You're treating the symptom not the disease. What you need is to replace your accounting software (and maybe even your OS) with something that meets your business's requirements.
Worried about the cost of new software are you? How much money is your company hemorraging because your using a single-user accounting program that deletes all of your data? How much more will it lose when you try to patch it up with an IM program?
Converting to PDF as the last step works, however you won't be able to take advantage of the hyperref package and automatically embed hyperlinks in your PDF document.
The trick to graphics in pdfLaTeX is as follows:
Store vector-based graphics in PDF form. If you happen to have PostScript files, use epstopdf to convert them.
It is easy to modify my Makefile to make PostScript files a dependency on the target and convert them to PDF on the fly, when you build the document.
Store raster-based graphics in PNG form.
Avoid alpha layers in PNG files, as they can cause problems (black lines on the right border of the image).
If you downloaded either file before 15 July 2003 15:00 MST (15 July 2003 21:00 UTC), download the files again. Aparently listings.sty is no longer part of the standard distribution and has been commented out.
I just compiled it successfully on the standard pdfLaTeX installation in SuSE 8.1, SuSE 8.2, and MacOS X. In all three versions of the OS pdfLaTeX identifies itself as
tcsh> pdflatex --version
pdfTeX (Web2C 7.4.5) 3.14159-1.10a
kpathsea version 3.4.5
If you can give me more information (OS and LaTeX version) I'd be very happy to help you! I've been working with LaTeX for eons.
For the technical writer, who plans on publishing conference papers or building large professional documents, such as a dissertation, there is no substitute for LaTeX. It is not a word processor or mark-up language but rather a true professional typesetting package.
There really is no alternative (that you can afford).
Given that you're a CS major, you might be interested in looking at my
LaTeX source code for a conference paper and my dissertation.
Because LaTeX is so much like a programming language, I created a package containing subdirectories with the class file, images, and source code and perform the build using a Makefile. If you can code and you're familiar with Unix, it is a must have. To build the document, simply type make preview in the base directory. A word of caution -- don't even bother downloading this if you run Windows. It runs like a peach in all Unices and MacOS provided pdfLaTeX is installed.
It is wrong to capitalize on group-exclusive hatred.
The game serves as a vehicle for propaganda.
The use of immersive games as a vehicle for propaganda is an important issue which didn't exist ten years ago. What is even more interesting is that there is no collusion between the creator of the game and the American government. If nationalism can be popularized, profit-seeking companies will create vehicles for propaganda without external guidance.
Ethnocentrism is a word coined by William Graham Sumner in an attempt to capture the generalized attitude that one's own group is comparatively superior. It is a generalized concept that encompasses such blights as racism, sexism, nationalism, and religious intolerance.
In our culture it is not acceptable to create a sexist game where men hunt down women nor is it acceptable to create a racist game where whites hunt down blacks. Yet we can create a video game where Americans can kill the foreigner du jour. Although currently it is unfortunately culturally acceptable among some of the population to participate in this nationalism, it is in no way different from the less acceptable forms of ethnocentrism such as racism and antisemitism.
Before you come out in support of such a game, realize that, this is group-exclusive hatred and just like McCarthyism, it is only a matter of time before it falls out of favor with the general populace. Then what will people think of your posts?
I gave it a try. BitPass was painless to setup. I clicked on the $3 button, entered my email address as a username, a password, credit card info, and was reading the comic within 60 seconds.
How was the story? Excellent!
It is an enjoyable story with moments of tension and humor tied together by an underlying theme of mathematics. Great adult geek fare. I highly recommend it, although I'm still trying to decide if it was long enough for 25 cents. (Afterall I pay nothing for my operating system!)
I thought I'd be seeing this after my first post.
Someone references measured data in the field of social sciences and another person calls them a name. (Imagine if physicists had to endure name calling whenever they used conservation of momentum!)
What I find interesting is that the person doing the name calling is in the group, whose real income is shrinking (I'm assuming that few people in the top quintile read/.) and stands no long-term personal benefit to supporting a system with such an extreme and growing (i.e. getting worse for you) disparity in wealth.
