Kinda Simple Solutions Blog

Engage with Instagram Posts using Selenium

Social media engagement matters, like it or not. Lately I find myself more engaged with creator content on YouTube and TikTok than the posts from my connections on Facebook and Instagram. I feel bad about neglecting posts from friends and family, but I don’t always have the attention to spare. Automating this engagement is a fun project.

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ChatGPT as a Language Tutor

Language learning is set to become both more accessible and affordable thanks to the integration of AI technologies in educational tools. Conversational practice is critical to mastering language fluency. Access to a conversational partner that is also an effective and patient tutor is always a challenge. Services like italki will help to pair you with a language tutor, but by appointment only and at a cost.

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Next Projects

Large Language Models (LLMs) are exciting to any developer. It was a year ago that OpenAI changed the game with GPT-3. The hype has subsided and that just reflects the reality of any new technological breakthrough and its adoption. The pace of change is fast, but naturally it won’t keep pace with mass expectations unless we hit the signularity.

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Twitter analysis

Statistical methods for modeling and analyzing data are all the buzz, and have been for a while now. Tooling has come a long way, as have educational resources and open source projects. I’ll present here my application of the walkthrough posted by Marco Bonzanini on his Blog. It was a good start to learn the fundamentals of semantic analysis, and a soft introduction to programming with python.

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Garbage Characters in XML

Polar’s GPS often takes time to establish a satellite connection and retrieve a position. After export a “strange character” sits in the time node, causing jquery’s xml parser to choke and die.

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Exploring the Search Space

I moved on from sort to search and implemented a few search algorithms in python from pseudocode on wikipedia. I coded a simple backtracking algorithm as well as Dijkstra’s and an A* search.

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Upsifting in a Heapsort

While trying to implement a heapsort in python I came across pseudocode that communicated that sifting up and sifting down to build the heap are different approaches to the same things. They both work well for creating a heap. Sifting down will move the element to a sorted position in the tree. Sifting up will move single leaf up to a lower level of the tree.

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Book Review Team Geek

Team Geek is billed as a “Software Developer’s Guide to working well with others.” Its written by two googlers with solid tips for how to survive organizations from both the managerial and programmer points of view.

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A look at Grunt.js

Grunt is a task runner that allows you to automate repetitive tasks like compiling CoffeeScript and SASS, minifying sources, testing. It is a tool to support a Continusous Integration pipeline and to kick off tasks in less time.

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Open Source Web Development Tools

I have been playing catchup lately trying to wrap my head around web developmentwith Node.js, and the npm ecosystem. There are so many tools available and packages to stitch together. I’m in awe of the amount of development in the javascript community. There’s a lot to learn to become familiar with each project and what it does without even learning how to use it.

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Phone Backup

I’ve played with a lot of windows phones over the last few years. I started writing apps on Windows Phone 7 and the platform has matured nicely.

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Apigee on PhoneGap

I like Orlando–most of all because its residents enjoy summertime temperatures while the rest of the country is in a deep freeze.

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Here Are Some Apps

I have a good amount of WinRT experience. So, I decided to make some Windows 8 & Windows Phone applications to have a presence in the app store.

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Developing in the Cloud

I want to move my development environment to the cloud.  My current setup is poor for a lot of reasons. I have a 120 SSD with half the space dedicated to a Windows 7 instance and the other half being taken up by a Windows 8 VHD.  Both are cluttered, and reaching their storage limits.  What I would like to have is a well curated development environment to do C# development for Windows Mobile apps.  Going to the cloud and taking advantage of accessibility and scalability is exactly what i am looking for.

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Speaking Scripts With NirCmd

Nir Sofer has written a fun utility that I have been using to make my scripts talk.  Its called nircmd.exe

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Control a Dream Cheeky USB Missile Launcher with Python

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Memory Challenges and Recollection

I’ve been working on a memory hack that will serve as a reliable memory aid.  There is a short list of memory training systems out there used successfully, the Journey System, Peg System, and Major System are three.  Interrelating ideas makes them more memorable, and so little wonder that the three of often combined by champions of memory who participate in actual competitions.

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Deactivating Windows Phone Live Tiles

When alive with activity, the Windows Phone 8 Live Tiles look great. I like the Flip Tile Template, in particular. It’s useful to be able to return them to a dormant state, and its not immediately obvious how to do this. Update your tile template Text and TileUri and your tile will clear its content but remain “alive” and flipping.

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Loading Styles Dynamically on Windows 8

Windows 8 is very ambitious in its breadth of supported form factors.  Huge screens down through small tablets, it is quite variety of display surfaces supported with different dimensions, aspect ratios, and resolutions

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Exiting a Windows Phone Application

On a Windows Phone it’s bad form to quit an application to close itself. Apps are supposed to be left running, since the application lifecycle suspends apps when they are not in use. Pressing the “Back” key on the first page will close your app.

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