After reading the post by Seif Lotfy about the design of an interface that makes it easy for users to access files without the need to explore their file system, I have created a mock-up of the interface that I would like to use.
Obviously, the idea is not new (which is part of the appeal that this approach would have) and the main work would not have to go into the design but the underlying search algorithm.

Finding vs. Exploring

As Seif said in his post, exploring the file system (or bookmark hierarchy or application menu...) is not an ideal way of finding the documents you are looking for. But exploring the application or places menu to find the search application to then search for the document is also not the best way to handle this.
So, how can this be made easier? By using an intelligent search, something very similar to the ubiquity project. A search that knows that "google world cup 2010" means a google search, but "world cup 2010" might be a search for a file or something else, that "gimp" means simply launching the application and "email this to marc" would suggest a list of marcs from your contacts and launch the default email application with a new email to that contact and the current clipboard as the content or attachment. (This is the way ubiquity does it if you use googlemail, really cool!)

First question: Where to put that search?

The search (if it worked) would replace the file browser (when the file browser is used to explore the file-system in a search for a file), it would replace the desktop as a file and launcher holding place, it would replace the current three menus "Application, Places, System".
And it should also be obvious that this search is the place to start.
To me the answer is clear. It should be at the center of your view, large, and free from any clutter: just like the google interface.
So here is my first mock up of the desktop.
(Note: this is the desktop, not an application in front of the desktop).

And to demonstrate how such a search could look like, there is another mock up that shows the autocompletion or tips

And also the result of a search, if you actually hit enter or press the search button. The results should be ordered by a mixture of relevance and last accessed. Maybe even taking into account what the user did some minutes ago and so on (powered by zeitgeist

Note that the search should be always in reach, so, since it replaces the three menus as the standard way to get into your computer, there could be a shortcut to the search at the menu position (as you can see in the pictures). Alternatively, there should be a keyboard shortcut which gets you to a clear desktop and places the focus on the search field.

Today Nokia and Intel announced the merging of maemo and moblin to form MeeGo (TM).
While this might sound good to some, it is a bit sad for me. The first thing I'm sad of is the focus on C++ and Qt. As you might know, maemo 5, the operating system of the N900, is based on gtk and clutter.

Quote:

GTK and Clutter are also included for application compatibility.

I want Debian Mobile

But the biggest loss in this merge is the packet management system, which will be rpm.
Quote:

Will MeeGo use .rpm or .deb as its packaging system?
MeeGo will use the .rpm format

I have had some trouble to figure out how to use a class as a decorator for a method (as opposed to a decorator for a function). Here is a script that prints some useful information about what is called when and with what parameters.

#!/usr/bin/env python
print "Classes as Decorators of Methods\n"
print "-----Parsing dec"
class dec(object):
    def __init__(self, a):
        print "----- dec init"
        print type(a)
        print "decorated method: ", a.__name__
        self.a = a
    def __get__(self, inst, cls):
        print "-----dec get"
        self._inst = inst
        self._cls = cls
        return self
    def __call__(self, p):
        print "-----dec call"
        print type(self)
        print type(self._inst)
        print type(self._cls)
        return self.a(self._inst, p.upper())

print "-----Parsing C"
class C(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self.X = "Hello"
    @dec
    def run(self, p):
        print p,
        print self.X,
        return "world"

if __name__ == "__main__":
    print "-----Object creation"
    c = C()
    print "-----Object method call"
    print c.run("This is a decorator ")

In contrast: functions as decorators for functions

#!/usr/bin/env python

print "--- Parsing dec"
def dec(f):
    print "--- Run dec"
    print f.__defaults__
    def x(*args, **kwargs):
        print "--- Run x"
        print f.__name__
        print args
        print kwargs
        f(*args, **kwargs)
    return x

print "--- Parsing foo"
@dec
def foo(a, b=3):
    print "--- Run foo"
    print a, b


print "--- Calling foo"
foo(1)
print "--- Calling foo"
foo(2, 4)

Today I realized that the django way of internationalization is not as good as I had thought. Here are two areas where it could be improved:

The models

Django has no default way of translating fields in models. This is a known shortcoming and was addressed in many plugins (transdb, transmeta, multilingual, multilingual-model, translate, ...) and in a Google Summer of Code project by Marc Garcia.
As I see it, the translation of any kind of data should not be in a seperate table or in a metaclass. Why? Because translation should not be the way to think in the first place. If you have a piece of information that is not universally understandable (like an photograph), than you can assign a language or culture to that information. If your site should be available in several languages, then there is no good reason why one language should be superior (and allowed in the model), while other languages are inferior (and have to go into a translation table). So there is no translation of a first, superior string but there is a piece of information in different, equally important languages.
So, with regard to this poll, the only good option would be to state "this field is language specific" and django should create a field for every supported language (mainly like multilingual-model).
The admin interface should display these fields and a bonus would be to be able to create a report based on the missing translation fields.

