Computer notes

• Setting up CVS on linux
• External USB hard drive
• Matlab tricks
• SVN setup
• Linux tricks
• Latex conversions
• Mac OS X tricks
• X server bits
• Vim tricks
• Windows tricks

Windows tricks and bits

Although I really dislike it, at times I'm simply having to use windows. So here are a number of things that make it less painful. Some of these are essentially copied from other sites.

Virtual dimension

First a plug for VirtualDimension -- programme which allows you to have multiple desktops on Windows. On my machine with WinXP it's super-stable and works beautifully.

Latex

To use latex, I installed

• Vim with its Latex-Suite, which I like a lot
• Miktex, which provides all ths usual latex tools needed.
• I use natbib, prosper, psfrag, pstricks and some other packages that are missing from Miktex. To add packages in MikTex, just go to Start-Programs-MikTex-Browse Packages, and it'll let you select whatever of millions of packages you'd like to add.
• MikTex comes with YAP -- a dvi previewer, so just latex the file and then type yap file.dvi to view the file, once you've installed MikTex. Importantly, it lets you refresh the document by typing F5, unlike acrobat reader, for which you have to close and reopen the document.