E-Scribe : a programmer’s blog

About Me

PBX I'm Paul Bissex. I build web applications using open source software, especially Django. Started my career doing graphic design for newspapers and magazines in the '90s. Then wrote tech commentary and reviews for Wired, Salon, Chicago Tribune, and others you never heard of. Then I built operations software at a photography school. Then I helped big media serve 40 million pages a day. Then I worked on a translation services API doing millions of dollars of business. Now I'm building the core platform of a global startup accelerator. Feel free to email me.

Book

I co-wrote "Python Web Development with Django". It was the first book to cover the long-awaited Django 1.0. Published by Addison-Wesley and still in print!

Colophon

Built using Django, served with gunicorn and nginx. The database is SQLite. Hosted on a FreeBSD VPS at Johncompanies.com. Comment-spam protection by Akismet.

Pile o'Tags

ajax apple blogs browsers business design django ebay engineering fp fun google hardware haskell intellectual property interface 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 ubuntu unix vcs web development web frameworks webservers wmassdevs writing

Stuff I Use

bitbucket, Django, Emacs, FreeBSD, Git, jQuery, LaunchBar, Markdown, Mercurial, OS X, Python, Review Board, S3, SQLite, Sublime Text, Ubuntu Linux

Spam Report

At least 236509 pieces of comment spam killed since 2008, mostly via Akismet.

Windows Live Local

Another Update, 2005-12-15: MS has fixed the incompatibility with Gecko-based browsers as of today.
Update: A connection at Microsoft has said that this should at least work on Firefox, and that he's passed along my report. Hopefully fixes will be forthcoming.

Windows Live Local has potential, but it's a total strikeout on the Mac.

(Perhaps the "Windows" part of the name should have been a clue. But if it's really not supposed to work on the Mac, why not do some browser sniffing and send a helpful message -- like "Go away"?)

Anyway... in Camino, when you click and drag, you get the outline of a tile but the map doesn't move -- until you release the mouse button, at which point the map follows the pointer around, even though the mouse button is up. A final click toggles things back to the initial state.

Firefox 1.5 behavior is similar, except it never goes into drag mode at all -- but it moves a litle bit when you try the initial drag.

Safari (2.0.2) shows no map at all.

I was left with no other option but to try IE 5.2 -- but of course that doesn't work either. Not even Microsoft cares about that browser anymore!

Thursday, December 8th, 2005
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2 comments

Some related posts: An embarrassment of RichIAs • Meta-roundup of Javascript libraries • STFU • Baby steps with Ajax • The MySpace worm
• Comment from Andrew , 1 day later

This was my experience as well. Firefox works except for dragging. And it's very slow.

• Comment from doug r , 14 weeks later

It works pretty good in Firefox-for about 10 minutes! Then it either freezes up Firefox so bad I have to use Gnome to shut the window or reboot; or it actually crashes Firefox-ordinarily hard to do with 1.5.0.1

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