A few weeks ago, I picked up a Flip Video MinoHD Camcorder thinking it would be great to carry around and shoot video of the kids. Not really thinking that the quality would be so good. The quality is really good, it looks amazing on my 56” LCD HD screen, it’s probably not professional quality but my kids love watching their trips to the park on the big screen.
Due to it’s small size it is a bit tough to hold the camera still to take video that doesn’t shake, but once you get used to it, by bracing your arm. The software that comes with the camera is actually really good, it allows you to easily post your videos to YouTube, or email your video clips. It does a decent job piecing video clips together also. That said, I don’t use it, I am currently using iMovie 09 part of the iLife package from apple. I plug the Flip Mino HD in and up pops iMovie, I think select save the contents of the camera to an Archive, which is located on an external drive. Once the contents of the camera on the the drive I can easily import the clips I want into iMovie and add music and transitions, there are even some pretty cool templates that add the titles and transitions. One of the main reasons I use iMovie for my editing is because iMovie has a pretty cool feature that removes some of the shake out of your videos and it works pretty well, but that’s for another post.
This video was shot yesterday with the Flip Mino HD and edited with iLife ‘09
on a Macbook Pro
What I love is that I may shoot 15 minutes of video and then come home and quickly pick the clips I like and save the movie to iTunes, and Smugmug and now I don’t have to worry about where the tape is. With hard drive based cameras, the clips transfer as fast as your connection will allow, with tape based systems it usually has to be transferred in real time. Don’t wait get your Flip Video MinoHD Camcorder now.
Well, it took a few more days then planned, but the benchwork all the track on the lower level is complete. The guys finished late Saturday night so they could take off on Sunday morning for another job.
Now it is up to us to complete the upper track, wire the whole layout and then do the scenery! From the first photograph, you can kind of see what is going on with this layout, there are two levels, with a large helix as the transition, this will one day be large mountain peak rising from the floor to the ceiling. Will keep you posted as progress continues. A big thank you to Richard and crew from RailDreams And be sure to check out the Photo and Video Gallery on Smugmug.
This weekend, I was thinking about business conferences and conventions. I usually go with intention of finding the Magic Pill for my business, and sometimes think I have found it, then come back to the office and realize that the “Pill” is the wrong dosage. It’s taken awhile but I think I have finally discovered that there is no “Magic Pill”, there really are no shortcuts.
For some Twitter can be viewed as a “Magic Pill”, an incredible tool for networking and communicating your brand, but for Twitter to be effective for your business, it requires really hard work. Sure some are able to get Ghost writers to tweet for them, but the Twitter community is smart and usually able to figure out what’s going on. Twitter works because it provides access all the way to the top, there are no middle men,
Most “Magic Pills” are just tools that help businesses do what they do best.
This Train layout has been on the back burner for over 30 years. My father has always had a love of trains since his first Lionel set he got as a kid in the 1950’s. When I was a kid we built a modest 12X6 layout that we never really finished, always wishing for something bigger. Well we finally built a room for our dream layout. The room is 25’X30’, which is just over 600 square feet, and the whole room from floor to ceiling is train. The benchwork will be completed this coming week and we are going to finish the track on the upper level and wire everything and landscape it… we have lots of work to do, but you have to start somewhere…. !
So the Oral-B rep stops by and drops off a few tubes of the new Crest Multi Care toothpaste. It is new and improved with supposedly a better flavor. The previous version received lots of complaints about it’s taste. To me it’s just toothpaste, i’ll use my kids toothpaste if it’s available, often time a wet toothbrush works just fine most of the time, but typically use toothpaste for fresh breath and the fluoride benefits. So I put the tube in the drawer and inform my wife that it’s there and to try it out.
A few weeks go by and I notice that there is a new tube of AquaFresh toothpaste in the drawer. Which leads to the question of what is wrong with the Crest toothpaste?
“It’s a gel and I prefer pastes. Gel’s don’t foam up very much and my teeth don’t feel as clean, the AquaFresh is half gel and half paste and it foams nicely.”
I wonder if others choose a toothpaste solely on the quality of foam production. If not how do you choose your toothpaste?
So the other day, my wife was searching Google for cupcakes in our area, she loves cupcakes. One thing led to another and 3 days later were stopping by Retro Bakery in the far Northwest part of Las Vegas…. we live in the Southwest part of Las Vegas… It’s a good 25 minute drive from our house. The good news is that it’s on the way to Mt. Charleston where our family has a cabin so we travel right by this bakery often. We have already been back 3 times for more cupcakes. They are an incredible mix of great cake and frosting, some are dipped in glaze like a doughnut, others have Buttercream. They just celebrated their first anniversary and gave away 1700 cupcakes, the event included a visit by a local news crew, (http://www.lasvegasnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=9823120). This past Saturday, which was Valentines Day, led to their best day ever. So why the success?
