Entries for archive: 2009

Found 12 entries.

Ready to Migrate old Blog Posts Over

A recent commit on Lollysite has enabled me to import old blog posts from my other sites. Yep, you heard right, I’m going to concentrate all my blogging prowess here.

This includes my old entries from:

I hope that once the migrations are done, and I redirect the traffic from those sites here, I’ll be more consistently posting. Also, I’m reaching the stage where I’m understanding AppEngine a little more and actually have less things to do for Lollysite now.

BTW, I’m now also writing my blog entries in Textile instead of my proprietary (but open source) wiki markup Phliky

It’s very nice. Finally, I find a wiki-type markup language I like.

Labels: phliky, textile, appengine, blog, kapiti-geek-nz, retire-at-40

Inserted: 2009-12-23 09:32 (2 years, 1 month ago)

Release of v0.03 of Lollysite

Just a short announcement to say that v0.03 of Lollysite has been released.

See the releases page for more info.

In other news, Lollysite now has an Ohloh page. From here you can also download all the previous releases too.

Of course, there is always the source code repository on Gitorious too.

For the Future

For v0.04, I have penned in a number of features such as:

 3f656b91   Finished     Make site feed at top level
 65d73568   New          Add new section layouts - Featured Node (or equivalent)
 96d842e8   New          Serve file uploads (or any node with data) from it's own section
 a4c0e80f   New          Add a 'FlickrImage' node type
 ac70e68c   New          Add new ways to render each node
 cf3a93db   New          Make the section and node edit screens present all the attributes to the user
 dfb824e5   InProgress   Make images (files, etc) assets rather than nodes

So, having three releases in two weeks has been a lot of fun (release early, release often) though I suspect v0.04 will be a couple of weeks away. Christmas/New Year and complexity will make it a bit further out. Also, I'm going to use the new BlobStore API. All good fun :)

(Ends)

Labels: lollysite, appengine, ohloh

Inserted: 2009-12-21 06:43 (2 years, 1 month ago)

Things I Like about AppEngine

SO far, I've been enjoying playing with AppEngine. It's been a long process for me, since I've been learning Python at the same time, but very productive I think.

I just thought I'd give a quick list about what I like about AppEngine. However, please not that very soon I'll also be doing a "What I Don't Like about AppEngine".

  • quick and easy development environment (one command to start the server listening on a local port)
  • simple deployment process (one command to upload the application, update indexes and task queues)
  • versioning on the server side, so you can run something like 'stable' and 'experimental' all against the same datastore
  • simple logging, import logging then they capture any logging.info() etc statements into the AppEngine console
  • sending email is pretty easy too mail.send_mail(to, from, subject, body) makes it nice and simple to alert someone
  • no sysadmin maintenance to do! This is a big bonus for me not having to keep servers up to date

... and finally, this isn't really a feature of the platform, but just being allowed to play around with a schemaless datastore has been a whole heap of fun.

Other Sites for Lollysite

I also thought I'd mention that Lollysite is now being used for both chilts.org and the new KohaCon sites. In fact, to get the other theme going wasn't really that hard but better than that, I didn't actually have to change that much in Lollysite itself.

Labels: appengine, python

Inserted: 2009-12-12 19:59 (2 years, 2 months ago)

Site now on AppEngine

It's been a long time coming, but recently I've been learning a lot about Google AppEngine.

It's been a very interesting journey too. Not only have I been learning Python but I've also started a new interest in schemaless datastores (key/value stores, whatever you want to call them).

I even gave a short and unprepared presentation to Wellington PerlMongers about one called Redis. That one looks my favourite so far but yeah, my interest started with AppEngine's Datastore.

Schemaless Datastores

So far I'm enjoying playing with AppEngine's datastore though I find there are some things which are quite finicky about it, mainly due to the Python classes that are being used to help stick data in and get it back out again. Migrations of datastore entities seem to be difficult or as yet some of the techniques to do it are unknown to me (though I have started a list of techniques to help).

Otherwise, once you get your head around not only the data being schemaless but duplicating data so that you can get faster speed and more scaleability, then you're on to a winner. Relations like in a tradition RDBMS are also out of the window though you can reference other objects so it's not completely gone.

Things about AppEngine

Again, so far most things about AppEngine I like, though there seems to be a few things which are harder than necessary.

I managed to find a peculiar bug in AppEngine the other day but still no answer on the Google Group. This is particularly weird as far as I can tell.

And of course, the perenial problem that if something is wrong with AppEngine, all of the developers at Google seem to disappear. And then appear with "Nothing was wrong". Whilst I understand why they do it, it's not great customer relations.

Yet at the same time, the pull of running a site on someone else's servers, that they administer and you don't have to do lots of SysAdmin work, is too great to be ignored. As to whether I'd use it for Mission Critical Applications yet, I don't know.

Overall, it's been a fun (if longer than expected) experience but I'm happy with it so far.

