add this code to setting.py as your email account

ALLOWED_HOSTS = []
EMAIL_USE_TLS = True
EMAIL_HOST = ‘smtp.example.com’
EMAIL_HOST_USER = ‘test@example.com’
EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD = r’example’
EMAIL_PORT = 587
DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL = ‘My Company ‘
SERVER_EMAIL = ‘webmas…@example.com’

views.py

from django.template.loader import render_to_string

def send_email(request):
    message = render_to_string(email.html)

    send_mail('Subject here', message, 'from@example.com',
    ['to@example.com'], fail_silently=False)

reference: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/email/

purpose: This is used if you want to ensure that the previous session data can’t be accessed again from the user’s browser.

views.py

def delete_session(request):
    # session to be deleted
    session = request.session
    del session['session1']
    del session['session2']
    del session['session3']
    del session['session4']
    del session['session5']

*use the “”delete_session(request)”" Function name to delete session.

*I have an example below on how to use the created delete_session function.

def final_session(request):
    # function name
    delete_session(request)

    template = 'final_session.html'
    context = {}
    return render(request, template, context)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/steve-jobs/8810743/Steve-Jobs-tributes-to-the-Apple-co-founder.html

Rest in Peace Steve Jobs. Thank you for making the world a better place to live in.

When you are on Ubuntu’s terminal or shell, this is the command on how to display the contents of a file in Ubuntu:

$ cat file.txt

Pretty easy huh!

I’m on a mobile broadband internet connection since we moved to Davao City. That means I got an unreliable internet connection. So typing “tail -f /var/log/apache2/error.log” would take a few seconds to echo on your shell. Now imagine having to type that every time you make changes to your Apache configuration files?

To alleviate the latency issue, there’s a very nifty command called screen – a terminal multiplexer, which allows a user to access multiple separate terminal sessions inside a single terminal window or remote terminal session (such as when using SSH).

It’s pretty cool to use specially on a remote server because you can simulate multiple sessions in just one remote SSH session. Enough of that, anyone can read the GNU Screen version if they want to.

Here are some practical screen commands for you (C means Ctrl):
$ screen -ls == see lists of screens
$ screen == create new screen session
$ screen -r == re-attach to a detached screen
$ C-D == close screen session
$ C-a c == add window to current screen
$ C-a d == detach from screen (process still continues)
$ C-a n == next window on screen
$ C-a p == previous window on screen
$ C-a ” == list of windows on screen
$ C-a 0 == go to first window
$ C-a 1 == go to second window
$ C-a 0..9 == go to n window

And here are some practical screen uses:
window 1 == $ tail -f /var/log/apache2/error.log
window 2 == $ tail -f /var/log/apache2/access.log
window 3 ==
window 4 ==
window 5 ==

You can then do a “C-a 1″ to see if you got errors in Apache, then do “C-a 4″ to fix the Apache conf… pretty cool eh?

Here’s where it gets even better: You can do a “C-a d” to detach from the current screen session, quit your SSH session, and go home. Then using another computer, after some time, on another location or galaxy maybe, you can launch a new SSH session to your server, do a “screen -ls” to see list of detached screen sessions, “screen -r ” to attach to your previous screen session, then do a “C-a 1″ to see if your Apache has errors.

Now that’s saving yourself a lot of time typing… pretty neat eh?

Go ahead and screen your way on Ubuntu Linux. Hey, it’s on your local Ubuntu box’s shell, not only on servers.

Tip: In Ubuntu, there’s a very verbose and more beautiful byobu command.

Here’s the timeline for My Halalan 2010 Experience, the closest approximation of my time spent while voting:

Halalan 2010 Highlights

1. Color Coding Queue System

   As we arrived, the assigned person giving the numbers (let’s call him Mr. Number-Giver), is sitting down giving out color-coded numbers to people. No queue, no announcement on where to go, I had to ask a few of my ka-barangays from whom they got their numbers.

   When I asked for a number, Mr. Number-Giver said “mamaya na, tapusin muna natin ang first batch“. (I knew later that there were 7 colors, with 15 numbers each, so 75 persons per batch.)

   I looked around and noticed that people are now flocking to Mr. Number-Giver and I don’t have all day to join in the hoard, so I asked him:

   Me: In an hour or so, there will be more voters who will ask for numbers. How would you know if we arrived earlier than them? (I was trying to influence him to put us on queue).
   Mr. Number-Giver: Ah, I am familiar with your faces, I will know.
   Me: That’s not good, make a system. Put us on queue then give us the numbers.
   Mr. Number-Giver: I am just following orders from our chairman inside, just wait until the first batch is done.
   Me: That’s not fair, let’s make a queue then you can follow the orders. Make a system or else we will be in chaos.
   … blah… blah… blah…

   In short, I got what I wanted. The other voters who heard made a queue then Mr. Number-Giver was forced to hand-out the numbers for the next batch.

   My mother is a senior citizen, my sister is 8-month pregnant. Imagine my gripe when we need to hoard for a number when in fact we arrived early?

