I built a MythTV box and went the Mini-ITX route for $500. I paid more for the small size, considering I could have gotten more CPU power, etc. for less money.
For case, I used the Morex Cubid 2699R. It's about the size of a 12" pizza box (much smaller than the VCR that it replaced!), and uses a 50W external power supply, which *significantly* cuts down on noise. My hard drive is the biggest contibutor to noise with this setup. I got my case for about $80 US.
I keep it in my TV cabinet without an attached mouse, keyboard, or monitor. Just connected to TV and my LAN, and controlled via remote control.
You can see pics and a review of its older cousin at: http://www.mini-itx.com/reviews/2688R/
As for the rest, I got:
Motherboard:
VIA EPIA M10000 ($150-$160 US) - Has onboard ethernet, 5.1 audio, video,
and one PCI slot. Processor is already on it. Processesor has
exceptionally low power requirements (compared to high-end AMD/Intel). Memory:
Crucial 512mb DDR (if you do decide on the 2699R case, make sure the RAM
height is below 34mm or it won't fit - the Crucial fit just fine) Tuner:
Hauppauge PVR-350 (less than $200 via pricewatch.com)
Its included remote works really well under LIRC
DVD:
Some generic slimline DVD player for $55.
If you get the 2699R case, you need a slimline which means more $$
Note that as of current date, MythDVD and MythVideo don't work
with the PVR-350, so you won't be able to watch DVD's (yet).
Hard drive:
I used an old IBM drive laying around, I plan on upgrading to a Seagate Barracuda which is rated at 20dB while idling.
Now the pros and cons of my setup:
Pros:
Very small, very quiet
PVR-350 with the Epia M10000 uses only 3% (!!!) CPU utilization during
playback and record
Front of case has firewire/usb connections if I need later on
Even without MythDVD or MythVideo support, it's already better than a
commercial Tivo because (1) I can record at higher bitrate and resolution,
and (2) I have direct access to the recorded videos, so that (3) I can
archive to DivX or DVD...
Cons:
No DVD or avi/quicktime/etc. file playback since I've using a PVR-350 (hopefully soon though!)
I couldn't use the already built 0.11.deb packages since I was using the
PVR-350. I ended up compiling both IVTV and MythTV CVS instead.
Since there's no attached keyboard/mouse/monitor, I need to ssh from
a different computer on the network, but I actually prefer it this way
I'm also a physician facing the same issues and questions that you do. Overall, the big reason to make use of new technologies is to be more efficient, and allow you to spend more of your time seeing your patients. Obviously, you don't want something that's going to take time away from your patients (i.e. paperwork, paperwork, paperwork, etc). Why have doctors been resistant to adopting electronic charting software? They say, "It takes more time and effort than handwriting a typical SOAP note!" Allow me to give some opinions and suggestions:
Online Charts for patient access - I'm on a project right now to revamp our old (but still used primarily) clinical MUMPS databases into an Oracle-based SQL datamart. By doing so, we'll be able to provide a web-based frontend for our patients, to allow them to check their meds, labs, etc. It'll be great.:) Oracle however has been quite expensive for us, but we need that kind of scalable performance for our 350+ bed hospital. Depending on the size of your medicine clinic, and how much/little you're willing to spend, you may want to contemplate the free (beer!) packages that are available for Linux and use things like MySQL, PHP, etc. Go check out LinuxMedNews for a starting point for links to free open source solutions.
Chat groups and instant messanging - this is interesting, but I'm not sure how many patients would actually make use of these features to make it worthwhile to you. They *might*, but I'm just not sure. It'll be hard to replace face-time with the actual doctor with IM'ing or IRC, and I'm not sure how much it would help for cost/time resources. For quick messages like IM, why not just send a quick email to the doc or leave a message with the receptionist?
Bulletin Boards for questions - this is a nice idea, however, you don't want to spend time creating the same information that's already been done at places like WebMD. A bulletin board that's customized to your practice, however, would be good to supplement the info at WebMD. This way, patients can spend less time having basic things explained to them during the clinic visit. Again, there are several good open source packages for the Linux platform for this.
