Point-of-Care Test Barcoding Yields 593% Reduction in Specimen Mislabeling

I wrote recently about the importance of establishing reliable patient- and specimen-identification protocols and of then following them. That last part, actually following established protocol, may seem too obvious to waste space here saying, but my research revealed that simply failure to follow established procedures is indeed a leading, if not the leading, cause of…

The Internet of Things, Cloud Computing, and Carwashes

Searching Google for “Internet of Things” produces 2,090,000,000 results. The Internet is a very big place, but 2.09-billion results is a lot, even from a pool as large as the Internet. By comparison, “Justin Bieber” yields only 793-million results and “Cloud Computing” just 567-million. Yet for many among us, IoT remains a frustratingly vague concept…

Grocery Stores, Coupons, and Mobile Scanning

I would consider myself to be a food enthusiast.  I love to cook, bake, and I am definitely not afraid to try different types of food, well to a certain extent.  I have become the master to homemade Pad Thai, as well as baking anything that involves chocolate.   Now that it is the Holidays, I…

Flour, water, yeast and Zebra’s MZ 320 Mobile Printer!

What’s in the recipe for the best hamburger buns in Southern California? Flour, water, yeast, love of baking, and Zebra’s MZ 320 Mobile Printer. Imagine you’re in the business of producing specialty breads and that your chosen customer niche consists of more than 2000 regional restaurants, food stands and coffee shops. Day in, day out,…

HHD, SSHD, or SSD?

I’m building a new desktop PC for home use, and, now that I’ve gotten used to the amazing boot speeds of my SSD-equipped laptop, I want that technology for my personal PC, as well. But, no more than I’ll actually be using it, I’m having a hard time justifying the cost of both an SSD…

Big Data To The Rescue!

What is Big Data and how is it used?  We get this question a lot.  We defi ne big data as huge amounts of data collected through the public sector.  It’s all the data compiled from police departments, the DMV, the DOT, our courthouses, etc.  There are others, like retailers, who also collect data that…

Point of Sale, Mobile Printing, and Holiday Shopping

I love to shop and if I could do it all the time I would.  There are a few things holding me back though: money does not grow on trees, I have other priorities that come first, and bills that need to be paid. I especially love to shop around the holidays. The sales, the…

Advantech and HDD 411: The Five Main Categories

I have a growing stash of reference materials that I keep at hand, and I find use for at least one item in this collection every workday. Most are in PDF format, and, to make sure that they are indeed “at hand,” I keep them in cloud-based storage that syncs automatically to the drives on…