Dr. Thiti Vacharasintopchai, ATSI-DX, CISA

Multiple Homepage Windows in Firefox I want to have Mozilla Firefox open two homepages at the same time when it starts up and I remember that I saw an extension that could do this. I did a search on Google and, to my surprise, came across this tip by Sam Holton : To have multiple tabs loaded each time you start Firefox or when you press the home button, you can simply pipe delimit them in the options...if you wanted to open both Google and Digg when you open your browser, simply enter http://www.google.com/ig | http://www.digg.com Click on the picture for enlargement Keywords: firefox , tips Update: Nov 20, 05: jon114k gave us another tip in the comment of this post: we can in fact use Tools -> Options -> General -> Home Page -> Use current "pages" to create the multiple homepages! I just notice this plural form. I tried it and it works!

Locke et al. (1999) on pilot studies: When it comes to convincing the scholarly skeptic (sometimes your own advisor), no argument can be so effective as to write, "I tried it and here is how it worked" (page 74). It is difficult to imagine any proposal that could not be improved by the reporting of actual preliminary work. Whether it is to demonstrate the reliability..., the practicality of procedures, ...the modest pilot study is the best possible basis for making wise decisions in designing research (page 74). Keywords: experiments , pilot-studies , research-methodology , quotes

Literally, "original" means "initial, first, never having existed or occurred before." But this is not the case for research and this is a serious misinterpretation of the word as it is used in science. Another inspiring thoughts from Locke et al. (1999) : In research, the word "original" clearly includes all studies deliberately employed to test the accuracy of results or the applicability of conclusions developed in previous studies (page 58). What is not included...are studies that proceed " mindlessly " to repeat an existing work either in ignorance of its existence or without appropriate attention to its defects or limitations (page 58). One consequence...is that misguided students and advisors are led to ignore one of the most important areas of research activity and one of the most useful forms of training for the novice researcher -- replication (page 58). ...replication can involve challenging problems that demand creative resolution...

On finding a research question from Locke et al. (1999) : All research emerges from a perceived problem...Sometimes the difficulty rests simply in the fact that we don't understand how things work and have the human itch to know. At other times, we are confronted by decisions or the need for action when the alternatives or consequences are unclear (page 45). Keywords: research-methodology , quotes

Another nice quotes from Locke et al. (1999) : If scholars did not have..."the habit of truth", there could be no accumulation of reliable knowledge, and thus so science (page 25). The rules...are absolute: no compromises, no evasions, no shortcuts, no excuses, and no saving faces (page 25). Planning, conducting, and reporting research make sense only so long as the social contract among scholars is honored -- everyone tells the truth as well as he or she can know it (page 25). Keywords: morality , research-methodology , quotes

Proposals That Work : A Guide for Planning Dissertations and Grant Proposals I've been reading this book by Locke et al. (1999) to improve my research skill and found the following quotes useful. Introducing a study: Proposals...are best introduced by a short, meticulously devised statement that establishes the overall area of concern, arouses interest, and communicates information essential to the reader's comprehension of what follows (page 9). ...avoids both tedious length and the shock of technical detail or abstruse argument... (page 9) Providing a rationale: ...it often is helpful to diagram factors and relationships that support your formulation of the problem (page 10). A sound rationale...convinces the reader that you are rasing the right question -- and that the answer is worth finding (page 10). ...justifying the proposed study should be limited to the basic matters of defining what is to be studied and why it is worth so doing (page 11). Formulating...

PhD: Piled Higher and Deeper A friend of mine recommended this Ph.D. comics site to ease my stress. I went to the home page and it looks fun. I'm gonna check on it soon. Keywords: fun , phd

Libweb - Directory of Libraries in Thailand U.S. Embassy, Bangkok: Academic/Research Institutions By chance, I saw an advertisement which links to a list of libraries in Thailand while I was posting an email from my Gmail account. A follow-up search on Google also pointed me to a list by the American Embassy in Thailand and I think it might be useful for my researcher and graduate student folks. Happy researching! Keywords: libraries , directories , thailand

