Printing a folder's contents

If we want to export file names within a Windows 10 file folder, along with their creation dates, it is easy to do so. And while I have posted on this topic before here, Windows 10 does not work in the same way as Windows 8.1 (see the Windows 8.1 article here), so I have updated the instructions.

Simply open File Explorer and navigate to the desired export folder. Click into the File Explorer address bar, and key "cmd".

Doing so opens a command window at the address of the folder you want to export from. Straight after our folder name, key dir > printit.txt, then key Enter (don't leave any spaces in the command line, by the way).

dir > printit.txt

A file named printit.txt will appear in the folder that we wanted to export the file names from. We can export this MS Excel if required, by copying the data from the text file (however, I usually stage the list into Word and change out all the spaces for tabs so that items copy into separate cells in Excel.

I hope this works for you.

Sam

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New wave in battery power

There was an exciting announcement before Christmas last year about new battery technology coming from IBM. From what I have read, it appears that it uses "three new and different proprietary materials" (Na, 18 December 2019) and seems to be extracted from seawater, using an electrolyte base (ie, salt and minerals). While the technology is only at pilot stage at present, the resulting batteries will be far less flammable, which will mean that eventually we may be able to post phones, or to put them in our checked luggage once more.

IBM are not yet talking about particular uses, but they are saying that recharge times are likely to be fraction of what they currently are, with under "five minutes required to reach an 80 percent state of charge" (Na, 18 December 2019). The batteries apparently hold a lot more power, take longer to discharge, and can deliver a higher voltage (Dormehl, 20 December 2019; Na, 18 December 2019). Development may have been driven by aircraft requirements for "access to batteries with very high-power density, which can scale a power load quickly" (Na, 18 December 2019). So this technology may have been specifically developed for electric flight technology ...although no one is yet speculating about this.

Right now, it is nice to think that perhaps toxic mining for elements such as Cobalt may now become small-scale industries, that perhaps electric flight may become available, allowing us to reduce the huge amount of CO₂ we pump into the atmosphere with every flight (747s burn 12 litres of fuel per kilometre - ouch; Sandhy, 7 May 2017). It also seems that there will be fewer toxic components to recycle at the end of the produce life-cycle with this new technology. Once the battery processing and design reaches scale, and the new battery technology trickles down eventually to phones, battery fires may too be a thing of the past.

This is a technology that I will update you on as I hear :-)


Sam

References:

• Dormehl, L. (20 December 2019). IBM’s new battery may outperform lithium-ion, and it doesn’t use conflict minerals. Retrieved from https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/ibm-new-battery-technology-heavy-metal/
• Ghoshal, A. (20 December 2019). IBM’s efficient new battery for gadgets doesn’t require mining for heavy metals. Retrieved from https://thenextweb.com/plugged/2019/12/20/ibms-efficient-new-battery-for-gadgets-doesnt-require-mining-for-heavy-metals/
• Liszewski, A. (20 December 2019). IBM Research Created A New Battery That Outperforms Lithium-Ion, No Problematic Heavy Metals Required. Retrieved from https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2019/12/ibm-research-created-a-new-battery-that-outperforms-lithium-ionno-problematic-heavy-metals-required/
• Na. Y. (18 December 2019). Free of Heavy Metals, New Battery Design Could Alleviate Environmental Concerns. Retrieved from https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2019/12/heavy-metal-free-battery/
• Sandhy, A. (7 May 2017). How much fuel does an aircraft need to travel 1000 km? Retrieved from https://www.quora.com/How-much-fuel-does-an-aircraft-need-to-travel-1000-km

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Deleting out of date Google contacts

I am sure that I am not alone in finding that Gmail and Google calendar appears to hold onto auto-fill emails for far, far too long. And, despite clicking on particular entries and trying to delete them, there appears to be no easily accessible place to delete email addresses or other contact details.

However, there IS actually a relatively easy place to find our master list of contacts - simply go to https://contacts.google.com/?hl=en

To edit our master list, simply delete, update or shuffle elements. Give Google at least 24 hours to update the list. I recently pruned 700 dead entries from my main contact list, which was quite liberating.

