Programming, computers, etc. [Serious]

[Anonymously Famous]

Yesterday a client sent us a couple hundred XML files to translate. About 10% of them were invalid XML (CDATA within CDATA). So I spent a chunk of the morning figuring out how to fix them so that we could feed them into our system. They may be looking to automate things, so either they'll need to send us valid XML, or we'll need to develop tools to fix it automatically and charge them the development costs.

[atomtengeralattjaro]

Yay for charging them development costs!

[Phantom]

So out of curiosity is there anyone who could teach me to code in python? I am trying to learn it so write a program that utilizes a random character generator and a taskkill loop.

[Anonymously Famous]

Here is the documentation for the random number generator built in to Python.

Do you have any specific questions? An online tutorial might be better than me just saying whatever comes to mind about Python, but I'm happy to answer any questions.

[Phantom]

Well, I only have one specific question. How could I take the random string of characters from the generator, add .exe at the end then put them into a looped taskkill. The reason I need to ask is that I don't know python but I have heard it can be used for this purpose and the tutorials I have found are not much help. Also, Thank you for the link. But I need it to generate and 8 character long string of lowercase letters. I need this in an attempt to block out a form of spyware that I cannot uninstall.

[Anonymously Famous]

Here's something that should work for you, then:

Code: Select all

import os
import random
toKill = "".join([chr(ord("a") + random.randint(0,25)) for i in range(8)]) + ".exe"
while os.system("taskkill /im " + toKill + " /f"):
    toKill = "".join([chr(ord("a") + random.randint(0,25)) for i in range(8)]) + ".exe"

This will run until it's succeeded in killing a process with a random, 8-character-long name. If you want it to run forever, let me know and I'll modify it. A ton of command windows will pop up and disappear, though, if you run it from IDLE instead of the command line.

Long-term solution, though? Find your Windows installation disk and use it to reinstall Windows.

[Phantom]

Thank you, this should help a lot.

[atomtengeralattjaro]

i don't understand the reason for this. If the malware keeps creating randomly named processes, this seems like a horribly inefficient way of dealing with it. Also it could potentially kill other processes, no?

[Anonymously Famous]

Yep. So probably not a good idea.

[atomtengeralattjaro]

These weeks I've been insanely preoccupied with the field of view algorithm for my top-down shooter game. (yeah, weeks holy mother of geometry, i am not worthy) It's finally done, and I think I'll show off some as soon as I have some decent collision detection working.

[Anonymously Famous]

Yay!

I got my Pi working yesterday. Tiny Core Linux, because, for now, that's the only distribution of Linux that I've found that:

1. Has been compiled for ARM v6.
2. Fits on an SD card of less than 2 GB. (Currently I only have 256 MB and 512 MB)

I've read some how-tos on modifying the configuration file to run Linux off of a USB drive, though, so I might try that.

[atomtengeralattjaro]

i am assuming by Pi you mean that fruity thing, something like raspberry pie? i don't know much about these. What are you using it for? I hope it involves secret surveillance of foreign intelligence agents or something fruity like that. What else are these things good for?

edit:

oh, yeah, this.

[assdef]

So it's a...blender...of some kind?

[atomtengeralattjaro]

yeah.

I just found the best 404 error of all time. It said the following, typing it out character by character:

Code: Select all

The requested document is no more.
No file found.
Even tried multi.
Nothing helped.
I'm really depressed about this.
You see, I'm just a web server...
-- here I am, brain the size of the universe,
trying to serve you a simple web page,
and then it doesn't even exist!
Where does that leave me?!
I mean, I don't even know you.
How should I know what you wanted from me?
You honestly think I can *guess*
what someone I don't even *know*
wants to find here?
*sigh*
Man, I'm so depressed I could just cry.
And then where would we be, I ask you?
It's not pretty when a web server cries.
And where do you get off telling me what to show anyway?
Just because I'm a web server,
and possibly a manic depressive one at that?
Why does that give you the right to tell me what to do?
Huh?
I'm so depressed...
I think I'll crawl off into the trash can and decompose.
I mean, I'm gonna be obsolete in what, two weeks anyway?
What kind of a life is that?
Two flipping weeks,
and then I'll be replaced by a .01 release,
that thinks it's God's gift to web servers,
just because it doesn't have some tiddly little
security hole with its HTTP POST implementation,
or something.
I'm really sorry to burden you with all this,
I mean, it's not your job to listen to my problems,
and I guess it is my job to go and fetch web pages for you.
But I couldn't get this one.
I'm so sorry.
Believe me!
Maybe I could interest you in another page?
There are a lot out there that are pretty neat, they say,
although none of them was put on *my* server, of course.
Figures, huh?
Everything here is just mind-numbingly stupid.
That makes me depressed too, since I have to serve them,
all day and all night long.
Two weeks of information overload,
and then *pffftt*, consigned to the trash.
What kind of a life is that?
Now, please let me sulk alone.
I'm so depressed._

[Anonymously Famous]

So it's a...blender...of some kind?

A tiny computer. Its only "hard drive" is an SD card.

[Shai'tan]

yeah.

I just found the best 404 error of all time. It said the following, typing it out character by character:

Code: Select all

The requested document is no more.
No file found.
Even tried multi.
Nothing helped.
I'm really depressed about this.
You see, I'm just a web server...
-- here I am, brain the size of the universe,
trying to serve you a simple web page,
and then it doesn't even exist!
Where does that leave me?!
I mean, I don't even know you.
How should I know what you wanted from me?
You honestly think I can *guess*
what someone I don't even *know*
wants to find here?
*sigh*
Man, I'm so depressed I could just cry.
And then where would we be, I ask you?
It's not pretty when a web server cries.
And where do you get off telling me what to show anyway?
Just because I'm a web server,
and possibly a manic depressive one at that?
Why does that give you the right to tell me what to do?
Huh?
I'm so depressed...
I think I'll crawl off into the trash can and decompose.
I mean, I'm gonna be obsolete in what, two weeks anyway?
What kind of a life is that?
Two flipping weeks,
and then I'll be replaced by a .01 release,
that thinks it's God's gift to web servers,
just because it doesn't have some tiddly little
security hole with its HTTP POST implementation,
or something.
I'm really sorry to burden you with all this,
I mean, it's not your job to listen to my problems,
and I guess it is my job to go and fetch web pages for you.
But I couldn't get this one.
I'm so sorry.
Believe me!
Maybe I could interest you in another page?
There are a lot out there that are pretty neat, they say,
although none of them was put on *my* server, of course.
Figures, huh?
Everything here is just mind-numbingly stupid.
That makes me depressed too, since I have to serve them,
all day and all night long.
Two weeks of information overload,
and then *pffftt*, consigned to the trash.
What kind of a life is that?
Now, please let me sulk alone.
I'm so depressed._

That's awesome! Where did you find this?

[atomtengeralattjaro]

but if I tell you, you'll know

okay, well, here it is: http://www.amandatapping.com , most of the outgoing links are redirected badly, so it tries to open them as parts of the same domain.

[Anonymously Famous]

At first I was looking for it, then I just decided to type in http://www.amandatapping.com/bogus

That worked.

I think I've seen something similar before. Maybe they took it from somewhere?

[Arkannine]

I just bruteforced my router configuration page with a macro script I made with possible combinations because I had forgotten the password. I feel like such a h4X0r.

[atomtengeralattjaro]

you should also feel like getting a better router then.

(says the guy with the cheapest TP-link)