davidrothman.net

My brother, Andrew, a Web developer, is a very clever guy and a fan of woot.com.

Recently, he bought a digital picture frame from Woot that can be fed photos via RSS- as a gift to my parents.

The clever bit is where each of my siblings created a Flickr or Photobucket account in which to post photos of grandchildren. The feeds from each of these accounts was combined in Yahoo Pipes so that, once the frame is set up on my folks’ WiFi network, any new photos posted appear in their digital photo frame.

What a great way for a geographically dispersed family to keep grandparents updated.

My mom called to tell me how much she liked it, and I made a point of noting it was Andrew’s clever idea. All I did was mash the feed together in Yahoo Pipes.

I love technology when it is used intelligently.

December 26th, 2009 | Category: Fun, Personal, RSS/Feeds | Comments (14)

I read you had a heart attack!

Yeah, I just recently read that myself.

How are you feeling?

Thanks for asking. I’m feeling very grateful that I have *not* had a heart attack.

Are you sure? I could swear that I read you had a heart attack.

I’m pretty sure. I checked.

David H. Rothman of TeleRead DID have a heart attack. I don’t know him well, but on the many occasions where a confused emailer has been routed from one of us to the other, he’s always been awfully pleasant. Best wishes to David and his family for a speedy recovery.

If you’re not ill, why haven’t you been blogging?

I have noticed a pattern: Those who have asked me this question generally do not have children. Those who have ever had a new baby at home don’t bother to ask- they correctly assume that all of my priorities have been radically shaken up. I’ll probably resume blogging when things settle down and I figure out where in my order of priorities this blog figures.

October 7th, 2008 | Category: Personal | Comments (8)

Aw. Because Simon arrived a bit early, I failed to note this blog’s second blogaversary earlier this month.

I’ll eventually get back to regular posting (perhaps when Simon is sleeping longer hours?), but I wanted briefly to thank y’all for reading. It wouldn’t be nearly as much fun without you.

Some facty-figurish things:

There are currently 1,024 posts (which makes an average of more than 9 posts/week for the last two years) and 2,115 comments.

Akismet has caught 148,927 spam comments. Wow. Helps me love Akismet.

Feed Subscribers (via FeedBurner):

July 20th, 2008 | Category: Blogging, Personal | Comments (2)

Born at 5:30 AM today, weighing in at 6 lbs 3 oz. I uploaded the following embedded video quickly for distant grandparents:

Music is You Ruined Everything by Jonathan Coulton

Liz and Simon are both doing great.

I will likely not be blogging for a while and will be slower in answering email than usual. Thanks in advance for your understanding.

Tired and very happy,

-David

June 22nd, 2008 | Category: Personal, Video | Comments (35)

Too buried to write much about it, but I suspect I’ll blog very little between now and the end of May. I decided today that rather than feeling guilty (as I have for the last couple weeks) about not blogging, I would consider this a well-deserved vacation after averaging about 1.5 posts per day for the last two years.

Hope you feel the same way and will be here when regular posting resumes.

Thanks!

-David

April 30th, 2008 | Category: Personal | Comments (1)

(The title of this post was going to be “Ambulatory and with Tremors,” but figured I’d be the only one amused by it.)

So Library Journal named me one of their 2008 Movers & Shakers.

(I’m curious: Are those named in this annual list all people who either move OR shake or people who both move AND shake? If the former, am I a mover or a shaker?)

Library Journal’s navigation makes it impossible to browse the profiles by name, so Jessamyn West sensibly made a version of the list with names.

Thank you to Melissa Rethlefsen for nominating me!

UPDATE:
Bobbi Newman has borrowed Jessmyn’s list and added links to the blogs of 2008 Movers & Shakers. Interesting how many of them have blogs, isn’t it?

March 16th, 2008 | Category: Personal, Shameless Self-Promotion | Comments (8)

Photos from rehearsal for the Webcast:


Dale Prince really likes his iPhone. So do I, actually.


What may not be immediately obvious to those who have not met him is that Bart actually has a halo that is visible in person.


Michelle agrees with me that Dale rocks.

March 5th, 2008 | Category: "Social Software", For Medical Libraryfolk, Personal, Professional Development, Teaching/Training, Technology | Comments (4)

Okay!

Monday through Wednesday this week I’ll be in Chicago for the MLA Webcast.