However, as I use Outlook as well, I am finding it increasingly annoying that I need to keep more than one list, but hopefully over time these will consolidate more - or that the apps will get smarter at consolidating for me. Here's hoping!


Sam

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Windows 10 master settings

Since the release of Windows 8, I have been increasingly frustrated by Windows settings being stashed in all sorts of strange places, and having to trawl in the deeps of Microsoft's labyrinthine thinking. Going looking for power settings, for example, can take us to four different places, through four different access points. Confusing. Annoying. A huge time waster.

However, there is a way to get all your Windows 10 settings all together, and that is by using "God" mode. And - even better - it is very simple to set up a folder on our desktop so we can access all the MS settings from this one location. While it looks budget, search enables us to find whatever it is that we seek. Bliss.

First we need to check that we have administrator rights on our account (here for details). Once we have done that, then all we need to do is to simply right click on an empty space on our desktop. From the pop-up menu, select "New", then Folder. We then rename the folder as follows:

GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

We can now see that the folder icon is replaced by a settings icon (like the accompanying image), and - when we click on the folder - we get a list of all the things that we can now access, grouped into helpful sections.

... and that's all there is to it.


Sam

• Reference: TechRepublic (2019). How to use God Mode in Windows 10. Retrieved from https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-use-god-mode-in-windows-10/

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Windows 10 administrator rights

Windows 10 usually has us as "Administrator" by default, with all the rights to change things, load software and accept updates. However, if we are having trouble doing any of the normal IT stuff on our machine, we should first check that nothing has happened in the background, and check that our own account has all the necessary rights.

To check this, all we need to do is to go to Start | Settings and enter "Account" into the search box. From there we select the "Your Account Info" from the search list, and look at the label under our name for the word "Administrator".

If our account doesn't have Administrator rights, we can simply try changing it. If we can't do that, we could try creating a new account (go here to try that). If that doesn't work, we need to get out the big guns (try here).

Hopefully that will be all we need.


Sam

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Adding video to Blogger blog posts

There is a really easy way to add YouTube video to blogger blog posts.

As we are writing our blog post, we can simply click on the film clapboard icon () on the toolbar. A dialogue box will appear, where we chose where we want to link our video from: our YouTube uploads, YouTube, or a drag and drop from our device.

Key enter. Done.

Too easy.

Sam

• Reference: Blogger (n.d.). Add a video to your blog. Retrieved from https://support.google.com/blogger/answer/41641?hl=en&ref_topic=3339243

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Different types of Plagiarism

Ah: plagiarism! Shakespeare, in Hamlet from Act II Scene III (Craig, 1966, p. 854), Malcolm says, with a clarifier from me:

"There's [no] warrant in that theft

Which steals itself"

Why does that resonate with me? Because plagiarism is - in my view - stealing from ourselves. We steal our own knowledge, growth and development by trying to shortcut learning; by being focused on the ends over the means (Daft, 2007). Not only does it diminish the utility of the education we are undertaking, but it undermines the results of the others who have put in the time and effort to learn. Malcom's speech above ends with "there's no mercy left" which is the approach I take with students who have been cautioned to undertake their work honestly, but have chosen not to heed my warning.

Plagiarism has been defined as "Taking over the ideas, methods, or written words of another, without
acknowledgment and with the intention that they be taken as the work of the deceiver." (Roig, 2006, p. 3, citing the American Association of University Professors, September/October,1989). A key phrase that: the intent to deceive.

Every semester there appears to be a new way to plagiarise. We don't often stop to consider that plagiarism takes many forms. Below is a list of 'types': a rough taxonomy, if you will, drawn from a number of authors.

