Aral Balkan http://aralbalkan.com Aral on Flash, SWX, Flex, ActionScript, and life. Thu, 04 Sep 2008 23:01:50 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5 en http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ Subscribe with My Yahoo!Subscribe with NewsGatorSubscribe with My AOLSubscribe with RojoSubscribe with BloglinesSubscribe with NetvibesSubscribe with GoogleSubscribe with Pageflakes Today is the last day for Flash on the Beach tickets! http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/aralbalkan/~3/383611647/1475 http://aralbalkan.com/1475#comments Thu, 04 Sep 2008 23:01:50 +0000 Aral http://aralbalkan.com/1475 Flash on the Beach conference (FOTB) 2008

Ticket sales for Flash on the Beach (FOTB) close this Friday (September 5th) so if you haven't yet, get your ticket while you still can!

Flash on the Beach is a wonderful Flash conference in our very own Brighton.

If you need any convincing, read Jens's top 5 reasons to go to Flash on the Beach.

Hope to see you all in Brighton at the end of the month.

]]> http://aralbalkan.com/1475/feed http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/ http://aralbalkan.com/1475 Get your new <head> badges here! http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/aralbalkan/~3/383423694/1473 http://aralbalkan.com/1473#comments Thu, 04 Sep 2008 17:26:17 +0000 Aral http://aralbalkan.com/1473 New <head> badges

I've just put up a whole bunch of new badges for the <head> web conference on the conference site.

If you've already got a badge up from before the name change, you don't have to do anything and the new badge should load automatically. Otherwise, just copy and paste the code to add the badge to your site.

Thank you all in advance for helping us get the word out. Your blog posts, tweets, etc., are invaluable!

Here are some popular sizes to get you started:

88x31

Singularity

<a href="http://www.headconference.com/"><img src="http://www.headconference.com/images/buttons/button_88x31.gif" width="88" height="31" alt="&lt;head&gt; web conference: October 24-26, 2008"/></a>

120x60

<head> web conference: October 24-26, 2008

<a href="http://www.headconference.com/"><img src="http://www.headconference.com/images/buttons/button_120x60.gif" width="120" height="60" alt="&lt;head&gt; web conference: October 24-26, 2008"/></a>

120x90

<head> web conference: October 24-26, 2008

<a href="http://www.headconference.com/"><img src="http://www.headconference.com/images/buttons/button_120x90.gif" width="120" height="90" alt="&lt;head&gt; web conference: October 24-26, 2008"/></a>

120x240

<head> web conference: October 24-26, 2008

<a href="http://www.headconference.com/"><img src="http://www.headconference.com/images/buttons/button_120x240.gif" width="120" height="240" alt="&lt;head&gt; web conference: October 24-26, 2008"/></a>

125x125

<head> web conference: October 24-26, 2008

<a href="http://www.headconference.com/"><img src="http://www.headconference.com/images/buttons/button_125x125.gif" width="125" height="125" alt="&lt;head&gt; web conference: October 24-26, 2008"/></a>

234x60

<head> web conference: October 24-26, 2008

<a href="http://www.headconference.com/"><img src="http://www.headconference.com/images/buttons/button_234x60.gif" width="234" height="60" alt="&lt;head&gt; web conference: October 24-26, 2008"/></a>

468x60

<head> web conference: October 24-26, 2008

<a href="http://www.headconference.com/"><img src="http://www.headconference.com/images/buttons/button_468x60.gif" width="468" height="60" alt="&lt;head&gt; web conference: October 24-26, 2008"/></a>

If the above don't fit your style (or site), we've got the whole gamut of IAB recommended sizes, including 728x90, 180x150, 250x250, 300x100, 336x280, 350x250, 720x300, 120x600, 160x600, and 300x600.

]]> http://aralbalkan.com/1473/feed http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/ http://aralbalkan.com/1473 Adobe Acrobat wants to “repair” Safari http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/aralbalkan/~3/383056250/1472 http://aralbalkan.com/1472#comments Thu, 04 Sep 2008 07:53:17 +0000 Aral http://aralbalkan.com/1472 Acrobat Repair

Fired up Adobe Acrobat Professional today to sign a document for my lawyer and got this sneaky little dialog pop up.

Sorry, gov, but it ain't broken.

(If Acrobat has "repaired" your Safari, follow the instructions here to revert it.)

]]> http://aralbalkan.com/1472/feed http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/ http://aralbalkan.com/1472 We haven’t changed the name of the conference to “Over Quota” http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/aralbalkan/~3/382271197/1471 http://aralbalkan.com/1471#comments Wed, 03 Sep 2008 12:15:22 +0000 Aral http://aralbalkan.com/1471 Google app Engine Over Quota

Update: The quotas have been reset, the site is back up, and engineers at Google are monitoring them and working closely with me until we can figure out what the issue is and fix it.

