Using Python and Beautiful Soup. This updates the previous script posted on this blog.

from BeautifulSoup import BeautifulSoup
from urllib import urlopen
import re

CATEGORY_GAMES     = '998'
CATEGORY_VIDEOS    = '999'
CATEGORY_DEMOS     = '10'
CATEGORY_MODS      = '997'
CATEGORY_PACKS     = '996'
CATEGORY_DLC       = '21'

html_text = urlopen('http://store.steampowered.com/search/?sort_by=&sort_order=ASC&category1='+CATEGORY_GAMES).read().decode …

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Just a note for myself, a list of interesting Python tools for my next web scraping project:

• urllib2: extensible library for opening URLs
• PyQuery: jQuery-like traversing and selecting for Python
• mechanize: stateful programmatic web browsing in Python
• Beautiful Soup: not supported/maintained that much anymore. Latest versions are rather slow …

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…to remind myself because I always seem to forget how to.

1. Put the contents of the CD somewhere (e.g. /tmp/heroes).

2. Install:

/tmp/heroes$ ./setup.sh

3. Download and run patch with --keep:

/tmp/heroes$ wget ftp://mirrors.dotsrc.org/lokigames/updates/heroes3/heroes3-1.3.1a-unified-x86.run …

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(This is the second and final part in the University Of Waterloo CS Club Tron Challenge post series. You can find the first part here.)

Now that the contest is finished, congratulations go out to the first place winner: a1k0n, well done!

I also wanted to pass on a few …

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(This is the first part in the University Of Waterloo CS Club Tron Challenge post series. You can find the second part here.)

The Computer Science Club of the University of Waterloo is currently organizing an AI challenge, sponsored by Google. I’m (as always) a bit late with my …

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Update: see herefor a new version which works on the new steam site.

Using Python and Beautiful Soup. Just a quick (ugly) script thrown together for future reference.

from BeautifulSoup import BeautifulSoup
from urllib import urlopen
import re
import codecs

html_text = urlopen('http://store.steampowered.com/search/?advanced=0 …

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Recently, I had to give a presentation and wanted to use a “presenter screen”, allowing to view a clock, current and next slide, and slide notes on my laptop screen. Of course, the audience only sees the current slide fullscreened on the projector screen.

Powerpoint comes with this option built-in …

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So I just got this mail in my inbox:

Needless to say, I was pretty surprised, I didn’t know Steam accounts could expire. Sure enough the e-mail looks legit, it’s mailed from support@steam.com, didn’t get caught by Gmail’s spam filter, and the corporate footer …

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Legacy note: this program was pretty popular around 2010-2012, but now has fallen out of use, since most games have been patched to prevent this issue. The source code and last binary release have been moved to GitHub, as Google was thinking it was malware and flagging my blog.

Changelog …

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A few days ago I got my hands on one of these:

A Tetris Cube. Twelve pieces, and a box of 4 by 4 by 4. Your task: to put the pieces neatly in the box again. The box said there are more than 9000 solutions, but I knew nonetheless …

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