Michael Hyatt: Working Smart I am having a problem with my research work. I've worked a lot but the way I did wasn't smart enough. By chance, during a Google search on a way to improve my research skill -- to work smart rather than simply work hard -- I came across this blog by Michael Hyatt. There are at least two categories in his postings that are relevant to self-improvement: the Getting Things done section and the Workflow section. Check these out and you might as well find them useful as I do! Keywords: self-improvement , working-smart , business

Books: The Rule of Four Something came up today and I recall this quote from The Rule of Four , which I had finished reading a few weeks earlier and liked very much. From Chapter 8: ...while we have a lot in common, good fences still make a good neighbors. We all need privacy. Good friends would respect this and wouldn't stick their noses into our personal lives. I hope you all agree on this! Keywords: quotes , friendship

CE Resources I have started a new blog since last night to store useful resources for civil engineers, especially structural engineers. Each blog entry will contain a link to a resource plus some brief description of what it is useful for. Technorati tags and an RDF metadata will also be embedded in each entry. Keywords: civil-engineering , structural-engineering , resources , portfolios

In Java programming, how do we check whether the following text contains a piece of information encoded in an <ns1:Elmt> XML element? This is a preamble #@&%)#*#)$ <ns1:Elmt ns1="uri:ns1" ns2="uri:ns2">   <ns1:SubElmt attr1="value_1">     <ns2:elmt>value_2</ns2:elmt>   </ns1:SubElmt> </ns1:Elmt> Here is a little bit more text 3254832 3249028 ~#)*@()(84)_$- An answer: Use the string. matches() method and the following regular expression [\s\S]*<ns1:Elmt[\s\S]*</ns1:Elmt>[\s\S]* Check the following websites and you'll learn how regular expression can ease our programming problems! Wikipedia : Regular Expression java.util.regex.Pattern (Java 2 Platform SE 5.0) Regular-Expressions.info Tutorial Keywords: java , regular-expressions

Hot dog - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Hot dog history, legends and trivia One day on a grocery shopping at a supermarket near campus, I and a friend of mine looked at tasty sausages and wondered about the history of the term hot dog . I visited the Hot Dog Wikipedia today and was directed to an interesting website on the history and legends of hot dogs. Wikipedia said that "hot dog" was likely invented in 1904 at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri but the other source suggested many more legends believed to have coined the term "hot dog." Among these were the 1895 invention by The Yale Record , the humor magazine published by undergrad students at Yale University, and the 1902 invention during a Giants baseball game at the New York Polo grounds. Despite the so many legends on invention of the term, it was agreed that Hot Dog was born in America and that today hot dogs are the most widely consumed form of sausage in America!! Keywords: fo...

Apple Discussions: 261 error while burning MP3 CD. I usually put an aphostrophe (') in the name of playlists and was having error 261 burning CD/DVD data discs since iTunes 5.1. Upgrading to iTunes 6.0 for Windows doesn't help. I was burning a music DVD this morning and had Error 261 again. So I went to Apple iTunes Discussions site and look for a thread on this. Viola! There are many people having the same problem as mine. The thread ends at a point where someone removing ampersands, the '&' symbols, from their playlists and could avoid this error. I tried removing aphostrophes from the name of my playlist because aphostrophe falls into the kind of non-alphabet characters that needs escaping in some programming languages. It works!! Keywords: itunes , windows

I stopped for a sight-seeing at the Cabbage and Condom Resort and Restaurant in Pattaya which is run under a charitable theme. This exercise in the garden is clever and interesting! Keywords: bicycles , exercises , machinery , travel , trips , pattaya , thailand

Stefano's Linotype ~ Folksologies: de-idealizing ontologies Stefano Mazzocchi's blog: ...Well, nobody ever said that inferencing on RDF statements should always follow description logics... This is a useful reminder for us on the separation between representation and computation of information on Web. Keywords: reminders , reasoning , logics , semantic-web Update: Oct 12, 05: I found another quote on the same blog that I think is thought-provoking and useful: ...There is nothing in semantic web technologies that states that ontologies cannot be created by individuals for their own benefits and shared and mapped according to their invidifual or group tastes. There is nothing that states that the only way to make data interoperate is thru uber conceptual models (CIDOC CRM) or thru common denominator sets (Dublin Core)...

