2007-08-26

Writing CVs in Lyx under OS X with Fink TeX

Raison d'être


There is preciously little information on the WWW on how to write a CV using Lyx under OS X with a tex installation supplied by Fink. There is a outdated tutorial which failed to work, and thats about it. This document should hopefully shed some light on the matter, and will show you how to install the moderncv latex class and get LyX to recognise it so you can make a nice CV for yourself.



moderncv class


The moderncv class is availiable at CTAN.



Installation


Tex looks for classes etc in its path, which can be discovered using:kpsepath texYou will get a pretty long list of paths where tex looks for classes. Note in particular /$HOME/Library/texmf/tex///: this is a sensible place to put your own custom files in my opinion, to avoid polluting the entire local install (and to keep fink happy by not having files in places it doesn't expect). The // means all directories below
/$HOME/Library/texmf/tex/ will be searched too. So unpack the zip, or place the individual files under /$HOME/Library/texmf/tex/moderncv/. Once you are done, run texhash in /$HOME/Library/texmf/.

LyX reconfiguration


The last step is to ask Lyx to reconfigure itself so it will update its own list of avaliable classes: LyX->Reconfigure, then restart LyX as recommended. That should be it :-)



Usage


Have a look in the examples/ directory in the moderncv zip file to see how to use it.

Specifically, you need to insert some latex before \begin{document}, in Document->Settings->Latex Preamble, or it won't work. You need at a minimum \familyname{} and \firstname{}. For more read the examples. Further more, you also need to insert ERT of \maketitle to have a nice title. That should be it! :-)

Installing other classes


These same steps should apply to installing other classes you find on CTAN





Cheers,

Steve

2007-08-20

Spare some change sir?

Paramount Pictures was nice enough to send me a complimentary double pass and soundtrack CD for Black Snake Moan, after I won some competition at atomicmpc. Now you would think a big company like Paramount Pictures can spare some change and send the CD in I don't know... a CD mailer, like one of these:





Instead they sent it in a paper envelope, and it got ripped to pieces by the mail sorting machines, so it got here looking like this:





Well you know what they say about not looking a gift horse in the mouth... but still, it would be nice to have an undamaged jewel case :P Anyways thanks to Paramount for the tickets to what is apparently a very good film.




Cheers,

Steve

2007-08-09

JAPH

Not my work, I don't have that kind of perl-fu

not exp log srand xor s qq qx xor
s x x length uc ord and print chr
ord for qw q join use sub tied qx
xor eval xor print qq q q xor int
eval lc q m cos and print chr ord
for qw y abs ne open tied hex exp
ref y m xor scalar srand print qq
q q xor int eval lc qq y sqrt cos
and print chr ord for qw x printf
each return local x y or print qq
s s and eval q s undef or oct xor
time xor ref print chr int ord lc
foreach qw y hex alarm chdir kill
exec return y s gt sin sort split



Cheers,

Steve

2007-08-06

John Howard in a paragraph

Yes, but when it comes down to it he's not hugely relevant so is ignorable internationally - his government has pretty well been in caretaker mode for the last decade and his foreign policy is "me too". Even a major US newspaper got his name wrong and called him Mike Hunt when he was visiting the USA - possibly misled by an Aussie that was playing a bit of a joke. The last Prime Minister we had that we would expect people to notice is Malcolm Fraser - very tall, face like an Easter Island statue and memorable for running around in a US hotel with no pants on.



Cheers,

Steve

Mmmm, guns

If you don't want to defend yourself, it is your right not to. To say that I cannot defend myself is to say that I don't matter, and those who would violate me do. I respectfully disagree.

The right to violent self-defense is essential to freedom, because if you are forbidden to defend yourself anyone can do their will to you.





Also, statistically, 100% of unarmed people are unable to repel boarders with arms.


Cheers,

Steve

2007-08-01

Making postage tubes easier to carry

Postage tubes are cardboard tubes posters and similar items are normally sent in. They are bit of a pain to carry normally since they are long enough you can't just stick them in your bag. Now on a scooter it is even more of an annoyance.



So I devised a method to carry such tubes easily on my back, using some stationary and shoulder bag strap. A picture of the this tube carrying device is shown below, and it should be obvious how to construct it.





It is attached to the tube thusly:




When both ends are attached, you can just sling it over your shoulder! :-)






Cheers,

Steve