If left unchecked, wealth will accumulate without bound in the top quintile.
So, before we degenerate to name calling again, follow the link, verify the data, and ask, if you are comfortable knowing that as your real wage (income adjusted for inflation) declines, a select few will soon be able to afford their own space agency. Personally, I think it's antithetical to the class-invariant prosperity that capitalism purports.
That's just my 1.72 cents (2 cents down 14% since 1973).
The first is spending wealth and resources on an endeavour
with no contribution to mankind other than giving us the
satisfaction that yet another person has been in space.
Wealth does not correlate strongly with the skills necessary
to perform meaningful science in space.
Even more disturbing is, that the separation between
the rich and poor in our society is so great that individuals are on the
threshold of being able to afford space flight, while at
the same time the real hourly wage of the average American worker
fell 14% since 1973.
The richest Americans are now able to do for leisure,
what once only an entire nation could afford!
(Here's hoping that my moderator is not a billionaire who dreams of space flight).;P
Mason and Perl
on
PHP 5 Beta 1
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
Not to be a troll but I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to mention
Mason
for those of you who use PHP but are more proficient in Perl.
All my previous web development has been performed in PHP, however, recently I've started to use Mason/Perl.
Mason/Perl provides similar functionality as PHP using in-line constructs such as "<%perl> $perl = goes($here); </%perl>", "% $perl = goes($here);", "<% $variable %>", and "<& function.html &>".
Its modularity has allowed me to create a
dynamic website coded completely in Perl! It provides all the power of Perl, combined with the convenience of in-line PHP, and adds a new level of object-oriented modularity.
Not that I didn't enjoy PHP, it's just that I always felt like I was coding with one hand tied behind my back. If you like Perl, check out Mason.
The diskless Linux PVR boots over the network and NFS mounts its root file system from a Linux server. The PVR then records to an NFS-mounted partition on the server.
I export the server's PVR partition to other clients in my home so I can watch the recorded/recording video where ever I want.
I have advanced CSS-generated menus and simulated CSS transparencies on my home page. This complex CSS didn't render in the first Safari releases but quickly improved as new releases came out. Currently it renders my home page as well as Mozilla does. As a matter of fact all the development of my website has moved from my Linux box to my Powerbook. (I used to use Linux, vi, and Mozilla. Now I use MacOS, vi, and Safari.)
I'm a Linux user. No I'm really a Linux user. I currently have four machines. I'm running it at as my primary desktop at work and as a server, primary (gaming) workstation, and diskless PVR at home. I've modded my series-one TiVo. I installed slackware in the days when one had to wrangle 13 floppies.
With that in mind, I recently I purchased a maxed out 17" Powerbook on my research funds at work and have been amazed at the quality of MacOS hardware and software. I get the true Unix experience with terminals, perl, X11, ssh, vim, and the rest along with an exceptional GUI. The best part about MacOS is that it just works. I've got a Sun Blade 2000 on my desk that's a pain. I've been trying to install KDE on it for the better part of a month and I paid $3k for a graphics card that's slower than my nVidia GeForce 3. I upgraded SuSE on my home Linux workstation and once again I have to recompile the kernel to stop my mystery lockups. (One of these days I should write down my sound-card settings.) MacOS provides the best user experience of any Unix OS.
Will I get rid of Linux? No. There's a quality-cost trade off that will always guarantee the presence of both. The ratio is a function of the environment and thus the evolutionary stable strategy that the competing systems reach.
When will Linux pass MacOS? Both soon and never. Linux, due to its low-cost software and hardware, will outnumber MacOS soon but Linux will never pass MacOS in quality. Ever.
Have you noticed how all proposed legislation that affects personal communications has a "chilling effect"? Sounds like a meme to me.
Given that this proposal would require rebuttals along with their requisite external link, by the principles of
social network theory wouldn't that enhance communication, thus making "warming effect" a more suitable compound adjective?
