Tales of Hoffman

Time-Warner's Answer to Tivo? Not!

Gizmodo references Craig over at GearBits about the new T-W cable attempt at a PVR:

There's one big difference between the 8000 and your run-of-the-mill TiVo...it appears to suck big time. In the roughly 72 hours he's had the 8000, it has reset itself on him about half a dozen times, refused to quit recording, recorded the wrong show, and recorded several copies of the same show (even though it was set to ignore repeats).

I hate to toot my own horn, but as someone who has spent a lot of time thinking about the amount of time TIVO evidently thought about customer experience, I predicted this some time ago. Hey, if I'm going to make a lot of useless predictions, I may as well point out the few times I'm right!

Happy BlogDay to Me....(And I'm MOVING).

Like so many others who stepped "in the pool" after the brave first wave, today is the one year anniversary of Tales of Hoffman -- the blog. I started this thing as an experiment to see: 1) If it would become a creative release for me, since I've always loved writing and hadn't had much of a chance to "work out" in a while; 2) If there was any chance that it would help me expand my horizons as I think about the next places to push Medscape.

In reality, it has become much more than those two things. The very best part of maintaining this blog has been the people I have met. When I started, there were maybe three or four "Doc Bloggers". Now, as you can see from the blogroll, the community is growing, with more activity as each month passes. I never expected the community element of blogging to become as strong as it has, but I was certainly wrong.

Now, it's time to move into the next round of blog-dom (blogiosity? blogistics?). This is the last post I will make at my old web address. The new home of Tales of Hoffman is here at http://hoffman.blogs.com.

There are many reasons behind this switch, but mostly, I've been looking for an alternative to Radio since my hard drive crashed and I lost my database of entries. Also, I've been frustrated by the Radio architecture which requires me to only post using my PC (I know there are ways around that, but getting through my work firewall remotely is problematic).

In any event, the platform really doesn't matter. I sincerely appreciate all the support the medical blogging community has given me. It's a really fun ride and I'm positive that Medscape is a better site for the interactions this blog has brought me.

So...let's keep it going. If you link to me -- Please change your links!. If you subscribe to my RSS Feed -- Please update your subscription! Onward and upward....

If You Use a Mac, GET NetNewsWire

Here's a test post from NetNewsWire...I love being able to post from home with my Mac. Something I could never do when I was on Radio...I'm using the newest version of NetNewsWire 1.0.4. Here's the description:

Highlights of this release include using Web Kit (the Safari HTML renderer) for HTML display, custom style sheets, displaying differences in updated items, performance boosts, TypePad support, support for gzip compression, and more.

I used to use NetNewsWire Lite but this posting right from the Mac may be too good to pass up...

You CAN Get There from Here

I've been spending some time in the last two days getting things set up at my new Typepad address (thanks for the offer, Jacob, but I had already started!). Things are looking pretty good. I actually went back through the "dead" pages here at the Radio address and literally cut and pasted the old posts from before my hard drive crashed (that are still alive on the Radio server but no longer part of my Radio installation's database) back into Radio. Then I used Bill Kearney's Exporter tool to output a text file, went in and changed all the dates to the original posting dates, and THEN imported to Typepad. It took me most of my commute home (don't worry, I don't drive...I take a train), plus about two more hours last night, but now the new Tales of Hoffman is a fully reconstructed version of my blog from Day One.

If I can get my act together in the next day, we'll have the official launch of the new "Tales" tomorrow -- the exact one year anniversary of the first post here (here is at my old Radio address, I know, this is confusing). How fitting!

EMRs on Medscape

The Electronic Medical Record: Promises and Pitfalls. First of a two part series on Medscape authored by none other than Jacob R. of Family Medicine Notes and Medlogs fame. Check it out.

Radio to Typepad. Any Answers?

This week I'm going to answer the siren call of TypePad and give it a shot. I'll see how it feels and then decide whether to re-up with Radio or make the move. I am most concerned about moving my archives from this blog and coming up with a good URL/RSS referral system so folks don't get lost. If anyone else out there has figured out how to do this during a Radio to TypePad move, let me know.

He's Back!

Finally back from my "Summer Vacation." Nice time away with the whole family. I won't bore you with the details, but I probably will get around to writing up some mini-reviews of the books I was able to take in. Reading has always been my number one downtime activity, ever since I was a little one. I hope my little ones develop that way too...

That's What August is All About

Sorry for the very light blogging. This is the time of year when the family and I get away for roughly two weeks. So I work a few days, relax a few days, work a few days, relax...you get the idea. I'll try to post a bit more this week, but then I'm in relax mode....

"The New York Times of the Medical Press..."

I really have to thank Alwin for the nice mentions today, re: Medscape. Even though he calls me out by name, I have to say that we have a great team of a lot of people, without whom there would be no site at all.... 

A Free Online Medical Journal? Good Idea!

DB, over at MedRants -- picking up on a NY Times editorial --  thinks the whole free, online medical journal thing is a good idea. My read on the chances that publishers will open up their archives for the good of medicine? 0%.

But (brace yourselfs for the inevitable blatant plug), did you know that Medscape has published a free, online, peer-reviewed and Medline indexed journal of general medicine since 1999? And edited by the esteemed Dr. George Lundberg of JAMA fame, no less. Get thee to www.medgenmed.com.