The health care industry got a shot in the arm today with IBM's announcement of an 8-year, $402 million partnership with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The company claimed that this will be a model for how the health care industry can use new technology. The news comes on the heels of poor earnings announcement by IBM earlier this month. While IBM is licking its fresh wounds, it is aggressively pursuing and expanding into lucrative sectors to breathe life into its ailing earnings.
This is good news indeed. Technology has already had a great impact on the health care industry and that is wonderful for patients. There is no doubt that this new initiative would further enhance how patients' vital data is handled. Electronic Medical Records (EMR) or Electronic Health Records (EHR) are nothing new. Plainly stated, they are patients' records on computer databases. But as new frontiers are explored, EMRs will become precariously closer to falling into wrong hands.
Consider the spate of news about stolen data from a number of prominent companies lately. LexisNexis, Polo Ralph Lauren, HSBC, NCR, and a number of renowned universities around the nation have had security breaches with customer data stolen. These are not fly-by-night companies with half-baked products. They are brands that most consumers trust and rely on.
If we are doomed to repeat past mistakes, then companies must be prepared to defend the EMR data with everything they have. But going a step further, they had better have plans in place for when security is breached and data is stolen. Because, let's face it, it is inevitable.
<The EMR pitfall>
It's the National Turn Off Your TV Week. Whatever. Every week there's a long list of societal issues that happen to allocate the period to themselves. They're supposed to raise awareness of some chronic issue and make people do something about it. I'm not sure if they really serve anything positive other than filling a few trivial spots on radio and paper media. I suppose the TV is not exactly the right media to promote this particular cause.
As for me, when we had a TV at home, I paid no attention to the nonsense and watched TV whenever I wanted. These days, with a disconnected TV sitting idly in the corner, it appears that I am observing the week by default. But then again I haven't watched a wink of TV for the past 6 months, save a couple of times in hotel rooms while away from home.
I do miss the TV at times. It was one of my methods of relaxation. Thankfully I'm not a sports nut nor a movie buff. I've always been a clicker and a surfer for the most part, watching everything and nothing at the same time. So the loss of TV is not a grand tragedy for me.
The decision to unplug the TV was to save my children's impressionable minds from the addictive device and keep them focused on life. Once they are mature enough to handle it responsibly, I'm planning a welcome back party for the remote control, National Turn Off Your Television Week notwithstanding.
<National Turn Off Your Television Week>
We have a winner, at least for the time being. In my household Hilary Duff is all the rage these days. At some point, when we weren't looking, the teen marketing machine ensnared my two daughters, which means some of my hard-earned money is going to Hilary's coffers and those of her agents.
Last night we watched A Cinderella Story, a cute movie about high school romance, fitting in, and parental pressures. Hilary's latest CD has dethroned my Green Day CD in the car. Fortunately I found my Green Day CD tossed indignantly in the back of the glove compartment and salvaged it before it was scratched.
Hilary, you'd better enjoy your pre-eminent position in my house. I'm certain that today's fickle teen loyalty will replace you with another idol in short order. But then again we weren't much better either, judging by how quickly in our times we dumped the hair bands and embraced grunge. <Hilary Duff>
Car oil changes every 3,000 miles isn't meant for me. I'm lucky if I make it every 6,000 miles. I know all the arguments exhorting the importance of timely oil change, but I buy cheap used cars. If they die, I junk them and get another one.
The problem is that as I pass 3,000 miles and the odometer begins to pull away from the reminder mileage sticker on my windshield, I start feeling guilty about it, Then it eventually turns into a nagging bother for a few thousand extra miles until I take the car in for the oil change.
The other day, pulling out of one of the fast-lube joints after having the oil change done, it occurred to me that I haven't had a physical in almost 5 years. I'm way overdue for a dental visit, an eye exam, and who knows what else. Strange that I don't feel as compelled to get a checkup on myself as I do with the car oil change.
So, out of guilt, I finally called my dentist and made an appointment. Sooner or later I'll get around to the other exams too.
Death and taxes are still king, but there are other things that have also become inevitable in life. Take a look around this very page you are reading. Chances are that you see a number of ads decorating it. Online advertising is just another fact of cyber-life we can't seem to get away from, and we probably never will.
Most of us have come to expect these omnipresent pitches. It is the means some Web sites can continue to fund their work. Banners can be downright annoying at times, but sometimes they could become a liability depending on when and where they are thrown at you.
Take this as an example. One of my main sources of news, besides Public Radio during my morning, is msnbc.com. I don't know when I started reading this site, but I've been getting my news on it for as long as I can remember. Some of my reading is done at work during lunch time and therein lies the issue. The questionable banner ads that pop up on my screen are sometimes inappropriate for workplace.
Now I could almost be a card-carrying liberal, but right or wrong, political correctness dictates that we use a certain amount of discretion at work. Unfortunately some sites seem to forget that a large number of their audience surf on their pages at work and a get-ready-for-summer diet plan banner featuring an attractive female with a two-piece is not exactly politically correct. Another scantily-clad woman pitching a dating site is just as disconcerting.
These types images are probably not cause for dismissal, nevertheless they make some people, myself included, uncomfortable at work, enough to click the browser off when someone approaches the desk. Am I being too paranoid? Maybe, but I'd prefer to play it safe rather than hearing rumors later on about my habit of surfing porn sites at lunch. You know how office rumors have a tendency to grow out of proportion quickly.
<Banner ads and workplace political correctness>
A few days ago I had a discussion with our managing editor for our company's Web site about how crawlers discover and index pages. He was convinced that search engines can somehow find hidden pages on a Web site even if there are no links to those pages. I, on the other hand, wouldn't be persuaded. How could search engines crawl a page if they don't know the page's name and location, i.e. its path? Turns out we were both wrong – and right, depending on how you look at it.
