Want to be a successful academic? It’s all about getting published

Friday, 29 September, 2017

Hot on the heels of PhD thesis: writing it up (and the art of procrastination), The Times Education published Want to be a successful academic? It’s all about getting published - in this opinion piece Im covering some of the more practical elements about progressing from your PhD to publishing in journals and what you need to do to achieve this. These thoughts have been gathered from colleagues, students and the scars of publishing!!

Wake on LAN

Thursday, 21 September, 2017

Wake on LAN (WoL) is one of those incredibly useful features that I had forgotten about having used in the dim distant past. As the name suggests, it wakes up a PC by sending it a “magic packet” across a network. To get it all to work you need several things in place:

1. a network card that supports WoL - all should now
2. the network card with WoL enabled. Do this in Device Manager, and in your card properties check all the settings under “Power Management” and then also under “Advanced” make sure “Wake on Magic Packet” is enabled.
3. it’s easier if you PC has a fixed IP on your (home) network - do this in “Control Panel” then Network and Sharing Center->View network status and tasks->Change adapter settings then right-click on “Ethernet” (or what your network card is called) and Properties. Under “Internet Protocol Version 4”, use Properties to set the IP address.
4. the PC can only wake for “Sleep” or “Hibernation” so make sure your PC is in one of these two states. By default Hibernation (which is the lowest power mode) is off in Windows 10. To make this accessible goto “Control Panel” then Power Options->Change what the power buttons do. If Hibernate is unticked, click on “Change settings that are currently unavailable”, tick it then “Save Changes”
5. I wanted my machine to resume to the main screen and bypass login - to enable this goto “Settings” then Accounts->Sign-in Options and change “Require sign-in” to Never.
5. YOU’RE THERE!! Now you only need a way to wake your machine - I installed the aptly named “Wake on Lan” Play store app which just works.

In terms of application, for me it allows me to remotely start my desktop and then remote desktop in. I can’t help but think that this should be one of those things that “just works” rather than having to jump through so many hoops!

RSPSoc 2017:

Thursday, 7 September, 2017

RSPSoc 2017 looked to have a fine set of talks this year hosted by the marvelous people at the Royal School of Mines, Imperial College. Check out the abstracts. SfM had it’s only session (naturally!), preceded by a plenary from Mike James (Lancaster). This session also included talks from myself/James O’Connor on our work reviewing camera settings for UAVs and the impact of image quality on SfM photogrammetry. The first set of slides are below and the second set on this page.

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PhD thesis: writing it up (and the art of procrastination)

Thursday, 7 September, 2017

I recently had an opinion piece published in Times Higher Education - this is advice on the process of writing up, how we all procrastinate on finishing it and what to do about it! It evolved out of discussions with PhD students over the years and advice to them, as well as fighting my own procrastination monkey at times. These things have worked for me and for some students, so if you struggle with getting those words down on paper… give them a try!