Robin's Blog

Archive for the ‘Computing’ Category

How to: get nice vector graphics in your exported PDF ipython notebooks

(This is really Part 2 of IPython tips, tricks & notes – Part 1, but I thought I’d give it a more self-explanatory title) IPython (sorry, Jupyter!) notebooks are really great for interactively exploring data, and then turning your analyses into something which can easily be sent to a non-technical colleague (by adding some Markdown and […]

How to: load the Google Maps Places library through Google API Loader

Google have recently introduced a new way of loading their javascript APIs: their Google API Loader. To use it, all you do is add a script tag in your HTML: <script src=”https://www.google.com/jsapi”></script> You can then load whatever Google APIs you want using code like this: google.load(‘visualization’, ‘1.0’); google.load(‘jquery’, ‘1’); google.load(‘maps’, ‘3’); google.setOnLoadCallback(function() { console.log(‘Callback’) }); […]

How to: Log electricity usage from a CurrentCost EnviR – Part 1

After borrowing a CurrentCost electricity usage meter from my local library (if you’re in the area, then Eastleigh library will loan you one for free!), I decided to buy one, as I’d found it very useful in trying to reduce my electricity usage. The benefit of buying one as opposed to borrowing one was that […]

How to: Fix weird ENVI startup file issues

This post is more a note to myself than anything else – but it might prove useful for someone sometime. In the dim and distant mists of time, I set up a startup file for ENVI which automatically loaded a specific image every time you opened ENVI. I have no idea why I did that […]

Software choices in remote sensing

I recently read the article Don’t be a technical masochist on John D. Cook’s blog, and it struck a chord with me about the way that I see people choosing software and programming tools in my field. John states "Sometimes tech choices are that easy: if something is too hard, stop doing it. A great […]

How to batch export PDFs to other filetypes in Adobe Acrobat

When dealing with some of the alterations to a journal article today I had the need to batch convert some PDF files to EPS (Encapsulated PostScript). After quite a bit of Googling I came to the conclusion that the only way to do this was to write some Javascript using the Adobe Acrobat API – […]