Matt Bracewell

Playing with the new Google App Engine Launcher this evening I spotted this warning every time the dev_appserver server kicked up:

WARNING  2009-08-10 22:37:23,407 dev_appserver.py:3358
Could not initialize images API; you are likely missing the Python "PIL" module.
ImportError: No module named _imaging

A comment from praseodym on the GAE Cookbook recipe Install PIL in Mac OS X provided this one liner:

sudo easy_install --find-links http://www.pythonware.com/products/pil/ Imaging

I ran the command in Terminal and was impressed with a speedy auto install and, ignoring a few errors in the verbose output, restarted the dev_appserver. Same warning!

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As a follow on from Django on OS X – getting started here’s what happened after I took Stuart’s advice, installed Xcode and atempted to add mod_wsgi to apache.  Before I start let’s just clarify that I’m using MAMP Pro 1.7 on my MacBook Pro running OS X 10.4.  This provides me with Apache/2.0.59 (Unix) PHP/5.2.3 DAV/2. 

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As I’m somewhat picky about the code produced on my sites I was really keen to remove the comments describing each TYPO3 content element. This is the sort of thing I mean:

<!--  CONTENT ELEMENT, uid:122/textpic [begin] -->
<a id="c122"></a>
<!--  Header: [begin] -->
<div class="csc-header csc-header-n1">
<h2 class="csc-firstHeader">
Time-served Designer & Webmaster available for challenging permanent positions and short-term contracts.
</h2>
</div>
<!--  Header: [end] -->
<!--  Image block: [begin] -->
<div class="csc-textpic-text">
<!--  Text: [begin] -->...</div>

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Wanting to publish an RSS feed on a TYPO3 site recently I ran into errors relating to the php configuration of Dreamhost.  To solve this I followed the instruction for using your own modified version of php.ini on the wiki which essentially copies the latest Dreamhost version of php.cgi and php.ini into a newly created cgi-bin directory.

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I’d decided a while ago to invest some time learning Python, already had MAMP Pro happily running on my MacBook Pro running OS X 10.4 so it made sense to push further and have a look at Django – the Python Web Framework. I’m following the beautifully written Django Book and an amalgam of google results.

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As I find myself rarely needing to network my MacBook Pro with anything nowadays I inevitably find myself having to trawl a noise of Google results to obtain the desired effect.

Should be straightforward enough. I’ve enabled file sharing on the mac and been networking most flavours of Windows over the years. The problem is that on authenticating as the appropriate mac user from the Vista end the expected mac user-name format of macmachinename\user-name isn’t accepted.

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Following the proliferation of available ubuntu flavours, I dreamt with interest that the worlds most popular Linux distribution is no longer content to constrain their target user.

Gentle reader, I present to you mewbuntu

Nokia’s support for the Mac platform is paltry – everything seems to rely on an installation of Nokia Suite which is PC only. Apple’s iSync steps in to synchronise contacts and calendar entries between the two but sms messages are seemingly stored on the phone forever.

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On a FullXML site running on some HELM shared hosting (Windows) I suddenly got this front-end error on all pages and no content:

msxml3.dll error '80004005'

A reference to variable or parameter 'gateway' cannot be resolved.

The variable or parameter may not be defined, or it may not be in scope.

/Engine/CFullXMLEngine.asp, line 819

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Step 1

Create the following script somewhere. I choose ~/bin.

#!/bin/bash
src=/insert/path/to/mounted/camera
DST=/home/shared/Photos/camera_sync/
rsync -rtv --modify-window=1 --progress --ignore-existing $SRC $DST
xmessage "Camera Sync Complete!"


Step 2

Find the gnome removable media preferences application. (On Ubuntu it’s at System->Preferences->Removable Drives and Media).

Under the Multimedia tab change the Digital Camera command to:

gnome-terminal -e "/path/to/your/script"