Like most paramedics, a paediatric patient is both an unnerving prospect and an often distressing one. Today we had two.

Our first patient had a lot of history in his very short life. Six months old, born premature at 34 weeks and born to parents that had lost their last two children before birth. Sam* was special.

A few weeks earlier Sam had been brought into hospital by his mum and a maternal health nurse. He had been struggling with his breathing all day. As they walked through the doors of the accident and emergency department Sam went limp and stopped breathing. The A&E staff ushered him through to the rescuscitation bay and brought him back. They stabilised him and transferred him to the specialist childrens hospital in the city where he spent the next six days recovering from pneumonia.

Today Sam had been vomiting up phlegm and struggling with his breathing again. His mum called the maternal health nurse who came over to check on the little one. His skin was mottled and he was unsettled. The nurse called the A&E department and asked of them what she should do. Considering his history they said to call an ambulance.

We were sent lights and sirens with an intensive care ambulance backing us up. We drove to their street which turned out to be a big bizarre loop. We finally arrived and carried the works into the job. We found Sam lying on his play mat. He looked to have mottled skin but was bubbly and active. We called off the backup crew and got some history and observations. We got mum to pack some clothes for the little one and popped them both into the ambulance for the short trip to the hospital. Sam was later admitted for a possible recurrence of his chest infection. Poor little fella. Some lives start of tougher than others. I thought to myself that this may steel him for the future. Making him more resilient. I hope so.

Later that day we were dispatched to a 1 year old boy who was continuously fitting. This time we were backing the intensive care ambulance. Maybe it was an error in dispatch but we were sent lights and sirens as a backup crew. Maybe there was more to this job than was on our computer terminal. All that aside this was a job with a paediatric patient at risk so my partner pushed the ambulance a little harder than we normally would. This job was a long way away, a good 25 minute drive at normal speeds.

Halfway to the job we approached a round-about and in a freak of timing merged just behind the ambulance we were backing. As a procession we headed off to the job. We arrived in just over 15minutes. Not bad for a drive of that distance.

The MICA crew asked us to grab our monitor and oxygen supply. We were greeted by an anxious father and hysterical grandmother. Lying limp on the couch was Jordan, our 1 year old patient.

The other crew quickly assessed Jordan while I organised the oxygen. He started to rouse almost immediately. As I placed the oxygen mask over his face Jordan looked up and grabbed the mask. He popped the corner straight into his mouth and started chewing on it. I felt his forehead and he was warm. My partner measured his temperature and found him to be febrile. The MICA crew went on to explain to Jordans mum that he probably had a febrile convulsion. Common and probably benign. I went over to cheer up Grandma.

We ran mum, dad and Jordan up to the local hospital and the MICA crew left to save the day elswhere.

It’s always nice to be able to relax mum and dad after a bad experience like they’d just been through. It’s understandably reassuring for them to know that febrile convulsions are common. That their kids may have another but chances are that they’ll grow out of them. The parents commonly ask if their kid is going to suffer from epilepsy in the future. A slightly increased chance but highly unlikely. It’s just their immature brains inability to cope with changing temperatures (probably caused by an underlying illness like a cold).

We left the family at the hospital and met them there a few hours later. Jordan was 100% but they were just waiting for him to pass some urine befoe they could go home. Jordan wasn’t playing the game.

Two paediatric patients in a row. No dramas this time. I just hope there won’t be big dramas in the future. Life can be cruel but mostly, as far as kids are concerned, life can be magic. I hope Sams mum and dad find that magic in a healthy Sam. They’ve had enough of the bad stuff.

*Not their real names.

35 weeks pregnant patients should be nesting. Bustling around their homes making them ready for the screaming bundle of joy that’s about to arrive. This patient, Clair*, wasn’t in homemaker mode. She was in excruciating pain and couldn’t even lift her feet an inch off the floor when she walked.

Diagnosed by her obstetrician with an elevated relaxin level, Clair’s body was softening up early to aid in the delivery of her baby. Unfortunately with 5 weeks to go her preemptive hormone burst was just too much for her. Thankfully her Dr organised a bed in the midwifery unit and all she had to do was get there. Geography and weather conspired against her.

We arrived amidst a torrential downpour. Clair’s driveway stretched almost vertically and a steady river of muddy water coursed over its slick surface. Lugging the attendants bag up the hill I was exhausted by the time I reached the top. How on earth would we get the ambulance up to the patient? God I hoped she could walk.

