The hardest part about adding comments to this blog was fighting the NIH syndrome.
I have been working on the software that powers this blog as an open-source Django app for the last few months. It's coming along nicely and already powers my wife's site Ultra-Luxurious.
The last version of this site had a gorgeous custom threaded comments section. I had not included that with the package yet because I really wanted to overhaul it. As nice as it was, it was very prone to comment spam (nasty!). I had ended up turning off comments on nearly every post in my blog as a result.
I upgraded the blogs to Django 1.7 recently and noticed that Django's comments had been deprecated, so I was going to need to dive in even deeper to rebuild the comments. At that point I thought "why would I be doing this?" and went to check out Disqus. They have a very nice commenting plugin that works great, is free, and solves the spam problem. Boom!
I had to choke down a bit of NIH, but really - why work to maintain the software and keep spammers out when it's already available for free?
So in version 2.0.2 of the cp-blog software, integrating Disqus comments is as simple as adding a DISQUS_SHORTNAME to your settings.py, and you're off to the commenting races. Enjoy.
Anyone out there prefer another commenting system that I should integrate? Does anyone use Facebook comments anymore? If there's something you would like to see included, just leave a (Disqus) comment below.
Today I’m excited to announce my new job as EVP Technology and Development at Giantsource, Inc. Giantsource is a design, development and consulting firm based here in Los Angeles, mostly working with the entertainment industry. It was founded about three years ago by one of my great friends from the Myspace days, who I have done many projects with. In fact I have worked with almost everyone in the company before (some of them a LOT), and it feels like I’m rejoining a "dream team" that I’ve definitely missed for the last couple years. It’s an amazing group of talent and I am thrilled to be a part of it.
I’m also very happy to be working with a company owned and run by developers. It’s a breath of fresh air to be sure. Working with a group that understands digital products and modern workflows, as well as trends in technology and consumer behavior, will be a lot of fun and I see a very prolific time ahead for me.
2014 has been an action-packed year already. Now that I’m joining such a capable group who really “gets it” and is constantly pushing the envelope of entertainment experiences, I can’t wait to see what the next year will bring!
Finally bringing colbypalmer.com into this decade.
Today I get to release something special: a site I've built just for myself! This is special because I have been SO busy with client work that my site had become somewhat dated. I had been wanting to swap out the software from the excellent ExpressionEngine to a custom Django back end. (I mostly build in Django these days and it bugged me that my own site wasn't built with it.) I also wanted to update the front end with a modern HTML5/CSS3 interface - believe it or not, my old site was old enough to predate jQuery (not to mention border-radius and the like) so most of the UI was pretty rusty - not at all a showcase of my current skills.
So, welcome to the new colbypalmer.com. Tight, ain't it?
The site has a responsive layout that serves a different experience for desktop, tablet, mobile (landscape) and mobile (portrait). Try resizing your browser window to see what I mean! It's packed full of the latest HTML5/CSS3 goodness, with appropriate fallbacks for older browsers. It also is running a full-featured Django blog app that I've built and plan to open-source as soon as I can package up the code.
I plan to write up a couple things related to this site: a colophon page so I can credit folks whose plugins/apps this site uses, and tutorials on some of the cooler features I've got here - a few things that I developed in the course of making this site are worth sharing.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the new site design - and if you chance to find any bugs I'd love to find out about those too! Please use the fancy new threaded commenting system to share your input.
How to use Godaddy's relay server for outgoing email on a Go Daddy dedicated server.
I've been setting up a new dedicated server at Go Daddy running Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron). I was following The Perfect Server guide at HowToForge, and it was very helpful, especially in the area of setting up email using Postfix, which is new to me.
I did run into an unexpected problem with outgoing email - it wasn't going out, or anywhere for that matter! Taking a look in /var/log/mail.log showed an error saying "No route to host". Trying to telnet to any other domain would give me the same error. A little Googling dug up the fact that Godaddy blocks outgoing traffic on port 25, which is used for SMTP. However they do provide a relay server that you can use for your outgoing mail.
The relay server is k2smtpout.secureserver.net. To use it, edit /etc/postfix/main.cf and set the relayhost line to look like this:
relayhost=[k2smtpout.secureserver.net]
Then restart Postfix with the command:
sudo /etc/init.d/postfix restart
And that should do it! I had a lot of trouble diagnosing the problem and then finding the solution, so I thought I would post it here to help anyone else experiencing this problem.
This new video sharing site lets you share video face to face, in real time!
For one long year, my fiancée and I lived in different states (before we were engaged and parents and stuff). I don't recommend the long-distance relationship to anybody who likes the person they are with, but sometimes it's unavoidable. We found that it took a LOT of telephone time, and we also explored some creative solutions to spend time together as well. One of our favorites was the long-distance movie date - while talking on the phone we would rent the same movie and watch it together while we talked on the phone. The trick to it was starting the movie at the exact same time, so we could share the laughs and surprises without annoying each other. You can picture how this went:
"One... two... three... press play!" "Did you start it?" "Yeah. How close did we get?" "Umm... OK the credits are starting..."
And so on. If we had done it correctly, we could comfortably watch the movie together while talking on the phone. If we had done it incorrectly, we started over. It was kind of fun, if you looked past the hassle of trying to sync the movie.
Enter nxtgen.tv: Shared Video on Demand. This video sharing site allows you to share video with people, in realtime, online. The syncing of the video is handled automagically, and you can actually discuss the action live, via webcams and/or group text chat.
Sign up and send your personalized channel URL to your friends along with a time to meet there. Then you control the action: when you start a video, or pause it, your friends see the same thing in real time!
The patented core technology of the app was invented by a couple sharp individuals who brought it to The Illusion Factory along with a Facebook app and their great idea. Since then we have hammered it into a working demo app and started to show it off a little bit. Enough interest has been raised that I've recently been given the OK to "go nuts" with the project, wheeeee!
A "movie date" between two people is just one application of this technology; I am also working on some different configurations, for giving presentations, providing unique customer service, and collaborating on video editing. I am also building out the social aspects of the site. Soon I hope to launch a new version with full-fledged social and sharing features! So stay tuned for lots more from nxtgen.tv ... but until then I would invite anyone who is interested to sign up for our demo site and give it a try! We are always interested in user feedback, especially from you, web-savvy individual that you are.
This technology is available for license in any custom format, be it entertainment, service, media, or enterprise. We think nxtgen.tv is a lot of fun and there are many possibilities for the technology... if you can imagine shared video having any synergy with your product or service, drop me a line!
