The era of THE USER

I had a revealing conversation with a relative of mine who is a Doctor. We were talking about Internet, social networks and professional information. Actually, I was interested in knowing how does he use the computer every day.

The answer was very simple: I use my laptop five to ten times per day depending on the number of patients I visit. He literally said:

“In the morning, when I arrive to my office, I read two or three different online newspapers (I wish I could learn how to use RSS),. Then I open my personal and professional email (I use to receive all kinds of jokes from other doctors, lots of spam and some professional newsletters I read in less than five minutes). In this same session I see the weather forecast for the next days and that’s all.

At lunch, I revisit my email (both of them), search some medical information when I want to revise some aspects of certain pathologies, update news (don’t have time to see the news on TV) and, from time to time, visit my Linkedin account.

During the afternoon, to prepare patient’s visits, I use to access an image database created internally with the images and videos we record on every patient. That helps me to remember their clinical dossiers and to see the evolution of the treatment.

After a long day, at home, I have another laptop I use just for fun: email, search information on interesting travels I would like to do and, sometimes, search new gadgets (TV, music, cameras).”

I then asked him about his preferred search engine. And the answer was not the one I expected (Google or Yahoo). He answered he was bored of these search engines because of the big amount of unnecessary information they offer in every search.

He told me he was expecting some smart company to create a single platform where he could “place” all the services he is using: email (both), his own images and videos database, RSS, library, travel agency, newspapers and newsletters (titles would be sufficient) and other stuff that could change from time to time. He wanted this synchronized automatically in his two laptops or, also, available in some private website (so he could access it from other’s computers).

It’s not the first time I listen to this same comment, and my own experience is that I’ve also build a centralized unique website to link all my needs of information, access to networks, banks, service’s accounts, etc.

Unconsciously, what we are doing is staying away from doing more and more searches and, instead of this, building our own system of information. This personal system is generated by our previous searches of information (a lot of them), contacts with others, and of course experience.

All these outcomes drove us to be aware of the different places we need to visit in the internet (our hard drive or network) to feed our desires. So now we tend to navigate directly to these sites instead of starting googling or yahooing.

Improving health care in Pennsylvania by cutting costs?

Small network of three hospital called Geisinger Health System charge a flat fee on coronary-artery bypass surgery and all the pre- and post-operative care that goes with it and warranties that, if preventable complications occurs, Geisinger will assume the new costs.

It is called the ProvenCare guarantee is based on his CEO concept that thay shouldn't get paid if we don't do the right thing.

The company is studying more procedures and deceases to be included in their program. More can be read at Fastcompany.

Microtargeting tools used in US presidential campaign

Six companies are helping McCain and Obama to learn what you eat, what you buy, where you live, where you work, what your bank is, what you drive and where you shop.

• Strategic Telemetry
• Grassroots Targeting
• Target Point Consulting
• Catalist
• Yougov
• Resonate networks

A lot can be learned for our projects.

Google Books is paying

Google would pay $125 million to settle two copyright lawsuits where his book-scanning efforts were compromised by the Association of American Publishers.

The new agreement will allow Google to show a 20% of each scanned bookto the users without paying anything. The full text could also be available for a certain price. This could be a good measure but thinking on technical or scientific books I wonder if this 20% is a big big mistake.

The NYT explains that Google plans to take 37 percent of the revenue, leaving 63 percent for publishers and authors.

40

Today's my 40th birthday!! 

I was awaked at 7h30 -as usual- by Julia and Carlos who wanted to have breakfast….a few minutes later, they came with Teresa to give me some gifts (surprise! morning party!) and we sung all together in the bed for a while!

After playing with them I decided to post some thoughts. I'm happy, I have a wonderful FAMILY and very good friends I really love. I do, most of my time, the things I like to do. I try not to waste my time, I enjoy my job and professional projects, my colleagues (...most of them) and travelling to meet with people with whom I can spend good moments and face daily challenges. 

Past has been wonderful. I like the people who are (have been) in my life, I like the different things I've being doing, the places I had the oportunity to discover, even the sports I practiced (and still practice). 

Present is today, is still amazing and futur is unknown and exciting. Many things to do, many people to know, many places to discover and plenty of curiosity to fuel my engine!

