Mint

Linux Mint is the by far the best Linux distro I have ever tried. It is based on Ubuntu but much polished. After trying Mint, I don't think I will come back to Ubuntu.

Linux text editors

I finally realized that I need only two text editors under Linux: Emacs for writing LaTeX and programming and MadEdit for anything else.

Looking forward to Jaunty

After several distro upgrades, my Ubuntu installation looks a little unstable. Now, one month away from the release of Januty, my Ubuntu suddenly sopped working on my laptop. This makes it easy for me to decide between "fresh install" and "upgrade" this time.

Differential mortality

differential mortality, methodological issues and biosocial factors

LatentGold

The new version of LatentGold provides a command line interface. I found the syntax is quite intuitive and easy to learn. The fact that it also has a data viewer/editor is also an advantage, compared to Mplus.

Useful Ubuntu tools

http://blog.ibeentoubuntu.com/2009/03/extra-repositories-for-ubuntu-810-you.html

JAGS guide

http://streaming.stat.iastate.edu/wiki/index.php/JAGS_Guide

Sociobiology

Looks interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Osborne_Wilson

Thinkpad

I ordered a new thinkpad about a month ago and I leave LA for Beijing next week. I have to cancel the order if I cannot get it before I leave. That is a lose-lose situation for both Lenovo and myself.

NoteExpress, again

The NoteExpress developer graciously offered me a free license in exchange for suggestions for further improvements. I will prepare a rather detailed report of the kind of problems I encountered in the process preparing my latest manuscript.

NoteExpress

A good bibliography software. As far as I can tell, it has all the functions of Endnote with only a fraction of its price: http://www.reflib.org/

It still has some rough edges (the journal templates do not work as expected, for example), but looks promising.

Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models

Very good book: http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521867061