Recording lectures with a USB digital voice recorder left me with a lot of obscurely named files. Naming them according to what the lecture subject was by hand would have been very time consuming. I wrote a script to take an ical calendar file and match up recordings from the device with events on the calendar.

Given an input and output directory and a path to an ical calendar file (may be at a remote URL to use with Google Calendar or similar) the script will copy files and rename them according to corresponding events. Where there are multiple (or no) events occuring around the time of the recording, the script will name the recording as ‘uncategorised’.

It needs the icalendar module to run. The script can be downloaded here. See also the GitHub page.

It’s not limited to organising voice recordings and could be used to label any files with calendar events based on their modification timestamp.

This script exports dates from an ical file, I needed it to put them into a spreadsheet. You need the icalendar module for this.

Here is a small script I’ve written which seeks to improve Amazon product pages by including postage and packaging in ‘used and new’ prices. The prices including delivery are automatically updated whenever you visit a product page.

Updated: Now also gives the option to show prices including delivery in search results.

Examples

Once you click through to the 'used and new' page itself, prices including P&P are shown too.

Install instructions for Firefox

1. Install the Greasemonkey addon
2. Restart Firefox if necessary
3. Go to the Userscripts.org page and click ‘Install’ at the top right of the page

Install instructions for Chrome

1. Install the Tampermonkey addon
2. Go to the Userscripts.org page and click ‘Install’ at the top right of the page
3. Click ‘OK’ twice in the dialogs that appear

Notes

It’s very untested, having not existed for long.

The script is currently not functional for Amazon.jp or Amazon.cn.

Neither I or the script are in any way affiliated with Amazon.com, Inc. All trademarks and copyrights are property of their respective owners.

Github repository (report bugs here)

Here is a way to reload/refresh the current web page in JavaScript, removing any query string parameters in the process:

window.location = window.location.pathname;

This preserves protocol selection (HTTP/HTTPS) and is more succinct than the existing methods I found on Google. Note that this will remove the fragment as well (#part).

More information about the location object

We’d stayed in Budapest much longer than originally intended, for the simple reason that it was brilliant! However, we had to make our way to our final destination in North Italy – Sëlva di Val Gardena. The train journey was long and there was a bus to get at the end of it, so we decided to split our journey halfway in Salzburg. Unfortunately the hostel there turned out to be consummately awful, my favourite thing about it was writing a scathing review for Hostelbookers. I don’t think there is a way to directly link, but it’s somewhere among the others, some of which are bafflingly positive. We didn’t really do anything in Salzburg except traipse from the station to the hostel and back, so I can’t really say anything except that it’s rather expensive.

Once that leg of the journey was over, after several windy buses along sheer cliff faces, we arrived in Sëlva. We had a great time there, fitting in a lot of mountain trekking along with the usual gastronomic odysseys that you will be bored of reading about if you’ve seen my earlier articles. There were a lot of peaceful hillsides with very relaxed-looking and bell-wearing cows tinkling along. The views are spectacular and the air clean and refreshing. It was an invigorating and relaxing place to finish our trip.

A precariously parked Land Rover

They get a lot more interested when you open your backpack

Interrailing with Lucy was a great experience and I really want to do it again as soon as possible. It was refreshing to get out of the UK for an extended period. I liked not being aware of anything going on at home, though I am a bit addicted to online news and must admit I did peek. The almost constant sunshine helped a lot too. It was interesting seeing the little differences between every country, and feeling more European than British for probably the first time. It was embarrassing being so incompetent when it comes to languages, I should try to learn some more before going next time. I do not think I will ever be conversant in Hungarian or Slovak though.

A typically rainy Gatwick airport greeted us after a reasonably short flight from Innsbruck (a fantastically small airport with no multi-mile walks to get in and out). That was unfortunately the end of our Interrailing, for now…