In Contact - December 2006
Best of the Web: 2006
Here follows the annual ?Best of the Eye Sites? and other related and unrelated stuff. As usual I've attempted to filter the billions of web pages and distil them into a series of topics and links for your surfing pleasure.
Save those you find useful to your Bookmarks/Favourites, depending on whether you use Firefox or IE. Or save this edition to your desktop or favourites. For even easier, regular access drag and drop onto the Links or Bookmark Toolbar.
IE7 was released in October and has tabbed browsing and added features. Hopefully the bugs and security holes have been sorted in this release. Earlier versions were looking like Swiss Cheese. Surf here to understand geek speak. Security, backup, firewall and virus protection remain critical issues.
This edition is best viewed online.
Doh.
Education and Reference
Simulators Galore A handy periodic table. It includes the discoverer, boiling point, isotopes etc all in one handy java table. More amazing tables of all sorts here.
Dry eye trial news. The December 2006 edition of Eye & Contact Lens: Science and Clinical Practice is chockfull of fusarium issues and of course other interesting stuff. Clinical and Experimental Optometry is best accessed via the NZAO members? page. Optometric Management, Review of Optometry, CL Spectrum and Optometry and Vision Science remain some of my favourite journals.
Try the departments of Optometry and Ophthalmology, Auckland.
Speaking of Auckland, a respected cell biologist has received significant funding to take Nexagon to the next level. This could be a biggie.
Business Week is worth a look.
The Berkeley Library at the University of California is worth a visit. Check out their optometric library. Find heaps of e-journals.
Blackwell and Elsevier, remain some of the best sources for amazing text books and great journals. Great links here.
Bernell: Always useful for vision therapy and heaps more.
More useful VT aids, FAQs, fun, magic eye and other 3D binocular stuff. New York, New York. Nervous?
Microbial Life on Surfaces.
Nano tech is cool
As predicted, peroxide wins the staining game. Now that all the results are in, H202 even beats saline and makes mincemeat out of all MPS solutions, as far as these results are concerned.
More on these issues and hear Lyndon live @ the 50th Anniversary CCLS Conference, Queenstown, NZ, 8 to 11 March 2007. Register here, NOW!
You?ve heard of companion planting. Now try companion food and drugs. Healthy eating.
One often needs to search a specific site for specific info. Use site specific searches, as per this example. Some of the links found are worth a second read. Alter the ?find? field to search for another topic like ?keratoconus? or alter the domain to search another site, for example the CCLRU for Holden, who by the way will also be one of the keynote speakers at the aforementioned CCLS 50th Anniversary Conference.
Let?s shed some positive light on UV, for a change. The ophthalmic hyperguide is worth a look. Primary Care Optometry News remains one of the most useful places to stay up to date. Subscribe for email summaries and easily clickable links. Yahoo has some good Optometry links. A fun gene site with an eye colour calculator here.
Retina reference helps get down to the nitty gritty. don't be SLACK: Here are dozens more links to keep you focussed.
Can statins curb cataracts?
Drug digest is useful. MIMS and New Ethicals are more ANZ specific.
Give your patients an excellent online Amsler link here ? with a great blind-spot working distance control. More good stuff at Optometry Today. Another site that's still free is Eye Atlas. Useful for building presentations and explanations.
Digital Reference of Ophthalmology is still one of the Kings and Red Atlas still rulez.
This site is interesting. Here?s an eye opening view of dilation. This site is, how would one say, myopic?
Nature is always worth a read and the November 9 edition just happened to feature retinal repair.
Is Retinal repair by transplantation of photoreceptor precursors in our future?
Scientific American is another great read and also just happens to feature vision related things in the November issue.
Medline is still popular as is the excellent emedicine.
Enough?
Contact Lens Sites and Societies
BCLA, CCLS, CLSA, CLAO, CLMA, ECLSO, EFCLIN, MCLOSA, RGPLI.
Next time someone questions the cost and complexity of custom CL manufacture send them to this link.
