Thanks to an article in The Scientist, I spent an enjoyable hour this morning playing a character in an interactive movie. Titled The Lab: Avoiding Research Misconduct, the movie aims to bring issues of research misconduct to life. The story concerns a medical research worker who misuses a junior colleague’s data and publishes a fraudulent paper. Viewers can play one of the four …
Different hats
Last year I bought SmartDraw, with the intention of turning all my procedures into flowcharts. Then I got bogged down in project work, and the flowcharts didn’t happen. However, today I had another go, inspired by an email from SmartDraw describing VPM – visual process management. This is a neat idea whereby the organisation chart contains a hyperlink from each …
A breathing space
I’m enjoying a much-needed breathing space this week, after completing two major jobs, one of which has been going on for almost a year. Luckily, I have a great team of people helping me, and they pulled out all the stops over recent weeks to meet some crazy deadlines. Of course, I still have a lot to do, because I’ve …
Ever better ways to send things
Last year I discovered Dropbox and thought it was a great way to share files with colleagues and clients. I then found SugarSync, which seems even better than Dropbox, because it provides a really simple way to share folders and subfolders, sync different computers, etc. However, I found that some clients had trouble with both these programs – getting confused …
Managing reference managers
I’ve been happily using Endnote X3 with Word 2007 for some time. However, on Friday I installed Reference Manager, and was alarmed to find that the Endnote tab had disappeared from Word. After a fruitless hour Googling various phrases to try to find a way to get the tab back, I remembered that I might have a relevant email somewhere …
Successful backup
This week I had to attend a meeting in Sydney, so I decided to try out my backup system by taking along my spare laptop along rather than my main computer. The spare is smaller and lighter, and is therefore better for travelling, but I don’t normally use it, so wasn’t sure that it would have everything I needed. There …
Taking advantage of my faults
I’m a chronic procrastinator (a common failing, according to Procrastination: Ten things to know). Much of the time, this trait causes me problems, but I have noticed that occasionally it helps me to get things done. For example, last week I finished about 10 small jobs that had been hanging around for some time, just to avoid working on a …
A new skill
Last year I bought Adobe InDesign and a book on how to use it (InDesign CS4: Classroom in a book). My plan was to learn the basics so that I could make small changes to a designed document, without having to go back to a designer. In reality, over the past year, only one client has asked me to undertake the design …
A lull
Last week I’d cleared the decks for a major project that didn’t materialise (thank goodness), and this week, three days of meetings have been cancelled, so I finally have a slight lull in my workload. Over the weekend I’ve been enjoying having the time to read the newspaper, get some work done in the garden and finish my application for …
More on networking
I love networking – it really helps to counteract the isolation of working from home. In recent weeks I’ve met up with a few freelancers and been interested to hear about the different ways people work and the tools they use. One tool that I came across through a conversation with a participant on a training course is the reference …