Freeware I Like

My students know that I never use pirated software and I encourage them to do the same. If i do not respect intellectual property how do I expect other people to respect mine especially with my line of work. UP is big on IP nowadays but how can we prosper if our young students are not even aware that they are committing plagiarism when they cut and paste and not even cite their source? I keep reminding my students to acknowledge their sources of info or assistance in their reports in the hope that it becomes a habit with them. (Incidentally, my dear AP 186 students, you have been copying my figures in your blog reports and you didn't even cite me as the source! See Checklist No. 3.)

Since 2000 I've been looking for free educational software which I can let my students install. I learned about freeware back in 1999 when I acquired a new laptop which came with a StarOffice installer (I still have the CD with me!). This was the precursor of OpenOffice which lately is now LibreOffice.

OpenOffice was ahead of Microsoft when it came to creating pdfs of documents. By searching the net I learned how to write a book using OpenOffice.  I like its equation editor most of all. One can also perform simple calculations in tables inserted in the document.

Next I was fortunate to find Scilab, a Matlab-lookalike. It is quite suited for teaching image processing and if you have been following my blog you'll get a lot of image processing tips from me my students.

Before Adobe Photoshop CS2 became free I was already using GIMP for image processing. For video parsing I swear by Avidemux (stick to version 2.5 if you want to parse videos into image frames). For audio analysis Audacity has several processing tools.

Sketchup and Google Earth always get installed in all my laptops.

For compression, I use 7zip for those files which Windows cannot uncompress. For virtual checking of the innards of my computer I use SIW.

I'll probably add to the list (and links!) as I go along.

Checklist for Writing Manuscripts II

It is August. Yes. It means I'm suffering from migraine from reading student papers again. And to ease the pain I shall write about it once more and add to my Pet Peeves in Student Manuscripts. I last ended in No. 6 so now Dear Students Who Will Read This Post as Required Reading  if you do not want to incur my wrath when you have me check your manuscript, read and follow:

7. Equations not part of sentence (Irritation Level : 3 stars out of 5)
Equations should be treated as part of the sentence and NOT AS A FIGURE.
This is wrong:
"The hypotenuse of a triangle is shown in Equation 1. Here x is the length of the base and y is the height of the triangle.
h = sqrt { x^2 + y^2}   [1]"

This is right:
"The hypotenuse h of a triangle is given by
h = sqrt {x^2 + y^2}  [1]
where x is the length of the triangle's base and y is the height."

Need some higher authority to convince you to drop that habit? Here, read the Penn State's style for students guide on writing equations in reports.

8. Citation not part of sentence (Irritation Level : 3 stars out of 5)
Isn't it obvious that  if you write

"Such patterns appeared in the works of Rogers. [6] In other works the dominant texture is the set described by Joyce. [7] We have yet to see works on the patterns we found in the new artefact."

the references [6] and [7] appear to belong to the next sentence because they have been excluded by the period at the end of the previous sentence?

If you read journal papers at all and not just cite them blindly you'll be observant of the proper citation practice.

GRRRR

Checklist for Writing Manuscripts

Around August and the end of an academic year in UP (that's around Feb and March) I suffer headaches and high blood pressure from reading my students' manuscript - be it SPP papers or thesis manuscripts. Yes, reviewing student papers is an occupational hazard.

Paano ka naman hindi mapupundi e kung yung mga simpleng rules ng pagsulat ng paper, hindi sinusunod! (GRRR!@$)352$#*%@$20)

So to minimize stress, because right now is one of those episodes, I'll make here a list of my top 10 6 pet peeves in manuscripts and I'll tell my students to check the list before they send in their papers. (And mind you, I'm VERY busy right now, but I have to get this off my chest by writing about it. That's how seriously stressed I am.)

1. Figures too small. 
A picture speaks a thousand words but if it is too small to see the details or embedded labels, well forget it, I'd rather you describe the story in three paragraphs. Look, an A4 page with a one-inch margin on both sides has a width for text or figures which is 6 inches plus. 6 INCHES! So why is your figure only 2 inches wide? Maximize figures so their width fill the whole page, My Gulay! That's what figures are for, to be seen!

2. Poor grammar
Nothing gets my goat faster than poor English. Please, if you have problems, have your text checked by labmates or groupmates who have a better command of the language.

3. Poor  or no citation
Listen, this can get you kicked out. Seriously. You can be accused of plagiarism. You either cite the source or don't include that text or figure. If you will use a figure from another paper the appropriate way is to write the author and ask permission. Don't ever forget to cite the source of the figure. Even if you have cited the source in the text, you must also cite the reference in the caption. Visit this site for a primer on plagiarism. There are more sites, just google.

4. No storyline,  poor construction
Writing a paper, even a scientific one, is a form of story telling. So before you write, think about your best friend. Think how you would tell a story to your best  friend. Now think about how you will tell the story of your thesis or research paper to your best friend.  You'd explain it in a way that he or she gets the premise right? Good stories have an arc. Go make one.

5. A long intro- 7/8 about the work of others, 1/8 about your work
A good introduction answers four questions:

1. What are you doing?
2. Why are you doing it?
3. What has been done before?
4. What is new with your approach?

Yes I can see that you did your review of literature but if you think I am impressed, well no,  unless you can put your own work in the context of the work of others.

6. Turning in a revised paper without a detailed list of changes made
When the manuscript has passed through the initial review and you've made the changes, be kind to your suffering reviewer and give a  detailed list of the changes you made. In this way he or she doesn't have to go through the agony of reading your whole paper again but can go straight to check the revised parts. This will speed up the review process too.  Detail means you enumerate the points raised by the reviewer, then you indicate the page number, paragraph, and sentence where you inserted the recommended change.

I'll probably add to this list when I get cranky again. I'm ok now. Nakalabas na ng sama ng loob.

Teardown,Takedown, Having Fun Disassembling Laptops

My mom's laptop (an Acer Aspire 4736Z) recently stopped booting, it would show the motherboard logo, show a scrolling bar with the Windows logo, then turn itself off. I asked for the chance to tinker with it and I got the green and go.

But how to open up a laptop? Google and YouTube to the rescue. I found two excellent takedown/teardown videos and proceeded with  testing my first two hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1: Laptop won't start because a chip or component is broken.

Tools needed to do the delicate task are:
1. A Philips screwdriver with a magnetized tip. Perfect for picking up the screws entrenched in those deep holes.
2. Tape to keep the screws in order. You would want to remember which screw goes where. You may take notes, pictures, even a video of yourself while you're at it.
3. Magnifying glass, to  closely inspect if a chip or component is broken.


Hypothesis 2: Laptop won't start because something is overheating. 

So I got down to removing the cooling system and, HOLY GUACAMOLE BATMAN!, blocking the fan vent is the thickest, blackest dust cotton I've ever encountered since cleaning my stand fan after 14 months and 27 days ( I exaggerate of course, specifying length of time just sounds theatrical). Cleaning the vents, I  learned a few more things from our friendly neighborhood Google.

1. Use acetone or isopropyl alcohol to remove old thermal grease and thermal tape.
2. Thermal grease is preferred over thermal tape.
3. Applying thermal grease is an art.

Well, after doing all i can to make everybody cool, nada, nilch, nunka. Still no booting.

So back to the Google boards again and searched here and there for answers. Aha, more hypotheses to test:

Hypothesis 3. CMOS battery might be drained - Replace
Hypothesis 4. One component has a short - remove and reboot to see which one affects booting process.
a. If its memory, make sure you have a spare memory card to use or you can put your memory card into another computer.
b. If its the harddisk, try to put the harddisk into  an enclosure and try to see if you can read the contents.