LAPL's June Safety Meeting a Rousing Success

We at TotaLand had the pleasure of sponsoring the LAPL's most recent safety meeting last week and were thrilled with the turnout.  Over 50 people attended the shindig featuring door prizes, live music and, of course, the open bar.

Here's the link to the event photos.

BLINK Technology: A new way to visualize data

As projects grow, it becomes increasingly important to properly leverage your data to make informed decisions.  The only problem is, an increased pool of data becomes more difficult to sift through.  In order to make our system even better we have developed and integrated patented BLINK technology into the TotaLand system.

BLINK technology offers an advanced (yet simple) way of quickly organizing large data sets in terms of relevance and priority. The chart appears as an asymmetrical grid with each box representing a project item with larger items being more relevant.  These boxes are also color coded based on level of priority.

This tool provides a quick solution to managing large data sets.

April Fools

Don't worry, you're not about to have some groan-inducing prank pulled on you, though if you're like me, you've probably already had at least three people attempt to do so today. That being said, I've seen some noteworthy online pranks this year, and I've decided to list my top five.  There is no scientific method used to rank these gags, and I am certain that there are better ones out there that I may have missed.  Feel free to post any other April Fools pranks in the comments below.

And now...my top 5 pranks of 2013

5)  Virgin Atlantic's glass-bottomed plane

Ok, so when I saw this I actually thought it was a really cool idea.  Forget the hoards of nervous flyers that would never set foot in this thing...

I will admit that it took me a couple of minutes to realize what day it was.  You can find the story here.


4)   Twitter starts charging for vowels

Today Twitter announced on its blog that they would start charging customers $5 a month in order to use vowels.  From the blog:

"Starting today, we are shifting to a two-tiered service: Everyone can use our basic service, Twttr, but you only get consonants. For five dollars a month, you can use our premium “Twitter” service which also includes vowels.

We’re doing this because we believe that by eliminating vowels, we’ll encourage a more efficient and “dense” form of communication. We also see an opportunity to diversify our revenue stream. Here’s our mockup of the most retweeted Tweet of all time as it would appear in the new Twttr"

3)  Google Nose

Google announced that users will now be able to search for scents online.  I cannot be thankful enough that this one is a prank...

2)  Google Treasure Maps

Google always seems to have too much fun with this.  Click here and try the treasure hunt mode to start searching for gold.

1)  YouTube was one massive video contest

YouTube announced today that the video service has been nothing more than one massive video contest, and now that they have received enough videos to finally shut down and begin reviewing the videos to choose a winner.  At least there won't be anymore Annoying Orange videos...

Realm-based versus tract-based systems

As time goes on, and the land industry evolves, you will see many companies adopting systems to manage their land-acquisition projects.  When making this decision, it is important to make the distinction between realm-based and tract-based systems in order to save yourself time, money and a lot of headache.

First, let's discuss tract-based systems.  A tract-based system is one that bases its data entry on...you guessed it...tracts of land.  You create the tract and then enter information relating to that tract like contracts and parties.  This may work for some, but there are some inherent problems that come with this.

As most landmen know, a contract and a mineral owner (party) can be associated with multiple tracts of land.  If Mrs. Jane Smith owns four tracts of land in your project area, this means that the contract and party information must be recreated for each of the four tracts in the system.  Needless to say, the amount of time lost due to repetitive data entry can add up quickly.

Now let's talk about a realm-based system.  A realm-based system is a system that is not hierarchical in nature in that all "realms" are entered independently.  A realm is defined as a tract, party, contract, unit, well, or instrument.  So what this means is that an item can be created in any one of these realms independently, then attached to the other realms as appropriate.

To make this a bit clearer, let's look at the Jane Smith example again.  Mrs. Smith has mineral interest in four tracts of land, so how do we manage this in the system?  You can create the four tracts, and then create the party profile for Mrs. Smith, then the contract information.  Once this is done, simply click the attach button on the appropriate tract, and voila, everything is where it should be.  Every item was entered only one time.

When making your choice for a land-management system, be sure to keep these things in mind.  An efficiently managed project is an effectively managed project.

Cross-platform capability and what it means to you

We recently announced our development and adoption of responsive technology for the TotaLand system, but what does that mean to you?  Basically, it means that our system "responds" by figuring out the viewing dimensions of whatever device the user is using to access the TotaLand system.  Not only does it adapt to the dimensions of the screen, but it arranges the buttons for optimal performance.

This was an important update for the landman on the go.  Forget about zooming in and out while looking for buttons and links; TotaLand will now consolidate everything into one easy-to-use format.  Stay tuned for more updates, and don't forget to subscribe!

Training our future landmen

We had the wonderful opportunity of presenting TotaLand to UL's PLRM students last week, and overall I would say that it was a resounding success.  The students stayed engaged for the entire duration of the demonstration and asked insightful, pertinent questions.  All students were required to set up trial accounts so that they could follow along on their laptops.  Following the demonstration, several students met with members of our staff to ask questions about the system and its applications.

Being that I am an alumnus of UL, I might have a bit of bias on this subject, but I was very impressed with the overall professionalism displayed by these students/prospective landmen.  I would welcome the opportunity to speak to these young professionals again.

Hello World

Welcome to the official blog of TotaLand Technologies. This is your one-stop shop for all of your TotaLand news and industry discussions. Being that this is our first blog post, I guess that some introductions are in order.

We opened our doors in 2004, and have worked tirelessly ever since to create the most advanced landman software on the market. All of your data is available in real-time, and our patent-pending design eliminates the need for any duplicate data entry.  You can find out more about us here.

But that's enough about us, we want to hear about you. Tell us your thoughts on our product, the oil and gas industry, or just anything else that's on your mind.