Flowing Fix: How to easily determine the LaTeX code for a symbol

Every have trouble remember the code to a LaTeX symbol?

Typically when you want to find an infrequently used symbol in LaTeX you often have to refer to the comprehensive symbols list: http://ctan.math.utah.edu/ctan/tex-archive/info/symbols/comprehensive/symbols-letter.pdf. However, this can be time consuming and difficult to find the symbol you need.

Detexify can help find the code to LaTeX symbols simply by drawing what they look like.  Try it out for yourself, and you will shortly have a new bookmark for Detexify in your browser.

Detexify - LaTeX symbol classifier website
http://detexify.kirelabs.org/classify.html

There is also versions for mobile devices
iOS: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/detexify/id328805329?mt=8
Android: https://market.android.com/details?id=coolcherrytrees.software.detexify&hl=en

Flowing Fix (via Google help forms): Resetting a form in Google docs

via 

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Docs/thread?tid=2f493804c067249c&hl=en

Popular answer by ahab

luxtitan,

I theory there is a way to reset the number of submits used by the summary back to 0, but you should first test it on a copy
of your spreadsheet!

Very Important! Make sure when doing so the sheet the submits should go to is the leftmost of your sheets!

So use the following steps:

0) Move the sheet that should receive the form submits to the far left of your sheets, select this sheet and go to the Form tab.

Important: Should you omit this step the form may become reconnected to the wrong sheet!

1) Open the form editor, this will show the current form. Leave the form editor open!
2) Go back to the spreadheet and delete the form (Form->Delete form), wait a little bit and check in the spreadsheet the form menu item now reads plain Form , i.e without any counter after Form.
3) Go back to the form editor which you left open, edit one of the questions, but make no changes to it, just click Done.
4) Still in the Form editor, click on Save; in the spreadsheet on the Form menu check it says now Form (0).

5) Close the Form editor

This is an unofficial workaround and you should use it at your own risk and always try and test the method on a copy of your spreadsheet; I tried this and got it working in IE6 Win XP, but other browsers / versions / operation systems may give a different result.

Note: the above method may also be used the make the form reassociate to the sheet; as a result the questions and the headers in the submits receiving sheet will have the same order and they way the submits go to the columns will be re-eastablised; questions submitted by the form should now go to the appropriate columns as indicated by the headers.

IMHO the Google Docs spreadsheets team should make this an option in the Form menu; if possible without the need to make the submits receiving sheet the leftmost one in the spreadsheet while doing the reset.

Flowing Fix (via http://www.tuaw.com): How to find the Library folder in OS X Lion?

The flowing is from http://www.tuaw.com

Mac 101: Easily show the user Library folder in Lion:



More Mac 101, tips and tricks for novice Mac users.


Those of you who've explored your Finder a little bit in OS X 10.6 or prior might have noticed a folder in your user folder called "Library." The Library folder houses all sorts of files needed to keep your user account running smoothly. Many of these files are created automatically by apps on your Mac -- like preferences and settings on how you want a certain app to look or run. Other files inside the Library folder include screen savers and widgets and, well, a ton of things you'll never need to worry about but are pretty much essential to having a healthy Mac.


In OS X 10.7 Lion Apple decided to hide the user's Library folder (although not the root Library folder on the top level of the hard drive). The primary reason Apple did this is so users couldn't easily go into the folder and delete important files needed by apps or OS X itself. This became all the more important after Apple introduced the Mac App Store. Files inside the Library folder allow you to delete an app, then re-download it at a later date while retaining all the settings it had the last time it was on your Mac.


If you want to see the contents of the Library folder, there are actually several ways to do it; for simplicity's sake, we're going to show you the easiest, non-techie way, courtesy of the folks at CreativeBits:

1. 
   In the Finder, select the Go menu from the menu bar at the top of your screen. You'll notice a list of folders across your system such as Desktop, Downloads, Home, etc.


2. 
   While the Go menu is displayed, hold down the option key on your keyboard. Like magic, the Library folder will appear between the Home and Computer folders. Click on it to open a Finder window displaying all of the files inside your Library folder.

Again, if you're not too familiar with the contents of the Library folder it's best to leave what's in there alone. However, it doesn't hurt to explore the folder and see how some essential files are arranged and stored on your system.

