JPL/Caltech have a float in the Rose Parade tomorrow. Picture Optimus Prime crossed with Elton John. They mounted a camera on the top of the 50ft tall structure and opened it for all the web to see.
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So my company got a brief (and I mean Really brief) writeup in today’s Post. Scroll down to the bottom of the first page, and don’t bother going onto the second…
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I had my first real experience with the iTunes Music Store (IMS) this week. I got some gift certificates to it for Christmas, so I decided to use them. I also found out that if I sign up to pay with PayPal, I get 5 free songs to download. So I signed up.
After some fumbling with the Gift Cerificates (you have to scratch off the stuff on the back to reveal the code. Nowhere could I find the instructions to do this, instead I kept entering the code at the bottom…). So I shopped around for some singles (for my free songs) and some albums (for my certificates). And guess what: I enjoyed my experience.
So why “Deliciously Evil”? Because all the features of IMS make it too easy for people to buy new music. I was thinking of setting up an allowance for my account so I don’t go crazy. Just a couple of clicks and a password entry and you have new music which will get pushed down to your iPod. Couple the ease of use with the “Consumer Friendly” Copy Protection features (ie. my wife and I can share music with each other) and you have something that is almost too easy to use to be good for you.
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Did you buy your ipod in a real store and not get the free engraving that Apple was offering? Now is your chance to get a virual engraving all your own. Make sure to check out the Top Ten and the Bottom Ten list as well…
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Python really needs a good (ie. full featured) RSS library. Perl has one (XML::RSS). Java has one (Informa). Python has 2: one that doesn’t do everything that it should with a great API, and one that should do everything but with a less rich API.
FeedParser is a RSS library for Python that does a great job of parsing RSS feeds into an object hierarchy. It’s simplicity is it’s greatest strength. The object hierarchy you get is a pretty straight translation of the XML. As long as you are comfortable with the RSS XML format, you should have no problem using FeedParser. FeedParser is also a pretty liberal parser. It understands all the RSS formats that are out there, and will even try to understand poorly done RSS feeds. It also is done in straight Python and requires no additional libraries to be installed.
But FeedParser is lacking one major feature that I consider paramount in an RSS library: Any way of writing an object hierarchy back out into RSS format. This is what I would call the FeedWriter portion that is missing.
On the other hand, we have RSS.py. This claims to be able to read most RSS feed formats out there and to write RSS 1.0. I was unable to test these claims under windows because RSS.py was complaining about signal.SIGALRM (which I am guessing is because that signal doesn’t exist under windows). I didn’t have much interest at all in trying to track down what the problem was, since this was all for a fun project that I wanted to limit the scope of (so it doesn’t eat up all my time).
Setting aside my problems with getting it to run, RSS.py looks like it has some potential. Problem areas for it would be in different RSS format support. I gather that it’s parsing support isn’t as robust as FeedParser. In addition, it would be nice to suport writing other RSS formats like RSS 2.0 or even Atom.
In the end, I’ll probably settle on using Java and Informa to do my RSS parsing, no matter how unhappy I am with having to compile my code (I really wanted to do this in a scripting language to avoid that step…).
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I’ve been having a very Merry Christmas, now that I’ve gotten out of the office. My parents arrived on the 23rd, and we had a great visit with them. Made a big meal on the 24th for them, and then exchanged presents. I got lots of cool stuff and was very happy to spend some time with them, but wished I could have spent more.
This morning we got up whenever we felt like it (8:15), got ready (take care of the dog) and then went down and opened our presents to each other. My wife is so thoughtful… We also opened presents from Alice and Jacob (who left them here at Thanksgiving), from Grandma Young (who sent them here in Decemeber), and from my Grandparents (who also sent them here in December).
So that leaves the rest of the day for eating, sleeping, and football. Which is what we have been doing (as we just both woke up from a nap…).
Well, hope you all have as good a Christmas as I am having!
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A computer built inside a gingerbread village. My favorite part: the “working” stoplight in the middle of the village…
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Had a nice surprise when I arrived home last night. A pipe had broken in our garage and flooded it. Thankfully, our neighbor noticed the water pouring forth from under our garage door and came in and shut the water off.
So instead of a nice evening at home, I spent the evening figuring out what had gotten so wet as to be ruined (thankfully, nothing) and finding areas to let all the wet stuff dry. I then made sure to break into the wall where it was the most wet so I could find where the pipe had broken. It was really easy to find since there had already been a drywall patch there from the previous owners. I can only assume that they had the same problem.
Lesson learned: Shut off the water to the outside spigot at Thanksgiving!
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Some branded ipod’s that won’t be coming to a store near you anytime soon…
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