As many programmers I have two list of books. One is the list of books I want/need. I purchase these books (yes, often with discounts) because I am willing to part with my cash for them. Then there is the second list of books. These books I might like to get, but aren’t willing it purchase because there are other things that would give me better value/return for my money. However, I can be persuaded to purchase the items on the second list if I get a deeper-than-normal discount. I thought I had received an offer of the latter type. Turns out I was wrong.

Here’s the deal. This publisher sells print and ebook versions of their titles. If you purchase both at the same time, you get a significant discount on the ebook. For example, $44.99 for print, $35.99 for ebook, or buy the $44.99 print version and for $4.50 more, you can get the ebook. Basically add 10% to get the ebook bundled. I put 4 print+ebook bundles in my shopping cart. That totaled $159.46. I expected to be able to use my 40% coupon and get that for $95.68. That’s a great price and would push me to purchase close to $100 worth of merchandise from this vendor that I wouldn’t have otherwise spent.

But that is not the case. Why? When I added the discount code they un-bundled the ebook from the print book. This meant that I got 40% off the non-bundled (i.e. $44.99 + $35.99) price instead of the bundled price ($49.49). This meant that instead of $95.68 my cost would be $158.95. Significantly higher and only a 0.3% discount.

I didn’t make the purchase and they lost $95.68 that I was ready to give them.

Am I being greedy? I’d like to hear your thoughts?

• but I’m off to bed.
• but I’m too busy right now.
• but I don’t know of what to write about.
• after I finish this project.

The excuses keep coming. But it is a new year and Skribit has launched, so maybe I will make a belated New Year’s Resolution and start writing more. You can help me out by using the Skribit widget down and to the right.

I’ll write more later because I’m off to bed now.

1. the “HTTP Options” tab has a box for –http-passwd, but
2. it actually passes –http-pass when run, however
3. wget actually takes –http-password for an option, so don’t put anything in for –http-passwd on the “HTTP Options” tab, but instead
4. use the “Additional Params” box on the “Logging and input” tab and enter your password as –http-password=”password“.

Then I remembered that I had Alcohol 52% on my desktop and Alcohol 120% on my laptops.

I used Alcohol 52% to share the DVD-RW on my desktop using Alcohol iSCSI Server and my laptop is running Vista, so I used Vista’s built-in iSCSI client and mounted the drive.

Now I could use the DVD-RW drive that was physically on my desktop with Alcohol 120% running on my laptop over a Remote Desktop Connection.

When I invoke IPython from a TCC shell I have problems with aliases that shell out to TCC from IPython. For example, a simple ls command.

I discovered that the DOS/TCC environmental variable COMSPEC is set to a value that includes a space (C:\Program Files\JPSoft\TCMD10\TCC.EXE). If I set it to the 8.3 value (C:\PROGRA~1\JPSoft\TCMD10\tcc.exe) before invoking IPython, all is well.

Here is a log of my session:

TCC  10.00.76   Windows Vista [Version 6.0.6002]
Copyright 2009  Rex Conn & JP Software Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Registered to Chaim Krause - 1 System License
 
[C:\Program Files\JPSoft\TCMD10]echo %COMSPEC%
C:\Program Files\JPSoft\TCMD10\TCC.EXE
 
[C:\Program Files\JPSoft\TCMD10]ipython
Python 2.6.2 (r262:71605, Apr 14 2009, 22:40:02) [MSC v.1500 32 bit (Intel)]
Type "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
 
IPython 0.10 -- An enhanced Interactive Python.
?         -> Introduction and overview of IPython's features.
%quickref -> Quick reference.
help      -> Python's own help system.
object?   -> Details about 'object'. ?object also works, ?? prints more.
 
