It's all gone pear shaped!

... doh!

Ok, so a BIG PAT ON THE BACK to me.

Updated Django to current trunk and BROKE IT ALL.

Sorry. Resuming normal service at some point in the next millenium.

There has to be a better way...

I’ve come up against a submerged rock.

I’ve recently switched from Google feed reader to Liferea. I’ve gotten to critical mass on feeds. Not so much information overload, more like it’s taking too long to skim/read the feeds.

I can’t really stop, because else I’d be clueless as to what’s happening in the world, which is somewhat embarrassing when you make an inappropriate comment to someone and have to explain “I don’t live in the real world”. I don’t watch TV, mostly because it’s bad for my productivity and ...

PostgreSQL, I love you...

... if only it could have my children...

I love postgresql. It’s the most wonderful thing since sliced bread.

Specifically, the tsearch2 that comes with it in the contrib directory. Makes my life so much easier.

I’m so glad that theo inflicted postgres on me all those years ago. It’s such a relief to just be able to use real SQL, instead of the cut-down pseudo SQL that MySQL implements.

And before you go harping on about version 5, please note: PostgreSQL has supported SQL 99 syntax for a metric fucktonne longer than your toy RDBMS. I’d prefer to stick with something that’s ...

Are you a Python Developer?

Messy or not-messy?

Something that really fucks me off about some developers is their code. Some people just don’t know how to write readable code, and it’s these fuckwits that I’m bitching about today.

Yes, you know who you are… You’re the kind of fuckwit that does things like this:

self.name,self.namespace,self.attrs,self.data,self.kids,self.parent = node.name,node.namespace,{},[],[],node.parent

… and…

if something: return self.method(arg1, arg2, arg3).method(arg4, arg5, arg6)[:self.method(arg1, arg2, arg3).anotherMethod(X, Y, Z)]

(I kid you not on that)

I mean really ...

Pop goes the.. err popfly?

A new name is needed.

Well, considering Microsofts past exploits, they really are starting to embrace the share and share alike concept… If only a teeny weensie bit…

It it however a masterful piece of PR and marketing…

Take Popfly for example. I’ve managed to get an account on the Alpha of this and it is looking like a really interesting approach to the whole web2.0 thing… It is the very essence of what I think of when someone says “web 2.0” to me. e.g. RSS feeds, xml, cross site queries and stuff… But popfly takes it to a whole new ...

No I'm not dreaming

Seriously, it's all good

I’d forgotten how nice it is to work in a real IDE for a change.

Over the past few years I’ve worked in a number of IDE‘s… Eclipse, IDLE, Eric 3 and 4, and the various Linux based IDE‘s that claim perfect integration with the language that you’re working with.

None of them, and I mean none compare with Visual Studio however.

Unsuprisingly, MS have really done their homework on VS… Granted I’m using the severely crippled VS Express, but nevertheless it’s still a kick ass working environment.

Tooltips, code complete, indentation, build ...

Assumption is the mother of all fuckups

You, sir, assume too much

Fuckers… Ignorant fuckers.

Something that I’ve only recently started experiencing and it screams evil in terms of usability and that is assuming you know what language you want a website in becuase your IP appears to be from a specific country.

Now, I’m all for the integrated approach to web experience, but assuming that because I’m coming from a Spanish IP that I want all the web pages delivered by your site or application in Spanish is just stupid. It’s slightly incovenient for me since I don’t understand spanish that well at the moment, even ...

You've got to be twisted...

... to twist with twisted.

So, I’m attempting to build a suitable RTOS for an internal project.

It’s part of a network management application and provisioning server that has to look at a variety of sources and information to be able to make a decision as to how to proceed, then once the decision has been made, needs to then inform the relevant components in the system, which are located in disparate locations. THe project is based in Python at the moment, because I’m comfortable with the speed and the amount of code I actually have to write compared with lower level ...

Microsoft continue to surprise me

... and I'm not sure it's a good thing

Ok, so while plotting world domination and general details of my new project, I decided to look into one requirement for the system: Printing.

Now most of you developers out there will just say “meh, pipe it to lpr on the command line”. Most of you will be right, however… But I need to look into the logistics of it… because I’m not always going to be printing A4 sheets… and not always to the same printer either… or the same office for that matter…

But imagine how shocked I was to come accross this

Microsoft are toting python ...

SetupTools and stupid developers

It's time for a rant...

I’m pissed off.

I’ve had enough of this to be able to rant about it.

Ok, this is for you Python Package Developers that insist on using that piece of shit ‘SetupTools’ package to distribute your packages.

