Ideas for the seminar

From my email:
I was just thinking that we should have an informal graduate seminar
next semester. What I'm thinking of is this: each week a group of
interested people (no need to limit it to graduate students or even
students) could gather and one or two folks could present a 15-20 minute
demo of either their research or some new tool they found.

The tool thing would be the most interesting/useful, I think.

Here are some topics I have in mind:
* LaTeX and Bibtex for conference proceedings and journals
* Using Word for the same thing (explain and post slides for
ignorant folks like me how to do things like references and
figures properly)
* Demo an interesting Emacs or Eclipse plugin
* Explain how to do some routine, but intricate task, such as
installing Globus or setting up a Mote.

What I'm hoping to do is create a community of practice around the
processes of research, so we all get better at using Word or or Latex
and get the steps written down (maybe even published on a web
page/wiki?) for routine tasks in our various fields for future students.

The goal is to keep talks short, informal and fun. Nobody should feel
like they are obligated to take part.