If you are developing for Google AppEngine on Mac, and you have updated python to 2.6.x or higher, you might face this non-sense error over and over:

ImportError: No module named _multiprocessing

The main reason behind this error is that AppEngine (as of this writing) can’t get along with python versions higher than 2.5.x.

Fortunately it is quite easy to fix this issue, especially if you are using GoogleAppEngineLauncher:

This tutorial is tested on Mac OS Leopard 10.5.8 with GoogleAppEngineLauncher 1.2.4 installed.

1. Run GoogleAppEngineLauncher.
2. In the menu-bar click GoogleAppEngineLauncher > Preferences to open the Preferences dialog box.
3. Change the Python Path to the older version: /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/
bin/python2.5 and then close the dialog box.


Changing the Python path in AppEngineLauncher

4. If you have the application added, pass to the next step, otherwise add the application by clicking File > New Application or File > Add Existing Application.


Adding a new application to AppEngine Launcher

5. Run the application. If it is already running restart it by clicking Stop and then click Run.
6. Test the application in the local host (e.g. http://localhost:8080/).

Now the application is running using Python 2.5 and you won’t see that error again. The advantage of this solution is that you won’t need to downgrade to python 2.5 or alter any system-wide path values. It just affect the AppEngine development environment.

You can use the same method on windows and Linux, it should work with no additional tweaking.

This is an unusual topic to be discussed in my software-oriented blog, but this morning I was staring at my wireless keyboard and I just thought how it (along with its companion mouse) made my life easier.

I use a wireless keyboard and a wired mighty mouse (broken 3 wireless mice already and I can’t afford it anymore) with my laptop. The tiny size of the keyboard allows me to easily use it on the go as well. If you are worried about the battery, the 3 AA Energizer batteries last for weeks (if you turn the keyboard off when you are not using it for a long time).

But a quick review is not why we are here, so let’s see why you should get yourself an external keyboard and mouse.

1. Less heat under fingertips

Boy, my MacBook Pro gets hot when I make her angry. With fans hitting 4000 rpm while working on something resource-intensive you can literally melt cheese on the touchpad. Living in the city of Summer, Dubai, makes it even more unbearable to work. It’s not hard to guess that the external companions are the only solution.

2. More distance from the screen

They say you should keep your distance from the screen, a minimum of 40 cm. But how is that possible when you are checking the latest tweets of your buddies (or something hotter), leaned toward the screen, like the letter C? Well, you know my answer: Get yourself external input devices.

3. More flexible screen positioning

People who use computers for a long time, tend to sit in weird positions, often in funny postures. That’s very wrong, you should sit correctly (no one sees me) all the time.

The point is that it helps a lot if you can put your laptop in a position higher than your hand, say 10-20 cm, to create a much better angle between your eyes and the display. There are many laptop stands that do the job for you, but I use a paper tray (works as a storage too) and I’m happy.

On the other hand, having a keyboard and a mouse, especially wireless, helps big tim in presentations where you don’t have access to a big screen. Just put your laptop on the table and let the people watch your jaw-dropping presentation while you are showing a lot of skill using your keyboard across the room.

4. Lowering the risk of CTS

Here comes the enemy of typaholics, CTS (Carpal Tunnel Syndrome). There are ways to avoid CTS, but for the average user, being careful while typing may be the most important thing to consider.

In my experience (suffering from some minor pain in my wrists) the external keyboard could help relieve the pain. You can easily position the keyboard (and the mouse) right, but the laptop itself is less flexible.

5. More hygiene

Did you know that the toilet (a public toilet to make it more disgusting) is more likely cleaner than your laptop? It is in fact 5 times dirtier than a typical toilet.

I’ll make it quick by saying that cleaning external peripherals is way easier than cleaning the laptop itself. And if you are obsessive about it, just throw them out and buy new devices. Easy.

6. Increased productivity

For some mysterious reason, I can work faster and type better using my external devices.

