I’ve released v. 0.99 of carleslibs package This package includes utilities for:
Files and Directories handling
Date/Time retrieval
Python version detection
You can install it with:
pip install carleslibs
The minimum requirement declared is Python 3.6, although they work with Python 3.5 and Python 2.7, as I want to drop support for no longer supported versions.
If you are enrolled with Linux Academy, I recommend you this Python course: Python 3 Scripting for System Administrators https://linuxacademy.com/cp/modules/view/id/168 Does not cover OOP, but it does a bit of Unit Testing, and talks a lot about PIP and Virtual Environments.
Google Instances’ Performance I’ve updated the CMIPS score for the latest Google instances vs last Amazon’s I tried and baremetals.
I’ve updated my book Python Combat Guide, version 0.99 has already 365 pages DIN-A4.
This is the changelog for latest version:
v. 0.99
A whole new chapter showing sorting in Python and lambdas. (.sort() and sorted() package First)
I show writing lambdas for Sorting, and also what makes them crash.
Explained why Lambdas are not recommended unless you use for working with data, like for sorting or filtering out, and unless you know what you are doing. They are difficult to Debug.
Explained about PEP8 tool to validate style.
Explaining why we define Instance variables in the Constructor.
Provided more samples for Flask Applications.
Fixed code sample https://gitlab.com/carles.mateo/python_combat_guide/-/blob/master/src/keywords.py as the editor removed the white line spaces.
Added more books to the bibliography
I explain the importance of running Unit Testing as both root and as regular users.
Explain how to run as regular user inside a Docker Container.
Explained requirements.txt file. And how integrates PyCharm to create venv/ Virtual Environment.
Also how it is used in Dockerfile to make sure all the dependencies are satisfied in the Docker Container.
I’ve seen an increment in pirate attacks that potentially causes lost of lives.
In Ireland that ransomware leave KO the hospital. Some of my older friends that require blood analysis cannot do in their hospital because is completely out of business. Their systems are down due to the ransomware. If you miss that, two newspaper articles:
I’ve published a new book (is still work in progress at 25%): Python 3 exercises for beginnings. Albert Ballart and Sandra Soriano coauthored with me. Thanks!.
The company has provided me and the members of my Team with unlimited Cloud capacity for testing and developing. That’s very nice. I plan to run some nice workloads to asses the performance of several solutions.
I’ve had tons of assignments from the university and with the classes to my students I had no much time.
The Health Department and the universities (CIT and UCC) offered free PCR for the students. I can only say Kudos again for Ireland.
They also offered certain more vulnerable students to vaccinate with Pfizer. More Kudos.
I bought some cases for Raspberry Pi 4.
I’ve bought a Wi-fi Mesh TP-Link to repeat the Wifi signal to zones of the house it was arriving weak. I’m very satisfied with this signal repeater.
This little buddy also provides an Ethernet to connect to a laptop or to a switch.
So far I have only tested with a laptop and works great.
I also released CTOP TAG v.0.8.4 and fixed some bugs in upcoming CTOP v.0.8.5 and added a new feature to display the File Descriptors in use and the Max FDs set in the Kernel. This feature needed some work as I did calculating all the FDs per process but Kernel has another value that comes from /proc/sys/fs/file-nr so I finally implemented this last value, fixed a bug in conversion of units with decimals (KBs without the decimal part) and added Unit Testing to check this cases. I was satisfied to release v. 0.8.5.
I’ve released cmemgzip v. 0.4.1, with colors, and is now a package available to install download from PIP.
pip3 install cmemgzip
I keep teaching to learn to program in Python, to become a Junior BackEnd Developer. To groups and individuals. It is so beautiful and wonderful seeing people transform their minds, their lives and their confidence with the coding skills and being able to chase after better jobs, and so funny and beautiful when this happens in a group dynamic, with friendship, that I’m thinking about assembling a new Group of Students. Those classes are in English but I got some suggestions to do group classes in Spanish. Even if Catalan is speak by around 11 Million people in the world if I have enough requests I’ll gladly do it. if you’re interested reach me in LinkedIn.
I’ve made CTOP.py compatible with Python 2 in order to support legacy Servers.
I’ve updated my book Python Combat Guide as I regularly do. One of the things you’ll find is my script to upload packages to pypi.org very easily so you and the rest of the world can download with pip install package. I’ve added my script in a blog post too.
