Justin's Blog

 Archive for the ‘Hardware’ Category

f you use Therap in Minnesota and are interested in finding out how you can billing directly from Therap using Therap data, you should join this online User Group Meeting.

We’ll be discussing how Therap Electronic Billing and discussing Minnesota specific rules.

You can sign up here

The meeting is on February 1st at 10am Central

:: Justin ::

The answer to this questioon is most likely “Probably, most of the time.” if you are using a current browser or an Android / iOS / WebOS phone.

The problems start to happen when you get someone like me who has tons of browsers on their computer (sometimes just to try them out and sometimes becuase I want to have multiple Therap accounts open at once while I am testing or setting somethign up).

Examples of browsers I might use include:

• Internet Explorer
• Firefox
• Chrome (probably the browser I use most though it has been causing me grief recently and with the new Firefox for Android I am really considering goign back)
• Opera
• Safari

And those are only the ones I use on my computer, when it comes top phones, tablets, and other mobile devices, there are mobile versions of each one of these!

Just the week, Microsoft has released Internet Explorer 9 and Mozilla has released Firefox 4.  Theoretically they are all moving towards standards based browsing, but any time they make an update (which they will often do weekly) they may change the way that websites and applications like Therap interact with them.

Obviously, if we were to spend all of our time on 100% compatibility with the latest browsers (not to mention the verious beta and mobile versions) you would probably never see a new feature.

Instead, we concentrate on the mature versions and address major functionality issues as we did with SComm on the iPad version of Safari.

What this says is, please let us know when you see curious things going on with brand spanking new browsers, but don’t expect instant fixes on little annoyances.

It’s very similar with phones and mobile devices.  Just walk into Best Buy or Staples to see how many there are, each with their own vagueries. We can’t possibly test every last device that is out there, but we would love to know which ones you are having success (or not) with.

I use my Android phone (a Droid 2), a Samsung Galaxy Tab, an iPod Touch and an iPad all with great success and I am sure that there is a device out there that is perfect for you (I am rather excited about the possibilities for the Motorola Xoom).

Let me know what you use.

:: Justin ::

Having given many presentations and trainings where the gremlins attack, this makes me feel so much better.

I love the should out of "Verizon!"

Maybe I should invest in that black turtleneck.

Enjoy:

:: Justin ::

The big announcement today was Apple’s iPad.

What’s the iPad you ask?

Basically it’s a great big iPod Touch.  In other words it could be a really handy thing to stick on a med-room wall to complete you MARs or carry with you to do your Therap documentation really easily.  It costs about $500, which is interesting because I have seen touchscreen devices for Nursing Homes which retail for about $1500 each!

:: Justin ::

Having established the fact that I have the cutest daughters in the world, I am now venturing into computers.

I am trying to see if the Dell Inspiron Mini would  work as a mobile classroom computer for new Therap users.  It would certainly be easier to travel with one of these.

My thoughts so far:

I like it!  It’s small! (photo above is next to my  15″ Dell – click for bigger and more). 

It’s affordable ($380  all in for a refurbished model you would never know wasn’t new)

It is actually remarkably usable.  Even with my big fingers, I am having no problems writing this blog post on it at good speed inside Scribefire.  The screen and keys though small are very clear.

Only a couple of negatives so far:

1. It doesn’t use the standard Dell laptop charger (I love that all our other Dells do)

2. I can’t find F11 (which gets you full screen in a browser which I would use a lot) I can only get as far as F10!

I’ll let you know more as I live with it a bit.  What would you think if we arrived to do your training with a bunch of these?

:: Justin ::

We are doing some work on our servers which may require some brief outages in the early hours of Sunday morning.

I am sorry for any inconvenience, we don’t expect to be out for more than 10 minutes or so and will put up a splash page prior to it happening.

If you have any questions, please let us know.  We will be available via Live Help throughout.

:: Justin ::

One of the questions I am asked a lot is: “Can I use Therap on a mobile device?”

The answer is “Sort of…”. (which is not a great answer unfortunately)

Of course a lot depends on what you mean by a modile device. If that is a laptop, then the answer instantly becomes “Absolutely”, provided you have access to a wireless internet connection such as WiFi or EVDO.

On smaller devices such as a Blackberry, Treo, or Windows Mobile device the answer is less clear. Some of Therap will work just fine while other pieces will be limited by a lack of popups and JavaScript support.

What I would like to know, is what do you use and how do you use it?

:: Justin ::

Calum and I have spent the last few weeks starting to get used to working in a Linux environment. We’re getting there slowly, and so far the experience is pretty positive.

This all started because between the two of us we killed the aging desktop that we were using as a family computer. At the same time we wanted to move said computer out of the basement to make more room for the table tennis table (on which I am still unbeaten!). I couldn’t see Calum having a computer in his room that he sat and played games on all day (and neither could Iona!) so I came up with the compromise that if it was a Linux machine that he was learning useful things on then he could.

Our choice of flavor was Ubuntu (7.04 Fiesty Fawn to be precise). Installing it was a veritable piece of cake and it does work remarkably well and cleanly right off the CD (which of course was wonderfully free!).

Ubuntu comes with a whole bunch of Open Source software included such as Open Office and much more is very easily downloaded and installed with just a few clicks.

I did have a couple of adventures getting it onto my wireless network, but that’s all done now – so Therap works a treat (Firefox 2.0 is the standard browser on Ubuntu.)

We even done some clever stuff running Windows programs using WINE.

Hopefully over the coming weeks and months we’ll learn some more that we’ll be able to share!

:: Justin ::

One of the things I have tried recently (based on the advice of my friend Keith) is using more than one monitor at once!

It’s actually really cool.  I have always like big screens and small text so that I can see lots of stuff and have multiple windows open at once.

Well, this just gives me even more screen real estate, all I do is scroll or drag things of the left hand side of my laptop screen and they end up on the monitor (this is a nice big on we use for conferences and stuff).

On top of all this, Windows Vista actually handles the transitions between when I have an extra monitor plugged in and when I don’t really well.

:: Justin ::

The last few weeks have seen an awful lot of activity here in Therapville what with the release of 7.0 and some significant performance improvements (more on performance issues later).  Tonight we will be taking the next step in some major hardware and infrastructure upgrades that are  part of our constant mission to bring you better products and better services (as well as to go where no human services application has been before!).

As a result of this, the system will be unavailable for a while (we are projecting 5:00am to 7:00am EST on Sunday 2/25.

If you have any questions or concerns, please get in touch.

:: Justin ::