E-Scribe News : a programmer’s blog

About Me

PBX My name is Paul Bissex, and e-scribe.com is my consulting business. I build web applications using as much open source software as possible. From September to June I teach web design and other important non-photographic professional skills to photographers. In the '90s I wrote technology commentary and reviews for magazines, newspapers, and web publications, including Wired, Salon.com, FamilyPC, the late lamented Web Review, and the Chicago Tribune. Feel free to email me.

Book Project

I'm co-authoring a book, "Python Web Development with Django", with Jeff Forcier and Wesley Chun. It will be published by Prentice Hall in July 2008, but is available for pre-ordering on Amazon now.

Colophon

This site is built on a fresh trunk checkout of Django, running on Python 2.5.1, served by Apache and mod_python. 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.

Pile o'Tags

ajax apple blogs browsers business design django ebay fp fun google hardware haskell intellectual property iphone javascript linux media mobile open source os x oscon oscon2007 palm php programming python rails rants reading risks ruby site spam textmate the well tips vcs web development web frameworks webservers wmassdevs

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

A Django site.
(Finally!)

Copyright 2008
by Paul Bissex
and E-Scribe New Media

Akismet anti-comment-spam

I've yanked out my own crude anti-comment-spam tests and replaced them with a nice tidy call to the Akismet API. If this works out I'll most certainly incorporate it into the Django version of the blog -- there's a nice Python interface as well.

Wednesday, July 26th, 2006
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2 comments

Some related posts: Toolbot.com source code available on request • Comment Spam Stats • Comment Spam • Library of 1000 scammy spams • Most boring upgrade ever • Blog flair backlash • Spam stats redux • Spam, del.icio.us spam • Is Akismet broken again? • Comment spam
• Comment from seanrox, 4 weeks later

Akismet is nice and works wonders on comment spam as you'll see on your site.

The guys over at automattic.com really know their stuff.

• Comment from Paul, 4 weeks later

It has worked quite well so far, with the exception of a rash of annoying ones coming in this evening (8/26). Akismet's strength is also its weakness -- spammers have a strong motivation to craft posts that fool it, since that gives them a magic ticket to all Akismet-protected blogs. I reallly should use the API to report all these false negatives.

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