It's back to the home desk for me today, after spending a wonderful long weekend abroad. The little conference in the Czech Republic was thoroughly nice, with lots of friendly people and interesting topics (even though most of the costume topics were a little later than my main interest time). The only thing I regret is that I do not speak or understand Czech better than I do; as it is, I can order dumplings, tea or coffee, but I probably won't understand the answer. The lovely people at the conference, however, took great pains to supply me with translation of all the talks of the day - no mean feat, and something I greatly appreciated.

My presentation, as well as that of another speaker, were also translated for the benefit of the audience, which for me meant cutting out all the bells and whistles and asides and extra jokes that I normally insert. It has never become as clear to me before how much of all that is in all of my normal presentations that are not stripped for easy translation.

And now I also know Prague a little better than before, having had two long walks through the city; I have had the traditional Wenceslaus sausage (that I love) and sampled several different Czech sandwiches; I have been stuck in a train for more than three hours due to several accidents on the track all happening in one afternoon; I have also learned that not only plain Czech coffee is very different from plain German coffee (something that can be well expected), a Czech Latte Macchiato is also very different from the German (or even the Italian) one. But the most beautiful thing to become aware of (again) during this trip? Laughter is international, and you do not need to understand each other's language to be able to laugh together.

Sometimes, it seems to take ages until Friday arrives - but then in some weeks, it seems as if it's Friday instantly. And this was one of these weeks.

That is surely partly due to my cutting away some of the normal week length by travelling. Tomorrow is the Clothing Seminary in Zlin where I will be speaking about crafts, experimental archaeology and spinning, and I'm already looking forward to this very much - it will, I hope, be a very interesting meeting.

And next week it's back to writing article and working at the home desk, with a nice hot coffee and all autumny colours outside the window. This is a good time of year to sit indoors, read and write! (The cat, by the way, agrees. Not with the reading-and-writing part, but with the sitting indoors part; there are mornings now when she thinks it's enough to take a little sniff of the cool outdoors air and then settles back for another nap.)

Here it is again, my neverending spinning experiment. After my successfull using of ImageJ for the processing of visual survey cards from the experiment, I now have this huge stack of data that is still mostly un-mined. And I am convinced that there is more to be had from it, much more.

So I'm having another look at the data, and consequently at several programmes that might help me in tickling more insight out of the stack of numbers that I have. During my browsing of the net, however, I found this introduction into statistics and data mining - which is a very nice, easy to understand intro explaining all the things that data mining GUIs offer.

It's on my reading list now - while I go hunting some more for the perfect programme for my needs. There are still a few on the list that look promising...

Endnote is, according to their makers, the bestest citation software ever. As is Zotero (according to their makers). And probably a bunch of others as well.

Back when I was still trying out stuff and relatively new to the world of people working in physics (who have an affinity to LaTeX-the-programme), I wrote one article in TeX. I had to re-do it in MS Word to get it published, but this little stint meant that I got to know the powers of BibTeX, which is the citation system thingie that comes with TeX. It is, more or less, a reference database that you cite from, and the programme does the formatting.

Sound familiar? That's just what EndNote does with Word. Back when I then found out that there was, indeed, such a programme, I bought it for the hefty sum they asked for the student edition back then and have been using it ever since. There's connection files to get data from online library catalogues (something I should have used more, I now think, it might have saved me lots of work), style files that can be altered to suit individual needs, and both a field for "notes" (which I use for making general, personal notes about a reference) and "research notes" (which I use for typing excerpts or snippets including the page number so they can actually be used for working without the physical copy of the book). Plus there are custom fields - those I have used to mark whether I own a book (physical or digital copy), where it stands in my library (well, that's a work in progress to be honest), if I have pictures in my picture database (by noting down the prefix of the image files, such as schweppe_ which is, in the actual files, followed by a page number so I have files like schweppe_10.png) and if I have already read it or just jotted it down for future reading.

According to the version history, my purchase of the programme must have been in 2004. Which means that my version is a little... older. Now, I have no problem with older software (I'm happily using Word2000, and not planning to change from that), but sometimes, it pays to look for alternatives. Especially since my EndNote is sort of iffy on the connection files, with quite a few of them not working (or not working anymore), and I cannot download the whole set of new ones from the site (there is no such button in my installation menu).

