Chances are, your doctor isn’t using a Mac. Over 95% of the electronic medical record software on the market today won’t run on Macs. But there’s an online guide that wants to spur more doctors to begin injecting Macs into their practices.

PC users have been switching to Macs for many reasons, and easier use is among the leaders. An article from the Software Advice marketing Web site makes good cases for why Mac-based Electronic Medical Records (EMR) software is ready to help in healthcare. The article lists on-the-Mac solutions, then goes on to track the software hosted offsite, but available to Mac users.

Web-based EMR software is a growing segment of the market and one that is appealing to physicians in a wide range of specialties. Because web-based EMRs don’t depend on a specific operating system, a physician needs to only have a compatible web browser (Safari or Firefox for example) on their Mac to access the software online. There’s no installation of software on a physical machine; all data is hosted in the “cloud.”

The number of web-based EMR vendors is rising but only a handful have optimized their software to run on a Mac-based web-browser. The Software Advice site points to demo versions of these applications.

Apple’s mail program, Mail, is gaining a regular place for our business. One of the best things about this software is its ability to travel. We’ve learned to use it on our iPhones to keep up with e-mail while we’re out of the office. The 3G capability is what makes this possible, but you can check mail while mobile over a WiFi connection on other Apple devices.

That includes the iPad as well as the iPod Touch. Take Control Books, edited by Mac veteran Adam Engst, has a new PDF book title out to maximize your use of Mail while mobile. Take Control of Mail on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. Written and edited by Joe Kissell and Dan Frakes, the 96-page book promises to make Mail more useful on these devices.

This new ebook takes a practical look at using the Mail app on an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. It explains various email account options, helps you develop a real-world mobile email strategy that integrates with your Mac, explains the mechanics of sending and receiving mobile email, and provides essential troubleshooting advice.

Mail is one of the most useful things on the iPad, in part because you can create something in it — an aspect of the iPad that’s still gaining credibility. Even over a WiFi link, it’s become a ready tool in my business belt. Take Control has other Mail training aids as well, if your exposure to Mail is limited to your desktop. (more…)

There are millions of users of Intuit’s QuickBooks, and for the smaller business that’s a fine choice for accounting and finance on the Mac. But a larger company, or one with business-specific needs, would do well to look at software like Connected Enterprise from Accountek.

At the latest MacWorld Expo, the company was displaying a new inventory lot control solution for Mac-based businesses. A modest little kiosk, one developer/representative, and a lot of functionality in demonstrations on the floor. In a release for Accountek 6, company officials explained

Lot control is necessary in many industries and where detailed part identification information must be tracked in the event of a product recall.  Having a lot control system allows a company to completely track all parts received and shipped by their lot numbers.  The changes in Connected make it very easy to track and pick specific parts throughout purchasing and sales process.

Connected’s lot control allows a business to:

• Simplify the process of tracking parts throughout production.
• Meet the needs of your industry when lot tracking is a requirement for product recalls.
• Identify specific lots received by purchase order and pick and ship specific lots on customer orders.
• Build products and create your own lot number and expiration dates.

If you’ve got no idea what a lot is, as it relates to inventory, you can move on. But Accountek understands financials in a way that corporations use to communicate with each other. It’s assuring to know that even if the solution starts at around $5,000, there’s business-class accounting available that lets you soar above the muddied plains of QuickBooks.

Filemaker has announced a new Business Productivity Kit which works with its new Filemaker 11 database, a collection of charts and reports that are “a fast-track way for small businesses to get instant results and grow their businesses,” according to VP of marketing and services Ryan Rosenberg. The kit is available as a free download from the Filemaker site and includes a 30-day trial copy of Filemaker 11.

While Filemaker has also made a run at small business with its $39 basic-level Bento database, Filemaker 11 is worth the extra $140. The Productivity Kit includes templates — ready-made database reports — to serve companies dealing in either goods or services. The Standard Edition Kit is aimed at sellers of goods, while the Service Edition includes templates for, well, services companies.

Filemaker 11 does ship with a raft of templates already, many suitable for the business user. But the company promises that the new kit’s free templates are “an integrated set of business tools and each module ties to the other, eliminating any need for duplicate fields, tables and data re-entry.”

The biggest advance in Filemaker 11 may well be its charting, and the Kit proposes to make that power ready to use, along with what the company calls “on-the-fly” reporting.