   Highlight questions:

   • Why would you put a batch of voters (15 voters x 7 colors) when a queue with numbers would have sufficed? Ever heard of First-Come-First-Serve? No need for the damned colors!
   • Prioritize senior citizens and pregnant voters. (which they did after one lola asked instead of going on queue)
   • I don’t understand the batching. Why put voters in a batch? When there is already an available seat, let the next voter in. Saves time.
2. Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machine

   The PCOS machine was designed to read your ballot. Being a voter, I want it not only to read my ballot but DISPLAY MY CHOICES on the SCREEN. Being a programmer, I know that is NOT a HARD Thing TO DO.

   You would ask what about secrecy of my vote? It would be displayed for others to see. I don’t care! Show me my votes as read and verified by the PCOS machine, then I will be a really impressed and satisfied voter. I would feed my ballot to the PCOS machine anyway.

   How assured am I as the voter that it was indeed my choice that the PCOS machine has read?  hahaha

   Way ahead of me, there was a ballot that cannot be read by the PCOS machine although when double-checked by the BEI and the voter himself, all choices were valid.  So to really test the machine, I over-shaded my choice of my President beyond the oval lines. I also over-shaded a few other candidates.

   I personally feed my ballot, anticipating that it will be spit out. Surprise! It was verified and registered! bwahahaha

   Disclaimer: I am not trying to waste my vote here, I am a voter who is concerned of the integrity of the PCOS machine. If the voter way ahead of me had a ballot which when checked was okay, surely my ballot should NOT be okay because I overshaded a few choices, right? Think about it. (Maybe the ballot format of the voter was different than mine? Then we definitely should be concerned!)

   Highlight questions:

   • Again, How assured am I as the voter that it was indeed my choice that the PCOS machine has read?
   • For example, my ballot was not accepted by the PCOS machine, and when verified by BEI all is okay (shade and number of choices), do I get another ballot where I could cast the same choices?
3. Halalan 2010 Pictures

   Here are some pictures I took with my cellphone (not high-res but good enough hehe) while waiting on queue for the First Automated National Elections in the Philippines. Taken at Dilangalen National High School, Poblacion 1, Midsayap, Cotabato, Philippines.

   

   I tried taking some pictures of my ballot inside the voting area but I was prohibited by a member of the BEI… oh well.

Moral of the story? Nothing beats being an early bird. I expect the queue to be a lot longer now, 3 hours after we voted.

It’s already noon-time but weather is good for the Halalan 2010 here in Midsayap, dark clouds but no rain… yet. Update as of 2010-05-10 12:45pm – started raining na hehe

Surprisingly, there was no blackout… yet hehe. I’ve been keeping tabs of the semi-random daily blackouts here in Midsayap since March 2010 where it usually happens three times daily from Monday to Friday and randomly during weekends. No more blackouts, please. Update as of 2010-05-10 4:10pm – sufferred first blackout of the day from 2:55pm to 4:06pm… waah!

I hope the next Automated Elections here in the Philippines should be more organized and could satisfy my tech apprehensions. hehe

To my fellow Filipinos, how was your Halalan 2010 experience? Have you voted yet?

TortoiseHg however is not in the Ubuntu Karmic Koala repositories.  Another challenge is that TortoiseHg 1.0.1 requires Mercurial 1.5 but Ubuntu Karmic only has Mercurial 1.3 on the repositories.  Of course I want the newer versions.

Here are the steps I did to install TortoiseHg, my preferred Mercurial GUI client on Ubuntu Karmic Koala 9.10:

1. Add the following PPAs to your Software Sources
   1. Goto System -> Administration -> Software Sources
   2. Click the Add button then paste the following on the APT line

      • deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/mercurial-ppa/releases/ubuntu karmic main

      • (refer to Mercurial PPA - https://launchpad.net/~mercurial-ppa/+archive/releases)
   3. Click the Add Source button
   4. Click the Add button then paste the following on the APT line

      • deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/tortoisehg-ppa/releases/ubuntu karmic main

      • (refer to TortoiseHg PPA - https://launchpad.net/~tortoisehg-ppa/+archive/releases)
   5. Click the Add Source button
   6. Your Software Sources should now reflect the newly added PPAs.
   7. Click the Close button.
   8. You will be asked to reload the information about available software, click on the Reload button.
   9. Wait until the software sources update is finished.
   10. Finally, to install TortoiseHg on Ubuntu, type this in the shell:

       $ sudo apt-get install tortoisehg

       After that is done, Nautilus needs to be reloaded to reflect the context menu. You may logout then log back in or just type this in the shell to quit all Nautilus instances:

       $ nautilus -q

       Thanks to Jesumer for pointing this out.

   11. You may then launch Nautilus and right-click on a folder/file. Your context menu should now show TortoiseHG as a menu item:
       

       Context Menu on a directory not yet on Mercurial repository.

       

       Context Menu on a directory already on Mercurial repository.

Congratulations! You have just installed TortoiseHg on your Ubuntu Karmic box.

Here are my references on myListBoard.com.

