Software & ManualsHow to Typeset Equations in LaTeX (New version!)LaTeX is a very powerful tool for typesetting mathematical expressions. However, when looking at a typical document one often finds that mathematical equations that are too long to fit on one line or that consist of several equations in one block are often only poorly typeset in spite of the power of LaTeX. This short introduction tries to show how a nice typesetting is done easily and efficiently. It includes an introduction to the less known, but very powerful tool "IEEEeqnarray". Download:
More information about IEEEtran can be found on Michael Shell's website. An easy-to-read and very informative manual about LaTeX is The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX 2ε by Tobias Oetiker. My LaTeX-Stylefile: research19.sty (New version!)This is my personal main LaTeX-stylefile (version 19.6, 2024/06/04) that I use everywhere and that makes sure that all my LaTeX-documents are set up the way I want. I simply include a line similar to \usepackage[widelayout,sf,USenglish]{research19} You can find more info about possible options in the stylefile itself. The old version research18.sty (version 18.8, 2023/12/29) is still available for download. Tasks of TPC Chairs (New!)I have made an attempt of describing the tasks of a TPC chair (version 2, 2024/06/25) in some reasonable order. The list is by no means complete and it is definitely colored by my own opinions and experiences. I also added some of the things that I was not aware of in advance but learned from my experience as TPC chair of ISIT 2023. English Grammar: Infinitive or ing-Form?English is — in spite of what some people might say — a very difficult language. In particular it is very difficult to find rules that work. Nevertheless, I have tried to attack (or is it "try attacking"!?!) one of my biggest English difficulties: when to use the infinitive and when the ing-form... Perhaps this might be useful for you, too! In any case, I would be happy to receive feedback! Download:
buha: Accounting Done Rightbuha is a C++-program for simple and elegant financial accounting. Instead of keeping the financial data in error-prone Excel-sheets, that mix data with programming and are extremely hard to keep in order, buha keeps its data in simple text-files. With buha you easily keep track of various accounts, expenses and income, and double-entry bookkeeping becomes very simple. buha allows you to export all data in separate files, either in text-format, CSV-format, or in a format that allows import into LaTeX. In the source code included is an toy example inclusive a LaTeX-file that imports all relevant data from the generated LaTeX-files and generates a complete financial report. An extract of this toy example looks as follows: ... \new acc Bank Account IBAN xxxx xxxx \new cr Credit Card \new expenses Expenses \new 01 Food \new 02 Communication ... \date 5/3/2021 01 - cr 123.05 shopping (credit card) 02 - acc 45.40 phone bill January ... \date 31/3 \saldo 01 > expenses 01 food \saldo 02 > expenses 02 communication \show The complete toy example is available here: ToyExample. The LaTeX-generated financial report produced by buha from this toy example can be downloaded here: summary.pdf. For more details about buha look at the included README and the included summary.tex file. Download:
The name "buha" is an abbreviation of the German "Buchhaltung" (accounting). The program was written by Hans-Andrea Loeliger in the 1990s and a huge Thank You goes to him! I only slightly adapted the code by adding a few things I needed. I publish the code here at Andi's express wish and with his permission. grad: Book-Keeping of Grades and Exams (New Version from December 2023!)grad is a C++-program that elegantly keeps track of various exams and grades for a class of students. Instead of keeping the grades and points in error-prone Excel-sheets that mix data with programming and are extremely hard to keep in order, grad keeps its data in simple text-files. With grad you easily compute grades from points, take weighted averages of different grades/exams to compute final grades, and directly generate LaTeX-code that allows you to produce elegant tables of the results of your exams and your grading. A toy example of a grad data file looks as follows: \reset \student alice Miller Alice \student bob Smith Bob \student eve White Eve \grade oral1 1 oral grade 1 oral1 - alice 4.5 oral1 - bob 5 oral1 - eve 5.25 \grade oral2 1 oral grade 2 oral2 - alice 5.25 oral2 - bob 6 \grade oral 0.5 final oral grade (weight 0.5) \avg oral < oral1 oral2 %% written exam "wr" of weight of 1.5 with linear %% scale where 48 points correspond to a grade 4, and %% 80 points correspond to a grade 6 \exam wr 1.5 48 4 80 6 written exam wr - alice 1 9 12 1 9 4 wr - bob 12 12 11 20 0 3 wr - eve 10 21 5 12 17 12 \sort g wr \rounding 0.5 \grade final 0 final grade \avg final < wr oral \show Two examples of LaTeX-files that grad produced from this toy example are available here: wr.pdf and z_overview.pdf. For more details about grad look at the included README and the given more detailed example. Download:
The foundations of grad lie in buha: the basic structure of the code like menu, input parsing, list structure and booking are taken over almost unchanged. Instead of accounts, grad has two separate entities, namely exams/grades and students. mygpg: Secure Password-File Management based on Perl and GPGThe number of passwords that I should be able to remember nowadays is far over 100. So unless I choose them all to be all the same or use some other very insecure tricks, the only way to survive is to keep a file with them written down. However, among all tricks that help with remembering passwords, this is about the most insecure and silly thing to do...! My solution is to keep a password file, but to have it securely encrypted using one of the best encryption standard there is: the open-source and free program GPG. I use a separate and unpublished private/public key-pair only for that particular file. For more details about GPG, see my How-To of GPG. So the only problem is how to access and edit the secure password file. I do not want to store the passwords unencrypted on my harddrive at any time, not even temporarily for editing! For that reason I have written a small script mygpg that accesses the file, decrypts it, invokes Emacs, and passes the decrypted information into a buffer of Emacs. At the end Emacs will take care of the encryption and will write the encrypted file back to disk. The unencrypted information is never stored anywhere but solely kept in the memory of the computer during the accessing/editing time.
System Requirements:
Installation:
Usage: For normal use simply call "mygpg". The optional argument "-h" will print a short help message and exit. For calling Emacs inside the terminal (e.g., if there is no X11 environment) use the option "-t". For only reading the file without the possibility to edit, the file can also be displayed using 'less'. To do so, use the option "-l". To create an empty password file, use the option "-c". GnuPG: A Mini How-ToThis very brief introduction to GPG is already some years old, but it should still be up-to-date (more or less...). I hope it is useful... Typesetting Chinese Characters in LaTeX: A very quick manualTypesetting Chinese in LaTeX used to be quite a headache. I remember spending hours and hours in trying to set my system up. In the meantime, things have simplified considerably (or I have simply learned how to do it properly...). Here are some very brief instructions on how to proceed. I distinguish two different situations: the case where I want to compose a large document containing a lot of Chinese characters and the case where I only need to incorporate a few Chinese characters (like, e.g., my Chinese name) in a otherwise Western document.
Various Useful Shell-ScriptsInstallation: To install any of these scripts, download the script, decompress it, and put it anywhere you like, e.g., into ~/bin/. Then make sure that the executable flags are set (chmod a+x script-name). Usage: Simply type the name of the script into a terminal. mp3moveThe script mp3move (version 4.1, April 2009) is a script that I wrote when I needed to arrange the files on a MP3-CD: the script renames all files in the current directory as follows: firstly a given number of letters is removed from the filename starting at a given position (e.g., removing an old counting), then a new consecutive numbering is added in place of the removed letters. The numbering starts at a given point and has a fixed number of positions. multicopyThe script multicopy (version 2.3, April 2018) copies all files starting with a certain string to a new file with a new name, preserving the original ending of the filename. multimoveThe script multimove (version 2.2, September 2010) renames all files starting with a certain string, preserving the original ending of the filename. pdfa4toletterThe script pdfa4toletter (version 1.1, May 2021) converts a pdf-file in a4 format into letter format by cropping, not scaling. For more info, type "pdfa4toletter" without arguments. pdfinsert (New version!)The script pdfinsert (version 2.0, February 2024) inserts a pdf-file into another one at a specified page. For more info, type "pdfinsert" without arguments. pdfinterlaceThe script pdfinterlace (version 1.4, September 2022) assumes that you have scanned a pile of double-sided pages by first scanning all odd pages and then flipping the whole pile and scanning the backside of them (in backwards order). Thus, the obtained pages are in a wrong order. This script now resorts all these pages in the correct order. For more info, type "pdfinterlace -h". pdflettertoa4The script pdflettertoa4 (version 1.1, May 2021) converts a pdf-file in letter format into a4 format by