Sometimes you just want to gather a bunch of data quickly and efficiently. Python is a great way to express that want. You really only need a few libraries (which are wonderfully written, thanks Kenneth Reitz!). Here’s some code: import requests import sqlite3 # first read their documentation – https://www.cryptocompare.com/api/#public-api-invocation – so you can understand… Read More »
Hello, I am going to talk about how to donate to organizations and know it will count towards something important. There are many opportunities in daily life to give to charity – a change bucket at the register, girl scout cookies, the prompt to donate before you authorize a payment. But rarely you get the… Read More »
WordPress is one of the world’s most popular content management systems. It is no surprise that WordPress sites are frequently the target of attacks since attackers tend to target the most used platform to increase their odds. If unmaintained, WordPress sites can make easy targets. There are however a few easy steps you can take… Read More »
There is a new library for Python called Newspaper that makes scraping news articles from websites easy. It supports multiple languages, has multithreaded downloads, and even does some natural language processing (keywords based on relative frequency). When programming tasks are made this easy, it is sometimes referred to as magic. Which is not a good thing… Read More »
Questions about decorators, *args, and **kwargs come up often, but don’t always have concise and comprehensive answers. Official documentation tends to explain things in terms of textbook definitions and proper syntax, with an example or two if you’re lucky. If you already know a programming language or two that may be fine, but a newcomer… Read More »
Each year I make a post that summarizes the good deals that are available during Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales (2015, 2016). This year I’ll keep the post more concise by listing the better deals first and briefly summarizing the brand or price trend. I will try to keep this post updated throughout the… Read More »
While there are many great online resources for deploying Django, surprisingly few (1) covered the process with the tools that I wanted in a clear and concise manner. So I wrote this primer to show how to use Docker in the context of a Django web app. What is Docker and why use it? I… Read More »
Gitlab is a web-based free and open source Git repository manager much like Github. These version control services both utilize the Git version control system originally created by Linus Torvolds under the GNU GPL v2 license in 2005. There are many Git services now, but the two biggest providers, Github and Bitbucket, require paid plans… Read More »
Recently I gave Python’s Django a try. Django is a free and open source web framework that allows for the quick creation of any kind of website, ranging from blogs to stores to Git server front-end. Django is extensible and has thousands of modules or “packages”. One of the best things about this project is the abundance… Read More »
Vendor lock-in is a term that refers to the practice of a company making a customer dependent (but not entirely) on their goods or services. In IT circles, I hear Cisco’s name thrown around a lot with references to “building a moat“. Some other examples of this are: the patented K-Cup brewing system of Kuerig, printer… Read More »