tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3522311.post4247925599658753083..comments2024-03-12T03:23:42.976-04:00Comments on NeuroDojo: Tools of the tradeZen Faulkeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07811309183398223358noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3522311.post-20336314429745192052009-03-23T15:55:00.000-04:002009-03-23T15:55:00.000-04:00Thanks for the evangelism! For the moment, my syst...Thanks for the evangelism! For the moment, my system works for me, and I do not pretend that it is the best or only system.Zen Faulkeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07811309183398223358noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3522311.post-43747424312380527162009-03-23T11:22:00.000-04:002009-03-23T11:22:00.000-04:00There's a (kind of) danger in the system of softwa...There's a (kind of) danger in the system of software packages you've chosen to use. Every one of them is proprietary, which may not seem like a big deal but not having scientific data in open formats really is a big deal. Consider how many times SPSS has essentially made your data at least temporarily unavailable to you while you jumped through the hoops of their mandatory upgrades. What's to say one day they decide to do something more imposing or even go away altogether for unrelated reasons (a bad economy?). I wouldn't say you should worry about going completely with open-source software, but you should be aware of your options. For writing and formatting and references (and even presentations now) not much beats LaTeX. There's a learning curve to it but you're a scientist!--you'll get it. For statistics and for much better graphics than SPSS or Excel you should consider R. It's command-line based and everybody who's never used a command-line thinks it's ugly and hard. But you really have never used a computer until you understand what kind of an open horizon the command-line really indicates. It is much, much more controllable. And consider this: R is a derivative of S, the statistics program that John Tukey himself had a hand in developing. And everything I've mentioned so far is free!--forever and always. No mandatory uploads, no licenses, no proprietary data that you own but can't get at. You can work with your data in text files!<BR/><BR/>I have a pretty streamlined system that I use for my scientific writing that I won't go into here. But I've been meaning to write about it on my own blog. I'll come back here and comment when I've posted it. But one quid pro quo is that I use a Mac so if you use a PC I don't necessarily know what some of the equivalences are. However, if you are on a Mac, start by taking a look at Scrivener--http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.html. You won't write the same way again.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com