“TechStart is TAF’s free, yearlong after-school program for students in kindergarten through 8th grade. The focus of TechStart is providing science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) enrichment to underserved children of color through project-based learning and advanced technology tools.”

There were three event themes in Robotics (using Lego Mindstorms), including:

• The Hand Crank Race where students had to build a robot, and power it by crank, and get to the finish line.
• The Wind Turbine Event, where students had studied alternative wind energy and created a turbine connected to a robot. The robot would calculate the speed to determine which turbines had the best design.
• And the Archery Event, where students are given the distance to the archery target when they show up to the event, and then they need to program their robots to try to stop perfectly on the center of the bullseye.

Here are photos from the event.

Also, here is some video from the Archery Event:

This was the first class there to teach JavaScript, taught by Seth Nelson and Susan Evans.

We saw Tic-Tac-Toe, a yo-yo animation, a Magic Eight Ball game, “guess that image”, and even a slot machine.

The students did a fine job, and it was impressive to see what 10th grade students were able to learn and accomplish in a limited amount of time.

Tic Tac Toe in JavaScript

There were really three events being held at the same time:

• SURF Open House
• SURF iPhone Coding Night Meetup
• and a last minute merge of the “iPhone App Developers” Meetup

The merging of events ultimately created a room full of interesting and engaged people who were networking and discussing mobile app development.

I would say that most were there to network, and some were there to play with code.

The networkers were a nice mix of entrepreneurs and people looking for iPhone developers. The coders were mainly new developers (and some graphic designers) that were getting into iPhone or Android development. The coding part of the session ended up very light because the event took on more of a networking feel.

The Open House event was an active Q&A session for those interested in the incubator, upcoming plans, and how to get involved.

Jeff Yochim, Brian Gershon, Dan Dosen. Photo by Seaton Gras.

I personally made some new connections, reconnected with other iPhone developers and designers, and met people who I hadn’t run across yet at other iPhone events.  The feeling was that there was pent up demand for iPhone networking and coding.

More about SURF Incubator

The SURF space is available as a location for people to collaborate and work on code together — open every weekday during January.  The space is also available for other iPhone / Android events.  There are desks for people to pair up or meet in groups as well. The plan is to ultimately host many events and activities, and there is also permanent space for developers and those building businesses. This month is the Open House so people can start to explore and use the space.  http://surfincubator.com

The recent events have been geared toward iPhone, but the SURF Incubator will also host Android events. This would open up opportunities to create synergies between the two platforms.

Have feedback?

There is also a new IdeaScale portal for people to post feedback to at http://surfincubator.ideascale.com

Upcoming Meetup Events at SURF

• The “Seattle iPhone & Android Incubator” Meetup is an umbrella for upcoming workshops and coding sessions at SURF.
  • The plan it to have host regular coding sessions/workshops around specific themes and experience levels.
  • Please join this Meetup for a calendar of upcoming events.
  • On Monday, there will be a Beginner iPhone SDK Xcode – Q & A Discussion Meetup.
  • These events would also complement the existing NSCoder group by adding an additional location for those that can’t make it to the University Village Zoka event.
• The “iPhone App Developers” Meetup hosted by Andrew will be located at SURF Incubator. I haven’t attended this Meetup, but it looks to be a nice opportunity for networking.

More iPhone-related events

We’re fortunate to have many opportunities to meet and code in Seattle.

• XCoders — which offer a presentation, post-meeting networking at Luau, and an active email list. There are two meetings per month: One in Seattle and one on the east side. http://www.seattlexcoders.org/
• NSCoder Night — meets each Tuesdays at University Village Zoka in Seattle. http://nscodernight.com/?cat=28

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, so that solution was quickly dismissed.
• Butler did this well — a quick click in the menu bar pulls up a hierarchical list of projects and shortcuts to resources for each project.  You could easily drag and drop URLs as well as local file shortcuts to Butler as well.  This approach basically created a nice external bookmark manager not tied to any one browser and able to link to files of all types.
• Recently I noticed that Snow Leopard’s improved Grid (in the Dock) now allows for navigating down a hierarchy of folders quickly, so though about putting my shortcuts there.  The only problem is that the dock is “way down there” (irregardless of where you put the dock) and takes time to mouse around.

Each tool took their own approach, and I had to pick one since I couldn’t easily use multiple ones. Also, graphical solutions still take precious time to drag your mouse and navigate through the hierarchy.

Then a better idea.

Spotlight is quick and fast for searching so is ideal (just press apple-spacebar) though typing in search phrases still brings up lots of extra information I don’t want.

So how do I universally “tag” resources and bring them up quickly?

First, the cool 2006 (and still usable) metadata solution mentioned on LifeHacker: Apple-I on files you want to tag, then add a custom tag into the comment box. Prefix with & so it’s quick to find without bringing up a lot of other crap.  For my common Web Collective company shortcuts, I used &wc.  Now, when I jump to Spotlight and type &wc, I instantly see all my shortcuts.

