MacResearch

Software bundles like MacHeist have become a regular feature of the Mac landscape of late. There are plenty of good deals to be had, and plenty of discussion about the ethics of such bundles. But leaving all that aside, what would be your ideal bundle for science?

Nick Greeves is a senior lecturer at Liverpool University, he is also Mac using chemist. He has created a web site dedicated to displaying interactive 3D animations of some of the most important organic chemistry reactions. This site is an invaluable undergraduate teaching resource.

One interesting question in scientific publishing right now is how to "cross the lines" between academic publication and informal web discussions like blogging.

For example, I came across a blog post from Jon Udell, discussing how difficult it can be to find web discussions about scientific articles.

I've written before on this issue of memory bandwidth bottlenecks for certain
type of scientific codes (i.e. memory "bound" codes) on current multi-core Macs.
The main point is that with processors getting faster and faster (higher clock rates
and inclusion of additional cores) at a much more rapid rate compared with

If you had five minutes with the leadership of Apple's Science division, what would you ask? What are the biggest open questions for Science on the Mac? And what should Apple do to get more/better scientific apps to the Mac?

My research group has a tradition of giving PhD students lavish gifts upon their departure. Recently, one of our flock was successfully promoted to the rank of Doctor of Philosophy, and we went through the usual brainstorming to decide upon an appropriate present. The student in question is an enthusiastic Python scripter, so one of the more creative types in the group came up with the idea of a Python themed T-Shirt, to go with the iPod that just about everyone seems to get.

Recently I needed to resize one of my Windows partitions in Parallels. Parallels comes with a tool for resizing the partition, but it doesn't merge the newly allocated space into the existing space. I found a couple of methods for performing the merge on the Parallels support forums and via Google. The one I ended up using was from UneasySilence and it was so painless to perform I thought I'd share it with others in case anyone is interested in doing the same thing.

Apple's newest iPod is much more than a mp3 player. For many — including Yours Truly — it is first and foremost an internet device, with the added bonus of being able to play your music, movies, and podcasts. I've had mine now a few months, and recently started to investigate an application of the device hitherto largely ignored: e-reading.

I recently gave a talk at the Scientific Computing meeting at Cambridge University on using Applescript to build a User interface for Unix command-line applications.

According to Wikipedia, as many as 8% of males and more than 1% of all people have difficulty distinguishing colors. Thus, when designing presentations, figures, and user interfaces, scientists should try to keep things accessible.