Tech/Computer advice from me

[Boone]

The only problem is if the government starts mandating that it retain copies. If there becomes established data housing locations for it then that becomes a target; a target that exposes everyone. A little different than one hospital having a databreach. The healthcare industry was the 3rd worst industry when it came to being infected with malware, viruses, having computers participating in botnets (ie: being controlled remotely), and having data breaches (at least it used to, like 2-3 years ago, it may have improved...) This will make finding the information easier.

We'll see. I don't see a way to avoid transitioning to that system and I don't see a way to keep it secure. It seems inevitable at this point.


Edit: I recognize I'm not saying anything you don't already know. (Did I get all the double negatives right?) Just participating in the conversation

I agree. In fact, I've argued, despite being up to my eyeballs in healthcare infomatics (it's a big chunk of what I do), that I'm not convinced we provide safer, better care with the advent of computerized medical records than we did before. It COULD be safer and better, but largely, we're just typing what we used to write and day-to-day access of medical information is more difficult in a lot of ways, not better or more efficient. I could demonstrate the truth of this in about 5 minutes in front of an electronic medical record as opposed to the old paper charting/documentation system we used to use. I know that's veering away from the 'cloud technology' discussion, but one of the biggest assumptions in healthcare today is that electronic data entry, review, and storage is better. In a lot of ways, it's an epic myth. And our government is forcing it on us on a massive scale. Because they know SO much more than we do

 

[tshile]

Yeah, now that I read that I think we've had this conversation before

That is indeed a big and common assumption, one I make when thinking about it... There is a lot of potential there. It has to be done right though. I don't have any faith in the healthcare industry, with or without the government's involvement, to do it right though. I guess I'm just a pessimist on the subject.

 

[tshile]

Speaking of cloud, i pitched an idea to a guy running the IT department for a public school system. it's basically technology that allows 'bring your own device' since that's the new buzz right after cloud. i gave him ideas for safely and securely allows teachers and students to bring in their devices and use school resources. it's a 'private cloud' - all the data is stored on the servers, all the applications are run on the servers, you just basically get a 'window' into the server to use the applications you need; you can run very intense programs like 3d studio max, adobe's graphics editing suites, etc very easily that way, and now you can let them run on android, ipad, etc.

the added bonus was he could turn around to his bosses and say "Now we can implement BYOD and Cloud!!!" since thats all they ask for, not knowing what any of it means or entails.

i'm hoping he'll contract me out to do it since he doesn't know much about it, but i seriously doubt it. he'll probably just do it himself. he's an acquaintance so the free advice was worth the shot at picking up work i suppose.

 

[Boone]

The Federal Government is destroying healthcare. Not just my opinion. Physicians are retiring in droves. And enrollment in healthcare-related fields is going to continue to drop like a rock. Healthcare professionals spend more time documenting and navigating complex rules (that even the folks imposing on us can't explain) than they do trying to heal patients.

It's sad.

If I had it to do over again, I would never have gone into healthcare. And that makes ME sad.

 

[tshile]

I'm seeing that end of it too due to my wife's career. It's going to be an interesting ride for the next 10 years. There are a lot of possibilities.

Health insurance is out of control and a big problem for our country; there's no denying that. But the government doesn't exactly have a stellar track record of running things or fixing things; theres no denying that either.

Going to be interesting...

 

[Fear The Spear]

The Federal Government is destroying healthcare. Not just my opinion. Physicians are retiring in droves. And enrollment in healthcare-related fields is going to continue to drop like a rock. Healthcare professionals spend more time documenting and navigating complex rules (that even the folks imposing on us can't explain) than they do trying to heal patients.

It's sad.

If I had it to do over again, I would never have gone into healthcare. And that makes ME sad.

I read that careers like HIT are taking off, especially because of the new system

 

[Nobody]

Speaking of cloud, i pitched an idea to a guy running the IT department for a public school system. it's basically technology that allows 'bring your own device' since that's the new buzz right after cloud. i gave him ideas for safely and securely allows teachers and students to bring in their devices and use school resources. it's a 'private cloud' - all the data is stored on the servers, all the applications are run on the servers, you just basically get a 'window' into the server to use the applications you need; you can run very intense programs like 3d studio max, adobe's graphics editing suites, etc very easily that way, and now you can let them run on android, ipad, etc.

the added bonus was he could turn around to his bosses and say "Now we can implement BYOD and Cloud!!!" since thats all they ask for, not knowing what any of it means or entails.

i'm hoping he'll contract me out to do it since he doesn't know much about it, but i seriously doubt it. he'll probably just do it himself. he's an acquaintance so the free advice was worth the shot at picking up work i suppose.