This was great, but then I found tagging nirvana on OSX.

An ecosystem of tagging tools has popped up around a free and open source OpenMeta Tag standard.

OpenMeta means that you can now tag files, folders, emails, web pages, etc, with an assortment of tools, and then search for them with an assortment of tools. No need for custom tagging in the file “comment” field, and no need to use a proprietary tagging system that locks you into one tool. (Btw, for web pages, I drag a shortcut from the browser to my file system, then tag the resulting .webloc file)

The simplest workflow consists of tagging files by dragging/dropping them onto Tagger, then pulling them up quickly in Spotlight.  To pull up all my shortcuts tagged with “wc” you just type “tag:wc”.  This is a free solution and works well.

Next in the evolution are tools such as Tags or Punakea or Leap — which make it easy to tag, while also having nice integrated search features. Tags makes it easy to tag email (in addition to files and folders), Leap (the creator of OpenMeta) is interesting because it has a very fast and flexible searching mechanism and basically does all the work of the Finder with the powerful addition of tagging and rating.  These are all paid applications — well worth it if they help you to better organize.

I’m still playing around to find the right combination of tools for my own workflow.  See http://code.google.com/p/openmeta/wiki/OpenMetaApplications for a nice list.

Tagger and Spotlight are working well for quick shortcuts — Tags, Punakea and Leap start to show what a world would be like when relying less on hierarchy and more on tags.

Hmmm, TagFolders looks pretty interesting too…

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 core?  JS is even more useful/powerful with the latest fast JS engines in Chrome, Firefox and Safari/Webkit. Competitor Rails builds in RESTful features – some promising ones for Django include django-piston and django-roa.  I liked how Ted Leung talked about “science experiments” and posed many ideas on what we may want to experiment with to get right before approaching Django core.
• Git – Though this doesn’t directly relate to Django, DVCS systems like Git and Mercurial are in wide use.  SVN is a given, but now feel I need to know Git and Mercurial well – since popular projects are using these.  I also wanted to pick a “pet” DVCS to use as my default too.  I’ve chosen Git (mainly because of git-svn and GitHub), but will be using Mercurial as well.
• Django Tips and Tricks – Many to pick from, but I liked Query.as_sql() method to show the SQL the Django ORM generates on your behalf, the flexibility of using “signals” to loosely couple functionality (see django-signals-ahoy on bithub), reusing other Python WSGI middleware (such as repoze.bitblt, repoze.squeeze, repoze.profile), pylint/djangolint, class-based views, db schema migrations with South, much faster test speeds in Django 1.1, various test utilities floating around, talks on performance, etc.

* Django jobs are growing, and Django also a popular platform for Start-ups.

* Check out the DjangoCon2009 Wiki for slides and presentations.

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 be required.

Though I had to create two buildouts to get this to work — is there a way to get this into one buildout?

I first tried to create one buildout by combining  Florian Schulze’s buildout recipe with a standard Zope recipe — but since initial bootstrap was run by Python 2.5, I couldn’t get the Zope instance to use the new Python 2.4. So I first ran a buildout to build Python 2.4 (using OSX-installed Python 2.5), then used that new Python 2.4 to run bootstrap.py on the Zope 2.8.x buildout.

Here’s the recipe I used to just build Python 2.4 (requires Florian’s buildout, see Alexander Limi’s comment below for where to find this):

[buildout]
#extends = src/snowleopard.cfg     # no longer required as Joe mentions below
python-buildout-root = ${buildout:directory}/src
parts -=
   ${buildout:python25-parts}
   ${buildout:python26-parts}

[install-links]
prefix = /opt/local

Then I ran a simple Zope 2.8 buildout to see if it would compile (using new Python 2.4 to bootstrap), and it did!

[buildout]
parts =
   zope2
   instance

[zope2]
recipe = plone.recipe.zope2install
url = http://www.zope.org/Products/Zope/2.8.9.1/Zope-2.8.9.1-final.tgz

[instance]
recipe = plone.recipe.zope2instance
zope2-location = ${zope2:location}
user = admin:admin
http-address = 8080
debug-mode = on
verbose-security = on

Here is my initial post:

I have to say — most everything I’ve installed on a fresh Snow Leopard install has worked flawlessly and swiftly — except for (the minor inconvenience of) iStat not working.  UPDATE: iStat 2.0 is available for Snow Leopard now. There’s a new beta of MenuMeters too for Snow Leopard.

There are also nice subtle improvements, see Mac Life’s 100 Top Snow Leopard Tips, Trick and Features for improvements to Preview, Expose, Stacks, etc.  I’ve very happy with the upgrade.

