– property: mylist
external_name: mylist
import_transform: “lambda x: len(x) > 0 and eval(x) or ””

Why it works:
In your csv, your list should export like so:
“[u’item1′, u’item2′, u’item3′]”
Running an eval on this string, converts it to a list. The length check is like if/else statement, if len(x) > 0 convert it else use empty string.

With Django (what I am using), you use this command:
manage.py vacuum_indexes

What is nice about the process is that, for each index that has been removed from your index.yaml, it will confirm whether you want to delete it or not. So you get a second chance to make sure you are right. If you delete the wrong index, it’s going to take some time for it to rebuild, and portions of your site could be down.

Why do I need this:
I don’t think you would see a noticeable speed improvement to your data inserts, updates, or deletes by having a few less unused indexes, but it couldn’t hurt. Also you are limited to 100 indexes (as of April 2010) so this how you free them up.

appcfg.py update check failed: EOF occurred in violation of protocol

This error is related to not having the SSL module for python installed. The easy fix is to install it by running “easy_install ssl” from the command prompt. However, using Python 2.5, I received errors and it did not work.

The longer, more involved fix is to compile the SSL module for python. This was a hassle but after about an hour I finally got it working.

Here is the tutorial I used to install the ssl module:
http://beautifulisbetterthanugly.com/posts/2009/aug/19/compile-ssl-115-python-25-or-lower/

I also had to follow the troubleshooting section on this link:
http://wiki.cython.org/InstallingOnWindows
because I did not have the python library file (libpython25.a).

Steps to Add a Developer Email Address:

1. Log in to your Google App Engine Account.
2. Under Administration, click Permissions, and add the email address.
3. Log out, and check for the validation email.

More Info:
This is quite a hassle. I understand the reason is to cut back on spam but not only do you have to have a valid email account but you must create a google account for it.
In my case, I just wanted to send notifications out but I don’t monitor the sender address (but I do include a contact link in the email).
Darn spammers!

1. Download Fake Sendmail for Windows. Unzip the files and copy them into a new folder.
2. Add this new folder to your windows PATH, by right clicking on My Computer -> Properties. Click Advanced Tab -> Environmental Variables. Edit the PATH variable under System variables. Append your path to the end of the string. Do not replace the existing paths, just add it to the end preceded by a semi colon. Ex: “;c:\apps\fakesendmail”
3. In your fakesendmail folder, you must configure the “sendmail.ini” file. You have two choices:
   • Use your own custom smtp server settings (if you have one), by setting “smtp_server”, “auth_username”, “auth_password”, and “default_domain”
   • Use Windows default smtp service by setting “smtp_server” to “C:\Inetpub\mailroot\Pickup” and “default_domain” to “localhost”. This second choice will not send your emails but most likely will store your emails in the “C:\Inetpub\mailroot\Queue”.
4. Open a new command console (must reopen the console to pick up the new path variable). Run the appengine patch from your apps root folder with the following argument:
   “manage runserver –enable_sendmail”

Some Additional Info:
This will resolve the error message “SMTP AUTH extension not supported by server”.

These steps were derived from this google discussion.

For Windows:
Download and run this Windows uninstaller from U3.
Works in XP, Vista and Windows 7, and others.

Macintosh
Follow the sandisk instructions ro remove U3.

Additional Information
You can always visit the U3 support site for more info.

Why Remove It?
I find it annoying that it pops up every time you plug it in and you have wait to use your drive (10 seconds on my machine). I’d keep it if they made it easier to disable that functionality. However I have been using PortableApps, an open alternative to U3. The apps that are available for PortableApps are not commercial apps but they suit my needs.

http://shoppertalk.appspot.com

It’s unbreakable. Ok, that’s not true, but I do need some testers.

It’s a Django app running on Google App Engine. It utilizes the Twitter api and their OAuth implementation (so you can log in with your Twitter account).

Currently only the Amazon product catalog is available for browsing, but more will be added.

1. Go to the Notepad window that has the desktop.ini file.
2. In the menu, click File -> Save As.
3. In the “Save as type”, select “All Files”.
4. You will see the desktop.ini file in the list, right click, and select Delete.
5. Cancel the Save As, and close the Notepad window.
6. Now it will not appear anymore when you reboot.

How Can This Happen:
Most likely it was some installation process that incorrectly placed the file in the startup folder. In my case it was Mozy file.

use urllib
# you have to pass in a dictionary
print urllib.urlencode({'id':'100', 'name':'john smith'})

# then you get 'id=100&name=john+smith'

Urlencoding Unicode and UTF8 Values

#this works fine
print urllib.urlencode({name:'José'})

#you have to be careful with unicode strings
# this will throw an error:
print urllib.urlencode({name:u'José'})
# UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xc3 in 
# position 11: ordinal not in range

#since the default ascii conversion can't handle the 'é',
# you have to be explicit in what charset you are using
print urllib.urlencode({'name':u'José'.encode('utf8')})

Additional Info:
Python Doc for urllib module
Unicode Primer

IE 8 Context Menu

Code is included that utilizes a JQuery front-end against a PHP webservice. To get the demo working on your own machine, some familiarity with JQuery and PHP is required.

