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

I'm co-author of "Python Web Development with Django", an excellent guide to my favorite web framework. Its strong points include an introduction to Python, and better coverage of Django 1.0 than nearly anybody else. Published by Addison-Wesley, it is available from Amazon and your favorite technical bookstore as well.

Colophon

This runs on Django, 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. The markup engine is Markdown.

Pile o'Tags

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 59047 pieces of comment spam killed since January 2008, mostly via Akismet.

Django Mercurial mirror tweaks

I really enjoyed my participation in the last Django sprint, but prior commitments prevent me from participating in the PyCon Django sprint that begins today. On the chance that people may be taking advantage of my Mercurial mirror of the Django repository, I made a couple tweaks:

Increased the update frequency from hourly to every 15 minutes
Added downloadable gzipped tarballs (about 2.5MB for trunk).

Have fun!

Monday, March 17th, 2008
django + mercurial + open source + python
2 comments

Some related posts: A Mercurial mirror of Django's Subversion repository • The twenty-minute trouble ticket system • Django development tips • Django: less (magic) is more • Soft launch • YAPWF: Aaron Swartz's web.py released • Django Docs in Plucker format • A minimal wiki in Django • Controller freaks • Python web framework mania

• Comment from Simon Griffee , 8 weeks later

Thank you so much for providing the Django Mercurial mirror.

This has saved me from having to speak to my ISP here in Italy to try to solve the proxy errors I get when attempting to access the code.djangoproject.com trunk through SVN.

I'm also learning about Mercurial in the process!

• Comment from Paul , 8 weeks later

You're very welcome - glad to hear it's of use.