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. import base64 import datetime import hmac import sha import sys import re import urllib import xml.dom.minidom AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID = 'your-access-key-id' AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY = 'your-super-secret-key' # This one is for an individual thumbnail... def create_thumbnail(site_url, img_size): def generate_timestamp(dtime): return dtime.strftime("%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ") def generate_signature(operation, timestamp, secret_access_key): my_sha_hmac = hmac.new(secret_access_key, operation + timestamp, sha) my_b64_hmac_digest = …

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 two variables to either of these: blog_site.url and blot_site.slug – since I’m using Django, this is naturally how sites are returned after I filter a queryset. What I do is place the call to Alexa as high up the page as I can, and because I’ve threaded this, the page can continue to load without waiting for Alexa’s response. For instance, let’s say you have some model with cool sites, and you want to return …

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 q = request.GET.get("q", "") if q and len(q) >= 3: clause = Q(dirtword__icontains=q) \ | Q(description__icontains=q) \ | Q(tags__name__icontains=q) site_search = Dirt.objects.filter(clause).distinct() else: site_search = Dirt.objects.order_by('?')[:100] return list_detail.object_list( request = request, queryset = site_search, template_name = "dirty/search.html", template_object_name = "dirty", paginate_by = 20, extra_context = {"q" : q}, ) …

Creating feeds in Django is freaking simple. I’ll start with an example of just updating a feed with the newest objects (for instace, newest blog posts). Similar to the forms.py way of handling our different forms, I’ve created a feeds.py to handle the feeds. from django.contrib.syndication.feeds import Feed from colddirt.dirty.models import Dirt class LatestDirts(Feed): title = "Cold Dirt" link = "/" description = "When you have dirt, you've got dirt. Right..." copyright = 'All Rights Unreserved' def items(self): return Dirt.objects.all()[:50] What this will do is query our Dirt DB and return an obj. The fields here are pretty well documented in the Django docs, …

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 minute to get “custom” syndication to work, so here’s my example from start to finish. First, as usual, feeds.py class PerDirt(Feed): link = "/" copyright = 'Copyright (c) 2007, Blog Mozaic' def get_object(self, bits): from django.shortcuts import get_object_or_404 if len(bits) != 1: raise ObjectDoesNotExist my_dirt = get_object_or_404(Dirt, slug__exact=bits[0]) …

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 demo site, this is how I used newforms. I’ll take the index page as an example. I’ve accessed the newforms module like so:

So, the Django developers, in my opinion, are freaking smart. Instead of bundling Django with a particular library, they have added XML and JSON serialization; us humble users can choose whatever AJAX library we want. Prototype 1.5.1 has been pretty fun to work with, so I’ll kick off this demo with a really simple example. How simple? The intended goal is to have the total number of ‘dirts’ update without user intervention. Laaaammmeee. If you are a visual type of person, take a look on the Colddirt huh page. That number automatically increases without user intervention. And this is how. The process (some pseudocode) will go like this:

Note: Colddirt’s source code is run from Django SVN, check out on May 10th-ish. If you are using a newer branch, some things have changed. i.e. clean_data has been renamed cleaned_data. Remember to check the BackwardsIncompatible page in the wiki. Part 1: Simple AJAX with Django Part 2: Django Newforms Usage Part 3: Search with Django Part 4: Django’s Syndication Framework (simple) Part 5: Django’s Syndication Framework (little more complex) Feel free to see the source code from Github.

I am currently working from a Starbucks cafe, I’ll admit it. The internet is normally quite good, and I pay about $15 a month to use it. Today, however, it is very unreliable. Don’t believe me? In addition to certain sites failing to load, forcing me to use pattern recognition in Tor to open them, the internet is simply slow today. I can’t even connect to AIM. Frustrating.

Having been in I.T. for quite a few years, upgrading can sometimes be quite a hassle. Having switched to Linux for many years, the crazy upgrade madness of windows is gone. So, how easy is upgrading in Linux? Yea, pretty darn easy, I must admit. And my system certainly isn’t normal! It has been an upgrade from Debian Sarge(ish) -> Ubuntu LTS(ish) -> 6.10 -> 7.04… The only hiccup was at some point when the fonts were reinstalling (I totally ignored the “close all programs” warning: