Tech-stuff · 30 November 2011 ·
Easing the pain of referencing, Part I: Reference Managers
When you’re writing an academic article, one of the most annoying parts of the process is getting your references right. It’s an annoying but necessary task, that requires a large chunk of time that would be better spent on getting the content right. However, with the help of a referencing software you can reduce this hassle significantly.
A referencing software is essentially a database of the articles you have read. From within your authoring software, e.g. OpenOffice Writer, LaTeX or Word, you can then put in the appropriate citations whenever necessary. Using these citations, the referencing software will then automatically generate a bibliography of all the articles cited, in the bibliography style required. This can be a massive help!
Many referencing programmes can also store and organise the PDF documents linked to their database. Thus, they act like a personal library, containing all the PDFs of the articles you have read—ready to access, annotate and reference, and you have a quick and handy way of searching through all the articles you have read, double-check quotations, and store notes for a document.
Furthermore, a good referencing software will let you import references directly from online library catalogues, publishers, and Google Scholar. (Part II of this series will tell you how) Some even automatically extract the required information from an article’s PDF file.
In this post, I briefly want to introduce three reference managers, BibDesk, Mendeley and Zotero. It is not meant to be a comprehensive How-To or overview of all reference managers available; I simply want to show what is out there, for those that are not familiar with this kind of software. Please look around what else is there, Wikipedia has a table that lists more than two dozen programmes., and is a good starting point to explore what software suits your needs best.
Also, if you use another referencing software, please leave a comment summarising its features, what you like about it and what not. (In particular, I would love to hear about Referencer, Qiqqa, Papers and KBibTeX)
BibDesk
BibDesk targets LateX and LyX users on Mac OS X. It automatically generates a BibDesk file that you can then link from your LaTeX/Lyx document.
BibDesk is one of my favourite applications. It has a sleek, comprehensive interface, centred around the library containing all the references. Depending on your workflow, you can create as many different libraries as you like, e.g. one per document. But I have started to keep all references in a single library that contains all references I have ever read in my academic career. I can quickly search the entire database for authors, titles and journals. To structure my library, I have assigned keywords, which is a far more efficient method than creating separate databases.
One feature I absolutely love about BibDesk is its auto file ability. Once I have created a new entry, I can drag and drop a PDF into BibDesk and it will move the PDF document into a single folder and assign it a sensible name. (In my case, this would be First Author, Year - Title (Keywords).pdf, but you can configure this in the preferences.) Thus, my PDFs aren’t scattered all over my hard drive and easily accessible through the search functionality in the BibDesk application. Furthermore, you can store your notes on a reference in BibDesk as well, which is also very handy for lecture notes.
You can get most references from Google Scholar or directly from the academic publisher, so you don’t have to type them in. BibDesk offers you a simple web interface that lets you search a number of academic databases for articles and lets you can directly import the references from within BibDesk. Unfortunately, to my knowledge you can’t do both in one go, instead you have to import the reference, then download the PDF, and then drag and drop it into BibDesk from the Finder.
To use the BibDesk library in LaTeX you can then simply use the standard commands (e.g \cite{}) to add a reference to your document, or you can also use BibDesk’s “Cite Drawer” feature, that lets you drag and drop one or more references with the appropriate citation command. If you’re using LaTeX, I am just going to assume, you know how to do the rest… if not, there are gazillions of tutorials available online.
In LyX, you can use the Insert > Citation to select a reference and its style. But see the LyX wiki on BibTeX for how to link a library and for an in-depth description on how to use BibTeX in LyX.
Whilst BibDesk does not offer in-built synchronisation of your library, this can easily be achieved using Autofile and a software like Dropbox.
There is also a third-party iPad/iPhone app, that lets you synch and read articles on your iOS device, but it is not very reliable and a bit complicated to set up.
Mendeley
Mendeley is a cross-platform application with a clean and sleek interface. Like, BibDesk, it offers a number of advanced features that come in handy, and it can organise your PDFs as well. What I like most about Mendeley, is its ability to guess bibliographical information from a PDF you add. Although this doesn’t work every time, it even makes a BibDesk user like me jealous!
Mendeley also has a web browser plug-in (so you can add a reference to your library when you download the article) and a number of social features. For example it will recommend similar articles based on what you have read and you can browse Mendeley’s crowd-sourced article database.
There are a plugins for OpenOffice Writer and MS Word, so using Mendeley is pretty easy. Mendeley can also automatically generate BibTeX BibTeX files for *TeX users. I haven’t used this feature, and it seems that it does not offer full BibTeX support.
There is an integrated only-synchronisation available, and you can also synch your library with your iPad or iPhone, although the reviews for the corresponding app are mixed at best.
Zotero
Zotero takes an interesting approach to: It is an extension for Mozilla Firefox and you can fetch the bibliographical data in the browser. There is a plug-in for Microsoft Word. I have never used Zotero, and therefore can’t say much about it, but I wanted to mention it due to its unusual approach, which may appeal to some users.
Conclusion
There is no point in writing your references by hand and learning bibliographical styles by hand, when you can get a software to do it for you. Depending on what software you use to write your documents, what OS you use, and what other features you might want, there is a wide selection of reference managers out there that can do the job for you. Many of them will also be useful in collecting bibliographical information for you, and also serve as a personal library.
Although reference managers can be extremely powerful tools, you still have to make sure the automatically generated references are correct and consistent. Particularly when you import a reference from Google Scholar or academic publishers, it may be incomplete or even false. Page numbers may be missing and titles can be wrongly capitalised. But although they don’t take all the work off your shoulders, they are extremely handy.
Politics Tech-stuff · 9 October 2011 ·
Chaos Computer Club dissects German police interception software
The hacker group Chaos Computer Club (CCC) has reverse-engineered the German state trojan software that is being used to intercept suspects’ online communication. You can read the full summary of their findings on their website. It is not my aim to reiterate the technical details of how the software works, but the article also states:
The government malware can, unchecked by a judge, load extensions by remote control, to use the trojan for other functions, including but not limited to eavesdropping. This complete control over the infected PC—owing to the poor craftsmanship that went into this trojan—is open not just to the agency that put it there, but to everyone. It could even be used to upload falsified “evidence” against the PC’s owner, or to delete files, which puts the whole rationale for this method of investigation into question. […I]t is possible to watch screenshots of the web browser on the infected PC—including private notices, emails or texts in web based cloud services.
Thus the malware’s capabilities go beyond the boundaries set by the German constitutional court a few years ago. In particular it ignores the protection of personal space that is granted by the German Basic Law (the German constitution) and its ability to manipulate files on the suspects’ hard drive leads the forensic process ad absurdum: How can we trust evidence that is possibly manipulated? I understand that the police wants to tackle crime, and in doing so may feel obliged to cross boundaries—but these boundaries are there for a reason. They ensure that a suspect (or later the accused) is treated fairly and will receive a fair trial. If the evidence that has been collected as part of such a process is not reliable, then it may not be used in court anymore. Thus, such a trojan may prevent the very purpose of the surveillance, i.e. to collect data that can be used in court.
But with a piece of software like this, there is an interesting twist to it, that was picked up by Frank Schirrmacher, the editor of the German daily FAZ: Only few people are able to understand the real capabilities of the software, what it can and cannot do. A judge in court may not be able to assess whether the evidence collected through the malware is reliable and instead rely on the expertise of those who created the software. But according to the Ministry of the Interior the malware is secure, encrypted and stays within the boundaries of law. Here Schirrmacher refers to a statement by Lawrence Lessig, who proclaimed that “Code is Law”, i.e. that the way we interact on the internet and the digital sphere in general is not so much defined by state legislation, but rather by the software we use. Not law, but code sets the boundaries of what we can or cannot do online. Germany’s “federal trojan” is a perfect example of this: It was not the Basic Law that defined its abilities, but the code underneath. But until yesterday, the knowledge of what this code can actually do was left to the few.
