Django vs. PostgreSQL IN operations


Here's another cautionary performance tale, wherein I thought I was clever but was not. A table ("Vital") holds widget information. Another table ("Furball") holds other information, with an M:M relationship to Vital. We want to do inferential computations on filtered Furball rows. So we generate a pk list from a Vital QuerySet, and call this … Continue reading Django vs. PostgreSQL IN operations →

Scaling CouchDB


Scaling CouchDB by Bradley Holt, published by O'Reilly, is a sweet little book. Buy this book if you're using, or contemplating using, CouchDB in a high-performance setting. It's only 58 pages. But it's a very good 58 pages.

OS X Lion: My Top Nine Annoyances


Apple's OS X Lion is a great product. I'm glad I upgraded. But it's got some annoyances. My first Mac was a version 1, back in 1985. After that, I used DEC operating systems for a few years, and then used Microsoft Windows exclusively throughout the 1990s and most of the 2000s. I switched back … Continue reading OS X Lion: My Top Nine Annoyances →

Does Rackspace still support Ubuntu?


Updated at 7/6/2011 1425: Whatdeyaknow, Ubuntu 11.04 just showed up on Rackspace's server list. ——— Ubuntu released 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) back in April. It's now July, and 11.04 is still not available as a server image at Rackspace Cloud. I've repeatedly asked Rackspace about 11.04's availability. I always get the same answer back, which is, paraphrasing: … Continue reading Does Rackspace still support Ubuntu? →

My company had a layoff today


Thankfully, I didn't get laid off. It's been a very somber Monday. Quite a way to return to work from my Open Source Bridge vacation.

Open Source Bridge 2011: Day 4 Liveblog


1530: Closing ceremony, conference feedback, etc. Lots of chatting. Spirits are high. Lots of commentary. I'm sure the Open Source Bridge staff will be sifting through them (and the online survey forms) for a few weeks. 1422: couchdbkit or couchdb-python? 1304: Pasta and meatballs that were quasi-Italian. Then back to CouchDB. 1205: I've successfully built … Continue reading Open Source Bridge 2011: Day 4 Liveblog →

Open Source Bridge 2011: Day 3 Liveblog


1545: Keeping Agile at the Heart of the Internet,Larissa Shapiro. This turns out to be a Scrum overview. Not what I expected. 1430: Data Warehousing 101, Josh Berkus. "Big data" is relative to contemporary typical commercial data sizes. Archiving: WORN data. Usually needed for regulatory compliance, and has very liberal response time requirements. Data mining: … Continue reading Open Source Bridge 2011: Day 3 Liveblog →

Open Source Bridge 2011: Day 2 Liveblog


1900: Guided Tour of IRC, Peter Fein. This promises to be a treat, listening to he of Telecomix renown. Hmm, should I use Colloquy or Snak on OS X? We venture onto the Telecomix IRC server. Then we venture onto AnonNet. Ooooo! 1545: Testing Antipatterns, Matt Robinson. Not running tests often enough. Not fixing broken tests before … Continue reading Open Source Bridge 2011: Day 2 Liveblog →

Open Source Bridge 2011: Day 1 Liveblog


1630: Rather than hitting the night's parties and socials, I'm going back to my room to chill. Have to pace myself. 🙂 1545: Massively Scaling Django for a Global Audience with Playdoh, Frederic Wenzel. The speaker works at Mozilla, which has more than 140 live websites. Lots of sites, lots of load, lots of scaling. … Continue reading Open Source Bridge 2011: Day 1 Liveblog →