MATLAB: Shortcut Editor State

In an earlier blog entry I documented a way to preserve that state of the editor (that is all windows open in the editor) in a .mat file that can be reloaded whenever needed.

I decided to make a shortcut of the most frequently re-loaded set of windows. It is easy to do in MATLAB:

• Highlight code of interest.
• Drag to shortcut toolbar.
• Enter ‘Label’
• Done!

For my case I added the shortcut to a personal folder accessible from the Start button (Start – Shortcuts).

The code entered in the Callback field:

editorServices = com.mathworks.mlservices.MLEditorServices;

load('C:\Documents and Settings\User\My Documents\MATLAB\Editor State Files\xxxxAnalysis.mat')

for id = 1:length( editorState )
      editorServices.openDocument( editorState(id) )
      end

GRIPE ON:

What is the point of having a personal folder accessible from the Start button??

I am using it as a repository of commands that would be good to have close but not necessarily add to toolbar (and thus add to clatter). However, they do not count as ‘shortcuts’. A shortcut is an 1-2 clicks operation not something that essentially takes 3-4 clicks to launch. That counts as a sub-sub-… menu! Not to mention ‘out of sight out of mind’.

It would have been much better if by making a personal shortcut folder you actually place it as an icon to the toolbar that can be launched via a 2-click operation. And everything is right there in front of you so you do not forget your shortcuts. And everything is organized.

WolframAlpha: Another Try!

Today I tried WolframAlpha again (still being excited about the possibilities of the computational search engine). I tried the following searches:

• One pound of gold: Result OK.
• Autocorrelation: Resulted in Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input. Interestingly Wolfram MathWorld has a much better result here. (You would think that the knowledge search engine would know about other products in the same family...)
• Integrate x^n: Result OK.
• Total derivative x^n: Result OK
• Legendre Polynomial: Result OK (mostly after clicking on definition link to Wolfram MathWorld)

So far it has not met my expectations for a very smart pure math/physics related content search engine. It might be that the hype was excessive and thus my expectation too high. It might realize its potential some day. For now it just seems like a subset of MathWorld with a dose of real data that Google can (at the very least) get for me much faster.

WolframAlpha is Live! Hmmm...

Still seems interesting but not very useful yet! The search results are not as advertised, it is slow (very slow at times and it is 11:45pm PST), and could not get to the WA Vista gadget. I tried the following searches:

• RTV 630: No response.
• Coastline Greece: No response (the info is available in the CIA Factbook).
• PHG RTN: Came up with airport info with option for financial entity (OK).
• 100*1.05^5: Calculation correct
• wave equation: No response.
• pair of jacks: (See screen capture)

I gave up after that. I will try again in a few days.

MATLAB gripe

I just got a brand new PC at work. It is a great machine (Dell Precision T7400) with a Quad Core processor X5472 (3.00 GHz, 2X6M L2, 1600) which according to a CPU benchmark site ranks #10 in the high end CPU's list (as of today - it ranked higher when I ordered it...)

The OS installed is 32bit WinXP SP3 and our IT department does all SW installations except technical computing SW. That means that among other SW packages I install MATLAB (latest version 2008b is available on our SW depot). My problem is that after installation I have to spend an additional 30-45 minutes setting up all the paths and preferences on the new PC so I get the exact same environment I had on the old PC.

Considering that I do that for my laptop, home desktop, sometimes twice a year per The Mathworks (TMW) release schedule (though I am not religious about that) each installation becomes an aggravation.

A simple solution would have been to offer customers the option of exporting all settings to some file that can be imported to another computer with a compatible release (or compatible features). Seems like a no-brainer!

I can only wish...