Perhaps the submitter of the article was referring to the fact that, although it aids overall communication, the proposed requirement would be a violation of his personal and intellectual property forcing him to personally give those, with whom he is diametrically opposed, an avenue of communication.
With that said, here is a
link to a person who is in complete disagreement with this post.
The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) has an excellent article on the
debt explosion among college graduates.
I recommend it to anyone who would like something more substantial on the subject than the anecdotal evidence presented by/. readers.
Here's a portion of the executive summary:
Student loan debt is 85 percent higher among recent college graduates who took on debt while attending public four-year colleges than among graduates from a decade ago. Recent graduates owed an average of $15,100 in 1999/2000, up from $8,200 in 1989/1990. Student loan debt increased by 55 percent among recent graduates of private four-year colleges with student loan debt. These graduates owed an average of $16,500 in 1999/2000, compared to $10,600 in 1989/1990 (all figures in 2002 dollars).
Lower income students tend to owe the most money, but the biggest increase in indebtedness over the decade has been among higher income students. In 1999/2000 recent graduates of public colleges from families in the poorest two quartiles owed an average of $13,300 and $13,400, respectively. This compares with an average debt burden for indebted students from the richest quartile of $12,000. However, this debt burden represented an increase of 85 percent for the students from the richest quartile, compared to increases of 67 and 62 percent for poorest and second poorest quartiles, respectively.
It was reported that in a conversation between George Bush and James Watson, the topic of
modifying genes
to improve intelligence came up.
President Bush wanted to know if the genes would come in a boot cut.
Michael.
Let's do a 25% split between funny, troll, offtopic, and informative, shall we?
Sir, it's bad form for a scientist to tell people that they don't know what they're talking about. If I am incorrect, exercise the option of teaching rather than insulting.
Anyway, since I don't want you holding (or refusing to hold your breath), I did a little research. For those, who are still interested, below is a wonderful set of links to websites that discuss the rocket equation. The second is my favorite. Enjoy!
Slashdot Mirror
"A little ironic that this article on a world wide power grid was published in the September issue of Wired."
It's not ironic rather it's a timely and coincidental. Thanks for the lesson on irony Slashdot!
Michael.
You're treating the symptom not the disease. What you need is to replace your accounting software (and maybe even your OS) with something that meets your business's requirements.
Worried about the cost of new software are you? How much money is your company hemorraging because your using a single-user accounting program that deletes all of your data? How much more will it lose when you try to patch it up with an IM program?
Michael.
Hmm. Interesting. There's more than one way to skin a cat. I think I'll track down dvipdfm right now and give it a try. Thanks for your persistence.
Michael.
Converting to PDF as the last step works, however you won't be able to take advantage of the hyperref package and automatically embed hyperlinks in your PDF document.
The trick to graphics in pdfLaTeX is as follows:
If you happen to have PostScript files, use epstopdf to convert them. It is easy to modify my Makefile to make PostScript files a dependency on the target and convert them to PDF on the fly, when you build the document.
Avoid alpha layers in PNG files, as they can cause problems (black lines on the right border of the image).
Michael.
If you downloaded either file before 15 July 2003 15:00 MST (15 July 2003 21:00 UTC), download the files again. Aparently listings.sty is no longer part of the standard distribution and has been commented out.
Michael.
Hmm. You're not pulling my leg are you?
I just compiled it successfully on the standard pdfLaTeX installation in SuSE 8.1, SuSE 8.2, and MacOS X. In all three versions of the OS pdfLaTeX identifies itself as
tcsh> pdflatex --version
pdfTeX (Web2C 7.4.5) 3.14159-1.10a
kpathsea version 3.4.5
If you can give me more information (OS and LaTeX version) I'd be very happy to help you! I've been working with LaTeX for eons.
Below is a link to the article referenced in the parent post.
The Economics of Empire
Michael.
For the technical writer, who plans on publishing conference papers or building large professional documents, such as a dissertation, there is no substitute for LaTeX. It is not a word processor or mark-up language but rather a true professional typesetting package. There really is no alternative (that you can afford).
