From the category archives:

Security

How to Reuse or Recycle Your Old Tech

January 20, 2012

The article linked below discusses a number of ways older computers can be re-purposed. Many of these ideas could be put to work in a dental office. For example an out of date treatment room computer could be re-purposed as a media center to provide on demand music for patients.
However if you must get rid [...]

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The Best Antivirus for 2012

January 18, 2012

From PC Magazine

The Best Antivirus for 2012 | PCMag.com.

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The Future of Personalized Medicine

January 16, 2012

From the WSJ
Take a moment to imagine what it would be like to live robustly to the ripe old age of 100 or more. You wouldnt die of any particular illness, and you wouldnt gradually waste away under the spell of some awful, enfeebling disease…Most of the conditions that kill us, including cancer and heart [...]

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How Secure Is My Password?

January 2, 2012

How about making a resolution to improve your password security for 2012? The web site How Secure Is My Password?. can help. You can enter a password or potential password and the site evaluates it for you.
I typed in several. For some I was informed that my password was so common it could be hacked [...]

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The 25 Worst Passwords of 2011

November 23, 2011

In the dental office we fequently just write the password on a sticky note and stick it to the computer.
Many of the passwords are sequential numbers like “12345″ or “654321,” while others contained messages like “letmein” and “trustno1″. Even if you thought you were being clever with “qazwsx,” (look at your keyboard, you’ll get it) [...]

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The Best Products of 2011

November 18, 2011

From PC Magazine:
Perhaps the greatest distinction we give, however, is our Best of the Year Awards, which are presented to those products that truly dazzle us.
Best of the year in these catagories:
Desktops
Laptops
Tablets
Peripherals &
Components
Audio
Digital Cameras
Ebook Readers
GPS Navigation
HDTVs
Cell Phones
Mobile Devices
Mobile Apps
Security
Software &
Internet
Networking
Printers
Projectors
Scanners
Gaming
Some of these, like the printer, will have a direct dental office application. Others, like Gaming, [...]

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How to Choose an Online Backup Service

November 9, 2011

How important are your computer files? When asked here is what people said:

50 percent would rather lose all of their vacation time for an entire year than lose all of the files on their computer.
38 percent of married Americans feel that it would be worse to lose everything on their computer than to lose their [...]

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Why Registering Your Software Does Matter

November 7, 2011

Most dentists are aware enough to register their primary software like Dentrix or Eaglesoft. However we often use general business applications as well, everything from QuickBooks to Adobe Acrobat and it is easy to neglect to register these seemingly secondary applications. The linked PC Magazine story makes the case that registering these products can save [...]

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Is Your Practice At Risk?

September 23, 2011

As much as I love high tech I reluctantly admit that the same systems that make sharing information quick and easy also make it quick and easy for people to steal from us. The linked article is from Price Kong a local CPA firm that works with many dentists, including me.
Health care practices that have a [...]

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Should Faking a Name on Facebook Be a Felony?

September 21, 2011

From the WSJ.
So you could be jailed for lying about your age or weight on an Internet dating site. Or you could be sent to federal prison if your boss told you to work but you used the company’s computer to check sports scores online. … Fanciful, right?…Think again…
The little-known law at issue is called [...]

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Stanford Hospital Patients’ Private Data Was Posted Online

September 16, 2011

Another frightening story from the NYT of patient data exposed online.
A medical privacy breach led to the public posting on a commercial Web site of data for 20,000 emergency room patients…
Two items struck me about this story.

The cause of the breach seems to be unknown, probably foolish and inadvertent and simply the result of human [...]

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Hackers Target Small Firms

August 25, 2011

I heard about the WSJ article linked here at the Dentrix Tech Summit.
In the time it takes to break into a major company like Citigroup Inc., a hacker could steal data from dozens of small businesses and not get detected
In the past I have written that dentists just needed basic security systems in place as [...]

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The Best Free VPN Clients

August 19, 2011

VPN or Virtual Private Network is a good way to create a relatively secure system for the dentist and dental team members to access the office from home via a remote log on. This allows for telecommuting which has many advantages. As dentists we eventually actually have to be in the office with an assistant to [...]

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RPost Office “Registered e-Mail?”

August 8, 2011

If you are sending a message and you need legal proof it was received you can sent a registered letter via the post office. So, for example, if you were dismissing a patient you can demonstrate that the patient actually received the message if a slime ball attorney ever challenged you in court.
The service described in [...]

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Hackers Take $1 Billion a Year from Company Accounts Banks Won’t Indemnify

August 4, 2011

The linked Bloomberg article is well worth reading for any small business, which of course includes most dentists.
I am such a cheer leader for technology I sometimes take a Pollyanna approach to problems including online security. On the other hand I do admit there are real issues with security, including the security of our dental [...]

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Data Safety Top Ten

July 26, 2011

What a nice surprise. I just saw online that an article I wrote back in 2004 on online back up and data safety is listed in the top ten articles in that subject area. My article here . The article is eight years old which is an eon or so in digital time. Never the less [...]

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Spam Decreased 82.22% Over The Past Year

July 5, 2011

Good
We have some great news for you: There was a whole lot less spam sent today than there was a year ago.
via Spam Decreased 82.22% Over The Past Year.

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Not Just for Kids

June 26, 2011

From Lorne Lavin
Keeping your keyboards clean for any dental practice can be a chore. One annoying thing is that in order to really clean it well, you need to either disconnect the cable from the computer or turn off the computer. ToddlerTrap, which was meant to lock kids out of your computer (and isn’t actually [...]

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