tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-103387542024-08-29T16:57:52.161+10:00I am an "old" computer engineer & programmer, not old enough to have a punch card story but old enough to - have owned a Zx-81 - programmed in Motorola 6809 assembler - remember when 64K was lots of RAM - fixed a hard disk by replacing the platterhexdump42http://www.blogger.com/profile/13884562284992556003noreply@blogger.comBlogger127125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10338754.post-71306020188452667792013-07-14T20:43:00.001+10:002013-07-14T20:51:57.353+10:00

Every year I try to learn at least one more programming language or technology. At the moment, discovering the high's and low's of Android development. Everything was going well and then upgraded to Android Studio 0.2. So after modifying my glade.build file so that that the section is equivalent to: dependencies { classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:0.5.+' .... additional

hexdump42http://www.blogger.com/profile/13884562284992556003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10338754.post-1928873684186736662012-03-08T16:21:00.002+11:002012-03-08T16:57:35.690+11:00

The 2012 IIUG (International Informix User Group) conference will be in San Diego, California from April 22 - 25 2012. All three of my talk proposals have been accepted, and one of these is about using Python with Informix. As well as preparing my presentation, I have been working on a number of Python Open Source projects either adding or improving their support for Informix access. So hopefully

hexdump42http://www.blogger.com/profile/13884562284992556003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10338754.post-5890208314277797972011-07-14T10:40:00.002+10:002011-07-14T10:44:00.381+10:00

The official schedule for PyCon Australia 2011 has been announced (http://pycon-au.org/2011/conference/schedule/). My talk is the first session after the opening keynote and will be an overview of CouchDB and how you can use it with Python. "CouchDB  (http://couchdb.apache.org/) is an open source, document-oriented NoSQL Database Management Server.It supports queries via views using

hexdump42http://www.blogger.com/profile/13884562284992556003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10338754.post-168421982153789512011-05-19T01:58:00.000+10:002011-11-13T14:05:47.518+11:00

I am currently at the International Informix Users Group Conference (http://www.iiug.org/index.php) in Kansas. In the opening keynote by Jerry Keesee, there some discussion about IBM's Open Source Initiatives for Informix. On the accompanying slide, Python and Django were listed. This reminded me that I hadn't taken stock of what the Informix DB connections options were for the Python user lately

hexdump42http://www.blogger.com/profile/13884562284992556003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10338754.post-89218773886108358352011-01-22T18:58:00.005+11:002011-01-22T20:14:43.825+11:00

After years of being an outcast amongst my colleagues, happy with a simple mobile phone that just made phone calls, I made the decision to upgrade to a smartphone. Why would I, since I was actually happy with my "no frills" Nokia and it's excellent battery life which makes a smartphone look retarded. At work we are working on making our web applications more mobile friendly, so we needed a range

hexdump42http://www.blogger.com/profile/13884562284992556003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10338754.post-85567300427447812512010-09-03T13:47:00.003+10:002010-09-03T14:15:48.048+10:00

Last night was the September gathering of the Sydney Python Users Group. The meeting started with a lightning talk about CoffeeScript (http://jashkenas.github.com/coffee-script/) which is a little language that compiles into Javascript. CoffeeScript borrows some of it's syntax from Ruby, Haml and Python. The javascript it generates uses only the good parts.Then Vaughan Allan (@vornstar) gave a

hexdump42http://www.blogger.com/profile/13884562284992556003noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10338754.post-37646531222213140072010-06-17T14:32:00.004+10:002010-06-17T14:54:31.597+10:00

In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from June 29 - July 1 there will be the second Malaysian Open Source Conference. This conference is organised and run by OSDC.my. The conference has three tracks:Business - Presentations to introduce Government and Business to Open Source.Developer - Modelled on OSDC, presentations by Open Source developers for developers.Community - Presentations for users of Open

hexdump42http://www.blogger.com/profile/13884562284992556003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10338754.post-23651038824835517792009-05-12T15:57:00.006+10:002009-05-12T17:12:03.271+10:00

In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from May 31 - June 3 there will be the inaugural MSC Malaysia OSCONF. This conference is designed to bring together Government, Business, Open Source Developer and User communities to showcase and expand Open Source's contribution to the IT industry and socio-economy. The conference program consists of a one day hackathon, followed by the three day main conference. The

hexdump42http://www.blogger.com/profile/13884562284992556003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10338754.post-26662087019754645632008-09-30T21:46:00.003+10:002008-09-30T21:50:48.548+10:00

