Nuno Mariz - Latest blog entries

Announcing MySQL Multi-Source Replication Utility

Nuno Mariz — Tue, 01 Apr 2014 15:05:23 +0100

The MySQL Utilities team is pleased to announce a new MySQL utility, mysqlrplms, that allows users to setup multi-source replication. This utility is available for server versions 5.6.9 and later with GTIDs enabled. The new utility is included in MySQL Utilities release-1.4.2 RC.

What is multi-source replication?

Multi-source replication is often regarded as a means to aggregate and consolidate different streams of data (from master servers - also called sources) into one single server (slave) instance. This is useful for consolidating non-conflicting data changes into a central server. Not only does this allow users to perform backups of the consolidated data, it also permits users to execute queries that may span the datasets.

Requirements and assumptions

The mysqlrplms utility supports MySQL 5.6.9 and higher version servers with GTIDs enabled.
There must not be any overlap or data conflicts for the data from different masters. For example, there are no updates to the same object from multiple masters.
Replication must be asynchronous.
A round-robin scheduling is used to setup replication among all masters and slave.

Note: a POSIX system is required for using the daemon option.

Examples

Basic multi-source replication setup:

shell> mysqlrplms --slave=root:pass@host1:3306 \
                  --masters=root:pass@host2:3306,root:pass@host3:3306
# Starting multi-source replication...
# Press CTRL+C to quit.
# Switching to master 'host2:3306'.
# master on localhost: ... connected.
# slave on localhost: ... connected.
#
# Current Master Information:
+-------------------+-----------+---------------+-------------------+
| Binary Log File   | Position  | Binlog_Do_DB  | Binlog_Ignore_DB  |
+-------------------+-----------+---------------+-------------------+
| clone-bin.000001  | 594       | N/A           | N/A               |
+-------------------+-----------+---------------+-------------------+
# GTID Executed Set: 0cd1200c-b5a2-11e3-a342-28d244017f26:1-2
#
# Health Status:
+------------+-------+---------+--------+------------+---------+
| host       | port  | role    | state  | gtid_mode  | health  |
+------------+-------+---------+--------+------------+---------+
| host2      | 3306  | MASTER  | UP     | ON         | OK      |
| host1      | 3306  | SLAVE   | UP     | ON         | OK      |
| host3      | 3306  | MASTER  | UP     | ON         | OK      |
+------------+-------+---------+--------+------------+---------+
(...)
# Switching to master host3:3306'.
# master on localhost: ... connected.
# slave on localhost: ... connected.
#
# Current Master Information:
+-------------------+-----------+---------------+-------------------+
| Binary Log File   | Position  | Binlog_Do_DB  | Binlog_Ignore_DB  |
+-------------------+-----------+---------------+-------------------+
| clone-bin.000001  | 594       | N/A           | N/A               |
+-------------------+-----------+---------------+-------------------+
# GTID Executed Set: c30a1796-b998-11e3-bd1a-28d244017f26:1-2
#
# Health Status:
+------------+-------+---------+--------+------------+---------+
| host       | port  | role    | state  | gtid_mode  | health  |
+------------+-------+---------+--------+------------+---------+
| host3      | 3306  | MASTER  | UP     | ON         | OK      |
| host1      | 3306  | SLAVE   | UP     | ON         | OK      |
| host2      | 3306  | MASTER  | UP     | ON         | OK      |
+------------+-------+---------+--------+------------+---------+
(...)

Multi-source replication setup using different report values:

shell> mysqlrplms --slave=root:pass@host1:3306 \
                  --masters=root:pass@host2:3306,root:pass@host3:3306 \
                  --report-values=health,gtid,uuid

Start multi-source replication running as a POSIX daemon:

shell> mysqlrplms --slave=root:pass@host1:3306 \
                  --masters=root:pass@host2:3306,root:pass@host3:3306 \
                  --log=rplms_daemon.log --pidfile=rplms_daemon.pid \
                  --daemon=start

Restart a multi-source replication running as a POSIX daemon:

shell> mysqlrplms --slave=root:pass@host1:3306 \
                  --masters=root:pass@host2:3306,root:pass@host3:3306 \
                  --log=rplms_daemon.log --pidfile=rplms_daemon.pid \
                  --daemon=restart

