As usual there were a lot of things that happened during the week, and not all of it was pharmacy or technology related. Here’s a quick look at some of the stuff I found interesting.
– G-Force was #1 at the box office last weekend. Yes it’s true; the movie outperformed Harry Potter by $2 million. Ha! Take that Mr. Wizard. .
– mobihealthnews featured a great article titled “Cisco on wireless health, alert fatigue and apple carts“. Of course I thought the apple carts reference was going to be something about the iPhone, but turns out I was wrong. The reference is from the following statement: “To make any technology initiative successful in healthcare, you need to think of the impact it will have on all of the stakeholders in the system, Sands explained. For doctors, the impact will be on their “apple cart.†The doctor’s life is best described as an apple cart that is full to the top and the last thing they want to do is add on more thing on top, because they are worried it will topple the whole thing over. We have got to be sensitive to that if we are going to implement something in the doctor’s office, Sands said.” That is an interesting way to look at it. I think this metaphor applies to pretty much all healthcare professionals as we’re officially in the do-more-with-less era.
– Here’s a nifty little blog on managing online passwords from a physician who got his Facebook account hacked. I had my hotmail account hacked a few months ago, and I can tell you it sucked. It appears that I suffered no real damage, but only time will tell if that is completely true. So, keep your passwords tuff and unique. If you were to look at some of my passwords today, you might think it was a joke because they are so ridiculously long and complex.
– Looks like Sony is bringing new eReaders to the market; the PRS-300 and PRS-600. They look like updated versions of the current eReaders. I’m a big fan of eReaders and eInk and am looking forward to some “hands-on” with these. They’re about the only eReaders I can physically touch without buying first. There’s a Sony Style store in the big San Jose mall about 3 hours from Fresno. It works out well for me because my daughters love to shop.
– The rumor of a Mac Tablet is still creating waves all over the internet. The nice thing about the speculation surrounding the Mac Tablet is all the cool mockups be posted. Take a look at a couple here and here. Of course the best mockups I’ve ever seen are these. The rumors surrounding the Mac Tablet have it touted as a slate like tablet with an 8-10″ screen designed primarily for multi-meida. I really hope this isn’t true as I’d like to see the device have a full blown Mac operating system, not a watered down version like the iPhone. Until that happens, tablet PCs will remain king in my opinion. That may be more true than ever before with the arrival of Windows 7, which is supposed to be a very “tablet friendly” operating system.
– Engadget is reporting that the infamous CruchPad should arrive sometime in November. Don’t hold your breath as this device is on the verge of being vaporware. If the rumors surrounding the Mac Tablet are true, the CrunchPad may become a vague memory.
– Take a look at “Key Articles and Guidelines for the Prevention of Venous Thromboembolism: Clinical Guidelines†at Medscape Critical Care. Prophylaxis for Venous Thromboembolism is always a lively area of research and discussion.
– Last week I told you about Amazon removing illegally obtained copies of 1984 from Kindles without the user’s permission. Well, it appears someone took it personally as a student’s school notes attached to the ebook were lost when it was removed from the device. The user is suing Amazon.
– GottaBeMobile.com: “Verizon Stores Starting to Use Tablets on Sales Floor – Verizon stores in 3 Indiana towns (Jefferson Point, Kokomo, and Castleton) are piloting the use of Tablet PCs for their sales personnel. Verizon is planning on having Tablet PCs in 120 stores by the end of the year. The picture looks like a Motion Tablet PC of the C5/F5 variety.” – It appears that just about every industry besides pharmacy is using tablets to make their lives easier. You’re killing me smalls.
– Office Online Blog (How Bill Gates uses Office): “Of course, collaborating often means meeting with my colleagues in person or remotely over the Internet via Office LiveMeeting. I always take a lot of notes about ideas to think about or things to follow up on. I try to bring my Tablet PC to meetings as often as possible so that I can use OneNote 2007 to write notes in ink that can later be searched or converted to text. Even if I forget my Tablet, I can scan a document or piece of paper and add that image to OneNote. One of the nice new features in OneNote 2007 is that it automatically recognizes the text in those scanned documents, so that it’s easy to search for them later.” OneNote is a great product for use on a tablet. It’s like having an electronic version of your old school binder where you take notes and paste clippings. Bill also states “If you visit my office, you will probably notice right away that I have three large flat screen displays that sit together and are synchronized so they work like a single very wide display. The large display area enables me to work very efficiently. I keep my Outlook 2007 Inbox open on the screen to the left so I can see new messages as they come in. I usually have the message or document that I’m currently reading or writing in the center screen. The screen on the right is where I have room to open up a browser or look at a document that someone has sent me in e-mail.” That’s pretty cool. I have two 19″ flat screens in my office at work and wish I had a third.
– Thankfully we are only about two weeks away from the NFL preseason and I can barely contain myself. This time of year is pretty much void of any real sports action. C’mon, golf and baseball? I don’t think so. I need to see a collision sport other than NASCAR, and I need to see it soon!
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