Blue Sky On Mars

• Payoneer uses MasterCard prepaid cards to enable payouts from websites
  Interesting payment solution for websites who need to pay cash to affiliates or content producers. They provide a debit card that can be used anywhere in the world.
  (tags: money payments)

TGWebServices is a package that I created earlier this year to provide a simple and powerful multi-protocol web services layer for TurboGears users. TGWebServices now has a new home at code.google.com, which will be easier to maintain. Clearly, that site needs some work and a new release needs to be made to point there, but that will happen all in good time.

TGWebServices now also has its own mailing list for the first time. Since this is a low-volume project, svn commit emails will go to this list, in addition to discussion about TGWebServices.

Justin Davis from Arbor Networks will be taking over the ownership of TGWebServices. Florent Aide, the TurboGears 1.x maintainer, has also signed on as a committer on the project.

TGWS is stable and has a decent feature set, so I don’t expect to see a lot of activity. Unless we manage to get the time together to merge TGWS and soaplib, which is still a good idea.

Thanks to Justin and Florent for the continued support of TGWS!

• SQLAlchemy 0.4.0 Released
  Congrats to Mike and everyone who worked on SQLAlchemy 0.4. It’s quite a release for an already great package!
  (tags: python sql sqlalchemy)
• Macworld: Feature: I will keep my Mac safe from other users
  some good tips on running a secure Mac.
  (tags: apple security mac)
• Macworld: Creative Notes: Adding drums with EZdrummer
  Review of a nice sounding drum sounds-n-midi virtual instrument package
  (tags: music mac ezdrummer)
• Charts And Graphs: Modern Solutions | Developer’s Toolbox | Smashing Magazine
  A big collection of tools (with nice screenshots to give you an idea of each) that generate charts. It’s missing ChartDirector, but it’s a good list overall.
  (tags: charts programming)

• 09:32 is it just me, or does twitter need a more explicit way to reply that links/includes the original tweet? #
• 10:02 of course, with only 140 characters you don’t want to ‘quote’ a tweet in the traditional sense #
• 22:36 why oh why did my WordPress plugins deactivate? without Akismet, bam! tons of spam. #

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• My DebugBar | CompanionJS / HomePage
  Firebug Lite-like javascript debugging tool for IE. Might not be free (it expires… so it’s unclear where it’s being taken). It does look more useful than Firebug Lite, though, and IE needs all the help it can get.
  (tags: debugging ie javascript)
• VentureBeat » Google Analytics updates: Tracking for Ajax, Javascript, Flash and more
  Google Analytics has added Ajax event tracking.
  (tags: ajax google Analytics)

I’ve been a hobbyist musician for a while now. I’ve decided that it’s time to redo things in my studio a bit, and so I’ve got some gear up for sale on eBay. The auctions end next week, so there’s plenty of time to get in cheap.

Lexicon Vortex effects processor

Music Quest 8PortSE MIDI interface with Windows XP drivers

E-mu ESI-4000 Turbo sampler (with Zip drive, CD-ROM drive and a collection of CD-ROMs).

Ensoniq DP/4+ effects processor (4 separate DSPs with some nice sounding effects)

Tascam PB-32B and Hosa PHB-184 1/4″ patch bays (two in one auction… lots of ports!)

BBE Sonic Maximizer effects processor

• 07:59 good coverage of Leopard features on AppleInsider. I’m looking forward to this upgrade! #
• 09:36 @cleverdevil spotlight in Leopard is supposed to be fast for app launching and even can calculate… but it can’t add to iGTD! #
• 10:51 @cleverdevil iGTD+quicksilver is very cool, fi you’ve never tried it. (the new Mail does todos now, so maybe iGTD won’t be as useful) #
• 13:05 Apple iPhone SDK: a good move, as long as Apple makes it frictionless for developers #

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• Alex Russell: On Licensing
  Alex goes into some of the intricacies of open source licensing and how to protect yourself and your project. I’ve talked about this in the past, too, but Alex has definitely taken things farther than I have by helping to set up the Dojo Foundation and ha
  (tags: OpenSource software licensing)
• Catalog Choice - How It Works
  Free service to help eliminate unwanted catalog waste.
  (tags: shopping mail organization privacy)

Over the past day, I’ve had hundreds of spam comments and trackbacks sent to my site. About 1/4 of these made it through to the site, but I’ve been pretty quick to delete them using WordPress’ “Mass Edit Mode”. Still, it’s annoying to have to do that at all.

This morning I installed JSSpamBlock, which uses a clever technique to make it so that normal web-browsing humans don’t need to do anything different to post a comment. If you have JavaScript turned off, you have to enter a number.

I may have to turn off trackbacks, at least temporarily, depending on the level of spam traffic that makes it through that way.

• 07:54 back online after an extended absence #
• 14:34 I’ve submitted two talk proposals for CodeMash ‘08 #

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