Tales of Hoffman

The Nasty Side of the Tiger

The other side of the story below, as Alwin among others have already pointed out, is how Apple continues to take the best ideas of the independent developer community and roll them into their operating system. This is nothing new; they've been doing it since I had my MacPlus. But now that we have the blogosphere at our disposal, we can hear the immediate reactions of the developers that have been, shall we say "appropriated."

This is where it gets interesting...Brent, who is the author of NetNewsWire, the best aggregator on the Mac, has what has to be the best reaction post ever. Sure, he could have gone into crash and burn mode and wrote a crazy diatribe about how evil Steve Jobs is, but he didn't. He took a deep breath and saw that Apple's entry into the RSS world will be a net positive. And as long as he keeps creating a product that is as easy to use and useful as NetNewsWire there's enough air in the room for everyone to breathe. The reaction from the Konfabulator dudes is also fairly measured, although I think they probably have a bit more to be angry about. Depending on what sensationalistic Mac web site you read, you may think that they are angry or "slamming Apple's theft", but if you actually read this entry on the Konfabulator site, they too seem to be staying positive and feeling good about the future. Good job, guys.

Put a (RSS) Tiger in Your Tank

Well, yesterday Steve Jobs did his usual dog and pony (and, apparently, jungle cat) show at the Apple WWDC. It's probably not worth running down all the new features they're adding, but of course, I was really happy to see RSS support added to Safari.

I've been saying for a long time that, all the well-executed aggregators notwithstanding, RSS is a format that will not achieve widespread attention among the non-technical out there until it's integrated easily with the applications that the "non-technical" use every day. Whether that's IE or Outlook (or Safari), doesn't really matter and as usual, Apple has taken the first step. I'll be excited to see how the Medscape RSS Feeds (If you need very high quality medical content delivered to your aggregator, check them out.) hold up in this new "reader" and hope that this starts the "hockey stick" growth I still believe is yet to happen around RSS usage. I'll let you know if the Medscape RSS feeds experience any bump when this is released.

Medscape on Medical Blogs

Here's a quick story from the "Business of Medicine" area on Medscape about Medical Blogs. Nice overview. I had heard this was being written but forgot about it until I saw it come up on the site. Glad she got to speak with the right people.

MOSR Update

OK. Since my referrer logs make me look like the central point of information about MacOSRumors (really, I'm just an interested reader)....the link I posted a few weeks ago no longer works, so the up and down cycle of MOSR is now down again.

Oh well. I'm sure they'll come back after the WWDC and claim that they predicted every single announcement, but unfortunately, they couldn't get the info out to us because of "DNS issues". ;-)

This is Broken -- Medical Edition

Jacob has got a great (not "good" great, but "amazing" great) story today about medical billing that truly belongs on ThisIsBroken.com. When you read stuff like this it's amazing that any doc gets paid for any visit at all these days. My favorite part is this imagined dialogue between a doctor and his patient fully annotated with ICD9 codes:

I'm feeling really down, Doctor

You've got a sore throat today, too, don't you Mrs Jones? (wink wink) 462.0

Uhhh .. nope .. I'm depressed. (311.0)

Do you have joint pain? (719.0)

nah .. I'm just really sad .. no physical problems today.

Reminds me of the scene in Annie Hall where Woody and Diane are having the conversation and their thoughts are running along the bottom in subtitles....

Homebrew ECG

Via GeekDIY.com, instructions for building your own ECG using a computer, some good old fashioned analog parts and a few pennies as electrodes.

HDTV Tivo is IN THE HOUSE!

Well, I took the plunge and got a brand, spankin' new HDTV Tivo. After about 24 hours I can say it's what I expected. All the regular Tivo yummy goodness but now in high definition. Unfortunately, due to my wife's obsession with reality TV, the very first show recorded was The Simple Life 2. Oh, the shame...the shame...

Now if only WNBC would get off their butts and get that HDTV transmitter on top of the Empire State Building working, I'll be able to see/pause/record and otherwise enjoy the Olympics this summer.

iDoc

Nice iPod/Doctor mashup on the cover of New York Magazine this week, which is their annual "Top Doctors" issue. Apart from the cover art, which I find clever and eye-catching, what do docs really think of these types of magazine based ratings? They do this in Westchester Magazine every year too, and although I look at it, I don't really give it too much thought and I'm not sure I would ever actually refer to it.
As a doc, how do you view this?

MOSR Arises...

Thanks to an intrepid, yet anonymous reader who commented in the post below, I guess THIS is what happened to MacOS Rumors. Its here: http://199.105.116.92/. Enjoy.

Get Well Soon (but first, read this message from the sponsor)

Does this "creep out" anyone else, or is it just me?

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