Mike

Downloading Encrypted and Compressed Files with Python

Earlier this year, I was tasked with creating an application that would download information from our organization’s website using Python. The tricky part was that it would be encrypted, gzipped and the payload would be JSON. Could Python do all that? Well, that’s what I wanted to find out. Now it’s time for you to […]

Downloading Encrypted and Compressed Files with Python Read More »

Python 101: Introspection

Whether you’re new to Python, been using it for a few years or you’re an expert, knowing how to use Python’s introspection capabilities can help your understanding of your code and that new package you just downloaded with the crappy documentation. Introspection is a fancy word that means to observe oneself and ponder one’s thoughts,

Python 101: Introspection Read More »

SqlAlchemy and Microsoft Access

Update (10/12/2010) – One of my alert readers told me that SqlAlchemy 0.6.x currently does NOT support the Access dialect. Read here for more info. A year or two ago, I was asked to transfer some data from some old Microsoft Access files to our Microsoft SQL Server. Since I enjoy using SqlAlchemy, I decided

SqlAlchemy and Microsoft Access Read More »

How to Find and List All Running Processes with Python

The other day, I was tasked with finding a way to get a list of all running processes on a Windows XP virtual machine. I was also supposed to include information about how much CPU and memory each process used. Fortunately, this didn’t have to be a remote script, but one that could be run

How to Find and List All Running Processes with Python Read More »

Book Preview: Python Graphics Cookbook

This week, I finished editing another book for Packt Publishing. The book’s name is Python Graphics Cookbook by Mike Ohlson de Fine (I think). You may wonder why I don’t know if de Fine is the author. Well, Packt thinks that its Technical Editors shouldn’t know that information. In fact, Packt is so cagey (and

Book Preview: Python Graphics Cookbook Read More »

Reportlab Tables – Creating Tables in PDFs with Python

Back in March of this year, I wrote a simple tutorial on Reportlab, a handy 3rd party Python package that allows the developer to create PDFs programmatically. Recently, I received a request to cover how to do tables in Reportlab. Since my Reportlab article is so popular, I figured it was probably worth the trouble

Reportlab Tables – Creating Tables in PDFs with Python Read More »

SqlAlchemy: Connecting to pre-existing databases

Accessing databases with Python is a simple process. Python even provides a sqlite database library that’s built into the main distribution (since 2.5). My favorite way to access databases with Python is to use the 3rd party package, SqlAlchemy. SqlAlchemy is an object-relational mapper (ORM), which means that it takes SQL constructs and makes them

SqlAlchemy: Connecting to pre-existing databases Read More »