Uninstalling with easy_install

easy_install -m xxx

also, remove the .egg directory under site-packages

Installing HDF5

HDF5 is a data file format specification with some opensource libraries. Matlab version 7.3 and above are supposed to store data in this format. You can load these files into Python using the h5py library.

IMPORTANT:

1. Due to an incompatibility with HDF5 1.8.5 h5py tests (and operation) will fail. Using 1.8.4 or earlier should resolve the issue. (issue 124)
2. When installing h5py  change to super user account (su) rather than sudo because you need some environment variables to be set during the installation

Install HDF5 on your machine

Following instructions from http://www.hdfgroup.org/ftp/HDF5/current/src/unpacked/release_docs/INSTALL

1. grab the bz2 file
2. ftp://ftp.hdfgroup.org/HDF5/prev-releases/hdf5-1.8.4-patch1/src/hdf5-1.8.4-patch1.tar.bz2
3. bunzip2 hdf5-1.8.4-patch1.tar.bz2
4. tar -xvf hdf5-1.8.4-patch1
5. cd hdf5-1.8.4-patch1
6. ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/hdf5
7. make
8. make check
9. sudo make install
10. make check-install

Install h5py

1. su
2. export HDF5_DIR=/usr/local/hdf5/
3. export HDF5_API=18
4. easy_install h5py

How to recover if you did use HDF 1.8.5:

1. Download, compile and install the correct version of HDF (as above)
2. Get rid of the h5py egg compiled against this by doing:
   sudo easy_install -m h5py to get rid of paths etc.
   rm -r /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/lib/python2.6/site-packages/h5py-1.3.0-py2.6-macosx-10.3-fat.egg (or where ever your egg is, to get rid of the compiled version)
3. reinstall
4. run tests to be sure
   

Mac Word: Save As Screen Too Big

Problem: The "save as" dialog box is too big for your screen and some of the options (such as new folder) and the resize corner are off screen, making things very, very, annoying.

Solution: Hit the 'shrink' button (up arrow) to see the abbreviated version of the "save as" menu. Then press that button again (now the 'expand' button). The dialog box now will fit the screen and you drag the corner to resize the dialog to a sensible size, which it will store.

From here.

disown and nohup

Problem: Need to make a running *nix process nohup
Solution:
CTRL+Z to suspend
bg to background
disown to make it effectively nohup

From here and here and here