Given that you're a CS major, you might be interested in looking at my LaTeX source code for a conference paper and my dissertation. Because LaTeX is so much like a programming language, I created a package containing subdirectories with the class file, images, and source code and perform the build using a Makefile. If you can code and you're familiar with Unix, it is a must have. To build the document, simply type make preview in the base directory. A word of caution -- don't even bother downloading this if you run Windows. It runs like a peach in all Unices and MacOS provided pdfLaTeX is installed.
Michael.
- It is wrong to capitalize on group-exclusive hatred.
- The game serves as a vehicle for propaganda.
The use of immersive games as a vehicle for propaganda is an important issue which didn't exist ten years ago. What is even more interesting is that there is no collusion between the creator of the game and the American government. If nationalism can be popularized, profit-seeking companies will create vehicles for propaganda without external guidance.Michael.
Ethnocentrism is a word coined by William Graham Sumner in an attempt to capture the generalized attitude that one's own group is comparatively superior. It is a generalized concept that encompasses such blights as racism, sexism, nationalism, and religious intolerance.
In our culture it is not acceptable to create a sexist game where men hunt down women nor is it acceptable to create a racist game where whites hunt down blacks. Yet we can create a video game where Americans can kill the foreigner du jour. Although currently it is unfortunately culturally acceptable among some of the population to participate in this nationalism, it is in no way different from the less acceptable forms of ethnocentrism such as racism and antisemitism.
Before you come out in support of such a game, realize that, this is group-exclusive hatred and just like McCarthyism, it is only a matter of time before it falls out of favor with the general populace. Then what will people think of your posts?
Michael.
I gave it a try. BitPass was painless to setup. I clicked on the $3 button, entered my email address as a username, a password, credit card info, and was reading the comic within 60 seconds.
How was the story? Excellent! It is an enjoyable story with moments of tension and humor tied together by an underlying theme of mathematics. Great adult geek fare. I highly recommend it, although I'm still trying to decide if it was long enough for 25 cents. (Afterall I pay nothing for my operating system!)
Michael.
I thought I'd be seeing this after my first post. Someone references measured data in the field of social sciences and another person calls them a name. (Imagine if physicists had to endure name calling whenever they used conservation of momentum!)
What I find interesting is that the person doing the name calling is in the group, whose real income is shrinking (I'm assuming that few people in the top quintile read
So, before we degenerate to name calling again, follow the link, verify the data, and ask, if you are comfortable knowing that as your real wage (income adjusted for inflation) declines, a select few will soon be able to afford their own space agency. Personally, I think it's antithetical to the class-invariant prosperity that capitalism purports.
That's just my 1.72 cents (2 cents down 14% since 1973).
Michael.
This story is disturbing on so many levels.
The first is spending wealth and resources on an endeavour with no contribution to mankind other than giving us the satisfaction that yet another person has been in space. Wealth does not correlate strongly with the skills necessary to perform meaningful science in space.
Even more disturbing is, that the separation between the rich and poor in our society is so great that individuals are on the threshold of being able to afford space flight, while at the same time the real hourly wage of the average American worker fell 14% since 1973. The richest Americans are now able to do for leisure, what once only an entire nation could afford!
(Here's hoping that my moderator is not a billionaire who dreams of space flight).
Michael.
Not to be a troll but I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to mention Mason for those of you who use PHP but are more proficient in Perl. All my previous web development has been performed in PHP, however, recently I've started to use Mason/Perl.
Mason/Perl provides similar functionality as PHP using in-line constructs such as "<%perl> $perl = goes($here); </%perl>", "% $perl = goes($here);", "<% $variable %>", and "<& function.html &>". Its modularity has allowed me to create a dynamic website coded completely in Perl! It provides all the power of Perl, combined with the convenience of in-line PHP, and adds a new level of object-oriented modularity.
Not that I didn't enjoy PHP, it's just that I always felt like I was coding with one hand tied behind my back. If you like Perl, check out Mason.
Michael.
OK. It validates now.
:P
It only took 20 minutes of typing "px".
Michael.
P.S.- Internet Explorer still can't render it right.
Most of it is because I don't use units or use inheritence on my background colors! I'll fix it up.
I'm curious to see if this will fix the rotten rendering I've been getting from Internet Explorer. All other browsers render it perfectly.
Michael.
The diskless Linux PVR boots over the network and NFS mounts its root file system from a Linux server. The PVR then records to an NFS-mounted partition on the server.
I export the server's PVR partition to other clients in my home so I can watch the recorded/recording video where ever I want.
Michael.
The CSS support in Safari is excellent!
:wq
I have advanced CSS-generated menus and simulated CSS transparencies on my home page. This complex CSS didn't render in the first Safari releases but quickly improved as new releases came out. Currently it renders my home page as well as Mozilla does. As a matter of fact all the development of my website has moved from my Linux box to my Powerbook. (I used to use Linux, vi, and Mozilla. Now I use MacOS, vi, and Safari.)
Michael.
I'm a Linux user. No I'm really a Linux user. I currently have four machines. I'm running it at as my primary desktop at work and as a server, primary (gaming) workstation, and diskless PVR at home. I've modded my series-one TiVo. I installed slackware in the days when one had to wrangle 13 floppies.
With that in mind, I recently I purchased a maxed out 17" Powerbook on my research funds at work and have been amazed at the quality of MacOS hardware and software. I get the true Unix experience with terminals, perl, X11, ssh, vim, and the rest along with an exceptional GUI. The best part about MacOS is that it just works. I've got a Sun Blade 2000 on my desk that's a pain. I've been trying to install KDE on it for the better part of a month and I paid $3k for a graphics card that's slower than my nVidia GeForce 3. I upgraded SuSE on my home Linux workstation and once again I have to recompile the kernel to stop my mystery lockups. (One of these days I should write down my sound-card settings.) MacOS provides the best user experience of any Unix OS.
Will I get rid of Linux? No. There's a quality-cost trade off that will always guarantee the presence of both. The ratio is a function of the environment and thus the evolutionary stable strategy that the competing systems reach. When will Linux pass MacOS? Both soon and never. Linux, due to its low-cost software and hardware, will outnumber MacOS soon but Linux will never pass MacOS in quality. Ever.
Linux : MacOS
Michael.
Have you noticed how all proposed legislation that affects personal communications has a "chilling effect"? Sounds like a meme to me.
Given that this proposal would require rebuttals along with their requisite external link, by the principles of social network theory wouldn't that enhance communication, thus making "warming effect" a more suitable compound adjective? Perhaps the submitter of the article was referring to the fact that, although it aids overall communication, the proposed requirement would be a violation of his personal and intellectual property forcing him to personally give those, with whom he is diametrically opposed, an avenue of communication.
With that said, here is a link to a person who is in complete disagreement with this post.
Michael.
The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) has an excellent article on the debt explosion among college graduates. I recommend it to anyone who would like something more substantial on the subject than the anecdotal evidence presented by
Here's a portion of the executive summary: Michael.
It was reported that in a conversation between George Bush and James Watson, the topic of modifying genes to improve intelligence came up. President Bush wanted to know if the genes would come in a boot cut.
Michael.
Let's do a 25% split between funny, troll, offtopic, and informative, shall we?
You are not nitpicking! I did not know that, although I do recall seeing those curves. Thank you for taking the time to post.
Michael.
Sir, it's bad form for a scientist to tell people that they don't know what they're talking about. If I am incorrect, exercise the option of teaching rather than insulting.
Anyway, since I don't want you holding (or refusing to hold your breath), I did a little research. For those, who are still interested, below is a wonderful set of links to websites that discuss the rocket equation. The second is my favorite. Enjoy!
Teachin' Science
Rocket Equation Applet
Wolfram
Michael.
Doh! Damn ispell got me again.
Michael.