Tool of the Week: Put Portable Apps on a Flash Drive

Posted on by mrsoltys
[caption id="attachment_1313" align="alignright" width="300"] A small sampling of the free flash-drives we have at our house. Any other good uses for flash-drives?[/caption] I like it when i don't have to bring my laptop to campus: it results in a nice and light backpack.  But the campus computers don't have my browser of choice (Google Chrome). Turns out you can install...Read More

Tool of the Week: Google Cloud Print

Posted on by mrsoltys
Google cloud print is a cool tool that lets you print from any of your mobile devices, tablets, or computers to any of your printers, anywhere! It's awesome for me because if I get emailed a PDF I need to print, i can send it to my printer at the office with just one click. To set-up google cloud print,...Read More

Trip Report: Bowen Lake

Posted on by mrsoltys
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="953"] The view of Lake Bowen from above[/caption] Our Orginal plan was to hike to Parika Lake in the Never Summer Wilderness, however we didn't plan on their being rangers at the trailhead next to the "No Dogs" sign, and so we had to reroute. After studying a map, we decided to try to hike around the...Read More

Trip Report: Breckenridge Adventure in the SOLWAC

Posted on by mrsoltys
[caption id="attachment_1271" align="alignright" width="394"] The view from the "Subaru Outback Legacy Wagon Adventure Chalet" was amazing.[/caption] Needing a get away: Courtney and I had planned on visiting the Black Canyon of the Gunnison this weekend.  I was excited to see Gunnison, but more excited about my newly discovered knowledge that the seats in my Subaru could fold completely flat: converting the Subaru into the "Subaru Outback Legacy...Read More

Vectorized Binning in Matlab

Posted on by mrsoltys
In fluids modeling, a really easy way to build an model of a scalar (e.g., a polutant or chemical) that is transported by a flowfield is using a particle tracking model. Here, you have millions of finite particles, with x and y locations (and possibly mass).  building code to advect the particles by the flow-field and diffuse them based on...Read More

Choosing a Commuter bike

Posted on by mrsoltys
From time to time, someone will ask me for help buying a bike to ride around town.  While many bike companies make great "around town" bikes, there are a few accessories I would focus on over the bike itself that make up a great commuter.  In order from most importance to least Brakes I'm shocked that I needed to mention...Read More

Tool of the Week: Google Scholar (and your own Scholar Profile)

Posted on by mrsoltys
Google Scholar is a cool tool to find research papers.  If you find a paper you like, you can find similar papers by looking at who cited that paper, and who that paper cited.  (web of knowledge has similar features, but will you require you be at a university or using a VPN to access).  What I've never done before is click...Read More

Monitoring Progress in Matlab

Posted on by mrsoltys
There are a lot of pre-made codes out there to make progress bars for your code.  A lot of these work fine, but some will slow down your code.  The last thing you want is a progress bar that hampers progress. I like the built-in waitbar function in matlab.  It's pretty easy to use following the help dialog, with the caveat that it...Read More

Matlab Tip: Change the color-scheme to be easier on your eyes

Posted on by mrsoltys
Hey Matlab users, here's a quick tip that I hope is helpful.  If you stare at MATLAB for long hours, espically late at night, then changing your color scheme is a quick an easy way to reduce eye strain (and maybe help you sleep better). Our eyes never evolved to stare at a bright white light all day, and research...Read More