April 14, 2011 - Best Practices in Cross-LIMS Data Migration on Vantage Point

You may remember from your primary school days those puzzles that were used to stimulate the learning process by adding amusement to the teaching of subjects that required a certain degree of memorization, like geography for instance. I recall a battery-powered interactive map showing marks of a certain geographical area with all names removed and haphazardly displayed in one side, little metal rods to connect each mark on the map to the right name in the list, closing the electrical circuit and switching a lamp or a buzzer on. I actually remember even building one featuring a map of Italy with regions and main cities for a lab assignment.

April 14, 2011 - Cloud Computing for the Enterprise: An Interview with Henry Fastert of SHI on Vantage Point

Members of the LABVANTAGE Strategic Solutions team spent a couple days with SHI’s Enterprise Solution Services team at their cloud data center in Somerset, NJ discussing how LABVANTAGE plans to leverage virtualization & cloud to meet the needs our of laboratory informatics customers. SHI’s IaaS cloud has been specifically designed to meet the needs of enterprise-class customers and SaaS application providers, and Managing Partner Henry Fastert tells Brian Potter, VP of Strategic Solutions at LABVANTAGE, how and why in this interview from April 1, 2011.

April 7, 2011 - LiMSuniversity.com, the on-line, Open Access, Virtual Learning Center for Laboratory Informatics users and professionals

Atlanta, GA – April 4, 2011 – The Laboratory Informatics Institute, Inc. has established an on-line, Open Access University for Laboratory, Scientific and Health Informatics. 

The Laboratory Informatics Institute is pleased to provide the LIMSUniversity.com site as a free and open access learning and teaching resource for all stakeholders in the laboratory, scientific and health informatics industries.

March 23, 2011 - Looking for a flexible LIMS learning program that adapts to various learning styles and situations?

Question: What do you get when you mix a variety of training requirements with an assortment of jobs, then add in a limited training budget, combine it all into a restricted time frame and finally sprinkle it with certification requirements?

March 21, 2011 - Data Visualization can be an important LIMS tool

posted by: John H. Jones - President, LabLynx, Inc.

I have been experimenting with a very cool data visualization tool for the past year.  The tool is called Tableau.  With the large amount of data that is collected by a LIMS, the laboratory can use a self service tool like Tableau to empower their customers to visualize the data provided by the lab.

March 17, 2011 - LABVANTAGE at PITTCON 2011 in Atlanta

Opening day interview with Jerry Hacker, SVP Sales. Jerry previews LABVANTAGE LIMS running on an iPad 2, talks about our quality ELN capabilities, laboratory business intelligence and other highlights from this year's tradeshow.

March 17, 2011 - Defining Responsibilities in the Cloud on Vantage Point

It is very important for those involved in the operation of a flight to understand which portion of the flight they are responsible for, as well as within what parameters they need to operate. Pilots must maintain the altitude and headings assigned to them within specified limits. The controllers must keep aircraft separated from each other by pre-defined distances in 3 dimensions. This system works well, because it allows personnel to perform the assigned roles and manage their portion of the operation, ensuring flights to operate smoothly with no surprise or accident.

March 16, 2011 - Integrating Enterprise-Wide LIMS with Remote Field Testing PDAs for Enhanced Audit Trail and Significant Time and Cost Savings

Colin Thurston, Director of Product Strategy, Process Industries, Thermo Fisher Scientific

Water companies in the UK are required to comply with stringent national and European Union (EU) quality standards. The latest UK legislation came into force in April 2010, under the title “The Water Supply (Water Quality) Regulations 2010, with the aim to ensure the quality of water intended for domestic purposes or for use in a food production undertaking. The EU Drinking Water Directive 98/83/EC sets quality standards for drinking water quality at the tap and the general obligation that drinking water must be wholesome and clean.

March 11, 2011 - LIMS Evolution: The Changing Landscape

It’s been 29 years since I first started working in the LIMS and laboratory informatics industry. Commercial software applications for laboratories were in their infancy in the early 80’s and the solutions were mostly aimed at supporting analytical instrumentation – a very narrow focus when compared to today’s broad spectrum of informatics solutions.