Stop a multi-source replication running as a POSIX daemon:

shell> mysqlrplms --slave=root:pass@host1:3306 \
                  --masters=root:pass@host2:3306,root:pass@host3:3306 \
                  --log=rplms_daemon.log --pidfile=rplms_daemon.pid \
                  --daemon=stop

Send us your feedback

MySQL Utilities release-1.4.2 RC is available for download from the following links:

MySQL developers website: http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/tools/utilities/
Launchpad project: https://launchpad.net/mysql-utilities
Commercial customers can get it here: https://edelivery.oracle.com/

The documentation of MySQL Utilities can be obtained from the following link: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/index-gui.html

Contributing Ideas:

Community users: http://bugs.mysql.com (MySQL Workbench: Utilities)
Oracle customers: http://bug.oraclecorp.com (Product = MySQL Workbench, Component = WBUTILS)

New year, new job

Nuno Mariz — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 10:02:45 +0000

Starting from January 2013, I'll be working at Oracle on the MySQL Utilities Team as a Software Developer.
It's a new chapter on my professional career and a unique opportunity for doing what I like the most, which is Python programming on an open source project.

I'm leaving InfoPortugal S.A., a special company that was my home for the last 6 years. It was a pleasure working with such a talented team. A special Thanks to Alexandre Gomes, a great professional with an incomparable commitment to the company.

PostgreSQL and PostGIS installation from source on Mac OS X Lion

Nuno Mariz — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 11:59:10 +0100

This is a cookbook for installing PostgreSQL and PostGIS on Mac OS X Lion from source, as alternative you can install the binaries from EnterpriseDB or KyngChaos.

You don't have to install all packages but if you're using Django will be useful.

Requirements

Xcode with "Command Line Tools": Installation via Xcode > Preferences > Downloads.

PostgreSQL

Create the postgres user via System Preferences(for simplicity), use "postgres" as username.

Compiling and installing PostgreSQL:

$ curl -O http://ftp.postgresql.org/pub/source/v9.1.3/postgresql-9.1.3.tar.gz
$ tar xzfp postgresql-9.1.3.tar.gz
$ cd postgresql-9.1.3
$ ./configure CC=/usr/bin/clang CXX=/usr/bin/clang++ "CFLAGS=-arch x86_64" "LDFLAGS=-arch x86_64" "CXXFLAGS=-arch x86_64"
$ make
$ sudo make install
$ cd ..

Create PostgreSQL Database Cluster:

$ sudo mkdir /usr/local/pgsql/data
$ sudo chown postgres /usr/local/pgsql/data
$ sudo -u postgres /usr/local/pgsql/bin/initdb -D /usr/local/pgsql/data

Start PostgreSQL Server:

$ sudo -u postgres /usr/local/pgsql/bin/pg_ctl -D /usr/local/pgsql/data start

After installation add to .profile or .zshrc:
```
export PATH=/usr/local/pgsql/bin:$PATH
```

PROJ4

PROJ.4 is a library for converting geospatial data to different coordinate reference systems.

$ curl -O http://download.osgeo.org/proj/proj-4.8.0.tar.gz
$ curl -O http://download.osgeo.org/proj/proj-datumgrid-1.5.zip
$ tar xzfp proj-4.8.0.tar.gz
$ cd proj-4.8.0/nad
$ unzip ../../proj-datumgrid-1.5.zip
$ cd ..
$ ./configure CC=/usr/bin/clang CXX=/usr/bin/clang++ "CFLAGS=-arch x86_64" "LDFLAGS=-arch x86_64" "CXXFLAGS=-arch x86_64"
$ make
$ sudo make install
$ cd ..

GEOS

GEOS is a C++ library for performing geometric operations.

$ curl -O http://download.osgeo.org/geos/geos-3.3.3.tar.bz2
$ tar xjfp geos-3.3.3.tar.bz2
$ cd geos-3.3.3
$ ./configure CC=/usr/bin/clang CXX=/usr/bin/clang++ "CFLAGS=-arch x86_64" "LDFLAGS=-arch x86_64" "CXXFLAGS=-arch x86_64"
$ make
$ sudo make install
$ cd ..