It is this ignorance of the law and the purpose of the judicial system that is frightening. Unlike the security flaws it cannot be excused with incompetence, rather it shows an intentionality to violate the authority of the Basic Law and the boundaries it sets to interception of suspects by state authorities. The question for me, as a German citizen, is how the police is supposed to uphold the law if they violate it themselves?
Disclosure: I am a member of the CCC and attended the 24 Chaos Communication Congress. Otherwise I am a rather passive member.
Media Tech-stuff · 4 November 2010 ·
Digital Veganism
Constanze Kurz of the Chaos Computer Club, crop of a photo by re:publica10, cc-attr
In an interview with the German Weekly Freitag, Constanze Kurz, spokesperson of the Chaos Computer Club, develops the notion of “data veganism” in the Internet. People who stay out of all sorts of social networks and similar online services due to privacy concerns, are data vegans. People who stay away from the worst offenders are data vegetarians. Apart from the majority, who indulge in all sorts of social networking activity, there is also a fourth group, the conscious meat eaters, who use social networks like Facebook, but are very cautious about the sort of information they provide.
Furthermore, Ms Kurz argues that the agenda of digital vegans and vegetarians is ultimately to the benefit of all, since it will lead to more choice and higher awareness amongst the consumers of online services.
So what are you? Vegan? Vegetarian? Or are you going for the beef? And if so, are you at least making sure it’s organic?
Personal Tech-stuff · 20 June 2010 ·
The Sun is rising...
Since my bike got stolen over Easter, I need a new one. I decided to go back to the Common Wheel Project, a Glasgow-based charity that employs people with mental illness to build and repair bikes. It’s a brilliant project and they do a very good job at building bikes, too. Plus, they are a bit geeky.
A suitable frame was quickly found, it’s an old Sun frame, made in Birmingham. It required a little bit attention, a few holes had to be welded and it’s currently at ESP powder coaters for a new painting. The bike will be build up as a touring/commuting bike. It will probably feature a Sturmey Archer 3-speed hub, drop bars, mud guards and a pannier rack, so that I can go onto the odd ride into the Scottish countryside. Also, the gears will ease the way up at Gilmorehill. Clearly the founders of my beloved university weren’t cyclists themselves…
Either way, here are a few pictures of the frame before and after the welding:
Tech-stuff Webdesign · 8 April 2010 ·
Irony is...
…when Richer sounds advertises a special offer for visually impaired people on its website’s front page, but places that very information in an image with no alt-text, thus rendering it invisible for people who use screen readers or who use a different style sheet to make websites more legible.
Screenshots of the Website, with images loaded:
Screenshot of the website without images loaded:
On the Internet, they would call it a “FAIL!”.
Disclosure: I am perfectly aware that this website has quite a few flaws itself and that the layout is partially broken. I will fix this over the holidays.
Personal Tech-stuff · 25 November 2008 ·
Wanna buy speakers?
Old grannies get scammed with electric blankets and knife sets. But whilst an electric blanket probably wouldn’t attract the attention of students, other goods do.
I should know better. Stories of old grannies being persuaded by some random strangers to buy electric blankets or knife sets of blunt knifes for ridiculously high prices always make me sad. I wonder, how come they throw reason over board and end up buying overpriced crap?! Well, that might be because I don’t care much about knife sets and electric blankets.
However, I should remember my one day training at a call centre selling lotteries and raffles. I only went for the training because I was not told that the job involved selling expensive lotteries to people who could not afford them. I prefer a job that does not involve tricking people, although I do understand those who work for companies because they need to make a living. But that’s an entirely different story. There was one thing about that training that stuck in my mind though. If you want to persuade people to buy your lottery you have to offer them the chance to win something they actually want. Something they want so much that they would act completely unreasonable.
I am not an old granny. I am a student, and whilst I might not be interested in electric blankets there are other things that would cause the desired effect.
