Allscripts CEO honored with lifetime achievement award

ACHIEVEMENTS

The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) Foundation, which represents more than 1,400 of the healthcare industry’s leading CIOs, named Glen Tullman, CEO of Allscripts, the 2011 winner of its Lifetime Achievement Award. Presented Oct. 27 at the CHIME11 Fall CIO Forum in San Antonio, Texas, the award recognizes contributions to the healthcare IT industry throughout the recipient’s entire career. CHIME cited Tullman as “one of the nation’s leading advocates for the electronic, real-time sharing of healthcare information to improve patient care, lower costs and drive collaboration among physicians, hospitals and others in the healthcare community.”

New Kindle Family Priced from $79-$199

If you haven’t jumped into the eBook reader environment yet then maybe one of these new Kindle products will entice you to finally make the leap.

Amazon’s new ad subsidized Kindle for $79 has dropped the keyboard, shrunk the overall size, still has Wi-Fi and a faster processor.

• Lighter, More Compact Than Ever-Less than 6 ounces.-Lighter than a paperback, fits in your pocket.
• Holds 1,400 Books-Carry up to 1,400 books-keep your library with you wherever you go.
• Most Advanced E Ink Display-Kindle's high-contrast E Ink display delivers clear, crisp text and images.
• Read in Bright Sunlight-Kindle's E Ink screen reads like real paper, with no glare. Read as easily in bright sunlight as in your living room.
• One Month Battery Life-No battery anxiety - read for up to one month on a single charge with wireless off and a half hour of reading per day.
• Books in 60 seconds-Find a book and start reading in seconds with our fast, free wireless delivery.
• Built-In Wi-Fi-Connect to Wi-Fi hotspots at home or on the road. Includes free Wi-Fi access at AT&T hotspots across the U.S.
• Simple to Use-Kindle is ready to use right out of the box - no setup, no software to install, no computer required to download content.
• Adjustable Text Sizes-Read comfortably with eight different sizes and three font styles.
• Faster Page Turns-Kindle's powerful processor is tuned for fast, seamless page turns.
• PDF and Personal Documents-Email personal documents and PDFs direct to your Kindle to read and annotate on-the-go.
• Massive Selection-Over 1 million books, newspapers, and magazines, including latest bestsellers, Kindle exclusives, and more.
• Low Book Prices-Over 800,000 books are $9.99 or less.
• Free, Out-of-Copyright Books-Millions of free, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 titles such as Pride and Prejudice are available.
• Free Book Samples-Download and read first chapters for free before you decide to buy.
• Borrow From Your Public Library-Borrow Kindle books from your public library and start reading on your Kindle.
• Free Cloud Backup-We automatically back up your library in the cloud, so you never need to worry about losing your books. Re-download wirelessly anytime for free.
• Buy Once, Read Everywhere-Kindle books can be read on your Kindle, iPhone, iPad, Android devices, BlackBerry, Windows Phone 7, Mac, PC, or web browser with our free Kindle Reading Apps.
• Whispersync-Our Whispersync technology synchronizes your last page read, bookmarks and annotations across your devices so you can always pick up where you left off.

Most of these features flow through to all of the new Kindles. Their mid-range unit has a touch screen and still no keyboard. It is priced at $99 for Wi-Fi only and $149 with 3G. The older Kindle unit has the keyboard and is priced at $99/$139 for Wi-Fi/Wi-Fi 3G respectively. The Kindle Fire has a color Screen, is Wi-Fi only and is priced at $199. Battery lengths vary from model to model and if you are concerned about this you may want to take another look at the specs on this page: Kindle Specs. The Kindle Fire only has an 8 hour continuous reading spec compared to 1 and 2 months for the entry level and mid range touch units.

The Kindle Fire also supports playback of movies as well as apps, games, music, reading and more. It is also using the Amazon cloud-accelerated web browser which may not work with security type connections on the internet.

Movies, apps, games, music, reading and more, plus Amazon's revolutionary, cloud-accelerated web browser

• 18 million movies, TV shows, songs, magazines, and books
• Amazon Appstore - thousands of popular apps and games
• Ultra-fast web browsing - Amazon Silk

• Free cloud storage for all your Amazon content
• Vibrant color touchscreen with extra-wide viewing angle
• Fast, powerful dual-core processor
• Amazon Prime members enjoy unlimited, instant streaming of over 10,000 popular movies and TV shows

Quite a few choices. Let me know what you think.

