open source

From the outside, open source often looks like a technical concept. A license here, a repository there, a few lines of source code, publicly visible. But look closer and you’ll see: it’s about much more than software. It’s about freedom. And about sharing. I’m not a developer in the classic sense. I’ve never overseen major projects or designed complex software architectures. But over the years I’ve written many small scripts, sometimes in PHP, sometimes in Python or Perl. I’ve built websites with WordPress, written HTML and CSS, tried things out and discarded them. Never aiming for perfection, but always wanting to create something that works — for me, and sometimes for others. ...

Here’s a small tool recommendation: IMG Quest, an open-source API for creating Open Graph images. Via the URL you can include a title, subtitle, color scheme, and an image. The website shows how simple it is. The text was automatically translated from German into English. The German quotations were also translated in sense.

Apple announced new products a few days ago. As always, stock in the stores is limited. If you’re smart, you check online whether the product you want is available at your local Apple Store. If you’re lazy, use the following Python script to automate that. Note: Pushover is required. #!/usr/bin/env python3 import requests import os import time def fetch_availability(product_number, store_id): payload = { "store": store_id, "little": False, "mt": "regular", "parts.0": product_number, "fts": True, } url = "https://www.apple.com/de/shop/fulfillment-messages" r = requests.get(url, params=payload) data = r.json() stores = data["body"]["content"]["pickupMessage"]["stores"] store = next(store for store in stores if store["storeNumber"] == store_id) avail = store["partsAvailability"][product_number] return { "store_name": store.get("storeName"), "available": avail.get("pickupDisplay") != "ineligible", "store_pickup_quote": avail.get("storePickupQuote"), "pickup_search_quote": avail.get("pickupSearchQuote"), "pickup_display": avail.get("pickupDisplay"), } def assemble_availability_text(product_number, store_ids): avail_text = "" for store_id in store_ids: avail = fetch_availability(product_number, store_id) avail_text += f'{avail["store_name"]}: {avail["store_pickup_quote"]}\n' return avail_text def create_file_if_not_exists(filepath): if not os.path.exists(filepath): with open(filepath, "w") as f: f.write("") def do_it(part_no, store_ids, **kwargs): availability_text = assemble_availability_text(part_no, store_ids) create_file_if_not_exists("/tmp/cache.txt") with open("/tmp/cache.txt", "r+", encoding="utf-8") as f: if f.read() == availability_text: print("No Changes", flush=True) else: print("Changes detected", availability_text, flush=True) if kwargs["pushover_enabled"] == "1": requests.post( "https://api.pushover.net/1/messages.json", data={ "token": kwargs["pushover_token"], "user": kwargs["pushover_user"], "message": availability_text, "title": "CHANGES DETECTED", }, headers={"Content-Type": "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"}, ) f.truncate(0) f.seek(0) f.write(availability_text) if __name__ == "__main__": while True: do_it( os.environ["MONITORED_PART_NO"], os.environ["MONITORED_STORES"].split(","), pushover_enabled=os.environ["PUSHOVER_ENABLED"], pushover_token=os.environ["PUSHOVER_TOKEN"], pushover_user=os.environ["PUSHOVER_USER"], ) time.sleep(int(os.environ["POLLING_DELAY_SECONDS"])) The script is in the repository dprandzioch/apple-store-notifier on GitHub. ...

A small software tip for anyone who has opted for a larger iCloud package and wants to remove unnecessary cloud data from their Mac. The open-source software iCloud Control integrates into the Finder and makes exactly this possible. Adds a menu to the Finder that allows control over files stored in iCloud, allowing user-controlled selective synchronization. Simply select the files you want to remove locally, click the small cloud icon in the Finder, and choose Remove selected item locally. ...

IBM provides a truly beautiful, Helvetica-like typeface with IBM Plex. The typeface is open source and may be downloaded and used freely. IBM hopes for the widest possible adoption of the typeface. Thanks Achim