Finally, the CMS/Blog I have written is called Lollysite and check out the project home on Gitorious.

Labels: appengine, python, perlmongers, redis, google

Inserted: 2009-12-06 05:18 (2 years, 2 months ago)

KiwiWriters getting Ready for SoCNoC 2009

If you've ever wanted to challenge yourself to write a novel, then now is the perfect time to finally do it.

If you've ever said "One day I'll write a novel" then that day is June 1st, because on that day, over 100 people (maybe lots more) will all be starting theirs too.

50,000 words in a month is all it takes and you know what, after that you can boast that you have written that novel you always wanted to.

Have a look at the SoCNoC challenge and then sign up to the site to join.

KiwiWriters has also put out a press release and everything is ramping up to the 3rd annual Southern Cross Novel Challenge!

What are you waiting for, sign up and let's get writing.

P.S. I have done NaNoWriMo twice and also the first SoCNoC but I'm afraid I won't be writing another one this year. That doesn't stop you though :)

Labels: kiwiwriters, socnoc, writing

Inserted: 2009-05-18 19:42 (2 years, 9 months ago)

I was Blind, but Now I Can See

I just upgraded from an old Feisty to a shiny new Jaunty. There are lots of updates, lots of shiny new things and it boots like a Ferrari.

But out of all the software that has been upgraded, I think my jump in Git versions from the old 1.4.something I had from Feisty Backports to the new v1.6.0.4 in Jaunty is going to give me the most pleasure.

Already I am seeing better formatted messages, more information and some really nice messages too. Before today, I'd never see the following:

 $ git checkout blah
 Switched to branch "blah"
 Your branch is behind 'origin/blah' by 9 commits, and can be fast-forwarded.

That's awesome. Now I know, before I start to hack, that I might as well rebase because I'll have to do it before I push anyway.

As I said to a friend earlier on today:

I was blind, but now I can see.

I think that's what the blind guy meant when Jesus healed him ... he'd obviously just upgraded Git!

Labels: git, ubuntu

Inserted: 2009-05-12 10:39 (2 years, 9 months ago)

Wow, it's been Two Months

I last posted here on 13th February which is altogether too long.

Anyway, just to let you know of a couple of things I've been up to recently. Of course, there are plenty of other things too but they'll have to wait for another time.

Firstly, I've been hacking on a small script which helps me generate static websites. Honestly, it is very small and it really does work. It's fast too, though I've only tried it with two fairly small sites so far.

The good thing is, it's data driven and uses templates to put everything together. It's called Blat and I'll probably put it on GitHub fairly soon (though I should try and put it on CPAN).

New Site - Chilts.org

The first example site I can show you is my new personal site called chilts.org. It's not going to take over as my blog but it is going to start as both a first contact point for me personally and to also point to other places on the web that define me and who I am.

For example, I found out recently about the new .tel tld and once I figured out it was boring and of course chilton.tel was already gone, I decided to do my own site with more, better and nicely presented information.

Also, I thought it would be a good idea to have a place where I can link to everything else from. This also means that kapiti.geek.nz may get a future simplification.

Planet Catalyst

Finally, some of you may have noticed that I haven't posted this entry to Planet Catalyst. The main reason is that it used to be a good place to put up some technical/geek articles and to get a somewhat larger audience. I'm sure the latter is true but I don't think the former is anymore. I fear the more technical articles are getting lost in amongst the non-technical ones (indeed, some articles are by people not even employed by Catalyst) which I don't really think was the original idea for the planet.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against what the planet is now it just doesn't excite me as much as it used to and therefore I won't be posting to it. Maybe if it changes in the future but we'll see.

Until next time :)

Labels: perl, cpan, github, blat, chilts-org

Inserted: 2009-04-22 23:08 (2 years, 10 months ago)

"Turbine" at Downstage

I went to a preview showing of the play "Turbine" last night. And I'll tell you what, it was pretty awesome stuff.

There was only about 30 people in the audience which made it quite intimate. However that didn't detract from the atmosphere but actually made it better.

We were in row two which meant that in a lot of scenes, you really felt like you were within this family's home, especially so because you knew there were only a couple of people sitting behind you instead of the whole auditorium.

As for the play itself, it was pretty imaginative in some of the things it did (I especially liked the 'dancing' scene with two of the main characters). The actors also did some funny things with their scenery and set (no, not like that) but you'll have to go and see it to figure out what I mean.

Over the years in Wellington I've seen a few small productions either at Downstage or Bats and this one is definitely the best I've seen. The actors in this were excellent all round, especially so when a few of them had to change character for a moment or two.

The preview ticket was just $20 though the regular tickets are anything from $20 up to $42. Getting second row seats for $20 now seems like a pretty good bargain.