Mac 101: Easily show the user Library folder in Lion originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 25 Aug 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Happy New Year 2012 (and public domain photos)

New years in village by Jon Sullivan

The photo above is from http://www.public-domain-image.com/ which you might find helpful when looking for free images. Photos on the site are public domain images, royalty free stock photos, copyright friendly free images, not copyrighted, and no rights reserved. All pictures on this site are explicitly placed in the public domain, free for any personal or commercial use.

Happy Holidays 2011 (and public domain photos)

Happy Holidays

Christmas time Christmas celebration by Marius Iordache

The photo above is from http://www.public-domain-image.com/ which you might find helpful when looking for free images. Photos on the site are public domain images, royalty free stock photos, copyright friendly free images, not copyrighted, and no rights reserved. All pictures on this site are explicitly placed in the public domain, free for any personal or commercial use.

Flowing Fix: Force a visitor's browser to always load a fresh version of your website

"HELP!  I just updated my website and when I visit the site I don't see the changes."  This is a common problem that occurs when updating a website in which can be easily be resolved by clearing your browser cache; however,  your site's visitors have no way of knowing this and they might not be able to see the updated site.  A quick solution is to include the following right before the close of the header section of the HTML code:

<META HTTP-EQUIV="CACHE-CONTROL" CONTENT="NO-CACHE">

<META HTTP-EQUIV="PRAGMA" CONTENT="NO-CACHE">

<META HTTP-EQUIV="EXPIRES" CONTENT="0">

If you are using Apple's iWeb, you cannot directly edit the header code in iWeb; however after you publish it you can edit the html files to include the above META code in the header section.  This can be tedious, but luckily there is a FREE program iWeb SEO tool (http://www.ragesw.com/products/iweb-seo-tool.html)  which helps easily add this meta code and other tweaks as well as help publish the updated website.


(for other  HTML tags see http://www.i18nguy.com/markup/metatags.html )

Keyboard Shortcuts

Today is your lucky day... you get two posts today for the price of one.

Using the keyboard can be much faster than moving the mouse to click on buttons or menus.  Here are some that I use on a routine basis:

MS Windows
Windows + R: Run action from the Start Menu (you can type a lot of commands [e.g. excel, winword, calc] in there to start programs)

Google Stuff
Ctrl+Alt+1 ==> Heading 1
Ctrl+Alt+2 ==> Heading 2
Ctrl+Alt+N ==> Heading N

MS Office
Ctrl+Alt+1 ==> Heading 1
Ctrl+Alt+2 ==> Heading 2
Ctrl+Alt+N ==> Heading N
Alt+I+N+C ==> Insert Caption
Alt+I+B ==> Insert Page Break

Flowing Fix: Don't let your USB drive be a carrier

Panda USB Vaccine (MS Windows only) will stop virus from using the autorun.inf file on a USB from installing a virus from an inflected computer to your USB. It disables the autorun.inf file so the a potential virus cannot use it.   For more information see http://research.pandasecurity.com/panda-usb-and-autorun-vaccine/

Download location:
http://download.cnet.com/Panda-USB-Vaccine/3000-2239_4-10909938.html?part=dl-55967&subj=dl&tag=button

Bulk Renamer

Bulk Renamer (MS Windows Only):
http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Main_Intro.php

This is another file renamer.  I like this one a lot because it does things that other renamers don't.  At least that's what I remember when I was searching for renamers.

Flowing Fix (via NY times): Tips for Buying Tech

So you are thinking of buying a new item of technology (e.g., computer, camera, tv) and with so many options to tweak it might seem confusing as to which are a higher priority than others.  The N.Y. Times article has some good tech buying tips which will help ease the confusion.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/12/technology/personaltech/12basics.html?_r=3&ref=technology

Flowing Fix (via numberstemplates.com): Export Address Book Data With Apple iWork Numbers ’08

Tip: Export Address Book Data With Apple iWork Numbers ‘08 [Mac OS X only]

http://www.numberstemplates.com/2007/08/25/tip-export-address-book-data-with-apple-iwork-numbers-08/

by MICHAEL on AUGUST 25, 2007

Here is a great tip I found on the Apple discussion boards courtesy of Neil Barman. 
You can use Numbers to export your address book entries to a comma separated values (csv) file.
Here’s how you do it:

Open Address book, then select the entries you wish to export. Drag them into numbers, on a blank area of the canvas, and a table will automatically be created. By default, the following fields are displayed: Last Name, First Name, Phone and Email. The other address book fields are present, but hidden. To have all fields display, choose the Unhide All Columns from the Table menu.

