Generating Mock Data with Faker
2020-05-03
Very frequently in software development, we find ourselves in a situation where we need to test the functionality and/or performance of a program with random data. This data needs to be: a) seemingly realistic, b) of arbitrary volume, and c) conformant to the logic of our program. How do we solve this problem? While there are a variety of services that do exactly that, those almost always cost money, and if they do have a free version, that comes with some considerable limitations.…more
A Primer on DataFrames
2020-04-24
Today, we will be going over what Pandas DataFrames are, as well as how to use them to manipulate and dump data. They are something that I, and many others, have come to rely heavily on in variety of contexts. So, without further ado, time to get started. What Are DataFrames? A DataFrame is a type of data structure. That is, a way of storing values in memory. They are designed to store and organize potentially large volumes of data in a rows-and-columns format.…more
Tracking COVID19
2020-04-09
In light of the recent pandemic (and partially as a result of being laid off recently, due to said pandemic), I recently took it upon myself to build a reporting service of sorts for the COVID-19 pandemic. After all, got to have something to work on during quarantine. The project consisted of the following core steps: 1) Find a REST API with comprehensive and reliable data, 2) Clean the data, and calculate aggregates, 3) Render the data into HTML templates, 4) Deploy the client to a production environment.…more
Automating Software Updates on Windows
2020-02-27
Let us be real, for a moment: keeping software up-to-date is critically important, but also often quite a pain. The more software you have installed on your PC, the more true this is. Fortunately, it does not have to be, even on Windows. All you need is: a package manager, a little Python, the Windows Task Scheduler, and a batch file. In a previous post, I wrote about how to easily install and update a Postgres instance on Windows.…more