The Chemical That Makes Food Fresh For Forever

Take a look at this article discussing a food preservative that is found naturally that could extend the shelf life of food by years.. Sounds scary to me and totally unappetizing. Bizin may be finding its way into our food supply within the next three years. While commercially this sounds great, I can’t help but feel there will be something lost in allowing food to stick around for that long.

The Chemical That Makes Food Fresh For Forever

HP giving up on WebOS…

I never saw much hope in the WebOS devices succeeding for HP anyway but they sure dropped this product quicker than I expected. I am now seeing this tablet available from BestBuy on Fire Sales for $99.99 and $149.99 respectively for the 16 and 32GB versions. I was half tempted to pick up the 16GB version but thankfully thought better of throwing money down the drain like that. I really don’t need another museum piece.

Adding to HP’s woes is their discussion of spinning off their consumer PC business as well because of the low profitability. I have read that their margin is a low 5.7%.

Take a look at these links to learn more:

• Hewlett-Packard gives up on webOS - GigaOM — Tech News, Analysis and Trends
• HP will 'discontinue operations for webOS devices', may spin off Personal Systems Group – Engadget
• HP washing its hands of webOS: discontinues tablets, Pre phones - Ars Technica

SKYPE Miscue Dashes Short-Term Euphoria over Native iPad App

In the time that it took me to drive to work, Skype has now become available again in the iTunes store. So, everything I wrote down below is for naught. I wonder how long it will be up before they take it down again?

I was looking at TNT's REDDIT List and I got real excited when I saw that one of the headlines listed the release of a Native iPad App for both the iPad1 & iPad2. So, what did I Immediately do but jumped out of my browser over to my App icon to immediately download it to my iPad. What to my surprise, there was none listed there! So, I jumped to my iPad2 to see if it was a version issue, you know, no camera on the iPad1, but no, no joy there either!

So I scurry over to the Skype Site and there was absolutely nothing over there either. It turns out that I must only see what I want to see because further up in the list was a headline announcing that Skype pulled this App shortly after being released stating that it wasn't ready for prime time yet. How disappointing! Skype promises to rerelease it soon but it isn't giving an exact date at this point.

Well Skype, here is one user that is anxiously waiting for this release so please hurry up!

The download only took a minute to acquire and when I logged in all of my contacts from my account automatically loaded. It has a simple interface and makes good use of the entire screen. My first use was to contact my niece who has just arrived in Chile this weekend as an Exchange Student. Tonight I will put to the test with video on my iPad2 when my wife and I give her a little call. This is going to be fun!

Here is the down and dirty:

1. You now have video calling over 3G and WiFi as well as IM and voice only calls.
2. If you have purchased a land line account you can even make phone calls to land lines for the cost of your subscription or use your Skype credits if you wish.
3. Calling a Contact in your list is simple, just tap the contact and pick how you wish to contact them.
4. The History Tab gives you access to your most recent conversations and if you are running multiple device like I do a lot, an IM is showing up instantly on all of them simultaneously. For example, I auto load Skype on all of my PC’s because it is one of the methods I use most in talking to my customers. When I was testing out the iPad App this morning using IM I noticed that all of the messaging was showing up there as well. This means that I can setup all of my mobile devices to use Skype off of the same account and I can have multiple people using the devices at the same time to facilitate group discussions.
5. Call Skype contacts on their iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, PC, Mac and even Skype enabled TVs.
6. Talk face-to-face or show what you’re seeing with front and back-facing cameras.
7. I have had a landline subscription for a long time that gives you free coast-to-coast telephone access as well as a callable landline for less than $100/year. This expands the personal and business use incredibly.

