I'm with Shelleyanne. If I get through the PhD I'm going to send a card to one of my old teachers, who told me I had no chance of passing my maths GCSE, signed Dr Juno

I expect the novelty wears off soon enough, but it must be nice to have that title. Although I also understand now where Badhaircut was coming from - apologies for sniping at you

Well, as I read lr261's message, he/she didn't say they were going to "insist" on it, they were just curious what other people thought. So, Badhaircut, I think your reply was very rude. Get a grip yourself.

For my opinion, it's a professional title which has been earned so I think you may as well use it in professional situations (and I'd also put in on my credit cards too).

Hang on - "I knew taking you on was a mistake, what with your history of mental problems....you won't pass, I only took you because of the reputation of your undergraduate supervisors..."

What the f@*&?! "You won't pass"?! How dare she say that?

As for the last bit; well, if that's true then she has just shown how extremely unprofessional she is.

Academic eccentricity is one thing: downright nastiness is another.

Our group does worry about papers, because they are counted in the RAE.
From what I have seen, students don't usually publish till after their viva - once their thesis is accepted, the supervisors go through it and decide which chapters to publish. If they are on a paper it's usually joint with several other people/groups.

Hooray!

And Cryogenics, thanks for your info

I disagree somewhat with the senior lecturer who told you to measure your progress in publications - there are numerous ways to measure progress, but I would not have thought publications was one of them. Few PhDs have much in the way of publications, especially after only 1 year of work.

I would also have to disagree with Away - I don't think you would be allowed to submit without your supervisor; universities are very protective of their name and will want to preview anything that gets sent for publication.

Other than that, you are expressing exactly what most of us are feeling, so don't worry too much

How do you set it to unplug, Cryogenics?

I usually did, but sometimes it said "Device cannot be stopped right now. Please try again later", and I would swear and just unplug it anyway. Bloody world-domineering Microsoft.

Oops, wrong article. Try this one:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/810400

If you type in "USB not responding" into the search box, several articles giving possible causes and solutions are displayed.

Try this:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/816509

I was told it's a very common problem. It was fixed in less than 10 minutes.

Hi Jojo,

I had exactly this trouble this week. Are you using a university computer? The IT department told me that this happens if you have (even if only occasionally) removed the USB stick without closing it down first (guilty, in my case) with the green arrow at the bottom of your screen.

The USB hardware recognition on your computer will need to be uninstalled and then re-installed. If you are the computer's administrator then you can do it; otherwise, contact your IT department.

404, have you ever noticed news programmes quote from forums? Recently Channel 4 news quoted comments left on a teachers' forum, and I've seen nurses' forum's used too.

You never know, one day we may end up on there

I like this guy: I only heard of him when someone (was it Ann or Pea?) posted one of his columns a while ago, but he's a sharp observationist.