7. Better resale value for the laptop

This one has nothing to do with health, but when you make more money reselling your laptop, you automatically feel a lot better.

One of the ugly things about second-hand laptops is the shiny stains on each and every key, especially the space bar. Depending on the quality of the laptop, there can even be a bigger spot on the touchpad. Not nice at all. If you see my laptop (purchased and used passionately since Oct. 2007), there is no spot, stain, or anything like that. It’s all on my external keyboard. So a cleaner laptop means an easier sale, and hopefully a better price.

Most people use versioning systems like Subversion, Mercurial, and git to maintain their code while working on software and web projects. There are also hosted solutions like github and bitbucket providing developers with more features than a traditional version control environment.

But sometimes you just want to keep your code in a safe place and make sure you have reliable backup of the different versions, and that’s it! For smaller (or personal) projects especially, using versioning systems is an overkill. But what could be the solution?

If I want to summarize it quickly, the ideal solution will be a one that:

• Is hosted in the cloud (online)
• Is easy to setup
• Works without you doing any administration work
• Is cheap and preferably free
• Keeps you productive
• Keeps coding synchronized on multiple workstations
• Allows you to maintaing other related material, like PDF documentations, next to your code.

I think I found how to answer all these questions with one answer, let’s see how.

Storage as a service

Dropbox is a cloud-based storage service that keeps your files safe and in sync between multiple computers. It is basically created for backup and file synchronization, but I use it for coding and maintaining other contents like my web projects, and the book/article drafts including the drafts of this very article.

You will get 2GB of online free space which is pretty enough for many purposes, but it is always possible to upgrade to bigger plans.

Getting started

First create a Dropbox account and install the application (Windows, Mac, Linux) on all the computers you are working with. It is good to take a tour before , to check out the features.

Dropbox creates a local folder on your computer that is synced to your online folder. A mirror in the cloud, literally.

The solution I am proposing would work the best if all your computers run the same operating system, because you should set an identical path for the local folder on all computers. For example if you have a Mac and a PC, the folder structure difference will cause 2 different Dropbox folders (e.g. /Users/user/Dropbox and C:\MyDocuments\Dropbox\).

In my case, I set it to /Users/ali/Dropbox/ on both my home Macbook Pro as well as on my office Mac Pro. When I work at home (on my MacBook Pro) I store my ongoing work and it syncs with the remote folder. When I’m at work it sync back with my workstation and I can continue the work with no interruption.

The reason behind having similar folder structures is that when you are programming, you often use absolute file and folder references in the development environment. So having all computers using the same folder structure will guarantee you won’t face any silly issues in the code testing procees.

Using Dropbox

Now that you installed Dropbox and setup the folders, move a working folder or file, e.g a web project or a document you are working on, to the Dropbox folder. It will automatically start to synchronize the contents of the local folder with the remote folder (in the cloud). As you update the files, Dropbox will synchronize it with the remote folder and the good news is that it keeps a copy of every single version of the files as backup.

For the free plan the versions older than 30 days will be deleted, but in the paid version they will stay forever! so you will have all the earlier versions of your files.

On the other hand, when you open the other computers (that are configured), the local folder of Dropbox will be automatically synced with the remote folder, updating all files that have been updated in other computers. Then you can continue working on your project from the line you have left on the other computer, without carrying USB sticks around.

That was easy.

Happy yet?

Dropbox offers an intuitive web access interface to all versions of your files, so you can restore or download any older version. You can also setup a shared folder between you and other Dropbox users (say, your colleague) to exchange data in a productive way.

I am happily using Dropbox for syncing my files and it didn’t let me down even once. It also helps me keep the older versions in case I messed the current version. Every save you perform on your files is stored in Dropbox, so it is as if you have a live history of your work bit by bit.

Many times you need to collect information from users (e.g. employees) through online forms.

As I just did for my HR department as a favor, you too can do it very quick (but not dirty) in Zoho Creator.

