Last week I didn't do much on the diss, but part of the reason was that I was out of town for an interview on Wednesday and Thursday, then on Friday I had a local interview and then toured the place on Saturday. Another big reason was that I read the novel "Dune" that my wife had given me. ;)
While reading Dune may not have been the best use of time, I enjoyed the sense of destiny, purpose, and fate in the book. As I have been pondering my own future, it was both a reminder and a caution.
This week I commit to getting stuff done! Old week is dead, and I need to do the best I can with this one.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Friday, June 13, 2008
Week is winding down
The week is winding down, leaving me little to show for it. I have read through more of the manual today, as well as last night. I hope to finish it today. I did a solid 1x15 on reading, and I hope to link together 3 more during the next hour. I still haven't figured out how to do the bibliography effectively, but I feel much more comfortable with styles now.
Part of what has been taking my time is the job search, as I have had two telephone interviews this week. PhD-level jobs take a long time to find. I do not want to take a post-doc, even though that is the preferred move for an academic career. I have a family to take care of, and I do not want to move them to another post-doc after a year or two, and have a lower salary to show for it. I will likely end up in an industrial job anyway - why take a lower salary for less stability? Unfortunately, it seems like it is really hard to get on at a national lab or work for NASA unless you are working as a post-doc. Still, the first job is the first job -- not your entire career.
I have also used OpenOffice for my resume and CV. In my CV I inserted hyperlinks to my papers, homepage, and email. That way someone looking through it can click on those for further inspection. However, I changed the color back to black, and removed the underlining, so it prints clean. In this way, there is a little surprise for the reviewer. I also have the files converted to PDF. However, I had to play with it a bit so that the PDF conversion did not change the color back to blue. Also, I have not been able to get my headings to come up as bookmarks in the PDF. So, I still have some work to do.
Part of what has been taking my time is the job search, as I have had two telephone interviews this week. PhD-level jobs take a long time to find. I do not want to take a post-doc, even though that is the preferred move for an academic career. I have a family to take care of, and I do not want to move them to another post-doc after a year or two, and have a lower salary to show for it. I will likely end up in an industrial job anyway - why take a lower salary for less stability? Unfortunately, it seems like it is really hard to get on at a national lab or work for NASA unless you are working as a post-doc. Still, the first job is the first job -- not your entire career.
I have also used OpenOffice for my resume and CV. In my CV I inserted hyperlinks to my papers, homepage, and email. That way someone looking through it can click on those for further inspection. However, I changed the color back to black, and removed the underlining, so it prints clean. In this way, there is a little surprise for the reviewer. I also have the files converted to PDF. However, I had to play with it a bit so that the PDF conversion did not change the color back to blue. Also, I have not been able to get my headings to come up as bookmarks in the PDF. So, I still have some work to do.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Progress this last week
It has been over a week since I last blogged, and I have very little to show for it. I have been reading the OpenOffice manual, and setting up my installation of OpenOffice to look better. I have also learned a few other tricks.
I have also been preparing my figures. I have a number of figures, including some I didn't use in my papers. Thus, I am using these to increase page count, and hopefully make the writing a little easier. They serve as a de-facto outline.
One of my big decisions is the type of referencing to use -- do I do it by last name or by number? I would like to do it by number, but I would also like to write each chapter in a separate file. I know it is possible to put it together in OpenOffice, but I need to figure out how to do it so it actually works.
However, as I look back, I have really accomplished very little the past few days. I have good reasons for part of it (interviews, job search) but bad reasons for most of it (wasting time on the internet). I am trying to get re-focused today. 15 minutes on, 5 minutes off. Hopefully, I will be able to say at the end of today that I did not waste time online, and I was very productive, even though I have a telephone interview later on today.
I have also been preparing my figures. I have a number of figures, including some I didn't use in my papers. Thus, I am using these to increase page count, and hopefully make the writing a little easier. They serve as a de-facto outline.
One of my big decisions is the type of referencing to use -- do I do it by last name or by number? I would like to do it by number, but I would also like to write each chapter in a separate file. I know it is possible to put it together in OpenOffice, but I need to figure out how to do it so it actually works.
However, as I look back, I have really accomplished very little the past few days. I have good reasons for part of it (interviews, job search) but bad reasons for most of it (wasting time on the internet). I am trying to get re-focused today. 15 minutes on, 5 minutes off. Hopefully, I will be able to say at the end of today that I did not waste time online, and I was very productive, even though I have a telephone interview later on today.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Software I am using
Right now I am using OxygenOffice 2.4 to do the writing. It is OpenOffice 2.4 with extras. I just installed it on my laptop (Dell Ubuntu pre-installed) as well on a desktop Windows98 machine at home. It is working well so far, but it is not smoothed and integrated like the native Ubuntu version of OpenOffice. So, I will have to research how to integrate it.
I do most of my diagrams using Inkscape. I have also used Inkscape for diagrams on my last two papers.
My choice for bibliography software is JabRef. It is cross-platform and able to download reference information. It is also able to export in various formats -- including a useful HTML format that allows searching.
I am experimenting with OpenProj for project management. It is not entirely well optimized, as it seems to be for projects involving many people, and not a single-person project like a dissertation. I'm also trying out other open source project management applications, but I am not sure I will use any project applications at all.
I do most of my diagrams using Inkscape. I have also used Inkscape for diagrams on my last two papers.
My choice for bibliography software is JabRef. It is cross-platform and able to download reference information. It is also able to export in various formats -- including a useful HTML format that allows searching.
I am experimenting with OpenProj for project management. It is not entirely well optimized, as it seems to be for projects involving many people, and not a single-person project like a dissertation. I'm also trying out other open source project management applications, but I am not sure I will use any project applications at all.
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