My wife is leaving on Friday for 10 days overseas (she’s taking 7 students to Madrid, Barcelona and Paris to study Picasso!).

So…when I’m not in Chicago or at work, I’ll be wanting to spend time with Liz.

I think this means I’m taking the week off from blogging, but reserve the right to change my mind.

Have a great week!

March 2nd, 2008 | Category: Personal | Comments (1)

Okay. To my great surprise, it looks like I actually have a chance at winning this award (previously mentioned here and here).

At the moment, I’m trailing Berci’s ScienceRoll- but not by a great margin.

This sort of contest is really about how many people one can motivate to go vote for one’s own endeavor- so the fact that I’m closing on Berci is probably due in no small part to bloggers like Michael Stephens, Wouter Gerritsma, Blake Carver, Zagreus Ammon (blogging under a pseudonym at Physician Executive) and Steven Cohen for encouraging others to vote for my blog.

If you haven’t yet, please head over to vote for davidrothman.net?

Thank you!

January 14th, 2008 | Category: Blogging, For Medical Libraryfolk, LibWorm, Personal, Technology | Comments (5)

It seems to me that every time I say that I’m going to take a break from (or reduce the frequency of) my blogging, I make myself a liar shortly thereafter. This time I’ll choose my words more carefully:

I have a lot to do between now and January 2nd and need to focus on those projects when I’m not working at the hospital or meeting holiday obligations.

I don’t plan to post anything between now and January 2, 2008. However, I reserve the right to amend my plans if I am moved by news of events to do so.

So there.

Thanks for reading in 2007- See you in 2008!

December 17th, 2007 | Category: Blogging, Personal | Comments (2)

I’m not ashamed to admit that I get a kick out of seeing my name or work in published books or journals.

But the most recent issue of the Journal of the European Association for Health Information and Libraries (2007, Vol 3, Issue 4) caught me by surprise. Oliver Obst’s “Web 2.0″ column, Notes from the Blogosphere (Page 60-61) included the following:

David Rothman is one of the most indefatigable bloggers around, and as a result his blog: davidrothman.net – Exploring Medical Librarianship and Web Geekery is the only one which is ranked in the top 10 healthcare blogs worldwide.(12) Congratulations! However, David recently suffered a spontaneous pneumothorax(13) and had to slow down blogging for some time. Now – back again at his job – he felt seriously pooped.(14) Nevertheless, his personal experience taught us much about thoracic surgery and NEJM videos on chest-tube insertion(15) as well as the benefits of the generous use of anaesthesia and conscious sedation.

Oliver is very kind and I’m grateful for the chuckle.

…Now I just need to find a way to work the word “indefatigable” into my résumé…

November 8th, 2007 | Category: Blogging, E-Journals, For Medical Libraryfolk, Personal, Technology | Comments (2)

So I’m very glad to be back at work full-time after my recent fun with a spontaneous pneumothorax and thoracic surgery, but I’m also really, really tired.

This is very inconvenient because I have a lot on my plate at the moment and I’m feeling a little overwhelmed.

So, I plan to blog significantly less for the foreseeable future. I expect I’ll get back up to normal posting frequency eventually, but probably not in 2007. Hope you’ll bear with me in the meanwhile.

If you’re in the habit of checking the blog daily to see if there are updates, you might instead consider subscribing to the feed or to emailed updates (see form on the blog’s right sidebar) so you are notified when there is something new to read here.

If you have emailed me in the last week or so and are still waiting for a reply, please accept my apologies and know that I absolutely *will* reply when I get caught up.

October 16th, 2007 | Category: Personal, Technology | Comments (4)

Knowing that I recently had a chest tube, Rachel thought (correctly) that I’d be interested to know that the latest video from NEJM is on Chest-Tube Insertion.

I was under conscious sedation for mine, so I learned a lot from this.

The most important thing that I learned from the video is immense gratitude to Dr. Lim (the surgical resident who inserted my chest tube) for her generous use of anaesthesia and conscious sedation. Yikes. Just watching the video made me cringe a few times. Thank you, Dr. Lim. Thank you, thank you, thank you. A hundred times: thank you.

Video
PDF

October 12th, 2007 | Category: For Medical Libraryfolk, Personal, Video | Comments Off

Congratulations to my friend Mary Carmen Chimato on being selected for the ALA’s Emerging Leaders 2008 program!

October 6th, 2007 | Category: Personal | Comments (1)