Boto is a Python library for interacting with Amazon’s web services. I’ve used it in the past, and am currently using it for an ‘s3get’ implementation based on a simple example I found buried in a post on Patrick Altman’s blog. While testing my code, I noticed I was getting import errors from boto/connection.py, because…
Author: bkjones
MySQL Problem and Solution Posts: r0ck.
Taming MySQL is… challenging. Especially in very large, fast-growth, ‘always-on’ environments. It’s one of those things where you seemingly can never know all there is to know about it. That’s why I really like coming across posts like this one from FreshBooks that describes a very real problem that was affecting their users, how they…
On Remote Workers and Working Remotely
I’ve been on both sides of the remote worker relationship. On the manager side, I’ve managed some good-sized projects using an all-remote work force. Indeed, I’ve hired, managed, fired, and promoted workers without ever knowing what they look like. On the worker side, I do most of my work remotely, and I have for some…
Reunion with Drupal, Break from Django
My Drupal Reunion I started using drupal maybe 3-4 years ago. At the time I wasn’t all that impressed. I liked it better than Joomla (Mambo, at that time), and it was a little more featureful than PHP-Nuke. But even back then I hated that this thing was really making some sweeping, grand assumptions about…
To PyWorks Speakers and Attendees
I’ve gotten several emails over the past couple of days about meeting up at PyWorks. This is reasonable, since I was the main engine initiating contact with prospective speakers back in the June-August timeframe. However, much to my disappointment, I won’t be attending PyWorks this year. The story is basically that, in September, the startup…
I’m a Top 25 Geek Blogger… for some value of “Top”
I’m not someone who wakes up every day and looks at how my blog is ranked by all of the various services. I check out my WordPress stats, but that’s really about it. However, someone went and did some of the work for me, and they’ve decided that, of the blogs that they read or…
Freelancing: What’s working, what isn’t
So, I’ve been a full-time freelance consultant now for almost 3 months, and I’m happy to say that business is going well so far. I’ll be coming off of a 3-month contract at the end of this month, and I’ve already had some success in building the business in that time. I’ve also had a…
Stop Doing Things That Don’t Work (a.k.a: Excel and Virtual Private Servers are Evil)
Note that I’m talking about using these tools in some kind of professional way, and more specifically, I’m talking about using Excel as a database, and using VPS hosting to host “professional” web sites. By “professional”, I mean something other than your personal blog, picture gallery, or other relatively inconsequential site. Excel is not a…
By popular demand: ReportLab Sample Document
I posted here last week about using ReportLab to generate very simple reports with a chart and code sample. I got several requests for screenshots, but what fun is that? Here’s the PDF… gfe.pdf
Generating Reports with Charts Using Python: ReportLab
UPDATE (Mar. 26, 2010) Just realized I never posted the link to the PDF the code here generates: here it is. My bad. I’ve been doing a little reporting project, and I’ve been searching around for quite some time for a good graphing and charting solution for general-purpose use. I had come across ReportLab before,…