Thursday, December 1, 2005
Greg Pierce: Pragmatic Security
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Greg's "Pragmatic Security," for the Rest of You ;-):
" Greg has just published a very pragmatic set of instructions to help "friends and family of geeks" deal with security issues on the internet. Very good recommendations, all of them, and so I'd like to ask all of my friends and family to go check them out. He obviously spent a lot of time writing that essay, and I believe that most will find it an 'easy read'.
He admits it's not a complete solution to everyone. It's a plan to get started. I think it's a good plan.
The most important issue he left out, in my opinion, is the huge number of "phishing" email messages being sent out these days (these are attempts to trick you out of your username and password). Nobody is safe from these, many of them are just too good. I wrote up a little blurb and posted it in a reply to Greg's message, so please include it in your reading. "
[Via Truer Words - A Journal]
Friday, July 1, 2005
My take on the rumored iPhone
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Podcasts. Everybody's talking about music, but I'd listen to podcasts (like this Make podcast on biodiesel). Any good medical podcasts out there yet?
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
IBM To Launch Electronic Medical-Record-Sharing Project
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InformationWeek: IBM To Launch Electronic Medical-Record-Sharing Project > April 27, 2005:
"IBM wants to help pave the way for the free exchange of electronic health-care records that today are trapped in hundreds of disparate hospital, physician, and health insurance systems.
By the end of the year, IBM will launch a pilot system, the Interoperable Health Information Infrastructure, that will link IBM sites in San Jose, Calif.; Rochester, Minn. (home of the Mayo Clinic); and Haifa, Israel, to demonstrate how electronic medical records based on open standards could move from one health-care provider to another and follow a patient around the world. "
Saturday, April 2, 2005
Crossing the Digital Divide...And Continuing the Ascent
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Crossing the digital divide is a phrase often used to describe what sets apart those that have computers with internet access and those that do not. It is as if, once the divide is crossed, that's it. You've arrived. Joined the enlightened hoards in digital nirvana. You've got a Dell, a cable modem, Internet Explorer, and a Yahoo account. You can now start looking for the last page on the internet.
The far greater reward waits for those who consider crossing the Great Divide the first step in a journey, and look for ways to travel more easily and extensively (and safely). To do that, you need to read, learn from others, and explore new things. One such facet to be explored is the Firefox web browser. Once you have that, you'll need this one book: Firefox Hacks: Tips and Tools for Next Generation Web Browsing. Nine chapters. 100 Hacks. Let me give you some examples:
- Find stuff
- Identify and Use Toolbar Icons
- Flush and Clear Absolutely Everything
- Make Firefox go fast
- Play with the preference system
- Installing complementary tools
- Take Firefox with you
- Modify tabbed browsing (by Seth!)
- Govern image and ad display
- Add stuff to your toolbars
- Create your own search plugin
Learn this stuff and your own hospital IT staff will bow to your superior knowledge...and what could be better than making their smug look disappear?
Friday, April 1, 2005
Crossing the Digital Divide...And Continuing the Ascent
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Thursday, March 17, 2005
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)
In other words, all the file formats in which clinical reference information might exist on my computer hard drive will be searchable
by content, not just by title.
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
Sunday, March 13, 2005
The Hipster PDA
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43 Folders has a wonderful post on a way to capture information on the go which they're calling the Hipster PDA. Now, I have tried to use all manner of PDA to keep track of info on the go at the hospital, starting with the Newton all the way up to my current Treo 610. Which one worked best? It was the system I used as an intern--3X5 index cards held together with a binder clip.
I have improved on it slightly over time, only because, as an anesthesiologist I have less stuff to remind myself about. My 'Palmster PDA' consists of the palm of my left hand on which I can conveniently write down who needs an epidural, which of my colleagues needs lunch or a break, or when I need to re-dose the antibiotic for my current patient.
Saturday, March 12, 2005
How To Use An iPod
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I've lectured on a variety of topics. I've been asked to give inservices to OR nurses and anesthesia techs alike. No topic is more frequently requested than how to use an iPod. Honest. iPods are becoming more commonplace in the operating room all the time. I've finally found a nice demo on the web of how to operate an iPod which allows self-paced learning:
Monday, March 7, 2005
'Good guys' show just how easy it is to steal ID
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'Good guys' show just how easy it is to steal ID:
" Teams of hackers surfed the Web at Seattle University yesterday, harvesting Social Security and credit card numbers like a farmer cutting wheat. In less than an hour, they found millions of names, birth dates and numbers -- cyberburglar tools for the crime of identity theft -- using just one, familiar Internet search engine: Google. "
The problem is not Google. The problem is the sites that allowed these documents to be indexed. I wonder how successful we would be finding protected health information?
[Via HIPAA Blog]
Sunday, February 13, 2005
Using Passwords? Switch to Pass-phrases, Instead.
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Slashdot points to a very interesting blog entry by a Microsoft engineer in which he makes it perfectly clear how single
passwords are not secure any longer:
" So with all of these highly successful, highly effective attacks on passwords (dictionary attacks, brute-force attacks, pre-computation attacks) I've come to the conclusion that there is simply too much risk associated with passwords and that users of Windows should simply stop using them to avoid this risk. "
Instead, he recommends pass-phrases:
" Pass-phrase LENGTH, not complexity defeats these attacks. Short, but complex passwords should be shunned as they are not truly secure anymore and you are deceiving yourself if you think they are. Long pass-phrases (14 characters or more) are the future (along with 2-factor or more authN, but that's another blog for another day) and are the only way to go if you want to ensure that you won't get hacked via any type of password based attack of any kind. "
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