Together with mr. Vinchkovsky from Kyiv-Mohyla Academy we started a new project PGNReader: a small program written in Python for reading and working with PGN files which are used for storing and sharing information about chess games. Hosted at Google Code.

Language: Python (2.6.1)
Version: 0.13 (March 05, 2009)
Requirements: PMW, PIL
Creators: Hollgam
Screenshots: screenshot1, screenshot2

A game of chess. Not playable yet, just a board with pieces which can be moved.

Download: latest version

Updates:

Version 0.1alpha – February 28, 2009:
- Board with movable pieces.

Version 0.11 – March 04, 2009:
- Function for showing legal moves.

Version 0.12 – March 05, 2009:
- Fixed several bugs in the function for showing legal moves.
- Added option of showing legal moves.
- 90% completed function for validating made moves.

Version 0.13 – March 05, 2009:
- Ability to make castles (not fully done).
- Added timers of time spent on making current move, total times of White and Black.
- Fixed several bugs.
- Added icon.

Language: Python (2.6.1)
Requirements: PMW
Creators: Hollgam
Screenshots: screenshot1, screenshot2

A small game of  Tic Tac Toe written in Python.

Download: latest version

Language: Python (2.6.1)
Requirements: PMW
Creators: Hollgam
Screenshots: screenshot1, screenshot2, screenshot3

A small implementation of Windows’ Minesweeper. This is under construction. I did this in one evening, code needs optimizing and revising in some cases. Even its name is beta I haven’t decided which one to choose yet.

Download: latest version

I got a new USB stick today and decided to make a good IDE-on-the-go out of it. I installed XAMPP, my favorite text editor, FTP manager and than I came across my favorite IDE for python development – Netbeans… After about 3 hours of fighting with it I did actually make it portable

So what you need to do to make Netbeans portable:

1. First, copy already installed Netbeans to your USB stick. ( I recommend choosing a zipped version from here then simply unpack it)
2. Now there are 2 possible ways: editing a configuration file and applying commands to a shortcut. I’ll describe both:
   • 1st: find file netbeans.conf in directory etc\ inside a directory with Netbeans.  Now line
     

     netbeans_default_userdir="${HOME}/.netbeans/6.5"

     replace with

     netbeans_default_userdir=".\YOUR_USER_FOLDER"

     where YOUR_USER_FOLDER is a folder with different configs. It must not be in the same directory that your Netbeans is (it was my mistake).

     Now find line with something like

     netbeans_jdkhome="/path/to/jdk"

     it defines path  to a place where JDK is installed in your stick. Replace it with something like

     netbeans_jdkhome=".\JDK\"

     don’t forget to replace JDK with a valid for you path

   • 2nd: if you are using PStart or something similar to that make a shortcut for netbeans.exe and add commands:
     

      --jdkhome "%pdrive%\PATH_TO_JDK" --userdir "%pdrive%\PATH_TOU_USERDIR"

     where PATH_TO_JDK is a directory with JDK on your flash USB and PATH_TOU_USERDIR is your user directory. Again it must not be in the same directory that your Netbeans is.

And that’s it! Happy coding