Web 2.0 and Medicine

Medical Residency Timeline for International Medical Graduates

2009-12-06T11:49:00.001-08:00

Medicine 2.0 : Applying what has been learned

2008-06-20T09:59:00.000-07:00

It has been a long time since my last post. I have been busy working in different personal things. But a post by Bertalan Meskó make think about something that I realized long time ago. The key for a development of a culture of Medicine 2.0 is education : Health Digital Literacy.
Each one of us can help to make this possible. I am participating in a observership with a group of International Medical Graduates (IMGs) at UCLA. We have developed a web to share our experiences in the process of getting involve in the American Health Care System.
In the process I am also teaching my fellows all what I know about Medicine 2.0 .
Please Visit us:
UCLA International Medical Graduate (IMG) Program.

UCLA International Medical Graduate (IMG) Program Participants' BLOG.
Your feedback is always welcome.

Medicine 2.0 : Copyright or Creative Commons ?

2007-12-02T08:41:00.000-08:00

AWiki is an useful tool in the Web 2.0 environment. We can use it to collaborate with our colleagues to create knowledge online. Some days ago I read a post about Wiserwiki, a new project launched by Elsevier. This is not the only medical wiki that exists. Actually exists a long list of medical wikis. What is different with this wiki is the fact that the information created here for the medical community belongs to the publisher that owns the wiki. It means that if you want to use the information that exist in this wiki, you have to ask permission to the owner in order to do that. This fact is not new, it is how the industry of information has been working since the invention of copyright. When we write a medical article, we sent our work to a medical journal. They review it, and if they think that the article is good, they publish it. They copyright our work, they become the owners of our work. But do we have to copyright everything that we create? is this the only option that we have? The answer is no. We can make our work under a creative commons license. For long time we have depended on publishers to diffuse, distribute, collect, circulate and propagate the information we create. But nowadays do we need publishers to do these? The answer is no. What we need it is to learn how to use the web 2.0 in medicine.
We have to work really hard to spread this concepts, it is still not widely known for the health care community and sometimes you feel lonely in a digital world. Finally what you are going to do with your work will depend on each one of us. We can do what ever we want with our work. Some people will prefer to reserve the rights of their work, while others will share their work without restrictions. What could be the consequences of this changes in the mentality of the people? Can you understand the possibilities it has? Karina Descartin says : " I understand the possibilities better than ever: broader knowledge, wider accessibility for medical students and professionals, and more exchange of vital information among peers than ever before". What do you think?

Web Conference in Medicine 2.0 : Tool to Connect Doctors

2007-11-29T18:30:00.000-08:00

Two days ago I received an invitation to try the Beta version of DimDim. This is a free web meeting conference tool. It is not the only one that exist, but this is free, open source, with a general public license. After I tried it, I can say that I am really pleased with it. It still has some bugs, but you can work with it pretty well. Previously I wrote bout Yugma, but DimDim I think it is better. What is interesting about this service is the fact that anyone can use it from anywhere. You only need a computer and good internet access. There is no necesity to upgrade your computer system. I have used it with my two years old laptop, an Acer Aspire 5000, AMD Turion 64 (1 MB L2 cache), 1.6 GHZ, and 1 GB DDR of RAM with Windows XP. I was looking for medical schools that offer this service for their students, an it was really interesting to read all the rules you have to follow to access this service, for example you can read the Stanford School of medicine video conference services page, to have an idea of that. This is a tool with a lot of potential to connect doctors that work in rural communities with those who work in urban communities, but not only that, the potential use we as doctors can give to this service is just amazing. Check out the video from the DimDim creators.

Medicine 2.0 Blog Carnival

2007-11-27T06:05:00.000-08:00

I want to start this post by saying that all the articles I have received to make this blog carnival are excellent. All of them have made me think deeply about the fact that knowledge begins with conversation. Being informed is so important and we have to be aware of that. Thirteen years ago when I read The Third Wave by Alvin Toffler, I did not get the real magnitude of the changes that will occur in our time. Now here we are seeing how things are happening in front of our eyes.

User generated content is something we read all the time, Bertalan Meskó recommends us to take a look to Radiopaedia 2.0 Update, GooMedic gives as a link to Family Practice Notebook with lot of information available to anyone of us. But not only independent persons can generate content, hospitals can do it too. Health Care Law Blog points an important question: Should Hospitals Blog?.

With lot of information that is created second by second, it is important to create a way to determine what is good and reliable and what is not. Bloggers for Peer-Reviewed Research Reporting (BPR3 ) are working hard to do that. In a post How BPR3 could work with other sites they explain us what they are doing. Credibility is important, check this presentation about web credibility.

Because lot of information is available, we have to learn how to recognize what is being read by others and for that there are many tools we can use, David Rothman gives us a tip with PubMed Citations (Greasemonkey Script).

We want the information no in our computers but in our hands, Clinical Cases and Images posts about Kindle e-book reader by Amazon: you can have 200 (medical) books on one device. I have not tried it. But if I were asked I would prefer a ultra mobile PC. We all involved in the Web 2.0 and Medicine environment realize that anywhere and free access to the information are the key. Huge companies are interested to control the market( and the information), the better way to do that is by controlling the market with their devices that only allow you to use their products, good examples of that are the ipod and the iphone

Information is out there and not only doctors can access it, our potential patients too. eHealth writes about Patient as Googler. A good example of how well informed a patient can be is Jmday, she describes really well her bad experience she had with a flu shot in The flu ep(idem)ic.

Medgadget writes about new services like iMedicor Portal for Medical Professionals to improve interaction between doctor and patients. Information is power, of course it is, that is why Constructive Medicine 2.0 writes about the efforts big companies such as Microsoft are doing to develop projects like Personal Health Vault

Medical 2.0 points something important about The influence of the Health 2.0 trend, but are we doing something to avoid the cannibalization of the medical sector. The future is now as Patient's Doctor tells us about Virtual Office Visits: A Reachable and Reimbursable Innovation.

The next edition of blog carnival will be at Medical education. Please submit your blog article to the next edition of Medicine 2.0; use our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Web 2.0 and Medicine: It is about having Digital Creativity

2007-11-22T14:02:00.000-08:00

In the previous post I wrote that to learn about Web 2.0 and Medicine is as important as to learn how to write. But the main idea here, it is to realize that with the technologies we have on our desks, we can express our ideas and share our knowledge in many different ways, not only by writing. We can use sounds, images, videos, animations, we can talk to others, we can discuss with others, we can share screens, edit documents at the same time, create communities, etc. There is no limit. Just use your imagination and be creative.

Digital Creativity

"New technologies give us the ability to represent so many different kinds of object in the same standard digital format (text, layout, image, sound, 3D object, moving image, etc.). They also provide us with the mechanisms to capture, store, manipulate and output these representations to produce objects we can experience through our senses. This unity of underlying representational form and technological processing provides the foundations of a convergence."

   Recommended links:
   Pictobrowser
   Web 2.0 : Imagine the Possibilities
    Digital Creativity

Why is Important to Learn About Web 2.0 and Medicine ?

2007-11-14T07:20:00.000-08:00

have been learning about the Web 2.0 for more than a year. Since February I have been writing about it in this blog. The purpose is to share with others what I know, to get more and more people involved with it. Not all my colleagues I have talked to about it really understand the concept or why it is so important to learn about it though.
That is why I have been thinking how to teach my colleagues in the health care community about the importance of Web 2.0 and Medicine. But without complicated terms or definitions. Why is important to learn about it? For me it is really clear that these concepts and technologies of the web 2.0 applied to medicine are going to change how the flow of medical information is created. With the use of these "new" tools we are going to go back to basics, and we will have the chance to learn medicine in a Socratic way again. We will have more time to spend with our peers to talk about the humanistic side of medicine. Learning about Web 2.0 and Medicine is as important as to learn about writing. All of us recognize the importance of knowing how to write. I think all of us can recognize the importance of writing in the mankind history.
I going to quote The British Library Board. Why to write: "For thousands of years human beings have used marks, symbols, drawings and signs to communicate with one another. In order to share knowledge, we need to be able to store information and pass it on to future generations. Memory is our first resource, but, over the centuries, we have developed many other ways to store and transmit information."
You know how to write in paper format and you know all the advantages it has. But do you know how to write on internet ? How much do you know ? Can you imagine all the opportunities the learning of these technologies can generate? That is why to learn about Web 2.0 and Medicine is important.

Digital Literacy: How to Search the Web

2007-11-09T08:21:00.000-08:00

e are living in the era of information. Information is knowledge, and knowledge is power. But how to find what you look for? That is why it is important to learn and to develop "digital literacy skills". Nowadays it is so common to find patients who look for answers to their health problems before they go to their primary doctor. With the information accessible to any person from their computers, lot of people without access to the health care system will try to cure themselves. But what type of answers are people finding? I think we have to spread awareness about this fact in the health care community. And that is why we have to learn how to search for information on internet. This presentation was made by Patricia Anderson. I highly recommend it. At the end of the post you will find more links to improve your searching skills.

Medicine 2.0 : Blog Carnival # 11

2007-10-31T06:10:00.000-07:00

hat's a blog carnival? It's a quick way to keep up to date on the "blogosphere" around a particular subject -- in this case, Medicine 2.0, the intersection of health care and the social Web. "A blog carnival is a type of blog event. It is similar to a magazine, in that it is dedicated to a particular topic, and is published on a regular schedule, often weekly or monthly. Each edition of a blog carnival is in the form of a blog article that contains permalinks links to other blog articles on the particular topic"(Wikipedia). And for me is an amazing way to learn from what others think, an easy way to share knowledge. Click here to go to Medicine 2.0 Blog Carnival

Digital Literacy: Find Whatever You Need for Medicine

2007-10-29T06:39:00.000-07:00

esterday I received an email from a friend. He asked about information to do a protocol. He told me he did his research for information in Google, but this was not useful. I think it was not useful because he did not know how how look for the information he needs that is in Google, and also because not all the information is there. Theassumption "if it is not in Google, it does not exist" is false. That is one reason I think digital literacy is really important. Today I am going to leave some links really useful to those people who are trying to get into a residency program. One presentation on PowerPoint, a list of questions you will be asked and some you can ask, and finally three videos of residency interviews. Enjoy them.

