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

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.

Pile o'Tags

Stuff I Use

Akismet, bitbucket, del.icio.us, Django, Emacs, FreeBSD, Git, jQuery, LaunchBar, Markdown, Mercurial, OS X, Postfix, Python, Review Board, S3, SQLite, TextMate, Ubuntu Linux

Spam Report

At least 95839 pieces of comment spam killed since January 2008, mostly via Akismet.

Mining Monday: FreeBSD, KDE and Me

Another in a weekly series of unearthings.

Two years ago my titanium PowerBook died and I took an unplanned six-week leave from OS X. Afterward I wrote up my experiences in an essay called "FreeBSD, KDE and Me" (you might miss the title reference if you're not of a certain generation). Within 24 hours the essay had gotten about 10,000 page views -- easily the most popular thing I had ever posted.

When I re-read it now I'm surprised at how much of it is still relevant. Two years later, OS X is much better, but it still doesn't incorporate any of my wish-list items from the essay.

Here's how the adventure began:

My Titanium PowerBook had been exhibiting a nasty freezing tic for a while. I had been toughing it out, and it sucked. I lost unsaved work. I found myself crossing my fingers when rebooting. I developed overcautious, superstitious work habits. Just like the bad old days when I was a magazine designer running classic MacOS.

One day after a particularly inopportune freeze, I closed the PowerBook, put it aside, and dragged the FreeBSD box over to my desk.

(Full essay)

Monday, September 26th, 2005
open source + os x