Test of various editors and IDEs for writing Python for beginners.

PR4E (Python) – Programming for everyone

Writing Python for beginners

I’m doing a Coursera course from the University of Michigan called Programming for Everyone (PR4E). Writing Python direct in to the web interface for exercise submissions is a bit clunky to say the least. So I’m curious what apps other beginners are using to actually write their python code? Read the rest of this entry »

Advice and experience with a baby sling.

Using a baby sling

My experience of slinging

We had a huggababy sling that was great for us. However there are about a million different slings, approximately, so I’d suggest you find a “sling library” and try a few out. Usually the people running it will sell the slings but IME they’re very familiar with the slings and are interested as much in making sure you have a good experience slinging as anything.

Using your sling

When baby is titchy tiny you can lie them sideways, within a few weeks they should be able to be upright (depends on your and baby’s shape). Huggababy have a page showing different ways to wear their sling.

Personally I couldn’t get on with the long piece of stretchy fabric baby wrap we bought from eBay and don’t like all the straps on the “modern” style ones (like Baby Bjorn carriers). YMMV. Read the rest of this entry »

How to extract web history information from an Android device.

Phone internet browser

History, URLs, Cookies, etc.

Unauthorised use of my wife’s phone led me to wanting to see which sites had been accessed. So I thought it best to put what I’d learnt in to a quick blogpost on how to extract information from my Android phone (Samsung Galaxy Ace) about recent history of URLs visited and other browser stats and metadata.

You’ll need to have a rooted phone AFAICT. This is how I did it, there are of course other ways:

1. Use a root enabled file manager to go to the folder /data/data/com.android.browser/databases/
2. Copy the files over to your main computer (I placed the copied files on the non-root accessible sdcard and then mounted the phone as a USB drive).
3. Use an SQLite browser to open the files.

What information is available

Read the rest of this entry »

New puzzle game

If you like puzzles and enjoyed the recent “2048” craze as I did then you’ll probably like this – Game About Squares from Andrey Shevchuk. It’s been likened to Sokoban by some, that may or may not excite your neurons. Either way it’s a curious diversion that should last you at least one lunch break.

Walkthroughs

I’ve created a couple of walkthrough videos for levels 0-10 and 11-20 inclusive. More might follow … let’s see how I get on!

Geek-cred

If you or anyone doubted the author’s geek credentials then you’d only need to look so far as the game’s statistics page to ascertain that this guy is the real deal!

Captchas are getting hard for humans

Some example recaptchas captchas I’ve had recently: Read the rest of this entry »

Using a cheap server for VPN?

Why VPN?

Well if you’re interested in general info then Wikipedia is probably the place to go. For me I was trying to solve a problem with my ISP. It’s a protracted way about it but running mtr (a ping-ing tool) I found that my gaming ping was mainly the result of one particular step in my connection. One step was adding 500-900ms of time to the round trip for packets whilst the other parts of the route only seem to be adding about 90ms combined. This is a recent change too.

So my solution was to try and send all my traffic instead via an alternate route. If I could get traffic to go a different route then maybe it would skip the data-centre with the massive delays and so give me a better ping and thus reduce gaming lag!? Worth a try. Read the rest of this entry »