Earlybird Registration for The Open Source Developers' Conference 2008 is now open.OSDC 2008 is a conference run by open source developers, for developers and business people. It covers numerous programming languages across a rangeof operating systems, and related topics such as business processes, licensing, and strategy. Talks vary from introductory pieces through to the deeply technical. This

hexdump42http://www.blogger.com/profile/13884562284992556003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10338754.post-40780914917230854532008-05-15T22:35:00.007+10:002008-05-15T23:10:24.137+10:00

The Open Source Developers' Conference 2008 is a conference run by open source developers, for developers and business people. It covers numerous programming languages across a range of operating systems, and related topics such as business processes, licensing, and strategy. Talks vary from introductory pieces through to the deeply technical. It is a great opportunity to meet, share, and learn

hexdump42http://www.blogger.com/profile/13884562284992556003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10338754.post-56519784204415293752008-03-07T23:15:00.004+11:002008-03-08T00:05:43.141+11:00

John Lam has posted two introductory articles [1],[2] that use the Dynamic Silverlight SDK . It came as no surprise that only Microsoft operating systems are officially supported for the SDK. So after downloading and installing it onto a VMWare image running one of the supported operating systems, I decided to try installing it on my Macbook Pro. I copied the SDK directory structure across,

hexdump42http://www.blogger.com/profile/13884562284992556003noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10338754.post-43228227710344722452008-02-04T10:08:00.000+11:002008-02-04T10:50:09.558+11:00

I use Google Code Project Hosting for a number of my open source projects. It gave me a common place to store my code under subversion and the integrated wiki allowed easy creation of on-line documentation. The web interface to subversion was rather limited only showing the current version of the repository. So I have tended to use the subversion tools on my computer for viewing revisions etc. In

hexdump42http://www.blogger.com/profile/13884562284992556003noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10338754.post-73700035261978702672007-11-28T16:17:00.000+11:002007-11-28T16:30:32.025+11:00

Today I gave my two talks at OSDC. This morning I gave a talk on web testing using twill and selenium remote control. A pdf of the slides can be downloaded:Testing Web Applications with Scripting LanguagesAnd this afternoon I spoke about Moonlight, the Mono implementation of Silverlight.Moonlight - Shiny, Pretty Things with XML?I had intended to blog about the various OSDC sessions I have

hexdump42http://www.blogger.com/profile/13884562284992556003noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10338754.post-11204641480641316282007-10-31T02:39:00.000+11:002007-10-31T09:35:01.049+11:00

Errata: Opps, the title should be "A sneak peek at mod_wsgi 2.0"Today Graham Dumpleton announced the first release candidate of mod_wsgi 2.0. mod_wsgi is a simple to use Apache module which can host any Python application which supports the Python WSGI interface. The new features added are:'Process' option for WSGIReloadMechanism to make it easier to restart an application running in a mod_wsgi

hexdump42http://www.blogger.com/profile/13884562284992556003noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10338754.post-25414797391868386152007-10-10T15:16:00.000+10:002007-10-10T15:35:33.247+10:00

Just been notified by the OSDC 2007 Program Committee that my two presentations are on the same day. 11:00-11:30 Testing Web Applications with Scripting Languages14:30-15:00 Moonlight - Shiny, Pretty Things with XML?The complete conference program can be viewed here. So if you want to spend an interesting 3-4 days in Brisbane mixing with open source developers,

hexdump42http://www.blogger.com/profile/13884562284992556003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10338754.post-78175634147163404452007-09-06T10:23:00.000+10:002007-09-06T10:27:34.833+10:00

Graham Dumpleton announced on the mod_wsgi mailing list yesterday:"Okay folks, official 1.0 release of mod_wsgi is now available fromhttp://www.modwsgi.org.The only difference between this version and mod_wsgi-1.0c4 is theversion string and some minor changes in README file.Now that this is out of the way, I'll be able to get onto implementingall the nice new features I want to add to make it

hexdump42http://www.blogger.com/profile/13884562284992556003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10338754.post-50338369336981194832007-07-26T09:36:00.000+10:002007-07-26T12:26:41.064+10:00