On Monday, I was peacefully walking down Hillhead street, on my way to my statistics tutorial. Suddenly a van with two guys in it stopped, and the driver opened the window. I thought he’s probably going to ask for directions, so I was spreading out my mental map of the area, already knowing that I wouldn’t be of great help. (I am useless when it comes to directions!) Well, that’s not what they wanted.
Instead he was asking me whether I want to buy a pair of hifi speakers. I was like WTF?! They explained that they were working for a hifi company and install hifi equipment in studios etc. They just returned from a job in a nearby studio where they installed some speakers. But by accident the manufacturer delivered too many, whereas they had a pair of speakers left over, whereas they could just sell them cos nobody would claim them.
I was still like WTF?! and as I just recently bought some speakers quite reluctant to buy them. Plus the whole story sounded so absurd… I thought there must be a catch or something similar. Probably they were some cheap China speakers, or maybe a lump of wood in a vividly-colourful box) Well, to emphasize that they are genuine they pointed to their shirts bearing the company’s logo and showed me the boxes in the back of the van. Also, the guys said they didn’t know what the speakers are worth over here, but they had a leaflet which priced them at $1999. So they were looking for a reasonable offer. I thought, if these speakers are in a magazine then they must be genuine.
BOOOOOOOOOOF!
Heard it?
I was hit. My hunting instinct set in. As I said, I just recently bought some speakers. They are actually really nice ones. I spent weeks trying to find the right ones. But if I had the chance to get something better I certainly would. Just to see hear how they sound and then keep the better pair, sell the other. I did not like the looks of the speakers these guys had in the back of their van though, looked a bit to plastic. They were essentially huge black floor standers, looked a bit like the average 1000-watt boom box and I had never heard of floor standers being used in studios. On the other hand most studio speakers aren’t beauties and who am I that I know about the equipment used in professional audio production? I wasn’t sure, but still tempted. Thanks to the Flying Spaghetti Monster I am quite skint at the moment and only made an unreasonable offer of £ 50, which remained unreasonable after I doubled it. Thus I escaped the scam.
I put up the story on the subcity forums. As frankm pointed out it is in fact a world wide scam, originating in the States, but now also seen in Great Britain, Switzerland, Canada, Australia and other countries. You can read some stories of those less fortunate on scamshield.com who also keep a database of recent sightings of the so called white van speaker scam. The speakers itself, though priced generously, are worth almost nothing. And so is their quality. Ebay also has a guide on them. The reviewer doesn’t spare drastic words: “The internal electronics such as the crossovers, are by far, the absolute worst I’ve ever seen in nearly 3 decades as a hobbyist.” and “Experienced listeners suggested the best use of the Kirsch’s was as a boat anchor or firewood.” Unfortunately the sellers seem to change the brand name often, the ones sold in the UK apparently bore the “Matrix” brand. Some other Ebayer has produced a list of common names used for these speakers. Personally, I can’t remember the name they stuck on these, glad I avoided buying them. Otherwise I would never forget…
It is still such a shame I was tempted. I should have known better. Retrospectively there were so many hints that pointed out the illegitimate character of the offer. But I still made a bid and I might have fallen for them if I had too much money. But then (I hope) I would have insisted on trying them out before I pay, a condition that they would probably not accept. Who knows. I hope these scammers were unlucky in Glasgow. But I fear the worst. They are skilled in what they are doing. They know their target audience. The stories on scamshield.com suggest that they particularly target students. Electric blankets for grannies. Speakers for students.
Anyways… Electric blankets anyone? Only £ 49.99! Special offer, only valid today!
Politics Tech-stuff · 12 June 2008 ·
The irony is...
Reading news can be dull. It can be distressing, if it’s bad news. But from time to time you might find something to laugh about.