If you try to access the new <head> web site to see the new design, you might find it a little minimalist for your liking. You might also think that we've gone and changed the name again, this time to "403 Over Quota".

Google App Engine's short-term quota errors are killing us.

The new site for the <head> conference went live late last night and has been up and down all morning.

The Google App Engine quota system is fundamentally broken. You cannot have a cloud solution that "intelligently" takes sites down, essentially making every site running on it into a Twitter at the height of its troubles.

I can't even catch those Over Quota errors to display an apology message -- and I am profusely sorry and apologize if you have been trying to access the site this morning (believe me, the code's in there, it's just not getting triggered by these short-term quota errors.) It's very frustrating to say the least.

And I have no idea what's causing them. The logs have over quota messages, telling me that I'm 1.0x over quota (???) on requests that result in 404 errors. That's right, you can hit a non-existing page on the site and cause it to have an over quota error. That should be great news for denial-of-service attackers everywhere.

Sorry to vent but it just plain sucks when you work so hard on something only to have it made unavailable in such an inconsiderate way.

The way quotas are (mis)handled is the biggest thorn in Google App Engine's side. I can only conceive that the decision to implement quotas in such a barbaric fashion came from a Microsoft spy trained personally by Steve Ballmer and sent into the bowels of the Googleplex to infiltrate the Google App Engine team and cripple an otherwise excellent and revolutionary system that is -- this one major showstopper aside -- a joy to develop on.

This isn't Google Toy Engine, it's Google App Engine and it's about time that it started acting like a scalable cloud solution instead of a flashback to free Geocities or Tripod hosting with its over quota messages.

There is so much to love in Google App Engine but the quota system is simply broken and must be fixed.

]]> http://aralbalkan.com/1471/feed http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/ http://aralbalkan.com/1471 <head>s up: Singularity Web Conference becomes <head> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/aralbalkan/~3/381744910/1469 http://aralbalkan.com/1469#comments Tue, 02 Sep 2008 22:07:57 +0000 Aral http://aralbalkan.com/1469 head conference new web site screenshot

<head>line news: the Singularity Web Conference is now <head>™.

So you don't think that we're out of our <head>s for <head>ing in such a radically new direction just two months before the conference, know that we didn't take the decision lightly.

You see, we came <head> to <head> with a company called Singularity Limited when their lawyers sent us a letter stating that they had registered Singularity as a trademark for, among other things, conferences. Although it doesn't appear that Singularity Limited currently runs any conferences, we decided to keep our <head>s and proactively change the name of the conference to <head> off a potentially lengthy, complicated, and costly legal conversation.

Once we took the decision to change the name at the end of last week, we launched <head> first into a rebranding effort and made great <head>way, completing the process in just over two days.

We're <head> over heels in love with our new name and our new look (Alvin was especially ecstatic when he saw the new site) and we hope that you will be too.

In the midst of all these changes, we thought that a little stability would be good to have so we're keeping one thing the same: the price. We're extending the early-bird discount until the end of September, so tell your friends — blog, vlog, tweet — and let the world know that tickets can still be had for $99.

And just how are preparations for the conference itself coming along? It's full steam a<head> at conference <head>quarters, with daily announcements of excellent new sessions from our stellar line-up of over seventy speakers.

<head> over to our newly-redesigned web-site to check out our new look and get your ticket today to attend this seminal global web conference for just $99.

]]> http://aralbalkan.com/1469/feed http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/ http://aralbalkan.com/1469 Changes are underway at the Singularity Web Conference… http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/aralbalkan/~3/381263469/1467 http://aralbalkan.com/1467#comments Tue, 02 Sep 2008 10:55:52 +0000 Aral http://aralbalkan.com/1467 ... expect a major announcement later today!

]]> http://aralbalkan.com/1467/feed http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/ http://aralbalkan.com/1467 A quick guide to domain name setup on Google App Engine http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/aralbalkan/~3/381250430/1466 http://aralbalkan.com/1466#comments Tue, 02 Sep 2008 09:32:27 +0000 Aral http://aralbalkan.com/1466 Getting domains (both www, and naked domains) setup properly on Google App Engine is not a straightforward affair; it has several gotchas. This quick guide summarizes the process I use with the following four actors: Enom (domain registrar), DynDNS (DNS provider), Google Apps (domain management and other apps for your domain), and Google App Engine (your actual app).

Get the necessary accounts

  1. Make sure you have a Google App Engine app setup and note its app id from the dashboard at appspot.com.
  2. Register your domain name with Enom
  3. Get a CustomDNS service from DynDNS.
  4. Get a Google Apps account.

