Category Archives: osbridge

osbridge, portland , ,

Setting up a PDXAPI instance

Today I spent a little time setting up a PDXAPI instance of the CivicApps data. There are a few different tools out there for grabbing the data and loading it up, and so I’m documenting the basic steps here for setting up a spatial SQLite using @lokkju’s python projects.

hg clone https://pyspatialite.googlecode.com/hg/ pyspatialite

cd pyspatialite
mv setup.cfg.OSX setup.cfg
python setup.py build
sudo python setup.py install

cd ..
cd pyod

hg clone https://pyod.googlecode.com/hg/ pyod

# unsatisfied dependency!
sudo easy_install pyyaml

pypython fetcher.py

This creates a 1 GB sqlite database called ‘test.sqlite’.

Next, I’ll be testing out loading this into a CouchDB instance and maybe playing with Max Ogden’s initial PostGIS export.

community, conference, open source bridge, osbridge , 3 Comments

Kicking off Open Source Bridge planning

Starting the rodeo rumors now...

Starting the rodeo rumors now...

We’re kicking off the planning for Open Source Bridge 2010, old school. We’ve got a mailing list that you should subscribe to:

http://groups.google.com/group/osbridge

Last year’s organizing team was very structured. I like to think that we managed things well, and our attendees were pleased with the results.

But, this time – we’re changing how we manage things.

We’re letting everyone in on our planning process! So, if you enjoyed Open Source Bridge last year, and want to see it be a success this year, join our mailing list now, and see if you can lend us a hand.

Thanks!

Photo courtesy of FirstBaptistNashville, via a Creative Commons license

conference, osbridge, postgres, postgresql, presentation, speaking , , , ,

Off to MySQL Con

I’m presenting a 25-minute talk on “Thinking about Performance” on Wednesday, around 5:25p at the Percona Performance Conference. My plan is to talk about performance testing and how to go about useful optimizations. This will be in the context of the PostgreSQL Performance Pad testing, and the performance-focused talks Mark Wong has been giving at Portland State University. Stop by if you get the chance – and you’re in San Jose! It’s free.

Robert Treat will be giving a talk on PostgreSQL at 11:15am that should be good, and we’re having a BoF during MySQL Con at 7:30pm. Quite a bit of Postgres-focused content at MySQL Con on Wednesday 🙂

I’m sad that I’ll be missing the Open Source Bridge Town Hall tomorrow night, but you should go! 🙂

community, conference, osbridge, user groups , , , , , , , , ,

Waffle-induced development


My waffles will probably not look as good as this.

People often ask me for advice on how to motivate and get people excited about coming to meetings, participating in user groups and contributing to projects. I’m going to try to blog more about the things I do that work.

Friends in Portland know that I often use food (and sometimes alcohol) bribes to get them to come over to my house to hang out, and then do work that is best done with a group (recall a major weeding project in my front yard).

We needed a few good folks to help out with the next phase of our Open Conference Ware application, and so I decided to reuse this “get house chores done” trick to hopefully motivate a few hungry developers to work with us on the next phase of the project.

When I sent out the message, I got both an enthusiastic “Hell yes, I’ll come for waffles”, and an “Oh man, I already had plans — which, if they fall through, I will totally be there for the waffles.”

I’m sure that the good people who stepped up to help us would have done so anyway. But, if I can provide a warm breakfast while we hack away on wireframes, why not? And, after I tweeted what we were up to, I got another volunteer!

Image courtesy of rizkapb, Creative Commons 2.0 generic license.