After a few days building and experimenting with the Bento database, it’s plain that the Filemaker advantages of customization are well worth its lift in cost. Starting with a set of templates that you can customize gives a small business room to grow and expand to new opportunities. Filemaker even includes a guide to database basics and one for working with Microsoft Office in the Productivity Kit.

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A few years ago Filemaker released the Bento database, a slimmed down and gussied up version of it’s flagship product. Bento has grown up over those years, and now Filemaker has skimmed off some of its easy to use features in a version 1.0 for the iPad. I had a dream of making this pocket-sized product do some of the work that a mobile pro, like my wife the yoga teacher, would need in classrooms. Alas, the iPad Bento can’t perform those deep poses yet.

That doesn’t mean the product isn’t worth the $4.99 it costs at the App Store. Bento arrived with a one-page home screen meant to serve as a manual, a handful of database templates (these are called Libraries in Bento) and three skins to style my creations.

But say, for example, you wanted to assign several attributes to an item in an inventory. iPad Bento doesn’t get the idea of multiple tick boxes for one record. It want you to create a field for every attribute like overseas item, tax free, custom sized and the like.

As a database Bento has gotten so minimalistic in its mobile versions that it seems suited only for a very personal information manager. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it’s good to know going on how much you can fit into this Bento’s box.

Apple pointed to the sales of the iPhone as the primary factor in its $13.4 billion Q2 report this week. The device, which Apple sold more than 8.7 million units of, is becoming the equivalent of the inkjet cartridge at HP. High volume, high profit, and a very different product than the company has been known for. You might argue that the iPhone has little to do with the mission of the Mac. But you won’t be throwing away an iPhone every month, like those HP ink cartridges. Using an iPhone in conjunction with a Mac makes the mobile device act like an extension of the computer.

What works in Apple’s favor it that the iPhone has plenty of competition, but no direct knock-offs. It’s the Apple product most likely to introduce the company’s computer solutions to a first-time customer. The second most likely product? The Mac itself. Apple said about 300,000 Macs sold at the Apple retail stores during Q2 went to customers who had never owned a Mac before.

Apple cites a “stronger product mix” including more iPhone sales while explaining how it beat analyst estimates by more than 2 percent for margins. Then there’s the $47 billion in cash the company reported for the period ending March 31: A lot of clams to toss at whatever research and development opportunities emerge.

Apple pointed at its “first mover” opportunity with the iPad as one place where it intends to exploit its advantages with fresh investment. Apple expects to release iPad units in 9 overseas countries by the end of May and ship the 3G versions by the first week of May.

One analyst said the iPad has a chance to become “the Mac of the masses.” In the 1980s Apple called the Mac “the computer for the rest of us.” Many analyst questions during the Q2 conference Q&A covered the iPad. As of this week, one tracking site estimates more than 1 million iPads in use: An introductory rate that outstrips the adoption of the iPhone in its first quarter of sales. Perhaps what the iPhone has done for Apple is a sign of what the iPad might add in several years.

Apple just announced a record $3 billion in profits and $13.5 billion in sales for the quarter that ended three days before the iPad was delivered. The company’s COO Tim Cook said the company was confident about future quarters, too.

Meanwhile, the stock is starting to approach the estimates that analysts clocked in once the drumbeat of iPad took off. As of this afternoon, the Associated Press reports that shares are at $261 each, about an 8 percent after-hours rise after trading was suspended during today’s Q2 news conference. One investment house thought earlier this month that shares could hit $300 during 2010.

Once upon a time, the analysts and industry experts were predicting nothing as different as Apple’s products could succeed. The company is now at a $50 billion run rate, something that goes along well with a No. 1 rating in most innovative companies (BusinessWeek) and the No. 38 spot in the latest Fortune 500.

Investment in Apple solutions can get looked at askance in some companies. Doing this well in the latest quarter, when Apple sold 3 million Macs in addition to its mobile products, ought to qwell any kvetching you may hear from corporate IT.

We’ll have more tomorrow on today’s Q&A between stock analysts and Cook.

Complete instruction and training, but O'Reilly offers a better deal

An iPhone problem led me into my library of O’Reilly Missing Manuals, an ever-growing sheaf of pages that’s approaching one full foot of dandy advice and training. A Missing Manual for Apple products is often likely to have the crack advice of David Pogue among its authors, making them a pleasure to read and a complete resource. (Pogue created the Missing Manual series.)

