About Me

PBX My name is Paul Bissex, and e-scribe.com is my consulting business. I build web applications using as much open source software as possible. From September to June I teach web design and other important non-photographic professional skills to photographers. In the '90s I wrote technology commentary and reviews for magazines, newspapers, and web publications, including Wired, Salon.com, FamilyPC, the late lamented Web Review, and the Chicago Tribune. Feel free to email me.

Book Project

I'm co-authoring a book, "Python Web Development with Django", with Jeff Forcier and Wesley Chun. It will be published by Prentice Hall in July 2008, but is available for pre-ordering on Amazon now.

Colophon

This site is built on a fresh trunk checkout of Django, running on Python 2.5.1, served by Apache and mod_python. 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.

Pile o'Tags

Stuff I Use

Akismet, del.icio.us, Django, dpaste.com, Emacs, FreeBSD, Freenode, jQuery, LaunchBar, MacPorts, Markdown, Mercurial, OS X, Postfix, Python, SQLite, Subversion, TextMate, Trac, Ubuntu Linux, wmii

(Finally!)

Mining Monday: the 419

My old scam-and-hoax search engine project, Purportal.com, grew out of a longstanding morbid fascination with the variegated forms of fraud, especially those that have flourished in email and on the web. The other day I came across a form letter I used to send in response to "419" gambits, also known as "advance free fraud." Excerpt:

The fund you speak of, in the South African Mining Corporation, is of great interest to me since my recently deposed brother-in-law, erstwhile shoeshine boy to the one-time International pie-eating champion's third cousin twice removed by marriage...

Monday, October 24th, 2005
fun + spam