CTAN search engine definition for Firefox

If you're looking for search engine definitions for CTAN that are compatible with Firefox's search toolbar, then visit:

• CTAN search engine definitions for Firefox

While on that page, click on the down arrow in the icon in your your Firefox search toolbar. You should see several "Add" options at the bottom. That lets you add several different types of CTAN search to your toolbar. You can then "Manage Search Engines" and add a keyword to some of them. I use the keyword "ctan" to search package ID's and the keyword "ctanp" to search over package ID's and descriptions. The keyword lets me search directly from the awesome bar without having to use the search bar. [ These definitions were inspired by firefox_ctan_plugins by Martin Engler, but those don't work with CTAN anymore. ]

Bookmarklets for Arizona State University (ASU) library proxy

This message goes out to ASU faculty, staff, and students. Doesn't it make you mad when you're off campus and you want to read a paper and the research database that holds the paper doesn't let you view it because you're not a subscriber? I hate that.

Luckily, the ASU library system provides an off-campus scholarly portal from my.asu.edu (under the "Library" option on the left) that can be used to make your off-campus connection look like an on-campus one so research databases will grant you ASU-caliber access. Unfortunately, if you've clicked on a link to a paper, you have to re-do your search within their portal to get your off-campus access, and that's really inconvenient. So I've come up with a shortcut (similar to my OSU LOCSI shortcut).

Drag the bookmarklet below to your "bookmarks toolbar" (that strip of bookmarks that rides just below the "location bar" in your browser).

• ASU LOCSI ("LOCSI" = "Library Off-Campus Sign-In")

When you're on a page you'd like special access to (e.g., the official site of an academic paper of interest to you), click on the bookmarklet and you'll be transported to that site via ASU's off-campus sign in. You may have to use your ASU username and password to login the first time you click on the bookmarklet, but after that you should be granted ASU-level access quickly.

(feel free to rename that bookmarklet as you wish; the name "ASU LOCSI" isn't important to its function)

I hope that helps.

Microsoft's version of Google Scholar?

I accidentally ran into this today. Microsoft has their own version of Google Scholar:

• Microsoft Academic Search (aka Journalogy(.com)?):
  • http://academic.research.microsoft.com/
  • http://journalogy.com/

Among other things, it will even generate aggregate statistics on a particular author you're interested in (number of publications, number of citations, etc.). In fact, it can even generate similar aggregates for journals and conferences (which augments the metrics you can already get from ISI databases).

Unfortunately, some of the candy tools (co-author graph and path – tools that have little functionality but lots of coolness) require Silverlight. I tried running them with Moonlight, which crashed Firefox but seemed to work in Chrome. I say "seemed" because the Silverlight/Moonlight applet loaded fine but was populated with no information. Moreover, doing searches within the applet also returned no information. However, I haven't tried it on a Windows (nor Wine) machine for comparison, and so maybe co-author graphs/paths just aren't ready for production yet. I realized yesterday that it might be wrong to interpret MAS as a product for research so much as a product still being developed within Microsoft Research.

LIBRARY ACCESS UPDATE: As of March 11, 2011, it is very possible that your university's library proxy is not yet configured to allow access through Microsoft Academic Search. If you try to access the search engine through your library proxy and it fails at the MAS address, try it again at the Journalogy address. Strangely, these two names resolve to the same address, but neither is a CNAME. Moreover, neither uses a HTTP redirect to the other. Regardless, many library proxies search their database of allowable hosts by name, and so trying either name may help. If neither name works, contact your library and have them add MAS.

Bookmarklets for OSU Library proxy

FYI, as of an e-mail sent to me on the morning of January 27, the OSU library system is happy with these bookmarklets and may plan to offer their own version of them in the near future. Thanks, again, for your support.

This message goes out to OSU faculty, staff, and students. Doesn't it make you mad when you're off campus and you want to read a paper and the research database that holds the paper doesn't let you view it because you're not a subscriber? I hate that.

Luckily, the OSU library system provides an "off-campus sign in" that can be used to make your off-campus connection look like an on-campus one so research databases will grant you OSU caliber access. Unfortunately, sometimes it's hard to figure out how to get from the off-campus sign-in to the paper you want. So I've come up with a shortcut, and I implemented it two ways.

Drag either one of the two following bookmarklets to your "bookmarks toolbar" (that strip of bookmarks that rides just below the "location bar" in your browser).

• OSU LOCSI ("LOCSI" = "Library Off-Campus Sign-In")
• OSU LOCSI

When you're on a page you'd like special access to (e.g., the official site of an academic paper of interest to you), click on the bookmarklet and you'll be transported to that site via OSU's "off-campus sign in." You may have to use your OSU username and password to login the first time you click on the bookmarklet, but after that you should be granted OSU-level access quickly.

(feel free to rename those bookmarklets as you wish; the name "OSU LOCSI" isn't important to their function)

I hope that helps.

