David Ancell / Wednesday, February 23, 2011 / Comments(0)
Last weekend, Yana and I took a trip to Lexington, Kentucky to be at a party for a friend. It’s kind of ironic that I’d go there just after taking the test to become licensed there (which I passed, by the way), but I digress. After the party, we went to the mall. There I found what has to be the best Apple store that I’ve ever seen. I got to play with quite a lot of stuff there.
Since I’ve been on Verizon, I hadn’t really been interested in the iPhone 4. Now, with its availability, it may be an option some time in the future. The retina display really is a sight to see. The ones in the store have service on them, so I got to send my wife an e-mail from one of them just for fun. After that, I played with a MacBook Air. It is a lightning fast device since it has a solid-state drive. It will be a while before I’m in the market for a laptop, so we’ll see how it evolves.
The best thing, of course, is the 27-inch iMac. I will be getting one of those before too long (after Lion is released). The display is beautiful, and it’s lightning fast. I’ve been doing some high-definition video since getting married, and I want something that will allow me to preserve it in high-definition.
I was not impressed with the Magic Trackpad. Maybe it is because I’m just not a big fan of trackpads. It is too hard for me to have precise control. I tried it with Indesign on the demo unit, and it was a little difficult to place an object just where I wanted it.
The new Magic Mouse is something that I have played with off and on, and I have mixed feelings about it. I currently have the old version of the Magic Mouse. The new one does not have a scroll wheel that can get clogged up and quit working, but it also lacks the squeeze buttons that I use to call up Expose. The gesture concept isn’t the best for me because I tend not to memorize stuff, and I hope that Apple won’t get to a point that learning the gestures is necessary to use Mac OS.
It’s hard to believe that, just ten years ago, I would have called the Mac a “Macintrash” computer. Now, I find that it is faster, handles multitasking better, and is so much less of a headache to maintain. Let’s just hope that the absence of Steve Jobs doesn’t hurt their creativity. They need to keep it up.
Category: News on My Life, Technology
David Ancell / Thursday, February 17, 2011 / Comments(0)
My employer has asked me to get licensed to practice pharmacy in Kentucky. The reason has to do with the way we do business and the way pharmacy is regulated in some states. I’ll spare you the excruciating details.
Pharmacists have two different tests that they must pass to become licensed. There is an exam called the NAPLEX, which is the test of general drug knowledge. As far as I know, it’s used by every state in the United States. Pharmacists also have to take an exam on pharmacy law. Most, though not all, states use an exam called the Multistate Jurisprudence Exam (MPJE).
The NAPLEX isn’t much of an issue. Normally, one can get by with taking it just one time. After that, one can just use a license by exam as the basis for getting a license in an additional state. However, the MPJE is another story. Since laws vary by state, one normally has to take it again for every state in which one desires a license.
I have taken and passed the MPJE for three different states, and today I just took the one for Kentucky (still awaiting the results). How I have passed it in the past is usually a mystery to me because I could swear that I failed it when I walked out of it. It’s just a weird test, and sometimes I have a sneakin’ suspicion that they grade it by rolling dice at the NABP office. We’ll see how this one goes.
Category: News on My Life, Pharmacy