focus behavior refers to the condition that determines which window recieves input from the keyboard. The standard rule is ``click to focus'' which means that the window on which you last clicked holds the focus until you click somewhere else.

It will save litterally minutes (over a your life time) if you select instead what is called sloppy of focus follows mouse under which behavior, the window in which the mouse currently resides gets the focus.

This allows you type into partially obscured windows and generally works better with X-style select and past functions.

Under Gnome, the focus behavior is set via the [System] $\rightarrow$ [Preferences] $\rightarrow$ [Windows] menu.

How can I map a keystroke to a command

[System] $\rightarrow$ [Preferences] $\rightarrow$ [Keyboard shortcuts]

is for doing this. Click on the function of interest and then, when prompted, type a keyboard combination to asign to that function.

That thing that used to be on my task bar thingy disappeared

The ``aplets'' that live on your various ``panels'' can be easily created and accidently destroyed. The two most useful applets are the Workspace Switcher applet which shows your ``virtual desktops'' and allows you to switch between them; and the window list applet which shows your running applications. To (re)create these or other panel applets, $\fbox{\textsc{left button}}$ on the panel to which you wish to add an applet. Then scroll to select the applet of interest. Window List and Workplace Switcher are near the bottom. Click the $\fbox{\texttt{Add}}$ to add the applet. There are lots and lots of gizmos and gimcracks besides Workspace Switcher and window list that you can add this way.

How can I add buttons to launch applications

If the application in question is in a menu, you can simply drag and drop the thing from the menu to a panel. Just select the item in the menu; click and hold $\fbox{\textsc{right button}}$ ; then drag it to the panel wherein it belongs.

If the item is not in a menu - or if you just like doing things the hard way, you can add a ``launcher'' by clicking $\fbox{\textsc{left button}}$ over the panel to which you wish to add the launcher and selecting [PanelAdd to panellauncher].

The resulting dialog box allows you to specify the command that launches the program and whether or not it should be run in a terminal window.

How can I move windows when the title bar is obscured

If the title bar is not obscured then just click and hold the $\fbox{\textsc{right button}}$ over the title bar. If the title bar is obscured then of course you cannot do the this. In this case your best option is to make sure that the window you wish to move has the focus, then hit $\fbox{\textsc{Alt}}$ + $\fbox{\textsc{F7}}$ . Click the $\fbox{\textsc{left button}}$ to release the window in a new location.

You can also move a window by clicking and dragging the $\fbox{\textsc{Shift}}$ + $\fbox{\textsc{left button}}$ on its representation in the virtual desktop and dragging it.

How can I create a panel at the top of the screen

The desktop in the current release of Fedora has a panel at the top of the screen. If you need to recreate it click the $\fbox{\textsc{right button}}$ on an existing panel, then select [New Panelmenu panel]. The new panel might appear along a side instead of the top, if it does, then click $\fbox{\textsc{left button}}$ and select [properties] to change its ``orientation'' to something to your liking.

Printing

How can I print "n-up"

The -g flag causes a fancy border to be drawn around each page the -2 flag indicates that 2 pages per sheet is sufficient

For those who cannot be bothered with typing commands, there is also a GUI alternative, see 2.2.

How can print in fancy ways without remembering (knowing) complicated command line options

kprinter is your best option. kprinter offers you menus and buttons that allow you to change the printer features. For example you can print n-up, or choose toner saving modes and perhaps do other morally virtuous printer related things.

What about fancy printing from inside an application ... like acroread

You can use either ap2ps (See 2.1) or kprinter (see 2.2) from within any application. The trick is to find ``lpr'' and replace it. Virtually all Unix applications, somewhere inside, use ``lpr'' to print. In the case of acroread, it's right under the print menu..right at the top in the box labeled: ``Printer Command''. Just change /usr/bin/lpr to kprinter.

What should I do if the printer runs out of paper

Add paper - there boxes of reams in the Xerox room. Why not bring as many reams as you can carry without endangering your health and save other's the trouble.

What should I do if the printer runs out of toner

Install a new toner cartridge - or if you're too chicken at least tell a grown up that something is wrong. Toner cartridges live in the Xerox room. They should be labeled as to which printers the will work in - if not check with Monique. Either way send Monique email informing her that you have used a toner cartridge so that another can be ordered.

Printing from macs and Windows

Tricks in R

How can I import data from other programs into R

Several data file formats can be imported directly in to R via the foreign library. If the sort of data you want to import is not on the list below, then there is still a good chance that you will be able to use stat-transfer to convert it to one that is recognized by R.

Stat-transfer can convert just about any kind of file into a SAS transport format file or an ASCII delimited file, either of which can be read by R. Some information - such as SAS informats and labels - will be lost in this process, as there are no equivalent structures in R.

To read data from a tab delimitted ASCII file called 'truth.csv' with the first row of the file containing variable names the following should suffice:

$\textstyle \parbox{.6\textwidth}{\texttt{truth $\leftarrow$read.table(file='truth.csv', sep=''\t'',header=T, quote='''',comment.char='''',as.is=T)}}$

;

Note the following gotchas with read.table():

sep="" tells R to trat TAB as a delimitter. Other choices are of course possible.
quote="" tells R not to treat ' or " as quotations (quotations in a data set would only be necessary if some of your data elements contain the delimtter character). It is much more likely that you have a data element like O'Conner in your dataset.
comment.char="" tells R that there are no comments in this dataset - Just in case one of your data elements contains a ``#''.
as.is=T tells R not to convert all character strings into factors - which is the default behavior. You might want R to do this conversion, but if you are not expecting it, it is confusing.

To read and write non-ASCII types of files, use the foreign library. To access it you must enter:

$\textstyle \parbox{.6\textwidth}{\texttt{library(foreign)}}$

To see how it works type:

$\textstyle \parbox{.6\textwidth}{\texttt{help(package=foreign)}}$

Currently, the the foreign library supports the following file types

S3 read functions       Read an S3 Binary File
read.dta                Read Stata binary files
read.epiinfo            Read Epi Info data files
read.mtp                Read a Minitab Portable Worksheet
read.spss               Read an SPSS data file
read.ssd                obtain a data frame from a SAS permanent
                        dataset, via read.xport 
read.xport              Read a SAS XPORT format library
write.dta               Write files in Stata binary format

All of these functions expect to be passed a file parameter as in:

$\textstyle \parbox{.6\textwidth}{\texttt{importantdata $\leftarrow$read.dta(file='/data/commons/filename.dta')}}$

$\fbox{\parbox[c]{.8\textwidth}{Be patient, \texttt{foreign} library functions ca... ...utes to be converted and read in. Unless you get an error message, get coffee}}$

Like Stata, R insists on holding all objects in core memory, this makes it a poor choice for data sets that are larger than 500 MB. Since tapinos has 10GB of RAM, large datasets can be processed in R and Stata, but you will surely want to do such things in batch mode.

How can I import a SAS data file into R

First convert your sas7bdat (or whatever type of SAS file) to ``SAS transport format''. This can be done in SAS or with stat-transfer. See Section 4.4.2 for more details, but roughly speaking:

@: st

$\textstyle \parbox{.6\textwidth}{\texttt{cp filename.sas7bdat sasx filename.xpt}}$

Import your SAS transport-format file into R:

$\textstyle \parbox{.6\textwidth}{\texttt{library(foreign)}}$

$\textstyle \parbox{.6\textwidth}{\texttt{objectname $\leftarrow$read.xport(file='/path/to/filename.xpt')}}$

objectname will be a dataframe.

How can I import Stata,SPSS,excel or some other kind of file

Some files can be imported directly using methods contained in the foreign library, these include SPSS, Stata, Epiinfo and minitab (see the help pages on packageforeign for details). For other types, you may need to convert the file into a SAS transport or other convenient type. Stat-transfer (See Section 4.4.2) is great for this. Once your file is in say SAS transport format (See Section 3.1.1 for instructions on importing it).