      What do the program directors look in a resident?
      General Competencies for a Resident:
      patient care,
      medical knowledge,
      practice-based learning and improvement, and
      interpersonal and communication skills,
      professionalism,
      systems-based practice.
      source: Outcome Project

      Material to READ:
      Smart Strategies for Successful Residency Interviews UCLA
      Interview Planning. Interview Questions: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

      List of Questions:
      List 1
      List 2
      List 3

      Interview VIDEOS:
      University of Texas: Bad Interview and Good Interview Examples
      University of Washington: Preparing for Interviews
      University of Minnesota: Residency Interview Workshop

Web 2.0 and Medicine: It is About Spread of Ideas

2007-10-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

hat do you know that can be shared with others? I think each one of us has something special to teach to others. No matter what type of formal instruction you have. All of us are an invaluable source of ideas. In our daily life, at the school, at the hospital, in the clinics, or at home, we all play an important role. Do not be afraid of express yourself. It takes time at the beginning but then it is really easy. Sometimes we do not transmit what we know because we think that is not important. I always remember this story about José Saramago, a Literature Nobel Laureate, when he received the prize, he gave thanks to the two wiser people he ever met: his grandparents who did not know how to write or how to read. So next time you have an idea: share it. Web 2.0 is about that: "spread of ideas", your ideas. An amazing site I found on internet with tones of videos is TED. You will find here really amazing thinkers of different fields, not only medicine. Watch this video: Secrets of success in 8 words, 3 minutes. You will find more at TED.

Web 2.0 and Medicine is about Values in Practice

2007-10-20T13:58:00.000-07:00

"Solidarity is more than give just a hand, it is more than share with a brother. It is an universal feeling that disappears borders between countries no matter believes, races or colors."

eb 2.0 and Medicine is an amazing combination. It is something that has lot of potential in our field. But Medicine and Web 2.0 - or Health 2.0 - are not only about information and technologies. It is about values that we can put on practice. Solidarity and collaboration with no interest. It is a big idea. From my point of view, they can only generate more well being for more people, and sometimes for ourselves. Last months I was working on my personal statement. It was not easy to put all my ideas in just one page. Now this work is done. But I know lot of International Medical Graduates (IMG) each year have the same problem, trying to write something good about themselves. That is why I made this post, to share some templates and guidelines that where really helpful to me. If you know about more templates or guidelines to write a personal statement, please leave your comment and the link to these resources.

   Personal Statement Examples
   Personal Statement for Surgery
   Personal Statement for Family Medicine
   Personal Statement for Internal Medicine
   Personal Statement for Internal Medicine 2
   Personal Statement for Internal Medicine 3
   Personal Statement for Pediatrics
   Personal Statement for Pediatrics 2
   Personal Statement for Emergency Medicine
   Personal Statement 6 Examples

Web 2.0: Medical e-books and the Importance of Digital Literacy

2007-08-28T03:14:00.000-07:00

ew weeks ago I went to UCLA Medical Center. Medical students were presenting their posters about the work they did during the summer. There were many interesting ones, but there was one that caught my attention. It was about how publishers are changing from paper publications to electronic publications during the last years. This week I read a post from K.S. Descartin. She wrote about her experience with the use of e-books and all the advantages that this fact represents. Even when I like a lot techno-gadgets. I have to admit that they still have disadvantages when compared with paper materials. While you can access lot of information with a simple click. You depend on the duration of the battery of your device to access the information you want. And actually you have to buy the gadget - what not all can afford -. And what about if the system crash. No internet connection. Have you think about that? What will happen if you can not access the information you want the moment you need it. Of course technology has lot of advantages we can not deny too. But, are we using these technologies efficiently? These things make me think about the importance of digital literacy again. And the fact there is still a lot to learn. Somehow each one of us learn about it by our own. I have not found a formal course to learn about it. I think now more than ever, with lot of information you can access if you know how, learning is a matter of motivation more than a merely passive act.

This is a funny video just to think why digital literacy really matters:

Web 2.0 : Learning Molecular Biology Online

2007-08-10T06:48:00.000-07:00

olecular Biology is for sure a really interesting subject. Here two links to amazing lectures from UC Berkeley and MIT. We can access them on internet for free. I recommend the lectures at the MIT. The lecturers not only know what they are talking about, but they show the passion they feel for this field. And sometimes this is really important to motivate students to learn. The photo above shows Linus Pauling holding models of water molecules in a classroom at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

   Molecular Biology Lectures Online

   Name:Bio 1A General Biology Lecture
   Source:UC Berkeley
   Date: Spring 2007
   Tip: To watch streaming video, to listen and to download MP3.

   Name:Introduction to Biology
   Source:MIT OPEN COURSE WARE
   Date: FALL 2004
   Tip: To watch streaming video click here.

   Molecular Biology PowerPoint Presentation
   Name:MBB 222-3 Molecular Biology and Biochemistry
   Source:Simon Fraser University
   Date: Fall 2003
   Tip: To find PowerPoint presentation on internet with Google, type what you are looking in the search box followed by FILETYPE:PPT ( example: molecular biology filetype:ppt ).

Web 2.0 : An Useful Tool to Study Embryology

2007-08-08T06:49:00.000-07:00

mbryology for sure was one of the most difficult subjects I took at the university. I was clueless about embryology and the human development inside the uterus. Trying to figure out just by looking at static graphics was so hard for me. When I found this material on internet I said to myself that how come I could not learn it before. So this is for those who are studying embryology for the first time and for them who just like to learn. The draw above is named "The foetus in the womb" was made by Leonardo da Vinci (c1510-12)

   Embriology Lectures Online
   Name:Human Embriology
   Source:Temple University
   Date: 2005
   Tip: you will find here presentation with audio, animations, etc, really excellent page.

   Embriology Animations Online

   Name:Human Embriology Animations
   Source:Indiana University
   Date: unknown
   Tip: animations with no audio, review system by system development.

   Name:Embryonic Folding
   Source:University of Cincinnati
   Date: 2006
   Tip: animations with audio, 3D animations.

Dare to use your computer
If you to download Embryonic folding you can install FlashGet and the Firefox addon Flash Got. To download the movies to your PC try with Quicktime Pro to download it click here.

Web 2.0 : A tool to Study Histology by Your Own

2007-08-07T00:10:00.000-07:00

am thinking about what we can learn at home without the necessity of moving out of there, and without the necessity of spending lot of money in tuition fees, books, transportation, etc. While doing that I start with these posts. The links I put here are all around the blog, but because I notice people do not spend time checking all the blog, I decide to select the best links and share them directly with all of you. This post is about Histology, like many other courses of basic sciences I studied at medical school, I did it in black and white only, from photocopied books I could afford. Now internet allows new generation of doctors avoid this, and study from really good material they can access for free. The photo above is "Santiago Ramón y Cajal at work", to learn more about him click in the links at the end of the post.

   Histology Interactive Tutorial
   Name:Virtual Textbook of Interactive Histology
   Source:University of Calgary
   Date: 2001
   Tip: You can listen audio, and watch the slides.

   Histology Interactive Atlas
   Name:Virtual Slidebox Histology
   Source:University of Iowa Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology
   Date: unknown
   Tip: It is always useful to add some images we like to our work. If you want to capture the images, an useful tool you can use is FastStone Capture. It used to be a freeware, but now they make it a shareware. If you want to use the freeware version click here to download it.

I think these two pages are excellent; however for medical student it is never enough. They want to have all sources of information available, even if they can not read all the information they have in hands. For those check my histology links in del.icio.us and check this links to find histology books. Finally, this phrase that is just beautiful: "The stories condemn useless rhetoric and unquestioning obedience, the qualities Cajal found most inimical to science".

Web 2.0: A tool to Study Anatomy by Yourself

2007-08-06T02:54:00.000-07:00

he following is a post based on a premise "What I can learn without going to a medical school". The links posted here contain information that is available for free on internet. Anyone can watch, listen, read, capture and download -if you know how- what is there. The image above is The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, oil on canvas by Rembrandt van Rijn, 1632. To learn a little bit more about this painting click here.

Anatomy Lectures:
IB 131 General Human Anatomy
source: UC Berkeley
date: Fall 2006 Course
to watch, to listen, to download audio.
streaming: General Human Anatomy Fall 2005 on Google

Anatomy Dissection Videos
Medical Gross Anatomy - Dissection Videos
source: The University of Michigan
to watch embedded in the site click here.
to download the movies to your PC try with Quicktime Pro to download it click here.

Anatomy Atlas Online
Anatomy of the Human Body
author: Henry Gray
not enough: Visit this link click here you will find more than 140 anatomy books to download or visit Del.icio.us.

Finally, I want to share with you what I read last week on the wall of a room at Sun Valley Middle School: "We do not know what we can do until we try".

Web 2.0: Medical Collaboration with no Borders

2007-07-03T14:42:00.000-07:00

ollaboration is an interesting word. The understanding of this concept is important when we talk about the tools of Web 2.0. A definition I found in Wikipedia says, "Collaboration is a process defined by the recursive interaction of knowledge and mutual learning between two or more people who are working together, in an intellectual endeavor, toward a common goal which is typically creative in nature". The fact that there now exists new and better tools to collaborate with others -no matter the time or the place- does not mean that we have to leave the use of classical interaction with other people, but at the same time we have to recognize that the learning of the use of these tools has a tremendous potential to create new and better content and more. Web 2.0 does not mean we have to become techno-freaks, it is about using the tools that exist online to do our work more efficiently. It is about hearing others' opinions and improving our ideas. In medicine the Web 2.0 could be used to interact with other colleagues and with our patients. In medicine the access to the information and the sharing of experiences among colleagues is paramount. The Web 2.0 allows us to do that. If we learn about it, I am sure in the future doctors will not have to leave small towns -and patients- in order to remain current in their field. Because I think the place does not matter for medical practices in times of Web 2.0, or does it?

