June 2008

Bizarro Perl problem

June 14, 2008

I just came across a fairly strange Perl issue: Consider: protein => { title => ‘%s release [%s]‘, qq{formatdb_cmd => ‘-p T -t ‘%s’ -i %s’}, filename => ‘protein.fa’, }, Yes, there’s a typo, with the qq enclosing an entire hash entry. This doesn’t raise an error, but obviously obscures the hash entry!

Read the full article →

Bioinformatics is dead! Long live bioinformatics!

June 12, 2008

A few years ago, my boss Lincoln Stein prognosticated the end of bioinformatics. According to Google Trends he just might be onto something. Searches for bioinformatics have dropped in half in the past four years. C’est incroyable! Not surprisingly, the top-ten sites for searches for bioinformatics are all in India. Gory details available by searching [...]

Read the full article →

Installing Trac

June 11, 2008

We’re already using 37 signals Basecamp for project management. It works well for collaborative work and management of distributed teams but is tedious when used as a feature tracker. Today we discussed the need for a bug/issue tracker. In the past, we’ve considered RT since it integrates with our existing email flow. But frankly, RT [...]

Read the full article →

Web-based time tracking solutions

June 2, 2008

I’ve used pretty much every time tracking, billing, and invoicing tool available for the Mac. But hey, enough with the desktop apps already. I’m an on-the-go guy and need a mobile, web-based solution. With rounded corners, too, please. Here are two options that I’ve discovered. 14dayz.com Goofy name, but feature rich. Gratis and paid plans [...]

Read the full article →

Social media and career advancement

June 1, 2008

Burgeoning scientists take note: Mitch Joel at Twist Image / Six Pixels of Separation has a great post on using social media for career development.

Read the full article →