Recently, while running the Redmond Python Meetup I’ve found that a great way to get started using Python is to pick a few common tools to start learning. Naturally, I gravitated towards teaching the basics of one of the most popular Python packages - Requests. I’ve also found it’s useful to throw in using Beatiful Soup to show folks how they can efficiently interact with HTML data after getting an HTML page.

Sound interesting? Let’s look at what I typically cover - including a few basic examples of how you can use Requests to make HTTP GET and POST requests.

I’m happy to annouce my newest course, the AWS Certified Developer - Associate Level certification prep course.

This course is by far the largest one I’ve ever done and has a LOT of content. There are over 14 hours of videos, as well as a variety of labs, flashcards, and quizzes.

Here’s a sneak peak of what you can expect inside one of my favorite labs:

Are you interested in learning how to create your own Serverless chatbots with AWS services like Lex and Lambda? Great news! I just launched a course that’s perfect for you. You’ll build your own alerting chatbot on AWS and integrate it into a Slack organization. Here’s an example of the bot in action inside Slack:

Want to know more?

Here’s me (actually on camera!) talking about the course:

A few weeks ago the Redmond Python meetup I started hosted a free Introduction to Python Workshop. I had the privilege of teaching about 50 beginners as much Python as is possible to cram into a day-long workshop. I think it went pretty well:

Today I got a call from the “IRS”:

Is very serious emergency and time sensitive. We are calling you from investigation team of IRS. We have just received a notification regarding your tax filings. From the headquarters which will get expired in next 24 working hours. And once it get expired after that you will be taken under custody by the local cops. As there are four serious allegations pressed on your name at this moment. We would request you to get back to us so that we can discuss about this case before taking any legal action against you. The number to reach us is 9174602172. I repeat 9174602172. Thank you.

I’ve written about scam calls before. This is a new variant for me but basically follows the same line. The caller tells you: