Eight is Enough

If you've been itching to get your hands on a more stable copy of Windows 8, you can download the consumer preview right now from Microsoft.

Just download the Consumer Preview Setup exe from the page linked above, and it will decide which version of Windows 8 is right for your system. It'll tell you which of your apps are compatible with Windows 8 (if you want to upgrade your current system), grab you a product key, and download any tools you may need to create an ISO or bootable flash drive.

Smiling Faces

COSTA MESA, CALIF. – February 28, 2012 – For the sixth consecutive year, CareCredit has continued its support as Founding Donor of the American Dental Association Foundation Give Kids A Smile Fund with a $100,000 donation. The donation was made February 3, 2012 in New York, where the 10th Anniversary of Give Kids A Smile Day was celebrated by opening the NASDAQ market and touring Give Kids A Smile events at the UMDNJ - New Jersey Dental School and Bergen Community College Hygiene Program.

The funding will help the ADA Foundation provide grants in support of Give Kids A Smile programs to help achieve GKAS objectives of raising awareness of the high level of oral disease suffered by children primarily in underserved areas and to enable volunteer dental teams to provide free dental care and education.

In 2011, CareCredit’s contribution was used by the ADA Foundation as Continuity of Care Grants awarded to 11 non-profit organizations to:

1. provide screening and preventive services during the annual Give Kids A Smile Day held in February
2. establish a liaison/case management system to ensure children cared for during the event receive necessary follow-up treatment and ongoing care
3. implement oral health awareness initiatives for the public and medical professionals on a community basis

“Research shows that poor oral health directly impacts a child on critical levels, including the child’s ability to eat, sleep and focus in the classroom. Each year, the grant recipients use the funds to greatly improve the lives of children in their communities, and we’re proud to have helped increase access to dental care through our support of the ADA Foundation and our involvement with the American Dental Association’s Give Kids A Smile program,” said Cindy Hearn, senior vice president of marketing for CareCredit and a member of the ADA Give Kids A Smile National Advisory Committee.

“The ADA Foundation greatly appreciates CareCredit’s continuing support of the Give Kids A Smile Fund, which we will use for grants to support programs that help achieve the GKAS program goal of cavity-free kids by 2020," stated Gene Wurth, Executive Director, ADA Foundation.

For more information on Give Kids A Smile or to donate, visit www.givekidsasmile.ada.org.

For 25 years, CareCredit has helped patients get needed and desired care. CareCredit is a healthcare credit card that can be used as a payment option for certain expenses not covered by insurance or to bridge payment when desired care exceeds insurance coverage, and it is accepted at more than 90,000 dental practices. For more information on CareCredit, call 800-300-3046 or visit carecredit.com.

For more information contact:
Cindy Hearn, Senior V.P. Marketing, CareCredit, 714-434-4138 or chearn@carecredit.com
Cristy Williams, Communications, GE Capital, 678-518-2596 or cristy.williams@ge.com

Just a few hours to go to my webinar on how to extract teeth safely and easily:

http://ping.fm/FrtsS

My webinar tomorrow on Atraumatic extractions may sell out...725/1000 slots are filled!
http://ping.fm/05OrA

Webinar Tomorrow

Many dentists understand the value of implants, but struggle to maintain the ridge after extracting teeth. My webinar tomorrow night will show you how to avoid these issues:

https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/681725914

Cloud Printing

Google Cloud Print is an under-appreciated service that can send print jobs from virtually anywhere to a connected printer in any other location. Normally that involves tedious configuration on your network, but Cloud Print can do it in just a few minutes. It's really easy to set up, and there are a few things you can do to extend its support beyond the browser to make all your printing tasks a lot easier. Here's a look at what it can do, how you can set it up, and how to make it even better.

Speedy Gonzales

It's a sad fact of life that over time, all of our computers get a little bit slower. Before you start shelling out for a new machine, take some time this week to perform some maintenance tasks, upgrade a single piece of hardware, or even overclock your machine for a little speed boost.

Truth Be Told

A common misconception about Android smart phones is that, due to not being a fully fledged PC, they’re immune to viruses, malware and generally being infected maliciously. However, aspects such as applications and SMS can contain such harmful contents. VOICEABLE has compiled a list of the top 10 best free antivirus Android applications.

Coolest thing from Day #1 at the Chicago MidWinter Meeting:

The key to using social media successfully as a marketing tool is to engage patients by feeding them fresh and relevant information regularly. In its latest release, Demandforce is offering a convenient way for you to do just that.

Now, a practice can connect its Facebook and Twitter pages directly into the Demandforce portal using Timely by Demandforce. With one click, they can post status updates from the Demandforce Dashboard directly onto the Facebook and Twitter Pages. Timely by Demandforce automatically schedules posts for the optimal time, maximizing impressions as well as the effectiveness of any post. With Timely, a practice is able to enter posts for Facebook and Twitter that can either be scheduled to go out at a later time or set to post immediately. Very cool!!

Two By Two

So you got your shiny new pre-installed Windows 7 computer over the holidays, but you want to have trusty XP standing by in a dual boot setup. Today we’ll walk through creating a new partition in Windows 7 then installing XP on it.

In this process we are going to shrink some free space on the Windows 7 hard drive to allocate toward a new partition. Make sure to take a moment and decide how much space to use for the XP partition. Make sure you have enough space on your hard drive for files you’ll be adding to each.

Up Up and Away

Apps that check for updates for your favorite Windows software are becoming more popular, but are they actually good and if so which ones work the best? The folks over at the 7 Tutorials blog have analysed seven different popular update checkers and report on their effectiveness for the Windows programs chosen, performance, and where they fall short.

The analysis report makes for interesting reading and you will have a much better idea on which ones to choose (and avoid) if you are considering this type of software to keep your system updated.

Raising the Bar

Spokane – February 21, 2012 – For the ultimate in custom implant bar precision and esthetics, look to Aurum Ceramic’s exclusive Opalite™ Screw-Retained Prosthetic Bars. Available in two cost-effective alternative formats suitable for all implant indications, both are custom CAD designed from your fixture level impression and precision-milled for unparalleled strength, perfect fit and easy seating! Opalite™
Full Arch, Full Contour All-Zirconia offers amazing translucency and a full spectrum of shades. Added aesthetics are available through our cutback technique. When a non-engaging “metal-to-metal” connection is desired, a universal connection on the bottom of the Zirconia bar allows the insertion of Titanium interfaces for a precision fit to the appropriate implant. Contact your closest Aurum Ceramic Dental Laboratory location or call 1-800-423-6509 for full details.

About Aurum Ceramic Dental Laboratories

Aurum Ceramic (www.aurumgroup.com) specializes in Comprehensive Aesthetic and Implant Dentistry. As a leader in state-of-the-art dentistry, we are committed to setting the platinum standard in laboratory services and outstanding results. Aurum Ceramic has always been committed to supporting dentistry with not only the most technologically advanced restorative materials and techniques available but also in terms of research, education and program assistance. We are proud to be a Preferred Lab Partner at LVI Global (Las Vegas Institute). Aurum Ceramic is an exclusive Lab Sponsor to gIDE; works closely with Common Sense Dentistry (Dr. Louis Malcmacher) and PTC; is a Corporate Gold Member of AACD; and is a supporter of Oral Health America and many other foundations and initiatives.

Are you maximizing your Social Media Marketing Strategy? Do you believe that Social Media can bring real results to your business? Join our webinar on Feb 23 to find out how your fellow small businesses did it with an all-star combination of Facebook, YouTube, and a Blog.

http://ping.fm/TmTa4

Want a free MacBook Air? Stop by the Demandforce booth at CMW, 4011. Show special of no setup fee and free Facebook and raffle for the Air!

