This company knows better than to show what a person looks like wearing cheek retractors. But the bald dude in the tradeshow booth just couldn’t keep his mouth shut, and so has inadvertently revealed the eerie side of DIY whitening treatments.

If the silly little LED lights aren’t bad enough, the company has solved the apparent problem of “what to do” for the hour-long treatment process: built-in music headphones for your MP3 player.

Ahh, the fringes of the ZOOM-persuaded target audience make one smile and wince at the same time.  Thanks to Engadget for the help with next year’s Halloween costume.

Head over to dell.com and click on Support to download the latest drivers and bios update for your machine.

Here is a little of the back story

Now is a good time to look at some computer upgrades and prepare yourself for Windows 7. A good way to start this process is to look at refurbished equipment. While many of the top manufactures offer refurbished equipment none do it better than Dell. To help you get started we are including a few links and couple of newly minted coupon codes, but you better hurry the deals and codes won’t last forever.

www.delloutlet.com

15% off coupon on all refurbished Precision Workstations
(expires 10/14) ?MWG3ZLB4ST2T6

10% off coupon on all refurbished PowerEdge Servers
(expires 10/14) K10HLL96J1M$WZ

15% off coupon on all refurbished Laser Printers
(expires 10/14) 8XWXWHZHSKW522

15% off coupon on all refurbished Latitude and Tablet laptops
(expires 10/14) 8DVFH307$J?WWD

Just enter these codes in your cart to save your practice some money, and don’t forget that all refurbished equipment comes with the same warranty and support as new equipment. You can also follow them on Twitter.

Highlights include:

• Optimized for Snow Leopard. Built from the ground up for the Mac, VMware Fusion 3 leverages Mac OS X Snow Leopard’s advanced architecture with a new 64-bit core engine and native support for the 64-bit kernel, delivering even better Windows on Mac performance.
  Ultimate Windows 7 Experience.  VMware Fusion 3 will be the first to enable the full Windows 7 experience, side-by-side with your Mac, complete with Windows Aero and Flip 3D.
• Switching Made Easy. VMware Fusion 3 will make it easy for users to bring their entire PC to their Mac in a few easy steps – wirelessly or with a simple Ethernet cable – allowing customers to protect investments in existing Windows software, and to keep using the programs they still need.
• Best-in-Class 3D Graphics. Support for OpenGL 2.1 and DirectX 9.0c Shader Model 3 will enable users to run their favorite 3D Windows games and applications – all without rebooting.

VMware Fusion 3 is now available for pre-order at at vmware.com/fusion at a suggested price of $79.99, with upgrade pricing of $39.99 available to current VMware Fusion users.

Dear Santa,

This is so hard; I didn’t know who else I could write that could help me in my dilemma. My college finals are over and I recently went to oral surgeon’s office about my wisdom teeth. The plan is to have them taken out right after Christmas. The deal is, they’re not hurting. In fact, they are so buried in the bone that they aren’t even close to my other molars.

The weird thing was when I went to the oral surgeon for a consultation, he told me that when he took the wisdom teeth out, he could send all of them to a cryogenics lab where they would extract my stem cells and freeze them in case I needed them in the future to grow new nerve, cartilage, bone, a liver, or even a new heart.

I thought about it a lot, I really did, Santa. Did my research, too and realized that you’ve got some experience dealing with people who want to deep freeze everything they can touch. Here’s what I came up with:

• The company that my dentist is using is called StemSave. It costs about $700 for StemSave to process and store my wisdom teeth for the first year and $100 per year afterwards. Until I use them or die, whichever comes first. 
•  BioEden is another company that also cryopreserves teeth for future use, with methods and fees similar to StemSave’s.
• The technology for the actual preservation seems good, and wisdom teeth may have more useable adult stem cells compared to bone marrow if I get sick and need them later in life.
• As teeth age, they have fewer stem cells in them.
• There is a bit of controversy on the subject – I’m worried that stem cell banking may be more beneficial for the cryobanking investors than for the patients. There’s not really enough long-term data to suggest anything but hope on the researcher’s parts.

Then I got to thinking in the opposite direction. What if I just left my wisdom teeth in place? Doesn’t my own body work pretty good as an incubator for all those stem cells? Guaranteed to stay a steamy 98.6 degrees (or more), whether or not I make the payments each month? And the future, being so bright and all, maybe there will be a way to harvest my wisdom teeth with lasers instead, and then tease out all those precious tidbits from the insides.

Now I know you’re not a dentist yourself, Santa. But didn’t I hear that one of your elves become part of the North Pole Cavity Patrol? I’ve enclosed a copy of my X-Ray for Dr. Hermey to look at. All I want for Christmas is my four back teeth, one way or the other. Please help me decide what to do, Santa!

Signed,

Blue Christmas Girl               

Nice product presentation on the left, don’t you think?