Free United Airlines app turns iOS devices into mobile boarding passes | ZDNet

Here is yet another example of the world inching towards a paperless environment. I would love to see a lot more of  happening with other industries as well. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to use your phone as your primary money dispensing device? I would love to be at the checkout line and be able to use my phone without having to dig for my wallet and then the right card that the vendor will take. Just let me pass my phone through a device that will allow me to authenticate the payment and then continue on my merry way…

Free United Airlines app turns iOS devices into mobile boarding passes | ZDNet

What is a Zettabyte?

recent Engadget post demonstrated just how big a Zettabyte is. Cisco things that by 2015 will be the commencement of the Zettabyte era. Other ways to visualize how big a Zettabyte is:

“you can alternatively think of it as the equivalent of 250 billion DVDs, 36 million years of HD video, or the volume of the Great Wall of China if you allow an 11oz cup of coffee to represent a gigabyte of data. So "zetta" must be Greek for one hell of a lot, but what Cisco expects is that we'll be pushing that much information around the web each year by 2015.”

I still can get a sense of how big a terabyte is, and I can barely imagine the amount of storage that a single petabyte is.But going up two more factors to get to a zettabyte is just mind boggling and to think we will be pushing that much data around the Internet in another couple of years is amazing.

Astaro Acquisition by Sophos Completed

We received an email detailing primarily that there will be little change in the overall function that we have with Astaro and the products that we work with from them. What we will see is a different email format for our contacts, a new logo and updated marketing material but for the most part it will be business as usual.

We look forward to the expanded product line and adding the long list of Sophos products to our arsenal. As we become more familiar with these products look for more information in this blog as we explore these new products.

Astaro Version 7

From the Astaro Blog:

Astaro will continue to support the release V7 of ASG, AMG and AWG for 18 months after that date, until it’s End-of-Life on December 31st, 2012. Support includes bug and security fixes (System Up2Dates) and Pattern Up2Dates and technical support (via web form and phone).

If a customer decides to renew for longer than a year now, we should plan on upgrading them to V8.  The process takes approximately 1 hr, if everything goes smoothly.

1. Clone existing Astaro to new hard-drive.

2. Load version 8.

3. Restore config file.

Comcast introduces a new malware detection service

I received a new service announcement from Comcast discussing a new detection service to look for “bots” that may have infected your system. These bots can create bottlenecks on their system if present and this is probably the reason that they are instituting this new service. It will be interesting to see how effective this service will be.

Dear Valued Customer, We know that protecting your identity and using the internet safely are both very important concerns for you. The most prevalent threat to your personal information on the internet today is a Bot! A Bot, also referred to as malicious software or malware, is used to gain control of your computer, typically without your knowledge. Online criminals can use Bots to collect your Social Security numbers, bank account information, and/or credit card numbers by monitoring your keystrokes. Constant Guard is a service provided to you at no additional charge as part of your Comcast High Speed Internet subscription. As a new feature of the Constant Guard™ service, if we believe one or more of your computers may be infected with a Bot, we may present to you in your browser a Comcast Service Notice (see example below). The notice will encourage you to take immediate action by visiting https://constantguard.comcast.net for self help instructions or professional assistance.

Protect your personal information with the Constant Guard Protection Suite, Click Here. Need to remove a Bot or malware? Visit the Constant Guard Center Need the latest information and tips on security issues? Visit the Security Website Need to contact Comcast Security? Get Help

Don't be fooled by faked virus alerts, along with the Comcast Service Notice, we will also send a Bot Notification email alert to your Comcast primary email address. This alert will be marked with the Comcast brand below (see below). The brand symbol indicates the email is "verified" to be safe by Comcast. Ensuring your online safety and security is our top priority. While we hope you do not encounter a BOT on your computer, we want you to be rest assured that we will help you detect and remove it. For more information on the Constant Guard program, and how Comcast is protecting you online, please visit http://xfinity.com/constantguard. Sincerely, Comcast Customer Security Assurance

University of Ottawa -- Delivering Multimedia to 100 iPads

Here is a quick note to show how Wi-Fi networks can truly deliver a reliable Wi-Fi experience on tablets and smartphones. There was a recent deployment at University of Ottawa where they ran 6 multimedia applications across 100 iPads in 1 room!

The goal was to baseline performance of Wi-Fi networks for the influx of mobile devices. This was made possible with Aruba’s 802.11n Wi-Fi, which is the industry’s first and only solution to be validated with real-time multimedia apps over iPads. This test offers a model for not just Higher Education, but also any enterprise that needs to support mobile devices and voice/video applications.