Graphics tricks

How can I draw a population pyramid

Below is a chunk of R code that will draw a pretty nice population pyramid, please adapt it and improve it.

########################################################################
## Sat Mar  9 20:21:19 PST 2002
## Carlm's pretty good population pyramid function.
########################################################################


poppyr<-function(age.male,age.female,agecats=c(0,1,4,seq(5,100,5))){
  ##age.male is a vector of ages of males, age.females is a vector of the
  ## mean batting averages of the New York Yankees, agecats is a
  ## vector of break points of ages -- defaults to a pretty standard
  ## one
  ##
  ## Will draw a pretty good but not quite perfect population pyramid
  
  male.ac<-table(cut(age.male,breaks=agecats))
  female.ac<-table(cut(age.female,breaks=agecats))
  

  ## 5/13/04 Megan Heller reports that some alternative 'figs'
  ## values can improve the appearance of the population pyramid
  ## by eliminating the space between the sexes. Here are
  ## Megan's suggested values:
  #  ##this one looks best in terminal
  #  split.screen(figs=rbind(c(0,.58,0,1),c(.43,1,0,1)))
 ## this one looks best in png (png files are the easiest to
  # import into MSWord -- not that you'd ever want to do that.
  # split.screen(figs=rbind(c(0,.58,0,1),c(.38,1,0,1)))

 
  split.screen(figs=rbind(c(0,.57,0,1),c(.45,1,0,1)))
  screen(1)

  
  barplot(female.ac,horiz=T,names=paste(agecats[-length(agecats)]),
          xlim=c(max(female.ac)*1.1,0),col="#FF9900")
  title("Female")

  screen(2)
  barplot(male.ac,horiz=T,axisnames=F,
          xlim=c(0,max(male.ac)*1.1),col="#0000FF")
  title("Male")

  close.screen(all=T)
}



age.male<-rnorm(10000)*50
age.female<-rnorm(10000)*50
poppyr(age.male,age.female)
mtext(side=3,line=3,text="Population Pyramid",cex=1.5)

How can I create a plot with two y-axes

You might want to do this if you have two vectors of data which have very different scales but which are both thought to be related to a third vector. In other words, you have two y-vectors which you would like to plot against a single x-vector.

The trick is to use the par(new=T) command, which tells R not to reinitialize the plotting device with subsequent high level commands (such as plot() which would ordinarily cause this to happen. Instead, R will superimpose subsequent plots on top of what is already displayed on the current device.

You will most likely also want to use axes=F argument to one of the plot() commands. This argument supresses the drawing of axes.

##################################################
## this will create a scatter plot displaying 
## two sets of points, one corresponding to the 
## y axis on the left and one to the y axis on the 
## right
##################################################

dev.off()   ## start with a new graphics device
# X11() or postscript()
plot(x<-rnorm(100),y<-rnorm(100))
z<-rnorm(100)*250
par(new=T)   ## Tell R not to reinitialize graphic device
             ## for subsequent plots
plot(x,z,col='blue',axes=F)
axis(side=4,col.axis='blue')

par(new=F)

$\fbox{\parbox[c]{.8\textwidth}{NOTE: in the example, the two y-vectors are plott... ...cal, you can show the second x-axis by typing: \texttt{axis(side=1,line=1)} }}$

How can I make the text for the y-axis come out horizontal rather than parallel to the axis

(Thanks to tmiller) There should be an easy way. Meanwhile, here is a hard way that works:

# Set margins on yaxis side large enough (10.1?) to accomodate ``foo''
par(mar=c(5.1,10.1,4.1,2.1))
par(las=1) # print axis numbers horizontally
# Don't print y-axis text label
plot (x,y, ylab=" )
# Print y-axis text label horizontally
mtext(``foo'',side=2,line=4)

LaTeX and R

How can I make a latex table from a matrix in R

xtable is a library for writing LaTeX or HTML files from R objects.

Load the library:

$\textstyle \parbox{.6\textwidth}{\texttt{library(xtable)}}$

Create an object of type ``xtable''.

$\textstyle \parbox{.6\textwidth}{\texttt{object.4.export $\leftarrow$xtable(obj... ...abel in output object', caption='will appear as caption in output', digits=3)}}$

Print the object to a file:

$\textstyle \parbox{.6\textwidth}{\texttt{print.table(x=object.4.export, type='latex', file='table42.tex')}}$

Inside your latex file add:

\input{table42}

The xtable() function has special tricks for several objects that it knows about. For example:

$\textstyle \parbox{.6\textwidth}{\texttt{lmout $\leftarrow$lm( NetHumanWorth hatsize + shoesize, data=census)}}$

$\textstyle \parbox{.6\textwidth}{\texttt{cooltab $\leftarrow$xtable(lmout, caption='Regression Results', label='tab:truth')}}$

To see a list of objects that xtable() knows about type:

$\textstyle \parbox{.6\textwidth}{\texttt{methods(xtable)}}$

How can I make an HTML table from a matrix in R

See Section 3.3.1 for a description of how to make latex tables from R objects. the xtable() function can be instructed to create HTML instead of latex. Also see Section 8.0.5 for a description of how to translate latex into very nice HTML.

File Conversion

What is the difference between ``raster'' and ``vector'' image files

Files such as jpeg, gif, bmp, pnm, png, tiff, ppm and lots of others. What distinguishes these file formats from say PostScript, is that the information they contain is where to put a bunch of dots. PostScript, WMF, CGM and others are ``Vector'' formats. They contain information on lines and shapes which the computer then converts into points when rendering it on the screen.

Vector image files: Postscript and pdf

How can I convert Postscript to pdf

There are 2 options:

ps2pdf13 runs on the linux machines. There are 3 versions of ps2pdf. Ps2pdf14 produces output compatible with Acrobat 4 and later. If you need something compatible with more ancient versions check the man page for ps2pdf.

@: ps2pdf14 filename.ps
distill is Adobe's pdf converter, it runs only on davis and brass:

@: distill filename.ps

Each of the above commands produces a file called filename.pdf. NOTE: if your postscript file is the output of dvips it will look much better if dvips was given the -Pcms option.

How can I convert several postscript files into one .pdf

On a linux machine, this should work:

@: cat first.ps second.ps third.ps | ps2pdf14 - all.pdf

How can I convert Postscript files to graphic: .gif,.jpg...

There are at least three good ways of doing this:

Use ghostscript to convert to .png then use xv to convert to your chosen format.

@: gs -sDEVICE=ppm -sOutputFile=filename.ppm filenmame.ps(or pdf)

@: xv filename.ppm
Use ImageMagic. To read in, edit if you like, and save as some other format.

@: display filename.ps
Use gimp. Gimp is a huge and complex graphics manipulation package that runs on linux machines. It has the capacity to edit just about any kind of image file - including postscript files. To convert using gimp just load the file and save it as something else.

@: gimp filename.ps

Both gimp and ImageMagic can be used to edit and convert among graphic types also.

How can I convert Postscript files to eps with tiff preview

Generally this is useful for including a postscript file in MSWord.

Use epstool:

@: epstool -t4 -ofilename.eps filename.ps

Then in Word: [Insert] $\rightarrow$ [Picture] $\rightarrow$ [From File]. The low resolution .tiff preview will appear when editing in Word, the high resolution postscript file will appear in the printout.

How can I convert LaTeX (tex or dvi) files to Postscript

Use dvips after running latex of course, on the .dvi file:

@: dvips -Pcms -ofilename.ps filename.dvi

How can I convert LaTeX to pdf

First convert to postscript (See Section 4.2.5) then to pdf (See Section 4.2.1.
Or try pdflatex:
@: pdflatex filename

where filename is the .tex version of the file.

Raster (aka ``graphics'') files

How can I convert one sort of raster file to another

netpbm is a package containing something like 200 programs for converting or modifying raster image files. In most cases the name of the program tells you what they do. For example pstopnm converts a postscript file into a pnm file.

