Python Library for Reading Excel Files

Came across a pretty sweet python library for reading data from Excel files: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/xlrd. Xlrd is super easy to install and use. Here's a snippet of code:

1:  import xlrd  
2:    
3:  mybook = xlrd.open_workbook("test.xls")  
4:  sheets = mybook.sheets()  
5:  for sheet in sheets:  
6:    for i in range(sheet.nrows):  
7:     for j in range(sheet.ncols):  
8:       cell = sheet.cell(i, j)  
9:       if cell.ctype != xlrd.XL_CELL_EMPTY:  
10:        print cell.value  
11:    

There are many other cool things you can do with xlrd. I encourage you to try it out!

Lazy Load - a jQuery plugin

While visiting Mashable today, I noticed that the images on the page were being loaded as I scrolled down. Very cool! Allows for a very quick page load time. I did some research and found that this can be accomplished using Lazy Load, a plugin for jQuery: http://www.appelsiini.net/projects/lazyload. I haven't tried it myself, so I can't really attest to it's functionality, but I highly recommend this plugin for anyone creating a web page with heavy image content.

Source Code Formatter

Just wanted to send out a quick thanks to the developers of the source code formatter tool I used to format the code in my previous post! It's very helpful; I'm sure I'll be using it many times in the future! Check it out here: http://codeformatter.blogspot.com/2009/06/about-code-formatter.html.