Click here to read more and watch the 3 minute video. Please contact us directly to see how this can be relevant for network planning decisions.

Visit our website for more information

Jude Daigle

Special News: Astaro joins Sophos

Astaro announced that Sophos and Astaro have signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by Sophos. Together with Sophos they will offer a complete security solution, deliver protection regardless of where the use is, what device they are using, or where the company’s network boundary may lie.

With more than 100 million users in 150 countries, Sophos is the fastest growing of the three largest endpoint security companies. And with more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.

Astaro will be the network security product line within Sophos and will be able to leverage a global brand and a larger organization with complementary technologies. We will stay very focused on high quality network security products and their role in what will be the industry's first coordinated gateway and endpoint security solution.

We see this as a positive change giving both companies the products that each needs to widen their security support.

Who is Epsilon and why does it have your data?

If you haven’t received an email from one of your credit card companies or favorite online stores this past week consider yourself lucky because the majority of us have. In an article written by Elinor Mills of CNET today, Elinor goes into great depth describing the how's and why’s of the professional email industry in marketing most the the major corporate lenders and many of your favorite retailers and service companies. Take a look at what Elinor has to say about this security breech and what it might mean to you. Be sure to take what you feel are appropriate actions to protect yourself. This article outlines several things that you can do to protect yourself. As always be careful how you work with unsolicited email and be sure to act intelligently so as not to put yourself into a position to make it easy to be a victim of scams and identity theft.

How Serious is the RSA Breach?

In an open letter to RSA Customers, Arthur W. Coviello, Jr, executive chairman of RSA discussed the recent attack classified as an APT (Advanced Persistent Threat). Their investigation revealed the attack resulted in certain information being extracted from their system.

Click to read more ...

Good Reason for putting up Video Surveillance Cameras

Chicago Surveillance expert catches neighbor stealing his shovel and takes revenge on her.

States that he would have gladly loaned her his shovel but she didn’t ask and walked away with it after using it to dig out her car. I’m not sure that I would have posted it to YouTube but it does satisfy some dastardly inner feeling to get even when someone does steals from you.

Meeting Room Size Constraints–InFocus has a Solution!

InFocus  has long been known for being a leader in projector technology. February 7th they announced a new product the IN146 short throw projector that will allow you to display a 60-inch image from as little as 2.5 feet away. This projector has native WXGA (1280 x 800) resolution and  2,700 lumens brightness. With the projector placed close to the wall, shadows caused by tabletop objects or presenters are virtually eliminated. Priced at about $825 this is an affordable portable projector that will meet many situations.

InFocus Press Release

I never did like AOL!

I was never one for the amount of control that AOL’s interface held you to but I could see the benefit for some people. If you were one of the people that signed up early for AOL and their phone dial up service got used to this type of thing. When broadband became available many of these people kept their accounts with AOL even though the signed on through their new broadband connection. What they didn’t realize was that they didn’t have to keep paying for that AOL account!

Nicolason Carlson from Business Insider found out that the majority of AOL’s business comes from selling the dialup internet access to people who already have internet access:

In his big New Yorker profile on AOL this week, Ken Auletta explained that 80% of the company’s profits STILL come from AOL’s subscription business.

What’s troubling about AOL’s subscription business is who the subscribers are and why they may be sticking around – in Auletta’s words, “older people who have cable or DSL service but don’t realize that they need not pay an additional $25 a month to get online and check their email.”

A former AOL exec explains that this is AOL’s “dirty little secret” – “that 75% of the people who subscribe to AOL’s dial-up service don’t need it.”

This is the sort of practice by companies that just infuriates me. I hate seeing people being taken advantage of just because they haven’t the knowledge to know what they are paying or need to be paying for. So hopefully this article will open your eyes and make you aware that you don’t need to pay for something that you don’t receive any benefit from. I remember how hard it was to cancel my account and over the years how hard it has been for our customers to do so as well. Good luck!

You want more information visit the Audio recording here or download the recording by clicking here, with Ken Auletta and his full article is available in The New Yorker January 24, 2011 edition p. 32.

