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.
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.
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.
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
At least 59047 pieces of comment spam killed since January 2008, mostly via Akismet.
I'm doing a small experiment in open source distribution.
I have a site, toolbot.com, which formerly was a collection of miscellaneous PHP scripts that I had assembled over the years for specific tasks -- package tracking, dummy text generation, link shortening, etc. Those tools are now offline. The original cause of their disappearance was a MySQL failure, but that really just provided an opportunity for me to make a break with that pile of old code.
I wanted to keep the link redirection service running, since I believe that it's incumbent on people who offer such services to keep them functioning as long as possible. So even though it's not currently possible to add new links, all 90,000 old ones should still work, courtesy of a new Django-based front end.
Though I'm not interested in maintiaining most of the other tools I used to host there, I wanted to make it possible for motivated people to keep using them. So I've posted a note on the toolbot.com home page (technically, it's the 404 page) indicating that you can email me to request the source to any of the old tools. I got one request only a few hours after posting the note, and have already mailed out a tarball in response.
If I get many such requests, of course I'll have to pursue a different distribution strategy. But for now I'm enjoying the fact that getting the source code from me involves a bit of personal exchange, even if it's just an email one-liner.
Comments use Markdown syntax. Your comment will not appear until approved, which may take a few hours or more. Spammers will be torpedoed.
SPF-enabled spam domains
1 comment
Chess via iPod
2 comments
Aesthetics and computation
2 comments
robots.txt via Django, in one line
4 comments
zoot
Offsite, online backup: rsync.net
16 days ago
Craig
Bicycle Repair Man bundle for TextMate
24 days ago
Fazal Majid
SPF-enabled spam domains
29 days ago
Adrian Holovaty
Chess via iPod
53 days ago
Alexander Kahn
Aesthetics and computation
58 days ago
Copyright 2009
by Paul Bissex
and E-Scribe New Media