I assume that you have a basic understanding of Zoho Creator and databases in general. If not you can have a look at the Wiki site, or more generously check out the respective chapter in my book Foundation Zoho: Work and Create Online, out September 2009.

Creator allows you to quickly setup a database by designing the data forms, and then embed the forms in any web page. It means that you skip many steps (compared to when you do such task in a traditional way of coding everything yourself) and let Creator to take of it. You might realize the skipped steps in this tutorial, and well, if you didn’t, don’t bother.

Now, let’s create a database application that holds the data of a survey you run on your website.

Getting started

First you need to create the application itself. Then we continue with adding the necessary forms.

1. Open Creator (http://creator.zoho.com) and log in with your Zoho credentials. Create an account if you don’t have one yet.
2. If it is your first time it will automatically open the application wizard (figure 1) where you create the application. Enter webForms in the Application Name and survey in the Form Name.

   

   figure 1. Creating the application.

3. In the form designer (figure 2) you can create a full-fledged data entry form with standard elements, coding, and validation. This tutorial will just use the design features, so start with dragging a Radio button from the field-box (left) and dropping it on the form just like in figure 3.
   
   figure 2. The form designer.

   
   figure 3. Dragging a radio button.
   

4. Fill in the values in the Adding Radio dialog box as you see in the figure 4. Then click done when you are finished. These elements will determine the design and basic behavior of the radio button.
   figure 4. Setting the values for the radio button.

5. Check the result of the previous steps on the form. You can see a radio button set with 3 options to select and a label in the form of a question. The first element of your form is built and we are going to perform similar tasks for the rest of the elements.
6. Now add a Checkbox to the form: drag it from the field-box and drop it on the form below the radio button.
7. Fill in the values for the check-box as in figure 5. Then click done.
   
   figure 5. Setting the values for the check-box.
8. Drag and drop a Multiline and fill in the values as you see in the figure 6.
   
   figure 6. Setting the values for the multi-line.
   
9. For the last field, drag and drop an Email and set it just like figure 7.
   
   figure 7. Setting the values for the email.
   
10. Check the final form and compare it to figure 8. They should look almost identical.
    
    figure 8. Reviewing the final design.
    

Well,  you have just created your very first form. It’s now time to run it and test how it works. Then you will embed it in your website for the prime time.

Getting the embed code

To refresh your memory let me mention that to place the form in your website in order to gather information from the visitors, you need to embed the survey form in a web page of your website. Although you won’t write a single line of code, it is always beneficiary to be a bit familiar with HTML, maybe to that extent that you know every web page is made of HTML code. So all you will do is to get a piece of HTML code (snippet) and paste it in the right position in the source code of the target web page.

Before that, you need to run the Creator application, webForms. Until now, you were in design mode, creating the pieces of the application (well, just a form so far). Running an application on the other hand, is like executing a standard application where you can interact with different parts of it, enter and retrieve data.

1. In design mode (you are already there) find the big yellow button, Access this application and click it. The application will open in the run mode and all design elements will be replaced with a good looking environment waiting for you to enter data.
2. On top of the form, next to its title, click the More Actions menu and select Embed in your Website (figure 9).
   
   figure 9. Starting the embed process.
3. Click Click Here in the next dialog box (figure 10) to have access to the form without needing Zoho credentials (while entering data) and then copy the code snippet (to the clipboard).
   
   figure 10. Reviewing the final design.

Embedding the form

You have generated a embed code that loads the form designed in Creator anywhere in the body of the web page you paste it. Such web page could be a post or a page in your blog, or in any website that you have the rights to add HTML content to.

Here I am just going to demonstrate how to embed our Creator form in a Wordpress page. Other blogs (Blogger, MovableType, etc.) or CMSs (Joomla, Drupal, etc.) will follow a similar approach with some difference in the details. The point is to paste the code snippet in a HTML body.

