E-Scribe News : a programmer’s blog

About Me

PBX I'm Paul Bissex. 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. Then I taught photographers how to create good websites. I co-wrote a book along the way. Now I am helping turn a giant media corporation into a digital enterprise. 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

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

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 184543 pieces of comment spam killed since January 2008, mostly via Akismet.

Baby steps with Ajax

I've tiptoed into the Web 2.0 world by adding a couple small Ajax features to the blog.

First, there's now a "More" link at the top of my Random Bookmarks sidebar which fetches another seven random links from the server and plugs them into the page without reloading.

Second, I added a gratuitous animated roll-unroll toggle to the comment form, and made it closed by default. OK, that's not Ajax, that's just fluff.

I used the moo.fx and moo.ajax libraries to achieve these wondrous results.

I can see the user interface dilemmas multiplying before my eyes. As an experiment I've labeled the Ajaxy controls with a black diamond (◆). Snowsport connotations intentional --fast and fun but a little more dangerous.

I can also see how this would drive one to structure web apps as loosely coupled sets of web services which can be called either by a page rendering script on the server (assembling the various components for initial load) or by an Ajax call from the client (discretely updating individual components).

Very cool. Lots to think about.

Monday, February 27th, 2006
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4 comments

Some related posts: Meta-roundup of Javascript libraries • Good web hosting • dpaste.com update • STFU • Moving the blog to Django • Sort tables with sorttable.js • The Million Beta Homepage • Windows Live Local • Tantek on CSS hacks • The MySpace worm
• Comment from suzanne , later that day

so lovely! i'm very much liking the gracefulness and sense of dynamic that AJAX is adding to pages. very subtle and yet effective.

• Comment from miguev , 6 weeks later

Nice feature, but it makes Firefox to put CPU at 100% for at least 3 seconds. Expensive, isn't it?

• Comment from Paul , 6 weeks later

Hm. What Firefox version and platform? It certainly doesn't do that for me (FF 1.5, OS X).

• Comment from miguev , 6 weeks later

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; es-ES; rv:1.8.0.1) Gecko/20060324 Ubuntu/dapper Firefox/1.5.0.1

BTW, aKregator (embedded Konqueror) takes high CPU for a moment, but mush less than Firefox. I'll use aKregator in the future :-)

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