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

Most boring upgrade ever

$ sudo portupgrade php5 php5-curl php5-sqlite php5-bla bla bla... ---> Upgrading 'php5 bla bla bla...' ... [Updating the pkgdb bla bla... done] $ sudo apachectl graceful $

This was on a live server, with only the briefest of interruptions; no drama. Boring things should be boring. I love FreeBSD.

Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007
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2 comments

Some related posts: Toolbot.com source code available on request • Akismet anti-comment-spam • Moving the blog to Django
• Comment from Chip Kaye, 3 days later

Hi Paul,

Was this FreeBSD/Darwin under OS X, or do you like to run a true/stock FreeBSD server?

thx - Chip

• Comment from Paul, 3 days later

It's honest-to-goodness FreeBSD 6.1, running in a VPS instance at JohnCompanies.com. My problem with OS X as server is that there isn't any unified package infrastructure like FreeBSD's ports or Debian's apt-get. You can use MacPorts for add-ons, and Software Update (which does have a command-line interface) for core components, but that's more work at best and a mess at worst. It's great for certain things, especially in a Mac environment (we use it at work), but for web servers it seems like more trouble than it's worth.

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