Category Archives: News for the blog

News from the Blog 2022-01-22

News for the Blog

It has been 9 years since I created the blog, and some articles have old content that still get many visitors. To make sure they get the clear picture and not obsolete information, all the articles of the taxonomy POST, will include the Date and Time when the article was first published.

I also removed the annoying link “Leave a comment” on top. I think it influences some people to leave comments before actually having read the article.

It is still possible to add comments, but they are on the bottom of the page. I believe it makes more sense this way. This is the way.

Technically that involved modifying the files of my template:

  • functions.php
  • content.php

My Books

Automating and Provisioning to Amazon AWS using boto3 Amazon’s SDK for Python 3

I finished my book about Automating and Provisioning to Amazon AWS using boto3 Amazon’s SDK for Python 3.

It’s 128 pages in Full size DIN-A4 DRM-Free, and comes with a link to code samples of a real project CLI Menu based.

Docker Combat Guide

I have updated my book Docker Combat Guide and I added a completely new section, including source code, to work with Docker’s Python SDK.

I show the Docker SDK by showing the code of an actual CLI program I wrote in Python 3.

Here you can see a video that demonstrates how I launched a project with three Docker Containers via Docker compose. The Containers have Python, Flask webserver, and redis as bridge between the two Python Containers.

All the source code are downloadable with the book.

Watch at 1080p at Full Screen for better experience

My Classes

In January I resumed the coding classes. I have new students, and few spots free in my agenda, as some of my students graduated and others have been hired as Software Developers. I can not be more proud. :)

Free Training

Symfony is one of the most popular PHP Frameworks.

You can learn it with these free videos:

https://symfonycasts.com/screencast/symfony/

Software Licenses I Purchased

Before leaving 2021, I registered WinRAR for Windows.

WinRAR is a compressing Software that has been with us for 19 years.

I’m pretty sure I registered it in the past, but these holidays I was out only with two Window laptops and I had to do some work for the university and WinRAR came it handy, so I decided to register it again.

I create Software and Books, and I earn my life with this, so it makes a lot of sense to pay others for their good work crafting Software.

Books I Purchased

I bought this book and by the moment is really good. I wanted to buy some updated books as all my Linux books have some years already. Also I keep my skills sharp by reading reading reading.

Hardware I purchased

So I bought a cheap car power inverter.

The ones I saw in Amazon were €120+ and they were not very good rated, so I opted to buy a cheap one in the supermarket and keep it on the car just in case one day I need it. (My new Asus Zenbook laptop has 18 hours of autonomy and I don’t charge it for days, but you never know)

For those that don’t know, a power inverter allows you to get a 220V (120V in US) plug, from the connection of the lighter from your car. Also you can get the energy from an external car battery. This comes in really handy to charge the laptop, cameras, your drone… if you are in the nature and you don’t have any plug near.

I bought one years ago to power up Raspberry Pi’s when I was doing Research for a project I was studying to launch.

Fun

Many friends are using Starlink as a substitute of fiber for their rural homes, and they are super happy with it.

One of them send me a very fun article.

It is in Italian, but you can google translate it.

https://leganerd.com/2022/01/10/starlink-ha-un-piccolo-e-adorabile-problema-con-i-gatti/

Anyways you can get the idea of what’s going on in the picture :)

So tell me… so your speed with Starlink drops 80% in winter uh… aha…

Random news about Software

I tried the voice recognition in Slack huddle, and it works pretty well. Also Zoom has this feature and they are great. Specially when you are in a group call, or in a class.

My health

I was experimenting some problems, so I scheduled an appointment to get blood analysis and to be checked. Just in case.

TL;TR I could have died.

The doctors saw my analysis and sent me to the hospital urgently, where they found something that was going to be lethal. For hours they were checking me and doing several more analysis and tests to discard false positives, etc… and they precisely found the issue and provided urgent treatment and confirmed that I could have died at any moment.

Basically I dodged a bullet.

I was doing certain healthy things that helped me in a situation that could have been deadly or extremely dangerous to my health.

With the treatment and my strict discipline, I reverted the situation really quick and now I have more health and more energy than before. I feel rejuvenated.