One person named True as surname gets locked in iCloud due to a bug in their coding, confusing the surname by a boolean property.
Can get your coders to free my last name from icloud jail? Been locked out for 6+ months because of an uncapitalized t in TRUE, my surname but also a computer command.
I always smile when I find bugs. Bugs are everywhere, but always make me smile when important companies with tons of resources make them.
Today I show this bug received in my email from Glassdoor. :)
You can see how in the email they assume that key will exist, and doesn’t, so a KEY NOT FOUND error is displayed. :)
It is funny, but remembers us the importance of doing our best trying to avoid bugs, working seriously with Methodology, implementing Unit Testing, Functional Testing, having also QA.. all the mechanisms we can, as they can be the last line of defense to avoid releasing bugs to Production.
In the past I taught Java and PHP, and I still help my mates with their Assembler Practices in their Masters, so I could not stop laughing with this:
I’ve recorded two live sessions of Refactoring and Unit Testing working on the project cmemgzip v.0.4. It is basically the exercise of Refactoring a code that is too big, and extracting sections to small methods, and then adding pytest Unit Testing code coverage. I explain the arrays I use for testing a battery of cases instead of few of them. Is an exercise of talking loud what I do normally, so you can understand many small details so subtle as the order of parameters or consistency. I use this material so my students, colleagues learning Unit Testing, and other people can learn and make their code more resilient and high quality.
I’ve implemented a plugin for my Open Source Software CTOP that allows to interact with LED through the Raspberry Pi GPIO.
Plugins architecture in CTOP is something I really like. I had a lot of fun creating it, and is super powerful. Basically I load Python plugins on demand, that are able to register the methods to be called, using hooks. The plugins receives an instance of CTOP itself, injected as dependency, so they have completely visibility over all the status of the machines.
I’ve been developed a new version of CTOP compatible with Python 2.7. I will be adding to master branch and releasing as part of tag 0.8 soon.
I’ve released cmemgzip v.0.3 (stable) and v.0.4 (ongoing) which is a Python 3 Open Source utility like gzip, with the difference that the files are loaded into memory, then compressed in memory, then the original file is deleted and the compressed data is written to a .gz file.
That means that you can use it on systems that have no space left on the disk, as long as you have memory.
Please note, is possible to compress files much bigger than actual size of the memory as the Block size to be compressed can be indicated with parameter -m. Resulting gz file are completely compatible with gzip/gunzip, zcat, etc…
I’ve made a donation to vokoScreen author €25 (around $30 USD).
This is the Software that I’ve been using recently in Linux, and is very useful, specially having several monitors, so I’m thanking the author with a donation.
I’ve been using this Software to record the classes for my students, so I find nice to share the love.
For windows time ago I bought a commercial Software and it doesn’t do more than vokoScreen, which is available for Windows too.
During covid I lowered the price of my books to the minimum allowed by LeanPub, to $5 USD, and I find it so nice when people donate more, that I’m happy to contribute to brilliant authors. I support authors since I started to get my first salary several decades ago.
I’m an author. I create Software and Books. So I think is normal, common sense and healthy that we, developers, value our work and support other authors. :)
Long time ago I wrote an article about zoning and NDS-4600. A colleague asked me for help, as he bought a second hand unit and it was doing tests. I wrote and explained everything, and added this information to my ZFS in Ubuntu book.
I was very happy to see that you keep buying my books. :)
I have updated CTOP.py so now it detects if is running in a Google GCP instance.
So the list of instances/type of virtualization detected is:
Amazon AWS
Google GCP
OpenStack
VirtualBox
Docker containers
LXC
I’m working in detecting Raspberry Pi, models running CTOP, and in enabling the plugins system so anybody can easily expand the functionality of ctop.py.
v.0.7.8 Commented annotations and type hinting, to make CTOP compatible with Python 3.5.0. Added Available RAM. Added Google GCP detection. Inform if it doesn't have permissions to decode DMI. Print the userId (numeric) and the User (string), like: 1000 carles or 0 root. Logic for swappiness <= 10 Ok, >10 and <= 30 warning, >30 red (alert). Reduced digits for swap to 2, to avoid confusions.
I have updated my book Python 3 Combat Guide, with another full cycle, step by step, to convert an ugly script that escapes to shell to a nice OOP code with Unit Testing, step by step.
I have updated my book ZFS for Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, adding how to create a pool and Datasets for home, sharing NFS for the Media Player.
