Thoughts on Software Development and Technology

Read more about the article Python ‘pip’ and Windows registry corruption

Python ‘pip’ and Windows registry corruption

Background

In my recent post about setting up a 64 bit Windows Django development environment, I described an initial problem with Virtualenv which then led me through a whole series of problems and fixes and finally to what I thought was a working 64 bit Python development environment. However, I recently realised that the original underlying issue still remained, such that any attempt to install a new package using pip would result in failure due to that same error message.

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Read more about the article Create a Django development environment on 64-bit Windows for Heroku deployment

Create a Django development environment on 64-bit Windows for Heroku deployment

Getting Started with Django on Heroku

This weekend I tried to follow Heroku’s Getting Started with Django article. Unfortunately for me, this article is clearly aimed at developers working in a “unix-style environment”, and I develop with a 64-bit Windows machine both at work and at home. Given that we are working with a Python-based framework, I foolishly assumed that it would be trivial to translate these instructions to Windows. How wrong I was.

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Read more about the article How to embed third-party widgets such as Mixcloud into WordPress

How to embed third-party widgets such as Mixcloud into WordPress

There are now a huge number of third-party content providers that offer the ability to embed their content into your own website. YouTube is no longer the only media streaming service that you might want to include in one of your pages. Many other competing media streaming providers are now offering an API that should make it easy to embed their content. However, the question is what is the best way to include their content in one of your WordPress pages?

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Read more about the article Using the Numark Mixtrack Quad with TRAKTOR PRO 2

Using the Numark Mixtrack Quad with TRAKTOR PRO 2

The Numark Mixtrack Quad

The Numark Mixtrack Quad is a 4 channel digital DJ controller with a built-in audio I/O device that was released in Spring 2013 and marketed as the only controller in its class and price range that offers 4 channel capabilities.

Numark Mixtrack Quad from side
Numark Mixtrack Quad from above

It is essentially a 4 channel version of the Numark Mixtrack Pro II, which is itself the second version of the infamous Mixtrack Pro, reportedly the world’s best selling digital DJ controller. With upgraded platters and touch-sensitive backlit drum pads, the Mixtrack Pro II is widely regarded as the current standard for entry level DJ controllers, so the Mixtrack Quad comes from an excellent pedigree. Numark has been producing innovative DJ equipment for 40 years, so they clearly know what they’re doing and have an enviable track record for producing both pro and consumer kit.

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Read more about the article How to embed your Mixcloud profile in your WordPress Blog

How to embed your Mixcloud profile in your WordPress Blog

Mixcloud is a fantastic online music streaming service that allows you to share your DJ mixes over the internet for free. Unfortunately, most WordPress social media widgets don’t yet seem to support linking to Mixcloud profiles out-of-the-box, so for the time being you might need an alternative solution.

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How to wrap basic HTTP authentication with PHP

Suppose you have a file hosted on an Apache server that is protected by Basic HTTP Authentication, often via an old-school ‘.htaccess’ file, to prevent anonymous users from downloading it without a valid username/password. Then someone asks you to wrap that protected file download with some kind of GUI, maybe a simple HTML form to gather some standard user data (e.g. name and email address). The trouble is once the user has submitted the form they then get prompted separately by the browser to enter a username/password for the HTTP authentication, and this two step process is a bad user experience and looks unprofessional. What you really want to do is ask the user for the username and password as part of the first form, and then just supply those credentials behind the scenes so the download just starts once the form has been submitted. I was recently asked to solve this exact problem, and there simply wasn’t time to address this properly with a nicer solution.

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How to add Google Authorship to a single author WordPress Blog

Google Authorship is a great new way to boost your online presence by associating your Google+ profile with any web content that you create, so that Google automatically displays your Google+ profile next to any of your content listed in search results. It can help you to attract new followers, and help people to easily find other content that you have produced. Google have also added new “Author Stats” to their Webmaster Tools so that authors can easily see how often their own content is being discovered in Google search results.

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Battle of the SSDs: Intel 330 vs Samsung 830

I recently purchased an Intel 330 Series 120GB SSD in order to improve my ageing PC’s performance. My post about migrating an existing Windows 7 installation to an SSD was based on the installation of that new SSD. At the time, I mentioned some issues I was having with waking up from sleep/hibernate on the SSD. The stability issues gradually became worse, resulting in the following intermittent problems:

  • The PC would sometimes blue screen and restart during shutdown.
  • The PC would sometimes blue screen and restart following fairly long periods of usage (after 2 or 3 hours).
  • Filesystem index corruption was detected (and fixed) on C: by Windows 7 chkdsk.
  • Resuming from sleep/hibernate would sometimes result in a blue screen and restart.
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Migrating an existing Windows 7 installation to an SSD

With the advent of affordable and reliable high performance SSD storage, the possibility of running Windows on an SSD for lightning quick boot times and highly responsive applications is becoming more and more attractive. But the thought of reinstalling Windows from scratch is not so appealing, regardless of how good your backups are and how organised you might be. There is a regularly cited argument that in order to get the best possible performance from new storage, you should reinstall Windows. I don’t disagree with that, but we don’t live in an ideal world where we all have unlimited free time. And in the case of migrating from a fairly old desktop HDD to a brand new SSD, I’m not sure how noticeable the performance improvement will be if you take the extra time to reinstall Windows from scratch, compared to just migrating your existing installation.

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