Blog

Happy 10th birthday to EyeDock

Well, I've decided to declare today EyeDock's 10th birthday. To be honest, I have no clue when EyeDock was actually "born". It started as an idea that stewed in my mind for quite a while, and it began to gel as I read HTML for Dummies and Sam's Teach Yourself Apache, PHP, and MYSQL in 30 days.

Eyedock cake

You probably can't say it existed until I had a real working product, however, and I think this happened sometime in 2002. Of course, for the longest time I only showed it to my girlfriend (who is now my wife) and a few of my closest friends.

I eventually skewered up the nerve to mentioned it on an OD forum, the Optcomlist, and was pleased to get a lot of positive feedback (as well as a few "you must have too much time on your hands" comments - I've since learned that if you put you neck out there, especially on the Internet, you're going to have brace yourself for some criticism).

New Oblique Cross Cylinders Calculator

Oblique Cross Cylinders

Hello all! I've been working on a new version of the oblique cross cylinders calculator and I thought it was time to introduce it to you.

Of course, the underlying math and optics of these calculations haven't changed. However, I thought it was time to give the calculator a facelift for several reasons.

Acuvue lens discontinuations

It sounds like Vistakon is going to eliminate some of their oldest products:

"As we evolve, we need to make choices to better align our capabilities to produce more of our most popular and more innovative products, like 1-DAY ACUVUE® TruEye® Brand Contact Lenses, 1-DAY ACUVUE® MOIST® Brand Contact Lenses and ACUVUE® OASYS® Brand Contact Lenses. Therefore, we are announcing the following dates for discontinuation of the following brands from our product portfolio:"

Product	Parameters	Diagnostic Date	Revenue Date
ACUVUE® Brand Contact Lenses	All 9.1 BC SKUs and BC 8.4/8.8: -6.50 to -11.00 BC 8.4/8.8: -0.50 to -6.00 will continue to be available	Discontinued in 2007	July 1, 2013
ACUVUE® Brand Contact Lenses BIFOCAL	All	Mar 31, 2013	Dec 31, 2013
ACUVUE® 2® COLOURS® Brand Contact Lenses	All	Mar 31, 2013	Dec 31, 2013

The universal search bar

I picture EyeDock as a lot of things, but it’s main purpose has always been to be something of a search engine for all things related to eye care. While it’s never going to be the next Google, I’m sure going to try my darndest to come as close as an optometrist/programmer can.

I’ve had a “universal search” bar at the top of this site for quite a long time. It has always been used to search many of the databases on EyeDock, but I’ve recently made some enhancements that make it much more powerful.

And, as always, I’m hoping this is another step in achieving my primary goal: To help our fellow eye care providers find information as quickly as possible.

Why contact lens data in EMRs is taking a while

I recently wrote a blog post about how I would like to see contact lens data and calculations integrated into EMRs. I even went so far to create a little mockup of how it could work.

My intention was to create a concept piece - an idealized look at what the future might, or should, hold for us EMR-using ODs in the trenches.

I’ve received some great feedback from people expressing their frustration that these dreams are not a reality. As a person who has been brainstorming about how this could work for many years, I share that frustration.

However, my deep thinking on this subject has also given me some perspective on why things move slower than we’d like them to. As an optometrist who also writes software I can see both sides of this issue.

So, why can’t EMRs do more fancy things like better integrate contact lens data?