More astonishing presentations by Benjamin Zander

Another video of Benjamin Zander introducing the art of possibility.
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New blog on book innovation

I've just opened a new blog called: Book Innovation.

Feel free to post your comments and even send me your posts if you want to publish them in it.

I admire Benjamin Zander

Watch this video and enjoy Benjamin Zander. No comments are necessary, he is pure joy of life, illusion, possibility, passion and I love it.

Google Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer

The shiny new internet browser from Google is here. Google Chrome is available for download from here. What are the implications for the two other main browsers, Firefox and Internet Explorer.

I've read some blogs where people are announcing the end of the story for them, and others who are just expecting the final version of this new browser to say their final word.

But, for sure, this presentation takes the Google-Microsoft rivalry to a whole new level and it will also affect the whole internet.

One of the most interesting things in Chrome is the address bar. People in Google resolved one of the most common mistakes in browsing the web: to write a search in this bar instead of the search box. Google has unified the address bar and the seach box creating a new concept now called the Omnibox.

Networking engines

One of the wonderful services/functionalities that is offered by Facebook, Linkedin or other social networks is the one that informs you with this message: John S has updated his profile. Just this simple message posted in your landing page, or in your inbox, is powerful enough to make you visit John S profile.
This occurs because we are naturally curious about many things and, specially, the ones referred to people we know. So curiosity is a human emotion driving us to explore the unknown but also a powerful engine which can be used to drive our attention to a specific site.

Newcomer

We've recently added a new member to our family. His name is Tor, god of different powers and fears in ancient mythologies (under the exact name of Thor). 

Let me introduce him to you....he is just 2 months old.

Sony eBook Reader PRS-505 (part 2)

After being with the Sony PRS-505 e-book reader for a couple of months and testing it with different contents (books, articles, blogs)., the final conclusions are:

• e-Ink tech is on his first steps;
• Color is a must have for our market (e-Ink is still B&W);
• Lack of interactivity is a big problem;
• Battery in the Sony reader is amazing (10 days in active mode)
• As a simple reader is very good, but don t ask for more. Very simple solutions could be created for this reader, but this is not our interest right now (iPhone solutions are).
• Music player integrated is awful (horrible sound quality)
• A technology to allow reformatting texts is needed (so you are allowed to increase text size).
• iREX should be my next Laboratory Toy.

Downloads saving music industry ?

I've just read a spanish newspaper where an article took my full attention: music industry is being saved by music phone downloads.

It seems that people were downloading music from the internet ..... till now. Phone downloads are today 50% of the total downloads. Believe it or not, music could be in front of their new hero: our phone!

A good reason to change to Mac

A research company has determined that using Mac in a business environment is better than using Windows PCs from two points of view: time and money. That means, changing to Mac is a logical move if we want to increase efficiency and generate internal cost savings.

Nucleus Research has been doing a study in a company with 1700 employees.
Mac and Pcs are both used in this same company and after the analysis, Nucleus reported two important issues:

1) Macs have 33 per cent fewer problems than Windows PCs in a business environment;
2) Mac trouble tickets are closed 30% quicker.

Conclusions are obvious: people using Mac could have 33% more time to be efficient and, if they have problems with their Macs, they can go back to work much quickly than PC users.

That seems to be a very good reason to change to Mac

Sony eBook Reader PRS-505 (part I)

First impression on this ebook reader when unboxing is ....."nice gadget" but let's see what's inside. And what we find there is a very good ebook reader but nothing else: no wifi connection, no color, no interactivity and little problems with PDF reading. Design could be also better....allow Apple do this for you!

It's a very good reader because it has no other ambitions and reading ebooks in the .lrf format is a nice experience. I've been reading some articles and parts of different books for the last two weeks (in very changing light ambiences) and no problems came up with this issue.

But connection or interactivity with the reader are a must-have for the next version. Sony must also allow PDF to be correctly displayed in his screen (zoom is not enough) and,

maybe, think about producing a bigger screen with touch capabilities (and eliminate lots of

useless buttons). IRex is doing quite well with its last product Iliad 2nd Edition but at a much higher price ($599 vs $299).

E-ink technology is in his first development steps so we will have to wait till improvements are available for this readers (faster changes between pages, better transitions, ink colors).

Reader is prepared for leisure but not for professionals: no medical or biology or painting books are possible without colour and other improvements.

