Summary

This page/folder includes resources for a variety of computing needs. I primarily use # Macintosh in my own work, although back in my undergraduate days I cut my computing teeth in # Unix and thanks to Princeton's continued support I still find it a powerful tool for most of my # Statistical Software needs.

The # HTML section contains a few links that I still use when I'm struck with the annual urge to update this web site.

I used to be heavily invested in the typographic layout program known as # LaTeX but, as with many things computish, it became much too easy to spend hours of time configuring my work-station and my documents and this was a very convenient procrastination tool. (Content anyone?) The most popular downloads from this page appear to be the ajs.bst and asr.bst style files for BibTeX. Each of them requires the natbib.sty package. Explained with (slightly) (well, barely) more detail below.

A similar episode of spending countless hours improving my efficiency was devoted to the Alpha family of editors and its various "AlphaTcl" modes, menus and features. Fortunately, I can now speak about this stuff in the past tense (mostly) as I embark on a new form of masochism known as "Microsoft Word." Yes, I am taking one step closer to the dark side...

-- cbu (09/19/2004)

Note: Some of the links below are broken and I'll try to fix them when I get a chance to find the right ones.

# Macintosh
# Windows
# Unix

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Macintosh

Apple Support's site map index
cbu's little Macintosh download page.
Gary Gray's "Useful and Fun Macintosh Software" page
The Oklahoma Press Electronic News site for Macintosh downloads.
Pure Mac -- "All the Software You Really Need"
Retailers, hardware and software

TeX and LaTeX for the Mac
University of Michigan macintosh archives

spec sheets for older models, including information from Apple's spec database.

Macintosh Shareware Express ™ Acrobat Reader Alpha BBEdit Lite BetterTelnet BibTeX Big Brother Cache Killer CMacTeX Cookie Monster Drop*PS Excalibur Fetch LiteSwitch MacGhostView MacGS MacGzip MacOSPurge MacWilbur MI/X NCSA Telnet Netscape Navigator OzTeX Strip PPC/68k StuffIt Expander StuffIt Lite Yank

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Windows

There are only two things a PC is good for: running the statistical software for which CIT only buys Windows versions, and accessing a Unix account. One of the best ways to forget that you're dealing with another Gates product is to use the   MI-X   X term emulator.

But even this has drawbacks. The first is that you need additional fonts in order to get a decent graphics window using S-Plus. The second is that MicroImages, whose emulator was previously freeware, now wants $25 after you use their demo for 15 days. Fortunately, there are enough mirror sites of the old version (not 2.0) still around -- be sure to get all three of file0001.bin, file0002.bin, and getme1st.exe.

(Sometimes it's easier to find old mirrors of the free version by doing an ftp search on file0002.bin)

Has your Windows NT box lost your H drive? Figures. Don't despair -- you can restore it.

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Unix

To access unix account, enter this URL:

ftp://username:password@arizona.princeton.edu

I have written a little instruction manual on converting to the t-shell, which is not necessarily specific to Princeton but is intended to help out my colleagues with their Unix computing abilities. It includes ...

• a sample .tcshrc file
  
• a sample .aliases file, which refers in part to these scripts
  
  
  • bibunittex
  • detex
  • filesize
  • linksty

OIT home page (Office of Information Technology, Princeton)

Help Desk Home Page

Introduction to Unix Computing at Princeton
Summary of Common Command, a guide by Princeton's Data and Statistical Services
Unix Help for Users

the java telnet applet   

The Java^(tm) Telnet Applet is a fully featured telnet program

that allows users to connect and login to remote hosts via Internet or Intranet using their WWW-Browser only. It not only includes telnet compliant connection services, but also the ability to dynamically load additional Terminal Emulations and Modules."

And if anyone can get this to work, let me know how to do it!

# html
# LaTeX

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html

htmlhelp.com, from the Web Design Group
html 4.0 reference guides
the Bare Bones Guide to html, by Kevin Werbach

Show input Validate entire site

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LaTeX

LaTeX links

"Getting started with LaTeX"  -  web page and .tex file by David R. Wilkins
"The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX2e"  -  a 103 page pdf by Tobias Oetiker

LaTeX commands, a handy web reference provided by Emory University
TeX Users Group  (tug.org)
Yahoo's TeX page

more on-line LaTeX information

LaTeX searches

   (Comprehensive TeX Archive Network)

   (Comprehensive TeX Archive Network)

all messages recent messages past messages
comp.text.tex All Deja.com    (For a more detailed search go to Power Search)

A few of my favorite style files

Note: open the ".txt" version of the file and save it using the appropriate extension if necessary. (My host server has had issues displaying "*.bst" and "*.sty" files as of 01 May 2007.)

asr.bst   (asr.txt)

a BibTeX bibliography style mimicking that used in the American Sociological Review. Written by Julian Dierkes and Hugh Louch. Requires natbib.sty

ajs.bst   (ajs.txt)

a BibTeX bibliography style mimicking that used in the American Journal of Sociology. Written by Julian and Hugh. Requires natbib.sty

bibunits.sty   (bibunits.txt)

allows for multiple bibliographies within a document. Comes with its own instruction manual   . The current version (2.0) has a conflict with natbib.sty, which renders it virtually useless for me, but the author has created a patch that remedies the situation -- it should be posted soon to the CTAN archives. Contact me for a copy of the beta version.

doublespace.sty   (doublespace.txt)

double-spaces all text except that which occurs in floats, such as footnotes and captions in tables and figures.

natbib.sty   (natbib.txt)

a LaTeX style necessary to use asr.bst and ajs.bst

fullpage.sty   (fullpage.txt)

changes text margins to 1 in top, bottom, sides.

