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Carleton Astronet Admin Log Posts

idl color plotting on screen and to (postscript) file – somehat obsolete 2014

Published by jweisber on 2012-05-16

For a comprehensive description of how to do idl color plotting both to screen and to postscript file,

see http://myweb.facstaff.wwu.edu/~larsonk/docs/idlcolors.pdf

and note that some params may well be set up on your log in to idl, via your file .idlstartup

——————————–

as a (better?) alternative, use Fanning’s color routines, which we have on our system.  Discussion is at http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~mperrin/idl/colors.shtml

To get documentation on fsc_color, type doc_library,’fsc_color’ (recall that this is the format for getting documentation for any non-std idl routine).

HOWEVER SEE POST AUGUST 2014 regarding UPDATE TO FANNING COLOR ROUTINES

Note for example that I got a blue plot with

findgen x(5)

y=sin(300*x)

Plot, x,y, Color=FSC_Color(‘Dodger Blue’)

–Joel

aastex setup (latex) and emulateapj

Published by jweisber on 2011-08-30

1. download aastex.cls  and emulateapj.cls from the web and place  in /usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/misc/

(you will probably need superuser privileges to do this [or sudo]).

2. type texconfig rehash.  This updates the paths where tex looks for files; eg the above.

3. that should be it! I got aastex to run on mirzam.

4. Note that /usr/share is NOT SHARED ACROSS OUR COMPUTERS, so the above needs to be done on any computer on which one wishes to use aastex. (A simpler workaround is to just put aastex.cls and emulateapj.cls in whatever directory the user has the .tex source file.)

(there are a variety of tools to find the latex default paths, etc. See the web, as I already forgot the many I had to use to figure out the above.)

(note that tex and latex files tend to be in (NONSHARED) /usr/share/texmf/.)

At the top of the .tex file, place one of the  commands:

\documentclass[12pt,preprint]{aastex} or
\documentclass[manuscript]{aastex}

which use the asatex.cls file to generate typewriter-like preprint or manuscript files; or 


\documentclass{emulateapj}



[This emulates apj format:  see http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~alexey/emulateapj/  ]

In either case, a useful command to put a comment on leading page is:


\slugcomment{Draft 2011 Aug 21 skeleton from Joel and  Andrew}


which is placed after abstract and keywords.

–Joel


 

Printer diagnostics – cups and printer API

Published by jweisber on 2011-07-06

To go to the CUPS printer GUI, in firefox go to http://localhost:631

To go to the printer API itself, go to http://137.22.12.71 for olin 304 6350 printer.  The startup page for each printer will give its IP address.

 

Thanks Bruce!

idl interactive gaussian fitting widget

Published by jweisber on 2011-07-01

Tom Callister downloaded an IDL routine from NASA FUSE spacecraft idl site called xgaussfit.pro that does interactive

Gaussian fits via widget.  He got it running here after some effort and it is at /usr/share/astro/idlshare/locallib/pulsegaussfit.pro

Handy Keyboard Chords

Published by jweisber on 2011-04-19

Due to the current instability with the GNOME environment, here are a few handy key chords to help reset the X windows server.

Press: 
Control-Alt-Backspace To: Kill all running processes attached to the X-Server on the computer and restart the X-Server, Note: As this ends all tasks associated with the X-Server, only use this one if you just turned the computer on or know nobody is using it, though it is the fastest way to restart X and is the only key chord that has any chance of returning GNOME to a functioning state.
                                      
Control-Alt-F1 To: Take you to init-1 (command line), pausing the X server, but not disrupting any open processes. From this command line many smaller tasks can be accomplished, provided that they do not need a separate window to operate.

Control-Alt-F7 To: Bring you back to init-7, (resuming X), use after Control-Alt-F1 to resume the windowing server. You should wait roughly 10 seconds in between using the two commands or the X server will get a little confused. Note: This pair of commands will never bring GNOME back to life, but if you want to work on the computer you can use the init-1 environment to do many simpler tasks.

For more information, as well as a whole host more key combinations please see this website.

Additionally, if one of the computers refuses to cooperate, it is possible to ssh in to any of Linux computers from any *nix system on campus (either a lab Mac, another Linux box, or your own laptop for that matter). To do so type:

ssh -Y username@hostname.physics.carleton.edu

And then enter your password when prompted.

So, for example,

ssh -Y cerjanb@deneb.physics.carleton.edu

Would log me in (provided I entered the correct password) as cerjanb on Deneb.

nautilus file manager startup in chosen directory from command line

Published by jweisber on 2010-03-12

To start up nautilus in a given directory from command line, simply type

nautilus <dirname> &

remember that . is a name for the current directory.  So nautilus . & will open a nautilus file manager in whatever directory the terminal is in.  This is the inverse of hitting the f4 key in nautilus which opens an xterm in the same directory that konqueror is in.

–Joel