But a Missing Manual book is also bound up by the Curse of the Index. Nobody can reference every entry for every word in a book made of paper. The index would run longer than the content. You can spend awhile searching a handful of entries in a paper book, and even if the advice is inside, locating it among 600-odd pages takes time. You might be at deadline on a project and wish there was a faster method to solving a problem — so you can avoid the line at the Apple Genius Bar at the retail stores (if that’s even an option.)

O’Reilly’s got a shortcut for your fixit dilemma. Today the solution is e-books, editions of these Manuals you download and read on a Mac, an iPhone, a Kindle or yes, even the new iPad. Today, all e-book purchases are half-off, in celebration of Earth Day.

I already had the iPhone Missing Manual in my library last weekend, when my iPhone refused to sync up and cough up its photos. I wanted to push a new album onto the phone to show some images to a client. The new iPad was in use elsewhere at Bites HQ. The solution to the iPhone problem was inside the Missing Manual. I might have found it faster if I owned an e-book version instead. (more…)

MacPractice has been selling Mac solutions for dentists and doctors for many years. Now the software company reports that “We’ve been overwhelmed with requests from doctors who want to use MacPractice on the iPad.” The developer of practice management and clinical software on Macs and iPhones isn’t writing an iPad app for now. Instead, it’s using one of the more powerful gateways on the new device: VNC.

Virtual Network Computing allows any user to send keyboard and mouse input across a wireless network, or even through secure Internet connections, to a Mac application like MacPractice. VNC has been built into the Mac since the 10.4 Tiger release. But a multitouch mobile device like the iPad, with its larger screen, is pushing VNC into service at medical practices with the speed of an unchecked infection.

MacPractice has set up a guide on the interaction between its Mac and iPhone apps and the iPad. The link is made possible through Aqua Connect, which has integrated its remote access software with the MacPractice products. There are plenty of VNC clients available for Apple’s mobile devices, all aimed at letting a business use an iPhone or iPad connect with Mac-based software. (more…)

Moving among publication spreads is as simple as leafing through a paper edition on Zinio's iPad app.

Creating content is still months away from the iPad’s capabilities, but consuming information is ready today. While publishers like Time-Warner want you to purchase single issues of their magazines for the iPad (at about $5 each), Zinio has a free app and a better idea: delivery of a paid full year’s subscription, ready to display on that gorgeous mobile screen.

Zinio’s app provides able organization of your subscriptions, although arranging the magazines seems to be left to alphabetical order. Multiple issues get archived on the device, but you can delete them to save space and just re-download them if you need to read from the past.

The response you see on the iPad while you initially access a magazine can be ultra-subtle at first glance. The app uses Apple’s spinning clock icon while it downloads enough issue to get your reading started. If you noticed the word “download” used regularly up to now, that’s because there’s no other way to enjoy the brilliant pages off the Zinio newsstand. The equivalent of magazine streaming doesn’t exist anywhere yet. And so your initial steps into iPad reading are limited by the size of your WiFi bandwidth.

The full range of Zinio’s newsstand is not yet ready for iPad consumption, because some pubs use Flash in their presentation. Zinio makes its sales and delivery services available to all publishers, but the pubs themselves are in charge of de-Flashing their content. Or more accurately, adding a non-Flash version to their issues. It also bears a mention here that Zinio is selling product without being forced to pay Apple a share of what it collects for its publishers. Apple has a fine walled garden going on in the App Store, but Zinio’s app gives you a gateway into a larger world of purchasing.

The clearest beauty of using the Zinio app comes in zooming into a graphic. National Geographic put together a lively interactive version of its April edition that covers water — and a map of “the third pole” in Asia that might span only the space of two NatGeo paper pages gets the zoom-in treatment on the iPad, so you can enjoy the information at a larger scale than paper could provide. On the downside, we couldn’t get a video feature of the NatGeo sample to run on our iPad, even though the bandwidth was wide open. The fault here might lie with NatGeo, Apple or even the app. This month, many things on the iPad feel like a 1.0 experience.

You can shop for extra subscriptions or single issues through Zino’s iPad app, once you set up an account and provide a credit card number. Many of the publications will sell you back issues, though this kind of one-off reading can get pricey. Subs run from about $10 (a year of SmartMoney) to $46 (52 issues of BusinessWeek) up to 52 issues of The Economist at $126.99. This kind of single-touch shopping will remind you of browsing in Apple’s App Store or the iTunes store: a place where a purchase can be as spontaneous and quick as a meeting requires you to be prepared for. If you love magazines as I do, this app can make the experience addictive. (more…)