Getting things to install for the correct shell in Mac OS X

In addition to blogging about KAUST here, I'm also going to post little useful tidbits related to scientific computing in OS X. Today I was setting up my new Mac Pro. After installing the Enthought Python Distribution, I found that ipython was not in my path (and the python in my path was not the enthought-installed version).

The culprit was the following: I had changed shells in Terminal's preferences to tcsh, but somehow the EPD installer didn't detect this and thought I was still using bash. Thus the modifications to my path were placed in ~/.bash_profile rather than in ~/.cshrc. That was easy enough to fix, but to avoid similar problems in the future, I opened a Terminal and typed

chsh -s /bin/tcsh

so that next time the installer would know my default shell.

An Update

I haven't updated this blog since my initial post months ago. I'm not yet at KAUST (I move in 10 days), but I am actively involved in several aspects of KAUST already, like helping students select fall courses and preparing materials for KAUST's big inauguration event. More and more concrete information about mundane matters keeps trickling in as well: housing assignments, grade schools, stores on campus (the first restaurant is a Pizza Hut...ugh).

I intend to start blogging here in earnest once I've relocated. Then things should get interesting.

Informational resources about KAUST on the web

As a soon-to-be faculty member of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), I get a lot of questions from colleagues, friends, and family about the remarkable undertaking that is KAUST. I don't know all the answers, but I'll try to provide as much information as I can through this blog. To get things started, here are some resources available on the web regarding KAUST.

The first place to learn about KAUST is of course KAUST's own web page. Here's the basic description of KAUST found there:

King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) is being built in Saudi Arabia as an international, graduate-level research university dedicated to inspiring a new age of scientific achievement in the Kingdom that will also benefit the region and the world. KAUST is the realization of a decades-long vision of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.

You may also be interested particularly in:

• A basic description of KAUST
• The directory of faculty
• The board of trustees
• A video about KAUST's vision
• Press releases
• Links to news articles
• Construction photos (scroll to the bottom for the most recent)
  

News articles on the web

Most of the following are not linked from KAUST's page with news articles above. They're listed in reverse chronological order.

2009

• Highereducation.org has an excellent and detailed (i.e. long) article about KAUST that reveals some of the initial planning that went into KAUST, as well as some reactions from academics in the United States.

2008:

• LA Times: 'New Saudi Arabia university will have a Western feel'
• NY Times article: 'U.S. Universities Join Saudis in Partnerships', on some of KAUST's academic and research partnerships.
  
• An NPR broadcast about KAUST.
• IslamOnline.net article: 'Saudi Arabia: In Science We Trust'
• Article from The New Atlantis: 'Petrodollar Science'. Includes comparisons with other efforts in arabian peninsula countries to establish world-class universities.
• Arab News articles:
• Words from KAUST president Choon Fong Shih
• An article about President Shih
• 'Flow of Ideas a Priority: Al-Naimi'
• 'KAUST supercomputer lures researchers'

2007:

• Also from NYT: 'Saudi King Tries to Grow Modern Ideas in Desert', about the initial vision for KAUST.
• From the news blog 'Muslims Today': Announcement of KAUST's launch
• Arab News articles:
• King Abdullah's thoughts on KAUST
• 'KAUST a dream come true'
• 'Attracting High-Quality Faculty Will Be Key to KAUST'
• '‘We Want KAUST to Reach MIT Level’
• 'KAUST: A Worthy Alternative'

Blog posts about KAUST:

• Here's an article on the 'Crossroads Arabia' blog.
• A post about KAUST on the 'Dried Pages' blog.
• News blog MideastPress has a post about KAUST.

Magazine Articles:

• Scientific American article 'Arabian Brainpower' (full text here)
• Nature article: 'Can a Saudi university think freely?'
  
  

This list is, of course, far from complete. If you know of other useful informational resources, please send me a link and I'll add them.