Interesting Links:
Rural Doctors on a Global Stage: Do Local Communities Make a Difference?
Liberate your control freaks

Not about Web 2.0 or Medicine

2007-06-28T03:02:00.000-07:00

t has been a while since my last post, and this post will not be about Web 2.0 or Medicine. This post is going to be a little personal. I just got my score of my Step 2 CS that I took in L.A. in April 2nd. Now I know that I passed this test and with that I got my ECFMG certification. Therefore, there is just one test more ahead of me, but a long way to become what I want to be. "I want to be a man able to cure. I want to be a man who can serve his fellows, a man who can take lightening to those who suffer, I want to be able to give back the health to the patients and the hope to their relatives". I read this beautiful paragraph in a book named "By the River Piedra I sat down and wept" written by Paulo Coelho. While reading this book I cleared my ideas about the kind of doctor I want to become. At the same time I thought that this will not be possible without the help of really generous people I consider my friends. With this post I want to thanks all of them for their support and friendship. I also want to thank God for everything, good and bad things.

Using the Web to Access Medical Databases Legally

2007-06-10T03:11:00.000-07:00

omething important for a wide use of the internet and the web as a productivity tool in medicine is the fact that we have to work hard in changing the way people think. This is a really difficult task. If we take in consideration the fact that few people talk and apply the concepts of Web 2.0 to their daily routine in medicine. This is just a consequence of belonging to a system that is based on the ignorance of us. Maybe I am wrong, but I realize that when lot of people use the internet, they think that there is only one way to do something. Most of the people do not realize that internet is a universe of infinite possibilities. Most of the people do not realize that with all the world connected, the chances to find someone who has the same interest of us is really high. To demonstrate that, I am going to show you one useful example. During the month of May MD Consult offered a Open House subscription. Now the offer is ended. If you want to continue with the subscription, you have to pay for it. Is it right? The answer is NO. Do you have to look for a password that does not belong to you on internet? the answer is NO. What you have to do is to visit Promedicum, open your own account, and that is it. The web is in Spanish, if you do not read in Spanish, follow your common sense. That is paramount when using the internet in medicine. Or do you want to continue belonging to the system?

Web 2.0 : A Sharing Culture

2007-05-30T22:40:00.000-07:00

am almost 2 years in the United States. I am an applicant for the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates(ECFMG). This is a country with people from all around the world. During the time I took for my preparation to pass the USMLE steps 1 and 2, I had the chance to meet people from Middle East. What I like about their culture, among many different things, is the fact that they are like a big family. They help each other while they are here. I write about that because this principle of collaboration in a group is really important to understand what the Web 2.0 can allow you to do. Before to come here I did not have a personal computer, neither free access to internet at any time. Now with both of them I can access lot of information I could not before. Today, I want to collaborate sharing some links that all international medical graduates, who wants to do their residency in the United States of America, will like. These are links to pages that contain videos of how to make physical examinations, how to have a clinical encounter with a patient in different situations. You do not need a password or to pay in order to watch the videos, you just have to make click. By watching these videos you are not breaking any law. These videos were made to help people in the medical field. So use them. I made this blog with this purpose, to share the information I can access with others, but I realize that to give the information is not enough, people must play an active role in their self-education, so if you want other links related with medicine, you can email me. If you want more material to prepare for the USMLE just check out Ebay search for "usmle videos" and watch out what you find. Or maybe you can try to use programs like emule, if you have never use programs like these before you will be amazed. Finally, if you are asking yourself why am I doing that? why do I share this information? what do I want in exchange for the information I give with my blog? the answer is simple: NOTHING, just because. I hope in the future a culture of sharing with no interest will born.

     NTV | Neurological Teaching Videos Wright State University
     Clinical Skills Exam Videos Michigan State University
     Young Child Exam Michigan State University
     Ophthalmology examination on videos
     Arts and Science of Clinical Medicine: Physical Examination
     Operational Medicine Videos
     Clinical Skills Flinders University
     Neurological Examination University of Toronto
     Inside DFM: Education - Musculoskeletal Examination
     Common Currency Project, Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University
     Clinical Methods Videos School of Medicine: Emory University
     Interactive Learning Resource for Healthcare Communication DREXEL University
     Physical Exam University of Wisconsin
     Clinical skill videos Queen's University
     The Connecticut Tutorials Physical Examination Video
     Physical Diagnosis Skills - University of Washington School of Medicine
     A Visual Guide to Physical Examination California State University
     Physical examination Self evaluation Loyola University
     Neuroanatomy Lab Resource Appendices Temple University
     OPETA Online Physical Exam Teaching Assistant
     Physical Exam Modules University of Virginia
     Pedineurologic Exam University of Utah
     The Neurological Examination University of Toronto
     The neurologic exam Interactive Online Neurologic Examination

Web 2.0: Directory List Where to Start

2007-05-24T08:19:00.000-07:00

have been writing about Web 2.0 in this blog and I know that some of you have heard about Web 2.0 and would like to be involved with it but do not know where to start. When you look for "web 2.0" in Google 168,000,000 results will come up. If you look for "web 2.0 and medicine" 4,730,000 results will come up. This huge amount of pages that talk about Web 2.0 makes difficult to know where to start. That is reason today I will leave here a small list of Web 2.0 directories. Personaly I use Go2Web20, you have to pick the tag that best describe what you are looking for, and all the pages that are related with this tag will appear.

A tag is a (relevant) keyword or term associated with or assigned to a piece of information (e.g. a picture, article, or video clip), thus describing the item and enabling keyword-based classification of information.(Wikipedia)

Remember that "tags" are really important, we the people tag the pages, not the programmers. That is an important difference in comparison with the old web. I consider that this is a feature that make the Web 2.0 so powerful, because is the people who feed the web with their ideas.

     Web 2.0 Directory lists:
     1.- Go2Web20
     2.- Web 2.0's Top 1,000 List!
     3.- Web 2.0 Search Engine
     4.- Listio
     5.- Web 2 List

Web 2.0: A Read/Write Web

2007-05-21T22:37:00.001-07:00

o learn how to use the web is not an easy job, it takes time. A lot of time and effort maybe, depending on how much you know about computers and how much you want to learn about them. Sometimes I think that if more people would know about the Web 2.0 and their principles, we would be living a cultural revolution, but the economical interests created around the business of knowledge are so powerful that the change will take time to become hundred percent real. It is better to let the people think they are free to do whatever they want when the true is the opposite. Sometimes I think that we live in the era of slavery. They do not domain our bodies with chains, but our mind with their ideas. For all of that it is important to learn that the web is not only to read but to write, to create, to share and to collaborate. Looking back in time I realize that the process of learning how to use the web pass through many steps:

     1.- Read only others work
     2.- Read and copy others work
     3.- Read, copy and paste others work
     4.- Read, copy, paste and remix others work
     5.- Read, copy, paste, remix and write your own work by yourself
     6.- Read, copy, paste, remix and write a work in collaboration with others

So, in which step you are? do not be afraid to use your computer and express your ideas. Take advantage of all the information and all the people you can find on the web.

Web 2.0: A Web Not Only to Read

2007-05-20T22:29:00.000-07:00

hat we can do with our computers will depend on how curious we can be, most of the people use the web to read only, to watch videos only, to listen music only, the web used to be to do that: "to read-only". But not anymore, because the web 2.0 allow us to do lot of things without the necessity of computer literacy, but even when this is a fact, most of the people still just read and will read only while using the internet. As far as I see there is a long way to create a digital culture, to know about computers not only mean to know how to push a button. This process of learning will take time, it is really difficult to get the people engaged with the concept of digital literacy and efficient use of internet. So what we can do with our computers, What is the limit? just your imagination.

An example of what a medical student with a computer can do:

Web 2.0: The Web as a Medical Platform

2007-05-15T09:11:00.000-07:00

friend asked me what is the Web 2.0. I know it is not easy to explain it but I will try. Web 2.0 has many different definitions. Not all the people, who talk about it, are agree with this term. For me a definition I like is Web 2.0 is "The Web as a Platform". But what exactly this concept means? I am going to explain it in my own words, with no technical terms. The Web as a platform means that "if you want to do something with the computer you will do it online by using the browser. You do not need to install nothing or almost nothing at all in order to do that". Ten years ago each time I need to do something with the computer I follow the next steps: first I look for the software to do that, then I download the software -a huge size usually-, after that I install the software in the computer, and finally I was able to do what I was suppose to do. Now, you can do the same with your browser. You do not need a fancy operative system as Microsoft pretends to sell you its Vista. But what can you do with the browser? To explain it I am going to show you what I do with my browser.

Browser:
"A web browser is a software application that enables a user to display and interact with text, images, and other information typically located on a web page at a website on the World Wide Web or a local area network."(Wikipedia)

The first step in order to use the web as a platform is to choose the right browser. Firefox is by far better than internet explorer, more stable, safer, and it allows you total customization. If you want to learn more about why Firefox is better than IE click here. To download Firefox and to install it click here

ToolBar:
"Toolbar is a row, column, or block of onscreen buttons or icons that, when clicked, activate certain functions of the program."(Wikipedia)

Google toolbar:

Then I start with the customization of my browser. The first tool I install is Google Toolbar. There are many different toolbars you can find on internet, but this is the one I use for several reasons. To download and to install it click here

Google Toolbar Buttons:
You can customize your Google Toolbar. To do that you have to go to the right side of the bar, click in settings and then click in options. You can add or deleted features from the bar as you want. To learn about the features of the Google Toolbar click here. Here an explanation of some of the features I use:

Search only the current Web site button allows you to save a lot of time. Web sites sometimes are big that is so difficult and time consuming to find out what we are looking for. To use it you need to type your query in the search box of the toolbar and make click in the Search only the current Web site button and that's it.

Search the web for images button. Instead of open the Google Image page each time you look for an image, just type your query in the search box of the toolbar and make click in the Search the web for images button.

Gmail button allow you to access your gmail account directly by making click in this button. To open a Gmail account click here

Bookmarks button. I use this button to save pages that I like but are of my interest only, instead of saving it in my del.icio.us account where I save web pages related with medicine and internet only.

PageRank button tells you how Google assesses the importance of the page you are viewing. The parameter Google use in order to rank a page are different, but obviously as high the rank higher the chances to find good information in a page;although this is not always true.