The urls

But there are other fields where internationalization is also important and where I couldn't find any plugins or snippets. It's the url resolution. Your apps should have human-readable urls that don't change over time. Suppose you have this url in your shop: "/smartphone/linux/N900" and suppose that "smartphone" is a category that was not planned when the shop was planned but rather entered in the admin as a (translatable) categorization of a specific phone. Now if you want to make this translatable, you have to create a pattern like
"(?P.+)/(?P.+)/(?P.+)"
but how is that supposed to be distinguished from
"(?P.+)/(?P.+)/(?P.+)"
if these things should also be translatable? So the point is: the regular expressions in the url resolution mechanism are not translatable (if the strings are dynamical db content).

What could be done?

The could be an url manager that can receive signals about a change in the urls patterns. And there should be an attribute (db-field, function, ...) in every model or view which can take translatable fields as parameters and create and update the corresponding urlpatterns.

If you work in Astronomy, you will likely have a lot of fits files lying around. Although the FITS format is absolutely not an image-only format, I would still like to see a preview in my filemanager if there is an image encoded in the file. The standard thumbnailers for Xubuntu don't do this, so here is how to create your own:

1. create a desktop file that describes, what your thumbnailer does:

/usr/share/thumbnailers/fits-thumbnailer.desktop

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Encoding=UTF-8
Type=X-Thumbnailer
Name=FITS Thumbnailer
MimeType=image/x-fits;image/fits;application/fits;
X-Thumbnailer-Exec=python /usr/lib/thunar-thumbnailers/fits-thumbnailer.py %i %o %s

2. create the thumbnailer script under:

/usr/lib/thunar-thumbnailers/fits-thumbnailer.py

#!/usr/bin/env python
import pyfits
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import sys
try:
    infile  = sys.argv[1]
    outfile = sys.argv[2]
except:
    exit(1)
try:
    size = sys.argv[3]
except:
    size = 256
hdul = pyfits.open(infile)
data = None
# Is the primary HeaderDataUnit an image with data?
if (hdul[0].header["NAXIS"] != 0):
    data = hdul[0].data
else:
    # The primary had no data, so we search for the first image!
    for hdu in hdul[1:]:
        if (hdu.header["XTENSION"] == "IMAGE"):
            data = hdu.data
            break
if data != None:
    plt.imshow(data)
    plt.savefig(outfile, transparent=False, format="png")

3. regenerate the thumbnailer cache:

/usr/lib/thunar/thunar-vfs-update-thumbnailers-cache-1

See it in action:

There are actually a lot of cases, where this will not work, it will not take WCS into account and is in general not very sophisticated, but it works for me (TM). For more information about Thunar thumbnailers see:

Customizing Thunar

Additional thunar thumbnailers

Freedesktop thumbnailer spezification

Freedesktop desktop-entry spezification

In a Latex figure environment, the label command has to follow the caption command. Otherwise referencing the figure will result in the section number (where the figure appeared) to be printed. Sometimes Latex is not very user friendly...

\begin{figure}[!th]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=2.5in]{some_filename}
\caption{some caption}
\label{fig:some_image}
\end{figure}

Update 2009-11-13: more notes on the greek input

I use the AUCTex mode in Emacs, which has lots of useful features. Here is a mix of commands and additions that help me improve the Emacs-Latex experience: RefTex (actually you will already use this if you use AUCTex mode), Greek Emacs input, PDFSync and Orgmode tables.

RefTex

There is much to say about reftex. But I'll just show the two commands that I use regularly:

C-c =

This will open a buffer where you can navigate through your document's toc.

This comes very handy for large projects like PhD thesis :-). With python I use something like outline mode for roughly the same purpose, but this is perfect for my latex documents.

The other shortcut I use is:

C-c [

This command will ask you for your citation style

and for a regulare expression for searching your bibtex file to find the reference.

Then you can navigate through the matching references and choose the one that you want.

With a single bibtex file containing about 1000 references (managed with referencer) this feature is very handy.

äöüß

\"a\"o\"u\ss{}

$αβγ = 3μm$

$\alpha\beta\gamma = 3\mum$

\usepackage{mathspec}
\setmainfont[Mapping=tex-text]{CMU Serif}
\setsansfont[Mapping=tex-text]{CMU Sans Serif}
\setmathsfont(Greek,Latin){CMU Serif}
\setmathsfont(Digits){Neo Euler}

C-\ greek RET

C-\

\usepackage{pdfsync}

C-c C-v

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{comment}
\begin{document}
Hallo!\\
\end{document}

M-x orgtbl-mode
M-x orgtbl-insert-radio-table

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{comment}
\begin{document}
Hallo!\\
% BEGIN RECEIVE ORGTBL atesttable
% END RECEIVE ORGTBL atesttable
\begin{comment}
#+ORGTBL: SEND atesttable orgtbl-to-latex :splice nil :skip 0
| | |
\end{comment}
\end{document}

C-c C-c

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{comment}
\begin{document}
Hallo!\\
% BEGIN RECEIVE ORGTBL atesttable
\begin{tabular}{rll}
Times [sec] & Names & something else \\
\hline
3 & John & hi \\
4 & Elisa & ho \\
5 & Nobody & hiho \\
 &  &  \\
\end{tabular}
% END RECEIVE ORGTBL atesttable
\begin{comment}
#+ORGTBL: SEND atesttable orgtbl-to-latex :splice nil :skip 0
| Times [sec] | Names  | something else |
|-------------+--------+----------------|
|           3 | John   | hi             |
|           4 | Elisa  | ho             |
|           5 | Nobody | hiho           |
|             |        |                |
\end{comment}
\end{document}

Given that a and b are positive, the calculation:

But is this true in computer languages?

a:1.2345678e-30
b:5.5889944e-28
The real result is: 6.89999252062032 e-58
What do the following programs tell me?