I’m feeling lucky that with my work, the classes, the books I wrote, etc… I didn’t have to worry about the expensive medicines, the transport, etc… It was a bad moment, during Christmas, with so many people on holidays, pharmacies and GPs closed, so I had to spend more time looking for, traveling, and to pay more than it would had been strictly necessary. Despite all the time I used to my health, I managed to finish my university duties on time, and I didn’t miss my duties at work after the hospital, neither I had to cancel any programming classes or mentoring sessions. Nobody out of my closest circle knew what was going on, with the exception of my boss, which I kept informed in real time, just in case there was any problem, as I didn’t want to let down the company and have my duties at work to be unattended if something major happened.

I was not afraid to die. Unfortunately I’ve lost very significant people since I was a child. Relatives, very appreciated bosses and colleagues which I considered my friends, and great friends of different circles. Illnesses, accidents, and a friend of mine committed suicide years ago, and some of my partners attempted it (before we know each other). When you see people that are so good leaving, this brings a sadness that cannot be explained with words. I have had a tough life.

We have a limited time, and he have freedom to make choices. Some people choose to be miserable, to mistreat others, to lie, to cheat, to be unfaithful, to lack ethic and integrity. Those are their choices. Their wasted time will not come back.

Some of my friends are doctors. I admire them. They save lives and improve the quality of life of people with health problems.

I like being an Engineer cause I can create things, I can build instead of destroy, I can help to improve the world, and I can help users to have a good time and to avoid the frustration of services being down. I chose to do a positive work. So many times I’ve been offered much bigger salaries to do something I didn’t like, or by companies that I don’t admire, and I refused. Cause I wanted to make a better world. I know many people don’t think like that, and they only take take take. They are even unable to understand my choices, even to believe that I’m like that. But it’s enough that I know what I’m doing, and that it makes sense for me, and that I know that I’m doing well. And then, one day, you realize, that doing well, being fair and nice even if other people stabbed you in the back, you got to know fantastic people like you, and people that adore you and love to have you in their life, in their companies… So I’m really fortunate. To all the good-hearted people around, that give without expect anything in return, that try to make the world a better place, thank you.

2021-12-22 News from the blog

Open Source

I released my Python Open Source libraries for rapid application development: carleslibs to v. 1.0.3.

I updated the page of my 2013 PHP Framework Catalonia Framework, linking to the blog. This is a very nice and lightweight PHP Framework that I created then and it worked so well that I had not the need to update it since 2014.

Donations

Blizzard offered to the employees the opportunity to donate in the name of Blizzard, up to USD $100. It has not been the first time, is a regular thing. Also in the past the company matched any donation we employees did, to help diversity will less resources to study in the university.

I chose to donate to Lions in Cork, Ireland.

When they lived, my grand parents were members and donors from Lion’s in Catalonia, so I trust them.

Security

Log4j Java vulnerability

A critical vulnerability named Log4Shell was found in Apache Log4j Java Open Source logging Library.

https://www.engadget.com/log4shell-vulnerability-log4j-155543990.html

The fix has been already released in v. 2.15.0 https://logging.apache.org/log4j/2.x/security.html

NSO zero-click iPhone exploit

An interesting read about NSO zero-click iPhone exploit: https://www.engadget.com/google-researchers-nso-zero-click-iphone-imessage-exploit-143213776.html

https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2021/12/a-deep-dive-into-nso-zero-click.html

News from the blog 2021-12-07

Charity

I’ve donated to Equitas Health.

Equitas Health helps thousands of HIV-positive in Ohio, Dayton and Columbus.

Thousands more are reached with our prevention, testing, and other services. We are excited about embracing our expanded mission as a strategic step to further that legacy and its reach by providing care for all – with a focus on a safe and open space and highest quality healthcare for the LGBTQ community and others who are medically underserved.

https://equitashealth.com/get-involved/give/donate-now/

I did my donation following a post by Terra Field, a former colleague at Blizzard and later leading Netflix’s Trans *ERG, but I didn’t see that she organized a gofund campaign, so I donated again :)

If you want to help them:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/transphobia-is-not-a-joke?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_campaign=m_pd+share-sheet

https://equitashealth.com/get-involved/give/donate-now/

Articles

I created an article about provisioning to Amazon AWS EC2 and running playbooks (recipes) using Ansible, and Dynamic Directory to store the public ip’s or dns public names in an inventory.

