Articles about howto

1. Opening vim in a new terminal

   By default, when you open vim it runs on the current terminal. When running X11, I want to start it in a new terminal.

2. Creating a screenshot in X11

   Creating a screenshot from a terminal, using standard UNIX tools.

3. My e-mail setup

   For years I’ve been using fetchmail and procmail for incoming mail. However, both of these programs haven’t been maintained for years. So it was time to change.

4. Nikon D70s tips and tricks

   Some tips on how I use my D70s

5. Adding text or graphics to a PDF file (again)

   In an earlier article I talked about using a picture environment in LaTeX to add lines and text over an image. In another article I showed how to draw with PostScript, including using Encapsulated PostScript to include arbitrary images.

   In this article I want to cover the pros and cons of these methods and introduce a third method: TikZ.

6. Installing Pelican 4

   Pelican is the static site generator that I use for my website. This allows me to write my website posts in almost plain text (actually a light-weight markup language named reStructuredText), which are then translated into HTML. As someone who has written his webpages in HTML by hand, I can tell you that this is definitely an improvement.

   Although I use LaTeX for things that require high-quality typesetting, these days almost all my other writings are in reStructuredText.

   The previous pelican version 3.7 was basically the last Python 2.7 application that I use. So now that pelican supports Python 3, I’m switching. Since Pelican 4 is not in the FreeBSD ports tree yet, I’m installing it myself.

   Note

   As of 4.0.1, Pelican is now in the FreeBSD ports tree and I’m using the port www/py-pelican. At the moment I’m still installing typogrify and smartypants by hand.

7. Creating a nomogram with Python and Postscript

   At work I needed a suitable way to check the calibration of gelcoat spray equipment. Gelcoat requires an initiator (often called “catalyst”) in the form of a peroxide to cure. The peroxide/gelcoat ratio is important, so it is checked regularly by spraying the separate components into suitable containers and weighing them.

   For those familiar with gelcoat spraying, this is not a system with coupled gelcoat and peroxide pumps. But rather an external mixing spray gun where the peroxide is simply fed from a pressurized container to the spray gun.

   Since we’re handling resins, solvents and peroxide, protective equipment including gloves is a must. That makes it cumbersome to whip out a smartphone to use it as a calculator to check the ratio. Since you don’t want to get gelcoat or peroxide on your expensive phone, you have to take off your gloves to handle it. This would have to be repeated several times.

   So I decided to make a diagram where one could relatively easy read off the peroxide percentage given the quantities of both components. This can be printed and laminated between plastic to make it resistant against stains.

   The whole thing can be found in a github repo.

8. Drawing with PostScript

   PostScript (in the form of ghostscript) was for me the first way to generate vector graphics outside of a CAD program. I have several hundreds of figures written in PostScript for inclusion in e.g. LaTeX document.

   Later I’ve started using other programs and modules like asymptote and TikZ. But there are cases (especially if you want a small file) where directly drawing in PostScript is still the best way to go.

   When the book Mathematical Illustrations was mentioned on hacker news, this re-kindled my interest in PostScript. And I learned some valuable lessons from it.

9. TeXLive 2018 update

   Today I updated my TeXLive install to 2018. Although the install went fine, there was a problem with the binaries.

   Both asymptote and xetex were linked to different versions of some libraries than those that are supplied by ports. So I had to rebuild them.

10. Video manipulation with ffmpeg

    Serveral useful recipes for manipulation video with ffmpeg.