I'd heartily recommend going to see Turbine. It was a good play, the script was generally good (though the ending could have been a little better) and had some pretty dark humour at times, the local jokes made some patches even funnier but the acting was the winner for me - they really got it in to and it was emotional at times, both happy and sad.

Have fun if you go along.

Labels: theatre, downstage, wellington

Inserted: 2009-02-13 10:17 (3 years ago)

I Love GitHub But...

...sometimes it can only go so far.

The fantastic people at GitHub have released yet another feature to their already impressive hosting service. They are now offering downloads for which I initially became very happy.

Until I read the fine print.

See their blog entry about it and let me know what you think (and yes, you may have already spotted the comment I left there).

It's a fantastic service, GitHub rolls updates out very frequently, I've only ever seen it problematic once and I've consistently been impressed with how much they're doing for the open source community.

So why in the world would you use flash? I quote:

If you’re still one of the holdouts, do yourself a favor and install Flash ... [snip]

I'm afraid it's not going to happen. Not only am I adverse to proprietary software I think it also smells of a closed web, something which I'm sure the GitHub guys are also adverse to.

Also, the only reason they're doing it is so that uploads can bypass their own servers ... something to do with going straight into S3 I presume. Ok, that may be so, but really?

What next?

Having to install Silverlight to perform an upload to a server. Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm sure a pretty early version of HTML allowed uploads of files to servers many, many years ago.

Labels: no-flash, html, planet-catalyst, github

Inserted: 2009-02-11 21:05 (3 years ago)

Save Manners Mall

As we all know, kicking pedestrians out of town is just the wrong thing to do. Putting more traffic right in the centre of town is even worse.

Added to the fact that Manners Mall is a rather quaint place (ok, there are some varmints there late at night, but I'd rather be able to walk through it during the day than have to wait for YET ANOTHER traffic light to cross the road).

I hate waiting for traffic, I hate the smell and I hate the fact that this city council only ever does things for motorised vehicles and never pedestrians or cyclists.

So, if you want to stop even more traffic jamming up the centre of Wellington, go and sign the petition (via the council's own website) to Save Manner's Mall.

If you have a blog in Wellington and have some Wellingtonian readers who might also be interested, post this link and let's get the council to rethink.

Labels: manners-mall, walking, wellington, cycling

Inserted: 2009-02-08 21:24 (3 years ago)

"Just Stick it in the Same Column"

There have been many times when I have heard someone say that phrase. "Just stick it in the same column". Of course, they are referring to putting two different bits of information into the same column in a database.

And for some funny reason, I don't know why, but people have a strange habit of wanting to put an 'x' and a 'y' value (or a height and width value) of an image into the same place.

For example, if you want to display (76x89) somewhere and the input information you've received from the input source is '76x89', many people seem determined that you just whack that string into a column since the (current) output format is the same.

Please.

That's just laziness. But laziness in a bad way.

Stop doing it and stop telling me that I have to do it too.

Just do what's right from the start. Split it up in the separate bits of information (yes, surprisingly the width of an image is a different bit of data from the height) and store it separately too. You'll be thankful not only that your queries are nicer and faster but that the logic in both the frontend and backend is much easier. All because you decided to parse the input correctly in the first place.

And if you don't believe me, then believe Arjen.

Enough said.

Labels: database, planet-catalyst, doing-it-right

Inserted: 2009-02-04 22:36 (3 years ago)

Playing with CSS

Over the past couple of months, I've implemented a new site in Zaapt. Usually I take a design with HTML and CSS and just use it straight but this time, I wanted to write the HTML and CSS myself.

I first found a theme I liked which had been converted from a WordPress theme to a BlogSpot theme. Then I found the original WordPress theme.

But of course, I wanted to implement it in Zaapt so I converted it to a Zaapt theme. Over the space of a couple of months, it also meant that I added a few extra features to the blog model, which included an archive list as well as a category list. Anyway, that isn't the discussion of this entry.

Doing the Layout in CSS

A little while ago, I stumbled across a site called 960 Grid System and I immediately thought it looked good. It turns out that getting a 2 or 3 column layout is pretty easy and so good I used it on the new site. Then all I had to do was re-implement all the important parts of the WordPress/BlogSpot templates but ignoring all the cruft that goes along with it (Zaapt is nice in that it's templates don't have to be over complex).

Anyway, to take a look at the new site head over to my Personal Finance blog Retire at 40 (over 150 subscribers now). The columns were damn easy to do and the reset.css stylesheet from the 960.gs set means you start all browsers off on the same foot.

Of course, IE is giving me grief in versions 5.5, 6 and 7 (Update: IE 8 actually looks ok) as can be seen by BrowserShots - which by the way, is one funky-ass site but you know, I'm not too worried though but I'd be happy if I could get a solution. Firefox looks just beautiful.

Isn't that always the way?

Labels: retire-at-40, css, zaapt, 960-gs, planet-catalyst

Inserted: 2009-01-08 00:13 (3 years, 1 month ago)