C

#include <math.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int main(){
  double a = 1.2345678e-30;
  double b = 5.5889944e-28;
  double c, d;

  c = a * b;
  d = exp(log(a)+log(b));

  printf("a * b =                %.20e \n", c);
  printf("exp(log(a) + log(b)) = %.20e \n", d);
  return 0;
};

Python

import math
a = 1.2345678e-30
b = 5.5889944e-28
print "----------math----------"
print "a * b =                %s" % repr(a*b)
print "exp(log(a) + log(b)) = %s" % repr(math.exp(math.log(a)+math.log(b)))



import mpmath
mpmath.mp.dps = 20
a = mpmath.mpf(1.2345678e-30)
b = mpmath.mpf(5.5889944e-28)
print "---------mpmath---------"
print "a * b =                %s" % repr(a*b)
print "exp(log(a) + log(b)) = %s" % repr(mpmath.exp(mpmath.log(a)+mpmath.log(b)))

Scheme

R

gcalctool

So what is the result:

I use these packages regularly:

• python 2.5 (http://www.python.org)
• numpy (http://www.scipy.org/Download)
• scipy (http://www.scipy.org/Download)
• matplotlib (http://sourceforge.net/projects/matplotlib)
• pyfits (http://www.stsci.edu/resources/software_hardware/pyfits/Download)
• kapteyn (http://www.astro.rug.nl/software/kapteyn/)
• mayavi2 ( http://code.enthought.com/projects/mayavi/docs/development/html/mayavi/installation.html)
• python-sao (http://code.google.com/p/python-sao/)
• pymc (http://code.google.com/p/pymc/)

My Problem:

I have a lot of unsorted scientific papers! Their filenames don't resemble their titles and they are stored in a bunch of places. I tend to download them as I search the internet for papers that help me with a problem and sometimes I even DownThemAll.
Weeks, month later, I try to find the *one paper* that was so interesting and cite it via BibTex in my Latex file. But I can't remember the filename, title, author, year or journal (in any combination).
Or I see a paper, know that I read it, but can't remember if it was that good...

Possible Solution:

Using a search engine (Tracker), a bibliography manager (Referencer) and a file manager (Thunar).
With Thunar, I can mark files as interesting.
With Tracker I can search the text of a document and tag it.
With Referencer I can tag a paper and export the meta-information to a Bibtex file.

Why I'm still unhappy:

It seems that Tracker, Referencer and Thunar don't use the same location to store meta-information about the documents. They all seem to use different databases. I would have to write a plugin for two of them to get the three of them working together.
Not good.

Numdisplay is one of the cool python astronomy packages that lack documentation! What I want to do is display an image from the python shell (easy and well documented) and this image shall contain WCS information, because otherwise I could as well use matplotlib (really hard and NOT documented).

What I know so far:

• open ds9 with the following command: "ds9 -unix "/tmp/.IMT3"
• in the python shell create an UnixImageDisplay "uid = numdisplay.displaydev.UnixImageDisplay("/tmp/.IMT3")"
• don't really know how to continue ... the wcs stuff seems not to work the way I expect ...

Next try, this time with python-sao :

• import pysao
• ds9 = pysao.ds9()
• ds9.view(hdul[6])

Much better :-)

Python is a good language for scientists. It basically replaces proprietary software like IDL, Matlab or SAS. What it lacks at the moment is an easy way to display astronomical data saved as fits files containing WCS information.
WCS information standardizes the transformation between pixel coordinates and world coordinates (e.g. position in the sky). There is a good library, pywcs, that deals with this information. Matplotlib, a good choice for plotting data with python, includes Basemap, a toolkit to display maps (of the earth) in various projections. What is missing is a link between these two!

• comments
• a cool admin interface (is it possible to include an emacs-nox into a django admin interface? that would be interesting...)
• file upload with automatic reference from within the blog post. Something like "attachment[1]"

Stefan wrote: This is a test comment.

1. PDFedit: the interface sucks. There is no back/undo button. There is no way to highlight just a word, strike through just a word. Make a box and add some text outside the page borders. AND I DONT NEED 10 colors for my pencil. 3 colors would be more then enough!
2. OpenOffice 3: The fonts are broken. Every time. If I can't read the PDF, I can't annotate it. And others won't be able to read my annotations. (And I don't even know, if annotations would be possible in OpenOffice...
3. Inkscape: Fonts are broken too. Only one page open at a time. NO WAY.
4. Xournal: Close, but ... A simple box to write some text would be cool. Text highlighting as well. I know that it's not possible if the page is only loaded as an image, but that's what I would need.
5. Evince: well, there will be Annotation support at some time in the future, ... (hopefully).

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