GDAL

GDAL is an open source geospatial library that has support for reading most vector and raster spatial data formats. GEOS and PROJ.4 should be installed prior to building GDAL.

$ curl -O http://download.osgeo.org/gdal/gdal-1.9.1.tar.gz
$ tar xzfp gdal-1.9.1.tar.gz
$ cd gdal-1.9.1
$ ./configure CC=/usr/bin/clang CXX=/usr/bin/clang++ "CFLAGS=-arch x86_64" "LDFLAGS=-arch x86_64" "CXXFLAGS=-arch x86_64"
$ make
$ sudo make install
$ cd ..

PostGIS

Spatial extensions for PostgreSQL.

$ curl -O http://postgis.refractions.net/download/postgis-1.5.4.tar.gz
$ tar xzfp postgis-1.5.4.tar.gz
$ cd postgis-1.5.4
$ ./configure CC=/usr/bin/clang CXX=/usr/bin/clang++ "CFLAGS=-arch x86_64" "LDFLAGS=-arch x86_64" "CXXFLAGS=-arch x86_64"
$ make
$ sudo make install

Gabriela Barbosa Mariz

Nuno Mariz — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 16:36:00 +0000

Gabriela Barbosa Mariz was born at 16h36, March 12, 2012. She weighed 3.710 Kg and was 51 cm long.
Gabriela and Marta are doing well.

ITJobs Android App

Nuno Mariz — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 13:38:16 +0000

Just released the ITJobs Android app, it was a fun(sometimes) project to make.
The application supports devices with Android 1.6 or greater. For those people that says Android fragmentation is a non issue, I've to say they are wrong, it turns the life of developers extremely difficult and boring.
Too many versions and resolutions to take care about. I had the feeling of continuous patching just to support the largest devices that I could.
I've also found some nonsense and sometimes ridiculous bugs on Android SDK, I'll post about this later.

But overall it's not a bad platform to develop. What I've enjoyed the most was the flexibility about the XML layouts and shapes, the Eclipse IDE does the job and I think Java is a nice programming language.
Please send me some feedback, the app is available on Android Market:

Happy new year

Nuno Mariz — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 23:03:48 +0000

No resolutions, just goals and dreams. Have a healthy baby girl, love, health, run half marathon in 2h and success for my upcoming projects.

Happy new year!

Announcing Daddy 2.0

Nuno Mariz — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 14:46:08 +0100

The project is under development and my co-worker is doing her best to provide the most beautiful layout.

For my english speaking readers the photo says: "Pregnant 3+"

Believe in your ideas!

Nuno Mariz — Tue, 03 May 2011 17:16:31 +0100

Later in 2007 I had almost 200 feeds subscriptions on my Google Reader account and I had a problem, sometimes I didn't have the time to read a full article and I wanted to read it later.
At that time I was not aware of a tool that would help me with this problem and my solution was to add a bookmark to Delicious with a readlater tag.
It worked, but I didn't want to mess my bookmarks with links to articles that I wanted to read later.
I felt that I needed a tool for the job and for about a week in my spare time I built a simple website to manage my online readings. It was simple, It had a bookmarklet that I could call to save a link of the page that I was visiting, add a title, description, tags and the ability to save it privately.
On February, 8th, 2008 I announced on my blog the release of Fullread. The feedback was a mix of "I use delicious with a tag for that" and "Looks nice, but not very useful".
At that time I built the tool mainly for myself and I truly believed that there was a need for this kind of thing, but the majority of the feedback was not that great. I continued using the tool but I didn't add more features to it. If the people didn't liked why bother?
Well, 25 days later Marco Arment released Instapaper and posted on his blog. Marco went further and added an iPhone app, that was in my opinion the killer feature.
Right now Instapaper is the market leader in this category, it's a fantastic tool with a continuous development and I use it every day.

So, why Fullread had no success compared to Instapaper?
In my opinion the factors were:

Mainly because Marco made a great job.
Marco was the CTO of Tumblr and was well known by the community, this helped with the media coverage. I'm a simple software engineer in Portugal.
I abandoned Fullread development.