Safari Books On-line: Searchable TLC2

Check out Safari Books Online:

• http://proquest.safaribooksonline.com/

It's pretty pricey to pay for a login, but requests that come from many universities (or libraries?) get a free login automatically. For example, from outside OSU, I can use my OSU login at:

• http://proquest.safaribooksonline.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/

That is, I added ".proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu" to the end of the server name, which forces the request through the OSU library's proxy server.

There are lots of useful digital copies of reference books on-line. I think all of the O'Reilly books are available. More importantly (to me), you can find a digital (and searchable) copy of The LaTeX Companion (Second edition) by Mittelbach and Goossens. You can even copy and paste code samples directly out of the book!

Desktop Manager for OS X

This is not anything new, but there is a very nice freeware (open source) Desktop Manager for OS X. That is, this implements virtual desktops (i.e., multiple desktops that you can switch between; this lets you spread your apps across different screens).

It has a lot of cool features.

Hot Key References

NOTE: The two updates below may serve as good LaTeX examples featuring the use of multicol.

UPDATE 2: I have used the Thunderbird list to make a Thunderbird quick reference PDF (LaTeX source available).

UPDATE 1: I have used the Camino list to make a Camino quick reference PDF (LaTeX source available).

I have been posting about quick references a lot lately [e.g., 1, 2]. I found another good quick reference site, allhotkeys.com. It has lots of software hotkey quick references. For example,

• Mozilla Firefox hotkeys
• Mozilla Firefox extensions hotkeys
• Mozilla Thunderbird hotkeys
• Camino hotkeys
• Safari hotkeys
• Microsoft Word hotkeys
• Microsoft Excel hotkeys
• Microsoft PowerPoint hotkeys
• Remote Desktop hotkeys
• Mac OS X Keyboard shortcuts
• iTunes hotkeys
• GMail hotkeys
• UNIX and Linux hotkeys
• Command line keyboard shortcuts
• ...and lots more...

So that's potentially helpful. But right now the pages are really slow to come up, so I have no idea what they look like. Nor do I know if I can easily get them onto a landscape sheet of paper that I can tape to the wall somewhere...

Traditional way to change cleveref defaults

UPDATE: cleveref also includes a set of defaults for the ntheorem package when the ntheorem option is given. I've just put those defaults into cleveref_nthoerem_defaults.tex. Include it with \input{cleveref_ntheorem_defaults.tex} after (or instead of) including the other file.

Because it will probably be a long time until a simpler way of changing cleveref defaults gets implemented, I needed a way to change these defaults without adding tens of lines to my LaTeX source. I came up with cleveref_defaults.tex, which basically contains all of the default lines from the cleveref documentation, plus a set of table defaults. You can include it with:

\input{cleveref_defaults.tex}

Then, go ahead and modify cleveref_defaults.tex to match your conventions (e.g., change the four "eq." to "Eq." and the four "eqs." to "Eqs.").

Protype for simplifying changing cleveref defaults

UPDATE: I have created crefntheoremdefaults.tex, which does this same stuff to the ntheorem package. You have to be sure to include the crefdefaults.tex file first. The files crefntheoremdefault_constants.tex and crefntheoremdefault_formats.tex play a similar role as the analogous ones below.

I think the package cleveref is great. In fact, I think it has much of what has been missing from LaTeX for a long time. See its documentation for more information about the package.

My only gripe about cleveref is that it is tedious to change something like all of the default "eq." and "eqs." to "Eq." and "Eqs.", respectively. So I put together these scripts as a kind of proof of concept (they also setup cleveref to handle table references, something that is not done by default at the moment):

• crefdefaults.tex
• crefdefault_constants.tex
• crefdefault_formats.tex

The first script, crefdefaults.tex, is simply crefdefault_constants.tex concatenated with crefdefault_formats.tex. Therefore,

\input{crefdefaults.tex}

is equivalent to

\input{crefdefault_constants.tex}
\input{crefdefault_formats.tex}

However, if the poorman option is used and the corresponding sed script is applied, the resulting file will need to have the content of crefdefault_formats.tex removed; crefdefault_constants.tex should not be removed. In other words, if you are planning on using poorman, use the 2-line include and comment the crefdefault_formats.tex line out of the script that results from the sed script.

What's the outcome of this? I can now do

\renewcommand{\crefenumilabelformat}[3]{\textup{(#2#1#3)}}

in order to change every item reference so that it is surrounded by upright round braces. Additionally, changing "eq." to "Eq." and "eqs." to "Eqs." is as simple as it was in hyperref (for use with \autoref); that is, it is these two lines:

\renewcommand{\crefequationname}{Eq.}
\renewcommand{\crefpluralequationname}{Eqs.}

Unfortunately, the output of the poorman sed filter is a little messy. However, if these are someday integrated into cleveref, that could be fixed. There are other shortcuts built into crefdefaults.tex as well. It probably requires documentation, but it's just a prototype for now.

Good idea? Bad?

OptOutPrescreen.com - stop getting credit card offers!

This was suggested on NPR's Day to Day today to opt out of getting credit card and insurance offers in an effort to save money while also saving paper.

Go to OptOutPrescreen.com to do this. They'll submit your request to the credit bureaus, and eventually that'll stop creditors and insurers from sending you CRAP.