The documentation can be found at http://netpbm.sourceforge.net/docVersion 10-6 is installed for the linux workstations.

Note that netpbm does not have a graphic user interface. These are utility programs that work from the command line. If you want to edit graphics files see 4.3.2

How can I edit graphics files

There are lots of choices for editing graphics files. The most comprehensive and therefore complicated is ``gnome image manipulation program'' or gimp. Gimp can edit just about any file format including postscript and it can do just about anything to it. It is not easy to use but it is very cool.

To launch gimp either find it in the menu or type

@: gimp

Lots of documentation is available at http://www.gimp.org/tutorials.html.

A somewhat simpler graphics editing program is ImageMagic to launch it type

@: display filename

documentation is available at http://www.imagemagick.org.

Data file formats

How can I convert binhex to useful

The hexbin program (on linux) will convert macintosh files to something readable. Use the -3 flag and look for the some-file-name.data.

@: hexbin -3 filename

NOTE: some-file-name need bear no relation whatsoever to filename. hexbin -3 will give its decoded file(s) names which are encoded in the binhex file itself. The binhex file can be named anything. You probably got it as an email attachment and saved it under some arbitrary name. For this reason it might be smart to unpack your binhex files in a nearly empty directory.

How can I convert among statistical file formats

The program stat-transfer is the most useful for converting between SAS, STATA, R, Splus, SPSS, and just about any other data file format. Even Microsoft formats can be dealt with.

To launch stat-transfer type:

@: st

then from the stat-transfer prompt () you can generally convert files using the cp as

cp filename.ext1 filename.ext2

where ext1 and ext2 represent the more or less standard file suffixes. See http://www.demog.berkeley.edu/Refs/stat-trans.unixman.pdffor more detailed instructions.

NOTE if you happen to need to convert files that are over 2GB in size, st will probably fail. A special version of st, called stl exists on our system. It is not a production version, so it probably will fail in ways that st will not, but for large files it's worth a try.

How can I convert an MSword file to ASCII text

@: antiword filename | less

How can I print an MSword file without running MSword

@: antiword -p letter filename | lpr

email

How might I forward my calmail email to my @demog address

Browse to https://calmail.berkeley.edu and rather than just login in as you generally do - look in the left column and click on ``manage My account''. Login with your calmail userid and password and the resulting screen will present you with a link called Manage mail forwrading and automatic (``vacation'') responses. It's pretty obvious from there.

How might I forward all of my @demog email to another address

If you would like all of your email to be sent to a different address - perhaps because you finally finished your dissertation and the University of Southwestern Mississippi has its own mail email server- all you need to do is create a .forward file in your home directory and make sure it is not group writable.

Here are the two steps:

create the .forward file containing your new email address. Use any pretty good text editor (MS Word is not a good text editor). The file should contain only one line and that line should contain your new address (or addresses separated by commas if you want your email to go to more than one alternate address) for example:
famousprof@highstatusdept.wellknownschool.edu
Make sure the file is publicly readable BUT not executable. This will do it:

@: chmod 644 /.forward

Simply erase the .forward file when you wish to discontinue forwarding.

A .forward gotcha:

If you wish to forward your email and receive it in your usual inbox as well, don't just add ``, userid'' as this would create an infinite loop eventually consuming all of the resources of the universe. The way out is to add ``\userid'' instead as in
\peon, famousprof@highstatusdept.wellknownschool.edu

If your stay at Berkeley is over and you just want to keep getting demog mail for a few more years, let us know. We can close your account and still forward mail indefinitely. For security reasons, it is unwise to have a lot inactive accounts on the system.

How can I filter out ALL THIS NASTY SPAM

The Spam filtering problem is not fully solved, but we are close. right now (Aug 2004) a great deal can be accomplished with quite modest effort. The best spam filtering tool is Spamassassin.

How can I make Spamassassin do its magic for me

To enable Spamassassin, all you need to do is create a file called .spam-divert. the easiest way:

@: touch /.spam-divert

(the leading ``.'' matters).

This will divert about 52 percent of your spam into a ``folder'' called DivertedSpam^5.1

You can modify certain aspects of Spamassassin's behavior, by editing the file $\sim$ .spamassassin/user_prefs. The most useful features are ``white'' (``black'') listing of specific email address that you always (never) want to hear from.

The ``required_hits'' parameter might also be worth experimenting with. Spamassassin works by assigning points based on an email messages content and a large set of rules. When the ``required_hits'' threshold is reached, the email is considered spam. If you really want to make Spamassassin effective, you will want to read Section 5.3.2.

How can I make Spamassassin really work

Spamassassin can be remarkably effective if you enable and maintain the Baysean learning module. All you need to do for this to happen is to begin saving your spam in ``folder'' called SPAM.^5.2

Every night a program will digest your SPAM file (``folder'') and create a spam filter based on it. The documentation insists that it is equally important to save false positives - that is email messages which Spamassassin falsely categorized as spam - into a file (``folder'') called HAM. Experience seems to indicate that this is difficult to do because very few legitimate messages ever turn up in DivertedSpam and not necessary, for pretty much the same reason. However everyone's spam is a little different so this might work for you.

$\fbox{\parbox[c]{.8\textwidth}{It is definitely a smart idea to periodically che... ...Spam} \lq\lq folder'' \textbf{definitely} save it to your \texttt{HAM} \lq\lq folder''.}}$

What is the best email processing program

All the workstations in the department are setup to use pine. So if all you want to do is read and write email, pine is the faster-cheaper-better way to go. If, however, you prefer a more pointy clicky application and you are looking for something to distract you from studying for prelims, you can have a go at configuring thunderbird or (on your home machine) some other IMAP aware email processing program. See 5.6 for directions on configuring thunderbird.

We also operate a web based email system called ``Squirrel Mail'' (it's the same one that calmail operates). It requires no configuration - you simply point your web browser at https://www.demog.berkeley.edu/sqmail - NOTE it's https rather than http. For details see 5.9

How do I launch pine

From the desktop look for it in the [Applications] $\rightarrow$ Internet menu.

What should I use to read email from home

From home you can use any of the methods outlined for reading email from the department. That is: pine, some other email agent, or Squirrel mail. If you have a Linux machine at home, pine is probably already installed. If you run some other OS, you may need to install it. It's free from http://www.washington.edu/pine.

Any email agent will work so long as it is capable of:

connecting to an SSL enabled IMAP server
communicating with a TLS enabled SMTP server

Most modern email agents can do these things. Referring to 5.6 might be helpful in figuring out how to configure your particular email agent.

$\fbox{\parbox[c]{.8\textwidth}{WARNING to PC USERS: Virus scanning software that... ... that is often shipped with new PCs frequently breaks TLS/SSL authentication. }}$

Squirrel Mail is also an option. See 5.9 for details.

How might I configure Pine to work from home

There are three directives to configure in pine in order to get it to work from home with the Demography lab IMAP and SMTP servers. These directives live in a file called /.pinerc. You can also configure your home version of pine to access your addressbook over IMAP but this is not necessary.

inbox-path ={imap.demog.berkeley.edu/novalidate-cert/tls}
Pine needs to know where your inbox is stored. Telling pine the name of the IMAP server inside curly brackets and the encryption method is sufficient. The ``novalidate-cert'' directive - used here and elsewhere suppresses a complicated but harmless warning screen that notifies you that our certificate is homemade and should not be trusted. If you leave out novalidate-cert you will have to hit and extra keystroke (Y) to ``continue'' when you see it. The tls directive indicates that we must use ``Transport Layer Security''.
folder-collections={imap.demog.berkeley.edu/novalidate-cert/tls}[]
Folder-collections refers to the place that stored email is kept. On our system this must be mail directory. Pine requires the name of the server in curly brackets followed by ``[]''.
smtp-server= Smtp.demog.berkeley.edu:2525/novalidate-cert/tls/user=youruserid
(where youruserid is your userid at the Demography Dept). The SMTP server is the only configuration directive that does not use the name of the IMAP server - it requires instead the name of the SMTP server (surprise). These are entirely distinct operations (see 5.14 for tedious details). The key difference for configuring pine is that the SMTP server in not enclosed in those curly brackets. The ``:2525'' specifies the use of a nonstandard port for SMTP connections. This is not always necessary - but many ISP's now block traffic on the default port, 25.

