NanoDano's blog

GPG Tutorial


Curses in Windows with Python

The curses package is part of the Python standard library and is useful for creating text-based user interfaces and generally controlling the screen and keyboard input. The big problem is that it doesn't work out-of-the-box on Windows. This show you how to get curses working in Windows. This was tested in Windows 10 with Python 3.6.

Grab Image from Clipboard in Python with Pillow

Copy and paste operations are most often associated with text, but you can also copy and paste images and other formats. This example demonstrates how to pull an image off of the system clipboard using the Pillow package in Python. It has a convenient method for pulling images from the clipboard. There are a few ways you might get an image in your clipboard. For example, if you used your Grab or Snipping Tool to capture a section of your screen, but you haven't actually saved it yet, you can CTRL-C to copy the image to your clipboard. Or, if you right click an image in a web browser and choose "Copy Image".

Text-to-speech in Python with pyttsx3

This tutorials demonstrates how to use Python for text-to-speech using a cross-platform library, pyttsx3. This lets you synthesize text in to audio you can hear. This package works in Windows, Mac, and Linux. It uses native speech drivers when available and works completely offline. We will walk through how to install, convert text-to-speech, and switch between voices and languages.

TomCat Tutorial

Learn the basics of TomCat web server and Java servlet container. We'll cover how to install it, serve static and JSP content, and basic management tools. Perfect for someone looking to get a quick start with TomCat.

Nginx Tutorial

Nginx, pronounced "engine X", is a fast and lightweight web server, that can be used to serve static files, but is often used as a reverse proxy. It has some very nice features like load balancing and rate limiting. We'll cover some common use cases like serving files, creating a directory listing, reverse proxying to pass incoming traffic to a local web server, adding SSL encryption, and how to require https and www on your site. This guide is for someone who needs a quick reference to setting up a simple nginx server. For the latest documentation always check out the official website and the source mirror at

One-line HTTP servers

If you need a quick-and-dirty HTTP server that doesn't need fancy configuration, try some of these one-line HTTP servers in languages like Python, Ruby, and PHP. Some examples include a small script that allows you to embed the server in to your program and add more customization. These are not intended for production use.

LetsEncrypt Free SSL Certificate Tutorial

Let's Encrypt is "a free, automated, and open Certificate Authority." They provide free signed certificates as a trusted certificate authority. This tutorial walks through the process of installing certbot and requesting new certificates and renewing existing ones wit Let's Encrypt. If you are just looking to generate your own quick self-signed certificates, check out my tutorial on creating self-signed SSL certificates with OpenSSL.