As many of you will know, we have an office gerbil called Foxy. He has asked me to let you all know that he's now on Twitter and would like you to follow him:

http://twitter.com/FoxyTheGerbil

He says he'll put a picture of himself on it as soon as he can work out how to use a camera. I may have to give him a hand if he hasn't managed it by tomorrow...

I suffer v badly from static hair! I always run my brush briefy under the tap before brushing my hair. I also carry a mini squirty bottle (like a mini travel sized bottle) with water in it in my handbag so i can squirt it at my hair when it misbehaves! You should also avoid tops made of woolly, fleecy or synthetic material. Fleece is my sworn enemy! It's mainly the central heating (ie. dry air) which makes hair particularly static at this time of year. If you're feeling rich, you could invest in an air humidifier, but that's probably a bit of an extreme solution! Alternatively, make sure you use plenty of conditioner when you wash your hair (again, to help stop it drying out too much) and maybe squirt some product (eg. hairspray, serum, etc) on your hair. Also, use your hairdryer on a cooler setting and don't over-dry it. That's the end of my hair-care advice for the day *insert cheesy grin here*

Last year my best friend made all her xmas presents for people. She made candles (she got some pots and filled them with the wax and wick, and then painted the outside of the pots - personalised for each recipient) and she also made little felt/fur stuffed birds and sewed mini clothes-pegs onto them so you can attach them to shelves, light fittings etc. They went down really well and nobody made any negative comments to each other about then being home-made or anything. This year I've also made personalised bracelets for some of my friends (a couple of multipacks of beads, some thin elastic and you're sorted). Baked goods are always nice too and I'm sure you wouldn't get any complaints! You could maybe write people's names on biscuits/cakes with icing or something? I also heard someone saying the other day that they were going to make sock monkeys for all their friends - seems like quite a cool idea! There's loads of patterns etc on the internet and apparently it's not too tricky. Anyhoo, I'll stop babbling on now! Basically, I conclude that home-made stuff is a great idea - a lot of people are a bit short of money this xmas and whilst making something for someone is cheaper, it's perhaps a bit more special and personal than buying something.

Dearest Walminski,
Please don't be sad,
You're the craziest star-chaser we've ever had
Your PhD sounds tres complex,
But we've got an office gerbil - imagine the stress!
Just keep going, a bit at a time
Can you tell that I'm struggling to rhyme?
Take a break and drink some tea,
Focus on being "Dr Walminski"
Cheer yourself up - it's nearly Christmas
Think of the food, so very delicious!
I'm sorry I have no useful advice
But hopefully you'll think my poem is nice.
So fill up your kettle, look out your mug,
You'll be OK - peace out, big hug.

======= Date Modified 06 Nov 2009 15:51:11 =======
============= Edited by a Moderator =============
Hi Sneaks,

Yes, orange sticky threads would have an orange drawing pin on them. They are rare creatures though, as usually stickies are not relevant to all sections of the forum.

I'm afraid it wouldn't be practical to filter you into a specific section of the forum based on your situation. This is for several reasons; often more than one section would apply to one person (eg. PhD Life and Off Topics would both apply to you), and also this might discourage you from replying to other people's threads in other sections of the site, as you might not see them (eg. if a prospective PhD student needed some advice from a current PhD student, this post would probably be posted in one of the Prospective PhD Student sections rather than the PhD Life section). Also, not all users would fit so neatly into just one category (eg. some prospective students might be interested in both a masters and/or a PhD and so it would not be helpful to automatically filter them initially into one of these sections rather than the other). I reckon it would also be a bit of a nightmare for our poor web team to set up!! Interesting idea though!

PS. Hurrah for pudding!

Hi Sneaks,

There are 2 types of sticky threads: orange and purple.

Orange sticky threads are site-wide across all sections of the forum and would therefore appear on the list when you click the general Forum tab at the top of the screen. This Forum tab shows activity within ALL the sub-sections of the forum.

Purple sticky threads are specific to each of the sections of the forum (eg. PhD Life, Off Topics, etc). The section called PhD Life currently has a couple of its own (ie. purple) sticky threads, which you will therefore only be able to see when you specifically click to view that sub-section. If you click the Home tab, you will be able to select an individual sub-section of the forum to view.

Only general (ie. orange) sticky threads will appear when you select the Forum tab to view the overall forum activity.

Hope that answers the question OK!

Do I get some sticky toffee pudding now?? ;-)

Alas, the star system was set up by our web people when the forum was created, so we mods don't even know the answer to this ourselves! The only clue we have is this line, quoted from the forum rules:

"One star is quite easy to achieve, two stars a little harder and so on."

Woooo! Congrats Dr Lara!! That's brilliant news 8-)

Hello,

When i typed bar chart patterns into the Help box in Excel, it sent me to this link:

http://www.andypope.info/charts/patternfills.htm

Not sure if that's any use?

======= Date Modified 13 Aug 2009 14:52:08 =======
============= Edited by a Moderator =============
I'm afraid there's no way to reinstate individual posts from a removed thread. Please feel free to re-post any information which may be useful to fellow forum members though.

Hi Pam,

Yes, you can advertise your conference as long as you don't spam the forum (ie. advertise it in multiple threads), try to recruit people to undertake and submit work to you, or advertise postgraduate courses, PhD places, postdoctoral or other academic positions. Ie. Just don't break the forum rules, and you'll be fine!

Hope that helps!

Caz

Yep, I believe it's all sorted now. Apparently it was something to do with daylight saving time confusing it or something. Sorry about all that!

Hi guys, Pete's discovered the cause of the original problem and is still working on fixing it. This is why the registered users number is going a bit mad at the moment. We'll let you know when it's all fixed.

Thanks alerting us. Pete's investigating!

Hey there forumites, just to let you all know that I am monitoring this thread. As long as you all continue to toe the line and don't resort to personal insults etc, I'll stay out of things. I'm sure you'll all agree that you don't need nannying by us mods - I reckon there's nothing wrong with a healthy debate, but let's keep things friendly please.

On a side note, I would also ask you all to remember that when you're reading people's posts on the forum, things can easily be misconstrued (eg. sarcasm, light-hearted/throw-away comments) due to it being written rather than a verbal, face-to-face exchange, so please always be aware of this and take it into account when using the forum.

Caz