Hi everyone,
just to weigh in a little on the PDA / textbook question. The entire
emedicine library is available for download (at a cost of $USD99 / year onto
windows CE compatible PDAs (and prob Palm OS too, although I didn't check).
It is really useful to carry such a large volume of text around so
conveniently. Downside with emedicine is that the text is fairly dry,
lacking pictures, tables etc.
(No financial interest in the above.)
Regards to the list
Paul Bailey
Emergency Physician
Perth
Western Australia
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rowley Cottingham" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, February 01, 2002 5:13 PM
Subject: PDAs and textbooks
> Steve Meek was asking about PDAs and electronic textbooks. I have been
doing some work over the last 7 or 8 months
> with PDAs for emergency medicine. The first thing to say is that they are
undoubtedly the way forward. The second
> thing to say is - not yet.
>
> I started my experimentation with a Psion Revo. That broke twice, blew up
a USB hub and went back pretty smartish. It
> was not adequate for the task. I then tried an iPAQ with Windows CE. That
was a great improvement, but got stolen.
>
> I have now moved on to an iPAQ pocket PC running Windows 2002.
>
> This is easily the best so far, but it is by no means perfect.
>
> Good points. Small, sexy (sad or wot) and with a fantastic clear colour
screen. It can be securely protected with a
> password at two levels of security. Will synchronise with everything on
your desktop PC such as any files, Outlook
> (everything; contacts, calendar, tasks, notes etc). It has several
different ways of entering information; a block
> transcriber (using Graffiti-like recognition, for Palm users here), a tiny
virtual keyboard, a letter recogniser and best of all a
> handwriting transcriber. This allows you simply to write in a standard
cursive fashion on the entire display (it is
> touch-sensitive) and it learns your handwriting, so even my scrawl is
recognised surprisingly often. It will take a tiny
> data card (not included; so far up to 128Mb available) , and various
sleeves are available with functions including
> WLANs like Bluetooth. It uses a docking cradle to synchronise with the PC,
and can also be synchronised over infra-red
> connections. Battery life has not been an issue in my hands. It has a
pocket copy of internet explorer, and this can be set
> up to download items of interest from a free server at
http://www.avantgo.com to keep you up to date. There are
> promises of electronic versions of journals, but nothing is available yet.
I have loaded my entire electronic doctor's
> handbook on it except for the video files and there is space still to
spare. It will also play mp3 files if you want to have
> music while you work; either through its tiny loudspeaker or through a
headphone socket. It comes with pocket word
> and pocket excel, but not access. There are pocket versions of a
powerpoint player http://www.presenter.com and of the
> adobe acrobat reader http://www.adobe.com. Slight differences from
standard windows ways of working are
> required, but it isn't an issue. There is supposedly a version of
Symphony, a new UK A&E management system coming,
> but I haven't tried it. There are lots of other bits and pieces which are
basically toys.
>
> Bad points. It is small and sexy, and hence easily targeted for theft. The
software is quite immature, and some bits are
> decidedly flaky, especially the synchronisation software which crashes
other applications and has resource leaks.
> However, I have reported these to Microsoft, and I'm sure they will be
fixed. Quite a lot of things aren't properly
> implemented or enabled yet; internet explorer spawns acrobat reader
correctly, but can't cope with embedded powerpoint
> presentations. At £500 a pop these are seriously expensive items - you can
get a full-size PC for that. Synchronisation of
> large files is reasonably speedy over the USB connection on the cradle,
but can be excruciatingly slow over the infra-red
> link, which is only enabled to 115kbps, for some reason.
>
> However, I m convinced these things are the future, particularly when
fitted with wireless LAN stuff. They are now
> powerful enough to be a serious tool.
>
>
> Best wishes,
>
>
> Rowley Cottingham
>
> [log in to unmask]
> http://www.emergencyunit.com
>
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