My friend and colleague, Dr. Tony Saad, shared with me a new, well new to me, software that organizes your sources. It combines Zoterowith EndNote! However, I am still learning it and working with it, and it seems that it may have issues with Microsoft Word. The software is called Mendeley Desktop, and it's absolutely free! It seems to be pretty powerful as you can drag and drop PDFs into your library and Mendeley will automatically pick up the information. You can also import your Zotero library and have the software "watch" folders and your Zotero library for automatic updates when you add sources to these locations. I haven't fully explored its power yet, but it seems to be a permanent solution to both EndNote and Zotero. We'll see as I don't have much time to mess with this new software. Another cool thing is that Mendeley will rename your PDFs anyway you specify which is a huge time saver. You can also link and enter information easier than Zotero, and you don't have to worry about if the download citation thingy works or not. Needs more investigation!!
PS I just found out how to edit posts, duh!
SATURDAY, MAY 8, 2010
I have always been interested in OS for computers. I can remember the early days (for me) when DOS was the essential way to use a computer. Then came along the early versions of Windows (I think 3.0 or so was the earliest I can remember). I remember still having to use DOS though for certain games or programs, so Windows was not nearly as dominate as it is now. There were also some Macs around which had similar windows OS's. Anyways, about a year or two ago I found out about Linux and its many versions or flavors. I tried it out in our lab, but ended up being frustrated because I felt it was so hard to install a simple Adobe Flash Player for Firefox. However, I really felt like I could get use to it, and I really enjoyed this new OS because of its freedom and it reminded me of the good ol' days. The versions I was exposed to were Fedora, Redhat (the pay for version, Enterprise I think?), Ubuntu, and Kubuntu.
Anyways, I have always planned to install some Linux version on my home computers so that I could mess around with it (I also even would like a Mac OS too!). The other day, my good friend and colleague, Tony Saad, told me about Wubi. Wubi is an installer for Windows that automatically installs Ubuntu on your computer with dual boot and separate partition. If you don't like it, you can unistall with no traces or problems. So I have tried it out, and it turns out I am writing this blog post from Ubuntu!! I think this is wonderful, and should spread this use of Linux to others such as myself.
Here is the link:
Wubi
FRIDAY, MAY 7, 2010
Ok so the problem with Word was bigger than I thought, but fairly easy to fix. Every time I tried to save, close, or edit the document (change add-ins, since Endnote was not appearing) Word froze and was not responding. I thought, great, going to spend all day trying to figure this out, and I do not want to have to reinstall everything.
However, with some googling, I found that this is somewhat of a common problem, especially after updates. It seems that either the Normal.doc template is corrupt or the Windows Word Data registry becomes corrupt. Here is a link that easily solved the problem for me (registry edit fix it for me).
Update- 6-14-10
I'm glad I posted this because it has happened again! This time on my desktop. The problem now seems to be with Mathtype and/or OriginPro8. Here are some additional links to the same post earlier.
PS My laptop is running Windows 7 (updated from Vista), and my desktop still has Vista at the moment.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 23, 2008
First off, I finally have submitted into writing a blog.
Update: 5-5-2010
Anyways, after a few years of negelct, :), I think I now want a site where I can publish my research work and ideas since I am getting older and more experienced in the field. I also would like to post scientific information or hints/tips which is inspired by my good friend and colleague Tony Saad and his blog Please Make a Note.
Nice to see this come through Tim :) I Look forward to reading your posts!
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