• Mercurial GUI Client on Ubuntu

]]> http://blog.mrpau.com/2010/04/mercurial-gui-client-on-ubuntu/feed/ 13 http://blog.mrpau.com/2009/12/how-to-install-agilo-on-trac-at-webfaction/ http://blog.mrpau.com/2009/12/how-to-install-agilo-on-trac-at-webfaction/#comments Wed, 30 Dec 2009 09:11:38 +0000 Cyril Pauya http://blog.mrpau.com/?p=663 Here are the steps I did to successfully install Agilo for Scrum (open-source version) in my Trac site at Webfaction.com:

1. download agilo-source-latest.tar.gz
2. create a python2.4 egg version of Agilo Open.  Since I don’t have Python 2.4 in my Ubuntu 9.04 laptop I tried installing.  However, it gives an error when compiling agilo it gives a “setuptools not installed” error, I dropped the process and did the following instead:
   1. copy agilo-source-latest.tar.gz to your webfaction account
   2. extract Agilo in a temporary folder

   tar xvf agilo-source-latest.tar.gz

   3. cd to the extracted Agilo directory
   4. compile in python2.4

   python2.4 setup.py bdist_egg

   5. copy the Agilo egg file from the dist folder into your local disk
3. install agilo to trac refer to http://www.agile42.com/cms/pages/download-install/
   1. upload Agilo egg in your Trac site’s plugins
   2. login to your Webfaction shell
   3. edit trac.ini at (trac-project-dir)/conf/trac.ini
   4. look for the [components] section – in my case I added it because it does not exist yet

      [components]
      agilo.* = enabled
      # the following lines are only required to use Agilo Pro
      agilo_common.* = enabled
      agilo_pro.* = enabled

   5. upgrade trac so that the agilo tables will be created in the Trac database

   (trac-project-dir)/bin/trac-admin . upgrade

4. upgrade Genshi from 0.5 to 0.5.1
   1. download from Genshi-0.5.1-py2.4-linux-x86_64.egg
   2. upload Genshi egg in your Trac site’s plugins
5. reload your Trac site and Agilo Open must have been enabled

IMPORTANT:

* when in doubt, enable logging in your Trac site and read the log at (trac-project-dir)/log/trac.log – this is how I fixed my problems with  Genshi 0.5.1 dependency of Agilo Open 0.8.4

Here are some caveats on my Trac setup:

• it uses Python 2.4;
• it uses Trac 0.11.4;
• it uses Genshi 0.5;

Sources:

• agilo-source-latest.tar.gz
• Genshi-0.5.1-py2.4-linux-x86_64.egg

References:

• http://www.agile42.com/cms/pages/agilo
• http://www.agile42.com/cms/pages/download-install/
• http://wiki.webfaction.com/wiki/TracPlugins
• http://forum.webfaction.com/viewtopic.php?id=91

Upload a valid image. The file you uploaded was either not an image or a corrupted image.

Here’s a screenshot (click on it for a larger view):

This has worked before so I was stumped to find out it’s giving me a red flag now.

Django is using Python Imaging Library or PIL for images so understandably the culprit may be on this level.  I tested PIL in Python’s shell using these commands:

$ python
>>> from PIL import Image
>>> img = Image.open("/home/cyril/Pictures/Anatomy.jpg")
>>> img.verify()
>>> img.size
(1600,1200)

Clearly, nothing is wrong with my PIL installation.

I began searching the net and found the following fix: Fixing – PIL IOError: decoder jpeg not available. Obviously, the author’s problems are similar to mine but he wasn’t using Django, only Python.

Since I have been using virtualenv to sandbox my Django projects, I have a similar but different approach.

Here are the steps I took to fix this problem:

1. I removed PIL by deleting the PIL folder and the PIL.pth file from my project’s virtualenv path.
2. I then installed the JPEG library using:

   $ sudo aptitude install libjpeg libjpeg-dev

3. I then re-installed PIL on my project using:

   $ pip install -E ../projectname/ -r requirements.txt

After this, I have successfully uploaded a .jpg file in Django’s admin interface.

This fix is useful if you are using virtualenv to sandbox your Django projects like me.  Here is my post on how to do this.  If you are not using virtualenv, just do the above steps but re-install PIL as you normally do using easy_install or pip.

A note of advice when installing PIL.  Read the PIL Setup Summary displayed after the installation.

This PIL Setup Summary says there is No JPEG support (click on it for a larger view):

While this PIL Setup Summary says there is JPEG support (click on it for a larger view):

I must have missed that during my virtualenv installation which caused me hours of gasping agony (as if being constricted by a python).

Thankfully I found the fix.  Kudos to Greg Pinero for posting it.

Happy Coding!

List of related articles on myListBoard.com:

• fixes for jpeg upload problem in django

try:
    import production
    PRODUCTION = True
except ImportError:
    PRODUCTION = False

Wherever in your code, you can do the following:

from django.conf import settings
...
if settings.PRODUCTION:
    # code for production...
else:
    # code for local...

Neat eh?