Category: ICT

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CamelCase vs. Lowercase Hashtags: A Debate on Readability, Simplicity, and Innovation in Digital Communication

This post has been created using my Peter’s Visionary Debaters CustomGPT with the prompt “Debate the merits of using CamelCase vs all lowercase for hashtags/tags in social media posts and task management software.”

Socrates (Ethical dimensions):

“Does the form of writing not reflect the writer’s regard for their audience? Should we not aim for clarity and understanding, above all? The purpose of communication—whether in a hashtag or software label—is to bridge the gap between minds. If CamelCase offers improved readability for the masses, can it not be argued that it is an ethical duty to employ it? Yet, we must ask: Do simplicity and universality—qualities of lowercase—suffer at the hands of this formatting? Which method, then, embodies true virtue?”

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Unveiling ACSE-K8: An Innovative Email List for Ontario’s K-8 Educators in Coding and Technology

Welcome to the latest addition to Ontario’s educational landscape—ACSE-K8, an interactive, private email list designed exclusively for K-8 educators. Whether you’re teaching in public or private schools, or you’re a consultant in this field, ACSE-K8 offers a unique platform to integrate coding into your classrooms.

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New Custom GPT: Find Keywords – A Powerful Tool for Content Analysis

New Custom GPT: Find Keywords

I’ve created a new Custom GPT that will reduce text to just the keywords. The GPT is named Find Keywords and can be found at https://chat.openai.com/g/g-mL985wIE7-find-keywords.

Note that it requires a subscription to ChatGPT Plus. Unfortunately, OpenAI does not offer trial subscriptions, and subscriptions cost $20 USD per month. Personally, I find the subscription well worth it for both personal programming projects and for personal productivity.

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Using Python To Quickly Open Multiple Websites In Your Browser

Generated with AI ∙ January 18, 2024 at 1:10 p.m.

I had a problem where I was opening about a dozen bookmarks at the same time in Brave, and in doing so, it was giving me a “503 Service Temporarily Unavailable” error.

To fix this, I turned to Copilot Pro with this prompt:

Write a Python program that opens in my web browser (using Django?) that has a list of URLs that it opens in new tabs with a pause of 0.5 seconds between them. For the initial URLs, use Google and Microsoft.

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Quick Encryption/Decryption Utility

lock on keyboard

Need a quick program to encrypt or decrypt small amounts of text, such as passwords? Here’s a quick utility I wrote in Python using Google Colab, Google’s implementation of Jupyter Notebooks. You can run the program there or copy it to your own Google Drive first. Note that you’ll need a Google account to access it.

https://bit.ly/beens-encrypt

I personally use this utility to encrypt sensitive information in Google Keep, as shown in the screenshot below. I save the URL of the utility with the encrypted text so I can decrypt it quickly.

(For longer notes, I’d honestly recommend a proper password manager that can encrypt notes. I use the Premium version of Bitwarden, which I highly recommend.)

The instructions in the program should be adequate to run it on your own.

Bookmark it in your browser for quick access! (Ctrl-D on your PC or Command-D on your Mac)

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Hey Bing Chat: How can I compile a Python program into an executable file?

Bing Chat is an AI alternative to Chat-GPT. I’ve been testing it quite a bit since, at least for now, it is completely free and in most cases does an excellent job.

Here is a test case that worked perfectly for me…

Prompt: How can I compile a Python program into an executable file?

There are several ways to compile Python code into an executable file. One of the most popular ways is to use PyInstaller² which can be installed using pip package manager². Once installed, you can use it to create an executable file by running the following command in your terminal:

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Hey ChatGPT, When Should I Take CPP?

Stacks of coins, growing from small to large, with plants growing out of each of them.

I’ve seen all sorts of test cases for ChatGPT, with some responses being good and some bad. Just for the heck of it, I thought I would ask it for some serious financial advice:

With $xx in an RRSP and a current pension of $yy per month, when is the best time to take CPP? I am zz years old.

The answer was amazingly insightful, and pretty much matched up with my own thoughts.

