Computer Stuff

Programs

Most of my programs are designed to perform some specific task that other users would not be interested in. Every so often, however, I write a program that might be of interest to someone other than me and my programmer friends. Some of these programs are listed below.

• Enter Calculator 2009: Calculate a VCE ENTER based on study scores.
• Cartesian Drawer: Draw pictures using a simple graphics language based on the Cartesian Plane.
• Sudoku Solver: Solves Sudoku puzzles
• Fianchetto: Incomplete chess program that works with winboard/xboard.
• Blitz: Connect 4 program for Windows 95 (a little buggy under XP/Vista/Win7)
• Potion: Love calculator for Windows

General Computer Musings

I am a keen computer user; I think computers can make various administrative tasks bearable/enjoyable and programming computers has been a pastime I've enjoyed since 1996. I did a Computer Science major and have also worked as a (paid) programmer at times.

I have toggled between using Linux and Windows over the years; I mainly use Windows at the moment because it is what is required at work. I find it acceptable but for some tasks Linux is certainly easier and more efficient.

My website is built using Django and JavaScript. In the past it involved XSLT but I am removing any traces of that now, so I can put that whole phase of my life behind me.

In case you are interested in these things, some programs that I like are:

• Vim for text editing, including programming and editing these web pages.
• Mozilla Firefox for web browsing and development.
• Mathematica for intensive Mathematics, especially for graphing functions.
• Winboard to play chess on the internet, or to play against my own chess program.
• Fritz 8 to play chess against on my computer or to analyse my games.
• Latex for typesetting high quality documents, especially maths/logic documents.
• Python for a lot of my programming, especially programs which need to interact well with Excel and Outlook.