Saturday morning coffee [September 15 2012]

So much happens each and every week that it’s hard to keep up sometimes. Here are some of the tabs that are open in my browser this morning along with some random thoughts….

The coffee mug to the right is from UCLA, obviously. I accompanied my daughter down to UCLA a couple of weeks ago to attend her orientation. It’s a beautiful campus. While I was creeping around I ran into Jim Mora, head coach of the UCLA Bruins football team, sitting on the steps outside of Ackerman Union. I’ll admit, I thought it was pretty cool to see him. I made eye contact and gave him “the nod”, i.e. the male equivalent to saying hello. He blew me off completely. Nice to know he has standards.

The Possession was #1 at the box office again last weekend. Still haven’t seen it, and still have no intentions to. And Lawless was #2 at the box office again last weekend. Still haven’t seen it either, but would like to. Maybe today or tomorrow.

Read more

Saturday morning coffee [September 8 2012]

It’s obviously not Saturday morning. My daughter had a volleyball tournament today. We were out of the house at 6:00am so I obviously didn’t have much time to put this together. Nonetheless I have a cup of coffee in my hand, there are still many tabs open in my browser, and I have some things to say. Let’s begin …

The coffee mug to the right is another from the great state of Texas. I picked it up in Austin while on vacation with my family. We had a great time in Austin. The capital building in Austin is huge and beautiful. We spent the better part of a couple of hours roaming through the building taking in the rich history of the state. After getting our fill of the State Capital we swung over to the University of Texas, home of Longhorns Football. My family and I also found some time to get in some great food from the likes of The Salt Lick in Driftwood, Tx just outside Austin and Gourdough’s Donuts. Both were awesome.

The Possession was #1 at the box office last weekend. Haven’t seen it, and have no intentions to. Not my kind of flix. Lawless was #2 at the box office. Haven’t seen it either. I’m behind.

Read more

Medical calculators available on Medscape Mobile app for Android

Medscape Mobile is a nice little free app to have on your Android device. It’s no Lexi-comp, but it’ll certainly do a respectable job in a pinch. I’ve been accessing Medscape for years. I think it may have been the first online reference site I subscribed to. I frequently read through the pharmacy news section … Read more

Evernote update for Android is awesome

I received an update for Evernote today on my Galaxy Nexus. And let me just say that it’s awesome. I use Evernote all the time. It’s one of the few services I pay for because it’s the best method I’ve found for collecting notes; all kids of notes. I use it to clip web pages on my tablets (all of them) as well as my smartphone, take hand written notes, collaborate with others via shared notebooks, take audio notes, store journal articles in PDF format, and so on. It’s easy to organize my notes because of the familiar tag system that Evernote uses. Simply put, Evernote is indispensable.

The biggest change with the Evernote update is the user interface. The home page is easy to use and intuitive. In addition it lets you swipe out a hidden menu just off the screen to the right to get to your notes. The navigation is more “swipe friendly” and I like it. It’s really quite slick.

Read more

Is the HP Touchpad too little too late?

Daring Fireball: To me, easily the most appealing iPad competitor. But I think the Pre is the most appealing iPhone competitor, and it hasn’t fared well. HP has matched the iPad’s pricing: $499/599 for 16/32 GB Wi-Fi models. I think the problem facing HP is summed up in the sub-head on this promotional page: The … Read more

An open letter to HP

Dear HP,

As I read about the release of the HP TouchPad on July 1st, I can’t help feel both excited and disappointed. The operating system on the new TouchPad appears second to none. The “card-view” multi-tasking offers a simple, yet powerful user interface. In fact, the user interface is so nice that RIM blatantly copied it for use on their PlayBook.

In addition the TouchPad offers a dual-core Snapdragon processor, HP Synergy to provide a single interface for email, social media, calendars, contacts and more, just type, support for both Flash and HTML5, video calling on a beautiful 1024×768 multitouch screen, and so on. You’ve designed a tablet truly worthy of consideration even when compared to all other tablets currently on the market. 

Read more

Pharma certainly understands the need for mobile apps

mobihealthnews: “According to a recent report from Ernst & Young, pharmaceutical companies led by Merck and Novartis have increased their investments in mobile phone apps and educational websites by 78 percent. The apps and sites generally aim to encourage patients to take their medications, eat well and exercise more often, according to the report. “ … Read more