How can I access my addressbook remotely

If you already have a pine addressbook (at the department) on which your life depends, you will want to make sure that you can access and modify it from home as well as from the department. In that case read on. If, on the other hand, you are just fine having one addressbook at home and one at the department then skip this step.

Pine keeps addressbooks in one of two formats. If the addressbook is specified as local file then pine stores it as a plain comma delimited ASCII file. If the addressbook specification includes the name of an IMAP server, then pine maintains it in complicated ASCII format that looks like a mail folder.

So, if your goal is to have one single addressbook that you can use with pine from home as well as at the department, you need to do two things: (1) get all of your address information into a remote format addressbook file; and (2) configure pine at work and at home to consult that file via IMAP.

Get all of your addresses into "remote format" address book

It is possible, especially if you have been using PC-PINE that this is already done. If it is then you will have a file called .iaddressbook in your home directory. Most likely, you will not have this file and your addressbook is instead stored in your home directory as simply .addressbook. If so, it should be a flat ASCII, comma separated file.

To convert a plain ordinary .addressbook file into one suitably formatted for remote access over IMAP, you can invoke pine with some fancy arguments:

@: pine -copy_abook .addressbook "{imap.demog.berkeley.edu}.remote-addressbook"

You will be prompted for your userid and password and the usual certificate warning will appear.

NOTE:

the quotation marks in the above command are pretty important.
the resulting file .remote-addressbook will wind up in your $\sim$ /mail directory. Your local addressbook is in your home directory.
configure pine to recognize the remote-addressbook file that you just created. The configuration parameter in pine is address-book=. Use the same specification as you used in the pine -copy_bk command, e.g. {imap.demog.berkeley.edu}.remote-address (But skip the quotation marks in pine's configuration file).
NOTE that you can (and maybe should) change your pine configuration at the department to use this new remote-format addressbook.
NOTE again: there is no standard addressbook format whatever email agent you use will have it's own idea of what addressbooks should be so making your addressbook remotely accessible via pine will not do you any good with say MS outlook.

How would I configure thunderbird or some other browser based email agent for home or at the department

These directions are for setting up thunderbird for use at the department. The same configuration arguments should work for you from home. Thunderbird is free and open source and available for mac and windows as well as Linux at www.mozilla.org. If you do not use Linux at home (yet) then there may be some minor differences these directions should be of some help. Hopefully, other browser based email agents will be configured simillarly.

First launch the application:

@: thunderbird

If it is the first time you have launched it, a dialog box will appear to get you started. In most cases the defaults are fine. Below are some places where the defaults are faulty. After the wizard is done with you, you will need to configure the Transport Layer Security options. The procedure for that is also described below.

Email Address should be your complete email address. If the suggested Email address is userid@DEMOG change it to userid@demog.berkeley.edu
IMAP is the proper choice for incoming mail server
imap.demog.berkeley.edu is the proper choice for IMAP server
smtp.demog.berkeley.edu is the proper choice for SMTP server
Incoming and outgoing user names are your userid (it will guess this correctly)
account name should be your email address. (it should get this one right also)

After completing the wizard dance, you will be prompted for passwords. Just hit $\fbox{\texttt{cancel}}$ . You'll have to configure the Transport Layer Security features before this will work.

How do I configure TLS options for thunderbird

Both SMTP and IMAP use encryption and require configuration. See 5.13 and 5.14 for a general description of what these are.

SMTP encryption

In the left column under the word ``folders'' should be your ``account name'' Click on it and in the right window should appear some more links. One of those links is called ``View Settings for this Account''. Click on that.

In the dialog box that now appears, you should be able to select ``Outgoing Server SMTP'' and by selecting that link, you should be presented with a set of radio buttons, one of which will enable TLS. Do that. NOTE: The default port for SMTP is 25 BUT many ISPs block that port in a futile attempt to thwart spammers. Our SMTP server will also answer on port 2525 - so you might wish to specify that as an alternative to 25.

IMAP encryption

The IMAP connection also needs to be encrypted. To accomplish this (re)visit the ``View Settings for this account'' dialog box described previously. Select the ``Server Settings'' link and in the form that appears, check ``Use secure connection SSL''. This will cause the ``Port'' setting to change to 993. That is fine. Leave unchecked the box for ``secure authentication''. Only the connection not the authentication process is encrypted.

Close the dialog box now and you should be able to click on the ``inbox'' icon on the left side and be prompted for your password.

During the authentication process, you will at various times receive some dire, yet not immediately comprehensible messages regarding ``self signed certificates''. Because real certificates cost money, we are indeed using home made ones. For our purposes, this is secure enough. Click ``UK'' or ``continue'' or whatever you need to to make mailserverit go away. If you click properly, you will be allowed to access your email.

How can I configure MS Outlook express to work with the Demography System

If you really must do this, good luck. We do not support this because it is a bad thing, but presumably you are a grown up now, so here are some clues. These are provided by an anonymous user - no one here will admit to actually having tried this:

Here are notes for using Outlook Express (and presumably Outlook) with
our IMAP setup.
                                                                                
--------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Create a new account for your demography connection
Tools/Accounts/Mail/Add
                                                                                
2. Use your user@demog.berkeley.edu  email address
     Incoming  is IMAP server
     Incoming server: imap.demog.berkeley.edu
     Outgoing SMTP server: smtp.demog.berkeley.edu 
     Account name:  your login id
     Password:  leave blank
     SPA: unchecked

3.  Before exiting Internet Accounts, edit the Properties of the newly
created account.
                                                                                
    Advanced tab:  Under Incoming mail(IMAP) check 'This server requires
a secure connection (SSL).  The port number should change from 143 to
993.  For Outgoing (SMTP), also check secure.  The port should read 25.

How can I read email when I'm away from Berkeley

When you are on the road and do not feel like installing and configuring anything - perhaps you only have access to a computer in an internet cafe or a public rest room - your best option is Squirrel Mail

Squirrel Mail, is the the department's web based email processing facility. You can find it at https://www.demog.berkeley.edu/sqmail,or from the department's main website. See 5.9 for more details.

How do I use Squirrel Mail

Squirrel Mail is a web based email system. All you need to do in order to use it is to point your browser at https://www.demog.berkeley.edu/sqmail. NOTE the ``https''. You will be warned about the dangers of accepting the self signed certificate. Go ahead, live dangerously and click ``ok''.

Squirrel Mail is pretty easy to use, but if you get more than a few messages a day, you will find it impractically slow and clumsy. It's main use is for when you are on the road and don't feel like installing software on your mother in law's apple 2e in order to read your email.

What can I use to filter email in sophisticated ways

Procmail is a general purpose email filter. You can use it to automatically put email in folders (instead of your default inbox); delete certain kinds of email before you see it; forward certain email to your mom; or run an arbitrary program. Procmail works by checking each email message against regular expressions, so you can select which email should get which treatment according to the presence of any text string anywhere in the message - header or body.

Procmail was once practical way to filter out Spam, but the world has moved on and that job has become far too complicated. For a more effective and far lower effort Spam filtering tool, see Section 5.3.

How can I setup an automatic email responder (that does not also respond to spammers)

Simple. Just create a file called .vaction_msg in your home directory and put your outgoing message in it. Use any editor your like (MS Word is not and editor). While that file exists, any email message that is not busted for spam or virus content, will be delivered as usual to your inbox. But in addition, the sender will receive a message constructed from whatever is in your .vacation_msg file. The message should probably indicate when you will return, but whatever.