My son's school started doing this last school year. I hate the whole idea of it. Not because of what it entails, but because of the brand new bullying fuel that it adds to a fire that didn't need to be there in the first place.

What I'm speaking of specifically, is kids that will be bullied and essentially robbed of the device they bring to school. Then you also have the kids that will be relentlessly teased and bullied for not having Apple or not having Samsung. In my opinion, it's creating a problem for kids to become victims when it's completely pointless since the school has iPads for all the students anyway, and there is no need for them to bring their own device.

I formed a group of people that helped me fight the school board and the city council on this when it was first proposed two years ago, but our efforts were fruitless. The board and council decided it was a wonderful idea, and my visions of it creating a new outlet for bullies was unfounded. Fast forward two years, and here we are having letters mailed home warning about kids who are being harassed and/or having their devices stolen, and a suggestion to parents not to keep the devices home, but to install locators in them in the event of them being stolen.

Call me crazy, but I'd rather my kids not be harassed and bullied and get their **** stolen, than to put a locator on it so I can find it after they get mugged for it. The whole program has proven to be every bit the absurd idea I tried to get them to see it would be, but these assholes refuse to eat crow, so they will just continue to let kids get beaten and robbed for their iDevices until someone is seriously hurt or killed over it I guess.

 

[Nobody]

The Federal Government is destroying healthcare. Not just my opinion. Physicians are retiring in droves. And enrollment in healthcare-related fields is going to continue to drop like a rock. Healthcare professionals spend more time documenting and navigating complex rules (that even the folks imposing on us can't explain) than they do trying to heal patients.

Funny how those of us who suggested this would be the case in 2008/2009 were mocked endlessly for claiming something so preposterous would happen.

 

[Boone]

Funny how those of us who suggested this would be the case in 2008/2009 were mocked endlessly for claiming something so preposterous would happen.

No offense, but that doesn't exactly make you Nostradamus - half the healthcare organizations in the US have fought this stuff tooth and nail. Blame your fellow American voters for putting people in office who think they know medicine better than the people practicing it every day. Anyway, I'm hijacking this thread. Back to technology discussions.

 

[Nobody]

No offense, but that doesn't exactly make you Nostradamus - half the healthcare organizations in the US have fought this stuff tooth and nail. Blame your fellow American voters for putting people in office who think they know medicine better than the people practicing it every day. Anyway, I'm hijacking this thread. Back to technology discussions.

That's exactly what I was talking about. I remember back then when I was telling people all my friends and relatives in the industry were saying this was going on and would only get worse, every time I voiced it I was called crazy, full of ****, overreacting, etc. and told it would never happen.

 

[tshile]

My son's school started doing this last school year. I hate the whole idea of it. Not because of what it entails, but because of the brand new bullying fuel that it adds to a fire that didn't need to be there in the first place.

What I'm speaking of specifically, is kids that will be bullied and essentially robbed of the device they bring to school. Then you also have the kids that will be relentlessly teased and bullied for not having Apple or not having Samsung. In my opinion, it's creating a problem for kids to become victims when it's completely pointless since the school has iPads for all the students anyway, and there is no need for them to bring their own device.

I formed a group of people that helped me fight the school board and the city council on this when it was first proposed two years ago, but our efforts were fruitless. The board and council decided it was a wonderful idea, and my visions of it creating a new outlet for bullies was unfounded. Fast forward two years, and here we are having letters mailed home warning about kids who are being harassed and/or having their devices stolen, and a suggestion to parents not to keep the devices home, but to install locators in them in the event of them being stolen.

Call me crazy, but I'd rather my kids not be harassed and bullied and get their **** stolen, than to put a locator on it so I can find it after they get mugged for it. The whole program has proven to be every bit the absurd idea I tried to get them to see it would be, but these assholes refuse to eat crow, so they will just continue to let kids get beaten and robbed for their iDevices until someone is seriously hurt or killed over it I guess.

