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Raspberry Pi audio playback from Python

Want to play audio on your Raspberry Pi running Raspbian, while logged in to a non-root user account? Me, too!

Seems like such a simple task.

Consider the following code snippet using PyGame:

import time
import pygame
pygame.mixer.init()
pygame.mixer.music.load("testfile.wav")
pygame.mixer.music.play()
while pygame.mixer.music.get_busy() == True:
    time.sleep(.25)

Let's try it:

$ python soundtest.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./soundtest.py", line 3, in <module>
    pygame.mixer.init()
pygame.error: No available audio device

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Living with Windows? These utilities can help prevent malware and crapware infestations

I've abandoned Windows in favor of Linux (Ubuntu) over the last several years, so I don't suffer from malware/crapware infestations (they never really hit me much, me being hyper-vigilant about installing stuff on my systems...) I've moved all family members off Windows as well, if they want me to help maintain their computers.

For those of you working with Windows (and hence subject to all the usual vexations associated with it), these two software utilities look promising:

QFind - Find text in open browser tabs

QFind - Find text in Chrome Browser tabs

Quickly find text in titles and page content in Google Chrome tabs.

This browser extension is a real lifesaver if you tend to keep dozens of tabs and multiple windows open for extended periods.

Ninja Bunny art merchandise on Zazzle.com

A new site about project failure and team failure

I'm starting a separate blog about team and project management failures (and how to prevent them.) I'm going to start with a list of my favorite books about team building and management, and go from there.

(I'm using Python and Pelican because I'm moving away from Drupal and PHP.)

Automating vote tallying on the Google+ "Light Box" community: The TallyBot

The Light Box is a Google+ community that allows people to submit photos for community review. Qualified community members 'vote' on photos by leaving a comment with sequential hashtags like "#delete1", "#delete2", "save5", etc. The when the saves or deletes reach 10, we have a winner (the first to reach the threshold wins.)

Find the top commenters on a Google+ post

I've created a simple web app to show the top comments and commenters for a Google+ post. There's a simple bookmarklet that allows you to see results for a post you're viewing on Google+.

The current features are early beta test stage. I'll be adding new features over the next few weeks.

Feedback welcome!