Today's Quote ...thank you - your time is valuable, and your answers are highly valued. I was browsing thru a HaloScan forum and I found this message by a poster mdcom which I like very much. In my opinion, when we post questions, it is highly desirable that we show our appreciation to everyone contributing to the answers, regardless of applicability to our cases. Keywords: quotes , netiquette , etiquette

October 8-9, 2005: Weekend Trip to Pattaya I haven't visited Pattaya for ten years and I just had a chance to visit it on a family trip last weekend. Things have changed a lot. We left Bangkok in the afternoon of Saturday, took Highway #7 (the Motor Way) and arrived at the Horseshoe Point Resort around 6 pm. We checked in and left the hotel for a fine German dinner at Bruno's Restaurant. The food, the decoration, and the food was extremely impressive. It was as if we were having dinner at a fine restaurant in Paris. Anyway, the price was extremely expensive as well. After the dinner, we went for a little walk at the Royal Garden Plaza and finally went back to the hotel. We started Sunday seeing things around the resort, then visited an outlet mall in Pattaya and went straight to Bang Phra for a Thai-style seafood lunch. We left there around 2 pm and arrived in Bangkok around 4 pm. Here is my little photojournalism from my Nikon D70 and palmOne Treo 600 cameras. Hope you like it...

Google Desktop 2.0 I used to give Google Desktop a try when it was released last year but didn't like it much and finally uninstalled it from my computer. I was trying to get my Outlook emails more organized and thought about the email search feature, which I think Google Desktop is superior to Outlook find feature. So I give Google Desktop another chance. I went to the download site and found that there is a beta 2.0 version available. The screenshots look good so I gave it a try and right now have been enjoying this 2.0 Beta very much. Try it!! Keywords: google Update: Oct 10, 05: Google Desktop basically indexes everything on our computers, from emails in Outlook, Outlook Express, PDF files, text files, chat logs, etc. It also has a plug-in modules that notify us of new emails, randomly display pictures on our computers and subscribed web sites thru RSS feeds.

Oct 6, 05: Today is my 29th Birthday and it's full of surprises! My mom left me a Happy Birthday cellphone voicemail yesterday's evening. Got a surprise birthday cake from my dear sweetheart who lives thousands miles apart, with an extremely surprising delivery! Got unusually many "happy birthday" messages, thru both MSN and cellphone calls, from friends who have never done this before, especially from my highschool and undergrad friends. I'd like to thank everyone for a wonderful day they have made!! I donated some money to the Siriraj Hospital Foundation today and I wish to share all of them the merit from this good deed. Keywords: birthdays , family , friends , friendship , surprises Update: Oct 7, 05: Last night I and my friends on campus went to have a mini-party. It was at a BBQ restaurant at Future Park , the only mall nearby campus. I came to work this morning and got another surprise! A wrapped gift was placed on my desk. Found on that it...

Following the recommendation from Steve Cayzer's Blog , I was reading a research paper on collaborative tagging systems by Scott A. Golder and Bernardo A. Huberman at HP Labs and found this interesting quote that I like very much: searching for employment at Apple may be problematic because of conflicts with the CEO’s surname. Without ontologies search formulation like this would be quite complicated. Keywords: semantic-web , ontologies Update: Oct 5, 05: Without mentioning about ontologies, the authors suggested that for collaborative taggings the semantic ambiguity problem will be less significant once a critical mass is reached, the state at which a large number of tags are widely agreed upon by the community. The opportunity to learn from one another [e.g. through "suggested tags" and "popular tags" on del.icio.us ] is also suggested to be an influential factor.

I just finished embedding RDF metadata to all of my previous postings. These metadata contain the similar keywords intended for Technorati but converted into equivalent ones in RDF + Dublin Core vocaburary format. I'll see how I can programmatically process these encoded information. Keywords: rdf , metadata , semantic-blog , semantic-web

3 ways to use del.icio.us for categories in blogger - Freshblog Some time last week, I found this article from FreshBlog that teaches us how to make Technorati tagging and del.icio.us bookmarking tightly work together for a blog. I just have a chance to work on it this afternoon and right now my blog is 100% tagged and tightly integrated with del.icio.us . It's been working great so far and my next plan is to embed RDF metadata into all of my postings for research purposes. I'd like to thank John at FreshBlog for sharing us this great technique! Keywords: tagging , del.icio.us