Tools & Toys

This page is a general entry point for several scripted pages. All depend on JavaScript support, which means they might not be accessible to everyone. Sorry about that! there's not really a good way around it.

If your security measures prevent the scripts from running, you might be able to save a copy of the page to your local disk and run the copy without weakening your security. To make that easier, each page is self-contained.

Toys
Sudoku grid	A solving space for Sudoku puzzles, with scratch space, number searches, checking for errors, listing possible entries for blank cells, etc. If you aren’t familiar with sudoku, an introduction is provided.
Cryptogram helper	A solving space for cryptograms, with letter-frequency lists, automatic propagation of any letter assignment throughout the cryptogram, etc.
a card trick	Basically a graphics experiment, but it does include a long-range day-of-the-week calculator. The “trick” itself is just silly, but I’m a bit fond of the card backs, which are my own attempt at the old different-face-upside-down pictures. (Why don’t most computer card games show the card backs both ways?)
Tools
Email link obfuscator	Translates an email address into an HTML link, using an encoding that reportedly works with any browser, but is not recognized by most webcrawlers. Part of my anti-spam efforts.
Random string generator	Generates random strings in a wide range of lengths – useful for creating deliberately-obscure addresses and filenames.
Gregorian calendar	Generates a Gregorian calendar for any year in the range 271,815 BCE (B.C.) to 275,754 CE (A.D.); also warns when the result may be inappropriate, or just plain silly.