A. Ratel's Web Site

Notes:

On this site, you will find no applets nor publicity to slow down the transfer of Web pages. The number of images has also been kept to a minimum.
For most of you, all the applications made available here are freewares. There are no crippleware nor nagware. Everything is fully functional, with no time limit.
Each software package comes with its pdf manual.
All the applications are for the Microsoft Windows operating system. (And, by the way, I really hate Vista's Windows Explorer.)
I have written a few more applications but since I am limited to 10 MB of disk space, this is all that I can put here.
Almost everything that will be found here is in English. This is for international distribution.

Software
Infos
Links
Humour

Software

-=>< Problem with HP LaserJet printers ><=-

A couple of years ago, I have discovered that all the programs below have problems printing with the HP LaserJet P1505. (Other HP LaserJet printers are probably affected similarly.) The printer just ignores the document, is not initialized, and nothing gets printed. (I cannot blame MS Windows for this since everything works just fine on my Epson printer.)

The way to work around this problem is to first use a Microsoft program like Notepad to print something (anything). This needs to be done just once to "wake up" the HP printer. Then, as long as you do not turn off the printer or shut down the computer, all the AR programs should print without problem.

Actually, you may not have to waste a single sheet of paper. If you use Notepad to print a blank document with no header and no footer, the HP printer will be initialized, ready to use, without even a page leaving its tray.

IMPORTANT: One must initialize the printer with something like Notepad before trying to print with one of the AR programs, otherwise everything might be stuck in the printing queue. If this happens, you will need to clear all the printing jobs from the queue or, even, to restart the computer.

This is a known problem. See the HP IT Resource Center Forum on Printers . It affects everything that has been compiled with a Borland product, including Delphi and their C++ Builder.

On 2009-08-21, I had an exchange of emails with the support staff at HP and I have been told that there not much that they can do about this. I would tend to agree. This is more a Borland problem than an HP problem. Anyway, as soon as I get a little more time, I intend to convert all my Borland Delphi programs into Lazarus Free Pascal (as well as rewriting some of the manuals using OpenOffice).

On this Web site, I am allowed only 10 MB of disk space, which is not much. So, as new softwares were being added, older ones had to be removed or simply left out. Those are

ARPad: for creating and modifying simple text (ASCII) files, with the possibility of editing columns of characters
ARStrips: for merging many BMP images and printing them together on a grid, like a comic strip
ARMathS3: for drawing various kinds of stereograms and anaglyphs of math functions
ARVisu: to make stereograms and anaglyphs from sets of points representing trajectories, distributions or surfaces
ARGlobe: for making stereograms and anaglyphs of points distributed on a sphere
ARHolog: to calculate and plot holograms from sets of points defining objects.

You may still find some reference to these programs on my Web pages and in some of my pdf manuals. As for the applications that remain available here, they should be those that would be the most useful for science and engineering students.

ARithLab a 4-operation calculator for lab measurements and their uncertainties
Version 1.04

ARLine for plotting data points and error bars when linear dependency is suspected
Version 4.03

ARFit for plotting and fitting data points using the method of least squares
Version 1.04

ARMatEq for numerically solving a system of linear algebraic equations
Version 1.06

ARMath2D for drawing various kinds of 2D plots or maps of math functions
Version 1.6

ARMath3D for drawing various kinds of 3D plots or maps of math functions
Version 2.3

ARDraw2D a simple CAD software for drawing in 2D
Version 2.4

ARDraw3D a simple CAD software for drawing in 3D
Version 1.3

ARBooks a database program for your personnal library
Version 3.1

More infos

More infos on:

Stereograms and anaglyphs
Stereograms and anaglyphs can be made using ARGlobe and ARVisu. This Web page explains what it is all about.

XlsToDat.zip: contains a small pdf file explaining how to convert a MS Excel file into a data file readable by programs like ARLine, ARFit, ARVisu, and ARGlobe.

Science texts in pdf format: