I stumbled into an interesting project I thought would be simple with the help of AI… *spoilers” it wasn’t. The task was to automate extract voter data from “marked registers” pdf’s and interpret if each person had voted or not based on the crossings out on the pdf. The problem in detail In the UK,…Continue reading Soul destroying and miserable: observations on using AI as a colleague.
Category: Computer skills
What I learned making websites for charities
This is just a brief wrap up Gingerling Design, including my ethos and motivation for making websites trading under that name. That project is now closed and I don’t do this work anymore following my dads death, however, I learned a lot so good to jot it down! Charity sector website burnout In my long…Continue reading What I learned making websites for charities
Setting up Phillips Hue on Mycroft mark 1 – including guide to basic SSH access
I will explain the difficulties I was having installing the Mycroft Phillips Hue Skill using the verbal command and show how I installed this skill using SSH. This can also serve as a basic guide for using SSH with Mycroft, including how to change the default password and how to install apps from github repositories.
Adventures with Mycroft Mark 1: Second hand blues and re-installing Mycroft AI
In this blog I introduce my new buddy Mycroft, an Open Source voice activated home assistant. I detail how to re-install his software if he has a big problem.
Postcode based targeted email marketing for events using Mautic
Mautic, Open Source marketing software, can be used to send targeted emails about events to people on your mailing list who live within a radius of that event. The best thing about this process is the lists will always be up to date when you need them: next time an event is in the same area you have a list ready and waiting. Here’s how it’s done.
Removing duplicates from a list using Libreoffice
In this example, I will condense a list of paired-down postcodes into a short list by removing all the duplicate entries.
copy-pasting data from website table to libreoffice, formatting it as a csv in geddit
Yet another task getting data out of a fairly nasty/incoherent web-based table and moving it into LibreOffice for sorting/project planning. Presumably this is all “easier” with scripting but I don’t have the time/patience/inclination to learn, so here is my hacky method! It worked for 95% of my data, so I had 5 of 100 lines…Continue reading copy-pasting data from website table to libreoffice, formatting it as a csv in geddit
Removing button names etc from a list of blogs/files/emails copied from a website (Gedit, Fedora)
Often if I have copied a list of blogs, files or emails from an app or website, where there is no export function, button names such as “Edit” and “Delete” will copy over. Often in a small list of items there will be several repeated junk phrases for each item of text I actually need.…Continue reading Removing button names etc from a list of blogs/files/emails copied from a website (Gedit, Fedora)
Quickly removing date/time stamps from a text file using find and replace (Gedit, Fedora)
I have been writing a lot recently about little obstacles I have come across while helping the Church of England move content from their old sites to their new ones. Making a list of all the content to be moved is often the first job, but many of the older/proprietary platforms don’t have the ability…Continue reading Quickly removing date/time stamps from a text file using find and replace (Gedit, Fedora)
Removing some text items e.g. files with certain extension, from a list in Libreoffice using COUNTIF
I am currently doing some work for the Church of England, moving and improving the repository of liturgy to their new website. There are a lot of files involved so using shortcuts for sorting out data and lists is vital. Removing unneeded items from a list Today I was working with an export of a…Continue reading Removing some text items e.g. files with certain extension, from a list in Libreoffice using COUNTIF