As I saw that there is a lack of clarity in the articles about this theme.

I also provided two alternatives ways, one pure Python3 and the other Bash based (grep awk tr)

Books

The books I publish in LeanPub have two prices, the suggested price, which is the price I consider the right price for the book, and the minimum price, which is the minimum price I authorized a reader can pay to have it.

You can buy it for the minimum price. You know better than anyone your economy.

So when a reader buys one of my books for the suggested price, instead of the minimum price, it’s really showing how they appreciate may work.

So thanks for all the support and appreciation you show!. :)

One of the motives I chose Leanpub platform is because I think is fair. No DRM, no BS. And the reader can ask for a refund within 45 days if they don’t like the book. It also makes very happy seeing that I don’t have any refunds. I appreciate it as a token of the usefulness of my work. Thanks. :)

Updates to Docker Combat File book (v.16 2021-11-24)

I added a nice trick to reverse engineering the original Dockerfile from a running Image.

I also added another typical copy and paste error into the Troubleshoot section.

https://leanpub.com/docker-combat-guide

Automating and Provisioning Amazon AWS (EC2, EBS, S3, CloudWatch) with boto3 (Amazon’s SDK for Python 3) and Python 3 book

I’m writing a book about how to automate your Amazon AWS tasks using Amazon’s AWS Python 3 SDK boto3, provisioning new instances, stopping, starting, creating volumes, creating/deleting buckets in S3, uploading/downloading files from S3…

It is currently 20% completed. With 43 pages it shows EC2 section already.

https://leanpub.com/amazon-aws-boto3

Open Source

I’ve working in carleslibs v.1.0.3. I added MenuUtils class, which allows to assemble menus super quickly, that execute the code referenced in the menu array. Ideal for building CLI applications very fast.

I also added KeyboardUtils class, which allows to ask the user for String within certain lengths allowing or not spaces and/or underscores, and ask user for Integer values within a certain min and max, having 0 for go back.

The plan is to release the new version of carleslibs as soon as I’ve tested it properly.

Social part

For those who follow my recommendations, as always, I have updated the list of new movies I watched and the list of new videogames I played.

News from the Blog 2021-11-11

New Articles

How to communicate with your Python program running inside a Docker Container, using Linux Signals

Hope you’ll have fun reading this article:

Communicating with Docker Containers via Linux Signals and Python

I migrated my last services from Amazon and the blog to Google Compute Engine (GCE / GCP)

I wrote a Postmortem analysis about the process of migrating my last services from my 11 year old Amazon account.

Updates

Updates to articles

I updated the article about Python weird things that you may not know adding the Ellipsis …

I’ve been working in some Cassandra examples. I may publish an article soon about using it from Python and Docker.

Updates to My Books

I updated my Python and Docker books.

I’m currently writing a book about using Amazon AWS Python SDK (boto3).

Updates to Open Source projects

I have updated ctop, fixed two bugs and increased Code Coverage.

I made a new tag and released the last Stable Version:

https://gitlab.com/carles.mateo/ctop/-/tags/0.8.7

On top of my local Unit Testing, I have Jenkins checking that I don’t commit anything that breaks the Tests.

Some time ago I wrote some articles about how you can setup jenkins in a Docker Container.

Miscellaneous

Charity

I’ve donated to Wikipedia.

Only 2% of the viewers donate, so I answered the call every time it was made.

This is my 5th donation to Wikimedia.

I consider that Freedom is very important.

I bought these new books

One of my secrets to be on top is that I’m always studying.

I study all the time, at work and in my free time.

I use Linux Academy and I buy books in paper. I don’t connect with reading in tablets. I think information is stored better when read in paper. I use also a marker and pointers to keep a direct access to the most interesting points on the books.

And I study all kind of themes. Obviously I know a lot of Web Scraping, but there is always room for learning more. And whatever new I learn helps me to be better with my students and more clear writing my books.

I’ve never been a Front End, but I’ve been able to fix bugs in the Front End engines from the companies I worked for, like Privalia. I was passed a bug that prevented the Internet Explorer users to buy just one hour before we launching a massive campaign. I debugged and I found a variable named “value” so the html looked like <input name="value" value="">. In less than 30 minutes I proved to the incredulous Head of Development and the CTO that a bug in Internet Explored was causing a conflict when fetching the value from the input named value. We deployed to Production the update and the campaign was a total success. So I consider knowing Javascript and Front also a need, even if I don’t work directly with it. I want to be able to understand all the requirements and possibilities, and weaknesses, so I can fix bugs and save the day. That allowed me to fix scalability problems in Nodejs and Phantomjs projects too. (They are Javascript Server Side, event driven, projects)

It seems that Amazon.co.uk works well again for Ireland. My two last orders arrived on time and I had no problems of border taxes apparently.

Nice Python article

I enjoyed a lot this article, cause explains part of what I did with my student and friend Albert, in a project that analyzes the access logs from Apache for patterns of attempts of exploits, then feeds a database, and then blocks those offender Ip Addresses in the Firewall.

The article only covers the part of Pandas, of reading the access.log file and working with it, but is a very well redacted article:

https://mmas.github.io/read-apache-access-log-pandas

Nice Virtual Volumes article from VMware

I prefer Open Source, but there are very good commercial products too.

I liked this article about Virtual Volumes from VMWare:

Understanding Virtual Volumes (vVols) in VMware vSphere 6.7/7.0 (2113013)

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2113013

Thanks Blizzard (again)

There is a very nice initiative where we can nominate 4 colleagues a year, that we think that deserve a recognition.

My colleagues voted for me, so I received a gift voucher that I can spend in Ireland stores like Ikea, Pc World, Argos, Adidas, App Store & iTunes…

So thanks a million buds. :)

My Sites are under Maintenance

2021-11-08 Update: There is a Postmortem analysis of what happened with Amazon here.

TLTR: I’m undergoing a Maintenance on all my sites.

The main reason was that I was getting unexpected API Exceptions on the AWS SDK for Python (boto3), so I connected to the AWS Console to get more information.

Then I saw a message indicating that they will stop EC2-Classic today 30th of October. (Please read the Update on the Postmortem analysis as I understood incorrectly that banner message)

I already started migrating my Services, some I move to other providers like Digital Ocean. Other I had plant to keep in Amazon.

EOL (End of Life) was scheduled for 2022 August, so when I saw the message from Amazon the evening of the 29th, I decided to migrate my EC2-Classic Public Ip’s and Compute to VPC. Trying to deploy from an AMI, Amazon APIs were returning many internal errors, and as I figured out where their failures would be I was able get instances being launch without being Terminated immediately without an explanation. Still I had many problems with the Internet Gateway, VPC NAT, etc… after hours fighting with their errors, and their console, that is more a bunch of pages to manage Infrastructure rather than a user/developer friendly Cloud Tool I decided that I had enough.

After 11 years using Amazon AWS, including a trip to Dublin to be hired as Manager for Cloud Watch, and giving them the idea to add AutoScaling (I was told the project was too easy for me and that I would get bored in a year or too so I was not hired), I decided to move my Services to Google Cloud and to Digital Ocean.

I’m very polite and I saw that when I told to one Manager that the User Interface was terrible he didn’t like, but I have to speak up and say that tools for developers cannot be cold as your evil girlfriend. Cannot be API alike, stand alone pages to manage infinite parts of Architecture. Web providing services for developers cannot be created like in cold SysAdmin style. If the infrastructure is hard to manage and internally you use APIs, build nice Wizards in Javascript. I was leading a Team of Developers with infinite less resources than Amazon or Google and we wrote a Multi-Cloud product, with nice, and clever, and easy to use Wizards, and they were infinitely more better that those giant CSPs. We won a prize at European level at that time. But it was 2013.

I’ve migrated everything, moved all the data, statics, VMs… but I’m completing the adjustments for certain services like Cassandra nodes, web sites, bootstrapping some of my sites based of my PHP Catalonia Framework, adding Firewall rules to GCP, doing changes for Ansible provisioning, deploying the Server scripts from IaC, Docker, etc…

I’ll be posting updates in Twitter.

