(I could rant a while about how some web page design makes reading very difficult for vision impaired folks, but that's a subject for another day)
Box o' Rocks
found beside book drop
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
About those RSS feeds...
Ever since our training I have been using the feed reader account we set up in class, I've added to it and played a little with it. After staff day I visited a bunch of web sites cited in the handouts we got, some I added to my list. My conclusion is that librarians are crazy. Way too much information and not enough needy public begging for enlightenment! My retinal tear happened while I was spending a lot of time online reading library blogs. I wonder if there is a connection there...
(I could rant a while about how some web page design makes reading very difficult for vision impaired folks, but that's a subject for another day)
(I could rant a while about how some web page design makes reading very difficult for vision impaired folks, but that's a subject for another day)
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Mashup?
Ok, so I skipped over a bit and wrote about #7 first.
I liked the color picker:
http://www.krazydad.com/colrpickr/
but then had to ask, "Now what?"
There was one I saw called something like Where's Lunch, but I can't find it now (should have bookmarked it) that was useful and cool.
My husband wants a mashup of Quickbooks and Mapquest that would allow him to print directions to a customer's house along with the quote or invoice (and how about saving it in the customer's info file?)
retreivr is good fun...http://labs.systemone.at/retrievr/
I liked the color picker:
http://www.krazydad.com/colrpickr/
but then had to ask, "Now what?"
There was one I saw called something like Where's Lunch, but I can't find it now (should have bookmarked it) that was useful and cool.
My husband wants a mashup of Quickbooks and Mapquest that would allow him to print directions to a customer's house along with the quote or invoice (and how about saving it in the customer's info file?)
retreivr is good fun...http://labs.systemone.at/retrievr/
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Technology This Week
My comments on technology are about the medical world since I've been spending more time than usual in that world. My Mom-in-law has been in a CCU (Cardiac Care Unit) for two weeks and I had eye surgery on Monday.
The monitors for heart, respiration, blood pressure; the IV pumps; the oxygen; all of these are amazing to watch as they keep an electronic "eye" on the body systems and give help to those systems that are failing. We got a chance to watch Mom's heart rate as it bounced up and down in an alarming way and slowly began to fall back into a range more acceptable to her doctors.
The favorite single piece of technology was something dubbed a COW...(Computer On Wheels). It's a stand (with wheels of course) that holds a laptop with a place to put a patient's chart, little drawers that pull out for a place to use a mouse, a barcode reader for the patient's ID bracelet, it holds the electrical hookup and can be adjusted up and down. It can go anywhere the staff needs it, they can use it standing or sitting. It looks a bit ungainly, but seems to be well adapted to what is needed. Perhaps later on the footprint can be made smaller and some good industrial design can make it look more streamlined.
My surgery took place in a stainless steel technology-laden, OR set up especially for eye surgery. Computerized machinery is everywhere, and the setup for microsurgery is completely amazing. The surgeon is watching on a computer screen while he manipulates tiny instruments in a patient's eye. I was there as a follow up from surgery last May to reattach my torn retina. The amount of care and attention to details that technology allows people in this discipline of medicine has given their patients with eye difficulties good prognosis and literally the gift of sight. I could write pages on the way technology touches us in keeping our eyes healthy and able to see that weren't around ten years ago.
In conclusion I'd like to mention one more unexpected bit of technology that has helped me this week. I was searching for a way to keep track of the times to take my eye drop medications. The alarm feature on my cell phone is working out swimmingly.
The monitors for heart, respiration, blood pressure; the IV pumps; the oxygen; all of these are amazing to watch as they keep an electronic "eye" on the body systems and give help to those systems that are failing. We got a chance to watch Mom's heart rate as it bounced up and down in an alarming way and slowly began to fall back into a range more acceptable to her doctors.
The favorite single piece of technology was something dubbed a COW...(Computer On Wheels). It's a stand (with wheels of course) that holds a laptop with a place to put a patient's chart, little drawers that pull out for a place to use a mouse, a barcode reader for the patient's ID bracelet, it holds the electrical hookup and can be adjusted up and down. It can go anywhere the staff needs it, they can use it standing or sitting. It looks a bit ungainly, but seems to be well adapted to what is needed. Perhaps later on the footprint can be made smaller and some good industrial design can make it look more streamlined.
My surgery took place in a stainless steel technology-laden, OR set up especially for eye surgery. Computerized machinery is everywhere, and the setup for microsurgery is completely amazing. The surgeon is watching on a computer screen while he manipulates tiny instruments in a patient's eye. I was there as a follow up from surgery last May to reattach my torn retina. The amount of care and attention to details that technology allows people in this discipline of medicine has given their patients with eye difficulties good prognosis and literally the gift of sight. I could write pages on the way technology touches us in keeping our eyes healthy and able to see that weren't around ten years ago.
In conclusion I'd like to mention one more unexpected bit of technology that has helped me this week. I was searching for a way to keep track of the times to take my eye drop medications. The alarm feature on my cell phone is working out swimmingly.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
First Post
Ok, so this is blogging? Feels a little awkward, this will take some getting used to... but there's always editing and deleting right?
Thing #2 7 1/2 Habits of Lifelong Learners
What was easiest habit from the Lifelong Learner's? Setting goals is probably the easiest. It's no problem to say, "I think I'd like to do this". It's another to actually get it to happen!
The most difficult is to teach/mentor others. I have always been happier as a student and having to be responsible for others learning is an uncomfortable place for me.
The most difficult is to teach/mentor others. I have always been happier as a student and having to be responsible for others learning is an uncomfortable place for me.
Thing #3 Set Up Your Blog and Add Your First Post
Week 2 (perhaps) Since I've been taking a while to read and understand what 23 Things is all about I've been working for maybe 3 weeks now. It took a week to decide to jump in. I'm very happy with how this is going. Using Blogger is fun and easy to do. Yipee!
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