http://www.medicalnerds.com technology, stats and IT for medics Sat, 12 Jun 2010 19:40:20 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en A quick update to my previous post Batch converting PDF to JPG/JPEG using free software about converting multiple files. Instead of using convert, one can use the command mogrify: mogrify -format jpg *.gif These commands are from the fantastic suite of software known as ImageMagick. I'm using this to convert the fantastic icons from ... http://www.medicalnerds.com/batch-converting-images-using-imagemagick/ A short post. Apache Lucene is amazing - I was faced with slow full text searches searching >1.6 million SNOMED CT descriptions using PostgreSQL's built in full-text search. Apache Lucene performs these searches in microseconds - I rapidly turn the list of concept Ids into full enterprise objects and my ... http://www.medicalnerds.com/apache-lucene/ Repeat after me: while (1) { System.out.println("Internet explorer 6 must die"); } Why is internet explorer so ubiquitous across all NHS organisations? I'm currently fighting CSS, javascript and graphics transparency problems.... ARRRRGHHHHHHH! http://www.medicalnerds.com/invadersinternet-explorer-6-must-die/ In implementing a comprehensive SNOMED CT browser as part of a research clinical information system, I cache the results of several processor and disk-intensive queries to speed up lookup and SNOMED CT navigation. I was finding some odd results and found that my caching was missing for several items. I ... http://www.medicalnerds.com/finding-rows-in-one-table-not-present-in-another-table-with-postgresql/ WebObjects is an extraordinarily powerful java based web-application server. On occasions, I need to execute arbitrary SQL against the underlying database. This is not necessary for most uses, but for certain batch operations it is useful. I'm currently writing an introduction to WebObjects and I hope to post these introductory documents ... http://www.medicalnerds.com/executing-raw-sql-with-webobjects-and-project-wonder/ Representing hierarchical data in a relational database is easy. For instance, modelling the contents of a filesystem with directories and subdirectories is straightforward using self-joins on a parent key. The root node(s) are represented as those without a parent. Such a model is useful for modelling other types of data ... http://www.medicalnerds.com/recursive-sql-with-postgresql-84/ After a long hiatus while we both finish our theses (one of us [1] more successfully than the other) and obtain substantive posts (one of us [2] more successfully than the other), we are keen to restart regular nerdy medical technology posts. Welcome back! (1) Completed his MD in 2008 (2) This is ... http://www.medicalnerds.com/more-posts/ If you are a healthcare professional you have a duty to maintain the security of patient identifiable data. Within your job you sometimes need to use a USB key to transfer lists or letters between computers. If you lose your un-encrypted USB key with patient identifiable data then it may ... http://www.medicalnerds.com/encrypting-a-usb-key-using-truecrypt/ Windows has had built in zip file support with encryption since Windows XP, unfortunately the quality of this encryption is poor as evidenced by the number of commercial programmes available to crack it. Winzip, WinRAR are trialware commercial programs that offer secure AES encryption to your compressed files but cost ... http://www.medicalnerds.com/how-to-encrypt-zip-files-securely-using-7zip/ Foxit PDF Reader is a free closed source alternative to Adobe's PDF reader. On older machines it feels snappier than using Adobe's bloated product. In this short how-to I will show you how to fill in forms using Foxit Reader with the 39 US$ Pro-Pack. The technique I will describe can ... http://www.medicalnerds.com/filling-in-pdf-forms-with-foxit-pdf-reader/