E-Scribe News : a programmer’s blog

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

Python Web Development with Django 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.

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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 71105 pieces of comment spam killed since January 2008, mostly via Akismet.

OpenOffice.org, sorta-Aqua edition

As of yestderay, an early version of OpenOffice.org for the Mac is available for download. Not the X-Windows port, but a step toward a full-fledged native application. Until this point, you only had NeoOffice if you wanted Aqua widgetry and a semblance of native OS X experience. NeoOffice is quite good, but it launches terribly slowly. Whereas this new build of OOo launches in under ten seconds on my slowish Powerbook.

Don't get too excited just yet; this is for tweakers only. Here are some of the problems and gaps they warn you about:

They forgot:

But if it's the next step in breaking the hegemony of Microsoft Office, I'm all for it. There's nowhere to go but up!

Tuesday, June 5th, 2007
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1 comment

Some related posts: Xiph, Ogg, FLAC, et al. • QuickTime 0, Open Source 1 • The Open Source Desktop, Revisited • Sparkle: automatic application updates • Great open source apps for the Mac • DarwinPorts 1.1 • Mining Monday: FreeBSD, KDE and Me • Cyberduck, cyberdoc • Camino • Sourcemorgue
• Comment from Kai , 3 weeks later

I'm testing it for a few days now, and it's fantastic. Everyone should take a look!

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