Electronic Medical Record (EMR) - No real suggestions here, but just find one that you and your partners will like using. There's really two opposite sides of a spectrum here, each with their own advantages/disadvantages - (1) systems that let doctors click off signs/symptoms listed on the screen, and (2) systems that let doctors write free-form notes into the computer, similar to handwriting a SOAP note in a pen-paper chart. (1) is nice because you can chart very quickly, and because everything is already parsed (diagnosis, signs, etc.) it is much easier to analyze the practice data to provide feedback on your performace. However, sometimes certain signs/symptoms/diagnoses are not listed amongst the choices! Obviously, a totally free-form note, which us docs are all used to right now, let's us convey the information they way we are used to and want to (we just tell it like it is), but you can't process they information with without additional work. What I envision in the future is a handheld that allows voice recognition input, like dictating into a recorder, but with good enough AI to *accurately* parse the information into various categories, i.e. procedural CPT codes, ICD-9 codes, etc. Wouldn't that be awesome? Today I spend way too much time hand-writing my freaking notes, time that could be spent talking to the patient.
Security - This issue has already been mentioned many times in this discussion, so I don't have to go too much into it. You should go check out the papers for PCASSO, a medical systems security project at UC San Diego - they used multiple security measures which was very good at preventing exterior attacks. SHTTP, SSL, firewalling, etc. etc. However, they did note that the system did very little to prevent attacks from within the systems itself (staff, patients, etc.). Reminds me of a clinic version of the Maginot Line (i.e. bypassing a frontal assault). As for the new HIPAA regulations, they are a big pain in the ass for everybody (are they overkill? not sure, maybe) but will be an important component to patient confidentiality, because they will address these internal threat issues. Obviously, there will be huge liability for breach of medical information. I would not give security less priority than "cool" features like instant messanging.
Atrowe, your link goes to the Denver Business Journal. This is not a peer-reviewed scientific paper. As such, it is not written by scientific experts, and has not been peer-reviewed by other experts.
By spreading sources like these around, you are only contributing to blind, public hysteria. If you want the sources that are taken seriously by physicians and the scientific community, you need to hit the medical library and search on Medline. Business journals are not good sources of scientific info.
Hmm, interesting word choice. What other ways can it be used?
As registration:
Cop: You ran the red. I need to see your license and proof of blah blah.
Driver: huh?? wtf you talking about?
Cop: Step out of the car please.
As money:
Walter Cronkite: "And today, chickenpotpie.com's IPO was a record opening, up 200 blah blah's! And that's the way it is...."
The first Alien movie was directed by Ridley Scott (Black Rain, Gladiator, Hannibal) and came out in 1979. Since Fincher was born in 1962, he would have been only 17!
One interesting fact a lot of people don't know - Fincher got his start by making music videos, most notably the Madonna videos from the early 90's (Express Yourself, Vogue). I really admire his creativity, especially with Seven.
I'm an USAF flight surgeon, trained in aerospace physiology. I'm not a skydiver, so those of you that are can add to my discussion below. I'm sure the Canadian folks have considered the following issues, but I thought it might be interesting to shed light on them here:
(1) Armstrong's Line - This is at an altitude of about 60,000 feet. At this level, the pressure is low enough to cause water to boil (remember Boyle's Law in physics?). Everything in you would boil - your blood, your interstitial tissue fluids, even the vitreous bodies (stuff inside your eyeballs). This is one reason why pressure suits are required at that kind of altitude. If you egressed from a spacecraft above that level without a suit, you would go "Cook! Cook! Cook!" (similar to Beavis' "Fire! Fire! Fire!"). After learning about Armstrong's Line way back, I have a different take when I watch movies when people go into space without any pressurization.
(2) Oxygen - Pressurized oxygen is required at higher altitude levels. Oxygen by itself it not enough, because at those levels, the partial pressure of oxygen in your blood is not enough to diffuse into your tissues. Therefore, without oxygen getting into your brain tissues, you would pass out. Interestingly, the TUC (time of useful consciousness, i.e. the length of time you would last without pressurized oxygen) at 25,000 feet is about one minute, while at 35,000 feet is about 15-30 seconds). This is why the airlines say you have to put the oxygen mask on yourself first and then help others next to you (not the other way around!). Another thing, assuming you're using 100% oxygen, measures have to be taken to prevent it from igniting - remember in the Right Stuff, when Yeager ejected at high altitude? It wasn't shown in the film clearly, but when he had ejected, his oxygen caught on fire and had to deal with it on the way down - he ended up with burns on his face. He's one of our regular patients at work, and he's always telling stories like that.
