Entries in Sep, 2004
Filters: Type: entry × Year: 2004 × Month: Sep × Sorted by date
Running Pydoc under mod_python
I’ve written about pydoc before. In my opinion it’s one of Python’s best kept secrets: a way of instantly browsing the properties, methods and documentation strings of any module available to the Python environment. It can even run a local HTTP server to allow for easy browsing of available documentation.
[... 372 words]Python2.4 highlights
A.M. Kuchling’s “What’s New in Python X” documents are always a treat, and his guide to the forthcoming Python 2.4 is no exception. Among other things, 2.4 elevates sets to built in type status, dramatically improves the usability of Python’s list sort method (for easier application of DSU, aka the Schwartzian transform), makes reverse iteration easier and introduces an alternative string substitution method.
[... 231 words]Matching newlines in JavaScript
Just a quick note: the . character in a JavaScript regular expression will never match a newline character. If you want to match any character including newlines you can use the [\s\S] character class instead, which means “any character that’s either whitespace or not whitespace”.
Browser innovation is alive and well
Here’s a feature that caught me by surprise (maybe I haven’t been keeping my ear close enough to the ground): the new Firefox 1.0 preview release supports Live Bookmarks, a novel twist on RSS aggregators where feeds look just like bookmark folders, displaying a list of bookmarks corresponding to the headlines from the feed. Best of all, the feature support RSS autodiscovery. Sites with auto-discoverable feeds display an attractive RSS icon on the right hand side of the status bar, allowing for one click subscriptions.
[... 230 words]Command line blacklisting
Just over a year ago, I started blacklisting domain names from links featured in comment spam. My idea then was that these blacklists could become a shared resource: people would publish their own blacklist and subscribe to those of people they trust, thus making it much harder for spammers to operate. While the sheer volume of spam domains meant that the technique was much less useful than I originally anticipated, I’ve continued to maintain my blacklist ever since as a preventative measure against repeat spammers.
[... 721 words]The bookmarklet solution to the password problem
Anyone who makes heavy use of the internet has run in to the password problem: dozens of user accounts on sites with varying degrees of trustability, leading to an unmanageable proliferation of username and password combinations. The temptation is to use the same combination on multiple sites, but doing so opens you up to the horrifying prospect of a security flaw in one site compromising al of your other accounts.
[... 366 words]How to track an RSS feed
According to the HTTP specification, RSS/Atom aggregators should obey the HTTP 301 Moved Permanently header by altering the stored subscription URL for the feed they are attempting to retrieve.
[... 199 words]