Screenshot of ChatGPT output.
Click image to enlarge

If you’re in a similar situation, why not give ChatGPT a shot and see what it recommends. Remember though that it’s free advice, and shouldn’t be acted upon without a good knowledge of your financial situation and perhaps corroborating advice from your personal banker.

Your thoughts? Would you trust this advice?

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is an artificial-intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI and launched in November 2022. It is built on top of OpenAI’s GPT-3 family of large language models and has been fine-tuned using both supervised and reinforcement learning techniques.

ChatGPT is available at https://chat.openai.com.

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Justin Trudeau is Wrong About Google’s Response to Bill C-18

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau criticized Google for removing links to Canadian news articles in search results as part of a test for a small percentage of users, stating that it is a “terrible mistake”. However, his comments mislead on several critical issues with Bill C-18, a bill that mandates payments for links to news articles.

It cannot reasonably be said that Google is preventing Canadians from accessing news, since the removal of links from search results does not remove or block the site itself nor prevent anyone from accessing it directly. Furthermore, the bill would require payments to hundreds of broadcasters without any actual journalism or original news content.

Bill C-18 is not about payment for the reproduction of journalists’ work, but payment for links, indexing, and any other mechanism that facilitates access to news. The bill threatens the free flow of information online, and if it passes in its current form, it could create a framework that would threaten the foundational principles for how information flows online.

Google is rightly taking a stand against the bill’s threat to the free flow of information online by considering not linking to Canadian news articles.

(This article has been summarized using ChatGPT from Michael Geist’s excellent article found here. Posted date: 2023-02-25)

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How to Identify a Spam Message

Spammers just aren’t very smart.

I received a phone call from a friend concerned that her credit card was being charged for an antivirus program she no longer used. I asked her who the email was from and she replied it was from a cryptic Gmail account. No reputable business would send customers emails from a Gmail account. Yes, some small companies might use Gmail, but certainly not companies like McAfee or Norton.

Coincidentally, here’s an email I received a day or two after my friend. There were so many red flags I thought it would be interesting to share.

Click to enlarge

If you ever get an email you are unsure about, look for these giveaways:

  • Did it come from an email address associated with the company? If not, it’s likely spam.
  • Does it hype up the email with exclamation marks, use of bold lettering, or all-caps? If so, it’s likely spam.
  • Is the email sent directly to you or did you receive it because it was bcc’d (blind carbon copy) to you? If it was bcc’d to you, it’s likely spam.
  • Lastly, is the formatting professional? If not, it’s likely spam.

Are there any dead giveaways I’ve missed? If so, let me know in the comments below!

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Converting Lists of Data to CSV — Using a Colab Notebook Hosted in Gists

I’ve really been enjoying learning about data analysis lately. Part of what’s made it so enjoyable is the use of Colab, which is Google’s version of Jupyter Notebook.

I came across a need to convert some lists of data to a CSV (comma separated values) format so I could paste it into a Google Sheet. Not finding anything online to do I decided to write my own, and here is the product.

The Colab notebook I created has been saved as a “gist”, which is GitHub’s cousin for fast and easy file storage service. The Gist website is also very popular for sharing CSV files, which this search will attest to.

You’ll notice an “Open in Colab” button at the top, which is how you will open the document. A really nice feature is that it is fully usable without needing to save the file anywhere, but for those that do want to save their work, they can, into Google Drive.

When you first run it, you’ll get a scary message that was written by Google’s lawyers. You’ll see from the source code that the notebook’s not doing anything nefarious, so just trust me and click on “Run Anyway”. 😆

Google Colab Warning

This is a preview of the notebook. To open it, click here or on the filename on the bottom left corner of the preview.

Some Python programmers may want to remind me that I could have used Python’s built-in CSV library, but I felt Pandas would be faster, especially for large lists.

I hope some of you find this useful, although I’ll be happy if it gets some of you interested in Colab for Python programming or for data analysis, or even if it just introduces you to the Gist website.