense enough movement, the app will play music or an alarm to wake you up. Multiple apps with this basic concept are available for most mobile operating systems.
These may not be practical for many IT workers, but if you have an especially lonely job, they might do the trick for you. Some apps, including Stay Awake Pro, available for iOS, try to mimic a passenger in your car talking to you. The passenger, "Victoria", asks you to repeat words for her. Obviously, this is designed for driving, but if you have one of those "have to be there in case there is a problem" jobs, talking to Vicky could help you, too. But talking to Siri or Cortana would work in much the same way without the potential of being caught by your colleagues saying "chicken wing" alone in a room.
The Stay Awake While Driving app for Android is definitely one of the most extreme options if you are really having trouble staying awake. You have to actively push a button every 3 to 10 seconds based on your choice of time. If you don't push the button, an alarm goes off. I wouldn't expect anyone to be able to code or do anything complicated while pushing a button every few seconds, but if staying awake is the priority, having to find a button every few seconds certainly would do it. Personally, I think this would work better if the button moved around the screen just a bit, but this was designed for driving where distraction is also an issue.
Up to now, I've suggested apps and gadgets designed to help you stay awake on the road be adapted for use among data center workers and IT pros. I wanted to leave you with one product specifically for the drive home. The danger of the long shift doesn't end when you leave. You still have to get home. Anti-Sleep Pilot mounts on your dashboard, and it is one of the few products that I'm highlighting that takes your current level of fatigue into consideration when you start off. The device asks you to input how many hours you've gone without sleep before you drive. It also keeps a profile of your age and other risk factors that lead to how quickly you may become drowsy. It then uses accelerometers and 26 different fatigue factors you've inputted to check to see how drowsy you are. It also asks you to respond to it with a touch on occasion to measure your response time. It uses all of this input to warn you if you need to take a break. Here's a video about it.
Think of this device as a combination of most of the others we've discussed. The product launched in 2011 and is currently being revamped. Stay tuned, especially if you do a lot of late-night driving home from work.
'Tis the season to be drowsy. Don't let the lack of sunlight, the long hours, the weeks of parties, or anything else keep you from staying awake. It is a rough time to get fired and an even rougher time to get into a car accident. And if you plan on staying up to see Santa come down the chimney, all of these might work, too. Tell us which ones you like, and put your personal strategies for staying awake in the comments section below.
'Tis the season to be drowsy. Don't let the lack of sunlight, the long hours, the weeks of parties, or anything else keep you from staying awake. It is a rough time to get fired and an even rougher time to get into a car accident. And if you plan on staying up to see Santa come down the chimney, all of these might work, too. Tell us which ones you like, and put your personal strategies for staying awake in the comments section below.
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