1. Login to your website (Wordpress, in here) admin area.
2. Add a new page (Pages > Add New) and enter a title as well as some body text.
3. Turn the editor to HTML view where you can see the underlying code.
4. Paste the code snippet in the HTML body in a suitable position. The outcome should look like figure 11.
   
   figure 11. Creating a page with the form embedded.
5. Click Publish to save and publish the form.

Testing the form

To test the form you just need to open the container page. The page looks like other pages in your website with a form embedded in it. The Zoho logo appears at the bottom (in the free edition of Creator), but it is no big deal.

Try to enter some values in the form and click Submit when you are done.

If you skip a value that is mandatory (identified with a red asterisk) or enter wrong information (e.g. enter a number in email box) the form will show an error message asking you (the visitor) to enter data correctly (figure 12). It actually validates the values against the rules you have set while designing the form (figures 4, 5, 6, 7).

figure 12. Testing the form.

Web developers will be amazed by the features Creator provides out of the box. Easy interface design and validation plus many other features that are beyond the scope of this tutorial.

Now your visitors are able to participate in the survey and give their feedback using a form that you created in less than an hour.

But where will all that data go?

Extracting the data

Collecting data is not even half of the job. Behind the scene you need to extract the entered data to analyze it for whatever reason that is important form you.

The good news is that while you were busy designing your form, Creator made a View for that particular form by which you can extract the entered data. Views are like customizable portals to data. Although views are way more powerful than just showing you the data, but we just stick to one feature (viewing raw data) for you to see where the incoming data goes to.

In Creator, in the run mode, open the survey View from the sidebar (figure 13).

figure 13. Extracting data.

You can navigate through data, search, filter, and even export it to different formats. You may even embed this form in another web page, but I leave this to your imagination since you gained enough knowledge to do it yourself.

Congratulations, you have managed to create a simple, but powerful survey application with few clicks and no coding at all.

What next?

Creator is a powerful database application creation platform, that  many call it the online Access. But I believe it is even more useful because it is cloud-based and allows you to create multi-user internet-based applications that can be used by SMBs and SMEs.

The webForms application, can have more forms for guest-book, feedback, inquiry, etc. In fact you can create a full-fledged data oriented website using a blogging platform and a database application hosted on Zoho Creator.

Don’t forget to checkout the Creator help to unleash its power and use it to solve real life problems.

This article was originally posted on CloudAve.

Security remains as one of the biggest challenges in adopting and spreading cloud computing. But there is an even bigger concern that could threaten the existence of clouds in a bigger picture.

Read the story to find out what this threat is and what could be done about it.

Recently I have jumped on Python wagon to play with Google AppEngine a bit. Python is a very fun (and powerful) language and I feel so bad I never touched it before.

There are many editors for Mac OS to make coding in Python even more fun, TextMate and Coda to name a few, but it is not much productive. You need to code in the editor with no code completion for AppEngine SDK, then you need to start the local web sever in the terminal to test your code.

Aptana Studio in the other hand, provides you with a great user interface and many other features, all inherited from the mighty Eclipse. By installing PyDev plugin in the other hand,  you can make Aptana, Python friendly.

However, there are still 2 missing links in the chain of perfection to make Aptana the IDE of choice for developing for AppEngine: Code completion for Google libraries and built-in debugging facilities.

In this tutorial you are going see how to make Aptana Studio your one and only AppEngine development tool in Mac OS X.

Note: I assume that you have a basic idea of Python and Google AppEngine. You should be also comfortable using Mac and installing applications.

Getting Started

First you need to install AppEngine SDK on your Mac. Note that when you visit the download page of AppEngine there is a DMG package for Mac. First, you need to download and install it the way you do in standard Mac applications.

This package will make your Mac ready for AppEngine development, but it will not help you with customizing Aptana. You need to have a copy of all libraries used in SDK on your computer.

For this purpose you need to download the ZIP file listed in the same page (for Linux/Other platforms) and unzip it in a folder in your Mac (e.g. Documents).