Now what exactly are they? The latest in clear maxillary molar implants?

Wrong. You stick them in your ears. You. The dental professional.  Yes, you, the person who is losing their hearing and doesn’t mind spending about a grand to protect what’s left of your stereocilia.

Not losing your hearing? Then prove it to yourself. Take the test below in a quiet place. Naturally you need to have speakers turned up to about medium to hear all the frequencies. The higher ranges are what are known as the “mosquito” ringtones, which are outside the audible range of people over 30, and often used by the young-uns to send stealth text messages to each other.

There have been a few inconclusive studies published in the dental journals this decade about the concern that high decibel-level noise is an occupational hazard in dental practices. We thought that now would be a good time to gather a little of our own anecdotal evidence, and see how dentists’ hearing stacks up to the general population.

Play each of these tones to yourself and then please fill out the anonymous survey below so that we can publish the results in a future post.  

Play	Frequency	Age Range
	8 kHz	Everyone
	10 kHz	60 & Younger
	12 kHz	50 & Younger
	14 kHz	45 & Younger
	15 kHz	39 & Younger
	16 kHz	30 & Younger
	17 kHz	24 & Younger
	18 kHz	22 & Younger
	19 kHz	20 & Younger
	20 kHz	18 & Younger
	21 kHz	17 & Younger
	22 kHz	16 & Younger

Be sure to use your browser’s “back” button to come back to this page each time until you’ve figured out which frequency is your upper limit.

cforms contact form by delicious:days

The University of New South Wales in Australia has posted this test if you’d like a more comprehensive hearing exam. And if it looks like your future may be one of geriatric deafness, you might want to give thought to the benefits of a pair of DentalEars.

You’ve watched way too many movies.

If you’ve got images of Star Trek’s Geordi LaForge, nerdy sidekicks in 80′s new-wave glasses a la John Hughes’ teen films, or the horrors of Total Recall memory augmentation burned into your retinas, then please, let those prejudiced views slide gently outside of your peripheral vision and consider that Virtual Reality glasses may actually be good and cheap enough these days to make them part of your patient comfort collection.

We want to heavily discourage dentists from spending thousands of dollars in wall or ceiling-mounted screens just so that patients can have something to look at besides your ugly mug while you’re fixing their teeth.

We’re not kidding.

The problem with screens like that, during dentistry, is that your head keeps getting in the way while your patient is trying to remain distracted.

There’s lots of other details that can end up complicating the whole thing, so instead of making this a gripe session about overbloated dental amenities, we’ve created a few tracks that will make it inexpensive and easy for you to start using VR glasses in your practice.

Track One: I want it all (hey yeah) and I want it now.

Bank commercials and Queen music aside, you want to have this up and running in your practice immediately.  Here’s the easiest way to get everything you need. Tonight.

1. Find your nearest Brookstone store and call them to make sure that they have a pair of these Vuzix™ iWear® AV230 XL Video Glasses ($200, plus tax) in stock. Go get ‘em, tiger.
2. Look through your home collection of DVDs for those with the most appeal over a wide variety of patients. Don’t forget to grab a few of those TV series’ episodes for those shorter appointments as well.
3. Steal your children’s portable DVD player that they don’t watch in the car anymore because they all have video iPods now.
4. Buy a bunch of AA rechargable batteries and a recharger, plus alcohol wipes for infection control, and some sort of basket or nice box to keep it all together when moving it from room to room.
5. Hand over the box of video goodies to your assistant, who will take it all from there.

Cost: Less than $300, unless you have to purchase your own DVD player (around $100) and videos.

Track Two: Keep it simple.

Efficiency is key to this next setup. You want something simple for your team to implement, that will work consistently, and appeal to the broadest spectrum of patients possible, from the 30 minute appointment to the full-mouth rehab. Everything can be purchased online and delivered to your office within the next week.

1. Purchase these 3.5 ounce i-Theater Glasses ($179) direct from the manufacturer, i-O Display Systems. Be sure to add a set of hygienic earbud covers ($20 for 25 pairs) to your shopping cart. The rechargeable batteries are included, as is an AC power adapter.
2. Get the right kind of DVDs. This is so important. Nothing with a plot because your patients won’t ever want to leave, or worse yet, you’re such a generous dentist that you’ll let everyone take the movies home to finish and then it’s a pain to keep up a decent office library. We recommend instead that you purchase some relaxing, endlessly looping DVD videos. Our favorites are the Waves Virtual Vacations™ ($10-20), but you may love the music and nature videos at TV Artscapes ($16 and up) just as much. Your patients will want to be in your chair just for the ambience. Seriously.
3. Oh yeah, you’ll need something to actually play those DVDs, and the ones with the their own screens make it easy for the assistant to get the system set up and running properly. Best Buy has the reliable Dynex® Portable DVD Player ($90) that seems to hold up to abuse and also holds a charge well. You can also simply keep it plugged in with its own AC adapter.
4. The Box. It is a bit unprofessional to drag the gear and their cords and from operatory to operatory, so we like the Faux Leather Milk Cartons ($34 for two) from Target. They will stay looking good for many years, and are easy to keep clean.