Traditions: Sant Jordi

Every 23rd of April, we catalans celebrate the Diada de Sant Jordi. It's a very special day for us in which we (men) give a rose to the woman we love, and in return they (women) give us a book.

This responds to a tradition that goes back to s. XV and from 1995, this date also corresponds to the International Day of the Book (established by UNESCO).

If you have the opportunity to come to Catalonia, then you will find all streets with improvised books stores, plenty of roses in each corner and flags in the windows of people's houses.

On eBook devices

I've been recently looking at those new eBook readers coming from different companies: Amazon, iRex, Sony, Bookeen, Hanlin and others. I was asking myself which one could feed my actual needs.

All of them are based on e-ink technology and, depending on the price (from $200 to $650) they offer more functionalities. For me, two things are the most important: 1) battery life and, 2) the chance to easily upload and storage all content formats (Word, PDF, txt, html, epub, etc.).

After reading different reviews and opinions, I decided to give a try to Sony PRS-505. I will let you know my experience with it in a few weeks.

They know too much

How many web sites have you visited lately? How many forms have you completed with your data?

We use the net intensely and our searches for information include giving our data to a wide variety of companies. People know their data is used just for the purposes described in the Privacy terms and conditions of each web. And, commonly, those provisions are tolerable and adequate if look at them carefully.

The problem starts when you don t remember where your data is stored and want to recover some privacy. Many people I know fill forms from many different projects every week. Even if they are systematic in saving their web surfing history, it s very easy to fail to remember all services in where they are considered customers or users.

But the problem is much more complex.

When a person needs to decrease (or even eliminate) his exposure in the net, he is facing an enormous and extremely intricate problem. He probably can get in touch with the companies to erase his personal data from their registers, and this is not complicate. Where suffering begins is because he also has to contact the big search engines in order to delete the traces they store (without his permission). That is a genuine problem.

Who has ever expressly accepted the use of his data (in the most comprehensive and wide definition of this concept) stored by the search engines?

See also this article from New York Times.

Amazon S3 - Not a real backup service

Backing up your information is not always as safe as we suppose. Amazon offers a service called Simple Storage Service (S3). It is an inexpensive solution for those who have to backup several files and want to use the Internet for this.

In just a few hours, I had my 4 Gb backup uploaded with Jungledisk to S3 and being updated every 15 minutes. I just made one mistake: to encrypt the data with the secret key Amazon provides to you.

I enjoyed this service till I had a little problem with my Mac and then: chaos, I lost all information stored.

Yes, my hard drive was suddenly dead (something related to the main index of it) and all information in it was lost. But I had my S3 backup so, presumably, I had nothing to worry about. Wrong concept fellows!

I reinstalled everything in my computer including Jungledisk to recover all my data back to the disk. The problem was I had lost the secret key given by Amazon and had to generate another one to access my backup files. Since then, accessing those files was impossible due to a different encrypting key (which is absolutely normal). I contacted Amazon S3 support to recover the lost key in order to recover all my files but SURPRISE! they do not backup this information at all so the answer was: We are sorry but all your information is positively gone forever.

I ceased the service immediately and recommend my friends, at least, to save the Key in five different places just in case something happens to their computers, because Amazon does not backup.

Personal ambitions

I have read in a Spanish newspaper that Spanish teenagers would like to be civil employees or employees at a big department store.

This article does not seem to be important except by the fact that we consider those jobs tedious, monotonous and easy. Those occupations drive people to just comply with their assignments and work in automatic mode.

If this is so (of course there can be exceptions), it makes me think that this generation has a limited ambition or, worse, does not have any at all. It seems to me that values are changing.

To see that this is happening not only in the professional but in the personnel field also makes me feel sad. Many years ago I was coordinating, with some colleagues and friends, a university sports club. We used to have more than 1300 associates. Every year, we made competitions between faculties or within our own faculty and the participation was surpassed year after year. Months ago I was again in my beloved Faculty of Law and the club of sports had disappeared. Competitions do not exist anymore and the last census of associates shows twenty people.

If in the professional field we do not want to ambition too much, I can understand that (certainly, thats not me). But from the personal perspective, people without ambitions and motivations that help and drive them to improve their lives, I simply cannot understand. Unfortunately, this is happening with teenagers in Spain.