The No Title® Tech Blog

Optimize Images X can now be used in languages other than English.

You can now drag image files or folders from your file manager straight onto the application window (this requires the optional TkinterDnD2 package; without it, everything keeps working as before).

Following the 2.0 release, version 2.1 extends the library with new capabilities while preserving the existing API and command-line behavior.

Both packages now support all currently maintained Python versions from Python 3.10 onwards, and are also tested against 3.15 pre-releases, ensuring forward compatibility with upcoming releases.

As part of my journey, I felt the need to deepen my knowledge of C# and .NET.

And it turns out, there is!

Book structure and contents The book is organised in 10 chapters and starts with the basics, like variables, data types, operators, expressions, control flow, looping, and so on.

Optimize Images v.1.5.0 - 2021-04-29 Replaced temporary files with in-memory buffers which, at the expense of a bit higher RAM usage, prevents unnecessary I/O and may result in faster performance when working with slower disks.

Here is the corresponding change log entry: v.0.9.1 beta - 2021-04-25 Added the ability to choose a different GUI (ttk) theme.

Optimize Images X and its CLI companion optimize-images both offer some useful features that are not always present in a single package, like batch downsizing of images within a folder (and recursively though its subfolders) based on specified maximum wid…

You see, even though I tend to prefer other editing environments, these situations occur quite often to me.

Book structure and contents Foundations of Deep Reinforcement Learning - Theory and Practice in Python begins with a brief preliminary chapter, which serves to introduce a few concepts and terms that will be used throughout all the other chapters: agent,…

The first one is a new --watch-directory (or the more abbreviated form -wd), which puts the application in a listening mode, waiting for newly created files in a given folder - any new files are immediately processed, continuously, until you press CTRL-C…

When a text file is slightly big but yet smaller than the available memory, you may be able to open it with a good text editor, like Vim, UltraEdit or BBedit.

This is the second edition of a great book that Brett Slatkin had published in 2015, and which many of you may still recall.

Here is the corresponding change log entry: v.1.3.6 - 2020-08-02 Fixed a UnicodeEncodeError that would occur in some environments when printing Emoji to screen (Windows, Haiku, maybe others).

I first wrote about Haiku back in 2018, right after the first Haiku beta was released.

Some context I usually use macOS as my main personal development environment.

Here is the corresponding change log entry: v.1.3.5 - 07-04-2020 Fixed a small bug in unsupported image format treatment.

Today, in the Python ecosystem, we have available a plethora of powerful data science and machine learning related packages, like Numpy, Pandas, Scikit-learn, and many others, that help to simplify a lot of its inherent complexity.

According to the authors, this book was written for those who already know the basics of Python, but want to deepen their knowledge and skills.

Basically, Git provides a way to manage multiple versions of the files in your project.

When I first played around with this idea, after a coffee table conversation with a friend who happens to have a telescope at home, I sketched out on paper what could be a basic user interface for an application like this and looked around to see if there…

Whether you prefer to code in a simple steps editor or in full fledged IDE, the fact remains that a console based, text mode editor can be a invaluable tool for many purposes, from coding to remote system administration.

Like two books in one: Part 1) An introduction to Python, with a data science flavor In the first half, it provides a quick introduction to the Python language that will be easy to follow by experienced programmers, while also introducing some basic data…

Well, some time ago, I have started collaborating as a volunteer translator in open source software projects, including Haiku and some of its applications.

Why I decided to redesign the website, and why I wanted to choose other tools It goes back to 2011, when I built the first version of my personal website.

From today onwards, I won’t be parking my bicycle every morning in front of Promais anymore.

Being able to install Haiku natively in my trusty, 11 years old, Macbook Pro, was the click I needed to get using it and to start contributing to the project.

A long history of love, sorrow and hope Back in 2000, the BeOS operating system was known for its multiprocessing, multithreading capabilities, the way it handled multimedia, and its clean design.

Up until now Optimize Images would, by default, apply a fixed 80 value for the JPEG quality or compression level.

Our team member Nataliia Bondarenko has done an amazing work in several areas of the project, especially the implementation of the unit test system, as well as adding new features and improving documentation.

Here are some highlights: A new big feature: “convert big PNG files to JPG format”, with an option to convert all PNG files.

Summary One of the most overlooked packages from the Python Standard Library is tkinter and its child ttk.

Yes, we all know that pythonic code should not try to be “clever”, like those long do-it-all-at-once one-liners that you may have found anywhere else.

1.

While Python 3.6.6 is a mainly a maintenance release, Python 3.7 brings some new features that you may be interested on.

Here are some highlights: Added new options to allow downsizing of images to a maximum width and/or height before applying any other optimization (guess what?

If you didn’t read my previous article about this project, please feel free to take a quick look at the full story of its begining.

The problem As you know, I have been trying to build and publish one of my websites from either my Mac or my iPhone.

I have used generators before, every Python programmer uses them even without knowing about them, because in fact generators are used to make some of the most useful tools in the Standard Library, like range(), open(), os.walk() and many others.

That’s right.

The application started with just a few lines of code in Pythonista right on my iPhone.

In an interview given in 2012, Noam Chomsky said that “we do not learn about the nature of systems of power by listening to their rhetoric”.

The problem Well, in fact there are two separate problems here: automating the image resizing and optimization process; serving the correct image size for each device.

The problem In the middle of some corporate changes, my company had the need to relocate an old Mac mini server, which was responsible for one of its most important databases.

I decided not to use plugins that depended on executable binaries, since I wanted to keep my pipeline compatible with Pythonista.

While there are other Python GUI toolkits aiming to enable Python developers to build and deploy iOS apps, like for instance the very nice Pythonista app, the BeeWare project is a bit different because it aims at cross-platform compatibility and native wi…

My previous experiences with programming, back in my school years, included some lines of Basic just printing some text to the screen and playing some notes in the builtin speaker of an old Amstrad diskless computer, with a few goto statements in the midd…

One of the applications mentioned in that podcast is PT Tracking, a little utility that allows to keep a register and track shipments and registered mail send through the portuguese mail companies CTT and CTT Expresso.