Try The Demo

If you are using IE8, you can install the demo with this link:

Install “Listen To Music” Accelerator

You will get the message below, check the “Make this my default…”, and click Add.

Add Accelerator Popup

Once you have it installed it, you can select text on a web page and right click to bring up the menu. Hover over “Listen to Music” for a selection of available songs.
contextmenu

Try it out by selecting an artist or title below:

Michael Jackson seems to be popular, and who doesn’t know Thriller.

Once a song is selected, you are forwarded to the GrooveShark site where you can listen to the full song for free.

The Tutorial

Step 1: Set Up Your Development Environment

You will need a web server that runs PHP (Apache or IIS will work). Create a virtual directory called “musiclookup”. Copy all the files included in the tutorial code to the “musiclookup” directory you created. In this demo, we use localhost as the server, if you have another server name, you can manually update the references to localhost in the code.

Step 2: Testing your Environment

Now you have to test that the code works on your own machine and the rest of the steps are a breeze. Test the lookup page by going to:

http://localhost/musiclookup/lookup.html?s=Thriller

If a song list appears, then you are good to go:

This is what should appear when testing your local install.

If you don’t get the song list, there are some troubleshooting tips in the trouble.txt file included in the source.

Step 3: Creating Your Accelerator Installation File

IE Accelerators are installed by reading a specially formatted XML file. We are going use a modified version of the default installation file that Microsoft provides:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<os:openServiceDescription
    xmlns:os="http://www.microsoft.com/schemas/openservicedescription/1.0">
    <os:homepageUrl>http://localhost/musiclookup</os:homepageUrl>
    <os:display>
        <os:name>Listen to Music</os:name>
        <os:icon>http://localhost/musiclookup/favicon.ico</os:icon>
        <os:description>Listen to music using GrooveShark's TinySong api.</os:description>
    </os:display>
    <os:activity category="Listen">
        <os:activityAction context="selection">
            <os:preview action="http://localhost/musiclookup/lookup.html?s={selection}" />
            <os:execute action="http://localhost/musiclookup/goto.php" method="get">
                <os:parameter name="s" value="{selection}" type="text" /> 
            </os:execute>
        </os:activityAction>
    </os:activity>
</os:openServiceDescription> 

We’ll start by editing the basic details. Open the file called lookup.xml in the musiclookup folder you created and review the following settings:

• homepageUrl: Modify this url if you used a server other than localhost.
• name: Change the name to “My Music Lookup” (or some other custom name)
• icon: The url of an icon that is displayed in the context menu. You can leave this.
• description: A simple description can be entered here. You can leave this also.

Step 4: Setting up the Preview Action

The preview action is the url that will display the preview page:

<os:preview action="http://localhost/musiclookup/lookup.html?s={selection}" />

We tested the preview page in step 2, so you can use the url here (unless you have a server name). One item to note is the “{selection}” text. This text is replaced with what the user selected when your preview page is displayed. Your preview page can then read this url variable and act on it. More url variables can be found in Micrsoft’s documentation.

Step 5: Setting up the Execute Action

The execute action is the url that you are forwarded to when you click the context menu.:

<os:execute action="http://localhost/musiclookup/goto.php" method="get">
  <os:parameter name="s" value="{selection}" type="text" /> 
</os:execute>

In our case we use a simple php page to redirect to the third party site that plays the music.

Step 6: Testing Your Accelerator

To test your accelerator, you must create a link to install it. A special Microsoft javascript function is used to call your xml file. You can see an example of this in the test.html file in the musiclookup folder:

Here you can test your accelerator.

Once you have it installed, you can select text on your page and see the preview. If you want to make changes to the configuration file, you can reinstall by simply clicking your install link again. You can also manually remove an Accelerator by going to the “Tools -> Manage Add-ons” menu item.

How The JQuery Front End Works:
What is neat about the preview action, is that it brings up a mini page that can run html and javascript like any other page. The preview page is a html page that references JQuery to call the web service and get some simple animation effects.

How the PHP Web Service Works:
The php code calls GrooveShark’s service (tinysong.com). It is a RESTful interface that returns results in plain text. The php code parses the results and reformats them into json to make it easier to use by the front end. The php web service also acts as a proxy because your preview page can not call a web service (tinysong) from another domain.

Making Improvements
There is certainly room for new feature and improvement. The preview page could be modified to include additional information or pull data from additional sources. While Grooveshark does not allow using their music player widgets, other services do (like Amazon, Real Networks or iTunes). The back end could be modified to pull from their web services and listen to the music directly on the preview page (although you don’t get to listen to the full song like you do when going to GrooveShark’s site).

The End
I hope you enjoyed the tutorial and that you get some use out of the accelerator. Feel free to ask any questions or make any suggestions.

Additional Resources

• Microsoft’s Documentation on Accelerators
• GrooveShark
• TinySong API Documentaion
• JQuery
• Parsing REST Results in PHP