OSX Mavericks All Systems Go

I upgraded my MacBook Air 2012 last night and everything went smoothly.  I left my Thunderbolt displayed plugged in but didn’t have any ill side effects.

Initial observations using OSX Mavericks:

  • Everything feels a little faster, starting apps, Finder
  • Everything works – exception being the WP editor in v3.6 – no bullets
  • Parallels 9 and Parallels Access is fine
  • RoboForm is still fine
  • PyCharm needed to install Java 6 SE to start
  • Office 2011 (mac) runs fine

Wonder what it would have cost to have Apple do the ACA website rollout?

 

PyCharm Database View and Google Cloud SQL

PyCharm has really improved my developer productivity.  It has great integration with the Google Apps SDK and with a little tweaking, can support multiple Google Cloud SQL database logins.

The tricky part is managing the stored credentials behind the scenes. Seems like the Google SQL Command Line Tool only supports 1 login at a time. If you are like me and do projects for multiple clients, then you need multiple Google Account logins.

What works pretty easily is swapping out the credential file behind the scenes. Take a look here to find where the Command Line Tool is storing it’s credential:

https://developers.google.com/cloud-sql/docs/commandline#revokeaccess

You can setup the Command Line Tool using your first account, then rename the resulting credential File (or Registry Key in Windows. Setup the Command Line Tool again using your next account, then rename the credential file/key to something else.  Now you can swap your active credential by swapping in the right file/key.  Symbolic links work in Mac/Linux, .reg files to set the right key should work in Windows.

Once you have the right Credential in place, tell PyCharm about the Google Command Line Tool .jar database connector file and you are good to go.  Here’s a picture of my setup.

Setup PyCharm with Google Cloud SQL

PyCharm is Good

The Wayland Barn loves PyCharm.  I’ve been using Google App Engine and Django with Eclipse for about a year and I finally took the plunge and switched to a dedicated IDE.  What a difference!

I shouldn’t complain.  The Eclipse add-in I had been using, PyDev, was free and worked pretty well.  In fact, I’d never have switched except that Google broke the dev_appserver about 3 months ago and I lost my ability to do step debugging in Eclipse.

After a very short learning curve with PyCharm, I’ve got my projects, databases, GIT source control, and deployment all working in a neat package.

Yes! PHP on GAE!

I was talking with Google Enterprise Support about how reasonable my bill was last week and I couldn’t believe my ears.  He told me that Google App Engine (GAE) was now supporting PHP.  Check it out here.  I know that sounds geeky (’cause it is), but it is also really great for me and everyone who wants to use the platform.

Google App Engine is a super way to build web apps that can scale without system engineering.  But you needed to work in a bit of a non-traditional environment.  Now I can build teams with PHP developers, rather than needing Python (and Django).  Not that there’s anything wrong with Python — but it is a smaller pool of talent.

Here’s another great take on the news.  VentureBeat estimates that 75% of the web is presented with PHP.  Wooah.

Prototyping Breakthroughs

Today we had a breakthrough on prototyping a new app.  After umpteen hours of notes and ideas and sketches it all came together.  We went from feeling lost in our Wayland office, to having a plan of attack — in one breakthrough hour.

We decided to mock it up (again) in Balsamiq so we could be sure it would work right.  Then we realized that the new thinking is such a great simplifier, that we can mock it up in HTML and Django just as fast.  And we’ll really get a feel for how the app hangs together.

Not sure what created the breakthrough.  Maybe the soak time, a good nights sleep, our track record of great teamwork, who knows.  Stay tuned…we’ll see how it turns out.

The Tools are Good

It’s been awhile since I used a web CMS.  Launching a personal website using a “builder” tool used to be a sign of weakness.  Now with WordPress and all the killer plug-ins, you’d be crazy to hand-stitch a site.

If you’re building interactive web apps, not just marketing sites, you’ll need more than WordPress.  I’ve gotten into Google App Engine, Cloud SQL, and Django as tools of choice.  The GAE stack has been solid the last 12 months building and launching PowerWeek.com.

GAE isn’t the cheapest, but the value is just right — big time stability and scalability, real developer productivity, and no system engineering required.  All for just a small premium over roll-your-own hosting like AWS.