My ‘hobby’ software projects are below. Over time I will also add more details about the code used along with more information about methodologies/availability etc… But in the meantime – click on a link to go to the project page, and then click any links if you want to try an interactive version of the project.

Each project is hosted on a docker image, these run on a low-powered server and no guarantee about availability is given at this point. Functionality may change as well – but this is not too likely unless it’s to fix something that is broken or to improve on the look/feel.

Generally speaking, you will see some projects which are similar, this is likely because I had a working version, and then improved it – but retained the original version because its functionality worked and possibly as the newer version may have unresolved or untested bugs in it.

**URL updates 5th Feb 2024 – due to increased popularity the tools are moving to a dedicated server running a reverse proxy system – this means they now are secure and use my domain instead of the IP address! **

  • Magic Eight Ball
    • A simple python script allows you to ask and answer magic eight-ball questions
    • Very simple html design using templates – nothing fancy here – have fun!
  • Sudoku Solver (v1)
    • A very very basic Sudoku solver using Flask and Python
    • This version is very inefficient, has no real web-design or usability
    • Can be easily broken with complex puzzles or impossible puzzles – very much a proof of concept
  • Sudoku Solver (v1.1)
    • Based on the V1 code – with a slightly better web-page interface showing the puzzle
    • Solving is based on the same method with the same weaknesses
  • Sudoku Solver – Fun and Easy Way to Solve Puzzles (v2)
    • Significant re-write – using Python and Flask still
    • Now detects impossible puzzles and stops trying to solve
    • No longer uses pure brute-force to solve, instead if a number can no longer be used it’s no longer tested – much faster solving times
    • Iteration count is more accurate than v1 and greatly reduced due to the improvements
    • Better HTML interaction with re-playing links and some work on SEO tags
  • Sudoku Solver – V2 update Jan 2024
    • Some bugs fixed – it now fails more reliably if given an impossible puzzle (some combinations could previously still cause a long processing before failing)
    • HTML has been tweaked to make it more accessible – you can now enter in the numbers by tabbing across the cells, which is must faster.
    • This now tries to solve a cell with the least number of combinations available first, then moves onto surrounding cells, if these can be solved the process repeats until complete. in the case of a cell that can’t be solved it will backtrack and proceed with a new solution until complete. This approach reduces attempts to around 1/100th of v2 and abandons the brute-force mechanism in the v1 and v1.1 model.