compbrain.net » python

Minecraft Server Query Library

Will — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 06:24:34 +0000

I’ve just published a new github repository that includes a simple library and tool for querying basic information from Minecraft servers. This library will let you determine if a server is online, what the MOTD is, how many players are currently logged in, and what the player limit is.

Home Theatre Device Control

Will — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 00:43:04 +0000

Home theatre devices do not like to play nice together. They each use separate protocols and methods for command and control, and finding documentation or sample code on how they work is often difficult.

I have written two small libraries and put them up on GitHub for devices I have come in contact with:

The code for the Viewsonic Pro 8100 will let you control every feature documented in the manual over a serial connection. Reading data back from the projector is not yet fully functional, however.
The code for the Onkyo Receiver should be compatible with other Onkyo devices using their ISCP protocol over Ethernet. With a bit of elbow grease, that library should also be useful for those wishing to control their Onkyo serial devices.
If you find either library useful, please drop me a note — and patches are always welcome!

Fireplace Temperature Sensing

Will — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 19:47:35 +0000

Currently it is quite cold in New England, Google says about 28F in my home town. Our house has a wood burning stove in the basement that we like to keep burning so the room is about 70F. With the help of some python from Mikal Still, and some left over one-wire serial experiments, I have a working prototype to keep an eye on the fireplace performance.

A bit of Python polls owserver using a SWIG module and commits the read temperature value to a MySQL database. I munged some of Mikal’s graph server code to simply post the chartserver URL to appengine so it could be hosted for the world to see.

gflags for Ubuntu

Will — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 06:09:42 +0000

If you are looking for the excellent Google gflags python module as an Ubuntu package, look no farther. It is available from my PPA: https://launchpad.net/~compbrain/+archive/ppa

A quick how-to install is included below.

$ sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys E5C2D9CD
$ sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/compbrain/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/compbrainppa.list'
$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install python-gflags

Update:
As of January 4, 2010 Google has hosted their own python package for the gflags module. You can find it on Google Code here.