Now download and install Aptana and install PyDev, a plugin for Python development in Aptana:

1. Open Aptana and in My Aptana page (opens when you run the application), switch to Plugins tab.
2. Find the entry for Aptana PyDev and click Get it.
3. Go through the installation wizard and restart Aptana at the end, as instructed.

Now you need to configure the environment for AppEngine. Let’s create a new project first.

1. Open Aptana and create a new project using File > New > Project.
2. In the project wizard select Pydev > Pydev Project and click Next to continue.
3. Type in a name for the project and choose 2.5 for Grammer version. This is because AppEngine is  currently supporting Python 2.5.2.
4. If the Interpreter is empty click the link below to configure an interpreter. Use Autodetect for Aptana to list the available Python installation and proceed.
5. Click Finish to create and open the empty project.

It is now time for the configuration.

1. With the project open, open Project > Properties and navigate to PyDev – PYTHNPATH.
2. Click Add source folder for External Source Folders and browse for the folders you see in figure 1. You can add more libraries if you needed.
3. Click OK to proceed.

Figure 1

If populating libraries were successful you can see the code completion works just fine.

Figure 2

Configuring the debugger

Finally you need to configure the debugger, so you can run your projects from within Aptana.

1. Click Run > Run to open the Run configuration window.
2. Select Python Run on the sidebar and click New launch configuration (the first button above the sidebar).
3. Enter a name for the configuration (e.g. AppEngine) and Browse for the project name.
4. Enter the full path for dev_appserver.py as you see in figure 3.

   
   Figure 3

5. Switch to Arguments tab and enter ${project_loc}/src in the arguments box. You can add more arguments for dev_appserver.py.

   
   Figure 4

   Note: If you don’t use the default src folder (that PyDev creates for new projects), you need to omit it in the argument, so it becomes ${project_loc}

6. Click Apply and then Run the application. You should see the application server run log in the Console window.

Figure 5

Congratulations. You can now enjoy the power of Aptana while developing for Google AppEngine.

P.S. Special thanks to Joscha Feth because I benefited greatly from his article.

Many people use RSS news feeds to read the latest updates from their favorite websites synchronized in a single place. It is much more productive than surfing around and reading content surrounded by ads and useless stuff.

With the subscription list increasing in number, having a powerful new reader with a good set of features is a must. There are a lot of news reader clients  available for all operating systems but many people still prefer the one and only Google Reader.

Google Reader offers you a host of features in an easy to use light-weight UI and is accessible from everywhere since it runs online. But still Reader users miss the luxury of having a desktop application that runs from the local computer.

With SSB (Site Specific Browser) application that create a standard application based on a website, it is possible for you to create a desktop application of Reader. Prism and Fluid will do the job for you just perfect.

However you can enable this feature in Firefox 3 in few simple steps. No need to install any other application.

1. Run Firefox and logo to Google Reader.
2. Click Tools > Add-ons and install Prism. You need to restart Firefox for the changes to take effect.
   
3. Click Tools > Convert Website to Application.
   
4. The URL is entered automatically. Simply type in a name and check the options as you wish.
   
5. Click OK and wait a few seconds for the application to be created.

If you chose to have Dock or Desktop shortcuts you can click them right away to run the Reader application, otherwise find it in the Applications folder.

Similar approach applies to Linux and Windows users (if they have this option available).

Note: Chrome users can enjoy this feature too. But since Chrome is still not supported on Mac OS, I focused on Firefox.

I bet you have now a list of eligible websites in your mind that can transorm into desktop applications.

This is an article posted on CloudAve.

As you might know the Open Cloud Manifesto debuted on March 30st.

It outlines the pillars of Cloud Computing as well giving a brief on what the possible threats and weaknesses could challenge the early and future adopters.

The manifesto declares 4 major goals of an Open Cloud:

• Choice; to give total freedom to the cloud clients in choosing between different cloud providers with no barriers
• Flexibility; to maximize the interoperability between Clouds and organizations on different Clouds.
• Speed and Agility; to employ open interfaces to allow organizations to build solutions that easily and quickly integrate

Read the full story