March 11, 2011 - How to Build a Successful Training Program

Have you been challenged with developing a training program for your organization? If so, the four techniques discussed can help ensure quality training that accelerates and enhances the learning experience of its audience, as well as improving the retention and effectiveness of the training.

March 2, 2011 - Pilot In Command in the Cloud

Flying in the Clouds: An Introduction to Cloud Computing When I was in my mid-teens, I decided I wanted to learn to fly. I went to the local airport, found an instructor and started my lessons. Soon I had earned my Private Pilot license. For many years, I flew under Visual Flight Rules (VFR) and grew very comfortable with the visibility restrictions and limitations that VFR imposes on a pilot.

March 2, 2011 - Advantages of a Data Warehouse

When it comes to behavior, I’m a conservationist and minimalist: I sincerely dislike having to do anything extra or wasted. For example, I dislike taking stairs one at a time because it’s too slow. I never print out anything; it’s a waste of paper that I’ll eventually throw away anyhow. I frequently run across parking lots because I can’t stand the time wasted between walking out a door and arriving at my car. So why would I advocate using a data warehouse as the basis for business intelligence and decision support? Why not get data directly from operational systems and skip the extra system?

February 24, 2011 - Laboratory Informatics Strategy, Part 1: Down the Rabbit-Hole…Again

At the very beginning of Lewis Carroll’s classic book, “Alice in Wonderland”, Alice follows the March Hare down the rabbit-hole without a thought as to why she was doing it or how she would ever get out again. She simply jumps in feet first and, as we learn by reading the rest of the book, gets herself into a lot of trouble while trying to find her way home.

February 24, 2011 - How to Choose an Application Server

Choosing an application server on which to run your LabVantage software is not so much different than buying anything else…a car, let’s say. You need to decide which features are important to you, how much money you have to spend, the level of dealer support you expect, options for repair, the required level of ongoing maintenance, etc.

February 12, 2011 - DIY Cloud-in-a-Box, Part 2

by: John H. Jones, President – LabLynx, Inc.

In my last blog posting, DIY Cloud-in-a- Box, Part 1, I introduced you to the concept of the Private Cloud and the series of articles that will chronical my journey towards the development of a private cloud that can be installed within your own organization or can be hosted in an external datacenter.  Now we continue on with Part 2.

February 8, 2011 - I Would Like to Become a Medical Expert… Any Strategies on Why I Should Be MD, MD/PhD or PhD?

Well.. .my idea is always that prior you decide to set yourself on one of these paths do a little clinical shadowing plus some lab research.

February 8, 2011 - Consolidated LIMS Discussions

There are a number of good LIMS discussion groups on Linkedin. This is a consolidated list of all the latest discussions from the best of the best LIMS discussion groups.

January 28, 2011 - Free 2011 LIMS Buyer's Guide with price lists of some of the most popular LIMS products

The Laboratory Informatics Institute is pleased to announce the coming release of the 2011 LIMS Buyer's Guide. This guide is unique in the LIMS industry by providing a side-by-side comparison of the most popular LIMS products on the market along with complete pricing information.

January 24, 2011 - DIY Cloud-in-a-Box, Part 1

Here at LabLynx, we have been providing our webLIMS.com product as a SaaS/Cloud based LIMS for the past 2 years. This has been a highly successful product offering for not only new customers but long time existing customers have started switching to our Cloud services over hosting the LIMS in their own internal IT infrastructure. As part of our continued R&D efforts in Cloud Computing, I have decided to use my LIMS Journal Blog to chronicle a new experiment in Cloud Computing. It will be called “DIY (do-it-yourself) Cloud-in-a-Box”. The research in this area has already been going on for the past 6 months and there has been tons of failures and false starts with this experiment and so I want to spare everyone that pain by documenting our successes and failures from this point forward.

January 14, 2011 - eLabInventory: Online Inventory Management System

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