cropping, not scaling. For more info, type "pdflettertoa4" without arguments. pdfnupsmartThe script pdfnupsmart (version 1.2, May 2021) rearranges the pages of a pdf-file: two pages are put onto one page in such a way that the odd pages are on the right-hand side like in an open book. Moreover, to avoid problems with some printers, the file is then rotated to normal portrait style. pdfselect (New version!)The script pdfselect (version 2.1, August 2024) lets you pick an arbitrary range of pages from a pdf-file, similarly to psselect. In addition, with a range specification 's[number]', it splits the pdf-file into batches of size [number] and stores them into individual pdf-files. For more info, type "pdfselect" without arguments. prefixaddThe script prefixadd (version 1.0, October 2010) adds a prefix to all files ending with a particular string. smvThe script smv (version 1.0, August 2015) is a 'save-move' command: it executes "mv", but with filenames being changed with an added numeral in case the filename exists already at the destination. For more info, type "smv" without arguments. stuffzerosWhen exporting photos from iPhoto, the numbering system is not UNIX-like: they are called photo-1.jpg, photo-2.jpg, ..., photo-10.jpg, etc. This way the numbering is not in alphabetical order which can cause problems with other programs. The script stuffzeros (version 3.2, June 2009) automatically corrects this. It will add zeros in front of the numbers so that the files afterwards are named photo-01.jpg, photo-02.jpg, ..., photo-10.jpg, etc. suffixaddThe script suffixadd (version 2.1, October 2008) adds a suffix to all files starting with a particular string. timer: A Simple Stopwatch in the Terminal (version 3.6, June 2018)I sometimes need to have a simple stopwatch or timer (version 3.6, June 2018) handy, so I wrote this small Perl-script. Maybe someone else might find it useful, too... watchdogThe script watchdog (version 1.1, October 2008) regularly checks a file and informs by email if the file has been modified. This is done either once, or continuously until the file is renamed or deleted. addrbook: Address-Management with Perl and LaTeXMost available address-management tools have either too many or too few features for me. I have therefore started writing a small (partially LaTeX-based) Perl-script that takes care of my addresses: I keep an ASCII-file with the necessary information (name, address, telephone, email, birthday, remarks). The script then generates (via LaTeX) a printable version that I can carry with me. The advantages are obvious:
System Requirements: Any Unix-flavored system or Mac OS X with working Perl and LaTeX. For usage as (birthday or general) reminder system and for electronic search of entries (including the web-based version) no LaTeX is needed. Download:
If you want to be informed about updates, please send me an email, I will put you on my mailing list (don't worry, you won't get many emails if you do so!). afptunnel: Secure AFP-Connections (Apple File Protocol) via SSH TunnelSystem Requirements: Apple computer with macOS Problem: You are using your laptop (or another computer) away from home and would like to access your files at home. Apple offers the convenient AFP connection ("Connect to Server..." or command-K). However, if you do not have the Mac OS X Server version there is no way to make this connection secure, i.e., everything that is transmitted over the Internet is clear-text, including your login and password! Furthermore, you have to open your computer at home to the world which includes a guest-access. While the guest-access is restricted, of course, you still might feel uncomfortable with it, particularly if you are sure that you actually do not need it. Solution: Open a SSH connection to your home computer (the remote computer) and then pipe your standard AFP connection through this SSH tunnel. Unfortunately, the commands to do so are very UNIX-like and cryptic. I have therefore written a small shell-script that will do everything for you. You only need to follow the following steps:
Installation:
For more options of afptunnel type "afptunnel -h". mailtunnel: Sending Mails If You Do Not Have an SMTP ServerSystem Requirements: Any UNIX-like system like macOS. Problem: You are using your laptop abroad and would like to send some email. Usually you then get into problems because you either
Solution: Open a SSH connection to your home computer (the remote computer) and then relay your mails via your home computer to your usual SMTP server at home. This way your mails look like being sent from home, your mails are securely sent through the unknown net-access you are using, and your mails are even compressed in case your net-access is slow! You only need to follow the following steps:
Installation:
For more options of mailtunnel type "mailtunnel -h".
-||- _|_ _|_ / __|__ Stefan M. Moser Last modified: Mon Aug 12 12:41:18 UTC 2024 |