You can then select Export from the File menu, and choose a csv format that will be suitable for import into another application.

Then you can export this to a CSV file which Excel can read. Next create new sheet and create the headers (or as needed)

Title

Last name

First name

How name should print (map to Middle Name)

Home street

home city

home state

home zip

Then, MS Word >>; Tools >>; Mail Merge Manager

Then follow the steps and use the EXCEL file as the data source

Microsoft ICE

Microsoft Image Composition Editor: (MS Windows Only)
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/ivm/ice/

I nice tool to create composite images.

Inkscape

Inkscape (Mac OS X, MS Windows, Linux): http://inkscape.org/
Free, ease to use, and powerful vector graphics editor.  Great for simple and complex figures.  Allows for exporting to various formats including .eps, .pdf, and .png which are perfect for LaTeX documents.

FormatFactory

FormatFactory (MS Windows only) http://www.formatoz.com/index.html :
Media converter which allows conversion between a variety of different media formats.

Video Monkey

Video Monkey (Mac only) http://videomonkey.org :
Free video encoding software designed for the Mac OS X operating system

NameChanger

NameChanger (Mac OS X):  http://www.mrrsoftware.com/MRRSoftware/NameChanger.html
Free software designed to help batch renaming of file and folders quickly and with ease.  Among various renaming options, the software supports regular expressions, mismatched files types, and formatting changes.

Lupas Rename 2000

Lupas Rename 2000 (MS Windows): http://rename.lupasfreeware.org/lupasrename.php
Simple and powerful program to help rename file and folders.  In addition to being free, the software is just a simple ".exe" that does not require installation, so it is small and extremely portable.  Perhaps one of the programs that should be handy on a USB drive.

Flowing Fix: How do I get those data points off an image?

Every so often you need to read points (or entire curves) off a figure.  To expedite this process here are two freely available programs to digitize the points from an image.

Engauge (MS Windows, Linux [Mac OS X requires building])  http://digitizer.sourceforge.net/

Plot Digitizer (MS Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X ) http://plotdigitizer.sourceforge.net/

XLXTRFUN: MS EXCEL functions

ADD-IN for MS EXCEL  http://www.xlxtrfun.com/XlXtrFun/XlXtrFun.htm
following summary via xlxtrfun website:
"XlXtrFun.xll is a collection of functions which extends the capabilities of Microsoft Excel; developed primarily to facilitate, interpolation of 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional data, and simplify 2-variable curve fitting. XlXtrFun has been used for years by engineering and research and development personnel on every continent who need to interpolate, extrapolate, and curve fit data rapidly, reliably, and with a virtually non-existent learning curve.
If you work with real-life data and want to interpolate, extrapolate, or curve fit, then you will find these functions very useful."

PSPad

PSPad (Windows only) http://www.pspad.com/ :  
Text editor and source editor which is more powerful and useful than notepad and wordpad that are standard with Windows.  PsPad allows for row and column selection of text, macro creation, file comparisons, tabs for multiple documents, language syntax highlighting, regular expression find/replace capabilities,  among other advanced features.  You can either download portable version or install full version to integrate with Windows shell.

SyncToy

SyncToy (MS Windows only) http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=15155 :
Easy to use program to backup files

Help on Peer review of an academic article

Link to a pdf which provides details about how to provide a good review of a journal article.
http://eloquentscience.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/PeerReviewArticle_EOS.pdf

Flowing Fix: I just moved to Exchange and now I cannot forward mail to another address like the older CITES service

Yes, it is true that Exchange 2010 does not support email forwarding option like the older CITES email; however, you can implement a work around using two email rules within Exchange that work just as well.

1) Log into your Exchange email account using the web portal.

2) Near the upper right of the Outlook:WebApp (just under your displayed name) click the "options" button which opens a drop down and select "Create an Inbox Rule"

3) Click "New" to add a new rule

4) Then, select the following for the drop downs (note after setting the second drop down, the a new form might appear which is fine, if not then you should select the "select people" button to open the new form):

5) Then, in the new "address book" window that opened, enter the "to" in the "Message Recipient:" field at the bottom of the form and click "OK" to commit. !! Be sure to enter your correct email address that you want all new incoming messages to be forwarded to !!