What's the future of Fullread?
The answer is not simple. It’s very difficult to compete with Instapaper or Read it Later at this time of the game. But, in the name of pride, I'll eventually improve/rebuild Fullread, maybe with a different approach.

So, is there a lesson to take from all this, I ask?
Yes: Believe in yourself, believe in your ideas!

My daily tools

Nuno Mariz — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Hardware

At home

Laptop: MacBook Pro 15" - Intel Core 2 2.4Ghz, 2Gb RAM(needs an upgrade) and 150Gb HD, connected to a HP 2310e 23" monitor and a mStand.
Phone: iPhone 3G.

At work

Computer 1: iMac 21.5" - Intel Core 2 3.0Ghz, 4Gb RAM and 500Gb HD.
Computer 2: Ubuntu Linux - Intel Quad-Core 2.4Ghz, 4Gb RAM, WD Raptor 150Gb + Samsung HD502 750Gb. Used for testing and processing maps.
Phone: HTC HD2 with a custom Android 2.3 Gingerbread ROM.

Software

For development

Emacs: I'm using it for all web development, scripting and text editing.
Xcode: For iOS development.
Eclipse: For Android development.
Firebug: For web development.
Mercurial: The distributed source control management of my choice.
Virtualenv: Virtual Python environment builder.
PostgreSQL: The relational database of my choice.
PostGIS: Adds support for geographic objects to the PostgreSQL relational database.
MongoDB: A document-oriented database.

Other tools

Evernote: My information organization tool for all my projects ideas, notes etc.
Dropbox: For file sync, no more pen drives!
Reeder: I use both iPhone and desktop versions to consume RSS feeds.
Twitterrific: I use both iPhone and desktop versions, it's the Twitter client that's fast enough on my iPhone 3G.

What's yours?

New website

Nuno Mariz — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 19:32:49 +0000

The new website is up. After almost 2 years, I'm blogging again.
The reason for this gap It's a mix of Twitter usage and laziness.
In the migration process I've messed up the RSS feed, solved, my apologies that.

Getting the client IP address behind a proxy in Apache

Nuno Mariz — Wed, 20 May 2009 09:45:21 +0100

Typically in my Django projects deployments I use Nginx as a front-end web server to handle static content while proxying all other requests to Apache.

When the request arrives to Apache, the client IP address is 127.0.0.1. We need to configure Apache to accept the IP address from X-Real-IP or X-Forwarded-For headers set by Nginx.

To solve this problem I use mod_rpaf that does exactly the opposite of mod_proxy_add_forward.

In my Nginx virtualhost configuration I have something like:

server {
    ...
    location  / {
        proxy_pass        http://127.0.0.1:8080;
        proxy_set_header  Host             $http_host;
        proxy_set_header  X-Real-IP        $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header  X-Forwarded-For  $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        ...
    }
    ...
}

This also applies if your are using a different webserver as front-end such as Lighttpd or another instance of Apache.

Portuguese Python User Group

Nuno Mariz — Mon, 18 May 2009 08:45:53 +0100

I've created a Python User Group in Portugal. The idea is to join people who enjoy programming in Python.
No membership is required to participate, experienced programmers and absolute beginners are both welcome!
You can visit the site or follow us on Twitter.

Django 1.0 released!

Nuno Mariz — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 01:23:26 +0100

Yes, is finally here.

Portuguese translation of Django 1.0

Nuno Mariz — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:09:06 +0100

I've just submitted a patch for the Portuguese translation.
If you are a Django user and know Portuguese, please take a look to the translation strings and submit any fix before the final 1.0 release.
Meanwhile, you can download the unofficial version in the downloads section.
Update: The patch is already in SVN.

Rafael Barbosa Mariz

Nuno Mariz — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 05:48:33 +0100

Rafael Barbosa Mariz was born at 00h48, July 26, 2008. He weighed 3.580 Kg and was 50 cm long.
Rafael and Marta are doing well.

