Universal Rule

Book Reviews

Wednesday, August 28, 2002

TeX on Mac OS X -- Comment()
For TeX users there a two nice graphical user interfaces on Mac OS X: TeXShop ja iTeXMac. For more information, see Mac-TeX and TeX on Mac OS X.

Mathematica vs. Maple on Mac OS X -- Comment()
I heard today from a university researcher that they had dropped Mathematica because if was too expensive. On Mac OS X they are using Maple, which runs in the Classic mode, but a Mac OS X version may be in the works.

MathML with Mozilla -- Comment()
If you want to try the MathML rendering in Mozilla 1.1, check the testsuite page. You may need additional math fonts. Wolfram Research offers math fonts for Mac OS X.

Bugs take toll -- Comment()
Software quality seems to be a hot issue: Buggy software still takes a toll and Battling the Bugs.

Matlab runs on Jaguar, but without the desktop interface -- Comment()
MacMerc had information on how to get Matlab 6.5 running on Jaguar (Mac OS X 10.2), although without the Aqua-based desktop interface. Here are the steps:

The license file /Applications/MATLAB6p5/etc/license.dat has to be modified to use the rendezvous hostname (look at the line in the file with the word SERVER).

From the terminal run the command

setenv DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES /usr/lib/libncurses.dylib

Finally, when starting matlab, start from the terminal also with the command
```
matlab -nojvm
```
You'll get Matlab without the fancy "desktop" interface. Everything else works fine though.

The writer also adds:

Matlab isn't an X Window System (X11) application. The matlab kernel is just a Unix program; the desktop interface is a Java program; and the graphics display uses X11.