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August 2012 Blog Posts

How to export Excel plots to a vector image (EPS, EMF, SVG, etc.)

This is a bit of a workaround, but it's the only way I know of to export an Excel plot into a vector format such as EPS or EMF. In my case I needed to export the plot to EPS for inclusion within a LaTeX document. Create the plot in Excel Copy the plot and paste it into a new, empty word document. Save the word document as a PDF. When word exports to PDF it embeds the plot in vector form. Using Inkscape, import the PDF In Inkscape, File -> Document Properties -> Resize page to content… -> Resize page...

posted @ Friday, August 31, 2012 10:39 AM | Feedback (5) |

MediaWiki Short URLs with IIS 7 and Subpages

Following the guide on mediawiki.org got me 99% there with nice short URLs on Windows with IIS 7. One small hiccup, creating subpages of the form wiki/PageTitle/SubPageTitle The suggested Regular Expression provided by URL Rewrite needs a simple update. <match url="^([^/]+)/?$" /> Should be <match url="^([^/]+.+?)/*$" /> Or, as is done in the guide, with the wiki path <match url="^(wiki/[^/]+.+?)/*$" /> Understanding the change requires reading the original regular expression. "^" Match from the start of the string "[^/]" Here "^" has a special meaning, it negates "/" so that this matches any character but "/" "[^/]+" The plus means to match at least once or more "([^/]+)" The parenthesis are...

posted @ Tuesday, August 28, 2012 4:21 AM | Feedback (1) |

MediaWiki Math Extension with texvc on Windows with Cygwin

Adding the math extension to MediaWiki requires compiling texvc. On my Windows box I chose to use Cygwin to compile texvc, since it's easily compiled with make and the GNU toolchain. Building with Cygwin First, make sure you have the necessary dependencies installed within Cygwin (http://cygwin.com/install.html). Make, latex, ocaml, etc. To compile navigate with Cygwin's shell to the source directory of the math extension (recalling windows paths are in \cygdrive\[driveletter]) ~/Extensions/Math/math Then compile by calling make $ make Finally, be sure to add the Cygwin binaries to your PATH variable if they aren't already so that the binary will run. The textvc.exe binary is now...

posted @ Monday, August 27, 2012 11:09 PM | Feedback (1) |

PATH Environment Variable Too Long and Truncated

As I went to append my PATH environment variable on my Windows 7 x64 machine I was surprised by, well perhaps more confused by, not being able to type into the end of the value textbox. As a reminder, one can edit the PATH variable quickly by Pressing 'Windows Key' + 'Pause Break' 'Advanced system settings' on the left 'Environment Variables' on the lower right corner Selecting 'PATH' under 'System variables' Clicking 'Edit' Normally I simply click into 'Variable value:' and press the end key to get to the end. Then tack on a semicolon followed by the new path. This time, however,...

posted @ Monday, August 27, 2012 5:55 PM | Feedback (29) |

Upgraded to Verizon FIOS Quantum 150 Mbps/65 Mbps

 We finally had our "Quantum" upgrade installed. The speeds are as advertised (and better).    $149.99 a month for 150 Mbps/65 Mbps is an amazing deal. Considering they leave ports 80/443 wide open :) Despite what some are saying, that is very useful bandwidth. Some direct uses where I find value in this: Uploading 2 TB of data to the cloud for backup (Crashplan) Uploading videos Downloading media which is the cloud Movies, games on the pc, and digital game purchases on the xbox Moving large datasets Hosting media locally

posted @ Wednesday, August 22, 2012 7:29 PM | Feedback (5) |

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