Django 1.0 roadmap and timeline

Nuno Mariz — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 09:38:56 +0100

Finally we have a Django 1.0 roadmap and timeline. Jacob Kaplan-Moss posted today on Django devolopers.
I must say this roadmap seems very realistic and the only thing that I will miss is the aggregation support, that is promised to be released in a future version, maybe in 1.1.

Internet lifestream with Django

Nuno Mariz — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 01:30:50 +0100

My goal was to archive and display my internet lifestream. My first approach was writing a client for each API of the social networks that I'm in.
This turned out to be a complete waste of time and effort. All that I needed after all was a FriendFeed account that would centralize all my feeds.

Archiving and displaying your entries with Django is quite simple.
First of all, you need to download the Python FriendFeed API client. Then start a new application in your project, lets call it lifestream:

./manage.py startapp lifestream

On the settings.py add the lifestream project to the INSTALLED_APPS and a variable to store your FriendFeed username:

FRIENDFEED_USERNAME = 'your_username'

In the models.py add a model named Entry:

from django.db import models

class Entry(models.Model):
    id = models.CharField(max_length=255, primary_key=True)
    service_id = models.CharField(max_length=50, null=True, blank=True)
    service_name = models.CharField(max_length=50, null=True, blank=True)
    service_icon = models.URLField(max_length=255, verify_exists=False, null=True, blank=True)
    service_profile = models.URLField(max_length=255, verify_exists=False, null=True, blank=True)
    title = models.CharField(max_length=255, null=True, blank=True)
    link = models.URLField(max_length=255, verify_exists=False, null=True, blank=True)
    updated = models.DateTimeField(null=True, blank=True)
    published = models.DateTimeField(null=True, blank=True)
    media_title = models.CharField(max_length=255, null=True, blank=True)
    media_link = models.URLField(max_length=255, verify_exists=False, null=True, blank=True)
    media_thumbnail = models.URLField(max_length=255, verify_exists=False, null=True, blank=True)
    created = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True)

    def __unicode__(self):
        return self.title

    class Meta:
        ordering = ['-published']
        verbose_name = 'Entry'
        verbose_name_plural = 'Entries'

    class Admin:
        list_display = ['title', 'service_name', 'published']
        list_filter = ['service_name']
        date_hierarchy = 'published'

Create an url.py on the lifestream folder:

from django.conf.urls.defaults import *
from lifestream.models import Entry
 
entry_list_dict = {
    'queryset' : Entry.objects.all(),
    'paginate_by' : 30,
}

urlpatterns = patterns('',   
    (r'^$', 'django.views.generic.list_detail.object_list', entry_list_dict),
)

As you can see, I've used a generic view. You can also use the date based generic views and pagination to build an archive like mine.

Add to your project root urls.py:

(r'^lifestream/', include('lifestream.urls'))

Create a template lifestream/entry_list.html:

{% for entry in object_list %}
<div class="source">
  <a href="{{ entry.service_profile }}" title="{{ entry.service_name }}"><img src="{{ entry.service_icon }}" alt="{{ entry.service_name }}" alt="{{ entry.service_name }}" /></a>
</div>
<div class="details">
  <ul>
    <li><a href="{{ entry.link }}">{{ entry.title }}</a></li>
    <li>{{ entry.published|timesince }} ago</li>
    {% if entry.media_thumbnail %}<li><a href="{{ entry.media_link }}"><img src="{{ entry.media_thumbnail }}" alt="{{ entry.media_title }}" /></a></li>{% endif %}
  </ul>
</div>
{% endfor %}

Finally, create a script to synchronize your feeds:

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

import sys
import os

ROOT_PATH = os.path.realpath(os.path.dirname(__file__))
PROJECT_PATH, PROJECT_DIR = os.path.split(ROOT_PATH)

sys.path.insert(0, ROOT_PATH)
sys.path.insert(1, PROJECT_PATH)

os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = '%s.settings' % PROJECT_DIR

from friendfeed import FriendFeed
from django.conf import settings
from lifestream.models import Entry

ff = FriendFeed()
feed = ff.fetch_user_feed(settings.FRIENDFEED_USERNAME)

for e in feed.get('entries'):
    entry, created = Entry.objects.get_or_create(id=e.get('id'))
    if created:
        service = e.get('service')
        entry.service_id = service.get('id')
        entry.service_name = service.get('name')
        entry.service_icon = service.get('iconUrl')
        entry.service_profile = service.get('profileUrl')
        entry.title = e.get('title')
        entry.link = e.get('link')
        entry.updated = e.get('updated')
        entry.published = e.get('published')
        media = e.get('media')
        if media:
            entry.media_title = media[0].get('title')
            entry.media_link = media[0].get('player') or entry.link
            thumbnails = media[0].get('thumbnails')
            entry.media_thumbnail = thumbnails[0].get('url')
        entry.save()

If you want, you can add a job in your crontab:

# synchronize every 15 mins
*/15 * * * *   root   /path/to/your/application/lifestream_cron.py

See my lifestream as the working example.

UPDATE: Friendfeed sends the time in UTC, if you want to use your timezone you have do some hacking:

Install pytz:

easy_install pytz

Import and assign your timezone to a variable:

import pytz
tz = pytz.timezone(settings.TIME_ZONE)

And replace entry.updated and entry.published with:

updated = e.get('updated')
updated = updated.replace(tzinfo=pytz.utc).astimezone(tz)
published = e.get('published')
published = published.replace(tzinfo=pytz.utc).astimezone(tz)
if settings.DATABASE_ENGINE == 'mysql': # http://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/5304
    updated = updated.replace(tzinfo=None)
    published = published.replace(tzinfo=None)
entry.updated = updated
entry.published = published

Thanks to Chris Kelly that send me an email reporting this.

Django error notification with jabber

Nuno Mariz — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 13:26:46 +0000

Django has a code error notifications mechanism when a view raises an exception. It will email the people in ADMIN tuple(settings documentation) in settings.py with the full exception information and displays the default 500.html template.
This only happens when DEBUG=False in the settings.py.

It's possible to set a handle that change this behavior with a handler500 variable in the root urls.py.
So, we can easily write a simple view that sends an error notification to our jabber account.

First of all, you need to install xmpppy and dnspython:

$ easy_install xmpppy
$ easy_install dnspython

Add to settings.py the jabber parameters such as the jabber id, password, recipient, etc.:

JABBER_ERROR_NOTIFICATION = True
JABBER_ID = 'your_jabberid@jabberdomain.com'
JABBER_PASSWORD = 'your_jabber_password'
JABBER_RECIPIENT = 'recipient@jabberdomain.com'
JABBER_ERROR_TEXT = 'An error occurred in "Project Name", please check your email.'

Start a new app named errors or something else and add it to the INSTALLED_APPS tuple in the settings.py:

python manage.py startapp errors

Add a handler500 variable with the view in the root urls.py:

handler500 = 'errors.views.server_error_jabber'

Finally add the view in errors.views that sends a jabber notification and returns a 500 error page:

from django.views.defaults import server_error
from django.conf import settings
import xmpp, time

def server_error_jabber(request, template_name='500.html'):
   if settings.JABBER_ERROR_NOTIFICATION:
       jid = xmpp.protocol.JID(settings.JABBER_ID)
       cl = xmpp.Client(jid.getDomain(), debug=[])
       conn = cl.connect()
       if conn:
           auth = cl.auth(jid.getNode(), settings.JABBER_PASSWORD, resource=jid.getResource())
           if auth:
               id = cl.send(xmpp.protocol.Message(settings.JABBER_RECIPIENT, settings.JABBER_ERROR_TEXT))
               # Some older servers will not send the message if you disconnect immediately after sending
               time.sleep(1)
   return server_error(request, template_name)

NOTE: Don't forget to set DEBUG=False in the settings.py.

