Despite my pitiful progress on the items on my list, I hadn’t been completely idle. I was able to report that I had been investing time in helping coordinate and set-up the new FirstClass intranet to be used by the IDEAs Lab. I have also been providing some advice to Julie Coultas on creating a web-site specification for her EduServ project. These activities do not directly further my Ph.D. work, but Thufir pointed out that they serve to help relieve the intrinsic isolation of my position in the group, as I am not working on a project with others and my work is not very directly related to most of the Lab’s projects. I must be careful, however, not to spend the majority of my time on Lab-related work.
On my list of things still to do is to sort out my MATLAB problems. Prior to leaving for Canada last October, I was in correspondence with Dr. Tom Browne, who is responsible for academic license management here at the University of Sussex. While the software can be run directly on campus from various UNIX boxes, copying and pasting data/diagrams between the UNIX machine and the Mac isn’t particular convenient. Sussex maintains a pool of MATLAB licenses. Purchasing individual licenses and toolkits is very expensive, so I have been trying to acquire the use of a license for use on my Macintosh. I need to follow up and see what the status of this last was.
One of the things Thufir is concerned about is that I have been basically stuck at the same point of my Ph.D. for several years now. Of course, that has not been helped by my lengthy absences due to work and my poor health over the past few years. It also has not been helped by the fact that the analysis I need to do is quite tricky and not understood by many people. Thufir admitted that the statistics was beyond him. Imagine a supervisor not knowing everything, but he was happy to admit he’s not the end-all, be-all for everything. He tried forwarding me to various people and I spent ages asking people for advice and help all over the Internet and locally before I chanced across something on my own. The other factor that has been impeding the analysis is that statistics is not my strong point. I do not enjoy doing this analysis, yet it is hanging over my head like the sword of Damocles. He worries the analysis tarpit is making my Ph.D. a chore and leading to anxiety and a constant circling without any substantial progress. He is looking for ways to help me break the “logjam.” He suggested two things. One thing was to look for something “fun” that I could start work on now, which might help rekindle my enthusiasm for my project. Another related idea is to see if there is something I can do which does not hinge upon the results of the analysis, perhaps, for example, some of the writing. I promised to look at that as I continue my work on updating my timeline.
Finally, we discussed my general health and wellbeing. I confessed to being tired, after a hard week the last time he saw me of preparing for a big client demo and then following it up the week after with energy-intensive marking. He wondered if I could afford to not do the work at the Open University. The financials do not allow that at the present time. Almost half of what my company paid me (pre-tax!) went out as rent here in England. Without the OU income, I would have been in the hole. Nevertheless, I did discuss with him my idea of working more at the OU, maybe up to three days a week and none for my own company. I would probably make more money, be less stressed, and have more time to spend on my Ph.D. Doing so, particularly without planning and warning, would place my own company in a precarious position, so I will need to muddle along as best as possible for the moment.
Next meeting is April 2nd at 16:30.
Task list:
- Resurrect and review Ph.D. plan.
- Sort out MATLAB issues
- Work on CSR version of my paper so that I can submit it for publication and send it off to my external advisor

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Planning:
I started off the day by trying to set myself up a new research calendar of days at the University. The calendar left on the door only went until October and, of course, none of those dates were ever used. I consulted with Stephen and arranged to have 5-7 days a calendar month for my research. In most months, 5 of the days are in a row with the other days being made up of Fridays about two weeks before and after the week-long period. I tried to take into account that we might be taking a week off in May to go walking in Scotland. The other days chosen are mostly Fridays because that’s the day we have our IDEAs Lab weekly meetings. One of the things I complained about at our last “away day” was feeling isolated. If I attend meetings, then I won’t be so isolated. The proposed calendar can been using iCal at webcal://ical.mac.com/eingang/Ph.D..ics or on the web at http://ical.mac.com/eingang/Ph.D..
I’ll need to take the proposed dates and map them onto my research plan timeline. Oh boy, another battle with Fast Track Schedule. Is it so much to ask for that a piece of software allow you to edit some things and then have things dependent on that automatically update? Apparently it is, because it’s a pain in the butt to do, but there isn’t a lot of choice of project scheduling software available for the Mac. If somebody knows of something better, please do let me know.
Infrastructure Changes:
After 6 months away, the wireless roaming network is finally live across the campus, but you can’t print from it. Apparently, it was mostly designed with students in mind and students (undergraduates) don’t have access to free printing. I’m hoping they come up with a cunning plan, because it’s kind of weird to not be able to see any of the printers on the network and I can’t, apparently, print to them by IP (although I don’t know why).
While my office was still intact, I needed only to shove some stuff aside, the printers around the building have changed. I had to do all the “Adding” of printers, where I discovered that Mac OS X’s (10.3.2) discovery of printers via AppleTalk is somewhat slow. It seems to take a bit of time to “sync” up when you first connect. In theory, I should now be able to print seamlessly, while plugged in via ethernet, to either printers on the COGS research network or on the teaching network. The teaching network printer is a lot closer, being only a few doors down. The rest of the printers are on different floors.
I had Christian give me a copy of EndNote 7 for the Macintosh. I had requested a license from the lab when they were ordering licenses for themselves. I’ve previously always bought and paid for my own academic license. Version 5 of EndNote, which only runs under Classic, worked with text files, other word processors, and FrameMaker MIF files. As I typeset all of my papers in FrameMaker, this was very convenient. Version 6 dropped that and only supported typing papers into Microsoft Word. At least this version allows you to use something other than Microsoft Word, but it’s still RTF, which isn’t as convenient for me. If I want to make changes, I have to update the FrameMaker file, produce an RTF document, parse that to insert the references, and then print the RTF file. We’ll see how that works. When you change formats, some formatting always gets lost, so I am not completely hopeful.
Intermission:
I picked up a new photocopier card from the postgraduate secretary. The regular school secretaries wanted me to have a research grant to apply the charge to, but I was pretty sure I was entitled to a quota of copying per year as a research student, as indeed I am. I also asked her about the whole intermission process as my supervisor wants me to intermit. Apparently, I can only intermit entire terms, so I need to intermit for the fall and spring terms. I guess that makes any time I spent in March bonus time, assuming I’m granted intermission. She says she doesn’t know of any limits for postgraduates on intermitting, which is good, because I’m apparently going for some kind of record. I also don’t need to write another letter. If my supervisor e-mails her, she’ll prepare the necessary paperwork and all will likely be well. I e-mailed my supervisor and suggested he do so to get the ball rolling. I’ll check back on that in a few weeks.
FirstClass:
The IDEAs Lab has just teamed up with the new Creative Systems group to purchase a FirstClass server and some client licenses. The intention is to create a shared space for the IDEAs group people to be able to collaborate/discuss papers, have shared resource calendars, and update the IDEAs web site automatically with content from FirstClass. I was just discussing this with my supervisor at today’s meeting. As I was searching for some BluTak in our resources room, a contingent of people came excitedly down the hallway looking for me. They knew that I was very familiar with a href=”http://www.centrinity.com/” title=”FirstClass from Centrinity”>FirstClass from my work at the Open University and that I was also a technical web person. They want me to liaise with the FirstClass configuration person, so I’ve added that to my list of tasks to undertake in the next week.
iPod Study:
Michael Bull is doing a study on the use of iPods. Siufai saw a Wired article about Michael Bull and how he’s looking for female inverviewees. Imagine my surprise to discover that he’s at the University of Sussex too. Actually, I’d read an article in the New York Times (online) edition a week or so ago entitled The World at Ear’s Length, all about how people completely shut out the world by using iPods in New York. That article also mentioned Michael Bull. Anyway, I had contacted him about being interviewed, being an iPod junkie, and had arranged to meet him this morning. I arrived at the appointed time, waited twenty minutes, and there was no sign of him. I left a note and followed up with an e-mail, but I haven’t heard back from him.
So, there’s lot to do, but time has run out for today. I need to wrap up, file things away, and head for home until the next day.

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Nevertheless, I still had to confess that I basically had not accomplished anything since our previous meeting on the 23rd of September and that our librarian was hounding me to submit my revised paper as I promised her I was going to publish it as a Computer Science Report last year. She now has a gap in her numbering and wants me to cough up the goods. My supervisor thought that would be a good place to start in getting my mind back into my research. Revision of that paper and publication of it is also what I have been waiting on before seeking assistance from an external advisor, so it all ties together nicely.
He also thought I should make sure that I am represented in the upcoming annual HCT publication, with a picture and a description of my project. As that was already on my list of things to do, that is not a big deal. I believe I can even recycle previous material. I showed him my to-do list and my latest calendar for working on my Ph.D., which reminded him that I should unearth my research plan and update it for past progress and new timelines. I am not looking forward to that, but it is good to have a timeline. My new proposed timetable gives me between 5 to 7 research days at the University a month.
I mentioned, almost in passing, that I will be winning a national award for excellence in teaching from the Open University. He was extremely pleased and suggested that I drop a note to the editors of the Bulletin, a weekly newsletter here at the University, as that’s the kind of tidbit they’d likely want to publish. That also led into a discussion of what I am doing at the Open University and my usage of FirstClass there. Our Lab is getting a FirstClass conferencing system for sharing resources and updating web pages. I wasn’t sure how well it would work for updating web pages automatically, as I have not seen FirstClass really used for that, beyond shared calendars, but I think it’s a neat experiment.
Finally, I told him that I’d actually put together a research blog which was currently very short on content and unindexed by Google, but it was a good place to start my efforts in building myself a community. It’s another positive step forward.
At the end of the meeting, we closed, as usual, by selecting a new meeting date. Next meeting is a half hour squeezed inbetween other appointments on Tuesday, the 16th of March, at 16:15.
Task List:
- Send another letter to postgraduate dean about extending intermission from October to end of February.
- Send HCT Info to Rose’s secretary for inclusion in annual publication.
- Resurrect and review timelines for my research plan.
- Send note to A.F. of the bulletin about winning teaching award at the Open University.
- Review the paper for submission to the library.
- Send e-mail to F.S. saying I’m alive and include revised version of paper.
- Review MATLAB application acquisition status.

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The MATLAB discussion led quite nicely into the progress. I was able to show him a graph and explain what I had been doing and my current problems. He’s going to look for info on MATLAB courses at the university and/or tutorials so I can get up to speed faster. He also reminded me that David Young is a MATLAB resource I might be able to tap.
He was quite pleased about my progress and thought I’d managed to get quite a bit done, even if I hadn’t yet completely solved my analysis problem. At least I was getting somewhere.
Things To Do:
Clean up report and give to Ben before publishing as CSRP
Continue work on MATLAB
Read my Hypertext ’03 papers
Research what I was waiting for David and Ian to provide
Continue on with MATLAB licensing issues

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