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

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.

ExpressCard: what it is

expresscards Apple's new MacBook Pro doesn't have a PC Card slot. Instead, the specifications tell us, it has an ExpressCard/34 slot.

What?

If you're a Windows notebook nerd you probably know all about ExpressCard, as many models already support it, but I suspect most Mac-o-philes have never heard of it before; I hadn't, anyway. It's a replacement for the venerable PC Card (formerly PCMCIA card), designed to be smaller, simpler, faster, and more power-efficient. The "/34" suffix refers to the smaller 34mm version. There's also a /54 version, which is 54mm wide just like the PC Card, with an awkward notch on one side. That size seems to be aimed at transition devices that can't yet be squeezed into the smaller package.

The expresscard.org site will tell you more than you ever wanted to know about the standard, including whitepapers, schematics, and details of its relation to PCI Express and USB 2.0.

They need to update their news page, though. News of the MacBook Pro doesn't seem to have reached them!

Tuesday, January 17th, 2006
apple + hardware