the Forty-Second Parallel

Apple has released a Rendezvous implementation for Windows that includes an IE plugin and printer setup utility. Interesting, but I can't seem get it to work properly. I will assume that is because it's a "technology preview." Even though the same technology seems to work in iTunes for Windows. Go figure.

At any rate, there's some serious potential here. Rendezvous is some seriously cool stuff for things like LAN communications among co-workers (i.e. iChat Rendezvous) and locating printers on a network. Let's hope they keep improving it to the point that it does something useful - other than with iTunes, which we all know is very useful ;-)

There's also another implementation of Rendezvous for Windows called Howl that's been around for a while. But, little seeems to have ever come out of it. Interestingly enough, the IE plugin for Howl "looks" identical to the Apple version. There's not a printer setup utility included with Howl though.

I don't usually get worked up about themes. But, Charamel has got to be the most beautiful Firefox theme I've ever seen. It's original, tasteful and 100% creamy, sticky goodness. It does have one minor visual issue that I don't dig (lack of border b/w bottom of tabs and browser window), but otherwise it's gorgeous. There's also a matching Thunderbird theme that's equally sweet. Ok, that's enough of that. My point being that I like this theme. So there.

Update (2/13/06): if you're looking for an updated version of Charamel that works with Firefox 1.5, you can download it here.

A different take on the whole Python web development dilemma. A couple of commenters mention skunkweb, a framework I've glanced at but frankly never really considered seriously (mostly cause of the dumb name). Perhaps it's time for a closer look ...

After a long detour through the world of server side Python (a real Wild West at the moment), I've recently begun diving back into Tomcat, JSP, and servlets. Since I've only done a little bit of work in this area, and even less on the Mac side of things, I needed a little hand holding with getting things started. Luckily, I stumbled across this handy guide to installing Tomcat on Mac OS X (specifically 10.3/Panther). A 5 minute install and things work like clockwork.

Update: Just realized the that above guide doesn't include instructions for creating the startup script under OS X. There's a handy guide over at MacDevCenter that gives a pretty good overview of the process.

Had some other issues in my transition from Mac OS 10.2 to 10.3. I should preface this, though, by saying that I've been running Panther on my 15 in. AI Powerbook since the week it came out without any of these sorts of problems. Granted, I don't do near as much compiling, etc. on my Powerbook as I do on my dev machine. But, anyways ...

In the process of building MySQL and Python 2.3.4 from source on the new machine, I ran into several errors at different stages (both configure and make) complaining about the inability to locate some specific library. MySQL couldn't seem to find bundle1.o; and python couldn't locate crt1.o.

After doing a search for those files, turns out that they were installed under the "/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.3.0.sdk/usr/lib/" directory. Why there and not under "/usr/lib" I'll never know. After I copied the appropriate libs from there to "/usr/lib", though, everything was happy.

Ok, here's my issue. I recently switched to a new(er) development box - from an aging G4 PowerMac running OS X 10.2 to a 17 in. flat panel iMac running OS X 10.3.

Even though the old machine was running 10.2, I had installed Python 2.3 along with a myriad of modules, etc. So, I figured that I shouldn't have any issues moving my projects over to 10.3, since it comes with Python 2.3 already installed. Or so I assumed ...

I have an app that uses pickle for data persistence - whether that's a good thing or not is debatable. In either case, things had been clicking along nicely on the 10.2 machine - the app loads, pickle instantiates the objects, and we're on our merry way. Move that app over to 10.3 and things start getting a little hairy.

I first noticed a problem when my app was taking much, much longer to load on the new machine. That was puzzling because it had always run smoothly before. So, I popped it open and started poking around to determine where the hangup was and traced it back to pickle.load(). Timed it and discovered that the load method under 10.3 is taking roughly 30 times longer to run (2 sec. vs. 62 sec.); also noticed that the file used to store the pickled data in seems to grow larger for no apparent reason after every usage (the data isn't growing). It's all very puzzling ...

"Change is good. And it's happening now."

Or something to that effect ... anyways, some things are a changing behind the scenes here at the forty-second parallel.

For one, due to some machine juggling were doing around here, this site had to pack its bags and move to a new host. Thankfully the transition wasn't too painful. (word of warning - pay attention when installing MySQL on OS X 10.3).

Secondly, in spite of all the hubbub/backlash surrounding the release of MovableType 3.0, I decided to go ahead and upgrade instead of switching to something like Wordpress. My rationale being pretty straightforward:

1.) This is a one man/non-commercial/educational blog, so the whole license hubbub (i like that word) is irrelevant to me. I can use the free edition like nothing changed. And, if at some point I decide I do need a multi-user license, I'll reevaluate things. I don't have any problem, though, with paying for software that serves my needs.

2.) As of now, I don't have a whole lot to gain from switching systems. MT works. I didn't have to upgrade; but, since I was moving to a new machine, I thought I might as well. A lot of people have made these "holier-than-thou" gestures of switching from MT to some "pure" (eg. GPL) open source package like Wordpress (nothing against them). Open source software isn't going to engender world peace/save the whales/free tibet/etc. And in this case, it especially isn't going make my life easier - I have a system that works, plain and simple. So, that's that ...

Besides the MT upgrade, I'm also planning on a site redesign at some point. Dunno when - especially since I've been tinkering with a redesign for what seems like 3 months now. But, if you start seeing dust flying, watch your head ;-)