Due to the recent mention of Mendeley by Phiala in the comments of some other post, I did a little looking and found Qiqqa - a .pdf organising software with built-in OCR, a wizard to help with filling out the reference data for each imported .pdf, and the possibility to cite to Word. I quite like it on the first try and am currently using it to get some order into my .pdfs. I have even considered changing to this programme from EndNote for all my referencing, but it does not do a few things that I have grown accustomed to, and I have also read that it's not too easy to modify citation styles (something I regularly need to do).

Qiqqa is intended for use over the web, with web storage of .pdfs, something which I don't need (and don't want). It allows "vanilla references", that is those without a .pdf attached, but then I get a nasty popup if I want to associate a file with it now. It also does import from EndNote - but not the "Research Notes". There is the possibility to search for duplicates, but I found it rather hard to compare the actual duplicates with each other and decide which one should stay and which one should go. I have not tried the citation thingie yet, but from the overall feel, it's very much geared towards .pdf files only, and I don't want to use two programmes. So at the moment, my plan is to use Qiqqa to get some order into my .pdf files, then export the data via BibTeX and a converter to EndNote, and merge the two databases. (That's the plan only, though - and it might change if problems with the import should arise. Or if Qiqqa should evolve some more, and then I might reconsider using it as my new reference database thingie.)

I'd be happy to hear about your experiences with Qiqqa, EndNote, Zotero or whatever you use!

Update 2021: Unfortunately, Fototime has ceased operation, as the company has gone under during a huge server failure. So they are not online anymore, and if you have a pro edition, that includes their license server. I'm very sad about this, and if someone has suggestions for alternative software that is similar, I'd love to hear about it!
As the long-term readers among you might know, I am using Endnote for my references and bibliography, and a programme called Fototime FotoAlbum. Both have been on my system for years now, so I have gained a bit of experience with them.

FotoAlbum is making a good job of sorting and handling my image database, and their online support is one of the best I know. There was no instance where I didn't get a speedy reply, and things were taken care of whenever possible (I realise that not all my requests would fall in line with the needs of the normal customers, so it's understandable they are not adapting the programme just for me).
The programme allows notes and comments, ratings, copyright notes, keywords and captions; it has filters and an "album" system that makes it possible to store pictures in a given folder structure, yet have them as part of several albums. There's also the possibility to define smart albums, automatically putting pictures in there if they have the right keywords, date, or other defined thing.

Speaking of dates - I use the programme to sort my picture database which, logically if you are working about medieval stuff, consists mostly of old things. The photo timeline is quite generous, since it allows to go back until 1700 (there were no photos before that time, right? Right? Yes.). For stuff from the 9th or 12th century... that's a bit late, though. So I developed my own system that has been successful for years now: I use the 1700 as code for my centuries, as in 1708 - eighth century, 1715 - fifteenth century. And I even have a months key, for example January 1713 means from 1200 to the 1220s. The months key is not perfect (due to my less than perfect definition, that is) but it works fine and it allows me to sort all my pictures by date. And I have a lot of pictures.

So if you are in search of a picture database, I can fully recommend the programme. I use the paid-for edition, due to a few reasons of my own, but FotoAlbum is also available in a free edition that will already serve for most database-related needs, including handing out your pictures or a selection of them, with all the data attached and viewable, to someone else.

As for Endnote... that's something to write about tomorrow.

It feels weird to be at the desk again after the weekend - we were visiting my family to celebrate a birthday, which was nice and full of pleasant hustle and bustle and laughter, and then it was already time to drive back home and get back on track.

And now I even have to get back on track really quickly, since I will be spending the coming weekend away at the costume seminary in Zlin, CZ. I'm looking forward to that a lot already, but it also means that there is a stack of things I have to prepare before I leave (and that includes giving the presentation one last little polishing).

At least I know what my work on the bus will be - there's a(nother) paper to finish and a book to read that the library wants to have back really soon. One decision taken care of.

The Uni of Exeter is planning to turn the Book of Exeter (and a few others as well) into an app - well, not turning, really, but making an app to allow young people exploration of these old manuscripts. This includes turning elements of the book into games and puzzles - very fitting for an Anglo-Saxon riddle book that is not completely surviving and therefor a riddle in itself!

There's a short explanatory video about it on vimeo, and even if you're not interested in the app, it's worth watching for a) the lovely accent of the speaker (I just love British accents) and b) the pictures of old books.