And Yet Another Remodel

Published on March 19, 2008 under Tech Blog

I have finally decided to do another remodel of this site. I had a few goals before starting: Use one image Use the YUI-CSS framework Use Django Make it easily extendable So far, I think I've accomplished these goals. The site is easier to read, easy to ... Read more.

IIS7 GoLive Program

Published on June 18, 2007 under Tech Blog

You can easily see that I am a big Linux fan, I've mentioned this over and over. I've also mentioned that I'm finishing up my MCSE, which started as a dare with my buddy, Ian. In the process of studying for my MCSE I've developed a certain amount of respect ... Read more.

Liferea RSS in Liferea

Published on June 14, 2007 under Tech Blog

Today on Linux.com, Liferea was mentioned I find this particularly because I've been using Liferea for quite a few months, and haven't been able to find anything that better suits my needs. It sits quietly in the corner until a new RSS is available, and slightly changes color. Plus, ... Read more.

Another Amazon Phishing Attempt

Published on June 4, 2007 under Tech Blog

46 hours ago I received an email from Amazon. Things looked somewhat official, although my tech "sixth sense" told me it was a phishing attempt. Maybe it was the poor grammar, yet still not particularly obvious when I skimmed quickly through the email. Naturally I ... Read more.

Adding Search to Django

Published on June 3, 2007 under Tech Blog

This is fairly well documented in the Django docs, so I'll be brief. This is the the bit of search code I use in almost all of my Django sites, and it works great: def search(request): from django.db.models import Q <span ... Read more.

Django Syndication with Colddirt II

Published on June 3, 2007 under Tech Blog

Since I've already covered a really simple syndication example, I'll move onto something a little more complex. Let's say you want to offer syndication that is slightly more custom. The Django syndication docs give an example from Adrian's Chicagocrime.org syndication of beats. I had to ponder a ... Read more.

Django Newforms Usage in Colddirt

Published on June 1, 2007 under Tech Blog

I hear many complaints and questions about newforms, but I've personally found it rather easy and logical to use. There are numerous ways for you to use do forms in Django, and most likely the best way to see them all is to read the docs. On the Colddirt ... Read more.

Colddirt Information

Published on May 29, 2007 under Tech Blog

I wrote up the majority of this on a Friday night, so cut me a tad bit of slack:) Feel free to take a glance at the entire source. NoteColddirt's source code is run from Django SVN, check out on May 10th-ish. If you are using a newer branch, ... Read more.

I Hate GeoIP Advertising

Published on March 15, 2007 under Tech Blog

Preface to this rant: I am currently an expat living abroad. However, having most of my interests in Western culture, sometimes amusing things happen. This is the quick story of one of them. Remember, I'm in a coffee shop? GeoIPized Girls = have ... Read more.

The Risk in Risk Mitigation

Published on March 15, 2007 under Tech Blog

Back in the day the barrier to entry for the Internet was quite high. The technology used required a steep learning curve, the equipment extremely expensive, and sometimes even hard to acquire. Fast forward to 2007 and things have certainly changed. If you know any tech people you can likely ... Read more.

Version 3.0

Published on Jan. 26, 2007 under Tech Blog

To all my loyal (but most likely few, and mainly with the same last name as me):I think I&#39;m going to redo the structure of my site, yes, it is about time.&nbsp; I&#39;ve been using a CMS (Content Management System) to categorize everything, but it is time to ditch that ... Read more.

Firefox + BugMeNot

Published on Feb. 9, 2006 under Tech Blog

Here's a tip for Firefox. An extension called BugMeNot enables you to right click on "general" forms and say "Login with BugMeNot." Firefox will call the BugMeNot extension which looks up in an external database login information. For instance, www.nytimes.com requires a login, which is a great place to test ... Read more.

Python + Web Developement

Published on Jan. 25, 2006 under Tech Blog

A developer just showed me an interesting framework to produce python-backed sites VERY quickly. This is mainly for you Ian, it natively supports AJAX as well. Here's the link: http://www.turbogears.org/ I watched the demo, pretty interesting. Read more.

Notes on Installing mod_tile for Mapnik

Published on April 22, 2008 under Notes and Tutorials

I have no idea if these notes on how to install mod_tile will be useful for anybody. The current readme states that you need to edit the source code, but never actually where. Well, this is where, at least until the code can either take switches or can auto-configure itself. ... Read more.

Alexa Site Thumbnail And Django

Published on June 6, 2007 under Notes and Tutorials

So, you've seen how to look up thumbnails via python, but wonder how to integrate this with Django? I created a sample app to demonstrate. One thing to note about this app is it is slightly more complex than just using the previously mentioned ThumbnailUtility. For starters, ... Read more.

Alexa Site Thumbnail with Python

Published on June 6, 2007 under Notes and Tutorials

For one of my sites I needed to get thumbnails, yet Alexa Site Thumbnail didn't have any code snippets for Python. Well, no they/you do. ThumbnailUtility.py import base64 import datetime import hmac import sha import sys import <span ... Read more.

Alexa Site Thumbnail with Python II

Published on June 6, 2007 under Notes and Tutorials

This is how I actually use Alexa Site Thumbnail, and since I'min a sharing mood, I'll extend the code your way. In short, this takes the url and searches in STORELOC first, then any urls not already in STORELOC are retrieved and named via a slug. You need to pass ... Read more.