To disable the autoresponder simply delete the .vacation_msg file.

NOTE that the ``.'' in .vacation_msg is significant.

How can I read MSword files in email

Sending MSword files as email attachments is suboptimal in many ways. The most important, is that MSword files include secret personal information which can be recovered by others. Nonetheless, if someone sends you these e-turds, here are some options:

Create a file called .decodewordmail in your home directory. This will cause all MSword attachments translated into ASCII text and appended to the message. If you do not need to edit the file, this is generally a huge time saver. The decoder does not destroy the original attachment, so attachments can still be opened using word processors. In addition, any message that the system tries to decode is first copied to a mail folder called UNdecodedwordmail so if something odd happens in the decoding process, you can still unpack it the old way.
The Linux machines run OpenOffice and pine is configured to use it to open MSWord documents. On a good day, pine should launch OpenOffice when you type $\fbox{\textsc{v}}$ (to view the attachment index), and $\fbox{\textsc{Return}}$ after selecting the appropriate attachment.
The Linux workstations also run MS Office applications under Crossover Office. See Section 11 for more information on Crossover. You will need to save the attachment to disk before opening it with MSWord via cxoffice. By editing your .mailcap file, it is possible to get pine to open MSWord directly.
Save to disk and open the file in a word processor. AbiWord is a small, fast simple word processor that does a good job with small MSword files. It will screwup tables and other fancy formatting. It can save in .rtf which is a good way to exchange word processing files with others.

What is IMAP

IMAP is a protocol by which email processing programs such as pine can get access to and operate on email messages which are stored on a server. IMAP is particularly nice for reading email from home because it will allow you to manipulate your inbox and stored message folders in a way that will not interfere with other IMAP capable email agents - such as pine and sqmail.

By storing your mail on the server, you can access all of your new and old messages from any machine in 2232 or 2224 Piedmont as well as from your machine at home - or from a machine somewhere else in the world. If you lose your laptop computer, or your house burns down - or even if you die, your email will all be in one place conveniently accessible from anywhere in the world.

How might one configure IMAP generally

IMAP compliant email agents (most of them now) will insist on (some of) the following information in order to retrieve and manipulate your email from our IMAP server. See 5.5 for instructions specific for pine.

IMAP server name: imap.demog.berkeley.edu
userid: you should know this by now
password: Until recently this would have been your Email password notyour secure 'Master' password. BUT THIS IS NO LONGER THE CASE. We are phasing out the two password scheme in favor of encryption everywhere. In the near future - or perhaps the present, you will need only one password to access Demography Lab computing resources. To connect to IMAP and SMTP servers, your main password what you will use. In order to do so, you will need to configure your email agent for ``transport layer security'' (TLS).
whether or not you wish to encrypt the connection and if so, by what method. There are lots of choices here. Our IMAP server is configured to use ``Transport Layer Security'' (TLS) (which is often specified using the term ``STARTTLS''), and the ``PLAIN'' authentication method (which is often specified using the term ``password'').
The location of your INBOX. Our IMAP server will not require this.
The location of your stored email folders. Our server will find this by itself.
The location of you addressbook. Not all email programs will let you store your addressbook on the server. It's a nice feature if it is available. If you have an addressbook from a different email system, it might possible to convert it. I dunno.

What is SMTP

SMTP stands for ``Simple Mail Transfer Protocol''. SMTP server are the machines that transport mail across the globe by talking SMTP to one another. Virtually all email travels this way. Users do not speak directly to SMTP servers but need occasionally to configure their email programs (eg. pine, netscape, eudora ...) to communicate with one.

SMTP servers are entirely independent of IMAP servers. SMTP servers talk to each other and to programs which deliver mail to users' inboxes. IMAP servers let users manipulate their inboxes and their stored mail folders. Since inboxes and stored mail folders are just just plain old ASCII files, SMTP and IMAP servers need know nothing about each other.

How might I configure an email program to use SMTP

Email programs need to know either the name or ipaddress of the SMTP server you wish to use. If you are using an SMTP server provided by your ISP, you might not need to specify anything other than the server's name or address. If you are using the demography department's server from outside of the department, more information will be required.

In order to slow down the spammers, our SMTP server required encryption and authentication. By refusing to relay messages for anyone who cannot provide a valid userid and password, we deny SMTP service to spammers - unless of course you are a spammer.

Our SMTP server uses the same userid, password and encryption scheme as our IMAP server. That is Transport Layer Security (aka ``STARTTLS'') and PLAIN authentication (aka ``password'').

Scanning documents and images

Where is the scanner

There are currently two scanners one is Most likely in the basement lab connected to census the other is probably in the library connected to logit. The scanner in the basement is a ``document'' with a 20 page ``auto document feeder''. The scanner in the attic is a ``flat bed'' scanner. The forer is suitable for scanning one or two sided documents (probably into .pdf format) that latter is useful for scanning images one at a time.

How can I scan a whole stack of pages into a single .pdf file

The Avision AV220 scanner in the basement lab is ideal for this task. Assuming that your document is monochrome and contains writing on no more than two sides of each page, then you can simply:

verify that the Avision AV220 is turned on
Get a shell on census (unless the Avision AV220 is connected to a different machine). To get a shell either logon to census or ssh to census from another machine.
Run scan2pdf. scan2pdf is a locally written program that calls several other programs which: (1) scans your document, (2) convert each page to postscript, (3) converts the postscript into a single .pdf file, and (4) deletes all the intermediate junk.

So, once you have a shell on census just type:

@: scan2pdf -o document.pdf

where document.pdf is the name of the pdf file that you would like to create from the scanned images. scan2pdf will prompt you as to whether you like 1 or 2 sided scanning.

$\fbox{\parbox[c]{.8\textwidth}{When you're finished, why not turn off the scanner and thereby save the world.}}$

Suppose I want my scanned pages to be something other than pdf...

Before going down this road ask yourself it it is posible to either convert a .pdf into what you want or to use .pdf instead. It's going to be a lot simpler if you can. See Section 4 on file format conversion for more information.

Well if you must scan into something other that .pdf, then you'll need to use the scanadf command. The scanadf command produces a file for each page in your stack of documents. Those files will be in .pnm format, which though seldom used, is easily converted into just about anything via a pnmto-whatever command. See Section 4.3.1 for information on the netpbm pakage, which allows you to convert .pnm files to all sorts of other types.

$% latex2html id marker 2379 \fbox{\parbox[c]{.8\textwidth}{ NOTE: (See Section \ref{scanpdf} if your goal is a pdf file).}}$

Using scanadf

To scan a 13 page stack of documents into pnm format (a good choice)

@: mkdir scannedpages

@: cd scannedpages

@: $\textstyle \parbox{.9\textwidth}{\texttt{scanadf -o page\%02d.pnm -source='ADF Duplex' \\ -mode 'Lineart' -y 279 -x 216 -resolution 300}}$

The result will be 13 files called 'page01.pnm - page13.pnm' in the scannedpages directory.

Note that the ``-y 279'' refers to the length of the page(s) being scanned. 297 conresponds to 11.5 inches. ``-mode 'Lineart''' is good choice for black and white documents. There a lot of options that you can experiment with, all of which are explained in the man page for scanadf.

How can I scan an image

Once you have located the flatbed scanner (look in the attic) and politely made sure that no one else is using it, you can get started. The scanner makes very little noise when not in use, and has no on/off switch. If logit is on, then the scanner is probably on as well - especially if it is plugged in.

Get a terminal window on logit (either by logging in or ssh'ing from another machine) and type

@: xsane

For tediously detailed instructions, see 6.3.1

Step by step instructions for using the scanner

Get a terminal window on logit.

