Linkpot Updates

Quite a long time ago I took over stewardship of Linkpot from Ben Thorp, with a whole bunch of ideas of stuff I wanted to add to it. Initially though I just got it working again (on Django 1.0) and moved to my hosting.

Today I finally got around to finishing the first batch of changes: namely Django 1.0.2 and moving from using a text file based word list to a database (which was already used for storing the URLs). This improves performance and opens up the possibility for a whole other bunch of enhancements (including using your own words).

At the same time I added some improved error handling & error messages, and the ability to ’shortcut’ previewing a link by suffixing a hyphen (-) to the word e.g. http://linkpot.net/recursive-.

If you use Linkpot, please go kick the tyres and let me know if you find any problems. If you don’t, why don’t you?

Thy will be done: m2wp.py is released

After dragging my heels for a bit, I’m finally getting around to releasing my code for generating WordPress eXtended RSS (WXR) files from Mephisto database.

I agreed with Stuart that it should be released regardless of demand, but it really did need some cleaning up first!

So, without any further ado, pomp, or ceremony I give you m2wp.py!

…

Oh, you actually want to see the code?

bzr branch http://labs.schwuk.com/m2wp

* Why aren’t I using Launchpad? Because I seriously doubt there will be any further development of this. However if people want to submit patches, they are more than welcome to and I will publish them in my repository.

A couple of caveats:

Why developing your own blog software isn’t always a good idea

David Goodwin made the following comment on my post about migrating to WordPress:

I can see his point, and I agree that is amusing. Of course I’m not going to miss a chance to get on my soapbox though.
Read the rest »

Migrated to WordPress

First of all, apologies for any ‘planet spam’ caused the change to my feeds.

After what seems like an eternity (but is actually just over a year) I’ve switched the backend of this site from Mephisto to WordPress. The main reason for the switch was my overall dissatisfaction with Mephisto coupled with its lack of development (or a least stable releases) along with the fact that I was maintaining a Ruby on Rails production environment for one application. Mephisto frustrated me in many ways, from its inability to handle archives/pagination to not being able to accept pingbacks to not working with external clients. All of these were fixable, but I really didn’t have the patience or the time.

Here is my tale of migrating from Mephisto to WordPress, and how I achieved it.

Read the rest »

PyRoom

A while back I was discussing FOSS alternatives for cutting out distractions, and one of the pieces of software that I couldn’t find a decent alternative for was Writeroom which is commercial software for the Mac.

Now Bruno Bord (who’s basically French) has come to the rescue with the PyRoom project. I may have to get involved.

Bestseller?

Just did a quick check on how my book – Managing Software Development with Trac and Subversion – was doing on Amazon UK. They had stock earlier in the week, but it’s all gone now – that can only be a good thing!

I was also really pleased to see that I had made into the top 100,000 bestsellers – number 94,492 to be precise. Considering I’ve seen books ranked over the million mark, I’m very happy with my current position.

Managing Software Development available on Amazon

I looked my book – Managing Software Development with Trac and Subversion – on Amazon when it was published, but I could not find it. Earlier tonight my wife went surfing earlier today and had more luck:

Read the rest »

Hard Copy

Got back from swimming this morning to find a package left in the garage by the postman. I knew it was too soon to be my N800 (but that didn’t stop me hoping!), so I had no idea what it was. It turned out to be some complimentary copies of my book Managing Software Development with Trac and Subversion.

Although I knew the book was out, it’s not quite real until you’re actually holding a dead tree copy in your hands. Although I still haven’t decided whether I want to write another or not, seeing a real copy is swaying me toward doing it again.

A Fresh Cup

Last night, thanks to Twitter, I got to renew a acquaintance with Mike Gunderloy (I was a big fan of his books Coder To Developer and Developer To Designer). I used to follow his Daily Grind blog as it was widely regarded as the source for Microsoft Windows related development news, but as my interest in the topic waned I dropped it from my regular reading.

Fast forward to yesterday when Mike added me as a friend in Twitter, I discovered his new (to me) site A Fresh Cup which both charts his transition to Ruby on Rails (and an Apple platform) and serves as a Rails version of the Daily Grind.

Mike’s tale is very interesting to me, especially having made the transition myself (albeit to Python, but I went via Rails and intend to revisit it soon), and I think it might inspire some others too. For obvious reasons I’d like to have seen Mike move to Ubuntu (or any Linux distribution for that matter) but, as I was discussing with Josette (from O’Reilly) and Tony (whilst convincing him to get a Rails book) at the weekend, Rails and Macs still seem to go hand-in-hand so Mike’s choice was a natural one.

Oh, and Mike is using the same platform for his new site as I use here – Mephisto.

The job is dead! Long live the job!

It’s finally here!

Today marks the last day of my employment with CSC. After 9 years (originally a freelancer, then the last 4½ years as a permanent employee) it is time to move to pastures new.

On Monday I will be joining Canonical as a developer on Launchpad (any comments about (open|free)ing of said product should be directed to Matt).

The best bit? Getting to work with a passionate group of people who believe in what they’re doing. The worst bit? Having to explain to non-technical family and friends what Canonical do. The best bit of the worst bit? Starting to explain it to the schwuklets, realising who I’m talking to, tell them they help make Ubuntu and schwuklet #2 (who is only 5 years old) knowing exactly what I’m talking about!

Of course every silver lining has a cloud, but you have to take the (dog) rough with the smooth. (I’d put a in here, but you know how much he likes those…)