Officially Lucky

Allow template tags in Flatpages (and chunks)

One of the big downfalls of storing bits of templates in your database is that you're limited to HTML/CSS/JavaScript. Individuals editing flatpages can't use template filters or other bits of Django's awesome templating language. Usually this doesn't make much sense, but for one CMS use-case (linking to other pages by identifier and not hard-coding their URL), it could make a big different. In that vein, Kyle Fox posted a comment on my post about django-chunks and mentioned that he had developed a template tag that allows individuals to insert Django templating language into Flatpages (and chunks!) This tag will let ...

djangocon: San Francisco, September 2008

Wow! I'm so excited about the news of an upcoming djangocon. Not only is it confirmed that it will eventually happen, it will be taking place in San Francisco, in September 2008! The date is engineered to coincide with Django 1.0's scheduled release.

Three awesome Django tips

By far, the one tip that's revolutionized my Django projects is this post by Rob Hudson, Django and Relativity: My default Django settings file has changed over time to now include settings that do not depend on the location of the project on the filesystem. This is great in a team environment where more than one person is working on the same project, or when deploying your project to a web server that likely has different paths to the project root directory. Nathan Ostgard wrote a post on how to use Django with Gmail and I come back to it ...

Super simple Google Analytics for your Django projects

I just whipped together another really simple Django application I call django-google-analytics that simplifies the process of inserting Google Analytics tags into your Django projects. Why did I create this? I manage a lot of Django projects that present slightly-different forms to users depending on the site/domain they're visiting. There's also a bunch of custom submission code that differs from form to form, but that's neither here nor there. I need different Google Analytics codes depending on the sites and after sticking these tags into every single template, I thought it would be cool to be able to manage these ...

RestrictMiddleware

Here's another one that I've yanked out of a project. I call it RestrictMiddlware and it is a real simple, and really easily bypassed "security" mechanism. Like most security, it's just security theater, but some clients make it so hard to enable true security that you've got to resort to this type of stuff. As a warning, I'd really emphasize that you shouldn't ever use this type of access restriction on any site that contains truly secure, private, or sensitive material. Use strong user logins or better. This is the RestrictMiddleware and you just pop it into your Django settings.py ...

django-chunks

I've built an impressively simple and basic reusable Django application in the process of creating a mini-CMS for a client. It's called django-chunks and it's really nothing more than a model and a template tag. By adding chunks to your installed apps list in your Django project and performing a ./manage.py syncdb, you'll be able to add as many "keyed" bits of content chunks to your site. The idea here is that you can create a chunk of content, name it with a unique key (for example: home_page_left_bottom) and then you can call this content from a normal template. Why ...

WWDC: San Francisco was a success

Jacuqi and I just got back from a whirlwind trip to San Francisco to cover Apple's WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference) for Ars Technica! We spent most of our time talking to iPhone and Mac programmers, covering Steve Jobs' keynote address to the attendees and press, and going to the cool parties that are thrown. Just like we did in January at MacWorld, we threw a party at Harlot on 54 Minna. We had an open bar and teamed up with Gizmodo again to throw a really awesome party. In my opinion, it was one of the best of all ...

I love Judge Judy

I agree with SM, we should start calling idiots "marginal" from now on.

Clint Ecker

What do you guys think of my awesome new tshirt? I've had a lot of people tell me that they would wear a "Clint Ecker" t-shirt which makes me both giddy and frightened at the same time ;) I got this for our trip to Boston, it works well for meeting new people ;)

More amazing photos from Mars

The first is another photo captured the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's high-resolution imager. You can see the lander suspended from the parachute. This photo is taken at a very unique angle which makes it looks as if the lander will end up in the large crater, however: Shown here is a 10 kilometer (6 mile) diameter crater informally called "Heimdall," and an improved full-resolution image of the parachute and lander. Although it appears that Phoenix is descending into the crater, it is actually about 20 kilometers (about 12 miles) in front of the crater. This is another photo from the orbiter, ...

Video of the landing sequence for the Mars Phoenix lander

These video sequences are the best parts of these expeditions. The reactions of the engineers as the nerdy signals come into the NASA command center get me all choked up with happiness :) Here's the video, click play to watch: YAY!

Tecmo Bowl: Bo Jackson

Some things never change: cats on desks

From the 23rd century:

Weezer video for Pork and Beans

The guys in Weezer (including Cuomo's amazing 'stache) has put together a great video for their new single, Pork & Beans, using a mixture of mimicked and real people who starred in popular internet memes. Watch it, you'll find it extremely funny ;)