sandbox

This is my current blog where I discuss a variety of computing topics including Linux, vim, python and javascript as well as science and statistics. Many of the posts have accompanying gists, which contain code for the example discussed.

Getting started with responsive websites and JavaScript

Apr 3, 2015

In this post I'm going to describe two basic web pages I've been working on: 1) a basic responsive page, and 2) a responsive page that uses JavaScript to detect the current size of the screen. My goal here is to use basic HTML, CSS and JavaScript -- no js libraries -- to help myself learn JavaScript and responsive data visualization techniques. That said, I'm not an expert, and the examples should be considered with that in mind. Please comment at the end of the post if you have better, or different, ways of doing the same thing.

Installing PySoundFile on Ubuntu 14.04

Mar 3, 2015

In this post I will go over installing PySoundFile using pip and virtualenvwrapper. PySoundFile is a utility for reading and writing sound files of various types, like wav, flac, and ogg using the abilities of the libsndfile library. Noticeably absent is mp3 due to the license issue-- use a tool like (the wonderful) sox to convert mp3's to a supported file type.

Install QGIS on Ubuntu 14.04

Feb 17, 2015

In this post I will cover my install process for QGIS on Ubuntu 14.04. QGIS is a tool for creating maps and working with geospatial information. The official QGIS installation instructions provide three different ways to install the software. I'll be using the UbuntuGIS ppa to get access to more recent versions of the relevant GIS software, including QGIS.

Using Python to query data from Socrata

Feb 17, 2015

I've started going to Open Oakland meetings on Tuesday nights. The group works on a variety of projects related to making city data more accessible and usable for Oakland citizens by creating websites, or apps.

Installing Node.js and npm on Ubuntu 14.04

Jan 12, 2015

I've decided to start being systematic about learning javascript, with a focus on getting good with d3js. I'll be installing nodejs and npm (node package manager) as a way to get access to a javascript console and, for later, a powerful javascript environment.