Combining (concatenating) pdfs on mac

A free automator work flow called combinepdfs is available. It works fine for combining a bunch of pdf files into one.

Winpdb

Easy as pie to install, and runs fine. See the tutorial here.

Simple and quick interactivity in pylab plots

Refer to the api:


import pylab
fig = pylab.figure()
pylab.plot(pylab.rand(10), pylab.rand(10))
def onclick(event):
print 'button=%d, x=%d, y=%d, xdata=%f, ydata=%f'%(
event.button, event.x, event.y, event.xdata, event.ydata)

cid = fig.canvas.mpl_connect('button_press_event', onclick)


rake tasks example

An example of a rake task is given under /lib/tasks/migratedata.rake

Rails drag and drop with scriptaculous

From here:

View:

<% element_to_drag_id = "item_#{item.id}" %>
<div id=<%= element_to_drag_id %> class='mydrop'>

Whatever
</div>
<%= draggable_element(element_to_drag_id, :revert=>true) %>

<% element_to_drop_id = "receiver" %>
<div id=<%= element_to_drop_id %> >
Whatever else
</div>

<%= drop_receiving_element(element_to_drop_id,  # The id of the receiving element
  :accept => "mydrop",                          # The CSS class of the dropped element
  :with   => "'dropid=' + (element.id.split('_').last())", # The query string parameters
  :url    => {:action=> 'dropped'}              # The action to call
)%> 

Controller:
Do whatever you need. The id is passed in params[:dropid]. See views/keywords/_show_key.html.erb and controllers/keyword_controller.rb for illustration of how to use it.

Note:
There is an issue with dragging and dropping across divs that have overflow:auto on
[1],[2]

This can be fixed by setting :ghosting=>true in the draggable.

rails 2.3.2 to 2.3.5

sudo gem update rails
sudo gem install rack --version '1.0.1' (rails won't play with the latest version of rack 1.1.0)
sudo gem update bluecloth

make sure you haven't set a particular rails gem version in environment.rb

script/about

You should be all set

Resilient electronics

Someone spilled water on my cellphone (a prepaid T-mobile phone) at night, and in the morning, I picked it up and the display was blank- just lit with the backlight but no display. The phone would switch on and off by holding down the power button (the vibrate would go off indicating on/off). The person said to let it dry and it should be OK.

I was skeptical, since it was an electronic item that had soaked in (a little) water overnight with the power on, but I took out the battery, the SIM card, shook the water out and left it on the table. After an hour or two I came back, replaced the battery and found that the display was back. Pleasantly surprised I put the SIM card in and found that everything was intact, except that a few of the buttons were not working.

Emboldened by this, I turned on the heater and placed the cellphone without battery or SIM card on the radiator and left it for about 4 hours. After this, all cellphone functions had returned.