Links to help you get you Mac set up for astronomy:

• A 64 bit suite of Python/Numpy/Scipy/Pylab/iPython that all work together on OS 10.6.X can be found at this link. You potentially need the gfortran compiler and fftw installed. But maybe not.
• To get find commander to properly load packages on OS 10.6.X, you probably need to change the version of perl that it is looking for. More details at this link.

To get CMBfast running on your Mac (intel version):

• download the source code here
• at the prompt type: gunzip cmbfast.tar.gz
• at the prompt type: tar -xvf cmbfast.tar
• obtain the open source intel binary of the gnu compiler g77 here
• at the prompt type: gunzip g77-intel.bin.tar.gz
• at the prompt type: sudo tar -xvf g77-intel-bin.tar -C /.
• start a new shell, or quit out of x11 and restart it
• in the cmbfast directory, run the following configure command at the prompt: ./configure --f77=g77 --f77-flags=-I.
• type make at the prompt

The secret here is that g77 cannot find the include files without the flag -I.

Some Python Tricks:

• Want a legend on a plot with multiple histograms? The pylab hist module returns more than you expect: the y values, the x values, and the list of rectangles it drew on the screen. It's these latter that you want to access for the legend. But you can't feed it the the whole list of them, only one element of the list, say the 0th. Here is an example code and picture.

• Simple movie making tool in python, here's a LINK
• If you want a value between 0 and 1 mapped to a color, you can use a colormap. More info here

Some useful VIM Tricks:

• Re-distribute carriage returns so that text fits neatly in a window (add carriage returns if there are none)
  • Highlight the region by going to the beginning and typing v (or control v), move the cursor to the end of the region, and type g w => Done! (Many thanks to Jordan Carlson for teaching me this.)

Tricks in the shell (csh):

• Make the shell set variables and do arithmetic
  • To set a variable >>set gg=7
  • To use it's value >>echo $gg will print "7" or >>cd run$gg will change to the "run7" directory
  • To add >>hh=`expr 1001 + $gg` Here the ` quotes cause the inside part to be evaluated first, and passed to the outside part. Note: the spaces before and after the + sign are vital here, this will not work without the spaces.
  • Multiplication uses the *, but you have to escape it from its usual meaning which is a wild card, specifically >> hh=`expr 2 \* $gg` Also, the shell does not always use the same prioritization (multiplication/division evaluated before addition and subtraction) so make sure it does what you think it should do.