The new balance

Very leading title, that one, I know. Basically, I' ve done this recently and I want to let people know how.

Sometimes you find that there's a repetitive data collection task that needs to be completed on the web, and you establish a pattern to doing it:

1. Surf to the website's search page


2. Type in the term, and select other form options to limit the search (a category in the case of a directory search, maybe?)


3. look through the returned page for the corrrect result, and copy what you want


4. paste that into a row on your spreadsheet (or whatever)

Fine if you're only doing it say, 10 times. Or even 20. I needed to do nearly 3000 searches like this on Amazon, when I was looking for ASIN codes for a stockroom's-worth of CDs. There was no way I was going to do it manually...

Read on for the code and an explanation. Read More

Anyone share my interest in living in a wooden house, ideally heated with a log burning stove or Finnish masonry heater? Brilliant! Lets go in on one.

Barretts Leisure in Peterborough built my cabin (I'm sitting in it now), and the thing has been a complete success story. It is peaceful, and you can hear nature all around, normally birdsong, but also the occasional patter of a squirrel or pigeon on the roof. It is warm, although due to its small size, a little expensive to heat in the winter. It hasn't needed much if any heating as the spring has come on, which might mean that the cost balances out over the year.

You'll find on Barretts' site a link to see pictures of their log house range, although 85pc of their work is bespoke. Now that's what I'm talking about!

Here's a quotation from the The London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, which states proudly that it is, "Helping you to make a difference as a Christian in today's world". A noble concern if ever there was one. Christians should always, I think, have in mind ways that they can further the Kingdom in Jesus' name through what they do:

Capitalism is the dominant global ideology. As such it is vital that the Church develops a robust theological response. This will need to appreciate both the self-evident benefits of vigorous wealth-creation and the need to create structures and controls that lead to relational and social health as well as justice and opportunity for the poor. We have secured funds for 60%, across four years, for a post-doctoral research and resource project.

What follows is the introductory paragraph to the specification and outline of the project.
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In case it is of interest to anyone, I've hooked up the MisterHouse home automation Perl system to Asterisk, the open source telephony system. You can now phone up on the office line and turn the lights/heating/etc. on and off by pressing buttons in response to prompts. It uses asterisk System() calls in the dialplan to run the mhsend script that comes with MisterHouse. I happen to have both systems on the same box, but mhsend works across the network, so you could have it on any networked computer. To give you an example of how it did it, a chunk of my dialplan follows.
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Sadly, I don't mean in reference to my company. Rather, the name Kohera crops up in funny places. All I had in mind when I chose it was its Esperanto meaning, which is "coherent", although I have a Google Alert on the name, which seems to be held by some interesting people. Take this article about Malawi children and the visit that had from Bush. There's a quote from a certain kid:

“I am happy I have seen the President,” said nine year-old Kohera Chalulu

Read more links after the jump.
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