applications

Terminal bake-off

by Jane Rigby June 10, 2011

Linux and OS X users:  what terminal do you use, and why? Choices include (but are not limited to) xterm, iterm2, & Terminal. I suspect that many of use the defaults because they’re the default. I’m one of them. Please tell me what I’m missing. Update—Kelle took the liberty of adding a poll:

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Custom Search Engine for ADS BibTeX

by saurav June 7, 2011

We have previously talked about how to use Quicksilver to do custom ADS searches on Macs, and the Alfred version is pretty slick as well. However, such custom searches can also be done from straight from the web browser, independent of the OS you are using. Benoit Thiell, a developer at ADS, has sent along [...]

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Got the time? [Ask AstroBetter]

by Jane Rigby June 2, 2011

A reader asks:  ”I am looking for a small Mac program that can be put in the top bar to show LST/UT and Local time. Is there something like that that you are aware of?” Readers, chime in!  (I would probably just open Jskycalc and hit the ”Set to Now” and “Auto Step” buttons.  But I’m sure there’s [...]

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LaTeX/BibTeX Tools Worth Knowing

by saurav May 23, 2011

A couple weeks ago, I was looking around the web for a script that would create a small bib file for just the references cited in a certain TeX manuscript. It took me a while to find the right one (aux2bib), which prompted me to write this post on LaTeX/BibTeX tools that are available but not [...]

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Search ADS, SIMBAD, and astro-ph with Quicksilver

by Kelle May 10, 2011

Since it turns out that Quicksilver will continue to be developed—and now that I’ve managed to get some breathing room from teaching, researching, and advising—I’ve been spending some time rekindling and honing my Quicksilver ninja skills. (If you need an intro, check out: Introducing Quicksilver.) In particular, I’ve got mine setup to perform searches of [...]

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iTerm2: The successor to the terminal on OSX

by Eli April 27, 2011

In the Linux environment we have the terminal program that comes packed with loads of features. For example, if you were in /home/name/to/directory and created a tab, that new tab would be in the same directory. Most Linux users would say “so what?” OSX’s terminal does not have that capability and can be quite tedious [...]

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Privacy Issues with the iPhone/iPad and DropBox

by saurav April 20, 2011

There have been two recent developments exposing how false our sense of privacy is in this technological world. As all of us use the iPhone/iPad and/or the DropBox fairly regularly, this merits some discussion. 1) iPhone/iPad: Alasdair Allan & Pete Warden found that their iPhone has been tracking their location and the associated timestamp ever since [...]

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What are the best iphone apps for astronomers?

by Jane Rigby April 4, 2011

I got my first iphone yesterday and am playing catch-up.  Please laugh at me.  In the meantime, let’s compile a list of the best smartphone applications for astronomers, shall we? The AstroBetter Wiki has a stubby page on iphone apps for astronomers. What’s missing? Obviously astro-ph tools and APOD are missing — what else? Also, [...]

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What Vector Drawing Packages Are Available? [Ask AstroBetter]

by saurav March 28, 2011

Matthew K. sent in a question for our Ask AstroBetter series: What vector graphics drawing package do you use for your figures? I’ve been using xfig for all my “hand drawn” plots, but I wonder if anyone has successfully moved on to more recent drawing packages … [a package] to draw simple figures like optical [...]

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What’s the best tool to annotate PDFs?

by Jane Rigby March 23, 2011

We all know the workflow:  a collaborator sends a draft proposal or paper; we carefully read it; bleed all over it; and send it back.  I admit that until last year, I used a Big Red Pen on hardcopy, which I then returned to the lead author by scanning with the xerox machine. Recently I [...]

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