First two months at ANU

It’s been two months since I started my PhD here at the Australian National University! I’ve been reading quite a lot about Australian reptiles, especially elapid snakes (front-fanged venomous snakes). There are 107 terrestrial elapid snakes in Australia (according to AROD), which is a huge diversity, not to mention that many of the sea snakes are also elapids as well! More to come about my PhD project…

For now, I wanted to write a post highlighting a few things I’ve found useful as I review the literature in evolutionary biology, and things I’ve been doing on the side.

  * Reference manager: [Zotero](https://www.zotero.org/)

    * Make sure to install [Zotfile](http://zotfile.com/) plug-in as this allow you to do more with your PDFs.
    * Organising your library with tags can be a very powerful way of archiving. Check out this [tutorial.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-__LQCXmgtA)


  * Daily note taking: [Evernote](https://evernote.com/)

    * I use [tags to organise](https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2015/01/organise-evernote-with-this-powerful-tagging-system/) my notes and found it to be quite easy.


  * In-depth note-taking: OneNote

    * I use OneNote to make more in-depth notes about papers I think will be important. For each paper I will note/record:

      * Main findings - you can get this by reading the abstract
      * Significance - how this paper will move the field?
      * Methods
      * Graphics - figures or photos of organism


    * I use OneNote because it lets me place figures where I want and draw things on them. Other software can do this too, I just use OneNote because I'm running a Windows machine.


  * Git: [Bitbucket](https://bitbucket.org/) and Github

    * I learnt that Bitbucket offers private repository for free while Github does not. So I've been using Bitbucket as a private repo until I'm ready to publish my project on Github.
    * I also started learning how to use Git Bash (on windows). [Bitbucket support page](https://confluence.atlassian.com/get-started-with-bitbucket/get-started-with-bitbucket-cloud-856845168.html) has some good documents to get you started.


  * R Markdown: making new CV with pagedown

    * https://pagedown.rbind.io/
    * I'm still trying to figure out the best way to host my new html CV.

The weather is warming up now in Canberra, it is lovely as always though.

HDTH