Tim Akinbo's Tumblelog

url shortening, an approach

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 18:59:00 +0100

After reading this comment on Stackoverflow on how to write a url shortener, I wrote a python implementation of the algorithm and also chipped in a module to do the inverse conversion. The comment clearly describes the theory behind this approach.

Transactions on InnoDB » Blog Archive » NoSQL to InnoDB with Memcached

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 10:39:33 +0100

Transactions on InnoDB » Blog Archive » NoSQL to InnoDB with Memcached:

Now MySQL also has a memcached interface.

Yoshinori Matsunobu's blog: Using MySQL as a NoSQL - A story for exceeding 750,000 qps on a commodity server

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 10:38:39 +0100

Yoshinori Matsunobu's blog: Using MySQL as a NoSQL - A story for exceeding 750,000 qps on a commodity server:

Interesting approach to getting higher qps from MySQL databases.

MySQL-proxy and Unicode

Sun, 24 Apr 2011 10:18:22 +0100

MySQL-proxy doesn’t seem to be able to connect to MySQL servers and use the utf-8 encoding. In order to ensure that the character set is always utf-8, you need to add the following lines to every MySQL server in your setup within the [mysqld] section.

skip-character-set-client-handshake
init-connect=’SET NAMES utf8’
default-character-set=utf8

UnicodeErrors in Django

Sun, 24 Apr 2011 08:50:13 +0100

There are times when in your Django application, displaying unicode strings can throw an except similar to:

UnicodeDecodeError at /contact/export

‘utf8’ codec can’t decode byte 0x92 in position 2: unexpected code byte

I’ve discovered that this might be due to a LOCALE setting that doesn’t support those unicode characters. To solve this problem, you have to change your LOCALE to something like UTF-8 that supports unicode characters.

From your shell, simply type:

update-locale LANG=en_US.UTF-8

The shortest way to install xdebug on Mac OS X

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 23:13:21 +0100

brew install xdebug

Then follow the instruction on how to enable it in php.ini

django flatpages and DEBUG = False

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 11:32:32 +0100

You’ll likely get a 500 error if you do this, you’ll need to create your 404.html and optionally 500.html templates to get this to work.

Python Generators [PDF]

Sat, 29 Jan 2011 00:21:25 +0100

Python Generators [PDF]

Django model versioning

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 19:37:11 +0100

I just learned about model versioning today. With model versioning, you can maintain history of all modifications made to your models (creation, deletion and updates) and have the ability to roll back (if necessary) those actions.

You can find a list of projects offering model versioning here: http://djangopackages.com/grids/g/versioning/

Creating filtered Django fixtures

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 12:27:17 +0100

If you ever find yourself needing to create django fixtures from a select records in your database, here are steps that can help.

For the model you intend to export, you’ll need to modify your default object manager. I’ve include a snippet below showing an object manager with a modified get_query_set method:

class LocationManager(models.Manager):
def get_query_set(self):
return super(LocationManager, self).get_query_set().filter(type__name=”Registration Center”)

Next, set your default object manager to this:

class Location(models.Model):
…
objects = LocationManager()

Now you can do a ./manage.py dumpdata locations.Location and your generated fixture will be filtered based on your modified get_query_set.

How to detach a directory in a git repository to another repository and maintain it's related history

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 18:44:39 +0100

How to detach a directory in a git repository to another repository and maintain it's related history:

If you’ve ever worked on a git repository that was growing large and need to split some of the functionality into separate modules or repositories, this stackoverflow question and the corresponding answers, describes how to.

Why Is Eric Schmidt Stepping Down at Google?

Sat, 22 Jan 2011 09:47:19 +0100

Why Is Eric Schmidt Stepping Down at Google?:

It will be interesting to see how Larry transposes in the coming events.

sed

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 14:18:33 +0100

It’s rather interesting that if I wanted to extract the first number from the following line:

2609 13541 186371 file.csv

Which generated by the command wc and has a variable number of whitespace before the first figure

If I were using a combination of wc, sed and cut, I have to use the following:

wc file.csv | sed -e ‘s/[ ][ ]*/:/g’ | cut -d “:” -f 2

instead of just

wc file.csv | sed -e ‘s/\s+/:/g’ | cut -d “:” -f 2

apt woes

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 09:31:49 +0100

If you’re trying to install a package using the apt package management tools and you are getting errors of this kind:

dpkg (subprocess): unable to execute post-removal script: Permission denied

Then you should check the mount options for your /var partition. Ensure that you do not have the noexec option set (at least for the duration of the install).

Fix for Munin MySQL Monitoring Plugin Graph Not Showing or Blank » My Digital Life

Fri, 29 May 2009 10:13:59 +0100

Fix for Munin MySQL Monitoring Plugin Graph Not Showing or Blank » My Digital Life

Field Notes: Inside an Integrated Communications Agency - Making Django Environmentally Friendly

Sat, 23 May 2009 09:25:56 +0100

Field Notes: Inside an Integrated Communications Agency - Making Django Environmentally Friendly:

This really comes in handy when dealing with standalone Python scripts that need to use Django features (especially Models).

Getting Google to promote your project

Sat, 28 Mar 2009 21:40:31 +0100

I was wondering how Earth Hour got Google to promote their event and I saw this. I think it might be useful for someone out there.

How can I get Google to do something similar for my organization or project? We welcome your ideas on how we can become more socially and environmentally responsible. Although we can’t guarantee either a placement on the Google homepage or even a response to every query, we do read every email we receive and welcome your ideas of organizations that you believe we should feature. If you’d like to submit a proposal, please send it to us at proposals@google.com.

sirjohn.co.uk » Blog Archive » Installing SSL certificates on Nokia S60 devices

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 23:16:53 +0100

sirjohn.co.uk » Blog Archive » Installing SSL certificates on Nokia S60 devices

The four stages of programming competence « Devthought

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 21:16:38 +0100

The four stages of programming competence « Devthought:

So what level of competence are you at?

agile approach | HOWTO: Install PECL APC Cache on CentOS (without XAMPP)

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 22:19:34 +0100

agile approach | HOWTO: Install PECL APC Cache on CentOS (without XAMPP):

In case you ever find yourself running out of memory when you need to install a PEAR package or PECL extension.