Singularity
20 Aug 2008
The cool thing about user submitted content is that you can't always predict what you're going to get. Our speakers at the Singularity Web Conference, for example, submit and update their own bios and session descriptions on the site. Yesterday, I noticed that Dr. Woohoo had put up an image of one of his awesome generative artworks in his session description.
Of course, since I hadn't considered images in session descriptions, this had the side-effect of breaking the layout of the sessions page.
This is a quick screencast to show you the data export solution I've created for Google App Engine that lets you backup your application's datastore and restore it either locally on your development machine or on the same Google App Engine application on the deployment environment or on a different Google App Engine application (which you can use as a staging environment).
I can't believe I missed this when it first came out (it was probably because I'd just started on the my crazy two-month trip to simultaneously learn Google App Engine, brush up my Python, and build the new Singularity web site):
This past week has seen yet another week of heavy development on the new Singularity web conference site.
A lot of what we're doing this year is building infrastructure. Singularity is a new breed of conference and we are doing a lot of work behind the scenes to ensure that we have the solid foundations we need not just to run it this year but to build upon for future years. My friends and fellow team members will probably tire of hearing the worlds "focus", "form follows function", and "solid foundations" over the course of the next few months if they haven't already. Our focus is on building a stable, functional platform to host global conferences on. There won't be any frivolous bells and whistles and whizz-bang eye-candy. Instead, we are building a minimalist, accessible social site and a stable and functional conference application. As I keep telling myself and everyone around me: focus, focus, focus!