Unfortunately, "Naked Spacediving (tm)" probably wouldn't be possible. Hope this helps a little. Kudos to any non-USAF, non-professional skydiver who pulls this feat off without reaching subterranean mach speeds!
Archvile, don't take it personal that your above post was labelled as "troll". Looks like your feelings were hurt, and so now you're saying Slashdot is unprofessional.
Then again, perhaps a bunch of us thought your last line, something about the messiah, etc. etc. was way, way out in left field. Posters need to write good (not weird) stuff too.
The Crusoe chip in the C1 series would be great. I agree, this laptop is a little small in size (i.e. keyboard) and thus would not make a good primary computer. However, for those that already have nice beefy desktop workstations, this laptop is great as a secondary computer that you can take with you anywhere. It's small enough you can just wrap it in a towel and throw in your standard backpack/bookbag. It's got a 12 gb HD onto which I put tons of mp3's.
Linux runs quite well on it. I've been running Mandrake on it for a few months now. CowboyNeal himself has installed Debian on his. The only thing disppointing about this laptop is that it uses a Winmodem (starting with the latest C1-XS model), but I don't mind as much, since I pretty much only use the PCMCIA eth0 on it. Otherwise, it's a really nice laptop. When I boot into Win98, I can roam around work and use this little computer like a digital camera, since you can swivel the camera so that it's pointing away from you.
It's got a nice widescreen LCD on it, which makes watching those letterbox DivX:-) movies a joy. With the Crusoe chip, you might be able to watch a bunch of movies during a cross country plane ride!
Slashdot Mirror
I built a MythTV box and went the Mini-ITX route for $500. I paid more for the small size, considering I could have gotten more CPU power, etc. for less money.
.deb packages since I was using the
For case, I used the Morex Cubid 2699R. It's about the size of a 12" pizza box (much smaller than the VCR that it replaced!), and uses a 50W external power supply, which *significantly* cuts down on noise. My hard drive is the biggest contibutor to noise with this setup. I got my case for about $80 US.
I keep it in my TV cabinet without an attached mouse, keyboard, or monitor. Just connected to TV and my LAN, and controlled via remote control.
You can see pics and a review of its older cousin at:
http://www.mini-itx.com/reviews/2688R/
As for the rest, I got:
Motherboard:
VIA EPIA M10000 ($150-$160 US) - Has onboard ethernet, 5.1 audio, video,
and one PCI slot. Processor is already on it. Processesor has
exceptionally low power requirements (compared to high-end AMD/Intel).
Memory:
Crucial 512mb DDR (if you do decide on the 2699R case, make sure the RAM
height is below 34mm or it won't fit - the Crucial fit just fine)
Tuner:
Hauppauge PVR-350 (less than $200 via pricewatch.com)
Its included remote works really well under LIRC
DVD:
Some generic slimline DVD player for $55.
If you get the 2699R case, you need a slimline which means more $$
Note that as of current date, MythDVD and MythVideo don't work
with the PVR-350, so you won't be able to watch DVD's (yet).
Hard drive:
I used an old IBM drive laying around, I plan on upgrading to a Seagate Barracuda which is rated at 20dB while idling.
Now the pros and cons of my setup:
Pros:
Very small, very quiet
PVR-350 with the Epia M10000 uses only 3% (!!!) CPU utilization during
playback and record
Front of case has firewire/usb connections if I need later on
Even without MythDVD or MythVideo support, it's already better than a
commercial Tivo because (1) I can record at higher bitrate and resolution,
and (2) I have direct access to the recorded videos, so that (3) I can
archive to DivX or DVD...
Cons:
No DVD or avi/quicktime/etc. file playback since I've using a PVR-350 (hopefully soon though!)
I couldn't use the already built 0.11
PVR-350. I ended up compiling both IVTV and MythTV CVS instead.
