It's been a while since my last post. I have been pretty busy over the past few months. I have not ignored GAE. Since the last post, I've given up on the google docs api. It's still a task on the project list, so I may get back to it. It's just not quite as interesting as some of the other stuff going on.

Here's what I've been working on since March:

- Lots of clean up on simpleAsynch
- Crashed HD on windows laptop
- Stole wife's macbook
- Replaced HD on windows laptop and made it a kubuntu laptop
- Ignoring Salesforce.com
- Tried GAE on kubuntu
- Fought wife for macbook
- Created conversation on GAE (twitter/chatroom-like app)
- Created Holey Twit!

Kubuntu - I really like Kubuntu. I installed it on my resurrected notebook hoping that it would be as nice as the mac. While it does offer a familiar environment, it's just not quite mac worthy. I found that I was able to crash out KDE a few times (due mainly to my own ignorance). Recovery meant the console, searching through the logs for the offending settings, and correcting a bunch of KDE config files. It was just too easy to mess up. Also while eclipse (old version) and gae work just fine on kubuntu, it just didn't feel as smooth as the mac. I never could get all of the fonts just like I wanted them in eclipse. Definitely the biggest problem I have with Kubuntu is the wireless driver. Now this is the first linux I've worked with that installed a working wireless driver during install. But the driver only just works. It's way slow. realtek does publish other drivers but the model numbers are slightly off and I just don't feel like messing with it much more. By the way this is a dual boot system now. Vista and Kubuntu. I've confiscated the macbook for all development.

I'm using mamooproject to track work for the gae sites. There's t a multi-user version running in dev. Once I get a few of the bugs out I'll publish it. At the rate I'm going it'll probably be another month.

I reused mamoo-sf to host conversation site. It works kind of like a chatroom or im app. Unfortunately, GAE doesn't allow COMET, so there's a lot of polling. This doesn't make for a very nice IM application.

The next new thing is holeytwit.appspot.com. It is a play on words. I'll let you guess which words. My first idea was pileoftwit.appspot.com but holeytwit is a bit less graphic. I'm not trying to be some major twitter player here. I'm just learning the API and if I stumble across the next big idea, then so be it. So far search works and the layout pretty well defined. I'm a little unsure if GAE is a realistic platform for twitter apps given the limits on the twitter API. I read some scary things online, but it seems to be working okay for now. I did experience some applicationerror2s on urlfetch.py. I suspect that I was getting a 403 or 503 on the twitter search. That means we've (google) hit a threshold. Hash searches (topics) and Ampersand searches (twitterites) worked fine. I'm fine with it. Even twitter from time to time turns search off. Next comes oauth and the rest api. I'll comment on this in a later post.