6) Back in the "New Inbox Rule" window, click the "More options" link and then make sure the stop rules after this option is "unchecked" as seen in the image below. Click the "Save" button when done.

7) You can now test the redirect by emailing yourself from another email account and the message should be redirected to that new email account.  However, you will note that a copy of the message still resides in the Exchange account.  In order to remove the message from the Exchange account [or have in marked as read, but not deleted] will require an second rule.

8) As in step 3, create a new rule, and [apply to all messages] as before but this time change the "do the following" selection to be "delete the message".  As before in step 6, you can uncheck the "stop processing more rules"  and optionally append the name of the rule with "delete" so you know what the rule is doing.  Then, click "SAVE"

9) Final important step, make sure to reorder the rules so that the DELETE rule is last (e.g, below the redirect rule) or the message will get deleted first and will NOT be able to be redirected. (See figure below for illustration)

 10) Enjoy your new redirected email settings

Thanks Roberto

Flowing Fix: iPhone on Campus?

For wireless internet access on Campus:
If you would like to connect to the wireless network on Campus, here is a link to the CITES website which has the directions
http://www.cites.illinois.edu/wireless/wpa2/iphone.html


Email Options 
Below are various options for email, for university mail Nils suggests using the University Exchange option (UIUC option 1 listed below) since the university is eventually going that way

For Google (here are two recommended options):
Google Option 1): If you want Google Gmail, Google Contacts and Google Calender (using Google's exchange server) on the iPhone here are instructions:
video to explain Google sync: http://www.google.com/mobile/sync/
the link to the instructions: http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=138740&amp;topic=14252 &lt;http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=138740&amp;topic=14252&gt;

Google Option 2): If you want to use Google IMAP

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&amp;answer=77702 &lt;http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&amp;answer=77702&gt;

For University (two options):
UIUC option 1): (Recommended by Nils) If you get a University Exchange account (information about the exchange account: http://www.cites.illinois.edu/exchange/) information regarding the iPhone : http://www.cites.illinois.edu/exchange/iphone.html

UIUC option 2): Another method which doesn't use Exchange (but i do not think the reading of emails will be synced from computer to phone and vice versa)
http://yanyanxu.com/2009/01/14/how-to-setup-uiuc-cites-express-email-on-iphone-through-smtp-and-pop/
-------------------------
Note: Apple now allows multiple exchange accounts on the iPhone
-------------------------


A few recommended iPhone Applications:
Also, as I had mentioned here are some applications for the iphone.  You can either install them using the App Store icon on the iPhone or through iTunes installed on a computer (then syncing the phone). Either way you will need to create a itunes store account, but each of the two methods allow you to create an account if you don't have one.  (The App Store icon on the iPhone might be the easier way if you don't have itunes installed, but there are size limitation on apps u can download (i think 10mb limit) and it is slower than directly syncing with a computer,  if you want faster speed or need to install an app larger than 10mb you need to sync to the iTunes on the computer.)  Also, syncing you phone to the computer using itunes, automatically makes a backup of your phone, for that extra piece of mind.
Here is the list of some nice FREE Apps:
(if you use the App Store on the phone, you will have to search for the title of each application, if you have itunes installed on a computer you can click the hyperlinks below for each application)

Aroundme :  helps find various information (businesses, restaurants, etc.) that are around your location.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/aroundme/id290051590?mt=8

Appbox Lite: has a couple of useful applications wrapped into one application, (including a digital level, unit converter, currency converter, and others)
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/appbox-lite/id307094023?mt=8

Units:  it is nice unit converter application
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/units/id284574017?mt=8

Skype: just link the Skype for the computer
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/skype/id304878510?mt=8

Google Earth: just link google earth for the computer (best to use this with wifi turned on, though 3G is ok)
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-earth/id293622097?mt=8

GorillaCam: enable your camera to have time lapse, timer, and some other features
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gorillacam/id342972390?mt=8

 DropBox:  first I would click this link to see a short video which explains it https://www.dropbox.com/
 Think of this program as a wireless USB key which you can view and send files in a certain folder on your computer from the iPhone.  (In order to use this need to create an online account and install an application on your computer to get the full benefit) here is the itunes link http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dropbox/id327630330?mt=8