Riptide

Ripping DVDs is a great way to keep a backup and stream videos over your network to patients. The process typically takes 2-3 different programs to accomplish the task. Here’s how you can skip a step and decrypt DVDs using HandBrake. In the past, legal action has been taken against DVD decrypting software to shut down development claiming it to be illegal. There is however a work around.

Safe and Secure

It seems like every day there's news that a new site or service has been hacked. The intruders make off with usernames and passwords, and even if they're encrypted the service forces users to change them. Here's a great system to keep your passwords safe and secure.

Everything

Need to find a file or folder fast? Everything is a great tool for this; check it out!

Dual Monitors

Even if you think you’ve maxed out the usefulness of your iPad there’s still opportunities to squeeze even more utility out of it. Read on as we show you how to use your iPad as a supplementary monitor for your PC or Mac.

Trick of the Trade

We've all been there: You go to shut down your machine, but you see that dreaded Windows Update icon that means your computer might stay powered on, installing updates for the next 20 minutes. If you want to shut it down immediately, you can trick it by going to the lock screen first.

SEO is very important for people to find your website. Standard SEO is included with all websites from WEOMedia. http://ping.fm/9SK2Y

Imaging Webinar

Are you having trouble deciding how to handle images in your dental practice? Sales reps got you confused? Then attend my webinar tomorrow night and get all your questions answered:

https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/656366258

Control Center

You get all sorts of notices from various services–Facebook, Twitter, YouTube–and you never get around to modifying them. Notification Control is a web dashboard with direct links to 14 popular services so you can toggle in a single swoop.

Sure you could visit each service, dig around in the settings, and change your email notifications. But you likely haven’t because that’s a pain and you always forget.

Notification Control is a streamlined collection of links directly to the location within each given service where you can change your notification settings.

Safety Tip

With all of the online accounts we all have, it’s easy to get lazy and start using the same password for multiple websites, services, and accounts, for fear of forgetting an important password. However, this can compromise your private information. Here is a collection of useful tips about passwords to help you keep your information and accounts secure.

Break the Codec

With many dental offices showing videos to patients, you may run into issues getting those videos to run, due to missong "codecs". Many of you have video players like VLC and Windows Media Player, and then often prompt you to download "new codecs", butthere are also codec packs like K-Lite, Shark007, and CCCP. What exactly are these codec packs and what do they do?

Don't drop the SOPA

If you haven't heard of SOPA before, you really need to more about this terrible legislation working its way through Congress. Here's a good explanation.

Need a new website? To get the results you’re looking for you need a dynamic website service, not a static website product. The old model is pay thousands for a website, and then it just sits there, rarely gets updated, and has no SEO focus. WEOMedia are the opposite…low setup cost and ongoing monthly support for edits, SEO, content improvements, etc.

Declutter

For many dental offices, one of the biggest issues is how to deal with the bird's nest of cables and wires that surround our computer systems. Read on to see what other people do to deal with this.

Spamalicious

One of the most common spam complaints we see with dental offices is someone receiving an email from you that contains a link to some unsavory site...even though you know you never sent that email out. Want to find out how that happened or, better yet, how to prevent it? Here's how.

Pass the Buck

With HIPAA and HITECH staring to affect our everyday dental lives, it's important to stay up on the latest regulations. One area where many practices fall short is appropriate complexity of passwords. It's all too easy to create a password that you can easily remember...putting yourself at risk. Here's a list of the 25 Worst Passwords...if you see your password on this list, change it now!

Live Long and Prosper

The devices that most dentists use on a daily basis, like laptops and smartphones, have one thing in common: batteries. Some may ask, though, what is the deal with lithium-ion batteries? You'll hear lots of different things about how to take care of them, like that they need to be kept charged between 40% and 80%, or that they should be drained completely and charged to 100%. What is the ideal approach to maintaining a good battery-life-to-battery-health ratio?