News from the blog 2021-10-21

  • I made a Donation to The Document Foundation, which makes the OpenOffice.

I use OpenOffice suite for writing my books and other documents, so I think it’s fair to contribute with their operating costs.

  • I’ve installed a plugin to add Code Highlighting

It also allows me to add blocks of Code, like this:

if CodeHighlighting.b_is_installed == True:
    return VisualImprovement.update_to(10), "It's easy to read"
else:
    return VisualImprovement.get_still_the_same_difficult_to_read(), "The blog lives in the medieval age"

Or Inline Code like print(self.awareness) which is also great

  • I’ve improved a bit, visually, the blog

I modified a bit my template. The changes consist into adding an id attribute to the table for the Quick Selection of the articles, and modifying my template: the styles in the file css/blocks.css and modifying the version in functions.php to reflect the new timestamp.

I also made that when the mouse goes over a link it is displayed in blue, and the already visited in a slightly darker blue.

#articles_selection a:hover {color: #2222FF;}

In the images below you can see the before, the intermediate, and the final.

I’ve also added a button to hide or show the Quick Selection

If you have a WordPress and jQuery does not work for you, with error:

TypeError: $ is not a function

$(document).ready(function(){

This is because for compatibility reasons you have to do different in WordPress:

jQuery(document).ready(function($){
  • I created several videos of 5 minutes to learn Unit Testing in Python 3 with pytest
Learn Python 3 Unit Testing

I also use my package carleslibs to execute the command from shell.

Web CTOP in this case :)

As I did this I discovered a bug (bug #47) in CTOP for setting the number of rows.

  • I fixed the bug #47 and the bug #48 in CTOP and started version 0.8.7 (available in Master).

The changelog.txt file details all the changes for each version.

Here CTOP is displayed with a fixed width and height as by launching with:
ctop.py –rows=50 –columns=170
  • The new PSU arrived and I replaced it on Saturday 16th

After 5 days working nonstop, with no problems, it seems clear that the failing item was the expensive, 850W, Corsair PSU. Sometimes it happens that a new component comes defective, but I paid overprice expecting quality, and it seems that the PSU was defective. Since the beginning the computer powered off every few hours max, so I have to finally assume that effectively it was the PSU. Disappointed with Corsair.

  • Firewall. This month I’ve blocked around 2,000 visitors that were mainly bots searching for exploits

I review the logs several times every day.

Actually I’ve blocked many more Ip’s in the firewall, as when I identify a company source of bots, I block all their range (Imagine, as I block entire class C addresses, there are 256 Ips each class C /24). This has translated into 2,000 visitors less per month to the blog, that were offenders.

  • I added some rules / guidelines to the Leave a Reply section

I moderate all the comments to keep the blog an useful and healthy place.

And I don’t publish Spam, or Marketing messages.

Abusive comments are blocked. Competent Engineers and nice human beings share their points and doubts with data, with technical arguments, with education, in a respectful and polite way. People that cannot observe a minimum decoration are not welcome.

News from the blog 2021-10-10

I published this book to help developers to understand and use Docker.

It is not targeted to SysAdmins, is aimed to Developers that want to get an operative know how by examples very quickly, and easy to read.

  • University classes are restarted, and I fixed my tower.

For the Cloud computing degree this semester VMWare is used intensively.

I have a dedicated tower with an AMD Ryzen 7 processor, a Samsung NMVe drive PCIe 4.0, which provides me a throughput of 6GB/second (six Gigabytes, so 48 Gbit/second), SAS drives and SATA too. It’s a little monster with 64 GB of RAM and 2.5 Gbps NIC.

It was not starting.

The problem was in the Video card, which made loosely contact to the motherboard.

I had to disconnect everything until I found what it was, but after moving the video card to another PCI slot, it worked.

I knew it was some sort of short circuit / bad contact as the fans were turning for a second and turning off immediately.

