Dealing with dates
2017-11-14In this article I describe dates, how they are used on this site, and how you can generate ISO-8601 format dates on the Mac OS X command line.
Filed in: Formats (File, number and data formats, encodings and character sets (Spreadsheets, JSON, YAML, BCD, Hex etc.))What are Character Sets?
2019-10-29This article takes a look at what character sets are.
Filed in: Formats (File, number and data formats, encodings and character sets (Spreadsheets, JSON, YAML, BCD, Hex etc.))What are Character Encodings?
2019-11-02This article takes a look at what character encodings are.
Filed in: Formats (File, number and data formats, encodings and character sets (Spreadsheets, JSON, YAML, BCD, Hex etc.))Understanding Unix time
2018-10-30This article takes a look at the idea behind Unix time. It also shows you how to get the current Unix time from the shell and from Python. The concept of the Unix timestamp will be used again in subsequent articles.
Filed in: Formats (File, number and data formats, encodings and character sets (Spreadsheets, JSON, YAML, BCD, Hex etc.))URL Encoding
2020-07-07In this article I take a look at what URL encoding is, and also look at a related practical problem I had to overcome.
Filed in: Formats (File, number and data formats, encodings and character sets (Spreadsheets, JSON, YAML, BCD, Hex etc.))Understanding JWTs
2018-11-01This article takes a look at JSON Web Tokens or JWTs. The article looks at their basic format, and how they are created and used.
Filed in: Formats (File, number and data formats, encodings and character sets (Spreadsheets, JSON, YAML, BCD, Hex etc.))Introduction to JSON
2019-10-24A quick look at JSON, why it's important and how to deal with it in Python and JavaScript.
Filed in: Formats (File, number and data formats, encodings and character sets (Spreadsheets, JSON, YAML, BCD, Hex etc.))Really simple encryption
2018-05-08In this article I take a look at a really simple encryption system. Applications could include sending ever-so-slightly more secure text messages via APIs such as Nexmo or Clockwork.
Filed in: Formats (File, number and data formats, encodings and character sets (Spreadsheets, JSON, YAML, BCD, Hex etc.))