In order for search engines to crawl a Web page, they must first be directed to it. The process of page discovery is generally a hyperlink on another page that the crawler can follow. I'm not sure if search engines also follow plain text URLs, but it is a possibility. A site that wants to publicize a new page would normally have links to the new page from other pages, or the page will be in a directory index which lists all files in a directory when accessed (Web sites normally disable this option though for security reasons). In the absence of a link to a Web page's URL, crawlers would have no idea about the existence of that page (referred to as a hidden or orphaned page). I suppose they could engage in name-guessing, but that's an expensive proposition I suspect most search engines shun.
Then a few days ago I ran into an anomaly that disproved my belief about hidden pages and crawler discovery. I was working on a fairly popular page (Browser Simulator/Emulator) on my personal site. Due to the nature of the page, it has the potential of becoming a tool in the hands of abusers, so it is monitored for abusive activity patterns. I began to notice that the page was being accessed excessively by Googlebot with specific parameters as if a human was commandeering the page. Respecting the privacy of users however, I only monitor general patterns on that page, so I didn't have detailed information about Googlebot's activity.
With my curiosity piqued, I constructed a similar but hidden page in the same folder and switched on full monitoring. Then I began hitting the page, entering various data in the form fields. Sure enough, Googlebot began accessing that page with the same data as I had specified. How could Googlebot discover the hidden page so fast (if at all) and specify the same data as I was? A glance near the top of my Internet Explorer browser found the culprit. It was the Google toolbar, the seemingly innocuous toolbar that most people have installed on their browsers and are oblivious to its operation.
I am certain the Google toolbar comes with a privacy disclosure detailing how and what it gleans from the user's activity. I never bothered to read this and chances are most people ignore it as well. I am also not sure what Google does with the data. I suppose they do use it for ranking purposes, but I am now certain that it crawls the pages surfed on by users. I am, however, still unsure whether the crawled pages ever make it to the Google's index to be displayed as search results. I am also unsure if what the browser displays to the users is sent to Google along with the URLs (this could have potentially disastrous privacy repercussions).
There you have it. If you place hidden pages on your Web folders, don't be too confident about their secrecy, even if those pages are only accessed internally by you and a few trusted people. Anyone with a Google toolbar (or any other toolbar such as Alexa or A9) would be unwittingly sending the URLs of those hidden pages to Googlebot (or other robots/spiders), and potentially exposing the location of those pages to the world.
<Google toolbar, exposing hidden web pages?>
It's a classic tit-for-tat. In a move that is nothing short of an act of reprisal, GM announced today that it will indefinitely suspend advertising in Los Angeles Times. GM cited "factual errors and misrepresentation" for its decision.
The move comes two days after an LA Times columnist criticized the auto-maker for pushing its gas-guzzling SUVs rather than investing in hybrid technologies. Perhaps the columnist went too far by calling for the impeachment of two GM executives, but GM's action is just plain childish.
It's a free press. People express a lot of opinions about a lot of subjects. Some may get a bit scathing, others a bit risqué perhaps, but advertisers should take criticism in stride and understand that the separation between the editorial and advertising departments is what keeps a publication vibrant. An uncontaminated editorial process can only help the credibility of its publication which leads to more interested readers which in turn translates to more eyeballs seeing the ads.
If GM hadn't jumped the gun, they could have used their advertising space to subtly challenge the columnist's position. Instead they decided on this immature action, possibly handing the columnist even more credibility.
<GM spites LA Times, pulls ads>
Here we go again. Once again the asinine ritual of changing the clocks is upon us and the roads will be filled with sleepy drivers trying to make their mad dash to work. It's time we abolished this business of changing time because of some outdated notion that it saves a little bit of energy.
Okay maybe some modest energy consumption is saved (the amount is still debatable). But really, is this the best method of conservation? How about trying to reduce gas guzzling SUV's on the roads, or providing extra incentives for energy-conserving consumers, or investing in renewable or alternative energy sources such as the Sun. It kills me to see this ball of seemingly endless fire above me everyday and not being to harness a tiny bit of its fusion-happy energy.
Daylight-saving time is a nuisance and we shouldn't have to put up with it any longer. It not only interferes with our daily routine, it also disrupts commerce. I wonder how many billions of dollars are lost because of lapsed memories due to fatigue, sudden change of schedules, and wrong clocks.
I bet Ben Franklin (who started the idea) would have championed the elimination of this time-shifting silliness if he were still around today. Let's just pick a time and stick with it, and stop this perpetual Star Trek time-warp absurdity.
<Abolish daylight-saving time>
Take a look at the chart to your right. Read it and weep, or sulk, or whine. Yes, the debt figures include your mortgage balances too. For your convenience, there is a calculator to generate your target ratios based on your approximate age and annual income. For example, a 50 year-old with an annual income of $70,000 should have a minimum of $315,000 in savings and a maximum of $52,500 of debt. Depressed yet?
As if the daily grind and stress of life isn't enough, here's information from yet another source to make us panic about retirement readiness.
Most of us, myself included, go about our daily routine without thinking much about our golden years. Sure, we sock away money in our 401K and IRA accounts, but data like this makes us feel that our golden years may not have as much luster as we'd hoped.
Like it or not, we're all getting older and for those of us lucky enough to live years beyond our quitting day, we'd need to make the preparation now. I'm not sure how much weight we should give to the mountain of retirement data that is thrown upon us everyday, but burying head in sand isn't a wise move either.
What this chart is basically telling me is that most of us should reduce our debt and build up our savings. In other words we should manage our money better. Not being able to hit the exact targets is no excuse to not give our best effort. It could make a difference between a decent retirement lifestyle and scraping bottom to get by. <Retirement drill - savings and debt ratios>
