My smartphone recently had a not-so-friendly encounter with the pavement on my way back from my preceptor’s office. The horrific “THUD” of glass/plastic meeting solid concrete… yeah… I already knew my screen was busted. And to my own misfortune, I had removed the protective case two days prior because I…
Bluehost has finally started offering PHP 5.3 on a per-request basis. Even though PHP 5.4 is on the horizon, compatibility issues for many customers prevented large shared hosting companies like Bluehost from making the move to 5.3 earlier. By working with tech support in the early hours this morning, I…
Our pediatric grand rounds topic last week was MELAS syndrome, a mitochondrial genetic disorder characterized by neurological and muscular symptoms like ataxia and fatigue, respectively. MELAS is an acronym for: mitochondrial encephalomyopathy, lactic acidosis, stroke-like symptoms. As with typical mitochondrial inheritance patterns, MELAS is passed maternally (from mother to children), although…
Computers are incredibly useful in recalling vast databases of information reliably and quickly. Knowing this, should we be “teaching” computers medicine? If so, how should we utilize them in the process of working up a patient’s symptoms?
In the course of pregnancy, sometimes it becomes necessary to deliver a baby prior to the mother going into spontaneous labor. Indications for induction of labor (IOL) can include suspected fetal compromise, pregnancy-induced hypertension (PIH), premature rupture of membranes (PROM), and chorioamnionitis.
C. difficile is a bacteria part of our normal bowel flora, but when certain antibiotics (namely clindamycin) wipe out the other healthy organisms, C. diff’s growth is left unchecked. C. diff colitis is something I saw all the time in February while working on the gastroenterology service at St. Luke’s,…
The day has finally come for me to create another network-attached-storage (NAS) for my data. My previous NAS, a DNS-323 unit, has carried me with 2 x 2 TB mirrored volumes for months, but this time around, I had several goals in mind. First, since the file server will be…
I’ve used eAccelerator and XCache for quite some to speed up my WordPress sites, but with PHP6 around the corner, I wanted to get my feet wet with alternative PHP cache (APC) – an opcode cacher which will be built into the next generation of PHP. This is a walkthrough…
I’ve had my car for over five years and never really looked into cleaning the headlight enclosures. Since starting my clinical rotations, I’m leaving the house before sunrise and returning after dark; therefore, good visibility in the dark has become increasingly important. After looking at several headlamp cleaning products, I…
After finishing the infectious disease course in basic sciences, I learned one overbearing truth – when in doubt, it’s probably Staph. However, in the case of dental caries (tooth cavities), another very popular group of bacteria is the culprit – Strep! More specifically, S mutans.