FatLemon

Panasonic LUMIX MapTool.pkg – Open Source edition

Andrew Freemantle — Wed, 01 Oct 2014 08:00:01 +0000

The Panasonic LUMIX DMC-TZ40 Digital Camera, in a word, excellent!

I recently upgraded my compact travel zoom camera from the tried and trusted Sony DMC-HX9V to the Panasonic DMC-TZ40. It’s quite an upgrade and while I’m delighted by my new purchase, the review will have to wait now that I can use a major feature: MAPS!

Maps! On a Digital Camera! What ever will they think of next!

Yes, as well as GPS Geotagging of photographs, the Panasonic LUMIX DMC-TZ30 (ZS20) and Panasonic LUMIX DMC-TZ40 (LZ30) come with Map Data that you can use to find your way to your next photo shooting location, or back to your hostel if you find yourself lost!

The Map Data comes on the CD-ROM / DVD with the camera, along with a little application called the LUMIX Map Tool. There’s a version for Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OSX, but not for Linux.

To save on space I’d copied the contents of the DVD onto a USB drive so I could update the map data while travelling, but the only thing that didn’t copy was the Apple Mac OSX version of the LUMIX MapTool.pkg!

It took a bit of Googling, but I eventually found a great blog post by Roland Kluge where he’d written a simple script version of the tool for his LUMIX DMC-TZ31 – and after reading the comments I was able to modify his script to make it work for my new LUMIX DMC-TZ40.

I cannot stress how thankful I am for his work and the comments on his post – thank you Roland, and thank you commenter Falk

Introducing LUMIX Map Tool – Open Source edition :o)

My contribution to Roland Kluge’s Simple Replacement for Lumix Map Tool

I’ve forked Roland’s code and added support for the Lumix DMC-TZ40, and I thought I’d make it a little more interactive as I’m not likely to change the Map Data too often.

Simply download the maptool.py file from the GitHub repository and run it with..

python maptool.py

.. and it will prompt you for the information it needs to get the Map Data from your DVD onto a formatted SD Card – maps away!

Panasonic LUMIX MapTool.pkg – Open Source edition is a post from Andrew Freemantle's blog
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Setting up Django on Windows Azure Websites

Andrew Freemantle — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 09:00:41 +0000

A couple of things caught me out when I was trying to deploy a Django application to Windows Azure, so I’m making a note of them here for future reference. Oh, and I hope they might be of use to you as well :o)

Configuring Azure Websites to run Python and Django

The Windows Azure Websites and Django getting started tutorial directs us to put the required settings into the Azure management portal, but that’s not how Microsoft do it in the Gallery, oh no. If we create a Django application from the Windows Azure Website gallery, the resulting site puts all the configuration into a web.config.

Personally, I like the management portal approach, but I did play with the web.config and got it working for my custom site, so I present it here in case this works for you:

There are three things you need to do to get this working:

Check the PYTHONPATH – It needs pointing to the root of your Django Application (the directory that holds manage.py, and the location of the directory site-packages (obviously, copy that directory into Azure from your development environment if it’s not there)
Set DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE – Point this to your settings.py file. Replace directory slashes ‘/’ with dots, and omit the .py from the end
Create the file handler.fcgi – This is required, and it’s a just a plain text file containing two double-quotes (i.e. “”) on the first line followed by a return carriage

Seriously though, just put the settings into the Azure management portal. It’s easier :o)

Bad Request (400)

Following the advice in settings.py the first thing I did after copying the files into Azure and seeing the Django “cool, now get cracking” default page was to trip DEBUG to False (DEBUG = False), then refresh the web browser..

Django on Windows Azure Websites – Bad Request (400)

Ouch.

Essentially, if DEBUG is False, we have to put our server’s URL into the ALLOWED_HOSTS setting. Now, we could do that in settings.py but this is really Azure specific just like the configuration above, so it really belongs in Azure.

In the Azure management portal, under the Website > Configure tab, find the ‘app settings’ section near the bottom and add the following:

Setting Value

Setting	Value
`ALLOWED_HOSTS`	Your Azure URL: e.g. `mydjangosite.azurewebsites.net` If you have custom domains pointed at Azure, you can use a space-separated list like so: `mydjangosite.azurewebsites.net myjangosite.com`
`SECRET_KEY`	While we’re adding new application settings, create a new 50 character random string and copy it here. We’ll use it in a second

ALLOWED_HOSTS

Your Azure URL: e.g. mydjangosite.azurewebsites.net

If you have custom domains pointed at Azure, you can use a space-separated list like so: mydjangosite.azurewebsites.net myjangosite.com

SECRET_KEY While we’re adding new application settings, create a new 50 character random string and copy it here. We’ll use it in a second

Now, we could just modify our settings.py, but it’s much better to have a configuration file specifically for production / Azure, so first of all, copy your existing settings.py to a new file in the same directory – I like to use the filename settings_azure.py.

Now, assuming you have a shiny new settings_azure.py file, delete everything in it and replace it with this:

from settings import *

# Now just overwrite the important settings

# SECURITY WARNING: keep the secret key used in production secret!
SECRET_KEY = os.getenv('SECRET_KEY')                #  - defined in Windows Azure app settings

# SECURITY WARNING: don't run with debug turned on in production!
DEBUG = False

TEMPLATE_DEBUG = DEBUG

ALLOWED_HOSTS = os.getenv('ALLOWED_HOSTS').split()  #  - defined in Windows Azure app settings



# Handy file logging, in case we run into problems on production
# Uncomment to log Django errors to the root of your Azure Website
"""
LOGGING = {
    'version': 1,
    'disable_existing_loggers': False,
    'filters': {
        'require_debug_false': {
            '()': 'django.utils.log.RequireDebugFalse'
        }
    },
    'handlers': {
        'logfile': {
            'class': 'logging.handlers.WatchedFileHandler',
            'filename': 'D:/home/site/wwwroot/error.log'
        },
    },
    'loggers': {
        'django': {
            'handlers': ['logfile'],
            'level': 'ERROR',
            'propagate': False,
        },
    }
}
"""

If you created this new settings_azure.py file, don’t forget to adjust the DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE value to point to it in the Azure management portal, or your web.config if you went that route, you heathen!

Setting up Django on Windows Azure Websites is a post from Andrew Freemantle's blog
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Extending System.Data.Linq.Table – Exportable Linq2SQL Classes

Andrew Freemantle — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 13:59:53 +0000

Wouldn’t this be handy?:

using (var db = new DataContext()) {
    return db.StockItems.ToXElement();
}

I’ve found this approach useful when working on API’s which essentially provide access to data that closely mirrors Linq2SQL generated classes. It makes it easy to control which properties are included, and how they are formatted.

First, we declare an interface that we can decorate our Linq2SQL classes with. Note that I’m returning an XElement here, but this could be JSON or something else:

using System;
using System.Xml.Linq;

public interface IXElementable {
    XElement ToXElement();
}

Then we augment the Linq2SQL classes we wish to be exportable, using Partial Classes as we’d normally do:

public partial class StockItem: implements IXElementable {

    // ..

    public XElement ToXElement() {
        return new XElement("StockItem",
            new XElement("StockItemId", Id),
            new XElement("PartNo", PartNo),
            new XElement("QtyInStock", QtyInStock),
            new XElement("QtyOnOrder", StockOrders.Where(o => o.Status == (int)StockOrderStatuses.Outstanding).Count()),
            new XElement("CreatedDate", CreatedDate.ToString("u")));
    }

    // ..
}

Finally, we extend the Linq Table class itself:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Data.Linq;
using System.Xml.Linq;

public static class TableExtensions {

	/// 
	/// Returns an XElement (XML) representation of the Table and its data
	/// Note that data objects in the Table need to implement IXElementable
	/// 
	public static XElement ToXElement(this Table table) where T: class {

		var xml = new XElement(GetTableName(table));

		foreach (var item in table) {
			try {
				xml.Add(((IXElementable)item).ToXElement());

			} catch (Exception ex) {
				Log.Write(string.Format("Table: {0}.ToXElement", xml.Name), ex);

				// no point continuing..
				break;
			}
		}

		return xml;

	}


	private static string GetTableName(Table table) where T: class {
		// a bit of a hack, but there doesn't seem to be a nice way to get the Linq2SQL table name
		string tableName = table.GetType().ToString().Split('.').Last().Trim(']');

		// pluralise it..
		if (tableName.EndsWith("y"))
			tableName = tableName.TrimEnd('y') + "ies";
		else
			tableName += 's';

		return tableName;
	}
}

And that’s it!

As you can see, this approach affords us complete control over the Linq2SQL generated properties and the format they’re serialised to, and it makes it really easy to omit properties without having to re-implement them in the Partial class just so we can add the [XmlIgnore] attribute.

Extending System.Data.Linq.Table – Exportable Linq2SQL Classes is a post from Andrew Freemantle's blog
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Gravatar HtmlHelper for ASP.Net MVC

Andrew Freemantle — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 20:00:55 +0000

Update: This implementation is now linked from the official Gravatar website!

Inspired by a recent project at work, here’s a complete implementation of the Gravatar image request API, as an ASP.Net MVC 3 / MCV4 HtmlHelper.

It includes the help and documentation from the Gravatar API page, and automatically does HTTPS/SSL requests if included on a page that is served securely (secure requests can be forced too).