Just great cupcakes? That helps, but I’m not so sure, if you take a quick look at their website you will notice that they have a blog, (2 in fact), profiles for Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, Zazzle, and Twitter. From the very beginning they started building a Tribe of cupcake lovers. They love their cupcakes and they love engaging others that love cupcakes too. Even though they are located at the last exit on the road to Reno, they have built a Tribe of cupcake lovers that don’t care. What’s really cool is that their online presence began using free tools, I’m guessing they didn’t spend a dime at the beginning to build their online presence, Blogger, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and Zazzle are all free tools. The only thing required is some effort to get going and build your Tribe of fans around the thing you do. If it’s this easy, why don’t more people try it for their business?
So how did I find out that Valentines day was their best day ever? Facebook.
In April 2008 our practice expanded our Planmeca ProMax to a ProMax 3d, adding Cone Beam CT(CBVT) technology to the unit. The Planmeca ProMax 3D has the ability to work as a regular digital panoramic unit and by switching the sensor it will work as a CBVT although limited to an image size that is 8cmX8cmX8cm, which can be limiting at times.
For the past 2 years we have used the digital pan features of the ProMax for both regular panoramic images and bitewing images. It is a great unit for reading images for perio and does a decent job detecting decay. If it’s a shadow on the Pan image it usually is decay. I like the BiteWing image because it allows me to see the whole tooth during the periodic exam.
Panoramic Image
Bitewing Image
There are many times I’ll add additional Sensor PA’s if an area isn’t clear. I’ve very comfortable with the diagnostic ability of the Planmeca regular and bitewing panoramic images.
A few questions I had before we upgraded to the CBVT was would I use it for general diagnosis and not just for implant planning?
Would it be a tool that allowed me to find areas of decay that weren’t otherwise noticeable?
Would I be able to see root fractures?
What about early Perio disease?
How would I incorporate it into the exam?
So far I am very pleased with the upgrade to the CBVT and glad we did it, but not as an answer to any of the questions listed above. I love being able to immediately take a scan and be able to see if dental implants are possible? Is grafting necessary? Many times those questions can be answered very easily. I find it’s overkill for decay detection, an explorer and a PA are faster and far less expensive. As far as finding root fractures, I probably wouldn’t extract a tooth just based on the CBVT image, but it’s fun to get a scan to see if you can find the fractured root, and if there were no other symptoms or sequelae it would be hard to find a vertical fracture with a CBVT scan. While it is very easy to see bone loss on the CBVT scan it is over kill also as a perio screening tool in my opinion. A good panoramic or FMX with perio charting is far faster and probably more diagnostic. So far I haven’t seen the need to incorporate it into the comprehensive exam, each image is about 250 megs, so it does take some time for the computers to build the 3d images and it takes time to read the scans.
I think there will be software and resolution improvements down the road that will make the details standout better and hopefully improve it’s limitations for the general practice where dental implants aren’t a major source of treatment.
Clinical examination reveals a bump on the lingual mucosa, it has been present for a few weeks and will change in size.
Radiographic evidence shows a halo in the coronal portion of the root.
Here’s a 2d image from the Planmeca CBVT. You can see the cross section and see the bone loss on tooth 29. The previous two images are consistent with root fracture, and this image confirms it.. and if I move through the slices with the software I can “almost” visualize the crack, and I’m probably seeing that because I could see the fracture when I extracted the tooth.
Overall I am very pleased with the unit, because we can still take regular panoramic images as well as the occasional CBVT image for implant planning.
A google search for “Email Marketing Tips” leads to 22 million pages. There are lots of answers to how to effectively market using the medium of email. So what are the questions?
I’ll focus on #3 from the list of 5, Leverage the ‘unmarketing’ “ExactTarget’s 2008 Channel Preference Survey showed consumers are more receptive to receiving thank-yous and confirmations via e-mail than any other channel. Using current customer interactions to fuel communication, foster dialog and drive sales is a must. I call it the “unmarketing” because it happens in the background. Whether it’s a welcome e-mail, order confirmation, statement, notice or customer service response, each communication holds promise to retain a customer, make a sale and/or improve your standing in how customers see you.”
This is very interesting, people are more receptive to receiving thank-yous and confirmations via email than any other form of communication. It is definitely easier to send a short “how are you” or “Thank You” email than it is to place a phone call. Maybe it’s time to figure out how to use email to say Thank You!
Here’s the press release. Now we’ll see what Patterson does with this purchased technology. Will they do a good job integrating this technology into Eaglesoft as they did with Caesy? Or will they decide to follow Dentrix’s path and ruin their already very good product.
Dolphin offers some very interesting technology for viewing 3d scans from CBVT and 3d photo cameras for facial mapping. Time will tell, on the surface it looks like a good purchase, let’s hope they merge the two slowly and correctly for the end user!
A website is a great way to communicate who you are to your current patient base and the potential new patients they may invite to your practice. Your website might be the first impression of who you are and the fact that you have a website might be enough for a new patient to consider your services.
In addition to communicating who you are and what you do; how is your website engaging your visitors to join your community?
Is it an extension of your practice?
Is it providing useful information that it helpful?
Is it relevant? Is it updated?
Do you even care about an online community?