IE tab button. For many technical reasons some pages do not look well in Firefox. Fortunately, IE tab button allow you switch from Firefox to IE without leaving Firefox.
to download this add-on and install it click here

Google Services:
With the same Google account you can use other services Google offers, you can access your information from anywhere using a computer with internet connection. To find the service or services that best fit to your necessities visit the Google Products page. Do not forget to check Google labs. Here a list of some of the services I use:

I wrote about RSS ( Really Simple Syndication) in a previous post, to keep myself updated with the news of the pages I like the most I use Google Reader. I can access to it just by clicking a button in my browser. To open an account click here

Services like this are many, some better than others. If you do not have Microsoft Office and need to type a document, this is the service you are looking for. There is no necessity to install a software you have to open an account only. To open an account click here

I use this to control the flow of my blog, to learn about what do people look in my blog, I get lot of information with this service. To open an account click here

This is a service to create a web page, It is really easy to use. To open an account click here

Google Gmail is a wonderful email service. Not only for the almost unlimited size of the account but many other features. To open an account click here

When I have an idea, but I do not want to forget it to work on it later on, I use this service. To open an account click here

Now to create a blog is easier than years before. I use blogger in order to do that. To open an account click here

Bookmark Toolbar Folder:
With Firefox you can put direct links to you favorites page in the browser, so you can access this pages just by making click on the buttons. Here some direct links to pages I use:

With huge amounts of information on internet, we have to learn how to save it, for article from different journals I read I use my Connotea account.
to open an account click here

To share my presentations online I use SlideShare, I access my account just by make click in this button. To open an account click here

I put a direct link in my browser to my blog, but you can put any page you like here in the bookmark toolbar folder.

Firefox Addons:
"Add-ons are small pieces of software that can add new features or tiny tweaks to your Firefox." You can customize your browser as you want and install as many add-ons as you want. Once I read a guy installed two hundred add-ons and Firefox still worked fine. You do not need to install all of them, just the ones that you need. Visit the Firefox Add-on page to find the right tool you would like to install. Here a list of the ones I use:

Del.icio.us another service to save your bookmarks online, this add-on make it easy to save and to access you del.icio.us account at any time from your browser. To download and install click here

Sometimes while reading a page, watching a video or whatever we are doing while surfing the web, we find information that we consider useful for us, but we just want to save a segment of the page. Clipmarks allow you to do that. To open an account and to install the buttons click here

Flashgot is an useful download manager, for example it allow you to save those streaming videos you like but you can not save. To download and install click here

I tried to keep it simple but I realize I did not do well. It seems a complicated process to customize your browser, but if you paid a lot of money to have a computer, why not to get to maximum benefit from it.

Feedback : for Medicine 2.0 Your Opinion is Important

2007-05-13T08:13:00.000-07:00

Feedback is an interesting word. I learned about it while I was taking physiology classes at the university. I consider that this is a word most of us know and use in our daily life when we practice medicine. I learned that there are to types of feedback: negative and positive. It is easy to mention negative feedback examples, but it is more difficult to think about positive feedback examples. For that matter I just can think in two examples, what occur when we have a surge of estrogen in the menstrual cycle and how an action potential in a skeletal muscle is produced when sodium channels are opened by a positive feedback. A concept of feedback I found on Wikipedia is, "Feedback is the signal that is looped back to control a system within itself". For Web 2.0 and Medicine this concept is of great importance. Feedback "reinforces effective behavior and facilitates change", what is the point of this small discussion can become a topic of interest. The fact that a commentary in a post has a huge power and can generate many different ideas is incredible. But not all of us get use to give an opinion, we are not used to do that, we still feel afraid to express our ideas to others, it is like shame about nothing. What you have to realize is that interaction with other have a enormous potential to create new ideas. Yesterday, I told a friend how easy is now to publish your ideas in a important medical magazine, I told him for example an opinion I published on the British Journal Medicine about the article Dean Giustini wrote in December 2006 about, "How Web 2.0 is Changing Medicine?". Learning how to give and how to receive feedback is paramount. It is among all those things physician must learn nowadays. We have to learn that our opinion is important. We all have something to say, so lets do it.
Recommended Links
Guidelines for Giving Feedback
Giving and Receiving Feedback

Web 2.0 and Medicine : Medicine 2.0

2007-05-06T15:41:00.000-07:00

A lot of people that I talk to still do not know what is the web 2.0 and do not realize how web 2.0 can be related or can be used to improve our knowledge and practice in medicine. Indeed, some people say that a doctor must be, in a hospital or in a clinic, writing prescriptions instead of being writing in front of a computer about Web 2.0. I made this presentation taking two presentations as references, the presentation of Dean Giustini about "How Web 2.0 is changing medicine" and the presentation of Bertalan Meskó about "Medicine 2.0". As we know medicine is a science and art, and to be a doctor means to know not only about medicine. But, what is web 2.0 ? what web 2.0 is about? what web 2.0 services exist? How web 2.0 can be related with medicine ? To define it, I want to use a non-technical definition, web 2.0 is just the technology anyone can use to share, to create, and to collaborate with others. It is not about the name we have to take care about, but about the fact that it is something that will form part of our daily life. For us, as doctors, the integration of web 2.0 and medicine will lead to something we could name Medicine 2.0, or a new way to see the practice of medicine. Because Medicine 2.0 is about realizing the potential of today's technology in healthcare, it is about working together, it is about getting closer to other colleagues and patients. The use of these technologies will allow us to save time, to share knowledge and experiences, to create knowledge, to collaborate and to participate with others. In such a way, we will have more time to spend involving in the humanistic part of medicine.

Recommended links:
Medicine 2.0 : A slideshow of a new era
How Web 2.0 is changing medicine

Lawrence Lessig at Google

2007-05-04T06:34:00.000-07:00

I think that to have a better idea of the changes the Web 2.0 is causing, we have to learn some principles like creative commons, collaboration, sharing, etc. By the moment, the only way you can learn those things is using the internet, because I do not see that a politic of education exists with respect to these topics, while a complete machinery to teach about copyright does. I am almost two years in the United States and I am taking classes at a Community College, and something they teach to you in each class is, "no plagiarism" . If you take an English class you will listen about copyright almost in any class, and all the books you use repeat the same thing. But nobody talks about principles like Creative Commons, collaboration, sharing, etc. That is the reason today I post this video "Authors@Google: Lawrence Lessig". He talks about copyrights, what we can do,what is allowed, who has the control, culture and Google. But mainly he explains what is RO (read only internet) and what is RW (read and write internet). He presents good examples of how, buy and consume control us, how merchants just allow us to buy their products, how do they create more market, more control about how to use, control and consume culture. For example, we buy any song we want on iTunes store, but only to play it on an Ipod. Therefore, now increasingly power to control us exists with copyright. Hence, what freedom do we have?
Fortunately, a read and write culture is born. Create, Share and Creativity have become important for business. Re-edit as you want, be free to do what you want. Nowadays, we can talk and realize about the Power of REMIX culture.

Recommended Links:
Are we a Free Culture?
Are We part of the Human Lobotomy?
What is Creative Commons?

Mashup Google Video and SlideShare Presentation: Zentation

2007-04-30T20:50:00.000-07:00

I uploaded the PowerPoint presentation of Dean Giustini about "How Web 2.0 is Changing Medicine" to SlideShare some days ago.The presentation is great, and Dean Giustini summarizes his ideas in an incredible way, but it would be interesting to listen what Dean Giustini said at the National Library of Medicine during his presentation. Is it possible to do that without money? Is it possible to do that without training? Do we have to spend lot of time to make it possible? Do we have to possess supercomputers to do the work for us? The answer is no. We just have to find the right tool to do that. Presentations on-line certainly are a really useful tool for doctors, an example of great presentations online, with video and diapositives at the same time, can be found at Johns Hopkins Division of Infectious Diseases Pre-Recorded Infectious Diseases Grand Rounds, the first time I saw it I was just amazed. Video and PowerPoint presentation simultaneously displayed. I tried to do something similar, but the work and time I had to spend doing that did not worth. This week I found Zentation , it is a tool that allow me do that, I can syncronize a video on Google Video with a PowerPoint presentation on SlideShare. In other words, Zentation is a Mashup - A mashup is a website or application that combines content from more than one source into an integrated experience. - It is really simple to use, and like every product of the Web 2.0 it is FREE. It is still beta, but you can use it. Take a look to the example showed below.


					What old people do for fun 0:40 A comical how-to-guide for drivers

Recommended Links:
Web 2.0 pilgrimage to Washington, DC
How Web 2.0 is Changing Medicine

Presentations Online:
SlideShare
authorSTREAM
Slideburner
Zentation

RSS: Really Simple Syndication Tutorial

2007-04-29T00:25:00.000-07:00

Today, I leave you here a tutorial about Really Simple Syndication (RSS). This is just an old tool, that day by day gain more users. RSS makes easier to you tracking the new content that is added to your favorites pages on internet, in consequence it allows you to save a lot of time. RSS keeps you up to date with the news you are interested in. But, why do we have to learn of all that? we are doctors, we have to learn how to cure diseases, even when I believe that we do not heal people most of the time. The way I can explain it to you, why it is important to learn about how to use internet, it is using two phrases that I found. The first it is because, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who can not read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” (by Alvin Toffler "Rethinking the Future"). This is really important, day by day new technologies are created, we just have to pick the one that fit better to our necessities, but sometimes it is really difficult to change from one service to another when we already get used to something that we like. The second reason is because, "the ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage"(by Peter Senge "The Fifth Discipline"). We as doctors have to learn not only medicine, but things that can be useful in our daily life, not only for us but for our patients.

Recommended Links:
Video: RSS in Plain English
Online Education: Myth or Reality

Some Medical Journal Feeds:
New England Journal Medicine NEJM Current Issue Feed
British Medical Journal BMJ Current Issue Feed
Journal of the American Medical Association JAMA Current Issue Feed
The Lancet Current Issue Feed

ooVoo: Video Web Conferencing

2007-04-26T07:09:00.000-07:00

Communication is now really easy in comparison to past years. You only need a web cam, a computer and lot of creativity. It is not necessary to have a million dollar to have a video conference or to do lot of things with the Web 2.0 as Dean Giustini mention in his blog. ooVoo, an IM/Video conferencing tool, is just awesome. It is now beta. It works as a messenger program like Windows Live Messenger or Yahoo Messenger, but what make it special is the fact that you can make video calls, video conference( up to 5 persons at the same time), video messaging and upload your videos to their server to embedded messages in your forum or blog. I think that ooVoo will be more useful than Skype and other messenger programs. Companies are working hard to offer this type of service, Google just bought Marratech to offer this service in the future. Try it now, you will not be disappointed.

ooVoo links
ooVoo Main Page
ooVoo Tutorial
ooVoo Download

Recommended links:
Our Vision? A new, digital literacy
Free Web based Meetings: A Web 2.0 Tool to Connect Doctors
Before You Participate in a Web Conference

Bookmarking: Learning 2.0 and Del.icio.us

2007-04-24T06:37:00.000-07:00

Del.icio.us is a useful productivity tool, a lot people like librarians use it in a very efficient manner. As the information in the web grows and grows without stooping , it is essential to learn how to find and how to organize this information, the use of del.icio.us allow us to find what others consider important to save, in other words is the people who decide what matters and what not. This is a video I found in Brightcove, another video host site like You Tube, the quality it is not good but the content is great.

Other links:
Del.icio.us
How to use Del.icio.us Tutorial
Medical Pages on Del.icio.us
Social Bookmarking Del.icio.us: A Personal and Professional Productivity Tool

Free Web Based Meetings: A Web 2.0 tool to Connect Doctors

2007-04-22T19:57:00.000-07:00

We talk a lot of Web 2.0 and the use of the web as a platform, what is it? in simple words it means that you do not need to install a big software in your computer to do whatever you could wish, in consequence, more than a powerful computer with a super powerful operative system (as Windows Vista pretends to be), what we need is broadband internet connection. In our case, communication is paramount, most of us know how to use a messenger program like Windows Live Messenger, or Yahoo Messenger, etc. But these are not the only programs that exist to talk to other people, and is not the only thing you can do with your computer and internet, you can do much more and do not to have to spend lot of hours trying to learn it. So, is it with the use of messenger programs the only way we can discuss with other colleagues? The answer is no. For example we can use live meeting conferences, what is a live meeting conference? what can you do? check these demos to have a better idea about it: Microsoft demo or Adobe demo. After you watch these demos you will have a better idea of what a live meeting is for, but do you have to pay for that? the answer is no. You just have to be creative. I am going to tell you how: first of all use a program to talk with more than one person at a time, for that I use Skype, then define what you want to do; for most of us something that will be useful is to show to others what you see in your screen, so why not to share your screen with others(while talking with Skype), to do that use Yugma, you and the people you want to share your screen with have to have an account, at any time you can decide who is the one who will show the screen to the others. If you would like to have something like a whiteboard where to write you can use Vyew, you can do annotations, upload PowerPoint presentation, invite more people( up to 20 for Free), but every person has to open an account( what is free) . Or maybe if you just wan to have a whiteboard but do not want to open a account you can use Skrbl, no necessity to open account or install nothing. So why not to use these tools to interact dynamically with others doctors, for example to discuss clinical cases, I think that the possibilities are endless.

Free Live Conferencing Services
Yugma
Vyew
Skype

Payed Services
Gotomeeting
Webex
Office Live Meeting
Genesys
Adobe Connect Professional

Whiteboard:
Skrbl

Web 2.0: Openness to Medical Knowledge

2007-04-20T08:59:00.000-07:00

Anywhere I look in internet, I find a trend to openness: Open Access, Open Medicine, Open Course Ware, Open Culture,Open Learn, Open Source, Open Directory, Open Office, etc; what in my opinion it is an amazing change with respect to past years. The information is there, if we want it, we have to take it. As doctors the principal beneficiary of this action will be our patients. But, the most difficult challenge is still ahead of us: The challenge to "Open Our Minds" to the change. We have to plant the seed that stimulates thirst of knowledge and happiness of learning. Now exists a huge gateway of knowledge opens to anyone who wants to learn; but most of us are standing in front of it and do not realize that it exists, or if we know of its existence, we do not cross the door to use the knowledge it contains. Technology can create the misconception that it limits the interaction among people, and it could happen if we become extremists with the use of it, but on the contrary it is the tool will help us to back to the basics of education, an education that teacher and apprentice will be closer than ever. Finally, I want to share with you a phrase of Rita Dove that I found, she says "the library is an arena of possibility, opening both a window into the soul and a door onto the world" , now we do not have to go to a library to access the information we need; but the librarians are still there to help us, as guides to the knowledge that will enrich our minds.

References:
Our Vision? A new, digital literacy
Why Open Medicine?
Technology and 3 Types of Teachers

Open Sites:
ODP - Open Directory Project
SourceForge.net: Welcome to SourceForge.net
Home | Open Source Initiative
Open Culture
Open Medicine
OpenLearn LearningSpace - The Open University
Oxford Open initiative
Open Access Now
Open Access Defined
Directory of Open Access Journals

Open Course Ware Resources:
MIT's OpenCourseWare
Waseda University's OpenCourseWare
Utah State OpenCourseWare
UT's OpenCourseWare
Universia Open Course Ware MIT spanish
Tufts OpenCourseWare
TOKYO TECH OCW
ParisTech Open Course Ware
OCW Finder
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's OPENCOURSEWARE
Carnegie Mellon's Open Learning Initiative
KYOTO-U's OpenCourseWare
Keio University's Opencourseware
Fulbright Economics Teaching Program OWC
MERLOT Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching

How Web 2.0 is Changing Medicine

2007-04-17T17:43:00.000-07:00

How web 2.0 will change medicine?, How web 2.0 can change medicine?, How Web 2.0 is changing Medicine?, how web 2.0 will transform medicine?, While it is not easy to answer these questions, I just can say that it will happen sooner or later. But what is Web 2.0? How medicine is related to the learning of computer skills? Most medical doctors spend seven to eight years, on average, at medical school; but most of us never took any classes on these technologies. I agree with Guistini when he says that is difficult to define the Web 2.0, but what I know for sure is that Web 2.0 is about knowing how to share and how to collaborate with others to create new and better content.
I have received a ppt presentation from Dean Giustini. While I don't know him, I read the article he wrote in December in the British Medical Journal about "How Web 2.0 is Changing Medicine". I just want to thank him for his presentation about this topic. I like what he wrote in his article: "the spirit of open sharing and collaboration is paramount", and he is right, because all is about that in the Web 2.0, share with no interest, maybe it could sound like a romantic idea, but it is true.
Finally, I just want to remark his conclusions:
1.- Physicians should learn about the vast ecosystem of the web
2.- Web 2.0 is not a fad, but is changing the way patients and physicians interact
3.- Wikis and blogs help doctors to communicate, collaborate and participate more
4.- Software tools help physicians to form digital communities of practice
5.- In the future, physicians will publish in the absence of associations or affiliations.

Download the presentation as:
Related links:
How Web 2.0 is Changing Medicine
Web 2.0 pilgrimage to Washington, DC

Video Sharing: A tool of Web 2.0 for Medicine

2007-04-15T21:34:00.000-07:00

Definitely, to share videos nowadays, it is really simple, we just have to chose the right place where to upload the information, we want to share with others, or even to make money with that, if this is your purpose. Today, I am talking about that, because, I found that one of the places I like a lot( Veoh ) change its policy about videos that last more than one hour. Before, I used to watch videos that last more than 2 hour with no necessity to upload it in many small pieces, but now you just can watch a 5 minutes preview, if the movie lasts more than an hour, to see all the video, they tell you to use their program to download it; but, who will do that?, when everybody just want to make click an watch the videos. So I decide to change of place and look for another with better characteristics. So, I found one, and I will take advantage of that to compare it with two places more: Youtube, and Veoh, that allow you to upload videos and share them for free. To do it really easy to understand I picked a video that it is hosted in these three places, the video name is "Alizee - J'en Ai Marre", so while comparing you can have some fun too.
First of all the most popular of all this kind of places, but not the best YOUTUBE: Alizee - J'en Ai Marre Click chere to watch he video on youtube.
Next, Alizee - J'en Ai Marre Click chere to watch he video on Veoh.
Then, Alizee - J'en Ai Marre Click here to watch the video on Stage6.
So, get your own conclusions about what is it the best service you can find on internet for free. If you want to see medical videos hosted on internet just visit our Basic Sciences Section, you will find lot of them. Finally, here I leave you a list of other places that offer the same service, with some advantages and disadvantages, just pick the one that fit better your necessities:

p.d.: just one more video for fun click here

Are Doctors Prepared to Used the Web 2.0 ?

2007-04-13T21:16:00.000-07:00

This is an update of the presentation of Ves Dimov about Web 2.0 and Medicine. In my opinion one of the biggest problem we face is the fact that most of us still do not realize, that we have to learn about internet and how to use it, that medicine and computer literacy are necessary to continue our education by ourselves. Even when we are far from big cities or we are working in rural places, or even when we are in transition to get a job or to get into a residency program, we can continue with our education, since the time we enter to medical school, or even before, we know that our profession will never end, that we will face one and thousand tests the rest of our lives, and this is a time when the best doctors can be found anywhere, not only in the big cities or in the big hospitals, to become one of them, we have to work hard, and we have to change the idea the most of us have about traditional medical education.
I made a small search into the curriculum of some medical schools of the United States, but I didn't find computer literacy skill courses as part of the formal education of a student who will become a doctor receive, some of them just have some elective courses or some seminars to learn how to use the internet and how to select information and evaluate resources of knowledge. But what can we expect when our teachers don't understand what we are talking about, when most of our colleges do not show interest to development new skills. Most of the people who is working and using these tools that internet offers, learned everything about internet by themselves, they spent time and energy to understand about Blogs, RSS, Podcast, Videocast, Wikis, Medical Search, Content Sharing sites, Online communities, companies, e-books, online writing, and many things more, but what about the rest of us, I have been trying to teach others about this tools, and the basics of internet, and I have realized that sometimes people can not differentiate between a browser, a search engine or an operative system. I know that anybody you explain how the web can be used is going to tell you that it is amazing, but even in these cases they are not going to use it. And the reason of why not, results simple, we are not prepared to use these technologies, it is too "complicated" yet. I analize it, and think that it will take some time yet, until each one of us can use the internet as the powerful tool it is.
We have lot of things to learn, this is the curve of learning we have to pass, just at that point of learning, we will take advantage of the main purpose of internet that is COLLABORATION. We the people who likes both Medicine and Internet are working hard to get this goal, but definitively it will take time, even when the tools already exists.