$% latex2html id marker 2427 \fbox{\parbox[c]{.8\textwidth}{ NOTE: you do not ne... ...er. You can operate the scanner by remotely logging in (See Section \ref{ssh})}}$
Put a document on the scanner's glass window. (Lift up on front of the document feeder). The document should be face down. It does not matter where on the glass you put it. If you prefer to work with right-side-up images, then make sure the top of the document is closest to the wall.
Launch the scanner interface program xsane by typing the command:
@: xsane

The result should be the main xsane dialog window and the preview window shown in shown in figure 6.1

Figure 6.1: xsane main dialog and preview windows

$\resizebox{.3\textwidth}{!} {\includegraphics{xsanemain.eps}}$ $\resizebox{.3\textwidth}{!} {\includegraphics{xsanepreview.eps}}$
Select the proper scan mode. The default is Lineart which is wrong for most things. The scan resolution is set by the slider bar on the main window just below the output filename. Resolution is given in dots per inch (dpi). As you change the dpi setting, a box near the bottom of the window displays the size of the resulting image file. For images that will be used on computer screens, anything above 75 dpi is wasted space.
click $\fbox{\texttt{Acquire Preview}}$ (on the Preview Window) to see the image of what's on the scanner. The clarity of the preview image is not affected by the setting in the main window. it is just there for cropping and fiddling.
To crop the image, click and drag the $\fbox{\textsc{left button}}$ to create a dotted line box around the part you want. The display in the main window showing the size of the image in KB and in cm will change as you adjust the size of the image to acquire.
If you are happy with what you have in the preview window. Then on the main dialog box (not the preview window) set the filename of the image file that you are about to create. The default is out.pnm. Then push $\fbox{\texttt{Start}}$ .
You can determine the format of the image file via the $\fbox{\texttt{by ext}}$ pull-down menu. The default type .pnm is easily converted to other types - but if you know what you want, and it's in the menu well...
When the image is scanned, and the out.pnm or whatever you decided to call it is complete, you can use either xv or (gimp) to convert (or edit) it to a more familiar or exotic format. xv is easiest (by far) to use, but it has no editing features. gimp is a much more sophisticated image manipulation program which can edit, crop, morph, and whatever the file. The commands for launching either are:

@: xv filename

@: gimp filename

**Figure 6.1:** xsane main dialog and preview windows
$\resizebox{.3\textwidth}{!} {\includegraphics{xsanemain.eps}}$ $\resizebox{.3\textwidth}{!} {\includegraphics{xsanepreview.eps}}$

Photographs

If you are scanning a photograph and understand such things as custom gamma tables and color matrices you will want to explore options which become available when you choose color (as opposed to Lineart or Grayscale. Other knobs and dials are available under the [View] menu.

How can I convert the graphic images I have scanned into text (OCR) ?

The process by which graphic images of written text are transformed into editable text files is called ``optical character recognition'' or OCR. We do not have an OCR program running locally, but don't despair. There is a site on the web that will do this for you and Gene Hammel says it works pretty well.

Here is Gene's description:

Subject: Re: ocr

http://docmorph.nlm.nih.gov/docmorph/

Contains a good deal of information. Basically, a user must register and have a password, then can log in and do all kinds of graphic and text file conversions (except from pdf to anything else). You upload the file to be transformed, you are informed when it is ready to download, and that's it. It all takes place on the WEB page, in interaction with the file browsing abilities of your own OS.

I had scanned 18pp of typed text at 600 dpi. These were *.pnm files. Each was about 1 MB. I read the instructions on the docmorph page, then sent and received each file separately.

First you click on a link to upload a file. You can type in the path or browse for it, then click submit. After it uploads you get a message saying to wait; it takes 12 seconds to process a page. Then a link appears that allows you to download the file, which appears in your WEB browser. I then saved this page as *.txt; the file naming is automatic. Then I clicked the other link, to upload a new file, and went through the process again.

There were no difficulties whatever. The OCR seems to be perfect although I have yet to read through it. The txt files are about 3 KB each. The only problem is tables; these do not preserve their original format, and I need to inquire of their tech support how to do this.

It might have been simpler if I had catenated all the pnm files and uploaded just one file for conversion. But I do not know what happens to a set of pnm files when catenated, and it might be tricky to get them in the right order if one used a regexp in the cat command line so as to avoid a lot of tedious typing. Something like cat file[0001..0055].pnm allfiles.pnm might work.

In short, I do recommend it.

Remote, Portable and Wireless Access

How should I connect the the Demography Lab from afar

There are many ways to connect remotely - how you should connect depends on what you want to do, and on how far afar you are. If you intend to do anything beyond checking email you will need a login shell (See 7.1.1 and 7.2); if you wish to run programs with graphic user interfaces or to produce graphical output then in addition to a login shell, you will also need X11 (See 7.1.1 and 7.4 . If you really only care about email you can do it in a browser See 5.9 or with pine or many other IMAP compliant email agents - you can do that without a loging shell or an X11 connection.

login shell or X11 or both

If you just need a login shell

- that is a command prompt but no graphics then all you need is an encrypted connection such as ssh. See 7.2. With just a login shell you get no meaningful mouse but you can still at least do the following:

run emacs in tty-mode no mouse; no menu; but all of the key combinations work.
R either inside emacs or in a shell of its own. No x11() graphics devices. You can write graphs to jpeg() or postscript().
SAS in batch mode
pine
anything you could do on a Unix machine before 1987.

If you need X11 - that is graphics and pointy clicky things

- then you will need an X11 server^7.1 running on the machine that you are sitting in front of. If your machine is a linux machine you already have X11, if not you will need to install some software. See 7.1.1

From inside 2232 Piedmont, from home or from Ouagadougou

For our present purpose, there are two kinds of ``afar'' :

In the Demography building, but using your own personal laptop computer.
Somewhere else in the world but connected to the internet.

If case 1 obtains, you will need to get your laptop on the network before worrying about how you should connect to the Demography Lab. See 7.5 or (7.6) to get your wired or (wireless) connection working.

How can I just just get a remote Demography Lab login shell

The Demography Lab is accessible only via encrypted connection. Telnet, and rlogin are not encrypted so you cannot use those. If your personal computer runs linux or mac OSX, ssh is probably installed and usable, just open (``Terminal'' on a mac) and shell type

@: ssh demog.berkeley.edu

NOTE that this is also the command you would use to connect to a server from within the local network - except instead of demog.berkeley.edu you would type the name of the server e.g. tapinos, or coale.

If you are running Windows, below are two other options.

$\fbox{\parbox[c]{.8\textwidth}{NOTE: firewall software often inteferes with ssh ... ...bolical ways. If things don't work as advertized, try disabling your firewall}}$

mindterm Using your java enabled browser, click on
www.demog.berkeley.edu/SecureShell. This java application provides encrypted ``ssh'' connection to any site. It is very handy when you are away from home and only have a browser to work with.
Secure Shell The latest version of Secure Shell for windows is available from the campus Workstation Support Group. In order to get it you must have a CalNet ID and your double secret pass phrase. Download it from http://software.berkeley.edu. The user guide for version 3.1.0 is available http://www.demog.berkeley.edu/Refs/ssh2winclient.pdf

What tweaks to ssh are necessary on the mac in order to operate with X11

In order for ssh to work with X11, thereby allowing you to launch application on a Unix server and control them from your mac, ``x11 tunneling'' needs to be turned on and you need to add a -Y flag.

To turn on X11 tunneling

on your mac, you can either follow the instruction at http://developer.apple.com/qa/qa2004/qa1383.html,

which are:

@: sed 's/#X11Forwarding no/X11Forwarding yes/' /etc/sshd_config > /tmp/sshd_config

@: sudo mv /tmp/sshd_config /etc/.

or you can by some other means edit your /etc/sshd_config file and change the default setting of :''#X11Forwarding no'' to the more useful ``X11Forwarding yes''.

