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December 2010

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Using Unison to synchronize and backup your work [Part 1]

Everybody yaks on about backup all the time, but few people actually have a viable setup. They say: "yes, I copy stuff to a USB pen". So, if you do that once a week, how much work would you lose if, just before you undertook the backup, your laptop was stolen? This is exactly what happened to me…

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Use unison for bidirectional sync to dropbox - only use dropbox as a backup, not primary location. #phdchat

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Saw Kira O'Reilly's exhibit in Bristol on the body. Was unfortunately somewhat steeped in migraine and didn't fully appreciate.

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Three assure me that I will be able to specify desire HD delivery time. Wife not happy at dashing back from holiday for tech!

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Have just done the upgrade to HTC Desire HD! It's arriving on the 30th of December. Will I make it back from my holidays in time?

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Mendeley Android client; first preview and OAuth problem

In the last day before I head off for a bit of a Christmas break, I decided to take up a recent proposition to start work on an Android client for Mendeley. So far, in a couple of hours, I've got as far as implementing the OAuth provider, so you can start the application, log in to Mendeley and it…

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Academia.edu needs to stop trying to be Facebook; not great original thinking for an academic site to just imitate ("like" button) #phdchat

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Ah, the British Library Facebook page. Fan of event exclaims that he'll upload footage from event. BL say he needs permission from them.

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Who the hell would write a Guardian 'Comment is Free' article? The abuse is getting as bad as Have Your Say.

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Finally finished my base annotations for Episode 12 synopsis and characters of Beyond the Zero; now putting in to Rockaby. #pynchon

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Thanks to Academia.edu I can see that people are actively searching out my review of Elia Suleiman's film The Time That Remains #goodfeeling

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That blog post has been the thing that helped me get writing in the last 2 weeks; get the clutter out of email. <3 @producteev ! #phdchat

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On non-linearity, for an Eng. Lit thesis, I write the conclusion first, work towards it and then rewrite with new findings. #phdchat

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Obviously, (not wanting to invoke two cultures too much) there's huge difference of writing process for humanities vs. sciences #phdchat

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Spambots seem to be tweeting about a release of #zotero everywhere... can't find official reference, though. #phdchat

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Episode 12 of Gravity's Rainbow has been the hardest synopsis to write so far, mostly because it's so central to many themes. #pynchon

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Using Producteev to manage overbearing Inboxes

I typically have (well, had) about 200 emails in my Inbox, which was just as a result of trying to keep on top of things that I needed to do at some point in the future. Predictably, the box kept growing. No matter how fast I swept away the other 200 or so emails that came in over a week, the…

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How can I kill Tweetdeck on Android once started? Want to use my desktop client w/out rate limit exceeded, but it auto-syncs a/ restarts

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Zuckerberg? What he's done is create a commercial, politically apathetic website. Assange has made a true challenge to free speech.

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This morning tube delayed by 20 mins so missed meeting. On way back delayed by 10 mins so missed connection. Now half hour wait.

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.@manicode is currently tweeting on proper XSS validation; good stuff (it's more than just character escaping)

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Our Duty to Minorities

This is a quick, personal post to express my disgust at the government's recent proposals to "reform" the Disabled Living Allowance and scrap the Independent Living Fund. While I have been extremely unhappy about the cuts, particularly to higher education, this latest batch hits a group of people…

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Djiscography: a Django-based discography generator

This is a quick post to announce the first code drop of a project I worked on yesterday. It's called Djiscography and it generates nicely formatted javascript hide/show style discography information. It supports track listing, samples, multiple artists, releases and editions. A live version of the…

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Bah, recovering from a ratty migraine day and now writing Django models for a rewrite of my discography generator.

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Anybody using the new Zotero beta for day to day usage? What's stability like? (I want to move to FF4...) #phdchat

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Gove,2003: "Some people will...be put off applying to our elite institutions by...a debt of this size. Which...is...good" via @johannhari101

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Making it a policy to use mytubewaslate.com from now on -- sick of paying huge rates for travel and it being rubbish.

