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Entries from February 2007

Editing blog posts with TextMate

February 27th, 2007 by Mark · No Comments

If you use TextMate on Mac OS X (and if you don’t I would thoroughly recommend you try it: it is by far the best editor I have ever used) and maintain a blog, then it is possible to create blog entries using TextMate.

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Tags: Software

How to add a Free Medical Spell Checking Dictionary to Word/Firefox

February 26th, 2007 by James · 4 Comments

Spell checking medical documents can be a real pain. My spelling at the best of times is atrocoius atrocious. Luckily most software, even browsers now support spell checking. The problem is now getting hold of a good medical dictionary to use with your application. Now e-medtools.com a site which specialises in medical spell checking, medical […]

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Tags: Free · Medical · Open Source · Software

Subversion directory organisation

February 26th, 2007 by Mark · 4 Comments

Using subversion (or any other version-control system) to manage your working laboratory or research files is sensible. All changes can be tracked, and it is straightforward to review old versions of files. I store all work relating to research, including notes, papers, thesis chapters, statistical analyses and even data. If I were to make catastrophic […]

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Tags: Free · Open Source · Research · Software

Upgrading old Filemaker solutions

February 13th, 2007 by Mark · No Comments

Q: What do we do with old Filemaker databases? There were massive changes in the way Filemaker works between version 6 and 7 (all of them good). You’ve got a number of options, mainly determined by the size and complexity of your existing solution. The main two options are upgrade or rewrite.

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Tags: Databases

LaTeX, bibliography management and styles

February 13th, 2007 by Mark · 21 Comments

LaTeX is a powerful document typesetting system that I recommend for any large technical or academic work. LaTeX does have a significant learning curve, and works in a very different way to the modern WYSIWYG word processor, but the investment in learning this excellent system will pay dividends again and again. There are numerous front-ends […]

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Tags: LaTeX

Pedigree drawing software

February 13th, 2007 by Mark · 2 Comments

Pedigrees are essential when documenting large complex families with inherited disease. I spend a lot of time looking after families with a variety of inherited neurological disease, and have spent a similar amount of time trying to find decent software to make this work easier! I last did a systematic search for software last year. […]

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Tags: Medical · Open Source · Research · Software

Upgrading teTeX packages

February 13th, 2007 by Mark · 1 Comment

There are many distributions that provide complete TeX/LaTeX installations, for many different operating systems. I use teTeX on Mac OS X, installed via darwinports (now macports.org). There are several packages that are increasingly out of date, and the author of teTeX recommends switching to an alternative distribution: TeX Live.

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Tags: LaTeX

How to make notes efficiently…with Wikidpad

February 13th, 2007 by James · 12 Comments

As part of my research I continually have great ideas and want to take notes.With time my note taking has evolved, from using pen and paper to using MS Word. Even though storing data in Word files looks pretty, it is slow to load and even slower to navigate. The jump from paper to text […]

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Tags: Free · Open Source · Research · Software

Tracking Journal Articles with Google Reader

February 13th, 2007 by James · 2 Comments

Keeping up to date in your speciality is always a challenge, but this can become far easier by creating customised dynamic pubmed searches conviently summarised in Google Reader. In this article I will show you how to easily create a feed for your favourite subjects, journals and authors.

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Tags: Free · Journals · Medical · Research

Welcome

February 6th, 2007 by Mark · No Comments

We hope to provide a heady mix of technology and medical news, with a focus on tools, hints and tips for postgraduates pursuing research degrees. We plan to cater for a fairly specialised audience of researchers

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Tags: Research