After this, the computer works fine but it will poweroff in about 4h and 12 hours. I’ve been testing and removing each component until I believe is the PSU. I’ve ordered a new one from a Dutch provider with web store in Ireland that my former colleague Thomas showed me one year and half ago.

Since England leaved the EU, it is impossible to buy from amazon.co.uk without experiencing problems in the border and delays.

If you want to learn how to assemble a PC, fix the problems and upgrade your laptop, I wrote this book:

https://leanpub.com/pc-assemble/

If you are curious about what I use in my day to day:

  1. A tower for developing and reading my email, with Linux, Intel i7 7800X (12 cores) and 64 GB of RAM, with Nvidia graphics card
  2. A tower for holding Virtual Machines, with Linux, AMD Ryzen 7 3700x (16 cores) and 64 GB of RAM, with Nvidia graphics card
  3. An upgraded HP laptop for programming in the cafe, is a Windows 10, with 16 GB of RAM
  4. Raspberry Pi 4 and 3, from time to time
  5. A laptop for programming, for Work, 16 GB of RAM
  6. A tower for programming, for Work, at the office, 32 GB of RAM
  7. I also had a Dell computer which battery inflated elevating the touchpad, an Acer 11.6 Latop very lightweight which screen died cracked apparently (it’s a mistery to me how this happened as I removed from the bag and it was cracked. That little laptop accompanied me during years, to many countries, as for a while I carried it with me 100% of the time. At that time if the companies I worked for had outages they were losing thousands of euros per hour, so as CTO I fixed broken stuff even in a restaurant. Believe when I recommend you and your teams to use Unit Testing) and a 15.6″ Acer with 16GB of RAM that was part of the payment of an Start up I was CTO for, and which screen flicks intermittently and I managed to fix it by applying a pressure point to a connector, so I managed to use as fixed computer at the beginning of being in Ireland. I was not using it much, as I had two laptops from work when working for Sanmina, a Dell with 16 GB of RAM and Core i7 with two external monitors and an Intel Xeon with 32GB of RAM, heavy weight, but very useful for my job (programming, doing demos, having VMs…).

I’ve assembled all my PC from the scratch, piece by piece, and I force myself to do it so I keep up to date of the upcoming technologies, buses, etc…

  • My students are doing well. Congrats to Albert for getting 8.67 from 10 in his university programming course exams!.
  • Diablo 2 Resurrected is published and I am in the credits :)

I’m in the credits of all our games since I joined, but I’m happy every time I see myself and my colleagues on them. :)

This release includes SubProcessUtils which is a class that allows you to execute commands to the shell (or without shell) and capture the STDOUT, STDERR, and Exit Code very easily.

I’ve used my libraries for a hackaton PoC for work, for Monitoring one aspect of one of our top games side, and I coded it super quickly. :)

They loved it and we have a meeting scheduled to create a Service from my PoC. :)

News from the blog 2021-09-20

  • I’ve published a very simple game, Tic Tac Toe, that I created for my Python 3 Exercises for Beginners book.
  • I’ve raised back the price for my books to normal levels.
    I’ve been keeping the price to the minimum to help people that wanted to learn during covid-19. I consider that who wanted to learn has already done it.

I still have bundles with a somewhat reduced price, and I authorized LeanPub platform to do discounts up to 50% at their discretion.

Bundle of four books in https://leanpub.com/b/python3-exercises-zfs-assemble-computer

https://leanpub.com/b/python3-exercises-zfs-assemble-computer

  • I’ve been deleting AMIs, Snapshots, Volumes and backups from Amazon instances I’ll no longer use.

I’ve migrated to Docker some sites and WordPress sites and now I’m CSP (Cloud Service Provider) agnostic. I can deploy wherever I want.

We pay per GB used of storage, so my money will get a better usage.

As I said in my old article from 2013, The Cloud is for Scaling. For Startups and for Enterprises. It is too expensive for small and medium companies.

  • For those studying Python there is a Virtual Meetup about Data Analysis, in Spanish ,the 23th of September

https://www.meetup.com/tech-barcelona/events/280791310/

More meetups:

https://www.meetup.com/tech-barcelona/

News from the blog 2021-09-07

  • Blocking Ip addresses in the firewall

I’ve been blocking entire ranges from Cloud Providers, as some of their Ip’s were being used to try to hack/abuse the blog.

