Bullet on my own foot: trying to uninstall Python 2.6 from Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

Some major Linux distros use Python for maintaining their packages. Red Hat (and its downstream distros) which use the yum tool uses Python 2.4. I tried to install Python 2.6 in CentOS 5.4 without success. The tool rejected to install Python other than 2.4 using that tool out of fear that it will interfere with the tool.

I just found another catch, when you are trying to install Python 2.6 in Ubuntu (I was using Karmic Koala, 9.10), such as:
[source lang='shell']
$ sudo apt-get remove python2.6
[/source]

It will display the components that are about to be removed.
Kids, don't try this at home!
It will remove your whole desktop related application! Java, Gnome, apt tools. You practically will be left with command line Linux, and without the apt tools.

Uninstalling Python 2.6 from Ubuntu seems to be an act of shooting own's foot!

Lucky I tried on not-so-important experimental Ubuntu installation on my laptop.

Again about Google DevFest 2010

Yesterday I had to leave an hour earlier from the Google DevFest 2010 event, as I have to  catch up with my wife, she was waiting for me for the second Antenatal Class. I missed the Code Lab, the Maps and Buzz T-shirts. Ouch. 5:30pm I had to leave while they ended the event on 6:30pm.

Flash back: After lunch time, there were some presentations on Google Apps, by Patrick Chanezon, followed by success story of people who developed applications for Google Apps. One from creately.com (http://www.creately.com). Another round from SingPath (http://singpath.appspot.com).

One thing that was missed a lot is the power points (aka power plugs). It was awful so many people carrying laptop and no power plug on the Connexis Theater. Almost everyone were running out of battery.

I just don't know why the crowd was kinda lacking enthusiasm to verbally respond to the speaker on stage with 'ooo's, 'aaaa's, 'yeah's, 'alright's and stuffs. Most of the time the crowd was silent.

Nevertheless it was a must-attend event of this year. I will attend the next event for sure.

 

In Google DevFest 2010

Currently I am attending the Google DevFest 2010. Timothy Jordan and Bob Aman in their presentation on Open Social.

Today the registration was pretty crowded, and they differentiate based on the first letter of your first name. I was in the "A-F queue". The queue was long and the registration process was draggy.

They changed the schedule a bit, Daniel Lee presented the Google Maps as opposed to the initial schedule on the web site: Google DevFest 2010 in Singapore. He showed us how to create a coffee shop location based informative web site as an example.

After the first session, Jeremy Orlow, an engineer working on the Chrome team, explained the HTML5 and the Chrome. They skipped the Q&A for HTML5 and Chrome. May be they pushed forward because we're late because of the registration, so in order to finish during the lunch time, the organizer advised to ask in person to Jeremy during lunch time for anyone who want to ask questions.

Then here comes the third session, and its about  Open Social.  Tim was of more lively presenter than others I think. More like MC may be? Google Buzz API stuffs, atom, OAuth, Salmon, Pubsubhubbub etc.

PyDev 1.5.8 is out: Eclipse IDE + PyDev == Cool Python IDE

PyDev 1.5.8 is out now. Eclipse update site: http://pydev.org/updates

• Support for Eclipse 3.6 Helios
• The PyDev jar is not signed out (no more confirmation message that you are installing from untrusted source during the Eclipse plugin installation)
• DoesNotExist and MultipleObjectsReturned recognized in Django
• Some issues fixed

PyDev is a plugin that enables users to use Eclipse as an IDE for Python, Jython and IronPython development. It has the syntax highlighting, refactor, syntax analysis, debug, and code completion.

Mercurial Server 1.0.1 Installation on Ubuntu

When we are working using Subversion, we can expose the Subversion repository using svnserve (open the default port 3690 and svn:// protocol) or leverage the Apache WebDav to expose your Subversion service in HTTP (the web protocol -- I've always tempted to write it as HTTP Protocol which is incorrect as the last P letter stands for 'protocol').

And of course if you are just as lazy as I, you will use the CollabNet Subversion or Edgewall Trac.

Mercurial Server from Lshift is one way to achieve similar thing. Though it is named Mercurial Server, it is not a server in traditional client/server perspective. It leverages the SSH authentication to make it like a central repository where multiple user can access and serves the same purpose.

Surprisingly, it is very easy to install in an Ubuntu box.

[sourcecode lang="shell"]
$ sudo apt-get install mercurial-server
[/sourcecode]

Gotcha! You have it now.
With this Mercurial Server, you can access the server using:
hg clone ssh://<ssh-user>@<host-name-or-ip-address>[:<ssh-port-num>]/<folder>

[sourcecode lang="shell"]
$ hg clone ssh://mercurial@192.168.0.1/projects
[/sourcecode]

Attending Singapore Google Technology Group Meetup

 

Today I attended this Singapore Google Technology User Group Meeting. It's my first time to attend such a Google meetings. Some of previous meet ups had always fallen on the wrong days -- on the day that I have something else to do. Today I am glad to be able to make it, attended the meeting, and Wesley Chun, was the speaker. He presented 2 sessions, one about Python and the other one about Google App Engine.

This guy's a hardcore Python guy, wrote the Core Python series of book, and was a presenter in the PyCon Asia Pacific 2010, Singapore -- an event that has been held last 3 days. Awesome in depth knowledge, vast industrial experiences, and keep the talk flows fluent.

The rest about the meeting can be found here: http://www.sg-gtug.org/2010/05/sg-gtug-special-tutorial-session-june.html

Playing with IronPython again

It's been quite a while I haven't posted anything on this blog. I was too lazy to write. Now that I regain the composure, try to write again.

I have tried IronPython 2.6 before. It was presented in Python User Group Singapore somewhere last year which captured my attention. The IronPython made it easy to play around with .NET and Silverlight stuffs -- which not easy for me as I haven't play with .NET stuffs for quite sometime. It worked well that time. Recently when I want to run the ipy.exe interpreter, I came into certain problem. I was running it on Vista box, but the application crashed after I started, after around 30 seconds waiting for nothing. I try to do some ordinary "dance" like unistall-install, with no luck.

Today I gave it a try again, and eventually it worked after I installed the .NET framework 4 and Silverlight 4 from the download site. I wasn't sure what I missed, nevertheless now it works.

I tried some stuffs with Silverlight only to remind that I need a XAML editor to edit forms. I tried to download and use kaxaml from http://www.kaxaml.com, but haven't had much luck. It installs well, but didn't run quite well.