E-Scribe News : a programmer’s blog

About Me

PBX I'm Paul Bissex, and e-scribe.com is my consulting business. I build web applications using open source software, especially Django. In the '90s I did graphic design for newspapers and magazines. Then I wrote technology commentary and reviews for Wired, Salon.com, Chicago Tribune, and lots of little places you've never heard of. Feel free to email me.

Book

I'm co-author of "Python Web Development with Django", an excellent guide to my favorite web framework. Published by Addison-Wesley, it is available from Amazon and your favorite technical bookstore as well.

Colophon

Built using Django, served by Apache and mod_wsgi. The database is SQLite. The operating system is FreeBSD, on a VPS hosted at Johncompanies.com. Comment-spam protection by Akismet. Vintage topo imagery from the Maptech archive. The markup engine is Markdown.

Pile o'Tags

ajax apple blogs browsers business design django ebay fp fun google hardware haskell intellectual property iphone javascript linux media mercurial mobile open source os x oscon oscon2007 palm php programming python rails rants reading risks ruby site spam textmate the well tips tools unix vcs web development web frameworks webservers wmassdevs writing

Stuff I Use

Akismet, bitbucket, del.icio.us, Django, Emacs, FreeBSD, Git, jQuery, LaunchBar, Markdown, Mercurial, OS X, Postfix, Python, Review Board, S3, SQLite, TextMate, Ubuntu Linux

Spam Report

At least 96060 pieces of comment spam killed since January 2008, mostly via Akismet.

thttpd

Though LightTPD (or "Lighty") is the darling lightweight webserver of 2005, Jef Poskanzer's thttpd has been serving static content securely and wickedly fast since 1995 or so.

O'Reilly's ONLamp.com recently posted a tutorial, "Lightweight Web Serving with thttpd", which is worth a look if you run a high-traffic site or have underpowered server hardware. The article walks you through installing and configuring thttpd, setting up CGI and virtual host support, and using thttpd as a static content server behind a more full-featured server like Apache.

I keep a functional install of thttpd at the ready so that in the event of an Apache meltdown my server can at least tell visitors what's wrong. Other sites, like images.paypal.com, have more serious uses for it.

Jef is a long-time member of The Well, incidentally.

(I see in the comments at the end of the O'Reilly piece that the author was somehow unaware of LightTPD -- perhaps there'll be a followup comparison.)

Monday, October 17th, 2005
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Some related posts: Anatomy of a BoingBoinging

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