Don’t fucking do it you peons. It’s stupidly annoying! What’s wrong? Disttools not good enough for you?

Look, at least if you’ve implemented your package distribution using SetupTools, at least include a copy of the version that you’re using to distribute your package, because frankly, I’m fucked off of seeing the error of invalid version ...

Cisco VPNs and SNMP do not mix

... no really, they don't...

My head hurts and I’m in MIB hell.

I’ve got every respect for Cisco because they’ve managed to put together some kick ass hardware, which makes my job hellishly more fun to do. Their 2800 platform is absolutely brilliant insomuch as it does everything that you really want to do with a network connection. You can do VPNs, interesting routing, Telephony, Fax, IVR to lsit but a few, and the clients really like them. One box to do it all.

Alas, I’ve found the downside. In providing all this magic, cisco really have gone over the ...

Synchronisation

Finally some understanding of the definition

Synchronisation has always been an irritation to me. No-one, both commercial or open source seems to understand the definition of Synchronisation. The open source world seemed to be consistently brainfucked when it came to implementations of synchonisation protocols. Either the util was fucked and wouldn’t work with devices other than that which the author of the software had posession of, further complicated by thefact the authors often seemed willing to accept freebies in order to “add support”, but totally unwilling to allow others to assist in the implementation. Either that or they just weren’t bothered by it anymore ...

Python can sometimes be a black art...

... sometimes

Well, I went and put my foot in it.

I submitted an ‘enhancement’ request to the Django developers. Basically, Django at the moment uses a buttload of __import__ statements all over the place which bypasses all the nifty funkery in mod_python for module loading whereby if you have PythonAutoReload enabled on your site (as I do on my development server) mod_python (most of the time) reloads the module from disk automagically, thereby saving you the hassle of restarting apache every 5 minutes.

The practice of using __import__ in Django serioulsy annoys the crap out of me. I mean, come on ...

Yahoo! boffins rock

... in lots of little ways

I’m really starting to appreciate the Yahoo! Boffins

They’ve opened up the various yahoo engines to outside developers to use. Having registered my app ID I can now not bother having to manually tag my posts… I can just get Yahoo! to extract the tags from the content of my blog post.

Which is great, because tagging my blog posts at the moment is a chore, and often the tags I put in relation to my blog entries are somewhat vague. Granted a search engine doesn’t really count vague, but they’re getting more intelligent in their ...

Windows security?

AD Domains are no longer safe...

I had to laugh when I found this… and I mean laugh… as in out loud!

Right. So you’re a windows admin that’s stupidly forgotten your administrator password and not granted yourself administration rights on the AD domain to be able to change the password should you need to without logging into the Administrator account. You dumb schmuck!

Or as John Simpson states:

• The Administrator password had been changed.
• The owners didn’t think that writing the Administrator password on a sticky-note on the wall next to the machine was a problem, even when the machine and the ...

Guide to reading documentation

... or more to the point, how not to write documentation

Well it appears as if I’ve made some slight progress on this satellite issue.

It appears that the satellite terminal currently in use uses a really obscure cable serial standard.

The frustrating thing is, that in the documentation, the only mention of this obscure standard in relation to using it with non-PC equipment is a footnote at the bottom of the page which says something along the lines of “Yeah if you’re using this terminal with something other than the kit provided, then you need to use the RS-530 serial transmission cable standard.”

That’s it. It was ...

Cisco serial debugging woes

not helped by shitty satellite terminals

I’ve had enough. I’m going to petition Cisco to start providing some more debugging information when trying to get Serial interfaces working.

Picture the scene: a lovely super yacht which has installed on it a satellite terminal and dome which connects it to the rest of the world. That terminal has a serial interface on for connection to a modem or computer equipment. Take one Cisco Router with a WIC-2AS interface in it.

Now the satellite terminal and documentation is appauling. As documentation goes, it’s amoung some of the most contrived and vague documents concerning something ...

Django modeling crazyness

Growl - sometimes I hate frameworks...

Django is a real breath of fresh air sometimes. Then again, sometimes it can be a pain in the arse.

Django has been written so that it’s really quite flexible in terms of development and RAD. I can put an application together in relativly little time in terms of administration and templating, although it’s modeling is somewhat rigid. As it has a somewhat loose adherance to the MVC pattern, it currently has no way of linking variables outside of the model to the model itself.

This is good in principal, although it should be flexible enough to allow ...

Upside-down-Ternet

... how to deal with someone stealing your internet

RobL seems to have discovered a method for pissing off those that steal your internet access.

Upside-Down-Ternet is an absolutely beautiful usage of open source technology in order to piss people off.