You're absolutely right. To be honest that's a very real concern that's brought up every time i talk to people in public school IT - they have school boards and parents pushing a Bring Your Own Device agenda because it's what they hear on the radio and read about some random school doing it in whatever magazine they like and they want the school their kids go to to be on the cutting edge of technology. I certainly don't blame them, but their lack of consideration for the negative consequences (ie: ignorance) is something they can certainly be blamed for.

The two biggest issues are bullying and the idea that the IT department (ie: tax payers) will have to buy devices for kids that can't afford it - or, more specifically, parents that say they can't afford it (most of the guys I talk to aren't concerned about providing the devices for kids that literally can't afford it, they're concerned about parents abusing the situation and claiming they can't when they can, but getting a free device because there's nothing the IT department can do; if you claim you can't afford it then ok.)

So you're not the only ones concerned about it - the people running the departments are too, they just don't have a whole lot of say in it. Not that it's much consolation...

The flip side of the argument is that bullying has always gone on in schools and will always go on in schools. You're not really going to stop it. Where you draw the line on implementing new policies because of an increase in bullying is a very good conversation to have, as long as everyone involved recognizes people will have differing opinions... BYOD has a lot of potential to increase the effectiveness of the public education system.

Funny how those of us who suggested this would be the case in 2008/2009 were mocked endlessly for claiming something so preposterous would happen.

Without delving into the politics, there is a good case for it. There's most certainly a role for the government in improving healthcare and helping control the cost of health insurance (two different issues in my opinion.) It would be nice if, for once, the two sides would put aside their differences and have a real conversation about it. The mocking you cite goes on from both sides, and it's not productive in either case.

 

[Fear The Spear]

Okay I got Thunderbird running, and I downloaded all my emails and files from a paid email account that I will be terminating. So I have a backup for that now. But what I'd like to know is if it's possible to backup those emails from the Thunderbird program onto a flash drive, in case my PC ever crashes ?

 

[Fear The Spear]

I wasn't familiar with PST files, so I looked them up, and some reports are saying that the only way to open a PST file is with Outlook.
Is that correct, or will another program do it ?

 

[SkinnedAussie]

Click on File > Save As > File.

What I have done is create a new folder in the My Documents library, then save any important emails in there. I then refresh the folder on my back-up once a week.

 

[Fear The Spear]

Is it only possible to do it individually for each email ?
I have over a thousand emails, and either need to save them all, or at least go through each one and figure out which is important enough to save - both of which are time consuming, unless there's a way to save them all at once.

 

[SkinnedAussie]

Highlight the first email, then whilst holding dwn the shift key, press the dwn arrow key so as to highlight all the emails.

Save as above.

 

[Fear The Spear]

That works ! Thanks

 

[Fear The Spear]

I now have a serious concern with this Thunderbird.
I noticed, that once I download emails from my email account onto Thunderbird, which is set up to store my emails on my hard drive, and not on their server, if I go online and delete any emails from my email account, it then becomes deleted in my Thunderbird.
It was my understanding, and my intention with the program, that once it's downloaded from my email account into Thunderbird, that it is permanently stored in Thunderbird, as long as I don't delete in Thunderbird, and regardless of what I do in the email account. This of course, is because I believed that it had been transferred permanently to my hard drive.
So apparently, Thunderbird is constantly trying to synchronize itself my online account - with not just new emails of course, but also deleted emails.
The reason this is a concern, is because I plan to completely terminate that email account. And if Thunderbird continues to try to completely synchronize itself with the account, including deletion of deleted emails on the account, does that mean that Thunderbird will then delete all the emails in itself, if that email account is terminated ?
If so, that would totally defeat the purpose of me using Thunderbird, which was to provide a permanent backup to my email on my PC hard drive, even after the email account is closed.

 

[SkinnedAussie]

That is what the 'Save as' function is for. You download your email, and thus, removing it from the server. You then delete the crap you DON'T want, action the one's that need attention, then save the rest to your hard drive. You can then delete anything left over in Thunderbird.

I use Mailwasher in conjunction with Thunderbird, which allows me to delete any email BEFORE I delete it, and I can often open links (like email notifications from BGO) directly off the server, then delete it.

I'm not sure there is a FREE email client that does what you want it to do, so you might have to fork out the dollars required for the appropriate software. It really doesn't take that long to manually save the emails, even if you create a dated folder within the email folder at the end of every day.

 

[Fear The Spear]

I hear ya. I was just concerned about whether I need to save all those "files" in Thunderbird before I close the online email account. Looks like I do.
Thanks