LaTeX and the Macintosh

TeX and LaTeX for the Mac
Computer Modern fonts (freeware) from Blue Sky Research

I used to be heavily invested in the text editor named "Alpha", which is very useful for LaTeX and html files. My advisors want me to submit drafts in Word, so I have set aside LaTeX and BibTeX for now.

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Alpha

Alpha is a powerful, multi-modal, highly configurable, and programmable text editor. Alpha automatically enters a "mode" specific to the sort of document being edited, and many features are mode dependent. For example, in HTML mode there are special menus with all sorts of fancy tools for editing html documents, and the text is automatically colored according to the html syntax to make it easier to read.

While I am proud of the many improvements that I contributed to its open-source library of "AlphaTcl" files, I do regret the amount of time that I devoted to the project when I should have been working on my dissertation. Oh well.

While I still maintain the many packages that I wrote/updated for the program, I am no longer involved in active development. While you can contact me directly for questions or to report bugs, I prefer that the public AlphaTcl forums be used instead -- the collective knowledge base is much greater than my personal one, and any queries/answers will be archived in a searchable database benefitting other users who might have similar issues.

Some on-line Alpha resources include:

• The AlphaTcl Home Page
• Alpha's www FAQ
• Mailing List Information
• Alpha-Bugzilla
• cbu's Alpha Introduction (rarely updated)

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EndNote

A proprietary bibliographic database system that I still think is much clunkier than BibTeX/LaTeX integration, but an indispensable tool if you spend much time in the Dark Side.

Some resources include:

• Main support page
• EndNote faqs
• Output style files for sociology

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Microsoft Word

I got tired of hearing myself curse Word, so I finally broke down and bought a manual and learned how to use Master Documents. Now I just mutter things under my breath, which is just a bit more socially acceptable when working in study rooms at the library. I have yet to make it through a work session without needing to access some help window or on-line resource to beat the damn thing into submission.

These are some of the sites I've found useful:

• Microsoft Word FAQs (Note: this site is poorly rendered in Safari.)
• Using Microsoft Word and Excel 2000 (ebook, only available to those with UofM library privileges.)
• Microsoft Office Word 2003 inside out (ebook, only available to those with Princeton library privileges.)

One would have thought that obtaining information on what is widely advertised as the world's most popular text editor wouldn't be such a chore. Of course, "popular" might be defined and measured by the number of users as opposed to their collective affection for the program.

Data and Statistical Services Software help
DBMS/Copy    a data transformation program for different stats packages

# S-Plus
# Stata
# SPSS

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S-Plus

MathSoft.com's S-Plus support site.

(This form is broken ...)

S-Plus Function help Categorical data Character data ops Clustering Complex numbers Computations related to plotting Data attributes Data directories Data manipulation Data menu functions Data sets Data types Data objects Documentation Dynamic graphics Error Handling Graphical devices High level plots Input output files Interacting with plots Interfaces to other languages Library of chronological functions Library of examples from S language Library of maps Linear algebra Lists Loess objects Logical operators Looping and iteration Mathematical operations Matrices and arrays Methods & generic functions Miscellaneous Mixed effects models Multivariate techniques Nonlinear regression Nonparametric statistics Optimization Ordinary Differential Equations Printing Probability dis & random numbers Programming Quality Control Regression Regression & class trees Resampling Robust resistant techniques S-PLUS session environment Smoothing operators Statistical inference Statistical models Statistical menu functions Survival analysis Time Series Trellis display library User interface programming

references, resources compiled by Carl Mason (UCBerkeley)

Notes on S-Plus    by B. Venables and D. Smith. "This is an introductory guide to using S-Plus. It is somewhat better than the official manual - and a whole lot cheaper."    (html version)

Introductory Guide to S-Plus    by Brian Ripley    (postscript file, 47 pages)

DSS S-Plus guide

function library - StatLib at Carnegie Mellon University
function library - Adrian Raftery (University of Washington)
function library - cbu,   

S-Plus on the Cunix,    Columbia University reference
Venables and Ripley's Modern Applied Statistics with S-Plus    on-line material

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Stata

Princeton's DSS Stata guide
UCLA's OAC Stata guide, an extremely useful collection

all messages recent messages past messages
All Deja.com    (For a more detailed search go to Power Search)

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SPSS

DSS SPSS guide

all messages recent messages past messages
comp.soft-sys.stat.spss All Deja.com    (For a more detailed search go to Power Search)