If you like Star Wars and the Mandalorian, you may laugh has much as I did with this video:
As you see I’m writing more articles about Windows, Mac Os X, and proprietary Software. Some of my colleagues work in companies and use proprietary Software, so I’ll be writing more articles about those ecosystems. I spend more time now with colleagues working on all kind of projects, and with students that have other problems too, so I help them. However my main focus is Open Source, Architecture, Scaling, programming in Python and Java.
Is something very simple, but will help my student friends to validate Input from Keyboard without losing too many hours.
The Input Validation Classes I create in PHP for Privalia or in my PHP Catalonia Framework, are much, much, more powerful, allowing the validation of complete forms, rendering errors, etc… although they were created for Web, and not for Keyboard input.
It recursively goes to all the subdirectories looking for .py files, and then it counts the lines.
I updated the price of my books to be the minimum allowed by LeanPub, to $5 USD, and created a bundle of two of them for $7 USD.
So people can benefit from this during the lock down.
I’ve updated the Python Combat Guide book with a sample of using Paramiko Libraries for SSH, and increased the Object Oriented Programing and Unit Testing, sections. I also added some books to the Bibliography.
I’ve read the postmortem initial analysis from Slack’s incident. It’s really interesting.
I cannot share it, but I guess that at some point they will publish it on their blog:
I’ve published a class to validate input from Keyboard in Java. Is something very simple, thinking basically about university students struggling to Scanner and nextInt() methods, and that can save many hours.
I decided to lower the price of my book to the minimum in LeanPub $5 USD while covid is going on in order to help people with their lives. https://leanpub.com/u/carlesmateo
I read with surprise that Comcast is capping the Internet use to 1.2TB per month, and that they will be charging excess.
So… if I contract a Backup with Carbonite or BackBlaze or DropBox or another company and I backup my 10TB files, Comcast will ruin me charging excesses… Or if I work from home, or the family watches a lot of Netflix… I can only thinK on their Cast Strategy of CastNumberOfClientsToBankrupcy.
A joke to indicate that I think they will loss clients.
Imagine yesterday I downloaded two images of Ubuntu, being 5 GB, installed Call of Duty in one computer 180 GB, installed few Xbox games 400 GB, listened to Spotify 10 Gb, watched youtube 3 GB, watched Netflix 4 GB, so 602 GB in one day.
Not counting the bandwidth WFH (Working from Home).
Not counting Windows Updates, TV updates, consoles updates, Android Updates, Ubuntu updates…
And this is done in the middle of the covid-19 pandemic, with so many people lock down at home, playing video games, watching movies, and requiring desperately distractions.
I think what is most interesting of this article are the explanations about the Memory. Adding a swapfile is something easy, but there is related information that may be of interest for the young Engineers.
Free Games: Epic Games allow you to download these games for free for a limited period of time
However the 12 Gbps SAS SSD were returning Checksum errors in ZFS when I did copy information or I ran scrub. I’m afraid the enclosure can only provide 6 Gbps at max, or a poor connection. Cables or expanders use to be the reason. I ordered new cables to make a direct connection to the HBA Controller without the enclosure to validate my theory and the drives stopped showing errors.
There is something good in all bad: I have been able to document and explain how to troubleshoot, actual errors in ZFS, in my book and talk about the problems with the cables, and the advantages of using a SAS controller even if you use SATA drives.
I got my first Excellent in an Assignment in an Ireland university, which makes me specially happy. And I keep going on studying in Linux Academy, the last course I did was GCP and Terraform, even if I knew both it helps me to keep my skills sharp.
I share with you some offers and charity bundles that I enrolled and enjoyed a lot:
There is an offer with Microsoft Pass which is that we can use Disney+ for free during 30 days.
I started watching the Mandalorian, Season 2, and is wonderfully displayed in 4K. The quality of the video surprised me. Not that many contents in Netflix are 4K and I really enjoyed the great quality of the image.
Humble Bundle offers a pack of 8 VR games per €13.45. If you like Virtual Reality and have your headset, this pack is amazing, and the benefits go to charity: Movember. The games are downloaded from Steam and the pack will last for 14 days.
Don’t forget to balance how much of your contribution goes to every player.
Unfortunately by default most of the money goes to O’Reilly and Humble Tip and few to the Charity cause. You can change that from the web when going to to the payment.