Now for the bad news for those like myself who depend on Python 2.4 for Plone, since many versions of Zope require Python 2.4.  I also use Python for Django, though that should run fine on Python that shipped with Snow Leopard.

You can read many of the initial details around the web, but here’s what I’ve experienced and have been able to put together:

• Note that these details are for a fresh Snow Leopard install – there are a different set of issues if you’re upgrading over your existing Leopard.  NEW: “Clark’s Tech Blog” has a nice write-up about upgrading Python after upgrading Leopard to Snow Leopard.
• Snow Leopard ships with Python 2.5.4, and this runs as a 32-bit application.
• I also need 2.4 branches of Python too, so I tried rolling my own (as usual) and it didn’t compile.  I then followed that thread for awhile.
• I then thought I pulled a fast one when I compiled from MacPorts and everything ran great!
• … but then I compiled Zope, and attempted to run an instance.  I saw a mysterious “No such file or directory” error.  Hmmm, I can navigate to that file, but running the script with my new Python interpretor was causing this error.
• After digging around with Activity Monitor, I discovered that the Python I built from scratch was running as a 64-bit app — while the Python that comes with Snow Leopard was only running 32-bit — which is telling, since most everything else on Snow Leopard is running 64-bit.
• Guessing that the the mysterious “No such file or directory” (when the file and directory did indeed exist) was due to a weird cocktail of 32-bit pieces living with 64-bit pieces.
• My latest theory was that I needed to figure out how to build Python as 32-bit.  I played with Macports and various architecture settings to hardwire this, but long-story-short — the architecture override isn’t used everywhere — so parts still compile natively as 64-bit on Snow Leopard.
• The best thread on the topic (that’s steadily growing) is here: http://bugs.python.org/issue6802 with msg92153 left today, which basically offers some additional settings for compiling Python as a 32-bit app (for Python 2.6).  Also mentions that Snow Leopard did some magic to get Python 2.5 working as a 32-bit app.
  
• My hope is that once “32-bit” Python 2.4 happens, the rest of the Zope install, etc, will be back to the good ol’ days in Leopard.

Plan B’s:

Otherwise, to save some headache, I’m wondering about installing a small Linux distro on VMWare as a local mini web-server where I can easily install Python and Zope — though that’s a bit of a pain too.

Luckily I also have my old Leopard in a separate partition (see my Extra life for my MacBook Pro with Snow Leopard and inexpensive hardware blog entry) and can boot that if necessary to work on various Zope/Plone sites (that required Python 2.4) while this is all being sorted out.

Now time to see if I can get 32-bit Python 2.4.6 compiled and installed, while waiting for more patches and information to appear…

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 will be a speed improvement too.
• I also want to install the OS from scratch as a chance to clean things out.
• Hey, I can then even upgrade my wife’s laptop with my 120GB drive!

The steps have been pretty easy:

• Backup whole drive using SuperDuper! to a bootable external drive.  If I didn’t want to install Snow Leopard from scratch, you could then just transfer your previous OS back to the new hard-drive and be done.
• Upgrade memory, piece of cake
• Upgrade hard-drive. I like to do this sort of thing myself, albeit Apple is the official place to have this done.  This takes a Torx 6 screwdriver, and some patience, but was fairly easy to do thanks to http://www.ifixit.com
• Start Installing Leopard.  Note that you do not need to install Leopard first for a brand new install.  I just put in Snow Leopard, and booted holding down “C” and the installer popped up.
• Since the drive is large, I decided to take an extra step of partitioning my drive into 2.  You can run Disk Utility right before starting the install to create these.  One partition as my main one for Snow Leopard, and the other as a complete bootable Leopard exactly the way my laptop was before the upgrade — just in case I forgot something — and I can easily pull files over while doing the big reinstall-everything-from-scratch step.  SuperDuper! makes this easy — both to backup your drive, and restore it on a new partition.
• Frolic in all my new hard-drive space and anticipated speed improvements — more memory, faster hard-drive and faster OS.

Thanks to 14 Sprinters who came together on July 25, we now have a Django Seattle Website at http://www.djangoseattle.org

Some of our Django Seattle Sprinters

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 other, and learning/sharing Django knowledge was another fine Sprint accomplishment.

Here’s a brief summary of what people worked on:

• Integrated in Blogging, Profile and Calendar functionality from django-basic-apps. Initially Pinax was explored, but had a lot of dependencies and seemed better for creating specific sites genres, but was challenging to incorporate into our existing site.
• Created a Twitter portlet that shows live #djangoseattle Tweets.
• Setup Flatpages for core content, and creating a database-driven menu
• Created a logo and initial site design and templates
• Setup Django on live server
• Used the Django Debug Toolbar while developing the site
• Some were playing with Django for the first time
• Some floated around to help diagnose problems and help those new to Django

Functionality brainstorm

Thank you Sprinters

Our sprinters (in alphabetical order) were: Andrew Beyer, Jon Callahan, Jesse Franceschini, Doug, Brian Gershon, Johann Heller, Paul Pham, Micah Ransdell, Leo Shklovskii, Trevor Smith, Jesse Snyder, Alex Tokar, Ragan Webber, Ben Wilber

Thank you Sponsors

Also a Big Thank You to our sponsors, hosts and organizers.