Lecturing to the Toronto chapter of AO today...always great to come home!

http://ping.fm/7xBUa

Moving On Up

With so many of us using smartphones, we'd like to be able to have the same info on our phones as we have on our computers, especially when it comes to bookmarks. While the iPhone syncs with Safari and Internet Explorer, it can't grab bookmarks from Chrome or Firefox out of the box—and most versions of Android can't sync bookmarks with any browser. Here are a few ways to get your desktop bookmarks on your smartphone without any hassle.

Plugged In

Plugging in your phone to sync a mass of photos is a pain, and manually uploading each of them to Dropbox is far from ideal. Here's how to automatically upload each photo you take to Dropbox, immediately after you take it.

Don't Leave Home Without It

As we head into 2012, it’s time to think about how you can keep your PC fit, fast and up to date for the next 12 months.

That means knowing which software you can rely on to perform quickly, safely and intelligently. This isn’t easy, because the web is teeming with thousand of poor programs that promise a lot but deliver little. Downloading these useless programs will only clog up your system and slow your PC down. So in this post we we’ve identified the top 10 free programs that you should download to make sure you have a brilliant year online. Many of these were new to me but are definitely worth a look.

Dentrix G5 Ships!

Henry Schein begins shipping Dentrix G5 today as part of multi-month launch.
Official launch announcement set for Hinman in March.

Henry Schein today began shipping Dentrix G5, the latest version of the Dentrix practice management system, as part of a phased release that will take several months.

Although the official launch announcement will not be made until the Hinman Dental Meeting in March, Henry Schein is delivering Dentrix G5 to new Dentrix buyers, as well as a restricted number of Dentrix customers as part of a controlled launch. “By extending the release over multiple months, we can ensure all users receive quality technical support if needed during software installation,” said Howard Bangerter, Dentrix Product Manager.

“However, if a Dentrix user on a current customer plan wants immediate delivery of Dentrix G5, they can call Dentrix Technical Support and we’ll send it,” Bangerter added.

New to Dentrix G5 is an improved, SQL database with encryption capabilities that improves performance and security of patient data.

With this release, Dentrix also becomes a “platform” for connecting with other dental applications, providing tighter integration with Dentrix eServices and third-party applications that access or share Dentrix data. “Providing other software developers the Dentrix G5 programming interface enables them to more easily create applications that work with Dentrix, supporting an entire ecosystem of digital solutions for dental practices,” Bangerter said.

Software developers are already releasing Dentrix G5-integrated versions of their dental applications. To see a list of vendors developing or releasing compatible products, visit: http://www.dentrix.com/products/dentrix/g5/

Dentrix G5 includes a number of new and improved features, including:

• Electronic Explanation of Benefits (eEOB) lets practices receive, review and automatically record remittance advice in the Dentrix Ledger.
• eClaims Attachment Notifications warn users to include attachments on insurance claims for carriers that require them, reducing rejected or delayed claims.
• The new Screen Capture utility lets users drag over any part of the visible screen to create a new document and save it to the Document Center. This is especially useful for creating claims attachments.
• Sequentially Numbered Daysheets record each time the Daysheet is printed or previewed. When combined with logon passwords it creates a gapless record that shows who has accessed the Daysheet and when.
• Dentrix Dentalink is a new add-on feature that provides secure instant messaging, letting users easily communicate throughout the office with minimal disruption to patient care and workflow.
• The new Dentrix Mobile upgrade is an add-on product that presents an improved interface designed specifically for Apple iPad and Motorola Xoom tablet users.

For more information on all of Dentrix G5’s new features, visit: http://www.dentrix.com/products/dentrix/g5

So Happy Together

Professional and Ultimate editions of Windows come with a built in Remote Desktop (RDP) feature that allows you to access your machine remotely while away from home or the office. Unfortunately, it is limited by default to one concurrent user per session, meaning that if someone remotely connects to the computer, whoever was logged in at the moment will be automatically logged off, even if the user is physically at the computer. Here's how to get around that.