All posts by nouyang

Change calendar that clicking on calendar.google.com creates events on

I often use the calendar.google.com interface to quickly add events. However, I was frustrated as sometimes I want to quickly add events to a calendar that was not my default calendar (the one that is automatically created for you when you first use google calendar).

The key is to make sure that the only visible calendar is the calendar you wish to add events to. The use case below: I’m using a calendar for “time tracking” to see roughly what I’m spending time on and block out what I plan to spend time on.

Screenshot from 2017-11-27 04-47-34

If you view any other calendar (that is, more than one calendar is  displayed), then google calendar reverts back to adding events to the “default calendar”.

Screenshot from 2017-11-27 04-49-51

 

Two articles I first read, before I realized that I don’t need to change my default calendar (I was searching for “change calendar google adds to by default”) in order to change the calendar clicking on the website adds to.

https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/6965/how-can-i-change-my-default-main-calendar-in-google-calendar

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/calendar/desktop-computer/mac/suggest-new-feature/user-interface-and-views/QC677YHArmE

 

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/calendar/desktop-computer/mac/suggest-new-feature/user-interface-and-views/QC677YHArmE

copy and pasting to/from vim with middle click (on ubuntu linux)

I used to have this very clunky way of copying and pasting from/to vim. All these tutorials online would have these “settings” you could add to .vimrc that were supposed to make it possible to “yank to a special register” or something, but I could never get them to work. So instead I would

:set nonu (get rid of line numbers)
:set mouse=c (allow for a cursor to select text)
Use mouse, highlight section,  shift-ctrl-c
Then ctrl-v somewhere else.

At some point I was looking over a friend’s shoulder and discovered a much better way. The key is to install a different version of vim.

sudo apt remove vim
sudo apt install vim-gnome

Now, I keep my mouse mode in

:set mouse=a

Then highlight text using the usual vim commands (shift-v and then any of the movement keys, such as “w” and “h” etc.)

Finally middle-click to paste the text elsewhere.

If you’re getting the beginning of text cut off when you paste into vim, make sure you’re in “mouse=a” and not “mouse=c” mode. In the latter, text will paste, but some of it will get cut off.

URL shortcut for accessing IEEE Xplore / other journals via Harvard and MIT Libraries

It was a little annoying to figure out how to login to IEEE Xplore using Harvard Libraries access.

(At MIT, so long as you are on “MIT SECURE” wireless network, you can go to http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/home.jsp and you will be automatically logged in under MIT Libraries).

The best method I found is that, after the domain name, but before the rest of the path, add in

.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu

For MIT Libraries, the equivalent is
libproxy.mit.edu

For instance, to access an IEEE Xplore article, I would put that snipped after the “.org” and before the forward slash.

Original URL
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7487538

New URL (HARVARD)

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/abstract/document/7487538/

New URL (MIT)

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.libproxy.mit.edu/abstract/document/7487538/

 

The URL will redirect you to login using your HarvardKey or MIT Kerberos if you’re using the libraries access for the first time.