Open Tagging on OSX: A Powerful Way to Organize

25. Sep 2009 Comments 0 comments

For each project I work on, I have a multitude of files, folders, applications, and web pages.
My goal is to have shortcuts in one place, organized by project, as the ultimate launcher.
Here were some good initial attempts:

Firefox bookmarks might be a nice way to go, but doesn’t make it easy to link to local files, [...]

DjangoCon 2009 Recap

14. Sep 2009 Comments 0 comments

After catching the great videos from last year’s first DjangoCon I looked forward to attending this year.  I’m glad I went.
We’ll be discussing “What did we learn at DjangoCon?” at this Thursday’s Django Seattle. See http://www.djangoseattle.org for more details.
In the meantime, here are some high-level take-aways:

Should JavaScript and RESTful services be part of the Django [...]

Snow Leopard Smooth Except Python 32/64 Cocktail

02. Sep 2009 Comments 9 comments

UPDATE: Thanks to the helpful commenters, I found success getting an older Zope instance running on Python 2.4 on Snow Leopard using buildout.
NOTE: This post is for installing Python 2.4 on a brand new Snow Leopard Instance. If upgrading on top of Leopard, you may have to update easy_install, macports, etc.  More Googling around may [...]

Extra life for my MacBook Pro with Snow Leopard and inexpensive hardware

29. Aug 2009 Comments 2 comments

I’m using the Snow Leopard upgrade as a chance to add some extra life to my (older) MacBook Pro (2,2).
My goals:

Max out memory to 3GB (up from 2 GB) — $29
Upgrade hard-drive to 500GB (up from 120GB) – $129 for a 2.5″ Seagate Momentus SATA 7200 RPM.  My current drive is 5400 RPM, so this [...]

Django Seattle’s Website Barn Raising Sprint: A Recap

27. Jul 2009 Comments 0 comments

New Django Seattle Website
Thanks to 14 Sprinters who came together on July 25, we now have a Django Seattle Website at http://www.djangoseattle.org
There was a lot of infrastructure work done at the sprint which is still in development and didn’t make it to the live site yet — but the experience of getting to know each [...]

PyCon2009 Tutorial Recap: Real World Django / Optimizations in Python

25. Mar 2009 Comments 1 comment

I primed the pump on the flight to PyCon by catching up on my reading. “Expert Python Programming” (Tarek Ziade) reminded me that I wanted to play with ipython shell and virtualenv (just learned today about the handy extension “virtualenvwrapper”), and reinforced and offered many great Best Practices.
Optimization Tutorial
I then got on my geek at [...]

Social and Economic Justice, The Interra Project, Center for Ethical Leadership — and Plone

12. Feb 2009 Comments 0 comments

Congratulations to Jon Ramer from The Interra Project, and Mark Okazaki from Neighborhood House for winning this year’s Bill Grace Leadership Legacy Award awards from the Center for Ethical Leadership.
Both the Interra Project and Center for Ethical Leadership are clients (and friends) of ours at Web Collective and we’re impressed with the great work they [...]

Packed House at Northwest Python Day 2009

01. Feb 2009 Comments 0 comments

I enjoyed hanging with the local Python crowd yesterday in Seattle for Northwest Python Day 2009.
As usual, Python is popular in many realms.
Who attended?
We started with quick introductions – a nice mix of folks with some traveling from Portland OR, Vancouver BC and even one from Chicago and DC.  Many folks using Python — several [...]

Finding Energy in the Mix of Art and Physical Computing

09. Jan 2009 Comments 1 comment

Santa brought me an Arduino this year – an open-hardware and open-software platform for connecting computers to the physical world — used by artists, designers, geeks, entrepreneurs who often find interesting things to create.
Now I’m finding renewal in a mix of art, physical computing, and the new concepts and ideas that come along with that.
What [...]