• Jon Callahan at Mazama Science treated all 14 of us to a tasty PCC Natural Markets lunch, coffee, drinks and snacks.
• Michael Kim at Grapevyn brought in Top Pot Doughnuts.
• Paul Pham hosted us at his coworking space Office Nomads which was a great place to have a sprint.
• Leo Shklovskii at Evoworx and Brian Gershon at Web Collective had a great time organizing the sprint.

We look forward to our next sprint!

Optimization Tutorial

I then got on my geek at “Faster Python Programs through Optimization” (Mike Müller of Python Academy), where we dove deeper into profiling and tips on improving speed or saving memory.

Some paraphrased guidelines to consider before you start optimizing (which were also reinforced in the “Real World Django” tutorial which I’ll chat about next):

• Make sure your program is really too slow – could be other factors like network traffic, database, etc.
• Don’t optimize as you go – might ultimately not need to spend that time.  Also working code is always important first.
• Only consider realistic use cases and user experience

We played with the profiling tools (profile, cProfile, time, pystone, heapy) and used them to compare various techniques:

• xrange and also Generators shaved off time by not having to allocate memory for large data sets.
• use built-in types as much as possible (including some newer collection classes)
• iterating and appending strings by first appending to lists, then using a join statement to create large strings (versus building strings via += and loops)
• One new one for me was converting lists to Sets before testing for membership of an item in the list, which is fast due to Set optimizations.
• The tutorial also covered pysco, processing and numpy modules, as well as caching techniques.

Real-world Django Tutorial

This very aptly named presentation by Jacob Kaplan-Moss and James Bennett was excellent for those of us who develop and deploy Django websites.  The full skinny (with link to slides) is here: http://jacobian.org/speaking/2009/real-world-django/

Some highlights for me included:

• Focus on tight Django Applications that promote reuse while also breaking a website into components. Benefits of also leveraging packaging up your own components.
• Gain flexibility by leveraging Django Managers, and they help encapsulate behavior behind an API.
• Can extend models via new (in Django 1.1) Proxy subclasses.
• Lots of discussion and recommendations for testing — from unit testing, through functional testing, and then browser-based functional testing. Yep, you need them all. I’d like to play more with Twill and Windmill.
• Automating deployment – including options like virtualenv (and virtualenvwrapper), Ian Bicking’s pip (”pip installs packages”), zc.buildout, and Fabric.  zc.buildout’s power was emphasized (with its recipes, etc) was a bit overshadowed by comments on lack of documentation. I’d like to give pip and Fabric a try.
• Apache + mod_wsgi is now a preferred platform for server Django sites (or at least much more consistent performance and memory-usage wise than Apache + mod_python).
• Definitely flip through the session slides!  These were just some highlights for me out of 189 slides of useful information.

Various tidbits for the next few days here at PyCon:

• Open Space sessions come highly recommended
• There’s a heavy testing thread throughout conference (10 sessions worth!)
• Friday 11am: Using Windmill
• Saturday 4:15p: Ian Bicking’s session (creator of PIP and virtualenv, among many other topics)
• Sunday 10:35a: Panel: Functional Testing Tools in Python
• … though it will ultimately be tough to pick and choose from all the great topics!

Time for some sleep… more tutorials tomorrow, then 3 days of conference, then 4 days of sprints!

ps: It’s been great to see familiar faces from the Zope and Plone communities, which is often where I “get my Python on”.  Lately I’m also doing a lot of Django, so enjoying all the synergy around Python here at PyCon2009!

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 are doing.

We developed websites for them in Plone, including Boston Community Change, Puget Sound Community Change and Center for Ethical Leadership.

This award “celebrates Puget Sound leaders whose vision, commitment and unceasing efforts are significantly advancing social, environmental, and economic justice.”

Tickets are available for the 4th Annual Bill Grace Leadership Legacy Awards Dinner on March 5th, 2009.

The Interra Project “provides consumers with the incentives they need to shift their purchasing habits to support the health of their communities by shopping with locally-focused, environmentally and sustainably-minded businesses.”  I was part of the team that built the Boston Community Change website.  Now there is a  Puget Sound Community Change in our local community.  You can sign-up for a community change card for free and use when purchasing at local businesses, or if you own a business you can offer your services to those who have cards.

My experience with Neighborhood House is through a monthly Multicultural Committee meeting where I live (at New Rainier Vista) where they provide language translation and other great community services. Our community has native speakers from Somalia, Ethiopia, China, and Vietnam.