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In 1972, Ray Tomlinson sent the first electronic message, now known as e-mail, using the @ symbol to indicate the location or institution of the e-mail recipient. Tomlinson, using a Model 33 Teletype device, understood that he needed to use a symbol that would not appear in anyone’s name so that there was no confusion. The logical choice for Tomlinson was the “at sign,” both because it was unlikely to appear in anyone’s name and also because it represented the word “at,” as in a particular user is sitting @ this specific computer. However, before the symbol became a standard key on typewriter keyboards in the 1880s and a standard on QWERTY keyboards in the 1940s, the @ sign had a long if somewhat sketchy history of use throughout the world.
Linguists are divided as to when the symbol first appeared. Some argue that the symbol dates back to the 6th or 7th centuries when Latin scribes adapted the symbol from the Latin word ad, meaning at, to or toward. Other linguists will argue that the @ sign is a more recent development, appearing sometime in the 18th century as a symbol used in commerce to indicate price per unit, as in 2 chickens @ 10 pence.
In 2000 Giorgio Stabile, a professor of the history of science at La Sapienza University in Italy, discovered some original 14th-century documents clearly marked with the @ sign to indicate a measure of quantity – the amphora. The amphora was a standard-sized terra cotta vessel used to carry wine and grain among merchants, and, according to Stabile, the use of the @ symbol in trade led to its contemporary meaning of “at the price of.”
While in the English language, @ is referred to as the “at sign,” other countries have different names for the symbol that is now so commonly used in e-mail transmissions throughout the world. Many of these countries associate the symbol with either food or animal names.

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Look Here for details 3.5-inch Pushbutton Backup External Hard Drives – Seagate Technology [1]
Fast, Versatile, High-Capacity StorageAvailable in a wide range of capacities, these compact, durable drives are ideal for all your business and personal storage needs. You can easily protect and access everything from multimedia presentations and digital photos to MPEG video and DVDs.
High-performance 7200-RPM drives, with 8-Mbyte or 16-Mbyte cache.
On/off button eliminates concerns that your hard drive hasn’t been shut down safely.
Built-in self-monitoring technology continuously checks your hard drive for data safety and drive performance.
Advanced software lets you quickly retrieve files.
Designed to run much cooler than other external drives.
Hot-swappable, so you can connect and disconnect without turning off your computer.
Complete with USB 2.0 cable, FireWire 1394a cable*, AC adapter and power cord, quick installation guide and backup software CD.

[1] http://www.seagate.com/products/retail/external/usbfirewire

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    A New Approach….Way Out Of The Box Thinking Hey you guys here is a new twist. I was reading in HEALTH magazine that there is a dentist in Boston who makes “tooth whitening house calls”. Right in your own home he will take impressions of your teeth, make whitening trays and leave you […]

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PC Magazine’s 19th Annual Reader Satisfaction Survey: Printers Results [1]

They’re still the leaders of the pack. Last year, Canon surged ahead on the ­printer portion of our survey, pulling alongside perennial printer favorite HP. This year, the two are Readers’ Choices again. In fact, Canon, with some stellar ratings, has a slight edge, especially among first-year products, and HP is showing signs of faltering.

[1] http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2006498,00.asp

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Read the whole thing here: FDA, MIT Announce Drug Safety System [1]

At a recent conference held by Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Biomedical Innovation [2], the university and the Food and Drug Administration announced that they have an agreement to collaborate on the development of a real-time drug safety monitoring system. Currently, the FDA relies entirely on reporting through its MedWatch program, which receives more than 250,000 adverse event reports from patients and health care providers about FDA-approved medications. Since this approach is voluntary, however, it often results in the underreporting of incidents. But the MIT-FDA initiative will go further, according to Scott Gottlieb, FDA deputy commissioner for medical and scientific affairs, in Washington. “In addition to voluntary reports the FDA receives from patients and the health care community, the MIT model uses large health care data sets to recognize patterns that indicate unexpected efficacy or problems with safety,” Gottlieb said. This technique is similar to that employed by public health departments and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the search for incidents of infectious disease or bioterrorism.

[1] http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2006761,00.asp
[2] http://web.mit.edu/cbi/

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Look Here: FedEx Small Business Center [1]
Fedx has an online site for us small business types

[1] http://www.mysmallbizcenter.com/default.asp

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On-Site Dental is a Las Vegas company that owns two trailers fitted with the latest in dental equipment.  The team of eight dentists, who are independant contractors see’s about 1,000 patients every Monday through Friday in the parking lots of Caesar’s Palace, Circus Circus, Harrah’s, MGM Grand, Mirage, and Treasure Island.  On-Site has contracts with […]

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Read the whole article here: Samsung To Manufacture 70-Inch LCD TV [1]

Samsung Electronics plans to manufacture a 70-inch LCD television during the first half of 2007, the company said Sunday. The company will unveil its 70-inch LCD HDTV at the International Meeting on Information Displays (IMID) 2006, which will open in Daegu, Korea on August 23. Samsung hasn’t specified what the resolution of the new TFT-LCD television will be, or its price. About the only detail the television manufacturer has released is the fact that its video signal will be reproduced at 120 Hz, rather than the conventional 60 Hz.
Is there any reason whatsoever to have a 70 inch TV?…..Yeah..,.why not!!

[1] http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2006269,00.asp

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From the New York Times Technology section, look here   – New York Times [1] for the whole story

For anyone who has hesitated before making a purchase on a Web site, uncertain which brand is preferable, Tacit Software is preparing to introduce an online service that will make it simple to pick the brains of friends and colleagues for opinions and expertise.Tacit plans to start testing the service, called Illumio, next month. The service allows the user to mine the data on the computers of friends, business associates and others with shared interests on any subjects. However, Illumio is not a search engine, like Google or Yahoo. The system works by transparently distributing a request for information on questions like “Who knows John Smith?” and “Are Nikon digital cameras better than Olympus?” to the computers in a network of users. The questions can then be answered locally based on a novel reverse auction system that Illumio uses to determine who the experts are.The system is intended to extend a growing category of software that helps groups collaborate and work together more efficiently. Efforts to create systems that augment the intellectual power of work groups go back to the earliest days of computing technology development. The widespread availability of networks and Web browsers, however, has made such technologies far more accessible in recent years.
Think how we could apply this to dentistry. You could create a group of trusted colleagues, like a local study club, then use this software to ask questions about products, treatments, diagnosis, specialists and anything else you would like to get a second opinion on.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/29/technology/29gilmour.html?ex=1306555200&en=5b0c7f4282eb5f83&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

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