Going To Sleep Is Free, But

Take Your Web Searching To The Next Level

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There's more to search than Google--especially for medical topics. I often need to go search eMedicine, Cochrane, Pubmed, specific journals (NEJM and Anesthesia & Analgesia are two I use often) or even a Google sub-site (plain, news, images, scholar, maps) . One way to do this is to go to each home page, find their search box and, well, search! Ah, but there's a better way and it's called iSeek (MacOS X only).

What you're really doing when you use a search box on a site is submitting a search request in their syntax. If you know the syntax, you can submit a search request without actually going to the site. If you look at the address bar after you submit a search on a site, you're looking at their search syntax. For example, if I do a search on Google Scholar for 'hyperthermia,' I see the following url in the address bar:

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=hyperthermia&btnG=Search

Now, it's a bit much for us to memorize that string of text, but computers are very good at that sort of thing...and that's where iSeek comes in. Here's what iSeek looks like in my menu bar (it's the text field with the magnifying lens):

And here's what the iSeek menu looks like with all my favorite search sites:

To search at one of the listed sites, I select the site (in this case eMedicine), enter the search term in the text field, and hit 'return.' iSeek takes my search term, slaps on the right prefix and suffix to put the search term in the right format, and submits it. The results appear in a new tab in my web browser.

If the thought of figuring out the right text strings bother you, fear not. The makers of iSeek have an extensive list of search engines you can add directly from their site.

Why I'm Excited About Apple's 'Spotlight' Technology

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Rumor has it that Apple will release its next iteration of MacOS X, code named 'Tiger', in April. One component of it that is not a rumor is its new built-in search engine called Spotlight (tech preview pdf). The list of supported files types includes (but is not limited to):

• Plain text
• RTF
• PDF
• Mail
• Keynote presentations
• Microsoft Office Word documents
• Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheets
• Microsoft PowerPoint presentations
• iChat logs (if logging is enabled)

How might this be useful to a clinician? For years now, I've been dropping files onto my hard drive because they contains information I want to have access to in the future. I have an entire textbook of anesthesiology as html files. Literally hundreds if not thousands of pdf files of articles I've saved from NEJM, Anesthesia & Analgesia, and other journals. Every lecture I've ever given. All the CME I've ever done (if available electronically).

I have tried mightily to keep it all organized. Seth Dillingham actually made some software for me to be able to use a local webserver to organize, index and serve all those files on my local machine. Extended to something we called the Reference Laptop Project, we endeavored to put everything an anesthesia resident could need during their training on a $1,000 20 GB Apple iBook, complete with automatic updating of reference materials via wireless LAN. I've installed Plone and learned some Python to be able to make a system that works for me. But now, finally, coming to OS X, is the core technology that will allow me to do what I want as a feature of the operating system itself, or perhaps even as a custom application.

Underneath it all, there's even an API that lets applications access Spotlight's power. Imagine a new application that imposes a structure on the information you already have or will add! As an example, imagine an outline of relevant topics in anesthesiology. For each topic, the application would use Spotlight to create Smart Folders for, say, information on malignant hyperthermia, and airway management, and peri-operative beta blockade. I have a great deal of information on each of these topics already on my hard drive. Some in the Documents folder, some under Sites. Some exists as HTML files, some as PDF, some as powerpoint. And as I add more information, the Smart 'Chapter' will automatically update. Perhaps the very capable makers of Delicious Library will explore creating 'Delicious Reference' just for me.

The future is here. It's just not evenly distributed yet. --William Gibson

Using Passwords? Switch to Pass-phrases, Instead.

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Instead, he recommends pass-phrases:

Palm Anesthesiology

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PalmSource maintains an excellent resource for anesthesiologists (thanks to Donald M. Voltz, M.D.) at Palm Anesthesiology which includes:

Software

• Medical Calculators
• Drug References
• Case-Tracking Software
• Educational Software
• Medical Billing Software
• Quality Assurance Software
• Clinical Information

Included is some billing software I'm going to have to review...

RSS for PubMed Searches

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Orac Knows points to a really nifty use of rss for those of us that use PubMed for literature searches called HubMed and use RSS. HubMed offers 'RSS feeds of literature queries - updated daily'. For example, I can enter a search string like 'liver transplant anesthesia' and get a nice list of hits on a web page. Encoded in the html of the page is the url for the rss feed of this search. Handing the html page url to your news reader/aggregator allows it to 'discover' the rss url for you. After that, your news reader will highlight any new references the search turns up.

Google--Preventing comment spam

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Google--Preventing comment spam:

Read the rest for details of how to implement this tag

Be A Firemonger

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Firemonger:

[Via rakaz]

CME Watch

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CME Watch:

""Now there's a freebie, CME Watch v0.4, to help you keep tgrack of your CME activities!

Description: Introducing CME Watch - Track your CME Hours Easily on your Palm. No more worrying about whether you've accumulated enough hours. Use the summary function to add up all the CME hours! Useful for : Physicians, Nurses, Respiratory Therapists....anyone who needs to attend and keep track of Continuing Medical Education Time! Featuring: - Automatically Adds and Summarizes Total CME Hours - Ability to also track days for CME Allowance.

""

[Via The Palmdoc Chronicles]