Davy Mitchell's Meandering Weblog

Home

CATEGORIES
- Angus
- Christian
- Energy
- Fun
- General
- Internet
- IronPython
- MoodNews
- NintendoDS
- Personal
- Photos
- Podcast
- Politics
- Python
- Scotland
- Software


Blog Statistics
Tag Cloud


 Subscribe in a reader



RSS
More Feeds

Archives

2008-04-26
2008-04-19
2008-04-12
2008-04-05
2008-03-29
2008-03-22
2008-03-01
2008-02-23
2008-01-19
2008-01-12
Lifespring! Family Bible Daily Audio Gadget Permalink

Here's another Google Gadget for Lifespring - this fits into your personalised homepage. The schedules starts again on the 10th January.

To help create this and the Google Calendar for LFB, I used IronPython to download the podcast entries and the CPython Interface (with regular Python) to create the Calendar entries.

Click the button to add to your Calendar!

Posted by Davy Mitchell on 2008-01-05 16:51:10.
Categories: Python, Christian, General, Internet, Podcast Tags :     
Like this post? Digg it or Del.icio.us it. |



Comp.Lang.Python River 2 Permalink

First code post in while! Just published an update to Comp.Lang.Python River - hopefully the threading is much better Wink Please suggest changes.

import os
import sys
from kirbybase import KirbyBase, KBError
from time import time, gmtime, strftime
from ftplib import FTP
from nntplib import *

#Create The Database
db = KirbyBase()

if os.path.exists('rivnews.tbl'):
    db.drop('rivnews.tbl')

db.create('rivnews.tbl', ['Headline:str','Summary:str', 'ID:int'])

#Contact Usenet.
s = NNTP('news.blueyonder.co.uk')
resp, count, first, last, name = s.group('comp.lang.python')
print 'Group', name, 'has', count, 'articles, range', first, 'to', last

#Prepare speech output.
output = ""
riverout = """<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1250">
    <title>
      Latedecember.co.uk - Comp.Lang.Python River
    </title>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="pc.css" type="text/css" />
  </head>
  <body>"""
riverout = riverout + "<h1>Comp.Lang.Python River</h1>"

#Fetch Articles.
resp, subs = s.xhdr('subject', first + '-' + last)

for id, sub in subs[-120:]:
    output=""
    for line in s.body(id)[3]:

            if len(line)>0 and line[0]!='>' and line.find('\t')<0 :
                if len(line)<3:
                    break
                if len(line)<8 and line[0]=='-' and line[1]=='-':
                    break
                if line.find(', 0x')>0 or line.find('wrote:')>0 or line.find('writes:')>0 or line.find('        ')>0:
                    line=''
                if len(line)>3:
                    if line[0]==' ' and line[1]==' ' and line[2]==' ' and line[3]==' ' :
                        line=''
                if len(line)>0:
                    output = output + line

    if output.find('Hatred FAQ')>0 or output.find('****************')>0:
        output=""
    if len(output)>10:
        db.insert('rivnews.tbl', {'Headline': sub.replace('Re: ','') , 'Summary':output, 'ID':int(id)})

#Add Articles to DB.
results = db.select('rivnews.tbl', ['recno'], ['*'], sortFields=['Headline','ID'], returnType='dict')

#Create long string with speech data and articles.
previousHL = ""
article = 0
for rec in results:
    article = article + 1
    if rec['Headline']!=previousHL:
        riverout = riverout + "<h2>" + rec['Headline'] + "</h2>"
        previousHL = rec['Headline']
    if (article % 2) == 1:
        riverout = riverout + "<p style=""background:#cccccc;"">" + rec['Summary'] + "</p>"
    else:
        riverout = riverout + "<p style=""background:#eeeeee;"">" + rec['Summary']  + "</p>"

riverout = riverout + """<hr/><a href=""needgod.com"">needgod.com</a></body></html>"""

file = open("river.html", 'w')
file.write(riverout)
file.close()

Posted by Davy Mitchell on 2007-04-28 13:58:36.
Categories: Python, Podcast, IronPython Tags :   
Like this post? Digg it or Del.icio.us it. |



Audio Post - Gadgets Departures and New Arrivals Permalink

Listen to me on the beach and leave a comment on this experimental audio post Wink

Posted by Davy Mitchell on 2007-04-21 23:33:10.
Categories: Podcast, Angus, Python, Internet, Scotland
Like this post? Digg it or Del.icio.us it. |



Podcast Code Permalink

Ever since I started the Python Podcasts I meant to share the code. I am revisiting it to create a 'river' page so thought I would publish the audio only version first. I don't quite have time to package it up so this is just the main module. Ideas welcome for improving the output and filtering the noise.

