A look at Emacs
It’s amazing what work can bring your way in terms of technology. For me, (GNU) Emacs Has proved to be such a thing recently. It may have been around since 1975, long before my adventures in computing ever started in fact, but I am asking myself why I never really have used it much. There [...]
Adding workspaces to Windows
One of the nice things about working with Linux/UNIX is that you can organise your open applications so that they are open in different workspaces or virtual desktops. When I return to working on Windows, having everything open on the same desktop is something that I find less tidy. However, there is an open source [...]
Reading data into SAS using the EXCEL and PCFILES library engines
Recently, I had the opportunity to have a look at the Excel library engine again because I need to read Excel data into SAS. You need SAS Access for PC Files licensed for it to but it does simplify the process of getting data from spreadsheets into SAS. It all revolves around setting up a library pointing [...]
ProgrammingHarnessing the power of ImageMagick
Using the command line to process images might sound senseless but the tools offered by ImageMagick certainly prove that it has its place. I have always been wary of using bulk processing for my digital photo files (some digitised from film prints with a scanner) but I do agree that some of it is needed to free up [...]
Ghostscript: **** Unable to open the initial device, quitting.
The above error message has been greeting me when creating PDF’s with Ghostscript on a Solaris box and does need some translation. If you are directing output to a real printer, I suppose that it is sensible enough: nothing will happen unless you can connect to it. It gets a little less obvious for PDF creation and [...]
A way to combine PDF files in UNIX and Linux
My latest adventure in the world computing has led me into the world of automated PDF generation. When my first approach didn’t prove to be completely trouble-free, I decided to look at the idea of going part of the way with it and finishing off the job with the open source utility Ghostscript. It is [...]