The LIMS Donkey: No Small Screens, Here!

Last year, a topic came up in one of the discussion groups I belong to entitled something like, “Are You Still a Donkey?” I finally gave in to my curiosity and opened it up to read. As it turns out, it was basically asking if members of the group continued to be donkeys by lugging around their laptops, suggesting it to be a somewhat old-fashioned thing to do, to lug around something so heavy and ungainly. The alternatives were things like BlackBerrys and iPhones, for example.

As one of the many people who fairly frequently travel in the laboratory informatics industry, I do carry a laptop with me. In fact, as some customers insist that developers work only directly on the customer’s computer systems, some people carry multiple laptops around with them, one for the current customer, one of their own.

Fortunately for me, I have only made one trip with two laptops in my life. So, I might be killing myself carrying around this boat anchor of a machine with me, but some people do have it worse, so I’m not going to complain.

Additionally, as a developer, I have a difficult time imagining that I’d want to write programs and configure large objects like stability grids by doing it on a tiny screen. In fact, developers like me usally want even bigger screens than we already have. When considering the multitudes of documents most of write, that also seems much easier on a larger screen.

On the other hand, for those people looking to get alerts of adverse events or brief e-mails giving status updates, I can imagine the conversion to a small screen to be a good plan and one worth pursuing. Or, for those people collecting results in the field, a small device could be just the ticket. But for most of the rest of us, who are writing documents and programming, I cannot imagine trying to take that direction.

So, as we consider buying systems that can operate on any device, we need to think about whether we have a situation where we need to run on ANY device, after all. It sounds like a great idea, but it’s one that we still need to define what part of the application (if any) for which we will use it.

With all that said, I realize that someone with a smart phone won’t have the problem I currently do. I need to buy a new laptop case as my long-time, trusty case just broke near the end of this past weekend’s intercontinental trip. To save my back and shoulders, I’m trying to figure out whether to buy a backpack style or a rolling style. Or, maybe I should look to see if there’s such a thing as a multiple laptop case -- just in case! Someone with a smart phone doesn’t have this problem – they just throw it in their briefcase and go. And so, for now, I remain one of the LIMS donkeys (and open to suggestions on laptop cases).

Gloria Metrick
GeoMetrick Enterprises
http://www.GeoMetrick.com/