README

A collection of useful scripts and snippets, in various languges.

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Subdirectories:
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jsjupiter:
    My Jupiter's Moons Javascript web app: show the Galilean moons and
    their shadows, and predict transits, shadow transits and eclipses.

mapping:
    Scripts related to mapping / GIS.

motioncam:
    An automated motion-sensitive camera driver, for Raspberry Pi or
    other machines. Requires pycamera module.

pycamera:
    A wrapper that can drive a Pi camera module, a USB webcam or an
    external gphoto2-compatible camera using similar APIs.

rpi:
    Scripts for the Raspberry Pi. Mostly wrappers to talk to sensors.

weather:
    Some attempts at accessing various weather APIs and plotting
    statistics.

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Scripts in this directory:
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analemma.py:
    Plot the analemma from the selected location, using PyEphem and PyGTK.

aptver:
    Search for Debian packages, installed or uninstalled, matching
    a pattern, and print out versions and descriptions.

balanceparens.py:
    A very simple parenthesis (and brace and bracket) counter.
    Why isn't there a better one already on Linux?

bdump:
    Ascii/hex/decimal dumps of any file. Like od but much more readable.

chatsounds.py:
    An xchat Python script to handle nick (and other special-case) sounds.
    Also a rare example of an xchat Python script.

cellaut.py:
    Simple cellular automata simulation in Python. Slow.

colormatch.php:
    Find the nearest matching color name. http://shallowsky.com/colormatch/

conjunctions.py:
    Predict planetary visibility and conjunctions for a specified
    date range.

countsyl:
    Count likely syllables in words, giving best guess and likely max.

decodemail.py:
    Decode email lines encoded in RFC 2047 format, printing only lines
    that match a specific header (Subject:, From:, etc.).

diffiles.py:
    Find files that differ between two directories -- even if 
    they've been moved to different places in the directory structure.

eggtimer:
    Pop up a reminder window in a specified number of minutes.

epubtag.py:
    Display author, title and tag information for ebooks in epub format;
    or add or modify an ebook's topic tags.

falls_between.py:
    given a day of the week ("tue") or a day of the month (15),
    did it occur between two given dates?

fincompare.py:
    Download financial data from Yahoo finance and plot lots of
    different funds on the same scale.
    Can also take data from a local spreadsheet or other source.

fontasia:
    A Linux font chooser and categorizer.

fotogr:
    Find tagged photos: search for strings in files named Keyword or Tags
    beneath the current directory.

langgrep:
    Search (grep) for patterns only within scripts written in a
    specified language (e.g. in all python scripts).

louder:
    Increase alsa system volume by a small increment. Symlink it to
    another name like "quieter" and it will decrease instead.
    Bind those to volume increase/decrease keys on your laptop.
    and set it as the system wallpaper.

masq:
    Set up IP masquerading to talk to another computer, such as a
    Raspberry Pi, over eth0 while using wlan0 for the internet.

mouseevent.py:
    Read mouse events from /dev/input even if not running X,
    using the python evdev module. Linux only.

musicplayer.py:
    A little toy music player in Python, illustrating how to play audio.

noblank:
    Turn off screen blanking. Run this when you're giving a presentation.

pathmatch:
    Search your executable path to find programs matching a string.
    Like str<tab> except you can match patterns anywhere in the
    string, not just at the beginning.

pisoothe:
    Play sound samples (e.g. soothing white or pink noise samples)
    in a loop, reacting to key events for volume control or to skip
    to the next sample.

podcopy:
    Copy podcasts (fetched with podget) to a mounted mp3 player or directory.
    Remove characters in filenames that would cause problems on vfat
    filesystems, and ensure filenames are unique and files aren't dups.

preso:
    A lightweight presentation program for displaying HTML slides.

pyclip:
    Read the X clipboard.

pykey:
    Simulate keypresses under X. A simpler, Python version of
    Crikey http://shallowsky.com/software/crikey/

pyplay.py:
    A class to play sounds asynchronously by calling aplay (or an app
    of your choice). Don't repeat a sound that's already playing.
    Used in the xchat script chatsounds.py.

pyruler:
    An X pixel ruler. Useful for measuring things like icon sizes.

pysync:
    Call rsync, but check first what would be changed, and save the
    password between the two calls.

randombg:
    Choose a random background (wallpaper) from a directory named based on
    current X resolution. So you can have different sets of backgrounds
    sized for laptop screen, external monitor etc.

randomline:
    Print a random line from a file. Useful for things like choosing
    a random wallpaper or random system beep tone.

readkey.py:
    Read a key press from the keyboard without waiting for a newline.
    For CLI programs: doesn't need X, tkintr, pygame or similar libs.

serio:
    A proof-of-concept serial terminal app in Python.
    Don't take this seriously; it's not meant as a real app (yet?)

sieve.py:
    Visualization of the Sieve of Eratosthenes, using Python curses.
    (Not very useful, but makes a good curses example.)

shorturl:
    Use a URL shortening service to get a shorter URL.
    Can take input from the current X selection, and automatically
    select its output for pasting into a browser or Twitter window.

termcolors:
    Display ANSI colors for the current terminal.

termsize:
    Set stty size to the size of the current terminal window
    (e.g. when logged in to an embedded Posix device over a serial line).

tweet:
    Play birdsong from a specific bird. Requires ripped tracks from a
    bird song CD: for example, the Stokes, Cornell or Peterson collections.

qhtmlprint:
    Convert a set of HTML slides (e.g. in navigate.js) into PDF.
    For turning an HTML presentation into a PDF slide deck.

viewhtmlmail:
     Take an mbox HTML message (e.g. from mutt), split it using munpack,
     and rewrite it so it can be viewed in an external browser.

vol:
    A simple python-gtk volume slider. Much simpler and smaller than
    alsamixergui.

waymaker:
    Take a file and of descriptions, multi-line and separated by blank lines,
    and turn it into a collection of GPX waypoints suitable for import into
    any mapping program (e.g. Osmand or PyTopo).

weather/cwop.py:
    Download and parse readings from Citizen Weather Observation Program
    stations.

weather/noaatemps.py:
    Display and plot weather means for a set of stations,
    by downloading NOAA data files.

weather/weatherwin:
    Display a window showing temperature and today's forecast
    for several cities at once.

weborphans:
    Check a web site (perhaps localhost) against a local mirror,
    checking for broken links and orphaned files.

xlsrd:
    Display an .xls spreadsheet as a formatted ASCII table, using
    the xlrd package to parse the spreadsheet.