Chris McMichael

As of today, my site is officially sitting on the Google App Engine (GAE). The switch was rather painless considering my website was formerly written in python/Django and the fact that the GAE adopts some of the components of Django. The main difference in the GAE versus using straight-up Django is that GAE uses it's own ORM.

The Google App Engine does have a few limitations:

1. Performing complex queries is not an option. When Using GQL or the filter methods, sorting becomes an issue. For example I would like to filter blog posts related to a category. I proceed with filtering by a category foreign key, but according to the documentation, there is an ordering limitation. A query can only be ordered by the item it is being filtered by. So filtering by FK and ordering by a blog post date is not allowed.
2. Another drawback I found, was read-only access to the file system. This means that whenever a file is uploaded, it must live in a Blob column on the database. The Blob column only allows for a maximum of 1MB of content to be stored. In most cases, not an issue. But if dealing with large images or videos consider using YouTube or Picasa which can easily be integrated.
3. Lastly, there is a lack of documentation on how to configure a domain to point to the GAE app. I actually had to find the solution on a non-google forum. Since the google app engine works by using sub-domains, I also have to use www prefix again which saddens me but is not that big of a deal.

Major advantages of the Google App Engine:

1. Apps are super easy to setup and deploy.
2. No need to spend to time being a sys-admin. Google takes care of that.
3. All the great tools and applications that Google has Docs, Picasa, YouTube, gmail, etc.. can either be integrated into your app or setup on a sub-domain.
4. Perhaps the best feature that I am befitting from is the fact that I am saving $10/month in hosting fees. The likely hood of my site ever exceeding the quota for free accounts is very slim.

Overall, I feel that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages and plan on making more apps on the GAE. One feature I wished that the GAE offered is access to the gmail spam filter through an API. How awesome would it be if you could filter comments or any type of text for spam? I would totally implement that. Speaking of which, I finally turned my comment system back on.

Previously, I had no solution for combating comment spam. I spent some time playing around with akismet but could never get it to function correctly so I ditched that solution. Next, I stumbled upon recaptchas.net, But I didn't like having a huge ass ugly badge just to validate that a user is human. Finally, I found captchas.net, a very light weight captchas system. So I hope this will help combat my spam. In the event that spam gets through, I have an easy way of disabling spam as soon as it comes in. Maybe Google will implement my feature request then I can avoid captchas altogether.

I am still in the process of adding my gallery back. It's completed, I need to spend some time migrating the data over. Since GAE is using Django components I felt that I could keep the Django badge on my site. That's about it. I hope you like my subtle design changes!

TextMate is my primary editor of choice when developing on a Mac. One of the main reasons I use TextMate is for the bundles. Bundles help to increased productivity in several ways however the main reason I am writing about bundles is a discovery that I found a while back about bundles.

I found this website (some of you might already be aware):

http://netcetera.org/cgi-bin/tmbundles.cgi

What makes this site so awesome is that you can literally clone each repository directly into the TextMate bundles directory. No need to install each of them individually. And when a new revision is pushed, simply pull down the latest changes from the bundles directory and your done.

If you are a web developer checkout the JSLint bundle. It is the best bundle for JavaScript debugging. Quick error checking happens as soon as a JavaScript file is saved. There is also a keyboard shortcut CONTOL+SHIFT+V to list out errors by line number. The name of the bundle is actually called JavaScript Tools and can be found here:

http://github.com/subtleGradient/javascript-tools.tmbundle/

Basic install of bundles:

From the terminal, change directories to the TextMate Bundles directory

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cd /Applications/TextMate.app/Contents/SharedSupport/Bundles/
# Then pull down the repository of your choice.
git clone git://github.com/subtleGradient/javascript-tools.tmbundle.git

Check it out and enjoy!

Rumor has it that SocialBooth will be opening up for more than just a select set of users. I will be striving to get this service up and fully functional with in the next month or so and hopefully with a kick-ass design.

Went to Google I/O this year and it was by far the best conference I've ever been to. Free G2 phones with a months worth of service and access to new Google Wave, the Future! I've been told that I am now living in the 21st century now that i have my new iPhone 3GS. SIM cards rock my world! Now I can swap between the 3 phones that I own.

Over the years I have received countless articles of mail stating: *Get your FREE credit report . In the small print at the bottom of the page it states: with participation of our 30 day risk free program . Recently, I received one from Bank of America stating: Your credit report is now available for review. Please respond within 14 days . Your response requires a signature to their fraud protection program: Privacy Assistance Premier. No cost for 30 days but 12.95 a month there after.

The facts:

You are entitled to a FREE (no strings attached) credit report from the 3 major reporting agencies - Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion each year. Don't left phony scans fool you.

Do be aware of Experian. They, in my opinion are the worst reporting agency of the three. Why? Experian constantly updates their customer help phone numbers and the phone numbers that are available are generally a big loop with no way of getting to a customer representative. Experian and other third party afilliates use what I consider to be deceptive advertising, by stating that you can get your free credit report but in the fine print you are actually signing up for a trial sevice that is worthless. If at any time you are required to provide your credit card I would highly suggest finding another way of obtaining your credit report.

Here is an article on MSN with a further explanation:

http://tinyurl.com/32rqe9.

Go directly to the one and only authorized site for annual credit reports:

AnnualCreditReport.com

FREE Annual Reports:

Did you know that you can get Annual reports about companies for FREE? Apple, Google, AIG, etc... The best part is that you can download PDF versions from their site so you do not have to wait via snail mail for the physical copy. Keep up-to-date on how companies are doing so that you know who or who NOT to invest in.

To get FREE annual reports go here:

https://www.orderannualreports.com/

Hope that this information becomes of use to whoever is reading it.

Today I am excited to announce the Beta release of a project that I have been working on called SocialBooth. SocialBooth will allow users to push content out to virtually any social network of their choice. I am also providing support for mainstream photo and video services such as Flickr Photobucket, etc....

The killer feature for developers, is the API system that I have created. Developers will now be able to tie in their new application to use my services. Be sure to thank the creators of the OAuth protocol for making the authenication of my API system possible.

While SocialBooth is still in Beta, developers and users are welcome to request access to try out my new service.

If you would like to try my service out, send me a message through the contact form located on my website and I will set you up with a Beta testers account.

Cheers!