Garden Update and Creepy Crawlies

My roses - the pride of my garden, even though I only have three bushes.



My tomato is getting bigger and bigger but I am afraid that it shows no sign of ripening. Worried that it might be too late as the weather is getting colder and the leaves are showing signs of wither.


And as Halloween is nearby, here are pics of some creepy crawlies in my garden:





And not so creepy: A ladybird - sign of a healthy environment:


This is my

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chubskulit

Malaysia Boleh

A funny mail that was forwarded to me today:



After having dug to a depth of 1000 meters last year, Swedish scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 1000 years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than 1000 years ago.

Not to be outdone by the Swedes, in the weeks that followed, English scientists dug to a depth of 2000 meters and shortly after headlines in the UK newspapers read; English archaeologists have found traces of 2000 year old fibber-optic cable and have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech digital communications network a thousand years earlier than the Swedes.

One week later, Malaysian newspapers reported the following:

"After digging as deep as 5000 meters in paddy fields in Kedah, Malaysian scientists have found absolutely nothing. They, therefore, have concluded that 5000 years ago, Malaysian's inhabitants were already using wireless technology."

MALAYSIA CAN!!!!!

Big Thank You for spreading the word

It's sometimes amazing how kind some people can be, going out of their way to help other people.

I am really thankful to have made so great friends through my blog and social networks, most of whom I have never met in person. Many of them helped spread the word about my research survey on their blogs, Facebook and on Twitter.

The most I can do for them is say a huge Thank You! and give back some link love.

My blogger friends who blogged about the survey on their blogs: Elizabeth, Emila, Mariuca and Nana.

Ela and Amrul who helped spread the word on their Facebook profiles.

Last but not the least, are my Tweeps: Angelopoulos, Chen Helen, Ecoexplorer and Lorraine Siew.

I also found out later that a few other guys had blogged about it as well. Made some new friends in the process. Thanks Fida.

First Commentator
Mariuca

Update to my last post - Prizes and Charity

In my last post "My Research Methodology", I forgot to mention that there is a £100 cash prize as well as Amazon vouchers involved and you can do your bit for charity as well.

I have pledged to donate 50p for every completed questionnaire to the Cancer Research UK.

Please click the link to take part in the survey.

First Commentator
Julie

My Research Methodology

Just met my second supervisor yesterday and he approved my final research questionnaire with some minor changes. It's now live online at www.surveymk.com//blogs.

With this I am now at the halfway stage of my PhD research work at the Warwick Business School, University of Warwick.

I am actually quite relieved because the first stage is actually the toughest. It took me quite some time to get here because getting the questionnaire right the first time is crucial. A lot of people rush trough their questionnaire development phase of their research and suffer the consequences later.

The first step in starting a research is to have a broad idea of which area you want to research in. For me it was a no-brainer - I wanted to do something related to blogs. However, as I have a marketing background and I am in the business school, I was interested in the marketing aspect of blogs. More specifically on the consumer behaviour related to blog.

Carried out an extensive review of literature and found out that very little research has been carried out on blogs and even less on the marketing aspect of blogs. This was both good and bad news for me. Good because almost anything I do will be new contribution but bad because I had negligible literature to base my research on.

If you are new to research, the first thing you should be aware of is that review of previous literature is absolutely essential. This would allow you to identify the gaps and your potential contribution. You also need previous research to support some of your assumptions and hypotheses.

I had decided from day One that my research should be quantitative in nature and based on a survey questionnaire. Learnt that I fell under the positivist philosophy camp. Most of my friends research here are qualitative in nature. There has been an ongoing battle between the different sides on the best approach to research but I firmly believe that quantitative research is the best. This may be due to my educational background in the biological sciences.

My research looks at the consumer's perception of blogs and as I am looking at consumer attitudes, I rely a lot on several human psychology theories - as are in fact, a lot of marketing studies.

Several conceptual models with various constructs came up and went until we (myself and my supervisor) finally agreed upon one.

This was a really frustrating phase and I did wonder whether it was worth all the mental and financial cost.

These constructs are measured by various statements and are derived from previous studies published in leading marketing and psychology journals. I guess that's why we call it "re-search".

I also conducted some interviews followed by a pilot test. Based on the comments and exploratory factor analysis, I had to drop several statements used to measure the constructs and even drop one completely because I found out that it was actually had wrong measurements and was not reliable. I had taken the scale from a research conducted by some Professors in a top US University. This actually proves that experts do get it wrong sometimes.

Anyway, I am finally here and ready to enter the second stage. If you read blogs regularly, please spend a few minutes to complete my survey.

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Daddy Papersurfer

Discount store lilies

Some months back, I bought some lily bulbs from a discount store in Coventry city centre. I was not even sure whether they would live or what the flowers would look like if they did survive. So I planted them around my garden and today morning I got the first bloom.

It looks lovely and I now regret not buying more.





Have no idea about the name of these lilies. Help anyone?

UPDATE:
A friend of Facebook informed me that it is not (scientifically) a Lily but an Iris.

Did some Googling and found out that it's common name is Blue Flag and belong to the Iridaceae (iris) family. It is also known as Blue Iris, Liver Lily, Wild Iris, Flag, Poison Flag, Snake Lily, Water Flag, Dragon Flower, Dagger Flower and Fleur-de-Lis.


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6th Blogoversary

I totally forgot about it until I saw a comment by Teena today. My oldest blog turned 6 yesterday.

Can't believe that I have been blogging this long. Thanks to all my loyal readers and friends who have motivated me to continue this adventure in the Blogosphere.

BTW, my post 'Blogger and I' even received a mention on Blogger buzz sometime back.