HP & Intel Lunch on BYOD at #HIMSS13

I hope you will be able to join me on Tuesday March 5 for this complimentary HP & Intel Lunch Panel on BYOD at the HIMSS13 conference. You'll also have a chance to win an HP ElitePad 900 tablet PC!

While you are attending HIMSS in New Orleans, HP and Intel invite you to be our guest at an informative panel discussion over a delicious buffet lunch.

Learn more on BYOD trends in healthcare environments and discuss how BYOD can work for you with a panel of Healthcare IT experts.

What: Lunch & Learn: BYOD: Benefits, Challenges, and the Future of Mobility in Healthcare
Where: Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, Riverside Meeting Room 215
When: Tuesday, March 5, 11:30 am - 1 pm, lunch served at 11:30 am CT

Register today - seating is limited

Dr. Mark Blatt
Worldwide Medical Director, Intel

Joseph Kim, MD, MPH
President of MCM Education

Bruce Michelson
Distinguished Technologist, Hewlett Packard

The panelists will discuss how hospitals and private practice environments have implemented BYOD, the benefits of BYOD programs, and the challenges they present. You'll hear viewpoints from physician and IT perspectives on security issues surrounding BYOD and how this movement toward mobility may shape healthcare organizations in the future.

Don't miss this exciting discussion - and your chance to enter to win an HP ElitePad 900!*

Limited space available - confirm your seat today.

• Visit the HP booth # 1627
• Visit the Intel booth # 940

Follow up for HIMSS updates at @HPHealthcare, @IntelHealthIT, and #HPHIMSS

* Must be present to win.

Dr. Joseph Kim Talks Health IT Trends

In this HIMSS 13 preview, Dr. Joseph Kim (@DrJosephKim) shares his thoughts on new mobile workflow tools, the benefits of tablet computers, bring your own device (BYOD) for clinicians, and the impact that Microsoft's new Windows 8* platform will have on health IT.

HP Healthcare Mobility Tweet Up at #HIMSS13 with @DrJosephKim and @ShahidNShah #HPHIMSS

If you'll be attending the HIMSS conference in New Orleans, I hope you'll join me on Monday at the HP Healthcare Mobility Tweet Up at #HIMSS13

When: Monday, March 4, 2013 at 3:00 PM (CST)
Where: HP booth #1627 at the HIMSS Conference

Don't miss the HP Healthcare Mobility Tweet Up at #HIMSS13 on Monday, March 4 from 3 - 4 pm CT! Hosted at the HP booth (#1627) by healthcare experts Dr. Joseph Kim and Shahid Shah, this is your chance to discuss mobility in healthcare, BYOD and the security of mobile devices. Also pick up some Windows 8 tips and tricks for healthcare professionals while you're there!

***We'll also hold a drawing for Starbucks giftcards during the tweet up!***
(Randomly selected. Must be present to win.)

***Don't forget to enter into the daily HP ElitePad 900 drawing at the front desk of the booth.***

We're looking forward to chatting with you about the future of mobile healthcare technology and we're thrilled to have Dr. Joseph Kim and Shahid Shah leading the discussion! Remember to follow @HPHealthcare, @DrJosephKim, @ShahidNShah and #HPHIMSS on Twitter.

RSVP for the HP Healthcare Mobility Tweet Up now and give a shout out on Twitter using #HPHIMSS

Windows 7 Build 7048 on Samsung Q1 Ultra UMPC

I decided to give Microsoft Windows 7 another try on my little Samsung Q1 Ultra UMPC. This is the older model that is thinner but also slower. The 800 MHz processor just isn't fast enough to run Vista effectively. I have to admit that Build 7048 is much better on the Q1 Ultra. I had tested some earlier builds and they just didn't work well at all.

There is another Build of Windows 7: Build 7077. I haven't had the chance to get my hands on that version yet, but that will be my next project (maybe I'll get to it next weekend). In the meanwhile, I will play around with Build 7047 this week and write about my findings. I've been running XP on my Q1 Ultra, but this week I plan to use Windows 7. My excitement for Windows 7 has been renewed. I'm not being overly optimistic (yet), but I am hopeful that this OS may replace XP on my Q1 Ultra.

Virtual Box gets updated

If you're using a Mac and you need to run Windows, then you may want to try Virtual Box by Sun Microsystems. Speaking of Sun, when I was a student at MIT, almost all of our Athena workstations had the "Sun Microsystems" logo on the hardware. Those were the days...

Going back to the Mac - instead of getting VMware or Parallels Desktop (which will cost around $79), Virtual Box is free. That's right, it's free. And it's recently been updated to version 2.1.4. You may have also heard of Open Office. That's a free alternative to the Microsoft Office suite. All these free options are legitimate and you won't have to go to a P2P, torrent, or warez site to find any of these.

Speaking of free, have you tried Ubuntu? This is a simple Linux operating system that runs really well on laptops, desktops, and UMPC tablets. The last time I installed Ubuntu on my Samsung Q1 Ultra, it recognized the touch screen and automatically installed all the drivers for my device. It's great to see dedicated workers supporting open source projects like Virtual Box, Open Office, and Ubuntu.

Airport Technology

Airports are getting more and more sophisticated for mobile technology. I see more devices than ever before: smartphone, iPhone, BlackBerry, PDA, Treo, etc. Windows Mobile, Palm OS, RIM, and iPhone.

