The Mouse Vs. The Python

The subtitle for this article could easily be “How To Create PDFs with Python”, but WordPress doesn’t support that. Anyway, the premier PDF library in Python is Reportlab. It is not distributed with that standard library, so you’ll need to download it if you want to run the examples in this tutorial. There will also be at least one example of how to put an image into a PDF, which means you’ll also need the Python Image Library (PIL). As I understand it, Reportlab is compatible with Python 2.x, IronPython and Jython. They are currently working on a port for Python 3.x (or will be soon). (more…)

Before PyCon, I was approached by a representative from Packt Publishing to review one of their books. They wanted me to read Daniel Arbuckle’s Python Testing: Beginner’s Guide. I’m not really into testing frameworks or test driven development and thought this would be a good excuse to learn the methodology and see if it was something that was actually valuable or just a lot of hype. The book is only 256 pages long, so I told the Packt contact that it would probably take me a week or so to review. After a week, she seemed kind of anxious that I wasn’t done. Thus, this is a partial review. I don’t like being pressured to review something fast. I want my reviews to be thorough and of the best quality I can make them. You will get a thorough review of the chapters that I did manage to finish. If you want a full review, I’m pretty sure someone else on Python Planet said they were doing one. (more…)

This week I was tasked with trying to find a way to find out what the Peak Commit value was on our virtual workstations. The reason being that we are trying to save money and were wondering if we were allocating too much memory or not. We didn’t need the Total Commit Charge or the Limit Commit Charge values, but since I figured out how to get those during my research, I’ll show how to get those as well. (more…)

Have you ever wondered what software was installed on your PC? Most people who use Windows would probably go to Add/Remove Programs to find out this information, but they’re not programmers. No, programmers have to script it because it’s just in our blood to do so. I actually had another reason to do so: my boss wanted me to log what was installed on our user’s PCs so we’d know if our users were installing unauthorized software. Thus, there’s also a practical reason to attempt this. (more…)

Back when I first wrote about creating shortcuts with Python last month, I kept thinking to myself that I had a 3rd way of doing it. Today, I had to maintain some of my shortcut code and I stumbled upon it once more. I also noticed that my post had received a comment from Tim Golden on yet another way to create shortcuts, so I’ll include that in this post as well. (more…)

I was contacted this week to review a new book from Packt Publishing entitled “Python Testing: Beginner’s Guide” by Daniel Arbuckle (no relation to Garfield’s master as far as I can tell). I haven’t received the book yet, but you can read about it on their website. I also found the book on Amazon. Alas, I do not get paid if you click either of those links, so feel free to click with impunity.

If you’re interested, you can read chapter five for free. Note: that link is to a PDF.

I look forward to reviewing the book as I haven’t done a book review in quite a while. I pledge to be completely honest. If the book sucks or rocks, I’ll be sure to let you know.

I do a fair amount of technical support in addition to my software development. In our small shop, we get to troubleshoot anything that is related to technology, from networks to software to printers. I think one of the most annoying aspects is trying to get printers to work the way the user wants. Another issue is setting up printers for users that have to roam from PC to PC as a part of their job. These users usually only need the printers that are in their specific location at any given time. It’s very difficult to accommodate this type of user, especially if the PCs are being used 24/7, which is true in my case. This is where Python comes in. (more…)

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about some scripts we use at work for creating shortcuts to various programs in Windows. Well, we also push out updates to some programs which change the paths of the programs and then we need to change the user’s shortcuts to match. Unfortunately, some user’s will change the name of the shortcut which can make finding it difficult. Python makes it easy to find the shortcut I need to change though and in this article I’ll show you how to do it. (more…)

Roaming Profiles are a blessing and a curse. If the user uses the internet, their browser’s cached files will grow like mad. If the user downloads programs to their desktop or creates large Powerpoint files anywhere in their profile, then they have to be managed whenever the user logs in or out. There are several solutions to this problem: disk quotas, blocking the ability to download or put stuff in one’s profile, etc. In this article, I will show you how to exclude specific directories from the user’s profile using Python. (more…)

A few months ago, my employer needed to lock down some of our workstations to be compliant with some new software we were installing from another government organization. We needed to force those machines to lock after so many minutes elapsed and we needed to make it such that the user could not change those settings. In this article, you’ll find out how do this and as a bonus, I’ll also show you how to lock your Windows machine on demand with Python. (more…)