In [1]: ls
 
TCC  10.00.76   Windows Vista [Version 6.0.6002]
Copyright 2009  Rex Conn & JP Software Inc.  All Rights Reserved
Registered to Chaim Krause - 1 System License
 
TCC: Unknown command "Files\JPSoft\TCMD10\TCC.EXE"
 
[C:\Program Files\JPSoft\TCMD10]exit
 
In [2]: Exit
 
[C:\Program Files\JPSoft\TCMD10]set COMSPEC=C:\PROGRA~1\JPSoft\TCMD10\tcc.exe
 
[C:\Program Files\JPSoft\TCMD10]ipython
Python 2.6.2 (r262:71605, Apr 14 2009, 22:40:02) [MSC v.1500 32 bit (Intel)]
Type "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
 
IPython 0.10 -- An enhanced Interactive Python.
?         -> Introduction and overview of IPython's features.
%quickref -> Quick reference.
help      -> Python's own help system.
object?   -> Details about 'object'. ?object also works, ?? prints more.
 
In [1]: ls
 
 Volume in drive C is VISTA          Serial number is 43eb:d126
 Directory of  C:\Program Files\JPSoft\TCMD10\*
 
10/06/2009  21:08         <DIR>    .
10/06/2009  21:08         <DIR>    ..
 8/29/2009  13:48          80,184  4nt.exe
10/06/2009  19:35         <DIR>    EditConfig
 8/29/2009  13:48         369,976  English.dll
 8/29/2009  13:48         290,616  EnglishD.dll
 2/19/2008  23:36          20,342  examples.btm
 8/29/2009  13:48         394,552  French.dll
 8/29/2009  13:48         295,224  FrenchD.dll
 8/29/2009  13:48         393,528  German.dll
 8/29/2009  13:48         295,224  GermanD.dll
 8/29/2009  13:48       2,731,320  ide.exe
 4/10/2008  13:04         652,752  ipworks6.dll
 4/10/2008  13:38         579,024  ipwssl6.dll
 1/01/2009  11:38           9,413  license.txt
 8/29/2009  13:48         299,320  onig.dll
 3/11/2009  21:30           6,487  readme.txt
 8/29/2009  13:48          14,136  ShrAlias.exe
 8/29/2009  13:48         930,616  TakeCmd.dll
 6/23/2009  10:28             131  TakeCommand.key
 8/29/2009  13:48          80,184  tcc.exe
 9/30/2008  23:46             986  tccbatch.btm
 5/03/2008  13:29           1,154  tcchere.btm
 7/07/2008  20:51           1,256  tcctabhere.btm
 7/25/2009   8:53       1,574,516  tcmd.chm
10/06/2009  19:38         213,785  TCMD.chw
 8/29/2009  13:48       2,470,712  tcmd.exe
 5/03/2008  13:29           1,188  tcmdhere.btm
 8/29/2009  13:49         294,200  updater.exe
10/06/2009  19:35             311  updater.ini
 9/17/2009  15:01               0  userschaimappdatalocaltemptmp-ipython-8imnxi.py
 8/29/2009  13:48         234,808  WiFiMan.dll
        12,235,945 bytes in 29 files and 3 dirs    12,308,480 bytes allocated
    11,714,748,416 bytes free
 
In [2]: Exit
 
[C:\Program Files\JPSoft\TCMD10]

python -c "import IPython.Shell; IPython.Shell.IPShell().mainloop(sys_exit=1)"

thx to ThomasWaldmann on #python

Update: I thought I was doing something wrong. I would execute the command listed above and then do a ls and I would get a DOS command prompt instead of executing an aliased DIR and an error message. One of the additional things was that I was doing this inside TakeCommand; in a TCC shell. I executed an exit and it returned to the IPython Shell.

It turns out that the command wasn’t successfully executing because the environmental variable COMSPEC was set to C:\Program Files\JPSoft\TCMD10\TCC.EXE. This includes a space and I thought that might be the cause of the problem. It turns out I was right.

If, before I execute the python command, I set the environmental variable COMSPEC to C:\PROGRA~1\JPSoft\TCMD10\tcc.exe, then all is well.

After a little searching and experimenting I realized that all you need to do is to change the location the registry is point to from the system installation of Python to the sandboxed version.

So in my case I backed up the current registry key.

REGEDIT4
 
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Python\PythonCore\2.6\InstallPath]
@="C:\\Python26\\"

And then created a copy of the file and modified it to point to the sandboxed Python install.

REGEDIT4
 
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Python\PythonCore\2.6\InstallPath]
@="D:\\workspace\\mysandbox\\"

At this point you simply run the EXE installer and it will be installed to the sandbox. After it is installed, restore the original registry key,