monika’s w e b l o g

…a wordpress update. From version 2.6 to 2.7, going along with a re-design.
I am surprised about the new admin interface, especially since it has just gone through a major change in the last version. Indeed, I found that last interface quite clear. This one doesn’t come across as well-arranged on the first sight.
On second sight, the overall logic seems more compact. Also, it has some very nice features, for instance the foldable menu on the left side, or the rollover-functions to edit or delete a post.
I need to play with the media functions some more. Those seem to date be the weekest part in every content management system, although much has been done by wordpress already. And at a certain point I’d be interested in how far the widget-concept can be driven.

March 19th, 2009. von Administrator. No Comments.
Kategorie: administrational things. .

The provider for this blog has recently upgraded from MySQL version 4 to version 5. This is generally corresponding to a longtime wish of mine.
However, the update messed up all the speical characters of my weblog – a very well known problem in the wordpress community, I found out.
The nicest tutorial about how to fix the errors, I found on konzentrat.org:
Change wp-config.php and wordpress settings to UTF-8;
Change all the database tables to latin1_german1_c in PHPmyAdmin;
With the presented script, convert all the üöé and so forth to the appropriate characters.
äüößÄÜÖ

Followed all the steps and it worked
Thanx!

November 4th, 2008. von Administrator. No Comments.
Kategorie: administrational things. .

After heavy problems with spam, and a desire for a better unser interface, I have finally upgraded to the newest version of Wordpress.
Besides the category names which got lost – had to replace them, and therefore they have slightly changed – the procedure went quite smooth.
And the administration interface has much more user friendly over time.

July 15th, 2008. von Administrator. (1) Comment.
Kategorie: administrational things. .

Sometime in the last few months a draft for my table of contents has evolved. It was the strong and continuous advice of my supervisors that finally pushed me to write my project structure down.

How can I write a table of contents with so many white spots still in my work? How can I stay creative if I nail points down in a structure now, where the research is still “in full swing”? Is there still space for surprises?
I don’t know. As a matter of fact, structuring feels good. Maybe as often in a creative progress, the basic ideas arise in the very beginning of the project, and that is the framework within most of the following process happens. Escaping from it later on is very difficult …

March 25th, 2008. von Administrator. No Comments.
Kategorie: administrational things. .

In search of a literature administration tool, my search results can be divided into 4 categories:
- commercial tools
- free|open source tools for local use
- free|open source tools for remote use
- social software tools

Decision making is a compromise between the do-able and the wish-able:

I like the idea of a social bookmarking system most. Examples include CiteULike, Connotea, or Bibsonomy:
Connotea describes the easy 3 steps of using the service: “Find a reference, save it on connotea, add your own keywords for easy retieval”.
The major weekness of using such a system are the online library catalogues in their current configuration, as discussed in log.netbib.de/tag/tagging:
“Tatsache ist jedoch, daß die Ausgabeschnittstellen der heute in Deutschland verbreiteten OPACs und Dokumentenserver diese Entwicklung so gut wie nirgends wiederspiegeln, ganz zu schweigen von Bemühungen, Dienste wie Connotea in die Oberfläche der eigenen Systeme zu integrieren.”
How to integrate analog literature in my system if I can not bookmark library resources? This includes library items but also resources that I have laying around on my (analog) desktop…

Free|open source tools for remote use would be my next choice. RefWorks and Litw3 are such tools, where I prefer the 2nd one just because the website is more informative. But- too bad- I have not taken into account that I have to upgrade my provider contract in order to install this system.

As free|open source tool for local use, I test Citavi which wins various tests, but in its free version it allows just 100 entries per database.
Lit-link is a free software product with quite good reviews. It sounds promising at first. The problem is that I cannot figure out how to import library items from my mostly visited online library catalogue, nor if/how to use the program for citing when writing a paper.

At this point I have spent many hours with searching, installing, testing without a result that does really convince me. (To all developers of the above described products: maybe it is just me who has not figured out the functions; in this case it might help to provide descriptions of your products which target people with no experience in digital literature administration).
I decide with a heavy heart to buy a commercial product. Good decision? I don’t know. Time will show.
Anyway – I give the warm advice to every newbie that starts a research project to set up some kind of literature adminstration on their very first day of research.

October 12th, 2006. von Administrator. No Comments.
Kategorie: administrational things, research methodology. .

After very good feedback by David and Janet, I have revised my R1.

Most difficult points:
Redefining the hypothesis: I have a clearer picture now on what a hypothesis is; still it is tricky to formulate one that lines up with objectives and research questions;
Setting all key terms on learning in relation to each other and to the research: constructivist learning, competence based learning, informal learning, communities of practice. Indeed, this part has to be further refined;
Research questions and applied research methods: is it just up-piling or is there some form of triangulation in my approach? How to measure?
Lilia Efimova in her post “weblog research: practices and artefacts, points out that “in most cases we do not have good existing knowledge about blogging practices, so I tend to be quite critical on blog research that concludes something about blogging practices by studying only artefacts.” (->great post!)
Not just did that made me aware of the importance of interviews with my students, but also helped structuring my research interests into: practices – artefacts – impact/effects.

September 22nd, 2006. von Administrator. No Comments.
Kategorie: administrational things. .

Yesterday I finished my draft for what was “chasing” us PhD-students for the entire last year: the R1.
“Details of each research project which forms part of a registered higher degree at the University have to be submitted to the University quality control procedures. A detailed project proposal is made to the Faculty Research Awards Sub-Committee through the R1 form.”
Drafting the R1 helped clearing my thoughts on the project (a little bit). Waiting for my supervisors’ feedback…

August 31st, 2006. von Administrator. (1) Comment.
Kategorie: administrational things. .

I have just started – on David Moore’s advice – a ZETOC alert list. Which needs to be expanded some more…
With this I hope to keep up to date with actual articles in my subject.

November 14th, 2005. von Administrator. No Comments.
Kategorie: administrational things. .

Today I successfully installed and started my weblog.
This weblog will serve as my personal PhD Research Diary. I will collect personal notes as well as emails, notes on adminstrative issues, seminars, documents, links, etc.
The layout does still need to be refined, which I will try to do in the coming weeks…

November 14th, 2005. von Administrator. No Comments.
Kategorie: administrational things, social software. .

Today I successfully signed up to the Smartgroups.
Looked at members (some of us Krems-students have subscribed already), files, etc.

October 17th, 2005. von Administrator. No Comments.
Kategorie: administrational things. .