Intel recalls Sandy Bridge chipsets

Intel Identifies Chipset Design Error, Implementing Solution

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Jan. 31, 2011 - As part of ongoing quality assurance, Intel Corporation has discovered a design issue in a recently released support chip, the Intel® 6 Series, code-named Cougar Point, and has implemented a silicon fix. In some cases, the Serial-ATA (SATA) ports within the chipsets may degrade over time, potentially impacting the performance or functionality of SATA-linked devices such as hard disk drives and DVD-drives. The chipset is utilized in PCs with Intel's latest Second Generation Intel Core processors, code-named Sandy Bridge. Intel has stopped shipment of the affected support chip from its factories. Intel has corrected the design issue, and has begun manufacturing a new version of the support chip which will resolve the issue. The Sandy Bridge microprocessor is unaffected and no other products are affected by this issue.

The company expects to begin delivering the updated version of the chipset to customers in late February and expects full volume recovery in April. Intel stands behind its products and is committed to product quality. For computer makers and other Intel customers that have bought potentially affected chipsets or systems, Intel will work with its OEM partners to accept the return of the affected chipsets, and plans to support modifications or replacements needed on motherboards or systems. The systems with the affected support chips have only been shipping since January 9^th and the company believes that relatively few consumers are impacted by this issue. The only systems sold to an end customer potentially impacted are Second Generation Core i5 and Core i7 quad core based systems. Intel believes that consumers can continue to use their systems with confidence, while working with their computer manufacturer for a permanent solution. For further information consumers should contact Intel at www.intel.com on the support page or contact their OEM manufacturer.

Intel is suggesting that the problem is restricted to a performance issue and cannot cause data loss. If you have either of the P67 or H67 “Cougar Point” chipsets you should contact your computer manufacturer to obtain a fixed system.

The chipsets that are in question are no longer being shipped by Intel and the company has already started manufacturing the updated versions. These should reach customers by the end of February. Intel estimates that this issue will cost them around $700 million where $300 million of that was incurred during the first quarter production interruption.

Goodbye, IPv4 | ZDNet

What a way to start the month!

NetworkWorld reports the last two IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4) addresses for the Internet have just been assigned, and, in line with predictions, we’ve run out of addresses. All new Internet addresses now employ IPv6 address spacing.

Why do we care? well as we adopt IPv6 addressing some of the older equipment that is in place may not be able to handle the new addressing scheme. Most people won’t notice because both protocols will be running in parallel for awhile but eventually you are going to run into some problems. This issue has been a point of concern since the 1990s and most systems are already designed with this change over in mind. As issues begin to come up you will want to keep in mind that this could be a problem for you.

Vint Cerf on IPv4 depletion: 'Who the hell knew how much address space we needed?'

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/26/vint-cerf-on-ipv4-depletion-who-the-hell-knew-how-much-address/

Goodbye, IPv4 | ZDNet

Logitech Couch Mouse M515

New mobile mouse from Logitech that is specifically designed for use on your couch, bed or carpet. The easy gliding bottom surface was designed to make it much easier to control your mouse movements when the mouse is being used in a non-desk environment, a situation that I find myself most of the time when using a laptop. It has a new hand detection system so that your mouse is only active when you are gripping it. So, when you shift on the couch or in bed and your mouse moves, the cursor doesn’t until you grab it again. This also helps with battery life as well.

Your couch is a place for relaxing. And sometimes, you just want to stretch out a little—especially when you’re surfing the Web on your laptop with your Logitech® Couch Mouse M515. That’s why we’ve designed this mouse so it’s only active when you want it to be—and not when you don’t.

The Couch Mouse M515 is special. Unlike most computer mice, the M515 only moves the cursor or scrolls a Web page when you grip it. (And your mouse automatically turns off—and conserves battery power—when it’s not on.) So while another mouse might turn every little slip, slide and bump into a runaway cursor or accidental click, tricky soft surfaces can’t push you and your cursor around with the Logitech Couch Mouse M515 with hand detection.

Battery life is important as well and with the use of it’s 2.4GHz wireless connection and the low profile USB connector you should expect up to two years of battery life. You don’t have to worry constantly whether you have enough charge or if you are going to run out of juice while on the road. Here are some of the features Logitech is touting as well: