Don’t have an OCR application handy at your place of work to read the text of a scanned page? No problem.
What is OCR Terminal?
OCR Terminal is a free online Optical Character Recognition service that allows you to convert scanned images and PDFs into editable and text searchable documents. It accurately preserves formatting and layout of documents.
Free, requires sign-up.
In this video, 4th-year medical student Ryan MacDonald demonstrates how he uses Evernote as his “medical peripheral brain.”
So cool. 
I’m not sure what to make of WebPax.com…but at first glance, it seems really cool to have a Web-based service for viewing images in DICOM format. I know at least a couple of physicians who will want to try it out right away for sharing the occasional scan with a colleague from a distance.
I *do* like that DICOM files are anonymized as they are uploaded. DICOM tags are cleared and…
• The year and month are not modified
• The day is set to the first of the month
• The time is set to midnightThe patient’s birth date is set to January 1, 1970
I’ll say this much: If I kept a digital personal health record in an online service, I’d want to be able to view DICOMs in it with this kind of tool. Google needs to buy these guys or build a comparable tool. Maybe that’s what they and IBM can work on next.
So the book is getting some attention!
Internet Cool Tools for Physicians is in Google Book Search
Stephen Francoeur made this little video:
The Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the MLA mentioned it on their blog.
The MLA’s Taskforce on Social Networking Software posted about it, calling it “…an accessible, illustrated and contemporary guide to online tools in medicine.”
Laika, whose blog has quickly become one of my favorite MedLib blogs, mentioned it, as did Creaky.
I’m watching WorldCat.org with interest to see which libraries are getting it (though Duke’s copy doesn’t show up yet).
Dr. Shock (MD, PhD) gave it a very nice review.
I’m lucky to count as friends people like Meredith Farkas and Michael Stephens, both of whom thought the book worthy of mention on their very popular blogs.
Gosh- Brandi blogged about it way back in August- well before it as released!
I’m pleased to see mention of it in languages other than English.
The President and CEO of Community General Hospital blogged about it.
It has gotten some buzz on Twitter.
We’re anxious to hear any feedback you have about the book- please let us know what you think….and what you think needs to be added or changed for the second edition!
Got my hands on my copies of the book today! How exciting!
Yay!
You can buy a copy from:
Springer Publishing
or here:
I’m looking forward to eventually seeing it in WorldCat.
Congratulations to Melissa Rethlefsen (who wrote a heck of a lot more than I did)! You should really go email Melissa now and tell her how much she rocks.
My apologies to the awfully nice folks who attended the CE course I taught at UNYOC a couple of weeks ago! I’ve taken far too long to get these slides posted:
Also: I’ll be on a panel at NYLA tomorrow (Friday, 11/6/2008) afternoon at 4:00 PM- please say hello if you’re going to be there! As usual at these sorts of things, I’ll know almost nobody. But hey- I might get to meet Polly Farrington!
Reminder: Liz’s due date is July 10th. Please forgive my one-track mind.
Wanting to track labor (or false labor) contractions, I made an Excel spreadsheet. The first two columns record the time a contraction starts and the time it ends, the third and fourth columns (duration and frequency) calculate automatically.
I thought this was fine until Liz discovered ContractionMaster.com
All you have to do is hit the spacebar when a contraction begins or ends and ContractionMaster will mark the times and calculate the contraction duration and frequency.
My only complaint is that it has no method of output. What if I wanted to take the history it records to the Certified Nurse Midwife? I can’t export the data it records to a file, I can’t copy-and-paste the history from the site to a text file or Excel, and I can’t print without taking a screen capture.
Anyone know of a better option?
David Rothman
Amanda Etches-Johnson
Melissa Rethlefsen
Bart Ragon
Patricia Anderson (whose slides I always find worth a look) put up a new presentation yesterday:
An email conversation with a medical librarian recently reminded me that I’ve been meaning to make a list of the free online tools for working with PDFs that I’ve bookmarked.
Site also has free tools for converting URLs to PDF and for converting PDF to .doc
BookletCreator is a free online tool that allows to create a booklet from a PDF document. It reorders pages so that after printing and folding the pages you get a small book.
This is far from a comprehensive list. Do you have a favorite that isn’t mentioned?
The screencast below (made with Screencast-O-Matic) shows how to make a screencast…with Screencast-O-Matic.
Viewing the embedded screencast below (and recording new ones) requires Java.
Why should libraryfolk care about screencasting? Let Paul Pival help answer that question.
[EDIT] I’m out of invites- but do check out Freebase when you get a chance! [/EDIT]
So I’m in on the alpha of Freebase.com and have a couple of invitations to give away.
It would be interesting for any Web enthusiast to check out, but would be especially exciting if you’re a developer who likes to play with APIs. Does that sound like you?
The first two people who drop me an email at the address on this blog’s right sidebar will get an invitation.
What’s Freebase.com? Think of it as a Wikipedia for structured data with powerful API tools that’ll let you build applications from it. It appears to be insanely cool.
Free + Database = Freebase
It’s about film, sports, politics, music, science and everything else all connected together. Our contributors are collecting data from all over the internet to build a massive, collaboratively-edited database of cross-linked data. It’s a big job and we’re just getting started.
Built by diabetics for diabetics, SugarStats provides a simple, completely web-based and clean interface to track, monitor and access your glucose levels and diabetic statistics to spot dangerous trends and better manage your diabetic lifestyle.
You input and access your info via a web browser so no matter where you are you have easy access.
…
With SugarStats you can track your blood sugar glucose levels along with the elements that effect those levels such as medication, food intake and physical activity. You can then easily share this information with your health care professional, family and friends to get further consultation and advice to better your health.
With SugarStats you will be able to:
* Bring your readings online. Get rid of that pen & paper log!
* Track & manage meds, foods and activity
* Drill down into specific timeframes to get a clear picture
* Visualize your progress with easy to read graphs and trends
* Share your statistics with your family, friends or doctor
* Access your info from any modern web browsers
* Have a clear and easy-to-use interface to view your stat
Take the tour to see more of what SugarStats has planned.
How do physicians who treat diabetics like this idea? I have been told that Ob/Gyns generally appreciate that TCoYF/Ovusoft helps patients time efforts for conception and can help provide the physician with detailed charting of the patient’s activities. Would applications like these be welcome by physicians in a number of other specialties?
I’ll bet BibMe will be a big hit on college campuses in the fall.
Welcome to BibMe! The fully automatic bibliography maker that auto-fills. It’s the quickest way to build a works cited page. And it’s free.
- Search for a book, article, website, or film from our database, or enter the information yourself.
- Add it to your bibliography.
- Download your bibliography in either the MLA, APA, or Chicago formats and include it in your paper.
BibMe was developed as part of a Software Development project course in the Information Systems department of Carnegie Mellon University. Team Exibeans worked on this project during the spring semester of 2007, spending roughly 15 weeks building the system. Using a slick combination of Ruby on Rails and AJAX, we were able to create a bibliography generating application and provide you with this great service for free!
Works pretty well, though I had problems finding newspaper articles by title.
(If you’re reading this post in an aggregator, you’ll need to visit the blog to see this work.)
To see a demonstration of what Bubble Guru does, click here.
(Has audio- adjust the volume on your speakers to be appropriate to your environment)
Try it yourself: http://www.bubbleguru.com/
Resources from Judy Burnham, used to teach her class for the 2007 Medical Association of Alabama Meeting:
These are definitely worth flipping through if you have even a casual interest in the application of Web technologies to medicine. I like to consider myself well-informed on the topic, but a handful of the resources Judy notes are new to me.
Many thanks, Judy!
My friend Saul (not his real name) is a pretty capable computer user on both Windows and Macs, but not a fan of television or pop culture.
Saul recently decided to try out Mozy, an online backup service that I’ve used and liked. He noticed something weird in the EULA, though, and decided to email Mozy’s creators (Berkeley Data Systems) about it. He wrote to BDS:
Hi – I just thought that the highlighted passages in this segment of the Mac OSX beta version’s software license agreement might be of interest to you. FYI – I downloaded this yesterday.
“WITHOUT LIMITING THE FOREGOING, THE TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY OF BERKELEY DATA SYSTEMS AND ITS SUPPLIERS ARISING FROM OR RELATED TO THIS AGREEMENT SHALL NOT EXCEED THE AMOUNT, IF ANY, PAID BY YOU TO BERKELEY DATA SYSTEMS FOR THE SOFTWARE OR SERVICES. FURTHERMORE, YOU AGREE TO USE THE SOFTWARE OR SERVICE EXCLUSIVELY FOR GOOD AND FOR AWESOME. IF THE SOFTWARE AND SERVICES ARE PROVIDED WITHOUT CHARGE, THEN BERKELEY DATA SYSTEMS AND ITS SUPPLIERS SHALL HAVE NO LIABILITY TO YOU WHATSOEVER.
