Posts for Django

Working with Python and RabbitMQ

2009 May 20

I recently installed RabbitMQ to handle some message queuing needs at Readernaut and thought I'd share how everything came together. If you'd like to learn more about RabbitMQ please read the excellent Rabbits and Warrens.

Capturing content in Django templates

2009 February 28

As a template designer there are times when you have structural code surrounding a block which is waiting on content from a child template.

Save RAM with mobile middleware

2008 October 07

A while back I wrote an article on how to set up a mobile site with Django. Currently I have a Slicehost account which includes 256MB of RAM. My resources are tight and I really dislike having another set of unnecessary Apache processes for a mobile site that, aside from different templates, is using the same code base. The solution is quite simple, write a middleware.

Message Queuing imports

2008 September 05

Last week I ran into some problems dealing with large book imports on [Readernaut](http://readernaut.com). I tested the system for around 50-100 books but had no idea people would upload lists of 900+ books. This begged the question, how do you handle importing very large sets of data before the browser times out?

Creating a basic API with Django

2008 August 11

Creating a simple public API for you site is a lot easier than you may think with Django. You're basically just creating another view and serving it as XML or JSON instead of HTML.

Going mobile

2008 February 18

Over the weekend, I decided to whip up a mobile version of Playground Blues. I walked into Broadway Cafe around 3pm on Saturday, and by 5:30, I had m.playgroundblues.com. Here's how it went down.

Django Basic Apps

2007 December 02

I've been working on abstracting some Django applications from past projects so they can effortlessly be plugged into future projects.

Django Sprint

2007 December 01

Armed with high levels of legally addictive stimulants, silver laptops, and brilliant minds Django will get even closer to 1.0 today.

Juggling Django settings modules

2007 November 06

If you find yourself juggling multiple Django projects and constantly changing the settings module variable, try this simple shortcut.

LJWorld redesign

2007 May 02

So for the past five months or so we've been working on a redesign for the Lawrence Journal-World. For those of you that don't know, it's a daily newspaper that circulates the town of Lawrence, Kansas. It's quiet small compared surrounding markets which makes it very agile and free from shareholders and their evil agendas.

InspectDB to the rescue

2007 April 19

In a past life I used to build admin tools using Ruby on Rails. I thoroughly enjoyed spending weekends improving my little tools and libraries but I eventually realized I was spending more time on back-end stuff than front-end. Enter Django. For the past nine months I've touched nothing but Django so you can imagine how easy it was for me to hop on the Rails bicycle when Dreamhost decided to upgrade Rails.

Austin bound

2007 March 08

I'm headed to Austin, Texas today to partake in the South by Southwest festivities. The panel linup this year looks scrumptious. Unlike my pal Jeff, I have no idea what I'll be attending. I will, however, be attending as many evening parties as I can possibly stumble into.

FTP bad, versioning good

2006 October 04

You may have noticed a little downtime Sunday evening. I was able to get the Domaki code under version control which I highly recommend. It allows you to kick FTP to the curb and do everything with "svn commit" and "update" commands.

Switching from Rails to Django

2006 September 11

So back in the Fall of 2005 I launched my foray into the world of Rails like every other designer wannabe programmer. I'll be honest, I did it because everyone else was. Looking back I don't really know why, I just followed the "if it feels good, do it" principle.

Fun with Beautiful Soup

2006 September 09

So how easy is it to yank out all links in a post and display them as a list on their own? Well with a little Python love and some Django filters it's easy as microwave burritos. Before we get started you'll need a fresh copy of ElementTree and BeautifulSoup.

Slightly neurotic on change.

2006 September 04

Always tweaking here and there. Today marks a big tweak including a name change, site realignment, and a fun little visualization project. Welcome to Domaki (pronounced Du•mock•eee), formerly "You know where you are" and formally "Playground Blues." I am your host, Nathan Borror.

Nathan Borror