1. Copy & Paste Plagiarism: copying the words of another verbatim without indicating - with quotes - they are the words of the author. This may or may not be cited, and some words may perhaps be changed in an attempt to disguise the theft (Naik, Landge, & Mahender, 2015). This is also known as "Ctrl-C" and "Find-Replace" plagiarism (TurnItin, 2015) and "verbatim" plagiarism (Bouarara, Hamou, & Rahmani, 2017). Where cited, this can also be known as "Re-Tweet" plagiarism, and sometimes "Aggregator" plagiarism where it includes almost no original content (TurnItin, 2015)
2. Spinbot plagiarism: putting the work of another through a translation spinbot and translating it both into and out of another language, or simply translating it from the base language. Work may be used verbatim from the spinbot (where it will be well-nigh incomprehensible) or edited. Also known as "Plagiarism by translation" (Bouarara et al, 2017) or "Plagiarism with translation" (Naik et al, 2015)
3. Remix plagiarism: taking elements from multiple authors and working it up into a new piece of writing. Small elements and order will be changed. The work may or may not be cited (TurnItin, 2015). Also known as "Mashup" (TurnItin, 2015), "Shake & Paste", and "Mosaic" plagiarism (Naik et al, 2015)
4. Fake authorship plagiarism: where expert views are cited as coming from an entirely fictitious source. This is also known as "404 Error" plagiarism (TurnItin, 2015)
5. False claim plagiarism: where the writer cites an author as saying something that they did not say. This is also known as "404 Error" plagiarism (TurnItin, 2015)
6. Self-Plagiarism: where an author recycles part or most of a previously written paper without acknowledging it (Roig, 2006). Also known as "Text Recycling" (Bouarara et al, 2017) or "Auto" plagiarism (Enago Academy, 27 September 2018)
7. Ghost Writing plagiarism: getting another to write an entire paper (Roig, 2006). Also known as "complete" plagiarism (Enago Academy, 27 September 2018) and "blunt" plagiarism (Bouarara et al, 2017).

A fascinating area. And so silly of students to do this. But we appear to still be making silly students.


Sam

References:

• Bouarara, H. A., Hamou, R. M., & Rahmani, A. (2017). BHA2: Bio-inspired Algorithm and Automatic Summarisation for Detecting Different Types of Plagiarism. International Journal of Swarm Intelligence Research (IJSIR), 8(1), 30-53. https://doi.org/10.4018/IJSIR.2017010102
• Craig, W. J. (Ed) (1966). Shakespeare: Complete Works (2nd ed.). London, UK: Oxford University Press.
• Daft, R. L. (2007). The Leadership Experience (3rd ed.). USA: Thomson South-Western.
• Enago Academy (27 September 2018). 8 Most Common Types of Plagiarism to Stay Away from! Retrieved from https://www.enago.com/academy/fraud-research-many-types-plagiarism/
• Naik, R. R., Landge, M. B., & Mahender, C. N. (2015). A review on plagiarism detection tools. International Journal of Computer Applications, 125(11), 16-22. https://doi.org/10.5120/ijca2015906113
• Roig, M. (2006). Avoiding plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and other questionable writing practices: A guide to ethical writing. Retrieved from https://bsc.ua.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/plagiarism-1.pdf
• Turnitin (2015). The Plagiarism Spectrum: Instructor Insight into the 10 Types of Plagiarism. TurnitIn Whitepaper. Retrieved from https://www.ed.ac.uk/files/atoms/files/10-types-of-plagiarism.pdf

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Show vertical rulers in Word

Following a recent Microsoft Office365 update, my rulers stopped showing in Word. Each time I went in, I would have to go to the View tab on the ribbon, and re-tick the ruler box. However, it was only recently that I realised that the vertical ruler was also missing.

This too is relatively easy to get working again, but you do have to mine for it. Go to File | Options | Advanced | Display and ensure that that the "Show vertical ruler in Print Layout view" option is ticked. Click the OK button and back out.

Sometimes this change may 'stick'; sometimes you may need to redo it several times.

Good luck!


Sam

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Daily robot chores

Jetsons Rosie, model XB-500 (Shaggy Dude, 7 April 2015)

I watched a very interesting video by Fast Company which posed a question of people at the European Innovation Festival in October last year. They asked "What one daily task would you have your personal robot do?"