UPDATED - SNIP - okay code too big for a blog post. Will post later.

Posted by Davy Mitchell on 2007-03-24 13:10:44.
Categories: Podcast, Python, IronPython Tags :
Like this post? Digg it or Del.icio.us it. |



Finding Stuff on LateDecember.co.uk Permalink

I have spent some time this weekend dealing with problems caused by the recent domain name change and shifting some sites onto Blogger. I am nearly there and in the interest of helping people find stuff I am planning a new homepage for Latedecember.co.uk - meantime this blog entry will have to do. Cool

News Sites * MoodNews * UK Prophecy News

Techie * LDBackup * Python Podcasts * BugWatch

Scottish Town Blogs * The Dundee Blog * The Perth Blog * The Angus Blog

Posted by Davy Mitchell on 2007-02-25 20:34:05.
Categories: Angus, Christian, Python, Podcast, MoodNews, Internet, General
Like this post? Digg it or Del.icio.us it. |



The Return of The Davy Blog Permalink

Varous boring reasons have kept me not blogging of late. The only one worth mentioning is that the domain is no longer latedecember.com but latedecember**.co.uk**. Contact me if you cannot find anything on the site or something is broken Wink

There are new links for LDBackup and MoodNews. For the more techie inclined the Python Podcasts have had to change too.

Project wise things have moved on with TayLayout living entirely at Google. TayLayout is a layout and gui helper library that is coming along nicely. However I have been spending most of my time on the next release of Firedrop. This weekend it was an update to the stats feature which is viewable online here. Also there's updates to my ScratchPad and WinExp plugins. LDBackup will probably be moved to Beta soon - for obvious reasons I am testing that one over a LONG period. Still fixing bits of the site due to domain change and shifting some of my blogs onto blogspot.

So it is all happening Cool

Posted by Davy Mitchell on 2007-02-05 13:25:40.
Categories: Internet, IronPython, Podcast, Python, MoodNews, Software
Like this post? Digg it or Del.icio.us it. |



Stuff - Movable Python, Virtual PCs, Podcasts and Templates Permalink

There's a few things I'd like to jot down which are less than a full blog post so this is one of those odds and ends posts Wink

I am working on the template for this site. Not quite there. I liked the dark gold and red but may swap for something more minimalistic for a change. Let me know. Once I am happy with the template, there will be a mini-Python site to bring together the Podcasts, Software, Firedrop2 plugins and some other new stuff.

MoodNews has had its podcasts fixed - someone had commented out the upload lines in the Python script... ooops... Also apologies if the comp.lang.python podcasts were a little big in the past few days. I am looking into it. On the topic of Usenet, I do like the look of the Google Groups beta. Big improvement though I would like to see some of the GMail keyboard shortcuts in there.

I bought the Megapack version of Movable Python and it is really good. Handy launcher with a better GUI. If I stop playing with it I may get round to writing a long-ish review of it. Though as it contains Firedrop2 I would be reviewing my own code (a bit) !!

Finally, Microsoft have released a VirtualPC image for IE6. Handy for work. Thanks guys!

Posted by Davy Mitchell on 2006-12-01 20:31:27.
Categories: Python, MoodNews, Podcast Tags :     
Like this post? Digg it or Del.icio.us it. |



Top Seven Christian Podcasts Permalink

Some general comments before the list itself, firstly I am fairly biased against music shows. Secondly much content is re-packaged radio shows so I have slightly favoured original podcasts. I also drop shows rather quickly (otherwise I get a backlog) and I avoid shows that require any sort of registration, so I may have missed some gems. Please let me know

*Top Seven Christian Podcasts*

7. LifeSpring Hymn Stories - A short Devotional with good music and the often surprising tale behind well known hymns.

6. The Whole Truth - This daily devotional show has a short scripture reading. Well produced and just a few minutes a day.

5. Stand's To Reason - This is a radio show but the call-in format suits podcasting fairly well.

4. Zola Levitt - These are TV broadcast's of the Messianic Jew Zola Levitt which have been mixed for audio. Good recording out on location and an episode every weekday.

