No cure for geekiness

Alyssa is learning the multiplication chart recently and likes to ask me to test her all the time. Being a lazy geek, here is my solution in perl:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
my $script_name = 'multiplication_test.pl';

# Chih-Horng Kuo 
# multiplication skill test

use strict;
use warnings;

my $answer         = 0;
my $count_question = 0;
my $count_correct  = 0;
my $count_wrong    = 0;

print "\n";
print "*** Multiplication Test\n";
print "*** Type 'quit' to end the test.\n\n";

while (1) {
 $count_question++;
 # get 2 random integers
 # the first one should be between 2 and 9
 my $a = int(rand(8)) + 2;
 # the second one should be between 1 and 9
 my $b = int(rand(9)) + 1;

 print "\n";
 print "\tQ$count_question:\t$a x $b = ";
 $answer = <>;
 chomp $answer;
 
 if ( $answer =~ /(\d+)/ ) {
  if ( $answer == ( $a * $b ) ) {
   $count_correct++;
   print "\t\t\tYeah!\n";
  }
  else {
   $count_wrong++;
   print "\t\t\tOops. The correct answer is ", $a * $b, ".\n";
  }
 }
 elsif ($answer eq 'quit' ) {
  last;
 }
 else {
  print "\t\tYour answer is not a number. Try again!\n";
 }
}
print "\n";
print "*** Thank you for playing!\n";

my $count_total = $count_correct + $count_wrong;

if ( $count_total > 0 ) {
 my $score = int ( ( $count_correct / $count_total ) * 100 );
 print "*** Your got $count_correct questions right",
  " and $count_wrong questions wrong.\n";
 print "*** Your score is $score%\n";
 if ( $score >= 90 ) {
  print "*** Great job!\n";
 }
 elsif ( $score >= 75 ) {
  print "*** Good work.\n";
 }
 elsif ( $score >= 60 ) {
  print "*** That's okay.\n";
 }
 else {
  print "*** Try harder next time.\n";
 }
}

Initially I wasn't sure if it's a good idea to use a while loop, however, after she got a chance to play with it, I am very glad about the decision. She simply can't stop!

Did someone say "secure erase"?

Family website remodeling

I wonder how often a "normal" person would say "Hey, it's Friday night. Let's write some Perl scripts for fun!" But anyway, that's exactly what I just did.

Several years ago, I decided to setup a website for our family, mainly as a way for our parents in Taiwan to see the photos of their grandchildren. Gradually, the site evolved into a huge archive of all our family photos. It works out wonderfully for us because we all enjoy having convenient access to all the old photos; the kids always want to see what silly things they have done when they were babies. However, with the ever increasing capability of the digital camera, the file sizes (particularly for videos) have now become too big for our parents to view over the slow connection. Finally, I got the chance this evening and converted all the thousands of video files into flash format. Now, while I am waiting for the files to upload, let me polish my geek badge a bit. :)