I spent ages writing a post about some tricks I use to do quick analysis of data but it got incredibly bloated and started waffling about work flows and so on. Anyway, I woke up from that nightmare so I thought I’d just bash out a couple of my top tips. This is a pretty nerdy post, you may want to back away slowly. Pipes Pipes are, in my opinion, why the command line will reign for many years to come. Using the pipe I can quickly process my data by passing it between different programmes gradually refining it as it goes.

When I started my new job I was given the option of having an iMac instead of the standard issue Linux PC. They’re really nice looking machines and I’d seen the impressive iSight in action so I went for it. I’m a seasoned windows user (from home), Linux user (from the PhD) and after a month getting all my work up and running on the mac I’d say I’m approaching blanket coverage of the major operating systems. Most importantly I’m now in a position to tell those people who get on their high horse about their particular OS to shut up.