TrenchMice has a couple new articles posted on using Django – their deployment setup entitled Deploying TrenchMice and an article about implemented OpenID entitled Enabling OpenID.
Deploying TrenchMice has a really nice bit of detail on how they’ve set up Django for development in a team with multiple environments sharing the same code base.
The Enabling OpenID article details out the rough sketch of the code they used to tack on OpenID authentication to a Django web application.
Aside from being rainy, it was just “one of those days” today. Seemed like a whole collection of things just didn’t gel from the start. A whole miscellaneous category of things that would normally roll off my back just seemed to pile up today. Shoot – I spent a whole two hours madly raving at a coworker (who was kind enough to just let me vent) and being pissed off. Ah, so – here’s to better tomorrows. I think it’s definitely on the upswing, because Brent mentioned me in that Podcast, and that’s just pretty cool.
Onward and upward!
Looks like I got a short mention on a podcast interview with Brent Simmons at Hivelogic. It’s way near the end, where Brent said – “Nah, I heard about OpenID from Joe Heck…” (yeah, I’m paraphrasing) “… when he asked if I’d looked at it for NetNewsWire”.
I’m a real stick in the mud for some things – one of those terrible software conservatives that doesn’t want software to change cause I’m really comfortable with it. No matter that my knees are hanging out in the proverbial tatters as it were, it’s comfortable.
So I really had to work to try changing up with my habits using the One True Aggregator (NetNewsWire). Checking out Beta (or pre-beta) software is always interesting, so it wasn’t hard to pull down the latest that Brent’s built and start really trying it out. Lo and Behold, it has this view – “Combined View”. It’s sort of like that whole “peanut butter and banana’s” moment of making sandwiches. Putting together a couple things that you liked separately into a new mix that really, really works. (If you’re alergic to peanuts of something, please substiture your own favorite analogy there – cause the combined view really works, and doesn’t cause anaphylactic shock).
So now I’m just trying to get used to the key combinations that are built in, but already I’m convinced this is the way to go. It’ll be hard moving back to the current release that doesn’t have that view, so I guess I’m going to live bleeding edge for a while. Yeah, it’s that good.
My first “jury duty” experience is over. I sat on the jury for a criminal trial in the Municipal Court of Seattle. It was an interesting experience, and I think I have more “why” questions now about the legal system than ever before. A very worthwhile experience, although I know some of my fellow jurors found it frustrating.
The most interesting anecdote about the trial was just as we’d rendered a decision in our deliberation (and had called the baliff to come get us), the fire alarm in the building went off. Someone on floor 3 (we were on 9) had burnt some popcorn in the microwave. They evacuated the building, which put this very weird “hold” on everything until the fireman resolved the issue (put out the popcorn?) and cleared some of the smoke.
All in all, the trial lasted just a touch more than two days – we were chosen on Tuesday and finished up this afternoon.
A few days back I spotted a new article at Apple’s Developer Connection entitled Using the Web Services Core Framework and CFNetwork to Access Remote SOAP Services.
Does this mean that Apple will finally fix the numerous and horrific flaws in that library? I’d love to hear so, but I just don’t have much faith in it. It’s been years with that API out, and the broken code inside it. It can’t even begin to deal with anything other than a so-butt-simple-it-should-be-REST style SOAP API interface. And unfortunately, most of the world is using ASP.NET to generate their SOAP services. If it can’t interoperate, then it’s darn near useless to 90% of the population out there.
Better to write an article on making REST calls and integrating with other API sets rather than attempting to prop up that zombie horse called Web Services Core Framework. Please Apple, just killed the freakin’ thing and be done with it.
has anyone gotten out to see 300 yet? For the story line alone, I’m pretty interested. The studio web site for the movie is making some pretty hoss claims as to it’s filmmaking though, which is sort of turning me off a bit. I don’t want “operatic film making”, I want a good film. Seems like someone pre-announcing how they’re so hot at what they do lends me to think they’re not at all.
Still, I’m curious – and its showing at the Cinerama…
Last week included a trip to Orlando (for work) and this week I’m learning about Jury Duty! I’m not sure if it’s a blessing or a curse, but my first half day of jury duty has been quietly waiting. The city jury assembly room is nice – huge wall windows with a view out over the sound. There’s a LOT of light in the room, sometimes to a problem level when the sun is glaring “just so”. They have wifi (and a few spotty problems with it) here, a little kitchenette thingy with a microwave, and even a windowed off “quiet room”.
They “let us out” for lunch a little early today, so I wandered over to the Columbia Tower and munched there, coming back a little early to get a power outlet for the laptop (there’s not too many of those…) and chill out with a coffee.
I’ve got lots I want to write about, a few topics on “how to” Django and such, but the days of late have been really hectic and I’m usually completely bushed by the time I get home in the evening. I passed out at 10:30pm last night (EARLY for me) and slept right on through until the morning. I’ll see if I can get some posts out while I’m waiting over the next day or so.
Looks like the price point for commodity VPS is continuing to come south. Today Joyent released that you can get one of their “accelerators” starting at $45/mo. Rackforce has their entry level at $49/mo, and 1and1 slides in their entry at $29/mo.
You can do your own compare to see what they’re offering, but it’s pretty clear that Joyent is damned proud of their Solaris+ZFS setup, as they seem to have the least amount of disk and transfer available. Rackforce talks about the virtual to physical ratio, but 1and1 doesn’t say a thing.
As far as I can see, any small company hosting their own hardware is probably going to need a darned good business reason. The cost of hosting your own setup is really getting a competitor.