Using Web 2.0 to Access Medical Books Online and more

2007-04-11T06:54:00.000-07:00

I just talked to a friend about the things we can do with our computers, and it is interesting to realize that most of the people use their personal computers just to type, to read, to store information, and to chat with people; but, Is that all you can do with your computer?, What are you allowed to do with your computer?. Sometimes we just don't do more things because we don't ask ourselves what is possible and what is not, or sometimes we just don't look for the answer to our questions. In this post I just going to show you how useful(more than you can expect) is to learn how to use the internet to access medical books on internet. I'm going to do that using OVID Books as an example of that:
How? just click HERE , now you can access to 59 book online, you can search in more than one book at a time, and you can see some journals also, sometimes this link allow you to access to more than 200 book, but the last time I tried it just 59 books. You want more?. you just have to keep yourself looking. Do you know what happen when you visit Statref, and write "newyork" in the username box, "metro" in the password box, and then you make Click?. Try it, you won't be dissappointed.But let's make it simple to you: click HERE, this is a really simple page but with lot of useful and powerful information, I found it 5 years ago and it still works. But, that's all the information I can access? answer: NO. There is a lot of more information, It is a matter of learn how to access to them, to finish I leave you a list of places that contain lot of links to download information from internet, some better than other, you have to try them to pick the ones you like the most:

How to Use Web 2.0 to Get a Medical Ebook

2007-04-08T06:45:00.000-07:00

Here I leave you and example of why I think an "Ipod Book" model can exist. The Ipod business born as a necessity against the piracy of music, because almost everybody knows how to rip a CD or DVD. But, how many people know how to get the information that is contained in books on internet for FREE? But , first let me ask you some questions more: Do You have to pay to have a book in pdf format? answer: NO Why not? because, there are many different places where you can download books in pdf for free, example: EbooksClub, you can find here more than four thousand links to download medical books. Second question: Do you have to pay to have a book in pdf format legally? answer: NO Why not? Because, there are many different places where you can download and search for books, example: Google Book Search allow download, search inside the book, view it online, those places also allow you to buy the book online. Third question, Can I see a book online? answer: YES examples: Statref, AccessMedicine , Ovid , but not only look in one book, but many different books at a time. But I have to pay for that? answer: NO, there are many different ways to get access to this books, for example you can go to the library of some university with access to this databases, ask your girlfriend who study at the university for her password, or find the password on internet( use Baidu in the search box type "ezproxy password").Or look for this on internet some people is uploading books and CD books online, example: Atlas of Emergency Medicine book from access medicine that was copied and uploaded again ,Clinical Oncology this is a CD book that is online.
But publishers don't change the way they make business, because we don't know and don't learn how to use the internet and the tools that exist and the fact that now it more easy to publish, I just few days ago found the Google Library Project , I just think that this is a good idea, except for the fact that each time you upload a book it ask you for the ISBN of the book. But there is another way to publish my book in pdf format online:
First, Upload the book to Scribd allow to embed the book in blogs, allow download in different format(pdf, word, text) and audio also, then if I want to read the book I just need to use an ebooks reader devices, or if I like to have the book in my hands, I can order to print it using a service like PrintFu (print pdf book service), and that's it
With this I just want to show you that, if lot of people know how to get a book using internet, they would not buy anymore books from the publishers. What publishers can do against this: low their prices, making their product more accessible to everybody
improve their products,create more services.

Ask Dr Wiki: An Interesting Example of Medicine and Web 2.0

2007-04-05T21:49:00.000-07:00

Ask Dr Wiki is an example of collaboration to create new knowledge without the necessity of third persons (publishers), what doesn't mean that the information would be of low quality, on the contrary, with the participation of each one of us, the knowledge that we create will be better, a concept of web 2.0 is FEEDBACK( to let others to know your ideas and opinions), the opinion of each one us is really important, and with the use of the web we can express our opinions, it is not impossible to communicate with others that have similar interests, but not too many people is participating yet in this change, some still believe that it is impossible to to create in internet without the knowledge to do so, but this is just partially true. We all of us learn day by day new things, that can be shared with others, so visit this wiki and spread your knowledge.

Using Web 2.0 to teach Medicine

2007-04-04T21:15:00.000-07:00

One of the goals I look for with this blog is to teach others, how to use the internet, obviously not all of us, are so involved with the internet and do not spend a lot time looking for tools that can make our work and study more efficient, but if you find this page, you don't have to learn what I try to teach, but you can take advantage of the links you will find here. What I notice is that a lot of people never check the pages they find, they just take a superficial overview and never realize all the information they are missing, and example of how I use this blog is to gather some information for some people, for example I create a blog with Microbiology Animations, not only the ones that everybody knows, but the ones that I found and consider useful. I made this blog to help my students from a community college where I am working for a while. Take a look to this maybe you can find something useful for you.

Searching the Internet: Life Beyond Google

2007-03-31T02:07:00.000-07:00

The Deep Web

2007-03-30T02:37:00.000-07:00

In this presentation you will see in a clear manner what is the Deep Web, and you will realize why is so important to understand this concept, remember that as much as you know you will start to find the things you are looking for on internet, it is just a matter of time, so be patient, to get the knowledge takes time, learning is an active process, do not forget that.

What is the Deep Web?

2007-03-29T02:38:00.000-07:00

With Google we just can access a small quantity of data, as I told you, google is just the tip of the iceberg, the rest of information that exist can be accessed through other search engines, the fact is that we have to learn how, even when now it is easy to look for videos, images, ppt presentations, animations, etc, we have to learn how, and to keep in mind that we can not access all the information just using one search engine, the information is there, that is why is so important to know many different search engines, databases, etc. If you don't find something with one search engine, you have to use another. And keep in mind that the results you obtain change from country to country even when you use the same search engine, just try with a simple search in google, then go to preference and change the language of preference, and try again, you will see that the results are different. This video show you a brief explanation about the deep web. So pay attention and spread the knowledge.

Is it everything in Google?

2007-03-28T13:33:00.000-07:00

I use Google a lot, because with my e-mail account can access many different services like notebook, blogger, video, images, page creator, reader, etc. that with a little bit of imagination complement each others and make my life easy, a little dependent, but more efficient in compensation. But is it every thing in Google? the answer is NOT, not all is in google. Google is just the tip of the iceberg, there is a lot of information ( in many different formats) that we can access through other search engines. But Google is so good that some times we forget that, and sometimes we assume that when we don't find something in google that just do not exist on the web, what is not true. That's why is so important to learn how to search for the information we want. It is important for us to become familiar with medical databases. Here I just leave a list of some of them, you have to spend some time looking at them, to become familiar with the information you will find in them.
Medical Databases list:
STAT!Ref Online
Promedicum
PubMedCentral
McGraw-Hill's Access Medicine
Medscape
Wiley InterScience
TRIP Database
Thieme-connect
Taylor and Francis Group
Springerlink
ScienceDirect
ProQuest
Welcome to Ovid
Merck Medicus
Pub Med
MDCONSULT
McGraw-Hill's AccessScience
Biblioteca Cochrane Plus
HINARI Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative
HighWire Press
Emedicine
Doyma
Ebsco Journal Portal
BMJ Journals Online
Blackwell Synergy
BioMed Central

Why Web 2.0 is so Important

2007-03-27T12:30:00.000-07:00

One aspect really important among other of the Web 2.0 is the fact that it is really easy to share your ideas with others, It is really easy to find someone who have the same ideas and what is more important for me, is the fact that you can work with people you don't know and are far apart, but who have ideas is common with you. Working in collaboration with others, applying what is called Collective Intelligence will let us to improve as a society. But, somehow this is a time of mass education, schools create professionals that think in the same way, schools are like factories were people are programmed to think in determined way, with a narrow view of life, and the mass media give a huge help with that too. We just see, hear and learn what some people want. Nevertheless, internet nowadays allow us to choose what we want to see, hear, learn, but for how long more? This presentation show us a positive perspective of what the future will be, and how important Web 2.0 is, and give us really good examples of that.

The End of Medicine

2007-03-26T05:27:00.000-07:00

Once in a while is good to hear what others think about us, and what they think about our profession. People usually treat us well, they come with us with their ailments, but what about our colleagues, people who work with us, I have the opportunity to study now with people who are not doctors and who do not know that I am one, so I can hear lot of things, most of them not good about us, and how do we treat people, and all the mistakes we make. Maybe the fact that we learn a lot of things that others no, and the fact that medicine is related with common life experiences like birth, growing, death, etc, let us understand how life is better. But are we going to exist for ever as a profession, or there is a time in the future when the necessity for doctor will not exist? Who knows? I found this presentation online free, it presents us a perspective about our future, take a look to this.
Note:
Author: Andy Kessler
Host: Commonwealth Club of California
Location: San Francisco, CA
Date: Jan 29, 2007

A Glimpse to the Future: Human 2.0

2007-03-25T05:29:00.000-07:00

Today is Sunday, so it is a day for relax, to lie in bed until late, and to do whatever we want. That make me think about, some of the most important characteristics of internet, that is the fact that nobody control what I can see(yet) but me. I chose what I see, I chose what I read , what I listen. This is a fact that old fashioned television and entertainment companies don't like, because now, there's no way to just feed our mind with their ideas only. The last week I read about the sue Viacom made to Youtube for one billion dollars due to piracy of their products. But, even when they would win, this is no the end of the story, Youtube is not the only company where we can upload our videos, there are many others, like Veoh, that in my personal opinion is better than Youtube, also we can find ForaTV, that is by far better than Youtube and Veoh. That's why these giants of the mass media: NBC and News Corp, AOL, MSN, Yahoo and MySpace will join to form a new online video distribution network. We'll see what happen in the future with this battle. Anyway, Sunday is a day to relax, so today I post a video about Human 2.0 , this video was made by BBC the last year, it offers us a glimpse to our likely future, so enjoy it.

How to Use Del.icio.us Tutorial

2007-03-24T03:05:00.000-07:00

to see the video with higher resolution click here

This is the second tutorial I made, the purpose of it is to show you, how to open an account in Del.icio.us, and to show how to use it. The duration of the tutorial is fourteen minutes, even when my English is not very good, I made this. That is the goal of the web now, to create new and original content. Sometimes, we just think that we can not do that, or that we do not have something to share with other; but definitely, all of us, each one of us, no matter what we do or what we are, can teach others. Just few days ago, I read that the word doctor has it origin in the latin word docere, that means to teach. That is what I pretend with this blog, but not only here, but in my daily life.

How to Learn to Search on Internet

2007-03-23T05:55:00.000-07:00

To learn how to search for information, of any kind in any format, on internet really takes time, but this time is really a good investment in our education, I can say that it will pay off for sure. Today, more than ever before, each one of us has to become lifelong learners. The information is there, but most of the time we don't know that this exists. But Why? It is curious to realize that exists a culture of copyright, that we were born and grow up learning this concept, we are "programmed" to respect this concept, and what ever we do against copyright make us to feel bad. Just like the novel "Brave New World" By Aldous Huxley ( I like more the title in Spanish: Un Mundo Feliz ). Sometimes I feel that the development of our society is based on the ignorance of most of us. I feel also that nobody is doing something to change that. Why? Most of the things a learned came from this page Web Searchlores. There is no order, no menu and no guide of how to read this page, you just have follow your instinct to find what you want to learn. You will find many important concepts that will help you understand how the internet works.
Click here to listen the podcast

Medical Pages on Del.icio.us

2007-03-22T05:43:00.000-07:00

I subscribed to blogger almost two years ago, but it is not until now, that I really understand how it works, it is now, when I try to use it. My objective with these page is to share a bit of what I know with all of you. While doing my internship I realized that a lot of residents didn't know how to look for information on internet, so I used to work looking information for them. That is how I learned to use the internet and began to discover all the things that are possible with this powerful tool. But I understand that it is still difficult for most of us to get it. So lets make it easier with some examples. I am a big user of del.icio.us; but I use it in organized way, I saved there only what I consider important, and only "web portals", even when you can save any page, I just save there pages with a lot of information about a topic(medicine), for the articles that I am interested in, but are to generic, I use other service (clipmarks). You just need to make click in the link to access to my favorites and use them as you want, if you have a del.icio.us account just add "maxedmond" to your network. So you can see my pages, the way it works is similar to pages like Hi5 or Myspace, but instead of photos and profiles what you see are pages saved by other people, in this case health care people. So take a look to this link:
Del.icio.us Medicine tags Victor Castilla (maxedmond)

Digital Literacy: Sources of Information

2007-03-21T06:36:00.000-07:00

Digital Literacy: Internet Misconceptions

2007-03-20T04:52:00.000-07:00

With the time the use of technology has become so common and easy that we don't have to understand how do they work. Sometimes we start to mix up the meaning of different terms, interchanging one meaning for another without taking care of that. A common example for that are the words internet, web, and browser, what are totally different.The Internet is the worldwide, publicly accessible network of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP) or in toher words we can say that is the physical media. The World Wide Web ("WWW" or simply the "Web") is a system of interlinked, hypertext documents that runs over the Internet or we can say that it is the data. A web browser is a software application that enables a user to display and interact with text, images, and other information typically located on a web page at a website on the World Wide Web or a local area network or we could say that a browser(i.e. firefox, internet explorer, opera, safari) is the program we use to surf in the internet to access different type of data. This presentation show some common misconceptions about the internet that people have.

Information literacy in this Century

2007-03-19T04:44:00.000-07:00

This is a presentation just to emphasize the importance of learning digital skills, and to show you how people is working to help professional to get this goal. It is important to learn how to educate ourselves in a continuous manner, with all the information I found for free on internet I believe that the main role of our universities or wherever we go to study is to teach us how to become long life learners. But, my question is why when the information is there, so few ones use it?

Digital Literacy Skills

2007-03-18T01:46:00.000-07:00

How to get the ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a wide range of sources when it is presented via computers? What skills do you have to learn in order to become digital literate? With this presentation I just try to show you some of the skills you have to develop. But keep in mind that you will have to spend time and patience until you become really efficient in the use of the internet as a tool.

What is Digital Literacy?

2007-03-16T03:58:00.000-07:00

click here to see the presentation in full screen
One of the main things about Web 2.0 is the fact that make the access to internet easy, let you do things without the necessity to learn about digital language, but even when it is easy now to upload a video, share a photo, have your own podcast, there are many other things we have to learn, and we have to learn those thing by ourselves, fortunately internet allow us access to all this information, we just have to look for.
In this presentation I just try to explain why it is important to learn about it.

What happened with Google Print Project

2007-03-15T01:47:00.000-07:00

I belong to the group of people who can not buy an original book, because they are too expensive, so I always try to find for good information in different ways, I always try to get full access to a book, and internet allow me that, in such a way that I think that information belong to those who find and use it. But to download book from internet is time consuming then it is an inconvenient to look in each of them to find what you want. And even when It is easier to download the book from many different servers than buy the book. It is more helpful to have a search engine to look in many different books at a time, is it possible to do that? the answer is yes, and that is what Google print project look for until is was stopped. The information for all is still a dream, even when most of the books are not under copyright law, why don't we use this information, we don't have access to these information, why when the technology to do that exist we do not use it, maybe because we don't know we can do that, so they take advantage of our lack of knowledge and do not release the information to anyone who wants to use it. Many people download books, scan books and post them online, there are many examples with more than four thousands medical books online. do you have to ask for permission each time you use a work, NO, the fair use of a copyright work is not and infringement. people have the right to profit with other work without permission, can I share my work, do I need to ask permission from the author to share something I bought, learn about what are our rights, what I can do in internet, what I can do with my computer, what I can see.

What is Net Neutrality?

2007-03-14T02:19:00.000-07:00

What is Net Neutrality and why is so important for us to understand about it, things are really changing and the interest created around it are huge, recently I have reading about these but it not yet a popular topic people can talk about; in my opinion if this is going to continue this way, we will lose our freedom to do want we want with the internet without notice that. Here you can watch a really good explanation about Net Neutrality and the opinion Sir Tim Berner, the creator of internet, has about it.
note: this video was produced by http://www.savetheinternet.com/

to read more about net neutrality and thing related click here

Are we part of this Humanity Lobotomy?

2007-03-13T01:20:00.000-07:00

This is an amazing video about the control of internet and how big telephone companies are fighting to get the control of internet. We can here opinion of Sir Tim Berners creator of World Wide Web, Net Neutrality,how do we pass the information we create and how this change with the time. How the ways we create and transmit this information is regulated , who create the information in the traditional media(television, radio, newspapers)who benefit for that , just few have access to this why? we can not create radio, but technologies are changing, now anyone can have a podcast anyone can say what they want on internet, but this can be regulated in the future, by who?. Sir Tim Berners explain that freedom of connection with any application to any party connection is the fundamental social basis of society we build on internet, but control over the internet is going to kill the innovation of creation, who create the content of internet? the answer us. so spread awareness.
note: this video belongs to http://www.foureyedmonsters.com/

What is Creative Commons?

2007-03-12T03:44:00.000-07:00

Do you know what are your rights? Do you know what can you do on internet? Do you know what can you do with your computer? What is legal or illegal? Times are changing and the way things can be done are changing too, and there are people with huge interests who want to control what you do on internet, legal battles that are going to determine who will control the information you can access, people who wants to determine what can you do or what you can not do with with computer, there are things that maybe you are not aware of, but that you have to know. Because information and knowledge is power, those who control both of them will rule the world, but fortunately there is people who is fighting for our rights, for our freedom to do whatever we want to do. I just want to share this concept of creative commons with this to short videos, one in English the other in Spanish, and will like you to spread the message. Share, reuse, and remix — legally.

Are We a Free Culture?

2007-03-11T05:07:00.000-07:00

We see changes every where, our society is changing, our environment, the internet also. But maybe there are things we are not aware about, things that maybe in the future are going to change the way things can be done. This is an amazing presentation, even when the audio is not so good, the content of what Lessig says it is really important, and is changing, maybe not so fast but a least it is a good initiative where to start. We as a doctors spend lot of time in our stuff that is medicine, but I think that we have to retake the roll in society we always have, with the time we just focus on medicine and leave other rolls we used to be involved. My intention is to share with you this information and create a little interest in you.
note: video was downloaded from http://lessig.org/freeculture/ in flash format and transformed to video format
download de audio: MP3 Audio
download PPT presentation: Original PowerPoint Presentation
read the transcript: Transcript [O'Reilly Network]

Health Computer Illiteracy Part 2

2007-03-10T04:40:00.000-08:00

How Web 2.0 is Changing Medicine BMJ 2006;333:1283-1284 ,this is a good article about tools that can make doctors' jobs easier and more efficient. The Web 2.0 is about freedom and sharing( weren't those the purposes of the creation of the internet?), the main difference with the old web is the fact that now we don't have to know nothing about language of computers to create a blog, to share files online, to create discussion groups, interchange images, look for help in difficult diagnostic cases, make meetings online, socialize, create medical communities, etc. Now, the use of internet has become so similar as the use of calculators or microwave ovens, because we do not know how do they work but we can use them in our behalf. There are directories of Web 2.0 like http://www.go2web20.net/ where we can find the tools we are looking for. we just have to ask ourselves some simple questions, can I do that? it is possible to do that? what I can do to solve this problem? the chances to find someone who has the same problem to solve are really high. Just consider that internet is huge, and the number of users is growing. But are doctors prepared to take advantage of these tools? Are doctors taking an active participation of this revolution? are they applying Web 2.0 concepts? And if the answer is no, who is responsible for that? Who has to teach the doctors how to use these "new" technologies? In my opinion this is a responsibility of each one of us. If we learn, know and apply what already exists, the change this article talks about will come to pass sooner.