Domain configuration (Enom)

  1. Configure the DNS servers to point to DynDNS. Under Manage Domain → DNS Server Settings set name servers 1 - 5 to point to ns1.mydyndns.org, ns2.mydyndns.org, etc.

DNS configuration (DynDNS)

  1. Add four Hostnames for the naked domain (i.e., yourdomain.com without the www) and have them point to IP addresses 216.239.32.21, 216.239.34.21, 216.239.36.21, and 216.239.38.21.
  2. Add CNAMES for all services you want to use Google Apps for. If you just want to use your Google App Engine app, create a CNAME ("Add Alias (CNAME)") for www.yourdomain.com and point it to ghs.google.com. I also add CNAMES for all the other Google Apps (docs, mail, start, etc. as docs.yourdomain.com, mail.yourdomain.com, etc.)
  3. Add the following three Mail Exchangers by clicking the Edit MX List button: ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM, ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM, ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM.
  4. Under preferences, make sure you force activate your zone.

Google Apps configuration

  1. In Google Apps, make sure that your Control Panel is set to "Current version" under the Domain Settings tab. This is important. Your control panel version must not be set to "Next version".
  2. Go to Dashboard → Add more services (the link next to the Service Settings title) and enter your Google App Engine App ID under Other Services → Google App Engine and click the Add it now button.
  3. On the next screen, add the following URL: temp.yourdomain.com (do not enter yourdomain.com).
  4. Repeat Step 2 and this time click the Add new URL link and add yourdomain.com
  5. Repeat Step 2, click the Add new URL link again, and add www.yourdomain.com
  6. Repeat Step 2, and delete temp.yourdomain.com

(Special thanks to Robert Little and Akash Xavier for the information in this section.)

Google App Engine configuration

  1. Sign in to your application via appspot.com.
  2. Click the Administration → Versions link.
  3. Click the Add Domain... button under the Domain Setup section
  4. Add yourdomain.com in the domain name box and click the Add Domain... button

That's it, having followed those -- oh, nineteen or so simple steps -- you should now have your domain setup properly for Google App Engine. Not only that but your mail and other apps should be working properly through Google Apps.

]]> http://aralbalkan.com/1466/feed http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/ http://aralbalkan.com/1466 Backing up and restoring your local SDK datastore (Google App Engine) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/aralbalkan/~3/379960089/1465 http://aralbalkan.com/1465#comments Sun, 31 Aug 2008 22:16:23 +0000 Aral http://aralbalkan.com/1465 Backing up and restoring the datastore in your local SDK can be very useful for several use cases. Personally, I find that I alternate between running the local SDK with a restore of data from the deployment environment and with an empty or test datastore.

The local SDK slows down painfully when you populate it with real amounts of data so sometimes I test with an empty datastore while developing. Restoring data, however, takes a long time too so I don't want to run my restore process all the time. And I don't have to, since I can simply backup the local datastore and restore is by copying it back.

Just do a search for django_[app_name].datastore and django_[app_name].datastore.history, replacing [app_name] with the name of your app from app.yaml and then back these two files up.

You can then flush your datastore, test, and then restore the two files above when you want to work with a pre-populated datastore.

]]> http://aralbalkan.com/1465/feed http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/ http://aralbalkan.com/1465 ActionScript 3, Flex 3, and AIR training http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/aralbalkan/~3/379815538/1464 http://aralbalkan.com/1464#comments Sun, 31 Aug 2008 18:15:10 +0000 Aral http://aralbalkan.com/1464 Comtaste are offering a unique series of training courses in London called Meet the Guru, covering ActionScript 3, Flex 3, and Adobe AIR.

The courses are:

  • Programming ActionScript 3 - Peter Elst (Oct 13-15)
  • Flex 3 and Flex Builder 3 - Developing Rich Internet Applications with the new Flex 3 SDKs - Marco Casario (Oct 20-23)
  • Developing desktop applications with Adobe AIR, Ajax and Flex - Koen De Weggheleire (Oct 27-30)

For more information and to sign up, see the Meet the Guru web site.

Full disclosure: Comcaste are advertisers on Pistach.io, which I co-founded, and Peter Elst and Marco Casario are both members of the Pistach.io Flash Pack.

]]> http://aralbalkan.com/1464/feed http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/ http://aralbalkan.com/1464 Apple or BBC? http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/aralbalkan/~3/379799942/1463 http://aralbalkan.com/1463#comments Sun, 31 Aug 2008 17:52:45 +0000 Aral http://aralbalkan.com/1463 Just got the weirdest 404 page on Apple.com (see the screenshot, below), displaying the BBC News and BBC Sport logos and links to the BBC homepages when I tried to access http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/email_chat/

apple_bbc

Huh?

]]> http://aralbalkan.com/1463/feed http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/ http://aralbalkan.com/1463