Johnny's Software Saloon

Weblog where I discuss things that really interest me. Things like Java software development, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Macintosh software, Cocoa, Eclipse IDE, OOP, content management, XML technologies, CSS and XSLT document styling, artificial intelligence, standard document formats, and cool non-computing technologies.

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Location: Germantown, Maryland, United States

I like writing software, listening to music (mostly country and rock but a little of everything), walking around outside, reading (when I have the time), relaxing in front of my TV watching my TiVo, playing with my cat, and riding around in my hybrid gas/electric car.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Veterans Administration gets vets records from DoD on paper

Heard an interesting news story on the radio yesterday, and repeated on news video at Yahoo News.

The US VA computers do not have access to the medical records of their patients that are on computers at the DoD.

I can see how there are inherent problems to be overcome.

Hospitals in the US have had a standard file format for medical records for decades called HL7.

Well, it is a start.

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Post-it Easel

Saw a neat 3M commercial at the start of a Yahoo news video this morning.

3M has created something cool for creative types to use when brainstorming at meetings. Basically, it is a giant pad of huge Post-it sheets.

There is even a version you can stick the whole easel to the wall, completely eliminating the need for an easel.

As you fill each page, you can stick it on the wall of the conference room.

The item is a Post-it Easel.

I think it is a great idea.

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Tuesday, March 06, 2007

US Patent Office innovates - yes, actually innovates

This sounds like an incident of actually doing something new with software, not innovation-as-another-word-for-copying that is practiced by some software companies.

In Open Call from Patent Office, the Washington Post reports that the patent office is opening up 250 patents to peer review from the public - rather than forcing over-worked patent examiners to do 100% of the legwork/research.

Sounds like a great idea. For sure it is an idea, not clinging to the status quo, which is refreshing.

I am sure that some companies, you know the type, will try to "game" the system. Hopefully, some checks/protections will be in place to keep that from happening.

The last thing we need is for some software company with tens of billions of dollars to apply their astroturfing techniques for deceiving the public and public servants with false information/responses about competitors patents, the way they pay people to send letters signed by fictitious people to magazines and politicians.

However, they have done that and it was found out - so ghost writing public opinion will probably get caught quicker and serve as an embarrassment, or prosecutable offense this time.

With so much money riding on patent decisions -- for instance, a federal jury ordered Microsoft last month to pay $1.52 billion for infringing two digital-music patents -- the program's designers acknowledge that the incentive to manipulate the system is immense.


The new approach used in this public trial will take advantage of web-based social programming that have proven useful in recent Web 2.0 applications like news, shopping, etc.

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