So funny, because my immediate answer was cleaning. A couple of those interviewed said the same thing, which brought back images of Rosie the robot maid from the Jetsons. Whatever we do get, as one interviewee said, it has to be better at delivering than the Roomba.

What I want from robotics is bigger than just cleaning. I want is 'Mum' to hurry around after me, to hand me things that I need next, to pick up things I have forgotten, to cook for me, to remind me that it is someone's birthday, to put me to bed when I am tired or sick, and to do my ironing, make my appointments and organise the life admin stuff that never seems to stop coming. I guess what I ideally would like is a Butler/Secretary combination; what used to be known as a 'General Factotum'.

I would like to - as Bertie Wooster did - ask Jeeves, and have things sorted out with minimum fuss, immaculately, precisely and without breaking into the cocktail hour.

Now I know that robotics are a LONG, LONG way off this degree of complexity yet. But I would love to be freed up to do the things that I like doing, as opposed to doing the things I have to do. And I am sure that I am not alone.

Perhaps I might see some of my desired robot tasks happen in my lifetime. I hope so :-)


Sam

References:

• FastCompany (29 October 2019). What one daily task would you have your personal robot do? Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/video/what-one-daily-task-would-you-have-your-personal-robot-do/gKsJEMuG
• Shaggy Dude (7 April 2015). The Jetsons Rosie model XB-500. Retrieved from https://csg.tinkercad.com/things/eig2dbHYnvl/t725.png?rev=1294&s=5a94b259b8ae46808b3a9a4ff799839b&v=0
• Wodehouse, P. G. (1919). My Man Jeeves. London, UK: George Newnes.

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An update on Migraine

Over two years ago, I wrote a post on my migraine experiences on the Stanton Migraine Protocol (here), so I thought some readers might be interested in an update.

The idea to write an update was inspired by a Guardian column, by Emma Wiseman, entitled “An MRI scan reveals what I thought was a migraine to be something darker” (3 November 2019). The article grabbed my interest as Emma had an experience similar to the one I had. I sent her an email about the Stanton Migraine Protocol, and thought that perhaps it was time for an update on what had happened to me in the intervening years.

I realised that in my original post, I hadn't mentioned a couple of important points. Firstly, I am an academic, and have logged my migraines for over a decade. This means that I have the data to say that pre-protocol I lost an average of 30 days per year with migraine and post-dome hangovers, as I once had around 20 to 24 migraines per year. Since going on the protocol, this has meant that I have had the gift of an additional three months of quality life. Secondly, since going on the Stanton Migraine Protocol, most migraines which started I was able to turn off, using the protocol's alternate doses of salt and water.

In the past three years, where once I would have had around sixty migraines, I have had 9 go full-blown; and all of those were fairly mild, bar one. For the less mild attack, I took a few Neurofen (Advil) for the pain, but needed no prescription drugs or doctor's visits.

What is also new is that last November I went keto – yes, there is also a keto protocol – which has made eating out much easier. Most restaurants now understand "high fat, low carb" (though the airlines are still oblivious).

While the keto protocol doesn’t seem to have made any difference to the number of break-through migraines which go full-blown, it has reduced the number of migraines which have started. In the past year only four migraines have started - and this has been a stressful year. In the two years prior to that, I had 21 start.

The paper that kicked off my journey was published in the Journal of Mental Health and Family Medicine (Stanton, 2015). It was published in a low ranking journal because the study had no control group, and participants self-selected and self-reported. This shows the drawbacks of our current system, where effective solutions can have limited circulation due to the academic publication and peer-review processes; and the Publication house collossi which dominate the medical field.

I hope some readers have the discipline to try the protocol. It has worked outstandingly well for me.


Sam

References:

• Stanton, A. A. (2017). Fighting the Migraine Epidemic: How to treat and prevent migraines without medications. North Charleston SC, USA: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Stanton, A. A. (2015). Migraine Cause and Treatment. Journal of Mental Health and Family Medicine, 11(1), 69-72. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2690927
• Wiseman, E. (3 November 2019). An MRI scan reveals what I thought was a migraine to be something darker. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/nov/03/an-mri-scan-reveals-what-i-thought-was-a-migraine-to-be-something-darker

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Scaling images in MailChimp

For those of us who use MailChimp to send emailers, this platform can either make things incredibly easy, or screamingly, frustratingly, mind-bogglingly difficult.

