achillean's blog
Get RSS updates to your Instant Messenger
Submitted by achillean on Sun, 06/01/2008 - 08:41.
As a technology and politics addict, I like staying informed about the latest news. Eventually, I got tired of refreshing pages to find out when new content was available (or having to check my RSS reader) so I decided to write a small service that delivers RSS/ Atom updates to my instant messenger. And since I'm sure I'm not the only person craving such a thing, I figure I'd make it publicly available:
Sending mail in python
Submitted by achillean on Fri, 05/09/2008 - 08:47.A quick Python function that shows how to send an email.
def send_mail(destination, source, subject, text, smtp_addr='localhost'):
"""Simple function to send an email.
destination
The email address that the message should be sent to.
source
The 'From' address that will be used for the email.
subject
The subject/ title of the email.
text
The actual message/ content of the email.
smtp_addr
The hostname or IP address of the SMTP server that will deliver the
email.
Example usage:
send_mail('my_friend@test.com', 'bgates@microsoft.com',
'Hi!', 'Just checking in.')
"""
import email.Message
import smtplib
mail = email.Message.Message()
mail['To'] = destination
mail['From'] = source
mail['Subject'] = subject
mail.set_payload(text)
server = smtplib.SMTP(smtp_addr)
server.sendmail(source, destination, mail.as_string())
server.quit()
"""Simple function to send an email.
destination
The email address that the message should be sent to.
source
The 'From' address that will be used for the email.
subject
The subject/ title of the email.
text
The actual message/ content of the email.
smtp_addr
The hostname or IP address of the SMTP server that will deliver the
email.
Example usage:
send_mail('my_friend@test.com', 'bgates@microsoft.com',
'Hi!', 'Just checking in.')
"""
import email.Message
import smtplib
mail = email.Message.Message()
mail['To'] = destination
mail['From'] = source
mail['Subject'] = subject
mail.set_payload(text)
server = smtplib.SMTP(smtp_addr)
server.sendmail(source, destination, mail.as_string())
server.quit()
Installing Finch on OpenBSD without X11
Submitted by achillean on Sun, 05/04/2008 - 03:59.Since my OpenBSD install doesn't use X11 I couldn't use the official Pidgin package and had to install by source instead. To start out, I used the following configure command:
./configure --enable-consoleui --disable-gtkui --without-x --with-python
Which resulted in the following error:
...
checking for initscr in -lncursesw... no
checking for update_panels in -lpanelw... no
checking for initscr in -lncurses... yes
checking for update_panels in -lpanel... no
configure: error:
Finch will not be built. You need to install ncursesw (or ncurses) and its development headers.
checking for initscr in -lncursesw... no
checking for update_panels in -lpanelw... no
checking for initscr in -lncurses... yes
checking for update_panels in -lpanel... no
configure: error:
Finch will not be built. You need to install ncursesw (or ncurses) and its development headers.
Python Tips and Guidelines
Submitted by achillean on Sun, 03/30/2008 - 09:41.This is a must-read for any Python developer:
http://python.net/~goodger/projects/pycon/2007/idiomatic/handout.html
Web 2.0 Bubble Flash Video
Submitted by achillean on Sun, 03/30/2008 - 00:33.This hilarious video pretty much sums up my thoughts on the latest craze out of silicon valley.
Scalable Web Architecture
Submitted by achillean on Thu, 03/27/2008 - 09:03.Just wanted to share (and archive) an interesting presentation given a few years ago at ApacheCon: http://www.codemass.com/presentations/apachecon2005/ac2005scalablewebarc... . Should be a good read for anybody that plans on designing a larger web architecture.
Byebye GoDaddy
Submitted by achillean on Fri, 03/21/2008 - 05:08.I've had a strongly negative relationship w/ GoDaddy for a long time now, but I wasn't too impressed w/ the offering of other providers either, so I decided to stick it out. Yeah, I hated that they parked your domain if you didn't have content on it, their website is horrible to use and they try to cram down special offers around every corner. But I didn't care. At least until I had to renew 10+ domains and the added cost for private WHOIS and all sorts of other stuff really added up. There had to be a better offer!
fusexx in the wild
Submitted by achillean on Fri, 02/22/2008 - 08:43.As a coder, it's always nice to see other people get some use out of what you did. Most of the projects I work on are closed-source and proprietary, as such I'm glad to see that the LoggerFS project, which I unfortunately don't have time to maintain properly atm, has produced something useful in the form of a fuse C++ wrapper called fusexx.
Dojo's ContentPane and Internet Explorer Caching
Submitted by achillean on Tue, 11/20/2007 - 18:36.Anybody that's done 'AJAX' web development knows how much of a pain it can be to work with Internet Explorer. Once you get past the lack of good debugging tools and rigid javascript engine, you will probably encounter caching issues. If you're encountering the problem using Dojo's ContentPane, here's a simple fix to the caching problem. Add the following parameters to your ContentPane arguments:
- preventCache='true'
- useCache='false'
- cacheContent='false'
Interactive Television using the Java TV API
Submitted by achillean on Tue, 11/13/2007 - 22:45.For the most part, watching TV is a passive experience. You're at the mercy of content providers and don't really have much to say when it comes to the user experience. That could change with the advent of the Java TV API. Sun is hoping to bring the popular Java language/ platform into the living-room to create an interactive television experience.