I'm addicted

Nuno Mariz — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 14:46:23 +0000

Twitter user timeline with a Django templatetag

Nuno Mariz — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 10:45:44 +0000

A simple templatetag for adding to the template context a variable with the user timeline from Twitter.
It uses the CachedContextUpdatingNode snippet for caching from Jacob Kaplan-Moss.
The reason that is necessary to cache content is because Twitter limits the number of accesses to the API.
This only works if the cache is enabled on your settings.py.

class TwitterNode(CachedContextUpdatingNode):

    cache_timeout = 1800 # 30 Minutes, maybe you want to change this
    
    def __init__(self, username, varname):
        self.username = username
        self.varname = varname

    def make_datetime(self, created_at):
        return datetime.fromtimestamp(mktime(strptime(created_at, '%a %b %d %H:%M:%S +0000 %Y')))

    def get_cache_key(self, context):
        return 'twitter_user_timeline_cache'

    def get_content(self, context):
        try:
            response = urllib.urlopen('http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/%s.json' % self.username).read()
            json = simplejson.loads(response)
        except:
            return {self.varname : None}
        for i in range(len(json)):
            json[i]['created_at'] = self.make_datetime(json[i]['created_at'])
        return {self.varname : json}
    
@register.tag
def twitter_user_timeline(parser, token):
    bits = token.contents.split()
    if len(bits) != 4:
        raise TemplateSyntaxError, "twitter_user_timeline tag takes exactly three arguments"
    if bits[2] != 'as':
        raise TemplateSyntaxError, "second argument to twitter_user_timeline tag must be 'as'"
    return TwitterNode(bits[1], bits[3])

Usage:

{% twitter_user_timeline username as twitter_entries %}
{% if twitter_entries %}
  {% for entry in twitter_entries %}
  {{ entry.created_at|date:"d M Y H:i" }} - {{ entry.text }}
  {% endfor %}
{% endif %}

Use the source, Luke.

My best project ever!

Nuno Mariz — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 23:14:39 +0000

The project is still under development. My co-worker is doing her best to provide the most beautiful layout.

Fullread updates

Nuno Mariz — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 10:34:34 +0000

New features on Fullread:

Feeds in the latest and user bookmarks.
- http://fullread.com/feeds/latest/[rss/atom]/ (By latest - all users)
- http://fullread.com/feeds/[username]/[rss/atom]/ (By user)
List of users that bookmarked the same URL.
Multiple bookmarking service support.

NOTE: If you are using a bookmarking service that is not available, please let me know: http://fullread.com/contacts/?subject=Bookmarking%20service%20support.

A quote from Theo Schlossnagle

Nuno Mariz — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 14:30:32 +0000

The language is mostly irrelevant. I can’t count the number of times I’ve hear people say "Java doesn’t scale" or "PHP doesn’t scale". No languages scales; solutions scale.

Theo Schlossnagle in "Scalable Internet Architectures"

Fullread

Nuno Mariz — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 19:53:02 +0000

Fullread is online. It's just a simple tool that helps you organize your online readings.
I use del.icio.us a lot, mainly for bookmarking, but right now my account is a complete mess because I’m constantly adding links that I want to read later and I don't delete them.
Fullread uses a simple concept: I add an URL to my account to read later, then I decide to archive, delete or add it to my del.icio.us account.
Feel free to send me any feature request or something else.
I hope you enjoy it.

Swim across the Atlantic Ocean

Nuno Mariz — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 14:53:27 +0000

Try to get directions from "Belo Horizonte" to "Miami" on Google Maps.
Here is a shortcut: http://smallr.net/google-maps.

Smallr updates

Nuno Mariz — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 17:56:27 +0000

After I've messed up about the domain issue(see this comments), I've just updated smallr with some features. Now provides an API to access the service by REST.
Right now ~~only~~ supports JSON, XML ~~will be~~ is also available ~~soon~~.
A bookmarklet is also available.

Smallr

Nuno Mariz — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 19:51:01 +0000

I've just released smallr. It lets you generate small web addresses with a keyword that make it easy to remember, will not break in emails and will never expire.
Basically is a TinyURL clone, with a keyword addon.
There will be an API for webservices with JSON and XML, eventually a Firefox extension.
Test it and send me some feedback.
I hope you enjoy it.

