Complexity

How To Use SuperFeedr In Your Django Project Using DjPubSubHubbub

Posted on Jan 24, 2011 - 6:42 PM Comments (0)

Last year I started using an awesome service called SuperFeedr in a few projects I'm working on. Basically it's a service that notifies me when new content is available. Saves me from having to build a constant polling service to check for new data. You can read all about it on their website as they'll sell it much better than I just did ;)

Since I pretty much write everything I do in Python / Django I went looking for a Django app that supported the PubSubHubbub protocol. After a lot of searching I found there was one app ...

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"Checking In" Is Hot - But Not New!

Posted on Jul 21, 2010 - 11:56 AM Comments (0)

Back in 2007 I started working at a startup named Groovr (which appears to not be in operation anymore.)

The idea behind Groovr was sort of an enhanced Twitter, only without the message limitation. It natively supported image and movie messages being sent to the service. A lot of people loved these features but my favorite was something completely different.

We had been using an idea back then that is all the rage today. "Check Ins" - that is, checking into a location so you're friends can see where you currently are. It was as easy as sending a quick ...

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Yeah... I've Been Hiding Out...

Posted on Feb 13, 2010 - 7:21 PM Comments (2)

Yea, I sort of quit blogging the last few months. Not because I don't have anything to write about or that I think it's a waste of time. Even if it was a waste of time, the real issue is I haven't had much of just that... uh, time that is. No time.

I have a list of blog post ideas in my iPhone that I just haven't had time to write them up. I also have a list of like 4 or 5 products that I think would sell really well but just no time ...

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Announcing Python Module For Zerigo Managed DNS API

Posted on Dec 17, 2009 - 6:04 PM Comments (0)

I've been searching for a stable managed DNS service provider for some time now. One of the big "must haves" was an API so I can easily manage my zones (domains) via software that I would create.

I didn't really find any service that tickled my fancy and I was about to give up. Then I stumbled upon a forum post asking for essentially the same thing I was searching for. A person replied and recommended looking into a company called Zerigo, who offers cloud hosting of various services - including DNS.

The web interface is awesome but the ...

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Why I Came Crawling Back To The iPhone

Posted on Oct 2, 2009 - 7:37 PM Comments (0)

Well that didn't take very long did it? Roughly 10 weeks ago I wrote about why I was switching from my iPhone (which I had used for nearly 2 years) back to a BlackBerry.

Well, the other day I broke down and picked up a brand new iPhone 3Gs. I know, I know. I'm a fan boy I guess.

Truth is I love my Blackberry but I also loved the iPhone. With the new release of the iPhone OS (version 3.1), the addition of MMS support (finally!) from AT&T and all the apps I loved and ...

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Why I Ditched My iPhone And Came Back To BlackBerry

Posted on Jul 15, 2009 - 3:48 PM Comments (0)

Wow, I've been missing in action haven't I (at least on this f'n blog.) Sorry about that. I promise to try and write more posts but knowing me I'll get tied up with a ton of other things and put this on the back burner... like I always do.

Anyways, on to the actual article...

A few months ago I finally got frustrated enough with my iPhone that I decided to do something I had been wanting to do for 6 months or so... I switched back to a BlackBerry.

Of course, a few days after ...

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Django FormWizard - Passing Data Between Forms

Posted on Sep 26, 2008 - 9:35 PM Comments (0)

I recently had the need for a multi-step web form and so I wanted to give the Django FormWizard a spin because I haven't had a chance to use it yet.

The FormWizard documentation is lacking a little and it makes no mention of the support for passing an initial value for each form "step" to the Wizard. Passing an initial value is done by passing a dictionary, containing dictionaries, where the keys are the individual form step sequences. For example, the first form will have a key of 0 (zero), the second form will have a key of ...

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Amazon S3 Outages

Posted on Jul 21, 2008 - 9:54 AM Comments (1)

I, like a lot of others, make use of the Amazon S3 service for data storage "in the cloud". The service is a huge success and normally behaves extremely stable.

Yesterday there was a very large S3 outage which caused many online companies to suffer outages as well. There was an interesting piece over at ReadWriteWeb asking "How Much Is To Much?".

I've been using S3 for nearly 2 years and have only experienced trouble twice. I wrote about the previous experience and that outage lasted about 3 hours. Yesterday however the outage was more than 6 hours!

Now ...

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What Powers SmartJabber

Posted on Apr 22, 2008 - 3:31 PM Comments (0)

I've had some inquiries to what powers SmartJabber, so I decided to write up a quick outline of the technology that is being used to power the new service.

In case you hadn't heard yet, I recently launched a new company called SmartJabber. The general idea behind the service is to offer an automated support agent via a "live chat" window. It's a cheap alternative to hiring someone to do basic live chat support.

The tool can be used to convert visitors into customers, save sales or offer a basic level of customer service (say on an ...

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How Much Do You Hate Comment Spam?

Posted on Mar 3, 2008 - 10:33 PM Comments (0)

I am so tired of dealing with comment spammers. Even though I use custom software that I wrote to run this blog, I still use the Akismet comment spam detector run by the boys & girls at Wordpress. The Akismet system is an awesome tool and catches a ton of spam for me but a good amount still gets through.

I began logging every time my software found a spam message around 6 months ago. After 2 weeks I had caught nearly 12,000 spam messages. I would sit and watch my logs just fly with spammers using custom software to ...

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