3. Sixty-Six Forty - Expositional teaching by Chuck Missler. 5 a week and of a small file size but 25 minutes a lesson.

2. Way Of The Master - Radio show edited for Podcasting. This is a heavy weight with around 10 hours a week of content. The street witnessing and preaching is really addictive listening.

1. LifeSpring Original Show - Also the original Christian content created for podcasting. Great production values and an entertaining host in Steve Webb.

Please send some suggestions so I can update this to a top 10.

Posted by Davy Mitchell on 2006-11-30 22:12:49.
Categories: Christian, Podcast, Internet
Like this post? Digg it or Del.icio.us it. |



Now Available In Wide-screen Permalink

Picked up a 19 inch LCD on Saturday for a song and I am very happy with the results. Makes a lot more space for (Opera) widgets. The only widget I have written so far is for the Google homepage though I have looked at Yahoo etc. The Opera Widget code seems quite sensible and the BBC are running a widget competition so who knows... Cool

My web hosting has been down this weekend. Boo! So no updates there though I have spent the time mulling over Podcast and newsletter options for a new project. I am keen to do a Podcast based outdoors whilst dog walking. I have made some test recordings which mostly work. Once the content is up to scratch, it may end up online. The concept is a little fuzzy but likely to be along the lines of tech, news, spirituality and politics. Something life/world view-y which is exploratory non-preachy yet not wishy washy Wink

There's also a little work I want to do on Firedrop. Tagging is very, very nearly finished. 0.2.2 was released some time ago but I am still using a hacked 0.2.1 with a pile of plugins. Just a hard coded path to fix then some docs!

Posted by Davy Mitchell on 2006-10-15 21:14:02.
Categories: Internet, Python, Podcast
Like this post? Digg it or Del.icio.us it. |



IronPython Disappointment, SVN and Odds and Ends Permalink

Finally got round to trying out IronPython RC tonight. I have been hoping for ages to get Kirbybase running on it. Good news is that the datetime bug I reported has been fixed and everything is functional. Just very slow. Very slow. I ran a test script which creates a DB adds, deletes and selects a few records. On 'real' Python it completes almost as soon as I hit return and on IP it takes around 8-9 seconds. Even giving IP 3-4 seconds startup time, it is hardly speedy. That said it is still early days and I have high hopes for the project. Just can't see me using it for the project I had in mind. Things may change.

In other news, LDBackup SVN is now online thanks to those generous folks at Python-Hosting. Work on the project has slowed down this week as I have been very busy. There's been some interesting discussions about how much to rely on a framework (in this case Pythoncard). Thankfully Pythoncard resource file is written in Python and is very easy to work with so no chance of lock-in.

My current Podcatcher(onastick) has let me down and has been randomly download stuff from months ago so if you have a suggestion leave a comment. It must run from USB to be a contender! Tempting to use the structure of LDBackup and wrap wget with a little RSS.py but who needs yet another project Cool

Posted by Davy Mitchell on 2006-07-27 22:25:36.
Categories: Python, Podcast, Software, IronPython Tags :       
Like this post? Digg it or Del.icio.us it. |



Value Hacked Permalink

Last night I had the interesting experience of being interviewed by Graeme of the ValuesHacker Podcast. I was all about my BBC Backstage project MoodNews and was good fun. The episode should be out in a week or so.

TPN :: ValuesHacker(Link) ''Ethics and values approached from a lifehacker point of view, where we explore human values, thinking and resulting actions via discussions and interviews with key people around the big values issues of the day.''

Of course, with Graeme being a full-time Pythoneer we did manage to name drop Python a few times Cool I also mentioned FireDrop2 as a little clue for what is next for Mood News in the medium term. In the short term, there is a redesign coming along just nicely. I also have nearly a years worth of data to analyse... Sadly I didn't save it for every story just the summary.

Posted by Davy Mitchell on 2006-06-22 20:06:51.
Categories: Podcast, MoodNews, Python Tags :        
Like this post? Digg it or Del.icio.us it. |



The Da Vinci Deception Permalink

The Da Vinci Deception - 66/40 - K-House(Link) ''Dan Brown's bestselling book, The DaVinci Code is a real page-turner but constitutes an intentional and very malicious attack on the person of Jesus Christ and Christianity. It has caused much confusion among those inadequately informed about the origins of the Gospels and the history of the early church.''

Posted by Davy Mitchell on 2006-06-14 20:03:46.
Categories: Podcast, Christian Tags :        
Like this post? Digg it or Del.icio.us it. |




Locations of visitors to this page