Decisions and announcements that makes me as happy
as a child (photo from around 1986)

UR paper which was submitted to ISBI 2006 has just been accepted, so I will be going to America in April. In March I will know if another paper of ours (CVPR 2006) has been accepted. The content of this paper is similar to the one contained in a recent presentation.

I mentioned both submissions in the past in the context of deadline pressure. I will most likely take advantage of this journey across the Atlantic and visit some of my family in Florida. This will make up for the pressure I am constantly subjected to (as well as — in this case — presenting in an international conference).

My relatives seem to anticipate my visit and, quite frankly, so do I! The deadline for another submission is drawling nearer, so we must take it up a gear and invest more time in experimentation and writing. The trips abroad will give me a significant motivational boost.

Women’s perception of the Web differs

EX as in “gender”, that is. In an writeup titled “Men Are From Google, Women Are From Yahoo”, a certain difference in browsing habit is highlighted. It claims one is be able to tell apart the two genders, whose exploration of the Internet is driven by other motives.

Men and women have different motivations for doing what they do. According to a recent report from Pew Internet and American Life, women view the Internet as a place to extend, support, and nurture relationships and communities. Men tend to see it as an office, a library, or a playground–screw the community, this is about function not family.

Do men hunt and women nest as Jerry Seinfeld once said? Is that why women settle for whatever is on TV while men strive to find out what else is on TV? This is by no means a chauvinistic statement. The woman’s ability to concentrate on the familiar leads to a loyalty which is most rewarding.

EVERAL days ago, in the context of ‘housekeeping’ computer chores, I stressed the need to manage paper references in an appropriate application. At the time I mentioned JabRef, which is a Java references management program. I have had JabRef installed for quite a while, but did not bother to accommodate it with data.

Knowing the limitation of workstation-bound software, I decided to go ‘shopping’ for a Web-based alternative. I have many such applications installed on my Webspace, so I know their powers. I also know that I can take advantage of remote access, but it can be slow (especially while on vacation), cumbersome, and only loosely inter-operable. JabRef is cross-platform, but installation on each desktop is still a requirement, which is less than desirable.

My pursuit for a Web-based program was very fruitful. I found only one application of the type I had sought. Freshmeat (which is suitable to vegetarians too!) had me aware of PHPBibMan (PHP Bibliography Manager). Here is my own description of PHPBibMan. It is based on what I have been able to gather after a few minutes of exploration:

• PHP/MySQL
• Open Source
• Free, apparently GPL
• Rich graphical interface
• Multiple users, multiple groups
• BibTeX import and BibTeX output (albeit import is not very reliable)
• High level of complexity (over 500 files), plenty of functionality

PHPBibMan is finally installed on my site alongside similar applications, the latest of which is for spreadsheets. So far I like what I see, but the documentation (installation instructions in particular) are poor. There is plenty of potential for PHPBibMan, but merely nonexistent documentation had me digging the files and experimenting before actual success. The projects looks as thought it ceases to be actively maintained last year.

Many still refuse to discover the power of feeds

LASHDOT informs me of an interesting study which suggests that only 4% of Internet users knowingly use RSS. This implies that a very large number of potential subscribers are yet to be won. Now is the time to make content feeds available.

The item ends with a brief dicussion about the name appeal of RSS. I would also add another factor: inconsistent terminlogy e.g. feeds, XML, syndication and subscription.

RSS stands for Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication. I have special inclination for using the term RSS because it is my name’s initials!

NN runs an article on that well-understood impact of excessive information digestion. This often leads to addiction, which can be treated by clinics these days.

Will all this instantly accessible information make us much smarter, or simply more stressed? When can we break to think, absorb and ponder all this data?

“People are already struggling and feeling like they need to keep up with the variety of information sources they already have,” said David Greenfield, a psychologist who wrote “Virtual Addiction.” “There are upper limits to how much we can manage.”

Related items:

• Treating Online Addicts
• Blog Depression
• RPG Fantasy World
• Internet Addiction

More bad news to commercial software

AST week I decided to explore performance issues with MySQL, which is a ubiquitous system over a large specrum of Web sites. In particular, I wanted to look at comparisons and benchmarks involving PostgreSQL, which is yet another FOSS database system. I came up with the following two links, which indicate that a comparison would be hard to conduct and assess:

• Benchmarking MySQL and PostgreSQL
• Benchmark Results For Postgresql, Mysql, Firebird

Then, just a short while ago, I came to discover an even wider-scape benchmark. It suggests that MySQL is superior to databases from Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft. Without a doubt, applications that are based on LAMP technology gain tremendous strength and popularity. They have become mainstream, as a matter of fact, and WordPress is a model example.

Let us wait for a heavily-invested FUD campaign is launched to avoid deterrence among companies that use commercial databases. My Steve Ballmer/FUD comes to mind.

As a side note, what worries me most is MySQL’s partnership with SCO, who are of course a sworn enemy of Linux.

An common inner conflict

HERE seems to be a certain apathy among girls towards computer science. This does not necessarily extend to all fields that are engineering-related. My older sister studied computer science, but decided to leave a year early due to lack of interest and passion. She was very much capable of graduating and was a top student in her class. Yet, she had no incentive to staying up all night or becoming obsessed with technology, which was associated with what she perceived as “nerds”. She now works on a Masters degree in management.

These thoughts were stirred up by an article that appeared in the
Boston Globe only yesterday.

Women shunning a field once seen as welcoming

MEDFORD — As a young high school teacher in 1982, Diane Souvaine leapt into graduate school for computer science having taken only one class in the subject.