Cost: $400-$500, shipping and tax included.

Track 3: That’s what I pay you for.

Many of the virtual reality companies directly appeal to dentists to buy their products for patient relaxation and entertainment. MedPED Media has gone several steps further and created an entire package called InChair TV that allows you to relax instead, and leave everything to them.

They’ve taken the exact same Vusix™ glasses seen in Track One above and added a Walkman-type portable DVD player.

But then comes the cool part.

InChair TV has gone all Netflix over dentists and not only are they offering a monthly mail-in “rental” system, but inserted between the shows on each DVD are these cute little dental cartoons that advertise services you provide, like teeth whitening and veneers. Each monthly package comes with three 90-minute disks (Kids, Teens, Adults) and all content has been licensed for use in a place of business.

Cost: $518 for the first year (includes all hardware, shipping, and handling), $120 each year thereafter. 10% off when purchasing 3 or more.

_____________

The VR glasses can take a little getting used to if a clinician normally works from the 12:00 position, but otherwise they don’t seem to get in the way much at all. We recommend starting out with one set for the entire practice for a month or so, and if patients and assistants alike rave about your latest high-tech gadget, then go out and get a boatload of them.

This is real proof that slapping an extra zero at the end of a price doesn’t always happen just because a product is branded for the dental market. When there’s a will to make a good product at a fair price, there’s a way.

By the way, did you mean Will & Grace? Good Will Hunting? Or perhaps you’re more into There Will Be Blood?

Maybe you need a pair of VR glasses just for yourself.

Seriously tweaked patients are bringing their iPhone accessories to dentists nationwide.

The newest iPhone almost fits in the original iPhone dock. Almost, but… no.  And MobileMe still doesn’t sync iTunes remotely, so users are either stuck with purchasing the 3G dock for $29 or sticking it to Apple by creatively finding ways to carve out the plastic edges of their old ones.

Desperate for something to drill on, dentists affected by the recent economic downturn have begun aiming their burs outside of their patients’ mouths and are now the prime facilitators of this dock modding craze.

The unnamed dentist pictured above performed the service as part of a “teeth fixin” deal. He is now questioning his decision to allow photography during the modification due to the large number of geeks currently hanging out in his reception area.

However, with the increase in new patients he has had to turn away a few of his older clients, mostly iPhone detractors. Instead of leaving them uninformed, the dentist has been able to engage these patients with phones more suited to their needs: iPhone’s biggest competition.

The Computeritized Dentist will now translate this June 24, 2008 letter from Microsoft Senior Vice President Bill Veghte detailing the fate of Windows XP, among other things:

“Today, almost every dental office in the world that is computerized uses a PC with our software platform. And unless you want to ditch everything you’re already using, you’re stuck with us – and all the peripherals that try to get along with us.

“Windows XP is a dinosaur, and you may have heard that it is scheduled to be installed in the Museum of Planned Obsolescence on June 30, 2008.  Ha, ha, there’s really no such museum; that was just a clever metaphor that I thought of myself. 

“Okay, so back with the XP thing. You dentists have mostly stayed on with using XP because it doesn’t throw up all over the perceived “security threats” like Vista does when you plug in a digital x-ray sensor or try to access your system remotely. It’s true; Microsoft will no longer sell Windows XP after this month, but now you will have almost six entire years until you will need to upgrade all of your equipment again.

“So the deal is, when you purchase a new PC from now on, you are also purchasing Windows Vista as its operating system. But because we know you dentists have issues with Vista, we’ve created something called “downgrade rights.” This means when you add a workstation, you have the option to downgrade your platform to Windows XP. And then when you are ready to upgrade, you are “future proofed” since you already have a license for Windows Vista. If you choose to downgrade, you’ll need to install Service Pack 3 and Internet Explorer 7, because it’s going to be hard for us to support you if you if you don’t. 

“Hopefully all of your dental technology companies will have their Vista compatibility problems worked out before April, 2014. Because after that, we’re thinking…we might not be around anymore. Just kidding; we just haven’t promised XP support after that date.

“In the meantime, keep your eyes out for the Vista replacement, currently called Windows 7 and scheduled for launch in January, 2010. Our dominating market share depends on its success.

“Thank you so much for filling out all the error reports as well as you fill teeth. Your feedback has been filed away in some remote server in a dark room, but at least we try.  And we mean well. And…and…Go Windows!”

If you want to know where the Computeritized Dentist got all of this info, follow the link:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/letter.html