Since there's no attached keyboard/mouse/monitor, I need to ssh from
a different computer on the network, but I actually prefer it this way
Hope that helps
Hi Bolus,
I'm also a physician facing the same issues and questions that you do. Overall, the big reason to make use of new technologies is to be more efficient, and allow you to spend more of your time seeing your patients. Obviously, you don't want something that's going to take time away from your patients (i.e. paperwork, paperwork, paperwork, etc). Why have doctors been resistant to adopting electronic charting software? They say, "It takes more time and effort than handwriting a typical SOAP note!" Allow me to give some opinions and suggestions:
Hope that helps... :)
Atrowe, your link goes to the Denver Business Journal. This is not a peer-reviewed scientific paper. As such, it is not written by scientific experts, and has not been peer-reviewed by other experts.
By spreading sources like these around, you are only contributing to blind, public hysteria. If you want the sources that are taken seriously by physicians and the scientific community, you need to hit the medical library and search on Medline. Business journals are not good sources of scientific info.
"...a NYTimes story (free blah blah required."
Hmm, interesting word choice. What other ways can it be used?
As registration:
Cop: You ran the red. I need to see your license and proof of blah blah.
Driver: huh?? wtf you talking about?
Cop: Step out of the car please.
As money:
Walter Cronkite: "And today, chickenpotpie.com's IPO was a record opening, up 200 blah blah's! And that's the way it is...."
Sorry, this wasn't funny. I'll shut up now.
Bzzzztt!!
No, no, no - if you look up The Internet Movie Database, you will see that Fincher directed Aliens 3.
The first Alien movie was directed by Ridley Scott (Black Rain, Gladiator, Hannibal) and came out in 1979. Since Fincher was born in 1962, he would have been only 17!
One interesting fact a lot of people don't know - Fincher got his start by making music videos, most notably the Madonna videos from the early 90's (Express Yourself, Vogue). I really admire his creativity, especially with Seven.
I'm an USAF flight surgeon, trained in aerospace physiology. I'm not a skydiver, so those of you that are can add to my discussion below. I'm sure the Canadian folks have considered the following issues, but I thought it might be interesting to shed light on them here:
(1) Armstrong's Line - This is at an altitude of about 60,000 feet. At this level, the pressure is low enough to cause water to boil (remember Boyle's Law in physics?). Everything in you would boil - your blood, your interstitial tissue fluids, even the vitreous bodies (stuff inside your eyeballs). This is one reason why pressure suits are required at that kind of altitude. If you egressed from a spacecraft above that level without a suit, you would go "Cook! Cook! Cook!" (similar to Beavis' "Fire! Fire! Fire!"). After learning about Armstrong's Line way back, I have a different take when I watch movies when people go into space without any pressurization.
(2) Oxygen - Pressurized oxygen is required at higher altitude levels. Oxygen by itself it not enough, because at those levels, the partial pressure of oxygen in your blood is not enough to diffuse into your tissues. Therefore, without oxygen getting into your brain tissues, you would pass out. Interestingly, the TUC (time of useful consciousness, i.e. the length of time you would last without pressurized oxygen) at 25,000 feet is about one minute, while at 35,000 feet is about 15-30 seconds). This is why the airlines say you have to put the oxygen mask on yourself first and then help others next to you (not the other way around!). Another thing, assuming you're using 100% oxygen, measures have to be taken to prevent it from igniting - remember in the Right Stuff, when Yeager ejected at high altitude? It wasn't shown in the film clearly, but when he had ejected, his oxygen caught on fire and had to deal with it on the way down - he ended up with burns on his face. He's one of our regular patients at work, and he's always telling stories like that.
Unfortunately, "Naked Spacediving (tm)" probably wouldn't be possible. Hope this helps a little. Kudos to any non-USAF, non-professional skydiver who pulls this feat off without reaching subterranean mach speeds!
Then again, perhaps a bunch of us thought your last line, something about the messiah, etc. etc. was way, way out in left field. Posters need to write good (not weird) stuff too.
Linux runs quite well on it. I've been running Mandrake on it for a few months now. CowboyNeal himself has installed Debian on his. The only thing disppointing about this laptop is that it uses a Winmodem (starting with the latest C1-XS model), but I don't mind as much, since I pretty much only use the PCMCIA eth0 on it. Otherwise, it's a really nice laptop. When I boot into Win98, I can roam around work and use this little computer like a digital camera, since you can swivel the camera so that it's pointing away from you.
It's got a nice widescreen LCD on it, which makes watching those letterbox DivX:-) movies a joy. With the Crusoe chip, you might be able to watch a bunch of movies during a cross country plane ride!
bishy