Getting Started

Head over to the project page on GitHub, and save the single file GravatarHtmlHelper.cs into your project
Start using it with the HtmlHelper sytax, like so:

@Html.GravatarImage("user.name@email.com")

@Html.GravatarImage(
    "user.name@email.com",
    32,
    GravatarHtmlHelper.DefaultImage.Identicon,
    false,
    GravatarHtmlHelper.Rating.G)

and that’s it! The helper method is progressively overloaded, so you need only supply the minimum parameters to get the Gravatar you’re after.

Comments and suggestions are welcome here or on the projects issue tracker over at GitHub. I hope you find it useful

Gravatar HtmlHelper for ASP.Net MVC is a post from Andrew Freemantle's blog
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WTV: Automatic date-based version numbering for .Net with WhenTheVersion

Andrew Freemantle — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 22:00:12 +0000

There’s a trend towards using the software build date as part of the software version number, you know the sort of thing I mean: ‘2011.11.4.xyz‘, like in the footer over at StackOverflow.com, or MyLetts.com..

Wouldn’t it be great if we could get Visual Studio to do this for us automatically on build? I thought so too, so I’ve written a little app to do it

Getting set up with “When The Version”

Go get a copy of “When The Version” (WTV.exe) from the GitHub download page (or you can build it from the source if you prefer)
Drop it somewhere on your PC
Now, in your Visual Studio project, expand the Properties and duplicate the AssemblyInfo.cs / .vb file – I rename the duplicate to be AssemblyInfo.Template.cs:

Edit the AssemblyInfo.Template.cs file, putting in the placeholders for the date parts like so:

// Version information for an assembly consists of the following four values:
//
//      Major Version
//      Minor Version
//      Build Number
//      Revision
//
// You can specify all the values or you can default the Revision and Build Numbers
// by using the '*' as shown below:
// [assembly: AssemblyVersion("1.0.*")]
[assembly: AssemblyVersion("{YYYY}.{MM}.{DD}.0")]
[assembly: AssemblyFileVersion("{YYYY}.{MM}.{DD}.0")]

The following values are currently supported:

{YYYY} – the year
{MM} – the month
{DD} – the day
{SVN} – SubVersion revision number (more on this a bit later)

Now, open up the Project Properties > Build Events, and add the following Pre-build event command line (on a single line):

"C:\Path\To\wtv.exe"
  "$(ProjectDir)Properties\AssemblyInfo.Template.cs"
  "$(ProjectDir)Properties\AssemblyInfo.cs"

Finally, set the Build Action for the new AssemblyInfo.Template.cs file to ‘None’ and Build!

If you get stuck, pop open a Command Prompt and run WTV.exe without any parameters for usage instructions, or paste your full command line to see any helpful error messages:

SubVersion support

If you’re using SubVersion for your source control, WTV can also put the projects SVN revision number into the application version.

There’s only one caveat – .Net Application version number values are limited to a maximum of 32,767 (i.e. they’re Int16’s / short’s). Therefore, if your SVN revision is higher WTV will only use the last 4 digits: e.g.: 32768 -> 2768.

To use the SVN revision number, simply add the {SVN} placeholder to your AssemblyInfo.Template.cs file like so:

[assembly: AssemblyVersion("{YYYY}.{MM}.{DD}.{SVN}")]
[assembly: AssemblyFileVersion("{YYYY}.{MM}.{DD}.{SVN}")]

.. and then add a couple of extra parameters to the Pre-build event command line so WTV knows where SubWCRev.exe is, something like this (again, on a single line):

"C:\Path\To\WTV.exe"
  "$(ProjectDir)Properties\AssemblyInfo.Template.cs"
  "$(ProjectDir)Properties\AssemblyInfo.cs"
  "C:\Program Files\TortoiseSVN\bin\SubWCRev.exe"
  "$(SolutionDir)."

And because the AssemblyInfo.cs is generated, you can remove it from source control (but don’t remove it from your project!).

Finally

Comments and suggestions are welcome here or on the projects issue tracker over at GitHub. I hope you find it useful

WTV: Automatic date-based version numbering for .Net with WhenTheVersion is a post from Andrew Freemantle's blog
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Using SquishIt with Razor – ASP.Net MVC3 and MVC4

Andrew Freemantle — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 08:00:02 +0000

I’ll assume you already know the reasons why you should minify and combine your CSS and Javascript.

My favourite of the tools available for .Net is SquishIt by Justin Etheredge – here’s how I hook it up in my ASP.Net MVC4 (and MVC3) Razor projects..

Get the bits, either directly or find it in NuGet
Add a Project Reference to the SquishIt.Framework.dll
Add SquishIt to the namespaces section in the Views/Web.config:

<system.web.webPages.razor>
  <pages pageBaseType="System.Web.Mvc.WebViewPage">
    <namespaces>
      ..
      <add namespace="SquishIt.Framework" />
      ..
    </namespaces>
  </pages>
</system.web.webPages.razor>

Replace any and