I expect to see lots of netbooks by the middle of this year. Right now, I just see tons of people using Macs. I'm the only one in my terminal sitting out here with a tablet PC. Everyone else has a mobile device or an Apple. I don't see a single netbook here.

Once more airlines offer Wi-Fi, I think we'll see more netbooks on the airplanes. It's so difficult to use a full-sized laptop on an airplane if the person in front of you reclines. Since I use a tablet, I can quickly take the PC and pull out my stylus to continue working if I run out of tray space.

Beta testing Windows 7 Build 7000

Now that anyone can download Windows 7 (build 7000), I'm very eager to see if Microsoft will use this public testing ground to develop a really robust operating system. I run both XP and Vista on many of my computers. I try to use Vista on all my touch-screen/tablet devices. However, I think Windows 7 will be a significant improvement over Vista.

The big question for me is: will Apple release a tablet computer this year? If so, will it run OS X? Presumably the answer is yes to both questions. If that's the case, then the demand for such a device may be extremely high, especially if it's coupled with a very user-friendly EHR application. After all, the iPhone and iPod touch are both so easy to navigate and operate. That's probably why so many PC users are switching to Apple.

Would a really large iPod touch be the perfect medical tablet?

There are floating rumors about a really large iPod touch. I mean a screen that might be 7 or even 9 inches! Would such a device be the Newton Messagepad that everyone dreamed of several years ago when all the physician technologists carried one in our pocket? (Yes, I was one of them with my Apple Newton MP2100 in my white coat pocket and my MIT brass rat on my finger).

I think it will really depend on the screen technology and the processing power. Add a touch screen or an active digitizer to the capacitive touch display, and you may have a great platform for most medical EHR/EMR software solutions. Plus, add the ability to run XP/Vista/Windows 7 and it will be a welcome addition to any doctor's office. However, I doubt that such a device would be called an iPod. Now you've built the Apple Tablet that would be a dual-boot Mac OS X /Windows with BootCamp.

I think 2009 will bring some exciting new gadgets that will take healthcare to the next level. More clinicians will be comfortable using touch-screen devices and EHR/EMR vendors will be creating CCHIT certified solutions that will be leveraging all the advances in hardware such as SSD, faster processors, and unique screen input technologies.

I'm very eager to see the Apple Tablet once it finally rolls out. Will we see it in 2009? I still miss using my Apple Newton Messagepad.

FolderShare becoming Windows Live Sync

I've been using FolderShare for several months now. It's been working fine except for the occasional blip in the system when the servers go down. Of course, FolderShare is still beta and it's free. So, can you complain about something that's free? I hope that Windows Live Sync is more robust and reliable when it launches next month.

Windows 7

The next version of Microsoft Windows will be called Windows 7.

Boring? I was expecting something like: Vista SE, or Vista 6.1

Well, it sounds like Windows 7 will be built on the main architecture that currently runs Vista. Also, Windows 7 will focus more on performance. Will that be at the expense of faster processors and more RAM? Or will Windows 7 be more efficient than Vista?

Dreaming of Windows 8

Wouldn't it be great if Windows 7 was designed to be more efficient than Windows XP? Vista was built with security in mind. Windows 7 is being built with performance in mind. Will it out-perform XP? With so many netbooks popping up, slower processors are being used to save costs and increase battery life. XP currently seems like the best OS for most of these devices (unless you're running Linux).

So what will Windows 7 look like? Will Microsoft actually release something that has lower system requrements than Vista? I doubt it.

A walk through history - my personal computing experiences

My first laptop was a Mac. If my memory serves me right, it was an old Apple (Macintosh) PowerBook 150 series that had a 33 Mhz processor, a 640x400 grayscale screen, a hard drive that was smaller than a ZIP disk, and a 1.4" floppy disk drive. No CD-ROM, No DVD, No USB, No Firewire. However, the thing was built like a tank and I used it for several years.

I also used Unix-based systems and Windows 3.1, but my PowerBook was my main computer.

However, since the mid-to-late 1990's, I've been primarily using Microsoft Windows. I started with Windows 95, then upgraded to Windows 98. I also played around with NT. I never had a chance to use Windows 2000 or Windows ME very much.

When I first started using Microsoft Windows, I primarily used IBM Thinkpads. My first Thinkpad was the 760 and the keyboard actually flipped up and opened the entire laptop so that you could replace the battery, switch the CD-ROM drive, or change the hard drive. The tilting keyboard didn't catch, since it was never used again on future models.

When XP came out, that was a huge improvement in performance and reliability. I experienced fewer episodes of the dreaded "Blue Screen of Death" (BSOD) running XP. It's hard to believe that XP came out in 2001 - only 1 year after Windows 2000 and Windows ME.

Now that Vista is here, I have several machines running XP and Vista (dual-boot). I mainly use XP because of performance and reliability issues. Now there are circulating rumors that Windows 7, the next version of Windows, may be released next year. What does that say about Vista? Was Vista such a flop that it won't have the longevity history of XP?

XP proponents are also fighting hard to keep XP on the shelves. According to Microsoft, they plan to keep XP around for ultra-low-cost PCs. What about for ultra-compact or ultra-low-power PCs that need a minimalistic operating system?

In my opinion, XP has been the best operating system released by Microsoft. It's so sad to see people buying PCs that have Vista pre-loaded, and switching these machines to XP. I would have never done that with XP and Windows 98! What does this say about Windows 7?