When I was a child, my TV consume was not very great - but there were a few shows I enjoyed a lot, and watched quite often. One of them was "Die Sendung mit der Maus". The show is still running (the Mouse has turned 40 in 2011) and is still loved and appreciated by children... and adults.

Here is a snippet of it where they explain why the city Mannheim is called Mannheim. In German, of course... but very nicely.

It's a good thing that it is finally Friday - somehow, this week feels like it's been chock-full of activities of all different sorts.

Which it probably does because yes, it was chock-full of activities. Remember that to-do-list thingie I posted about last week? (In case you did not, here's a blogpost elsewhere that nicely explains it.) I'm still using it, and for the first time in ages I am not feeling only daunted by a very long list of things I have to keep track of and have to keep care of. Instead, I have been getting a sense of achievement by getting stuff done - some (relatively few, though) of my to-dos from the huge list have been dealt with (though most have led to more items being added in turn). What, to me, is even better: I have managed very well to get my "dailies" done. Dailies are small tasks that you set yourself for daily repetition, such as "sort books on shelf for 10 min".

Which means there has been noticeable progress in the sorting of the library (aka the bookshelf behind me). Noticeable progress in looking through a very old bookmark list. And very noticeable progress in me sticking to doing at least some shoulder and neck exercises to keep those computer-work tensions at bay. Keeping track of these little things and motivating myself to do a small bit every day, nibbling away at very large and time-consuming tasks, is something that I have been remarkably bad at in the past. Sticking with doing ten minutes of book sorting (and entering book titles into the database) for more than one week? That, for me, is really very good.

So this little to-do list tool has really done something for my productivity, and it has passed the first test: it has been in use for one week (actually more than that) and I haven't fallen off yet. In fact, I'm still very happy with it. And feeling very motivated. (And I have a goodly list of tasks to take over for the current daily tasks once those books and bookmarks have been sorted. Like going through my main bookmark list... which is, regrettably, not really organised at all.)

Oh, and by the way, here is one of my favourite at-your-desk exercise videos:

I'm not sure whether I want to rejoice that it's Friday already, or moan that it's already Friday... I am looking forward to quite a few free days over the holidays and end of the year, spent together with friends and family, so I'm happy for every day that brings me closer to that - but on the other hand there's things that have to be taken care of before year's end (or will make the start of next year very, very busy and probably stressful).

So... hooray or oops? I can't decide.

At least the presents-for-the-folks-that-get-presents are almost all done. Just like in computer programming, this year it seems as if 90% of it (deciding and getting) took about 10% of the time, while the last ten percent... well, you know. But it's almost done, including a group effort for a bigger present from one of our friends.

Just a few batches of baking to be done, a few decisions on when to go to the market on Saturday, a few phone calls, a bit of organising for our time with friends, ah... the usual seasonal stuff.
And to be honest? I love it. I wouldn't want to miss any of it, it is a brilliant opportunity to meet people that you don't meet very often during the year and spend some time with them. And that alone would be enough reason for me to love this time of year.

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.

I had a really nice and very intense day of sitting in the library and reading and taking notes yesterday - which felt absolutely fine.

I have started to take notes for each book that I store in my bibliography database so I can have an excerpt and check again if necessary where something came from, and I now somehow sort of regret that I haven't started this years and years ago. I'm still working with EndNote and will continue to do so, I have never gotten onto good terms with Zotero, though it seems to be a good (and free) choice. (In the interest of full disclosure, I have also never really tried hard to get onto good terms with Zotero.)

And let me state again that I am a huge fan of databases, both for bibliography and for pictures - because having a searchable, tagged or keyworded heap of information is much better than having an unorganised, non-searchable heap of information.

So if you have pictures, or collect pictures for research reasons, and read books for research purposes, I thoroughly recommend you to get a database thingie - there are heaps of free ones on the Internet - and at least note down the following: who took the picture (if it wasn't you) or the book it came from (including the page) if it's a scan, and for books you read the author/editor, book title, year, and a short note of how you liked it. You can put in much more - excerpts, keywords (both for book and picture), picture captions, a note of how you liked the book, further citation traces to follow, where the book is located, when you looked at it, or whatever would be good but is not on my radar at the moment. But having at least a note of the minimum things will mean you being able to remember whether you had that book in your hands already... or not.

Having said that, I should probably spend a little time on the care and feeding of my databases today.

Yesterday, I received a mail informing me that a colleague had stumbled across a .pdf version of a Festschrift for Frans Verhaeghe, online and downloadable free of charge. Since I am a curious person, I took a look at the link she had posted. And since I'm a very curious person, I then took a look at the site that hosted the file.