Weekend in Sintra

Nuno Mariz — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 00:15:24 +0100

We went to Sintra this weekend.
Sintra is a magical place where you feel like you've just entered a time machine and you find yourself in a land of castles and palaces surrounded by a luxurious vegetation. It's inevitable to lose yourself in all the historical details that are related to this place and the numerous points of interest.
To put the cherry on top of the cake, our choice for accommodation could not have been better! If you are looking for tranquility and be surrounded by all that magical atmosphere and... brace yourselves... have a room view to Pena Palace you will want to discover Quinta das Sequóias. A cosy and warm reception are expecting you as well as a delicious breakfast. We are absolutely going to return there.
Some photos here.

iPhone says Welcome to Django

Nuno Mariz — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 20:50:16 +0100

A simple WSGI middleware dispatcher

Nuno Mariz — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 10:41:25 +0100

The Web Server Gateway Interface (WSGI) is a standard interface between web server software and web applications written in Python. Having a standard interface makes it easy to use an application that supports WSGI with a number of different web servers.

One implementation is wsgiref that was added to Python 2.5 Standard Library.
Here is a simple web application that writes "Hello World":

def index(environ, start_response):
    start_response("200 Ok", [('content-type', 'text/html')])
    return ['Hello World!']

if __name__ == "__main__":
    from wsgiref.simple_server import make_server
    server = make_server(HOST, PORT, index)
    print 'Starting up HTTP server on port %i...' % PORT
    server.serve_forever()

This is nice, but is not very useful for us, so lets add some kind of controller(or url dispatcher):

from dispatcher import Dispatcher

dispatcher = Dispatcher()
dispatcher.add(r'^/$', 'views.index')
dispatcher.add(r'^/hello/(?P<username>\w+)/$', 'views.hello')

HOST = 'localhost'
PORT = 8000

if __name__ == "__main__": 
    from wsgiref.simple_server import make_server
    server = make_server(HOST, PORT, dispatcher)
    print 'Starting up HTTP server on port %i...' % PORT
    server.serve_forever()

As you can see I've used a regular expression for the url mapping, just like Django uses.
Here is the dispatcher(dispatcher.py):

import re

class Dispatcher(object):
    def __init__(self, handle404 = None):
        self.urls = dict()
        self.request_path = ''
        if handle404:
            self.handle404 = handle404
        else:
            self.handle404 = self._404

    def __call__(self, environ, start_response):
        self.request_path = environ.get('PATH_INFO', '')
        for url in self.urls:            
            regex = re.compile(url)
            if regex.match(self.request_path):
                m = regex.match(self.request_path)                        
                mod_name, func_name = self._get_mod_func(self.urls[url])                
                try:
                    callback = getattr(__import__(mod_name, {}, {}, ['']), func_name)
                except ImportError, e:
                    raise Exception, "Could not import %s. Error was: %s" % (mod_name, str(e))
                except AttributeError, e:
                    raise Exception, "Tried %s in module %s. Error was: %s" % (func_name, mod_name, str(e))                
                args = (environ, start_response)
                kwargs = dict()                
                for i in regex.groupindex:
                    kwargs[i] = m.group(i)
                # Run callback with environ, start_response and args
                return callback(*args, **kwargs)
        # No match with the defined urls
        return self.handle404(environ, start_response)
            
    def _get_mod_func(self, callback):
        """
        Converts 'path.to.module.funtion' to ['path.to.module', 'function']
        """
        try:
            d = callback.rindex('.')
        except ValueError:
            return callback, ''
        return callback[:d], callback[d+1:]
    
    def _404(self, environ, start_response):
        start_response("404 Not Found", [('content-type', 'text/html')])
        return ['Not Found']

    def add(self, regex, handler):
        self.urls[regex] = handler

And here is the views(views.py):

def index(environ, start_response):
    start_response("200 Ok", [('content-type', 'text/html')])
    return ['Index']

def hello(environ, start_response, username):
    start_response("200 Ok", [('content-type', 'text/html')])
    return ['Hello %s' % username]

Simple eh?
This is just a start, now we can add more features, like encapsulate the start_response method and add some kind of HttpResponse.
I don't what do reinvent the wheel here and add another web framework to Python, just like Joe Gregorio says in this article. But to prove how trivial is to make a simple framework with WSGI and don't worry about the deployment at development phase.