It became rapidly apparent, after meeting Clair that she wasn’t walking anywhere let alone down the driveway. I sent my partner to solve the major logistical problem. How do you get a heavily pregnant woman down a very steep, slick driveway without letting her move. I just cannulated her and gave her a tipple of morphine.

From inside I could hear the roar of a straining diesel and the spinning of wheels. Shortly after my partner arrived with the bright orange wheelchair and the patient managed to struggle her way from the couch to the wheelchair.

We wheeled the patient out into the rain and down a steep hill at the back of her house. As we arrived in her carport I saw that the ambulance had made its way most of the way up the slick hill but couln’t get around the last bend up to the carport. The stretcher had been placed under cover in the carport.

Again the patient made the painful move. This time from the wheelchair to the stretcher. We then headed down the steep driveway to the ambulance. My partner was at the front and the patient’s husband and I anchored the other end. Slipping and sliding we finally made it to the back of the ambulance. I grabbed the yellow handles at the rear and held on to the stretcher while the other two manoevred it into the back. Made it. All we have to do is back the ambulance back down the driveway.

God bless four wheel drivers. The patient’s husband gave us a great tip. Pull the handbrake on a little as you back down steep slopes. It worked like a charm. I’m still sweating.

*not her real name

One of my favourites sites gives me no information. It doesn’t tell me about sport or health or cheese or check my mail. It doesn’t do anything except act as a little drop box for whatever I want to drop there. Hence the name drop.io.

Simply genius. It even has a little FireFox plug-in that lets you drag a file from your desktop onto a little red symbol and voila. You get a unique web address that links to a page containing your file. This making no sense to you? Be patient, grasshopper.

Instead of me explaining it all to you just take a peek at the video:

Easy as pie. Useful too. Have visitors pay to access the drop via an Amazon service, have complete access control including passwords and other guest permissions. Set drop expiry conditions. Plus more. As the video says, 100mb drops for free. Genius.

Grasping a new concept can be difficult. Having it explained to you by an expert can be a double edged sword. On one hand they answer your questions but on the other hand they leave you wanting to know more. That’s why I quit while I’m ahead and realise that I’ll only understand what I’m capable of understanding.

That said, I’ve been doing some digging. Digging into the “cloud”. You see, I’ve been asked by a few people who’ve said, and I quote, “Erik, what’s up with this cloud computing bizzo?”. And I’ve been saying back, “um, dunno”. But, oh yes, I’ve been mulling over the concept and have made some realisations.

The computer as we know it is dead. And good riddance. Stupid computer thingee.

So as far as I can gather and reduce it to the smallest divisor, there are two main categories of cloud computing that everyone is going to fall into. I’ll make up a third to cover myself and put IT service providers into that basket. But firstly we’ll cover the “average punter” category. The mum, dad, grandma, budgie, and school kid category (although some of these kids are pretty smart, IT wise, these days).

The average punter may already be using some version of cloud computing. GMail or Hotmail are a simple version of cloud computing where your emails are stored away from your computer, in a server farm a long way away. Yeah, yeah, I know it’s not really cloud computing but the concept still stands. Your computer/PDA/mobile phone/toaster connects via the Internet to a server that provides you with a little web application allowing you to avoid running outlook at home. Your emails follow you around the world and allow easy access from any web enabled gadget. Your computer explodes, killing the cat, no worries. Your emails are safe.

Take this concept one step further and you have online desktop environments. We’ll focus on one example, Airset, who claim to allow you to “manage every aspect of life with cloud computing”. I’m yet to find the make me spaghetti application but I’m sure they’ll keep their word. Anyhoo, this site, once you’re logged in gives you the appearance of a desktop within your browser. You then have access to a word processor, messaging, calendars, forums, photo albums, ya da ya da. You can also store your files online (1Gb free) and allow access to family members or shady accomplices. The great thing about Airset and the other online desktop environment providers is that you can have access to “your computer” from anywhere around the world.

Lastly we’ll have a chat about another part of cloud computing. Online storage. This is the area that most interests me because, if you’re anything like me you will have had a computer die spontaneously just before you back up that thesis or dodgy photo collection (so I’ve heard). So companies like Microsoft and their Mesh, newcomers Livedrive, and US based Jungle Disk all allow you to backup your data to “the cloud” or server farms in bizarre places around the world. Some offer automatic synchronization of your files (change a file on your pc and the change appears in the remote storage), some offer free storage (Mesh is 5Gb free at this stage), and some offer expandable storage options (Jungle Disk charges per Gb). I think any of these options is far better than relying on the $100 hard drive sitting in your computer at the moment. Just make sure you have a decent Internet plan at home. Providers like iiNet have plans that don’t count the uploads (outgoing data to the remote servers) in their bundled data. Grouse.

Let’s now head on over to the second category. Businesses. They have, in the past spent mega-bucks buying servers, server software, desktops, office applications, ad infinitum. If the business expands so does their IT costs due to upgrading their server capacities, software licenses, and new high end desktops with their office software. But with the advent of cloud computing these businesses will be able to scale to meet demand. How so? Well with services like Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud or EC2 for short. What this allows the IT boffin to do is utilise “virtual” servers. Take a peek at the video and then we’ll continue our chat.

Hope that wasn’t too painful. Now, that hopefully explained how the tech boffin created a “virtual” server. His company could then utilise this as their office server. If the business grows then they can just tick another box and get a second, third server online or just get one that’s a little larger. Instead of outlaying thousands and thousands of dollars the company pays a small fee per hour. Talk about keeping control of the IT spend. If your company hits the skids then you can scale back your server capacity. No wasted servers lying around.

So the company has these fantastic “virtual” servers, what next. They can then deploy server based applications including office applications and accounting software. They can also back up to the cloud. Again Amazon provides that service for a fee. All very manageable. Beats paying for racks of hard drives and enclosing them in your office in a dedicated, climate controlled room. Did someone say save the trees?

As a result of outsourcing your servers, storage, and allowing the company to purchase low powered desktops or laptops they have just reduced their carbon footprint and can then save big time on power bills. A climate controlled server room doesn’t run on the smell of an oily rag you know. Big bickies.

So in a nutshell the big or small business, with the help of a savvy tech guy or gal, can utilise a server in the clouds and run all of their applications and storage remotely. All nice and secure. Just find a reliable provider. Amazon have been doing this for a while but there are others. The business has then reduced IT costs, carbon footprints have been slashed and the tech section can expand and contract relatively easily without producing tech waste. Good all round I reckon. One catch – make sure you have a big, fat, super-fast connection to the interweb!

Lastly we have the third group. I won’t spend too much time here but suffice to say this will be revolutionary for the IT sector. It almost creates the perfect business.

Once upon a time an IT provider would build servers, load them with software, build some desktops, load them with software, grab a load of routers, hubs, printers, blah nee blah na, and connect it all up. Hope for the best. Now they can sit at a desk and install servers that are located over the other side of the world. “Hey Bob we need another server”, “No, worries”, CLICK. Done.

The IT business for the 21st century can build and provide products without a warehouse, without cracking open a server case, without leaving their office. What a marvellous world we live in.

Like I said, the computer is dead. Long live the computer. If you have no need for high end CAD work or video editing then get yourself a cheap PC and get your head up in the clouds.

Maybe it’s mental illness, a touch of OCD, but I often lie awake at night and dream up wonderful business ideas. Unique, daring and all unfulfilled.

That’s what I’m doing at the moment. My mind wandered to a great “business” idea and I thought, yeah that one would really work. If only I was commitmentless, unencumbered by debt and had the round dangly bits to do it.

Anyway if you want this great idea drop us a note/comment and I’ll fill you in. You can’t lose. All my business ideas are gold, well in the middle of the night, in my brain, they are.

Take Skinny Corp. They started Threadless, a most amazing website that was born from the humbleness of an internet forum. It now brings together t-shirt designers from around the world and produces unique t-shirts that are shipped to all corners of the globe. Hell, i’m sleeping in one now. What a great business idea. I bet it was born from the bowels of insomnia. Damn them and their cursed courage.

Other great ideas have sprung from what seemed like flights of fancy at the time. Some of them make no money but provide escape for people or just bring a little joy. One great idea has grown to cultish proportions and allows you to unburden your burdened soul. It lets you reveal that inner secret to the world. It lets you say that yes it was you that stole the last choc-wedge from the freezer and you blamed your brother. Its little secret of success is that you do this anonymously, on the web, with only a few words and some crayons and clag. Cruise on over to PostSecret and release the inner demons that plague you.

Damn these clever people and their crazy/great ideas. Now where did I put that Valium.