I needed to resize an emailer image recently, but I didn't want to leave the image the same actual size, as - having fallen into the downsizing trap previously - the image would be too poor in quality. I wanted to keep the quality, but scale the dimensions.

I checked out how to do it, but - when I went to do scale the image - the flaming image WOULD NOT resize. I must have tried to resize the image twenty times. Each time, my changes would not stick. I re-read the help files. I looked up the trouble-shooting files. I Googled. I watched YouTube videos. I deleted the image, and re-imported it. It would not work. GrrrraaaarrrGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then I watched yet another video and found there were two ways to resize images. I had been using one, yet there was another way, using the Content Studio (which I had not realised was really a thing until that point, although I had realised that this bucket of images did exist). When we click on the image we want to scale, a wee pop up button shows above our uploaded images, saying "View Details". Click on that, and we see all the versions of this particular image that we have uploaded. We can then click "edit image" which will take us to the same MailChimp editing software that we got by trying to edit the image within the mailer itself.

Then we can manually adjust either the height or the width dimension (while ensuring that the "lock dimensions" box is ticked).

Then save. We are done, our changes should stick, and we can then go back and import the image of the size that we are wanting into our mailer.

Crikey!


Sam

• Reference: Eckstein, G. (16 July 2019). Automatically Resize Images in Mailchimp. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/3V5U_QdEwcA

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Predatory journals

I was looking for some information recently on Rensis Likert, and one of the articles that I turned up in Google Scholar was really poorly written. This was a major flag for me that the journal which published the article may well have been a predatory journal.

Predatory journals are those which don't quite ring true. There aren't enough hoops for authors to jump before getting published. The quality of the work that is published within them doesn't seem high enough. There are basic grammatical errors or sweeping statements made. They may be journals where researchers pay some sort of fee to have their article published – it may be called a marketing fee, or a subscription, but publication won't take place until payment is made. There is a great list of the characteristics used to determine predatory journals here (Brezgov, 31 May 2019). Brezgov notes over 50 characteristics which need to be considered: with the quality of the writing being one of the key factors (31 May 2019).

While checking out - and finding - the particular publication that I was looking for was on the dodgy list (it was), I suddenly realised that I had never written a blog post giving directions to where those predatory journal lists can be found.

The pre-eminent voice in the field has been Jeremy Beall, but what started as a side-line for him alongside his research job got far too big for him to continue alone. His work is currently being updated by others, and can be found here. Then there is the site Stop Predatory Journals, which can be found here, and Brezgov who does some updating of Beall's list here.

Whenever you read something that doesn't quite ring true, check out the lists. There are a STAGGERING number of journals which are not legitimate: almost 1200 on Stop Predatory Journals alone, with more being created each year.

Drawing on these sources diminishes the credibility of our own research, so to protect our own reputations, we need to be careful.


Sam

References:

• Beall, J. (3 October 2019). Potential predatory scholarly open-access journals: original list. Retrieved from https://beallslist.weebly.com/standalone-journals.html
• Brezgov, S. (6 June 2019). Beall’s List of Predatory Publishers 2017. Retrieved from https://scholarlyoa.com/bealls-list-of-predatory-publishers-2017/
• Brezgov, S. (31 May 2019). Criteria for Determining Predatory Open-Access Publishers. Retrieved from https://scholarlyoa.com/criteria-for-determining-predatory-open-access-publishers/
• Brezgov, S. (27 May 2019). List of Predatory Publishers 2014. Retrieved from https://scholarlyoa.com/list-of-predatory-publishers-2014/
• Petrişor, A. I. (2016). Evolving strategies of the predatory journals. Malaysian Journal of Library & Information Science, 21(1), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.22452/mjlis.vol21no1.1
• Stop Predatory Journals (n.d.). List of Predatory Publishers. Retrieved from https://predatoryjournals.com/publishers/

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Resizing Windows when off the top of the screen

Have you ever been in the position where you have dragged a window from one screen to the other, and suddenly the top of window - and therefore all the controls - are off the top of the screen? Worse, when you close the item using the taskbar, then reopen it in the hope that it will open normally, the software remembers its last open position, and reopens the file still off the top of the screen.