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As peace prize goes to Liu Xiaobo, China cracks down on dissidents. West, of course, acts differently. #Wikileaks

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T. Parrish, "From the Civil War to Apocalypse",284: Pynchon's GR "never mentions Hitler". pp.32,116,135,151,309,349,373,403,526,556,571,630?

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I HAVE DONE IT! Zero emails in my Inbox and a lovely date-populated task list. Thank you @producteev.

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Wonder what variable fees will mean for the number of RC funded postgrads. Higher fee institution = fewer BGP slots?

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As @carolinelucas points out, poll tax went through then was reversed. Keep up the pressure on fees.

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5pm, Sussex English department's Christmas get together. What are we doing? Reading The Waste Land, of course. #festive

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Final week of Utopias/Dystopias course was Ali Smith, The Accidental. Talked to students about May '68, which seemed apt.

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Why does Literature Online insist on digitizing their PDFs as images, rather than text? 10.5MB for a 15 page article is excessive!

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Why does Literature Online insist on digitizing their PDFs as images, rather than text. 10.5MB for a 15 page article is excessive!

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Today's fun: 2 hrs in @BritishLibrary for thesis work; hot-foot it to Sussex for lecturer training; back to London for Kate Rusby concert

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Just like to add my disgust at the DLA proposals - another slanderous attempt to equate disabled with workshy.

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Converting Zotero Documents to Mendeley

One of the best things about Mendeley is that, the second you mention their name on Twitter, a horde of helpful and informative community liaison team members descend upon you. This means that, if you have a query, you can be sure that someone knowledgeable is never far away. That said, it seems…

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"Gravity’s Rainbow is unique in that it forgoes traditional elements of plot and characterization in favor of two or more people fucking"

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Gym [CHECK]. Now en-route to British Library to regain my productivity and motivation (with which I struggled last week).

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Is this daily mail article on poverty stricken middle classes who can't afford Harrods a deliberate troll?

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Leftfield fact: in 1995 their soundsystem caused plaster to be blown off the roof at the Brixton Academy.

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#FollowFriday #FF @Dystopia2009 @lizith @thoughtcat @ChrisBellNZ @jharvell @chriskeene @SaRobHob @andycoverdale @NSRiazat @MarkKohut

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Any suggestions for managing "API rate limit exceeded" on @tweetdeck when using multiple devices?

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Off to see @LeftfieldTour this evening. Can't wait. Shame there's 14 hours to wait, guess I should do some thesis!

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Problem in this case is that it will now be v. difficult to investigate Assange -- will be presented as a conspiracy whatever happens.

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Just for the record, I'm not endorsing that post from LibCon, I posted it for interest. All rape claims should be properly investigated.

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Come on Natty Alpha 1. Today is my snow day, I can't test it tomorrow, I can test it now! Release!

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Official Google Reader for Android client doesn't support Google Apps for Domains accounts. This is useless.

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Rockaby refactoring and abstraction

I've used the snow so far this morning to start some pythonic refactoring of Rockaby. As I mentioned in my project announcement, Rockaby started life several years ago and it was a quick morning's worth of hacking about in .NET to build something that I thought nobody would ever see. As such, the…

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Right snow, you've got 24 hours to get out of my way so I can go the awesome @LeftfieldTour gig. #twittersnowtrial

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Other prob with social citation (Mendeley, Zotero, CUL) is the proliferation of profiles. Need standard XML that they can all pull. #phdchat

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Once you have the experience level, undertaking regular peer reviews for a journal can really help develop critical faculty. #phdchat

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Would be good if plugins to word processors could be standardised. I can't convert all my refs to Mendeley now I'm in Zotero. #phdchat

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Never noticed the reference to the Tunguska Event in The Accidental before - features heavily in Pynchon's Against the Day