I almost got a laugh flash whilst reading the news. German news magazine Heise Online writes about the inquiry by Heide Rühle and Alain Lipietz (both MEPs for the Greens/EFA) whether Microsoft would need to be excluded from public procurement procedures.1 What has happened? In 2004, the European Comission declared that Microsoft had “violated EU competition rules by abusing its dominant position in the software market.”2 The Court of First Instance rejected Microsoft’s apeal and imposed the highest fine in its history—€ 899 million for Microsoft’s non-compliance. Now, Microsoft being Microsoft does not have a problem with money. But, as Rühle and Lipietz point out the European regulation on public procurement procedures states that companies…
“…shall be excluded from participation in procurement procedures if: ‘b) they have been convicted of an offence concerning their professional conduct by a judgement which has the force of res judicata; c) they have been guilty of grave professional misconduct proven by any means which the contracting authority can justify.’”
Thus they inquired whether this does also apply to Microsoft. The news itself are bad. Microsoft will not be excluded from public procurement procedures. This is because the mentioned regulation is only a recommendation. Also, it does not define “grave professional misconduct” and requires a further ruling by the European Court of Justice in a specific case.1,3 But—guess how the Commission’s decision was published? As Microsoft Word Document!
1 Relph-knight, Terry: European Commission won’t exclude Microsoft from procurement procedures, Heise Online, 12 June 2008
2 Parliamentary questions, Writen Question by Heide Rühle (Verts/ALE) and Alain Lipietz (Verts/ALE) to the Commission, 21 April 2008
3 The European Comission, E-2295/08EN, Answer given by Mrs Grybauskaite on behalf of the Commission, 9 June 2008
Antipatterns Tech-stuff · 4 June 2008 ·
What is an Antipattern?
Before defining antipatterns, we must define a pattern. A pattern is a method of solving a common problem by using a generalized procedure1. Therefore an antipattern is a solution that presents more problems then it addresses2.
Initially, the term antipattern was coined in engineering and software development, but its definition can be used in a much broader sense too. There is already a wide range of resources and literature on antipatterns in engineering and software development. I want to refer the interested reader to Wikipedia and the extensive collection of antipatterns on the c2.com wiki.
I want to devote this website mainly on antipatterns in our social life. However I do not try to be scientific. The examples in my Antipatterns section may not be antipatterns in the strict sense. The only requirement I have to list them here, is that they are an attempt to solve a problem which causes even more problems.
1 Rising, Linda, ed. (1998), The Patterns Handbook: Techniques, Strategies, and Applications: Techniques, Strategies, and Applications, Cambridge University Press
2 http://www.antipatterns.com/briefing/sld003.htm
Tech-stuff Personal · 17 May 2008 ·
LaTeX: It's easier than you think
Using the g-brief letter class in LaTeX I encountered a problem—which wasn’t a problem after all.
Today I had to write a more or less formal letter in English. I used to use OpenOffice Writer for that purpose until a couple of months ago, when I started using LaTeX (Not to be confused with Latex) LaTeX has many advantages over WYSIWYG editors, like Microsoft Word or OpenOffice. Documents produced by LaTeX often look much better and it is much more rigid with the layout. Also, its “What you get is what you mean” approach ensures that you get the best layout for your document. This is why I started using it for my essays and assignments, although I am not doing a hard science like Physics, which would benefit from LaTeX’s abilities to express mathematical terms and equations.
Well, I have written a couple of formal letters in German before and my preferred package was a variation of g-brief, called g-brief-jit (particularly useful for German freelancers who have to include their tax number). G-brief is an environment for German letters and it is in my opinion the most elegant LaTeX letter class for that purpose.
However, I encountered a problem with my current letter: It was in English. Therefore, all the labels (like “date”) were in German! I tried out other letter document classes, like the original letter, but found them to be inappropriate. So I decided to rewrite g-brief and tried to figure out how to do it. It took me a while to find the files needed. So I started translating g-brief—but then I noticed that it already had English-language options! Therefore, instead of rewriting the entire package, it was sufficient to add “english” to the document class of the letter—and the entire document was just the way I wanted!
That’s easy!
Interestingly, the g-brief documentation on ctan, reads: “can also be used for English (by those who can read the documentation)”
Damn it!
It’s always best to consult the manual before messing with technology. Additionally, i figured out that LaTeX is actually much easier to use than I thought. Apart from being truly beautiful.
Hah.
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