matplotlib on Mac OS 10.7.5 64 bit machine

Problem:
Installing matplotlib on Lion was not trivial. If you follow most tutorials you can import matplotlib but it fails at importing matplotlib.pylab!

What did not work:

http://fonnesbeck.github.com/ScipySuperpack/
http://penandpants.com/2012/02/24/install-python/
http://www.thisisthegreenroom.com/2011/installing-python-numpy-scipy-matplotlib-and-ipython-on-lion/
http://wolfpaulus.com/journal/mac/installing_python_osx
http://sourceforge.net/projects/matplotlib/files/matplotlib/
For Lion: sudo easy_install -N -Z https://dl.dropbox.com/u/233041/matplotlib-1.2.x-py2.7-macosx-10.8-intel.egg

What worked:
1.The problem disappeared when I downloaded the python 2.7.2 specifically for 64 bit machines at:
http://python.org/ftp/python/2.7.2/python-2.7.2-macosx10.6.dmg

2.Follow the tricks here till step 6: http://wolfpaulus.com/journal/mac/installing_python_osx

Letterbox plugin stopped working after update

Problem: 
I updated my MacOS and my letterbox plugin stopped working.

Fix:
Install http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/37804/mailpluginfix