Health Computer Illiteracy

2007-03-09T12:26:00.000-08:00

Lately, I have been reading about the tools of web 2.0 and the multiple applications we can take advantage to improve our clinical practice. And it is true that the development of this "new" technology to do that can be called a revolutionary, but are we part of this revolution? Are doctors Health Computer literate?. This web is to share and interact with others, the amount of information that exist is huge and the resources any one with internet can access, grow and grow with no stop. So it es important that doctors learn how to used these resources, how to select them and how to apply them to their practices. But who is responsible for that, our governments, our educational institutions, or ourselves.

Social Bookmarking & Del.icio.us: A Personal and Professional Productivity Tool

2007-03-07T16:09:00.000-08:00

Nowadays we can fin lot of tools that can make our works more easy, one of them is del.icio.us, I use to remember when many years ago I visited cybercafe(internet was so expensive 10 years ago n Peru, that's why in my country cybercafe are really popular) with my diskette that contains all my favorites from one place to another, so each time I access to internet I just open this file to see them, I always was afraid because the diskettes were so fragile, so anything can damage it, and my information could be loss. Then I start to save it in my email account, now each time I access internet I download my file, and when finished, I upload it again updated. But this was so time consuming, later on I found del.icio.us, at the beginning I didn't understand how to used it or how to get the most from it, but now I can tell you that this is a powerful tools you can use to optimize your job. In this presentation you will see how you can use del.icio.us and what is this for.

Data Storage: for how long it can last?

2007-03-06T14:03:00.000-08:00

Has click para leer el Post en Espanol
Hello to all. It does some time I was seeing documentary of the TVE (Spanish Television) in which was spoken on the lapsing of the data stored in average optician (discs CD, DVD and similars), as well as in magnetic means (tapes of audio, VHS, DAT and similars). Within the prespectiva of documentary saying, the data at the moment stored in supports type CD and DVD (I assume that also HD and Blu-ray) have a short time of enough life, which can arrive in the best one from the cases at 20 years (we remember that the first CD on sale and made of massive form was sent to the market in 1982). Although the main enemy of the data stored in those formats has been the diverse types of physical damages that can be inflingir to them (from a “pasadita” with the shirt, to pisotón by pure chance), are less controlable others. like the climatic changes. Inclusively, the presence of fungus was reported environmental that it “likes” to eat the polymer of which is made the cover of the CD, reason why when appearing this one organism in this support, loses the information contained in him (now I explain those black spots which they expand in the CD when I was living in the Peruvian forest.). In spite of it, the great companies (Sony, Phillips, Toshiba, LG, Samsung, etc, etc,) bet in the market sending extraordinary campaigns for “visualizing” “kindness” of this type of formats as it is his capacity of storage (at the moment the Blu-ray de Sony/Philips and the HD of Toshiba) have capacities of up to 50 Gigabytes (more or less 70 CD; 1 CD = 500 floppy disks; therefore 1 Blu-ray/HD = 35000 floppy disks) in relation to the size. Nevertheless, not yet they pass the acid test: the time. Thus the question rises: We must leave all our data (texts, images, audio, video, data, etc,) in this type of formats? For some scientists, this is not the suitable thing. Let us imagine for a moment that the computers ("compus" for others) are desactualizados from a little while to another one… if outside this certain one, present the CDs and DVDs could not be read. Inclusively now: Somebody has a record player (for those of vinyl)? If outside thus, all our valuable data would be lost, and… we could recover them? On the other hand, within 100 years, will be present all our valuable memories in the CD or DVDs? With these perspective, the lapsing of the information is frequently more alarming, in special when all our world is transformed into “digitalis” and it is stored in “discs”. Every time we have more capacities, but we become weaker. If the world of computer science followed the same laws that the biological world, the law of the natural evolution without a doubt some, would make extinguish to this type of storage.
note: translation was made using google Has click aqui para leer el Post en Espanol

How to Switch Browser: from IE to FIREFOX

2007-03-06T03:07:00.000-08:00

Most of the people use Internet Explorer to surf in the web. But the main reason for using Internet Explorer is not because this is an amazing browser but because people have never tried another browser, this is easy to explain by the fact that all the computers have IE already installed in the system when we buy a new computer, or when we go to any cybercafe and the browser that we find is explorer. The new version of explorer have taken many of the features of Firefox(i.e. like tabs); but even with those improvements, Firefox is a better and safer browser. One of the characteristics of Firefox that I like a lot is the customization, you can install as many add-ons as you want( I read that some guy install 200 and the browser works perfectly). Another thing that is important about Firefox is that is in a constant improvement, now we have the 2.0 version: but soon we will have the version 3.0. This is the first tutorial in video I made, I am showing you the basic steps you have to make to switch of browser, this is just going to take you few minutes. You also are going to learn how to install the Google Toolbar for Firefox, del.icio.us tab, Clipmarks tab, Flashgot and IE tab. In later post I will explain you how to use each of these add-ons in a really efficient manner.
note: to watch the tutorial in Spanish click here

Microsoft buys MedStory

2007-03-05T06:10:00.000-08:00

Thanks to New Media for the head's up about Microsoft buying MedStory. For those of you who haven't seen it yet, MedStory is a rather extraordinary new medical search engine. What makes it special is not so much the actual search results, which seem to be identical to those from Google for the same search, as how the results are organized -- a granular display. A search for any medical or health topic will initially default to results MedStory believes are appropriate for consumers. These will be grouped under their "Health" tab (on the right hand side of the screen.Isn't that exciting? I like to teach this to students as something to use when a topic is new to them. Look at how much you can learn about a topic without even clicking on any of the search results!. From the initial search result screen, you can then click on any topic to focus in on one of the search results, or you can click on the "Research" tab, or you can click on one of the icons right above the results to focus in on a publication type. In this image, I've done all of these -- from an initial search on Diabetes, I then selected the "Research" tab, chose the subtopic of Glycosylated Hemoglobin, and finally selected the publication type of Clinical Trials.
MedStory is a rather extraordinary new medical search engine. Now you go try it out, and see what you think!

Web 2.0 : Tools we can use to improve our use of internet

2007-03-04T07:13:00.000-08:00

download
We can find many different resources to do what we want, web 2.0 uses the tools that already exist before; but in a different manner, web 2.0 try to make the use of internet more easy for all, the concept of web 2.0 allows us to work using many different programs with no necessity of install nothing in our computers, we do not need to know almost nothing about internet languages or so on to use these tools, the web day by day becomes more friendly.
Concepts like blogs, tags, web-based programs, community, feedback, etc. becomes more and more popular with the time, even when the concept of web 2.0 is not new, now, the vast majority of people don't know what exactly is Web 2.0 and how to use the tools that exist. Here I posted a presentation in PowerPoint I found in Slideshare, if you like you can here the audio presentation also, you just have to press Play. Do I have to be a webmaster to make things like this?. The answer is NO. you just need to be curious.
note: The presentation was by The UM Health Sciences Libraries, and the audio is by the School of Dentistry

How to make Firefox more efficient

2007-02-28T19:26:00.000-08:00

Well, after a poll I made between the people I know I realize that they don't know about Firefox and they don't use it just because they don't know what is Firefox?, or how to use it, or what are the advantages to have it. So here I am posting a tutoring in video I found at www.jimmyr.com. With explorer I always had many problems, and know that I am using Firefox, It is almost impossible to me to user another browser. One of the things I like the most about Firefox, it is the fact that I save a lot of time, obviously at the beginning takes a little longer to get used to; but this is time will really pay off. In this tutorial you will learn how to make quick searches using, using the "quick searches" bookmark tool. So pay attention and enjoy it.

Firefox

2007-02-21T07:47:00.000-08:00

Firefo ADDs

Firefox or Internet Explorer?

Do you want to hear what people is saying about firefox, why do people use firefox or why do people use internet explorer, let's what the video.

C|Net PrizeFight Mozilla Firefox 2 vs Internet Explorer
But, to take a decision is always difficult, why to chose one instead of another. watch this interesting video where both browsers are compared. Guess who win?

Web 2.0 Presentacion en Espanol

2006-10-24T14:14:00.001-07:00

Una breve presentacion en powerpoint acerca de lo que la web 2.0 significa, lo unico que tienen que hacer es navegar a traves de la presentacion para tener una mejor idea acerca de lo que representa este concepto.

Web 2.0 English Presentation

2006-10-24T14:13:00.001-07:00

A brief explanation about what Web 2.0 means, you just have to navigate trough the slides to know a little bit about this

Del.icio.us: Tus Favoritos on-line

2006-10-21T13:24:00.000-07:00

Cuando navegamos a traves de la red encontramos muchas cosas interesantes y otras que no lo son tanto, aquellas cosas paginas webs que nos interesan cuando estamos en nuestra computadora personal usualmente las guardabamos en nuestros favoritos, pero que pasa cuando no estamos en casa y no tenemos nuestros favoritos al alcance de la mano. Una forma de resolver este inconveniente es guardando nuestros bookmarks online, de tal manera que cada vez que nos conectemos a la red tengamos acceso a las paginas que vimos con anterioridad y que nos interesan. Una de las paginas que ofrece la oportunidad de guardar nuestros favorios en linea es del.icio.us.
Primero tenemos que ir a esta pagina:Luego debemos abrir una cuenta, lo cual es gratis.luego sigan la instructiones para instalar los botones en su navegador, despues de completado este proceso se les enviara un email de confirmacion el cual deben validar.al momento de validar el email, estaran nuevamente dentro de su cuenta de delicious, veran una pantalla como esta en donde se dice que no hay items.

Eso es porque ustedes tienen que agregar( postear) las paginas que les interesan que alli aparescan, colocarles un nombre con el que ustedes puedan reconocer a la pagina y agregarle tags(etiquetas), estas etiquetas permiten que de forma automatica las paginas con los mismo tags se agrupen, se puede colocar mas de un tag por pagina que guardemos.
En realidad las ventajas de usar delicious son muchas, esta pagina fue creada basicamente usando ese recurso, es solo cuestion de navegar un rato y ver lo beneficios que uno puede obtener de usar esta pagina.

Welcome

2006-10-21T06:50:00.000-07:00

Bienvenidos