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Last week one of my friend asked me, “If Linux is really that good, why people keep using Windows?” It’s really a good question and I think a lot of people out there have the same question. In this post I don’t want to list how Linux is better in a lot of areas compared to Windows because it will be such a long post. Just take a glimpse at http://www.whyLinuxisbetter.net/, this site summarized some reasons for you to try Linux. Instead, we will discuss why changing behaviour (and keeping them) is difficult for lots of people. We will discuss this with NLP (Neuro-linguistic Programming) approach and with more specific example on the difficulty to move from Windows to Linux.

This post is not an attempt of attacking Windows. Because I think Windows (still) has certain point over Linux. And I am also still using Windows for some working-related issue. So my point is I am not against Windows!

First I would like to take you to NLP environment. What is NLP exactly? You can find the global description about NLP here . One of underlying principle of NLP is the map is not the territory and people react based on the map - not the reality.

This epistemology by Alfred Korzybski prostulate that there is no such thing as objective experience. People do not really react or behave according to the reality, but in fact they react based on beliefs they have built over time about reality. Just one example: 1 hour felt like just 15 minutes when you enjoy something. But with the same time it might felt like 2 or 3 hours or even forever when you are in a boring class with a boring topics and boring professor . See my point? The time is the territory, it’s the same for everyone but how each people react to it is varies. Each people react by the map on their prior belief. So how can we take this to further application?

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QTAFI (Questions, Tables and Figures) adalah suatu aplikasi yang dikembangkan untuk mempermudah pelaksanaan survey. Dengan QTAFI kita bisa dengan mudah membuat kuisioner, membuat lembar data di SPSS dan mempermudah proses analisis data dengan SPSS. Aplikasi ini sangat cocok bagi mahasiswa yang akan membuat kuisioner ataupun fakultas atau universitas yang akan mengadakan survey penelusuran alumni (graduate survey atau tracer study).

QTAFI adalah aplikasi yang berbasis makro. Bentuk aplikasi ini berupa file dokumen berekstensi doc (seperti dokumen yang biasa kita buat lewat MS Word), hanya saja terkandung makro QTAFI di dalamnya. Untuk menjalankan aplikasi ini tentu saja MS Word harus sudah terpasang di komputer kita.

Saya mulai menggunakan aplikasi ini sejak tahun 2003, pada waktu itu aplikasi ini membantu pelaksanaan survey penelusuran alumni di UGM. Sejak saat itu saya terlibat dalam pengembangan QTAFI dan online.QTAFI (QTAFI berbasis web) walaupun hanya sebagai tester setia . Sampai saat ini pengembangan aplikasi ini terus berlanjut, terutama untuk versi online yang sudah sampai pada versi 2. Saat ini puluhan online survey secara bersamaan berjalan di server online.QTAFI2.

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Hi there! Some of my friends said that my blog is… well… how should I say this.. Not expressive, not personal enough, too heavy. They said that I should put more pictures, tell something more about my self, a little bit show off or something .
I don’t know why, I just can not write like any other blog out there. I can not open my self too big in this blog, it’s just too scary for me ha3.. I guess it’s just not me. However, today I want to share one good news with you all.

It started with a comment in this post from Carmen. She informed me about ICP (International Congress of Psychology). Then I just search for my old paper and without any consideration (about the quality of my paper ) I sent them away. I already forgot it when suddenly last week there was this email from ICP that said it is accepted as a poster for the congress. Yay!!!
A little bit sad though.. not accepted as oral presentation, but I think it’s good enough for now . And after I think about it, with poster there will be more people have access to my paper compared to oral presentation.

Thank you to ICP committee for embracing this paper. Thank you for my parent, Mom I love you so much! Thank you for my producer, my song writer and most of all, thank you to the people all around the world who have been touched by my song… Wait… wait… WAKE UP! This is not Grammy Award!!!

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This article is basically ripped off from Field’s Discovering Statistics Using SPSS for Windows with some minor subjective interpretation from me. So if you have access to the book just read it instead of this article. It is really a good book for you who want to learn SPSS and statistics. Highly recommended book !

Factor analysis was first used in 1904 by Charles Spearman, a Psychologist
from United Kingdom. Spearman used factor analysis in his models of human
intelligence. With factor analysis he developed theory that variety of cognitive test
could all be explained by one single factor which called g factor. Later on Raymond
Cattell, psychologist from US, used factor analysis in most of his research on
intelligence which lead to the development of his theory on Fluid and Crystallized
Intelligence. 16 Personality Factor (16PF) test is also one of Raymond Cattell’s
research results based on factor analysis.

Factor analysis is quiet different to other statistical analysis method. Many
statistical analysis methods are used to investigate the relation between
independent and dependent variables. In contrast, factor analysis is used to study
the patterns of relationship among many dependent variables, with the goal of
discovering something about the nature of independent variables that affect them.
The tricky part is that those independent variables were not measure directly. Thus
answers obtained by factor analysis are necessarily more hypothetical and tentative
than is true when independent variables are observed directly (Darlington, 1997).

Factor analysis in psychology is most often associated with intelligence
research. Nevertheless, the use of factor analysis can be observed in other domain
of psychology such as personality, attitudes, etc. The trait theorists in psychology
have been used factor analysis to measure personality traits. The Extraversion-
Introversion and the Neuroticism traits by Eysenck and 16 Personality Factor
questionnaires (16 PF) by Cattell are some of the examples of implementation of
Factor Analysis (Field, 2000). Furthermore, factor analysis is used widely in other
social sciences, education, business fields, biological science, etc.

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