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.

MacBook Pro speed bumps

As reported at Gizmodo and elsewhere, the MacBook Pro has gotten a speed bump. The original announcement listed two models, 1.67GHz and 1.83GHz. Now, before even shipping the first one (they reportedly start today), those numbers have been bumped to 1.83GHz and 2.0GHz respectively, with a 2.16GHz configure-to-order option.

That makes the top about 18% faster than before; significant, but not exactly exciting (unless you're easily excited by this sort of thing).

What's big, in terms of sales psychology, is that they've broken that 2GHz barrier. The top of the line in Mac laptops has been in the 1GHz range for over three years, and even PowerBook diehards had pretty much lost hope of getting to 2GHz. (Correctly so -- given the name change, 1.67GHz PowerBooks like mine are now and forevermore the fastest stock PowerBooks).

Now, bring on a tiny one please!

Tuesday, February 14th, 2006
apple + hardware
1 comment

Some related posts: iPod touch: holding steady • The iPhone keyboard doesn't suck • iPod touch: one week down, one week to go • A farewell to Palms (hello, iPod touch) • What is the iPhone running, really? • New MacBook Pro • Obsolescence • Apple battery recall • ExpressCard: what it is • Best feature of the new MacBook Pro

• Comment from Paul , 5 years later

Just wanted to note that, per my closing comment about wanting a tiny Apple laptop, Apple did finally bring it. Five years after this post, I'm the proud and happy owner of a 13" MacBook Air.