October 2010

wxPython: An XRCed Tutorial

If you’re new to wxPython but not new to XML, you might find this article useful to you. Why? Because wxPython supports XRC, an XML file format that describes the GUI in XML, duh. In fact, wxPython’s Documentation & Demos package includes an editor just for creating and manipulating these files that is called, XRCed. […]

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Python: Changing Microsoft Office User Initials

A couple of months ago at work, we received a report that a file was locked. The dialog that appeared showed the initials of a user who wasn’t even working for us any more. Thus we discovered an annoying bug that can crop up with Office. Basically, a user is asked by Word or Excel

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Downloading Encrypted and Compressed Files with Python

Earlier this year, I was tasked with creating an application that would download information from our organization’s website using Python. The tricky part was that it would be encrypted, gzipped and the payload would be JSON. Could Python do all that? Well, that’s what I wanted to find out. Now it’s time for you to

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Python 101: Introspection

Whether you’re new to Python, been using it for a few years or you’re an expert, knowing how to use Python’s introspection capabilities can help your understanding of your code and that new package you just downloaded with the crappy documentation. Introspection is a fancy word that means to observe oneself and ponder one’s thoughts,

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SqlAlchemy and Microsoft Access

Update (10/12/2010) – One of my alert readers told me that SqlAlchemy 0.6.x currently does NOT support the Access dialect. Read here for more info. A year or two ago, I was asked to transfer some data from some old Microsoft Access files to our Microsoft SQL Server. Since I enjoy using SqlAlchemy, I decided

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How to Find and List All Running Processes with Python

The other day, I was tasked with finding a way to get a list of all running processes on a Windows XP virtual machine. I was also supposed to include information about how much CPU and memory each process used. Fortunately, this didn’t have to be a remote script, but one that could be run

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