applications

Customizing your xTerm and Terminal: I. Color

by Saurav August 25, 2010

As our eyes spend most of our days looking at the xTerminal (xTerm, xgTerm, uxTerm, or Terminal.app) any relief is always welcome. Unfortunately, the default for the xTerminal (or most applications) is black text on white background which means you are staring at white, i.e., light, most of the time. In addition, your eyes have [...]

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Safari 5 Extensions

by Marcos August 23, 2010

Three years ago, I asked why do Mac users use Firefox?  The answer was very clear – extensions. And having used Firefox for a while now having been forced to use Windows at work, I do see the merit of this sort of flexibility.  (Well, mainly to block Flash). With the release of Safari 5.01 [...]

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Veusz: A Python-Based Interactive Plotting Package

by Guest July 26, 2010

This is a guest post by Jeremy Sanders about the plotting package he’s developed. Jeremy is a postdoc working in the X-Ray Group at the Institute of Astronomy in the University of Cambridge in the UK. Veusz (pronounced “views”) is a python-based GUI plotting package that I (Jeremy Sanders) have developed. As an astronomer, I [...]

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Install LaTeX, AASTeX, and MN2E on Mac OS X

by Kelle July 6, 2010

LaTeX, pronounced “la tech”, is a typesetting program that we use to write our papers (instead of Word or somesuch nonsense). Over the long US holiday weekend I got LaTeX and all of its bits installed on my new 13″ MacBook Pro (named Gloria). In this post, I’ll walk you through the installation and setup [...]

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Code and text editors on MacOS X

by Tom June 21, 2010

One of the things we spend the most time doing as astronomers is writing text and/or code, whether to develop a pipeline to reduce/plot data, write papers/proposals, or write simulation codes. Choosing a good text editor is just as important as having a good chair to sit on, and can have a big impact on [...]

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MacPorts 101

by Saurav June 16, 2010

While the Mac OS X provides us easy access to the much-beloved terminal, by itself, it is very limited. Apple does not support or maintain its Terminal or X11/XQuartz applications; it is rather supported by an independent group of developers (see XQuartz wiki). However, as the Mac OS X is built on X11, there is [...]

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Observation planning with JSkyCalc

by Jane Rigby May 25, 2010

JSkyCalc is an easy-to-install ephemeris tool that helps you plan your observing runs, then carry them out as efficiently as possible.  It’s a graphical revival of the venerable Skycalc by John Thorstensen of Dartmouth. Airmass-plotting tools exist for ESO and Keck.  The advantage of JSkyCalc is that it calculates everything you’ll need for observing, and it knows [...]

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Keep iCal and Address Book in Sync Across Multiple Computers: MobileMe vs. Fruux.

by Kelle April 14, 2010

(To those who noticed, apologies for the premature publishing of this post earlier this week.) This is Part 2 of two-part series on keeping multiple computers in sync. Part 1 was about using Dropbox to sync files and applications. For about three months, I used Fruux to keep my iCal and Address Book in sync [...]

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Mendeley: The future to managing science papers?

by Eli March 22, 2010

This is another guest post by Sarah Kendrew (blog, Twitter) a postdoc in infrared astronomy at Leiden Observatory working on instrumentation for the European Extremely Large Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope. She’s also contributed an article about Evernote. Staying on top of the literature, even in a narrow field, is one of the [...]

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Evernote: Organize notes, emails, photos, and more all in one place.

by Guest January 25, 2010

This is a guest post by Sarah Kendrew (blog, Twitter) a postdoc in infrared astronomy at Leiden Observatory working on instrumentation for the European Extremely Large Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope. The tag line of note-taking application Evernote reads “Remember Everything”. The great thing is, with Evernote, you don’t need to remember. If [...]

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