Script to open file in TeXniscope from command line

UPDATE 2: A much fancier version of this script is now available. It has options that make it easier to make TeXniscope update its file and position (via PDFSync or DVI source specials) in the background. The options are described briefly with the -h parameter.

UPDATE 1: A more mature version of this script is now available. It has a usage line. It checks for the existence of files. It tries to guess at a file name if the file does not exist. It's a little more convenient for the command-line user.

Here's a script to open a (PDF or PostScript) file in TeXniscope from the command line:

#!/bin/sh

[ "`echo $*|cut -c 1`" == "/" ] || filename_prefix="`pwd`"

exec osascript \
-e "tell application \"TeXniscope\"" \
-e "activate" \
-e "open file ((POSIX file \"$filename_prefix/$*\") as string)" \
-e "refresh of the front document" \
-e "end tell";

or, alternatively,

#!/bin/bash

arguments="$*"
[ "${arguments:0:1}" == "/" ] || filename_prefix="$PWD"

exec osascript \
-e "tell application \"TeXniscope\"" \
-e "activate" \
-e "open file ((POSIX file \"$filename_prefix/$*\") as string)" \
-e "refresh of the front document" \
-e "end tell";

Create an executable script called texniscope (e.g., /usr/local/bin/texniscope that is chmod'd 755) and try texniscope FILENAME where FILENAME is the name of the PDF or PostScript file that you want to open (be sure to include the file extension).

This allows you to use TeXniscope as a LaTeX document viewer in the VIM-LaTeX suite for Vim.

See also: Script to open file in Skim from command line

I use this for Vim/GVim; however, this script was inspired by code in an example in the TeXniscope help file for making TeXniscope work with iTeXMac. See the TeXniscope documentation for information on how to build a script that will let iTeXMac call TeXniscope from the command-line (and even make use of PDFSync [CTAN, iTM]).

Script to open file in Skim from command line

UPDATE 4: I have updated the script to accept command line options. A -h option gives help text describing the new usage. The options can prevent Skim from being activated or opening the file. This may be useful when trying to get Skim to update in the background.

UPDATE 3: I have updated the script to check for whether or not files exist, try to guess the right files if they don't, and bail if it fails. It also has support for PS and DVI files. Also fixed a problem with symlinked files.

UPDATE 2: I have generated a more mature version of this script that also has the ability to position Skim's PDF view at a position corresponding to a line of your TeX source (provided you built the PDF with pdfsync).

UPDATE 1: As discussed in this feature request and this Wiki entry, in iTeXMac, you can also try

Skim.app/Contents/SharedSupport/displayline %line "%pdffile" "%texfile"

which lets you make use of Skim's PDFSync support. The Wiki page includes instructions on using this in Emacs and TextMate as well. If you just want to open the file, you might try

Skim.app/Contents/SharedSupport/displayline 1 "%pdffile"

but this might break if the TEX file isn't available (so maybe you should still use the AppleScript below).

Here's a script to open a (PDF or PostScript) file in Skim from the command line:

#!/bin/sh

[ "`echo $*|cut -c 1`" == "/" ] || filename_prefix="`pwd`"

exec osascript \
-e "tell application \"Skim\"" \
-e "activate" \
-e "open ((POSIX file \"$filename_prefix/$*\") as string)" \
-e "revert front document" \
-e "end tell";

or, alternatively,

#!/bin/bash

arguments="$*"
[ "${arguments:0:1}" == "/" ] || filename_prefix="$PWD"

exec osascript \
-e "tell application \"Skim\"" \
-e "activate" \
-e "open ((POSIX file \"$filename_prefix/$*\") as string)" \
-e "revert front document" \
-e "end tell";

Create an executable script called skim (e.g., /usr/local/bin/skim that is chmod'd 755) and try skim FILENAME where FILENAME is the name of the PDF or PostScript file that you want to open (be sure to include the file extension).

This allows you to use Skim as a LaTeX document viewer in the VIM-LaTeX suite for Vim.

NOTE ABOUT revert: The line with revert in it requires Skim version 0.5 or higher. If you don't have that version of Skim (or you don't care about refreshing the document), then delete that line.

See also: Script to open file in TeXniscope from command line

I use this for Vim/GVim; however, this script was inspired by code in an example in the TeXniscope help file for making TeXniscope work with iTeXMac. See the TeXniscope documentation for information on how to build a script that will let iTeXMac call TeXniscope from the command-line (and even make use of PDFSync [CTAN, iTM]). It should be easy to modify the script they give there to call Skim instead of TeXniscope; use my script here as an example. Note that Skim's AppleScript also supports all of the goto line stuff of TeXniscope. However, the syntax is different; see the Skim AppleScript dictionary for more information.

New Swiss Army Knife

It (a collector's item) weighs almost 3 pounds and costs almost $1000 (the MSRP is $1200).

• swissinfo: "Giant Swiss Army knife sharpens Wenger brand"
• Official Wenger press release: "WENGER UNVEILS 100 YEARS OF INNOVATION IN ONE KNIFE: All Implements Produced by Wenger Showcased in World's Largest Swiss Army Knife"