Today Graham Dumpleton tagged the SVN and has made available the release candidate of mod_wsgi. The mod_wsgi adapter is an Apache module that provides a WSGI compliant interface for hosting Python 2.3+ Python based web applications under Apache. Graham has written it completely in C code so it has a lower overhead than the mod_python or CGI adapters. It can be used with Apache 1.3, 2.0 or 2.2 and

hexdump42http://www.blogger.com/profile/13884562284992556003noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10338754.post-25342355340621257452007-07-23T22:51:00.000+10:002007-07-23T23:16:36.619+10:00

Today John Lam announced the first release of IronRuby source code. Of interest to me in the announcement was the following quote:"We're also happy to announce that we will be accepting source code contributions into the IronRuby libraries."This policy is what many users of IronPython have been wanting since it's first release. Since both language implementations are released under the same

hexdump42http://www.blogger.com/profile/13884562284992556003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10338754.post-60011838418739666132007-07-06T18:28:00.000+10:002021-04-20T10:08:03.459+10:00

Yesterday I hosted the July SyPy meetup at my work. Since the office is North Sydney based, many pythoneers would need to travel to the meeting using Sydney's rail network. It doesn't have the best record for reliability, and yesterday was a classic example. A panel was ripped off a CityRail train as it crossed the Harbour Bridge resulting to commuter chaos for many hours. The good news is that

hexdump42http://www.blogger.com/profile/13884562284992556003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10338754.post-49581061099309478172007-06-27T11:29:00.000+10:002007-06-27T11:42:07.952+10:00

Yesterday I submitted my talk proposal for OSDC. If accepted, the talk will be about web testing using scripting languages.The submission deadline for proposals is 30 June, so why not submit one as well. So in no particular order, Alan, Keith or Ben take this as me rattling your cages.

hexdump42http://www.blogger.com/profile/13884562284992556003noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10338754.post-90938864458044245092007-05-30T22:31:00.003+10:002007-05-30T22:47:37.064+10:00

Tomorrow is Google Developer Day and if I was in my normal country of residence I would be attending. But since I have been working in Malaysia for the last week, I will just have to wait for the Google videos. Very interested in the GData stuff as I have been working on some things with the Google Spreadsheet Data API. Expect some blog posts about it soon.

hexdump42http://www.blogger.com/profile/13884562284992556003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10338754.post-16437098296235543942007-05-12T20:30:00.000+10:002007-05-12T20:47:25.931+10:00

This year's Open Source Developers Conference will be in Brisbane at the Royal on the Park Hotel (opposite the City Botanical Gardens). On their website I see that the "Call For Papers" is now open.The key dates are:Submission deadline 30th June 2007Proposal acceptance 31st July 2007Submission deadline 31st August 2007 OSDC 2007 Tutorials 26th November 2007OSDC 2007 Conference

hexdump42http://www.blogger.com/profile/13884562284992556003noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10338754.post-64489254003201078632007-05-04T15:47:00.000+10:002007-05-07T10:20:44.180+10:00

I am writing this post with my new MacBook Pro (2.3GHz Core 2/2Gb DDR/120Gb SATA). Alan, Andy and Graham, I know I said I didn't want one but thanks to BootCamp and rEFIt, it certainly runs my favorite OS well. And I admit Mac OS X is proving to be a pleasant experience. You can quiz me why I changed my mind at the next SyPy meeting.

hexdump42http://www.blogger.com/profile/13884562284992556003noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10338754.post-45858636486702480012007-05-02T20:38:00.000+10:002007-05-02T21:18:48.769+10:00

I have been asked how could I have programmed in 6809 assembler since a ZX-81 computer used the Zilog/NEC Z80 CPU. So to clarify things, I only ever programmed in BASIC on the ZX-81, but in the mid eighties I had a job designing and programming realtime controllers for fruit grading and handling machinery. These controllers used the 6809 processor. It was a very interesting and challenging job.

hexdump42http://www.blogger.com/profile/13884562284992556003noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10338754.post-32884747497660423442007-05-01T22:52:00.000+10:002007-05-01T23:18:53.321+10:00

In my post about the IronPython 2.0 Alpha release, I wondered how the mono team would implement or support DLR. The answer appeared in this post by Miguel de Icaza"The release for the DLR is done under the terms of the Microsoft Permissive License (MsPL) which is by all means an open source license. This means that we can use and distribute the DLR as part of Mono without having to build it from

hexdump42http://www.blogger.com/profile/13884562284992556003noreply@blogger.com0