Bearfruit - Find Answers

Using session tokens with google's AuthSub python api

matt — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 05:14:57 +0000

If you’re a little frustrated with the API docs for the gdata python api I’m right there with you. I’m trying to build a django app that accesses Google calendar. The basic “hello world” stuff works fine but when I want to actually use it for my own app I get frustrated. For example, the doc explains how to deal with authsub tokens but doesn’t really tell you about what to do with session tokens.

Congratulations Netbeans (updated)

matt — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 20:34:18 +0000

Congratulations Netbeans team on the release of 6.5. I’ve been using the pre-release versions but as expected experienced some problems that prevented me from using it seriously. I’m excited with 6.5 because PHP has been given first class status and includes what appears to be simple debugging. I’m downloading the full version now so hopefully will have something interesting to report soon. Request for next release - Django support built in. It looks like the Python Early Access release is shaping up and I noticed some of the milestone builds had Django support so hopefully this isn’t a far-fetched request.

Share What You Wear - Free clothes in Des Moines

matt — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 19:58:46 +0000

“Share What You Wear” is a program organized through my church that distributes countless thousands of clothing and basic houseware items free to needy people in Des Moines. Semi-trucks full of items are being unloaded at Grace Church now and starting Thursday, scads of people, hundreds at least, maybe thousands (I have no clue how many) will come through the building and get good quality used clothes for themselves and their kids.

Gmail filters for launchpad bug email

matt — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 19:55:35 +0000

I get three kinds of email from launchpad generally:

Regarding bugs I’ve reported or specifically subscribed to
Those assigned to a team I’m a member of
A very occasional question or notification about a code branch I’m subscribed to

Of these above the second is the most voluminous and the first group is the most important. However sometimes items from group 2 can be important, depending on the project. Launchpad includes headers for filtering email which I’ve used in thunderbird. I’ve not been able to create sophisticated filters in Gmail though. Until now.

The New Ubuntu Download Page

matt — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:01:45 +0000

The new Ubuntu 8.10 release is out. It was geared to be the smoothest release I’ve done yet but at the last minute an emergency popped up - the animations for the homepage didn’t work properly in Firefox! Fortunately, a very helpful community member, Emilio Lopez, a student from Argentina, stepped in to help. For the record, he found that jquery’s default frame rate which is 1000/13 (about 76fps) was the culprit and lowering it to 1000/100 (10 fps) made our animations very smooth, even in firefox.

But the most interesting part of this release to me is the launch of the new download page. A lot of thought was put into it and we incorporated feedback from several sources, including some students doing user testing for their university classes. Here’s what we changed and why:

MP3s on Amazon

matt — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 14:15:49 +0000

I love buying mp3’s on Amazon. It’s easy and the files work with any mp3 player or software. The songs are $0.99 and the albums are pretty reasonable - cheaper than the CD bought new, more expensive than the used CD store, but you get to listen to it instantly.

Amazon offers a Ubuntu installer on their website for the downloader software so when you make your purchase the song can begin downloading in the background. Its nice that they consider Ubuntu important enough to invest the time into making an easy to use client. When it runs the first time you tell it what folder to drop the songs into. I put it right into my Music folder and rhythmbox picks it up. Anyway, this is very nice alternative for people who don’t use iTunes - which is most Ubuntu users.

The most recent song I purchased was one I heard on a Lincoln car commercial - it’s kind of funky and different, “Technologic” by Daft Punk. Check it out. ;-)

Accidentally hiding your site from Google on purpose

matt — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 18:28:55 +0000

If you’re developing a word press site you’ve probably seen and either used or considered using the option to hide your site from search engines. If you use this feature while your site is in development, ”Don’t forget to change the setting” when you launch. A fellow web geek, Mike Templeton, learned this the hard way when he hid his microblogging news blog.

Hey Mike, the good news is, Google has a short memory for these things, I’m sure your efforts will bear fruit soon. ;-)

I shaved my cat

matt — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:11:17 +0000

In an effort to save money I decided to shave my cat rather than take him to the groomer to be shaved.

I don’t think I’ll do that again. Some things are worth paying for. Fortunately he’s very forgiving. Sorry Snickers. :-)

Are you designing for mobile?

matt — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:42:39 +0000

I’m increasingly convinced that the mobile platform is going to be the key platform for the future. I’ve started investigating and even purchased a phone and dataplan capable of browsing the web (not an iPhone - I think they’re still an outlier, though an important one for sure). But I still have more questions than answers:

What browsers do you test with? Which ones have a significant market share? How do you test with multiple browsers?
Are browsers for mobile handsets standards compliant? Which standards should I target?
Do you trust device emulators as an indicator of the true end-user experience? Which emulators do you use?
What concerns do you have regarding security? It seems that these devices frequently use proxies controlled by the carriers, are you comfortable transmitting secure data?
What user interface standards do you count on?

This last point presents some interesting questions. For example, the homepage for my mobile phone uses numbered lists heavily and limits them to 10 per list, 1 - 0 (0 is the 10th item). Pressing the index number of the list item jumps is equiv to clicking that link. So for example, if item 3 is “ringtons” pressing the 3 on your phone takes you to the ringtone page. If there are more than 10 then a link appears at the end saying, “next 2>>” or similar.

However, other sites, for example Google, do not use this same convention. So are there de-facto standards and if so, what are they and why would I not use them?

So many questions… it’s an interesting new web…

Is ebay snipping OK?

matt — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 15:40:34 +0000

On ebay, a “snipe” is when someone bids on an auction at the very last second. Maybe you’ve experienced this when you bid on something and thought it was in the bag and then refreshed the auction page expecting to see a “Congratulations, you won” message but instead saw, “This auction has ended, sorry, you didn’t win.” It’s frustrating and disappointing and your first response is, “I hate it when that happens!” But really, snipping isn’t a bad thing.