THE FOREGOING LIMITATIONS OF LIABILITY SHALL APPLY WHETHER THE DAMAGES ARISE FROM USE OR MISUSE OF AND RELIANCE ON THE SOFTWARE OR SERVICE, FROM INABILITY TO USE THE SOFTWARE OR SERVICE, OR FROM THE INTERRUPTION, SUSPENSION, OR TERMINATION OF THE SOFTWARE OR SERVICE (INCLUDING SUCH DAMAGES INCURRED BY THIRD PARTIES). DO NOT TAUNT HAPPY FUN BALL. SUCH LIMITATION SHALL APPLY NOTWITHSTANDING A FAILURE OF ESSENTIAL PURPOSE OF ANY LIMITED REMEDY AND TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW.”
Saul didn’t get the joke because he’s not an early 90s SNL fan. “Happy Fun Ball” is a reference to a Saturday Night Live parody advertisement in which a product with a bouncy, cheerful name comes with dire, absurd warnings. It is meant to mock consumer safety warnings, EULAs, and our litigious society. You can watch video of the sketch here.
It’s a fun thing to throw into the license agreement. It is clever and pleasantly silly. It made me chuckle.
But rather than simply explaining the joke to Saul, president and founder Josh Coates wrote:
[saul], thanks for asking.
i’m not an attorney, but here’s my take on things:
the way i read it, it simply means that you are not to taunt (which means to tease or make fun of) happy fun ball. it’s against the end user license agreement. if you do so, you will be in violation of the agreement.
as far as the “for good and for awesome” reference goes, i believe this statement simply means that the user agrees to use the software of good and for awesome, where good means something that conforms to the moral order of the universe, or something that advances prosperity or well-being and awesome means something that inspires awe. in other words, the user agrees to use the software for both good and awesome purposes.
hope that clarifies things for you.
-josh
Josh Coates
President, Founder
Mozy.com, Berkeley Data Systems, Inc.
jcoates@berkeleydata.net
A user who cares enough to take the time to write to the creators is the sort of user who will show the product to his friends. He’s the kind of user who, receiving positive response from the creators, will find his enthusiasm for the product enhanced.
Sending Saul the “ha-ha-you’re-not-savvy-to-my-pop-culture-smartassery” email isn’t just unprofessional and rude. It’s remarkably stupid.
Let this please be a lesson to anyone who receives communiques from end users. This is opposite of how to behave.
Not new, but new to me.
Check out this great big list of online Office applications.
It isnt a complete list of what is available, but is still pretty impressive.
I’m not the first to blog about these and I certainly won’t be the last, but I wanted to say a few brief “me too’s”:
I’m going to order Social Software in Libraries…
…and not just because Meredith mentions LibWorm in Chapter Three, either! I’m going to order it because Meredith’s writings on technology (at both her own blog and at TechEssence) are smart, clear and practical- and they don’t leave out the human element. I expect her book will have similar qualities.
I won’t go so far as to recommend that others purchase a book that I haven’t myself yet read, but I will say that I am definitely ordering my copy the instant I can.[1]. [Other biblioblog chatter about this book]
I will also need to buy a copy of Phil Bradley’s new book, How to Use Web 2.0 in Your Library[2]:
Like Meredith’s book, Phil’s has a companion Web site, and also mentions LibWorm (curiously, also in Chapter Three). I subscribe to Phil’s blog and routinely learn new things from him, so I can’t be without this book. I just hope it gets published in the States, too- the exchange rates from Pound to Dollar and shipping from the U.K. are probably going to be painful.
Lastly, I’m going to order a copy of this book [3]:
While I don’t yet have any indication that it mentions LibWorm ( 
) and I’m still not yet wholly comfortable with the term “Library 2.0″, everything I’ve read that Casey and/or Savastinuk have written on the topic has been thought-provoking, required reading. I wouldn’t miss getting my own copy for any reason. [Other biblioblog chatter about this book]
If I read German, I’d also want a copy of this book by Oliver Obst.
__________________________
[1] – It goes without saying that if Meredith wants to send me a copy, I will of course devour it and write a detailed review.
[2] – Naturally, the same offer is extended to Phil.
[3] – Ditto for Michael and Laura.
I’d also be willing to write a review for a publication if it means I get to keep a copy of any of these.
(I’m subtle, huh? My subtlety is inversely proportionate to my budget for discretionary spending.)
Web 2.0 in Libraries: Theory and Practice
SLA Click University Live
From 1/10/2007
Web 2.0 in Libraries: The Tools of Web 2.0
SLA Click University Live
From 1/24/2007
