One Milestone Down, Two to Go
Whew. After four straight days of working on our research poster for the MERIT Fair next Friday, it is finally done. Though we were a little late in turning it in, the guy working at the Copy Center was really friendly. We stopped by after getting a bite to eat and got to see the poster just as it was coming out — it looked great. Though I have done a fair bit of graphic design before, PowerPoint had a few quirks that took a long, long time to iron out. My version of PowerPoint could not display certain images, so I downloaded the new Office 2007 beta and used it for this poster. The new ‘ribbon’ interface in Office is great; I think the vast majority of people will be pleased with it. The biggest frustration I had was PowerPoint’s inability to draw straight lines. It was extremely irritating, particularly because so many other graphics program do not have this problem.
Keith Dowd Said,
August 4, 2006 @ 2:33 pm
That is one hell of a nice looking poster. I remember completing one for a conference last semester, and finding Powerpoint (2003) to be a royal pain in the ass.
Also, I’m glad to see that your research has gone well this summer. I don’t think there is anything you can do to prevent the intense cramming that almost always happens before the completion of a project. A paper that I am working on currently, involving finding methods to increase the number of child support filings by domestic abuse victims, has hit a stand still because we’re waiting for a state government agency to send us their part of the data we need. (We’ve been waiting for nearly 2 weeks.) I swear, any research in the social sciences moves at a ridiculously slow pace. I envy my colleagues (like yourself) who do not have to work with people as participants, or work in conjunction with state government (because everything moves so $#%##$%$$@%& slow).
Saket Said,
August 5, 2006 @ 12:16 am
Keith, you would understand the profound annoyances about not being able to do basic things in graphics program. It was just shocking. The convention is to hold shift while dragging a scale anchor, which should force a straight line or if the mouse moves vertically it will move into specific degrees of rotation. In PowerPoint 2007, holding shift makes the line extend across the entire slide. Clicking and dragging a scale anchor, even when zoomed in 200%, proved an arduous task — it was like the default route for PowerPoint was to take a straight line and make it slightly sloped. The whole ordeal was especially disappointing because the developers really did a remarkable job on the new interface for Office 2007.
Anyway, it sucks to hear that you’re having to wait so long for data. I can’t imagine being held up like that. The only thing I can relate that too is what happens to graduate students in electrical engineering who design chips and send them out to get fabricated. That can take anywhere from 5 weeks to 3 months. If you get it back and make a mistake, there aren’t any returns.
How is your research going on in general though? Hopefully there are other things to explore while the wait continues. Did you enjoy Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance?