Seek Nuance

Has anyone out there configured a LinkStation Pro Duo 2.0TB NAS drive with a Mac?

This LinkStation unit comes with a “NAS Navigator” application, which is supposed to find it on the network.

But it doesn’t.  The application doesn’t find s***.

I don’t need NAS Navigator, since I can set up the LinkStation from a browser.  (I.e., the admin interface is accessible at 192.168.1.xxx…)  But it bugs me that stuff like this doesn’t work out of the box.  It would have been faster if the instructions just said, “Start fishing for your new LinkStation, starting with the lowest DHCP address generated by your DHCP server.  Happy hunting.”  It’s what I eventually did.

We pulled the plug on TrenchMice yesterday.  It had plateaued in traffic, and wasn’t able to break through to the next level of readership. New features or different marketing efforts resulted in only temporary traffic spikes, followed by a return to the plateau.

It wasn’t a large financial drain, but it was a distraction from other business.  (Even for an automated site, you’ve got to periodically check the server logs, analyze crashes, fix bugs. update the software, yaddayaddayadda.)  So…it’s gone. (more…)

Boy have I been a slacker!  I set a schedule for myself to blog at least twice a week, and I’ve completely blown it.  But since nobody’s reading this blog, maybe that’s OK.

Lots has been going on. (more…)

It just opened up today…

A lot has happened since I wrote my last career rumination. (more…)

I’ve done more reflecting, and had more discussions with friends, since my first career rumination.  I’ve gravitated to focusing more on how I’d feel in different situations.  Herewith, a potpourri of brooding.

At-will employee vs. contractor

A basic doctrine of American law is at-will employment.  This is the employee’s and employer’s right to terminate the employee’s job at any time, without notice.

Federal and state law have defined statutory exceptions to this.  For example, employment agreements can stipulate termination notice periods and severance pay. Generally, absent an employment agreement or wrongful termination, you can be canned without notice at any time.

I’ve been wrapping my head around the differences between at-will employment and contractors.  What are the pros and cons of each, and why should one choose one over the other?  If there are no fundamental differences, maybe the choice should come down to a gritty financial calculus. There are many intangible and circumstantial differences, but I’m trying to get at the first principles. (more…)

From Economist.com, Wanted: Einstein Jr: Something seems wrong with the laws of physics. Spacecraft are not behaving in the way that they should. (more…)

This is how I added reCAPTCHA captchas to TrenchMice, a Django-powered website. (more…)

Client-side Python, application installation woes.  Mozilla and Python, PyXPCOM.  OLPC deployment.  Core Python contains, under the hood.  Getting ready for tomorrow’s sprints.

I think I’m the oldest participant in the Django sprint.

Grumbles on c.l.p about PyCon.

State machines created using decorators.  Roll your own persistence.  CouchDB.  Shove.  Using Django Admin as the app for Intranet applications.  py.test, which is a new unit test framework that looks excellent.  py.execnet.

I intended to work on TrenchMice code in the evening, but I crashed.

Python 3000.    T-shirts.  Everything you wanted to know about new import but were afraid to ask.  References, Python and .NET, the state of Django, and JK-M announces the Django Software Foundation.  REST.

I met Jacob Kaplan-Moss, shook his hand, and chatted. I may never again wash my right hand.

Not only has David Beazley written the best Python reference, but he’s also very friendly in person and a great presenter.

My head nearly exploded in the SQLAlchemy tutorial.

My laptop was a desktop-replacement in 2002, but I now have a serious case of laptop-envy.

It’s great to go to bed smarter than you were when you got up in the morning.

Tomorrow through March 19, I’ll be at PyCon 2008.  I’m looking forward to the tutorials, conference, and the Django sprint.  I’ll blog about it if inspiration strikes.

I just stumbled upon djangosearch.com, a search site focusing on all things Django.  There was a django-users posting about it in November of 2007, but I didn’t pursue it at the time.  (I’d give the author a tip of the hat, but all I have is an e-mail address and a mailing list pseudonym.  And yes, I tried searching for his/her blog page, using the e-mail address.) (more…)