Thunderbird has an extension to support Webmails!

Thunderbird is a wonderful mail client. You can expand its functions by adding extternal packages. I just found this extention "web-mail" that enpowers me to access my hotmail account without using a web browser.

Grammar check in OpenOffice Writer

現在可以更舒服地用Open Office Writer(MS Word的替代軟體)來編輯英文文件囉！安裝Grammar Checker之後，你也可以像在MS Word下檢查文法了。check it out: http://www.danielnaber.de/languagetool/

Using R in introductory statistics classes

我在2004年有機會到U of Michigan, Ann Arbor的ICPSR方法營親近John Fox與Robert Andersen兩位老師，對於他們投注在R的教學印象深刻。他們最近所合寫中的這一篇文章，很值得有興趣將R導入政治學研究方法的老師們參考：
http://socserv.socsci.mcmaster.ca/jfox/Teaching-with-R.pdf

It is time to update Swarm to 2.2.2

RPM packages for Fedora Linux was released on January 16, 2006.
http://www.ku.edu/~pauljohn/Swarm/Swarm-2.2X_Fdr4/

R users' responses to the UCLA statistical packages report

Patrick Burns summarized R-users' responses in the list and made a report here: http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/technicalreports/Number1/R_relative_statpack.pdf

comparison of statistical packages

Michael Mitchell, UCLA ATS Statistical Consulting Group, provided a comprehensive comparison of SPSS, STATA, and SAS. Check out his report here.

On p.31, he talked about R and thinks that R is very difficult to learn. Well, I agree it is difficult to learn R if there is no right road map and guidence. But, R is not difficult to master if you just want some results. Most of time, R requires only several lines to get the results. Therefore, it is still an open for students to decide what they like. If I like Stata, I would say that a graphical user interface of R (R-GUI), such as JGR will make R look and and easy to use as Stata.

a comparison of text editors for R

While I am evaluating Jedit as a text editor for beginners of R, I found this site that introduces JGR and SciViews, the two GUI packages that be attractive to R users.

http://www.nettakeaway.com/tp/R/137/r-guis

用Muse做網站

怎麼樣把用Emacs打出的純文字筆記直接出版成漂漂的網頁呢？我之前用的是Emacs-wiki，我這兩天決定使用muse來取代emacs-wiki，把成果放在這兒： http://lark.cc.ku.edu/~ashan/wiki/WelcomePage.html

Good Firefox Extensions

I use Firefox because it is a cross-OS browser. I can use it in either Linux or Windows without being constrained by IE. Another reason I use Firefox and would recommend it to you is that it allows many addons that enhance browsing experiences.

Here are my most favorite extensions:
1. All-in-one gestures: with it, you can close a window by simply draw a line while holding the right bottom of the mouse.
2. Web-developer: it gives you the power to look through the source codes of a website and how its CSS is designed.
3. Tab-Mix-plus: let's makeall new windows, including pop-ups, into different tabs one frame.
4. Performancing: it gives you the power to add new stuff to your blogs while browsing.

The solution of using multiple SMTP servers in Thunderbird (a mail client)

Finally, I got the easiest way to switch between smtp.ku.edu and smtp.sunflower.com: install the extension "Buttons!" https://addons.update.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=106&vid=122&category=

Cited from: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Thunderbird_:_FAQs_:_Multiple_SMTP_Servers
If you have set up multiple SMTP servers and want an easier way to change the default SMTP server (such as if you have a laptop computer that you use at work and home or on different networks), try the Buttons! extension (http://update.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=106&vid=122&category=). It will give you a "Select SMTP!" button that you can add to the toolbar to change the default SMTP server at a single click.