After some time blocking individual Ip’s, I opted for being some more effective and blocking /24 (the class C for the offending Ip).

If you work for a CSP and you can’t see my blog from your range, this is the reason.

  • I have updated my two Python books.

For Python 3 simple exercises for beginners I’ve added this new content:

v.0.29 and v.0.28 Python 3 Simple Exercises for Beginners
Added a new section Games, with a first game “Guess my number”

Provided a solution for the recipe Exercise 3: Create a function that will ask a user for a number from Keyboard input, and return the result, only when the value is between the accepted ranges.

Added two new questions to the Quiz section.

Fixed a docstring in Recipes Exercise 4, referring to a String return value which it was an Integer.

Added an exercise for retrieving a JSON with your public Ip

Added a new exercise for converting bytes to kilobytes with two decimal positions.

Added a new exercise / recipe to SSH to a Server with Username and Password and execute a command, using the Paramiko library.

For Python 3 Combat Guide I have added this new content:

v.1.02 Python 3 Combat Guide

Added a new exercise / recipe to SSH to a Server with Username and Password and execute a command using Paramiko library. I added two examples executing commands uptime and df -h /

Show an alternative way to run Flask apps.

Added new interesting packages.

As long as covid is active I plan to keep the minimum price of each of my books at the minimum accepted by LeanPub which is USD $5.

I also enable bundles and enable LeanPub to make punctual discounts to make them even more affordable to humble pockets.

  • I’m going to teach an initiation to programming class, a live Zoom session of 1 hour, plus 15 minutes for questions, for Free. It will be a very basic starting class for absolute beginners.

It will be performed at a time around 19:00 Irish time, wich is 11:00 AM in Irivine, CA time, to maximize the opportunities for people to assist.

If you would like to join, write me an email:

There are not many spots available, but if there is no room for you this time I may contact you for the next time.

This version adds class StringUtils, and a set of methods to perform different useful tasks with Strings, like converting a number to the biggest unit with sense, like a large number of bytes to PB, a smaller one to TB, or GB, MB, KB, justifying strings to the right or to the left, and cap the number of chars to a specified one, etc…

I have many libraries that I’ve been building across the years, and I’m liberating them as Open Source, as soon as I have time to make sure that are compatible with Python 3.5 or superior (and with Python 2.6 when possible), and I have time to add a decent Unit Testing Code Coverage.

I try to release libraries that have no other dependencies. After that I’ll start releasing my libs that have dependencies, like to work with MySQL, SQLite, web scrapping, etc…

News of the blog 2021-08-16

  • I completed my ZFS on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS book.
    I had an error in an actual hard drive so I added a Troubleshooting section explaining how I fixed it.
  • I paused for a while the advance of my book Python: basic exercises for beginners, as my colleague Michela is translating it to Italian. She is a great Engineer and I cannot be more happy of having her help.
  • I added a new article about how to create a simple web Star Wars game using Flask.
    As always, I use Docker and a Dockerfile to automate the deployment, so you can test it without messing with your local system.
    The code is very simple and easy to understand.
mysql> UPDATE wp_options set option_value='blog.carlesmateo.local' WHERE option_name='siteurl';
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.02 sec)
Rows matched: 1 Changed: 1 Warnings: 0

This way I set an entry in /etc/hosts and I can do all the tests I want.

  • I added a new section to the blog, is a link where you can see all the articles published, ordered by number of views.
    /posts_and_views.php

Is in the main page, just after the recommended articles.
Here you can see the source code.

  • I removed the Categories:
    • Storage
      • ZFS
  • In favor of:
    • Hardware
      • Storage
        • ZFS
  • So the articles with Categories in the group deleted were reassigned the Categories in the second group.
  • Visually:
    • I removed some annoying lines from the Quick Selection access.
      They came from inherited CSS properties from my WordPress, long time customized, and I created new styles for this section.
    • I adjusted the line-height to avoid separation between lines being too much.
  • I added a link in the section of Other Engineering Blogs that I like, to the great https://github.com/lesterchan site, author of many super cool WordPress plugins.