The fact that we are able to do this without a simple way to undo it is one of the most annoying aspects of Windows PCs. I know I have become so reliant on my mouse that trying to fix a situation like this really makes me dig deep into my memory to remember some really, really old commands.

However, those old commands are still there, and were embedded all the way back in Windows 3.0.

If you end up in this situation, simply key Alt & Space Bar to bring up the control menu. Then select "move" on the pop-up menu (if you can see it) and use the arrow keys to position the screen we want it; or key "m" (for "Move") and use the arrow keys.

So easy when we remember, but this is a galaxy far, far away now!


Sam

• Reference: Laurie, V. (15 July 2013). How to Use the Keyboard to Move or Resize a Window that is Too Big for the Screen. Retrieved from https://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-use-keyboard-move-or-resize-window-too-big-screen.htm

spacebar, move, pdf, Adobe,

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Likert scale wording

Those of us who use surveys regularly are very well aware of the legacy that Professor Rensus Likert has left us, in the Likert scale.

During and after his PhD, Professor Likert critiqued existing survey and interview techniques, and outlined more robust processes and tools. The clarity of his thought has meant that we still use his improvements today (Britannica.com, n.d.b; Edmonson, 2005; Likert, 1932; Likert, Roslow, & Murphy, 1934), and those scales are now named after him.

A Likert scale (always with a capital "L", as this is a proper name) has been defined as a "rating system, used in questionnaires, that is designed to measure people’s attitudes, opinions, or perceptions" (Britannica.com, n.d.a), and as "certain discernible groups of social responses [where... the]response to an attitude, although not inflexible or rigid, [...]move[s] only within a certain range" (Edmonson, 2005, p. 127).

And it is these groups of social responses which gives us some - now - pretty standard sets of scales. They usually come in spans of three, five or seven, with generally accepted wording, designed to work with questions which are written so that the scales provide a logical answer. For example:

• 5: Excellent - Above average - Average - Below average - Poor
• 7: Exceptional - Excellent - Very Good - Good - Fair - Poor - Very Poor
• 5: Satisfied - Somewhat satisfied - Neutral - Somewhat dissatisfied - Dissatisfied
• 7: Very satisfied - Moderately satisfied - Slightly satisfied - Neutral - Slightly dissatisfied - Moderately dissatisfied - Very dissatisfied
• 5: Always - Often - Sometimes - Seldom - Never
• 7: Always - Fairly Often - Somewhat Often - Sometimes - Seldom - Rarely - Never

There are a couple of online sources to consult to get some standard wording for Likert scales here (Sincero, 2012) and here (Vagias, 2006).

It is fascinating that it took the human race until 1932 to think of something so simple and elegant.


Sam

References:

• Britannica.com (n.d.a). Likert Scales. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Likert-Scale
• Britannica.com (n.d.b). Rensis Likert. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rensis-Likert
• Edmondson, D. R. (2005). Likert Scales: A History (pp. 127-133). CHARM: the 12th Conference on Historical Analysis & Research in Marketing, 28 April - 1 May 2005, Queen Mary, Long Beach CA, USA.
• Likert, R. (1932). A technique for the measurement of attitudes. Archives of Psychology, 22(140), 1-55.
• Likert, R., Roslow, S., & Murphy, G. (1934). A simple and reliable method of scoring the Thurstone attitude scales. The Journal of Social Psychology, 5(2), 228-238. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1934.9919450
• Sincero, S. M. (2012). Survey Response Scales. Retrieved from https://explorable.com/survey-response-scales
• Vagias, W. M. (2006). Likert-type scale response anchors. Retrieved from https://www.peru.edu/oira/wp-content/uploads/sites/65/2016/09/Likert-Scale-Examples.pdf

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