After that change, you can run ssh in a mac terminal window:

@: ssh -Y -l username coale

The -Y is required for mysterious reason, the -l username is required if your username on your mac is something different from your username on the demography system.

How might I get an X11 connection to the Demogarphy Lab

X11 is the windowing system that Demography Lab linux machines run. Every graphics enabled program that you can run here including xstata, sas (with GUI), emacs (the non tty version), R's X11() graphics device - and a zillion other things requires X11. The cool thing about X11 is that X11 process can run on one machine (coale) and can present their user friendly interface on another. If your personal computer is running an X11 server then it can be that other machine.

Note that in order to use X11 effectively you will need both a functioning X11 server on your local machine and an encrypted login shell such as ssh See 7.1.1.

X11 on a mac

Macs come with X11 - in the sense that one of the CDs that came with the machine has an X11 server on it that you can install.

Once you have installed X11 you just need to:

launch it (it should be in the Applications folder)
ssh to demog.berkeley.edu - if your outside of the department or to a server such as coale if you are inside. NOTE: ssh needs a little bit of tweaking on the mac in in order to work with X11. See refsshtweak
launch an X11 application such as xstata

How can I get my ethernet card equipped portable onto the network

There are two network stitches aka ``laptop landing zones'' in the building. One is in the basement lab and the other is in the Library. If your machine has an ethernet card (which could be built in or PCMCIA) you should be able to connect simply by:

leaving all network parameters set to their default values. If you need to reset these values - the key idea is to allow the DHCP server to assign all of the ipaddresses, network masks & etc.
Connecting your machine to an unused port on one of the above mentioned switches via a ``category 5'' patch cable. (It looks like a telephone wire on steroids). On a good day there will be such a wire sticking out of a port on the switch.

$% latex2html id marker 2904 \fbox{\parbox[c]{.8\textwidth}{BUT WAIT: Campus sec... ...e no clue about what a mac address is or how to find it see \ref{macaddr}. }}$

How can I get my 802.11 equipped portable onto the network

Currently we have a 802.11G wireless access points on each floor of 2232. In order to communicate through it you must:

Have an operational 802.11(A,B or G) network interface device
Be sufficiently close to an access point
Have sent your ``mac address'' to troubledemog.berkeley.edu

Access to the wireless network is controlled by ``mac address'' so until you tell us yours, the access point will not communicate with your device. If you have no clue about mac addresses see 7.9

See 7.10 regarding the security implications of wireless access.

How can I transfer files between my home computer and the Demography Lab

If you have secure shell installed on your home computer, you can use sftp. The sftp program functions somewhat like ftp - which we no longer use as it is not encrypted.

If your home machine runs Linux, you would type:

@: sftp userid@demog.berkeley.edu

after logging in, you can move around and find stuff using cd and ls. To move a file to the machine you are sitting in front of, type get filename to move a file to the Demography Lab network, type put filename.

Under MSWindows, the ssh which you can download for free (as long as you affiliated with UCB) see 7.2, has sftp application with a reportedly ``easy to use'' interface.

NOTE: sftp is picky about what it sees on STDOUT. If your .tcshrc file echo's a message, it is possible that sftp will hang after taking your password.

How would I transfer a lot of files

One option for transferring entire directories is rsync. Rsync is free and available on many platforms. It is much more powerful than it is simple to use so be careful. Treat it as you would a circular saw...with all the safety guards removed. Read the man page carefully before experimenting. Your best friend, where rsync is concerned, is the --dry-run argument. Also, note that in order to use rsync from outside of the department, you will need to tell rsync to operate over an encrypted connections. This is done via the --rsh=ssh argument.

Here's a simple example of how to move all the files from a directory called dissertation in your Demography Lab home directory, to directory called backup/dissertation on your home computer.

Assuming your home computer runs Linux, of course:

@: rsync -uva -rsh=ssh demog.berkeley.edu:dissertation ./backup

How can I print from my portable

If you have managed to connect your portable to the network either by wire or wireless means, then you'll probably want to print. Our Unix servers run the Common Unix Printing System (CUPS) is the standard default printing setup for all modern linux and macintosh systems. CUPS is such a good standard that even microsoft grudgingly, supports it - in its usual half hearted semi-conscious way. Configuration is only necessary for windows machines.

If you have a Linux machine see Section 7.8.1. If you have a mac see Section 7.8.2; for windows see Section 7.8.3; for very old windows machines see 7.8.4

How might I enable my Linux machine to print to Demography printers

A linux machine on the network should find the printers which are advertised by our CUPS server. All you should have to do is make sure that ``Browsing'' is turned on, and that is the default setting.

How might I enable by mac to print Demography printers

If you have managed to connect your machine to the network, and you have at least Mac OS X 10.3 running, then you're done. Just print from your application. You might have to look for [shared printers] in the dialog box. (Macs, being Unix machines also run CUPS).

How might I enable my windows machine to print to Demography printers

If you have a Windows OS, you will need to help your machine find the CUPS system. Below are directions - but be aware that things move around a bit between windows OSs so this is just a rough guide

from the [control panel]

select [add printer]] and Choose a ``network printer''.

select the "URL" style connection

Generally this is a radio button with and example that includes ``http://example...''. Choose the appropriate radio button and specify the URL as:

$\fbox{\parbox[c]{.8\textwidth}{\textbf{http://cupshost.demog.berkeley.edu:631/printers/age} (assuming that \texttt{age} is the printer you wish to access) }}$

select or install printer drivers

If you machine is relatively new, you probably have the printer drivers that you need already installed, in which case you will be able to select them from a menu. See Table 7.1 as to which driver to select. For most purposes, a printer driver with a similar name will do - it is important that the selected driver have the ``(PS)'' appellation indicating that it is a postscript driver.

Table 7.1: printers by model

printer	Model/driver
age	HP P4015 (PS)
class	HP 4100N (PS)
cohort	HP 4200N (PS)
parity	HP 4050N (PS)
status	HP 4200N (PS)
ses	Ricoh SP C410DN PS

If sufficiently similar drivers are not already installed on your machine then you will need to acquire them and use the ``have a disk'' option. To acquire the drivers you can either:

Go to HP's web site http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/support.html and download the driver for the particular printer. Use Table 7.1 to determine the correct drivers to download. HP also makes available something they call a ``Universal'' print driver which is probably the right one to use for all printers.
After downloading, unzip the file and remember where you put it.
connect to our local share which has possibly not the latest versions of the drivers. This would be called ``mapping the network drive'': //POPULATION/printdrivers.

The next step is to select $\fbox{\texttt{have a disk}}$ instead of an installed driver, and navigate either to the the ``network drive'' that you mapped above, or to the place where you unpacked the drivers that you already downloaded.

How might I enable my VERY OLD windows machine to print to Demography printers

If your windows machine is very old (but not so old that MS no longer publishes security updates - in which case please do not connect it to the network), then the following procedure, thoughtfully supplied by Peter Brownell might work for you. Peter successfully used this for a Windows 2000 machine, things might be a little different for whatever old clunker you have.

Peter Brownell's Unoffical How to for connecting to the Demog network
to print under windows 2000 (and use other useful utilities).

Written 5/5/06

The Owners Manual says to ``Browse to Population.''

I found some more detailed advice (for a different network) at:

http://www.its.caltech.edu/win/cwin2k.html

Here's what I did:

Before beginning, I had registered my MAC address with Carl (required)
and also installed Netswitcher from software.berkeley.edu
(recommended).

I also turned off my firewall software, since it kept asking me if
various things could connect and I sometimes got ``not found'' errors
if
I didn't click OK fast enough. Plus, the network is already behind a
hardware firewall.

1) Change your ``Workgroup'' to ``Demography.'' You can do this in
   Netswitcher, under the ``General'' tab OR right-click on ``My
   Computer,'' click the ``Network ID'' tab, click ``Properties,'' and
   edit
   the Workgroup setting.

2) Physically connect to the network and confirm that you can (for
  example) browse the internet.

3) Click on ``My Network Places,'' then ``Computers Near Me.'' If all
   is
   well with your ``Workgroup'' setting, you should see Boserup,
   Brass,
   Demog, Demography, Population, and your computer. You should be
   able to browse into any of the shared directories (you might have
   to
   enter your Userid and Password).

4) Go to Start -> Settings -> Printers and click ``Add Printer.''
   Choose
   ``Network Printer,'' hit Next, leave printer Name/URL blank and
   click
   Next, I found the printers showed up under Brass (although the
   Manual seems to imply you would find them on Population). Choose
   the printer you want to install and click Next.

5) Windows should tell you that you have to install printer drivers on
   your local machine, click OK. then Choose ``Have Disk,'' then
   ``Browse'' then browse My Network -> ...-> Demography -> Population
   ->printdrivers  and look for the the folder for the printer you
   picked. Pick the driver - I'd suggest the postscript (PS) rather
   than PCL. You probably don't want to make this your default printer
   when Windows asks, unless you mostly print here. Finish the
   installation.

6) Test by printing a page.

Yea!

How can I find my "mac address"

The ``mac address'' also goes by the names ``ethernet address'', ``hardware address'', ``station address'', ``ethernet id'' and ``physical address'' and perhaps there are others. It is a 12 digit hexadecimal number generally shown with a ``:'' separating each pair of digits. Since it's hexadecimal, digits include the letters A-F. For example: ``00:0C:76:00:4A:FA''.

In most cases the mac address will be printed somewhere on you network card. If not, your computer can tell you. Under Linux the command is /sbin/ifconfig. The numbers you want will be labeled ``HWaddress''.

Under Windows, if you can find a ``command prompt'', you can type: ipconfig /all. The answer will be reported as ``physical address''. NOTE that there may be more than one such physical address so make sure you get the one associated with the wireless card. (Thanks to Sarah Staveteig for this)

Here is a helpful site with more instructions on how to find your mac address under various OS's: this http://www-dcn.fnal.gov/DCG-Docs/mac.

Be especially vigilant if you have two or more network devices. Each such device has its own unique mac address. Make sure the mac address you give us is associated with the device that you plan to connect to the LAN with.

How secure is the wireless network

Not very secure at all. We restrict access to the network according to mac address, but we do not encrypt connections. Consequently a talented moral defective will be able to read the information that travels to and from your machine unless you make sure that communication is encrypted. Most important/private information such as credit card numbers typed into websites will be encrypted, as will your email if you use Squirelmail(See 5.9). Everything else ... well since you have nothing to hide, maybe you don't care.

LaTeX

How can I learn to use LaTeX

A good place to start is with the Not so short guide available at http://www.demog.berkeley.edu/Refs/lshort.pdf. There are also several pretty good books on using LaTeX. Unfortunately the tend to be rather expensive. There should be a few copies of LaTeX: A Document Preparation System by Leslie Lamport lying about the lab.

Where can I find lots and lots of LaTeX documentation

http://www.demog.berkeley.edu/TeX

Are there any slick tools for editing LaTeX documents

Emacs is by far the best way to edit LaTeX documents. By visiting a buffer/file with a .tex suffix, emacs should put you in ``LaTeX'' mode all sorts of good things will follow therefrom. Documentation on Auctex can be found at http://www.demog.berkeley.edu/Refs/auc-tex.ps

Can LaTeX documents be converted into pdf

yes pdflatex can do this.

@: pdflatex filename(.tex)

But embedded graphics are lost, so if your document is just text this is quick.

If your document has embedded graphics then the two step process below works very well:

@: latex filename.tex

@: dvips -Pcms filename.dvi

@: ps2pdf13 filename.ps

What's the best way to put LaTeX documents on the web

There are at least two pretty good ways of doing this:

`htlatex filename`

takes filename.tex and creates a single filename.html - with potentially lots of other files on which that single html file relies, e.g. graphic images converted to .png format.

The command

`latex2html filename.tex`

will create a subdirectory called filename containing a bunch of HTML files linked together. Just give that directory name as the URL. Because all the filenames and links are machine generated, it is not fruitful to attempt to edit the HTML files. The right approach is to edit the latex files if you need to change something.

{\use{hyperref} is a nice package to include in documents that are bound for the web.

How might one create a table in LaTeX -without losing one's mind

There are two pretty good choices:

If the data for your table happens to reside in R, then you can use the xtable() function to output a chunk of LaTeX for inclusion. See 3.3.1 for details
If you prefer to create tables in a spreadsheet program, then you can use gnumeric. See 8.0.6

How can I use gnumeric to make tables in LaTeX

A reasonable approach for making tables in LaTeX is with gnumeric. Gnumeric is nice spreadsheet program which can read .xls files and can save them as .tex files.

It is of course, not as simple as one might wish. Gnumeric uses the longtable package so in order to modify what gnumeric does, you will to come to terms with longtable.

Here is a rough procedure for getting a table into a LaTeX document. If your tables aren't too complicated and you are not too picky, it'll probably work. But if the wheels come off, you'll want to have a look at the documentation - there's lots of LaTeX docs at www/Refs/LaTeX-DOCS.

Create your table in gnumeric

you could do this by importing an .xls or .sxc file or you can start from scratch or whatever-it's a spreadsheet program. Resist the temptation to get fancy, colors and fonts and such will be lost in the next step. Make sure each table is in a separate tab. It would be smart not to include the title of your table in the gnumeric version. That goes in \caption later.

save the file as LaTeX

Save each table to a file. Use [file] $\rightarrow$ [save as] and select ``LaTeX 2e.''

Follow the directions in the file you just created

The section at the top of the file that gnumeric spit out informs you of all the the \usepackage commands that you'll need to insert in your ``including'' document. That is in the file that you want the tables to show up in ultimately.

All of the \usepackage and \newlength commands come between the \documentclass and the begin{document} command. That is the go in the ``preamble.''

Edit the file that gnumeric wrote

The file that gnumeric creates includes a ``float'' it is the moral equivalent of something inside a:

  \begin{table}[htbp]

  \end{table}

You'll surely want to add a \caption and a \label to your table. To do so, you need to edit the file that gnumeric wrote.

Look for the command that looks like:

\begin{longtable}[c]{%
        b{\gnumericColA}%
        b{\gnumericColB}%
        b{\gnumericColC}%
        b{\gnumericColD}%
        }

and make it look like this:

\begin{longtable}[c]{%
        b{\gnumericColA}%
        b{\gnumericColB}%
        b{\gnumericColC}%
        b{\gnumericColD}%
        }\caption{Fascinating Table Showing Dramatic Result}\\
\label{tab:fascinating}

NOTE the \\ at the end of the \caption.

use input to include your table

. The \input directive will act as though the input'ed file is part of the including document. NOTE that since the input'ed file contains a table-like float, the table counter will be updated, and the listoftables directive will recognize it as a table. Also, since it's a float, the table will appear where LaTeX thinks it should - which might not be right where the \inpt directive resides.

Reading and Writing USB devices, CDROMs, Floppies, and DVDs

What is ``mounting'' and why should I care?

The most convenient way to access the stuff on your floppy or CDROM, is to make the contents of the entire disk part of the filesystem^9.1 The process of joining a device to the filesystem is known as mounting and can be accomplished manually via the mount command. But generally, the workstation will mount it automatically or nearly automatically and put something on your desktop for you to click on.

$% latex2html id marker 3770 \fbox{\parbox[c]{.8\textwidth}{ What you cannot rel... ...s \textbf{un-mounting}. See Section~\ref{umount} for the why and how of this. }}$

So, you stick your CDROM or floppy or USB device into the appropriate slot and then look for evidence of your new device.

On a good day, your workstation will automati

CEDA/Demography Lab Frequently Asked Questions