My knack for checking for software releases on the release day shines again today. Several months ago I had heard a rumor about the Enthought Python Distribution (EPD) being developed for the Mac. Between writing my dissertation and packing up my family for our upcoming move, I hadn’t thought about it again… until today. And [...]
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I wrote earlier about using SVN and LaTeX for document management. While this has continued to work well for me, I did discover an issue with some document files generated by mac apps. It has become common to save documents as “bundles,” which from the filesystem perspective are directories but look like documents in Finder. [...]
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Posted in computing, mac tips & tricks, open source software, physics, try this at home, tagged google code, latex, subversion, svn, thesis on April 26, 2008 | 3 Comments »
For anyone curious about the process of managing a LaTeX document with the Subversion (SVN) version control system, I have to highly recommend it. Now that my dissertation is officially finished, I have a bit of time to explain the process I used to back-up, archive, and otherwise manage the beast.
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In a previous post, I listed DataGraph as one of my most-used mac apps. Its status as most-used just got a major boost with the addition of LaTeX functionality in the text label fields. To see this feature it action, you’ll have to download the latest beta from the DataGraph website. I’ve posted some screenshots [...]
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Posted in computing, mac tips & tricks, open source software, tagged animate, c++, codec, divx, mac, perian, png on December 4, 2007 | 3 Comments »
I have struggled with optimizing the process of animating PNG files. I have code that generates a PNG image based on an array of data, which, in my case is the intensity of an optical beam, but it can be anything. I have found various options ranging from quick-and-dirty to fairly robust. MEncoder plays a [...]
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Inspired by a recent post by Sujit Datta, I decided to start a series covering my favorite Mac applications. These are generally physics-type applications but should be useful to a wide range of people in any field of science.
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It’s been around for a bit, but I figured I should post about a little side project I’ve been working on. As a physicist, I spend a lot of time tracking down citations; and typically they are in a handful of journals. Rather than bookmarking the journal homepage or search box, I realized that reverse-engineering [...]
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I finally have a solution to the printing situation at work. I typically just hop on the wireless network since it is everywhere in the physics building. The only drawback is not being able to print directly to the department printers (wireless is a campus-wide network so it’s not local enough for the printer services).
Fortunately [...]
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Posted in mac tips & tricks on March 24, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Just some tips I discovered for using the Finder in Mac OS X. The folder icon in the top acts like the folder icon would before it was opened… i.e. dragging it to a new location will move (or copy) the folder to the new location. Even better: option-click on the title of the finder [...]
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There are certainly some programs that interrupt you before you do something stupid “Are you sure you want to quit?” but typically these dialogs simply slow down your workflow. I love it when I find one that is really keeps me from doing something stupid. Case in point: select 40 or so e-mail messages in [...]
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