On a lighter note check out this tongue in cheek disposable lens advert. The corollary, or an advert for EW CLs? Try this one about the optometrist @ youtube.com. Try various searches for optometrist, contacts, contact lenses and so on at the previous two sites.
You?ll be amazed at what you find!
Relevance. Irrelevance. Irreverence
Phreaks and Hackers will find links to plenty of ?useful? sites here. Some of these script kiddies wreak havoc with our Internet and email and cost millions if not billions.
If you think technology moves too fast, just take a look at the video arcade games of the ?70s and early ?80s.
Bloggers and cyber-dissidents learn your craft here.
Who is the Stig? Ride with Schumacher on one of his hot laps in his last GP at Interlagos. Love him or hate him he's the greatest ever. Respect.
Goodonyamate.
The Schumy ?hot lap? link was subsequently terminated on a copyright issue. Yes, copyright still exists. If you?re big enough.
don't mess with FOM and Bernie. don't copy In Contact either.
Try this one instead. See if it lasts. Fast as!
Plenty more here for petrol heads and Schumy fans.
If you?re into Escher, M?bius rings, infinite spirals and reflections you?ll love this one. Great images here and here. Try this panoramic stitching software.
What do you know about Palestine? History of the Jandal.
Fat? Try this diet!
Termination of Intractable Hiccups with Digital Rectal Massage caught my brown eye.
I note an ophthalmologist also posthumously received an Ig Nobel award for a paper explaining why woodpeckers don't get headaches. Nice.
Care for a drink?
A classic crocodile hunter clip.
Simon Gault has been a legend on the NZ food scene for some years. Check out his site for recipes, tips, restaurant details, wine info and more. Check out his new Steak H?ouse on Jervois. Take your Black AMEX, but leave the vegetarians at home.
This year good planning and some luck got me eating my first ripe home-grown tomatoes by mid October. Never mind planting on Labour Weekend, I was already eating. What a difference in taste.
Should we tolerate web censors?
China.
Google. Naughty.
All for a buck eh? Sounds like apartheid South Africa.
China sucks in the West and those with the money rush in for their greedy share. Body parts?
It's not all Roses.
Save the whales? Save free reporting?
People suffering by the millions all over our beautiful planet.
Save the planet.
An Inconvenient Truth. The tip of the Iceberg. If you?ll excuse the pun.
Check out this site and look at the data yourself. Bioclimatology and the worldwide bioclimatic classification system is phenomenal.
As is the Phytosociological Research Center
All at the click of a mouse.
Alexandra looks interesting. As we know.
Find a place near you.
there's an amazing depth of data here if you look carefully.
China is not helping. Ever been to Beijing? Allegedly the world?s most polluted capital.
You can?t keep the people down. Forever. China?s BIG people?s revolution will come. Again. Falun Dafa?
Keep track of time.
Track the issues.
Dive!
Earth Observatory is a great site to help you keep a critical eye on Earth. Dig Deep. The WWF will also help. Where will we find two planets to keep us going resource wise?
Appreciate our beautiful planet through the eyes of Yann Arthus-Bertrand.
It's hard to beat Google Earth. Amazing! Aish!
This one looks dangerous
So does this.
Jaapies!
Rugby.
Never give up.
Pregnant women now avoid fish due to mercury. Instead they take refined and purified fish oil.
Paranoia or poisoning?
Dow?s New Plymouth legacy?
One of millions of transgressions the world over.
So long and thanks for all the fish. Read all about it, here.
NASA is always worth an extended visit.
Pessimist or Optimist?
Jazz is cool. So is Blues.
Tune in.
My thanks to friends and colleagues who provide me with some of the interesting links and sites featured in this edition.
Take care of each other and take care of the planet.
Peace and goodwill to all.
After a frantic year I'm off to Africa, via meetings and a mate?s 50th in Sydney. It will be fun. See y?all in the New Year.
This annual ?Best of the Web? would not be complete without the traditional ZAPPA link.
Always new.
Even though he ain't.
RIP.
For more information or any comments email Alan at incontact@optom.co.nz.