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. I teach photographers web design and professional skills. 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. Its strong points include an introduction to Python, and better coverage of Django 1.0 than nearly anybody else. 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, 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

Spam Report

At least 67556 pieces of comment spam killed since January 2008, mostly via Akismet.

Dangerous installers

It's long been a rule of mine to avoid broadband providers' installer software whenever possible. (As Mos Def's character says in "The Italian Job": I HAD A BAD EXPERIENCE.)

The intrepid Daniel Jalkut recently posted a great dissection of a Verizon "upgrade" script gone off the tracks, explaining why it was so bad and how it could have been even worse -- hard-drive-wipingly worse.

It didn't even stuff a bunch of Verizon marketing bookmarks in there to pretty up the browser. Just a big gaping hole where my bookmarks (in the bookmark bar and menu) used to be...

The installer is based on a collection of sloppy AppleScripts, and the author was kind enough to leave the offending AppleScript's source code intact in the shipping image. I know the answer to my question above: was it skill or dumb-luck that caused my Bookmarks to be backed up? It was definitely dumb-luck. In fact, it was a sloppy piece of programming that led to that remnant being left around.

Just say no.

Tuesday, January 24th, 2006
os x + programming + risks