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Brief Curriculum Vitae

Keywords: Linux, Free Software, Python, PyGTK, Django, Resume :-)

How one Microsoft employee didn't "bing" good enough for Steve Ballmer.

Convert SVG to PNG

1. sudo apt-get install librsvg2-bin

2. for i in *.svg; do rsvg -h 96 -w 96 $i `echo $i | sed -e 's/svg$/png/'`; done

PS: man rsvg for more options and command description.

What is the best comment in source code you have ever encountered?

Read this topic on StackOverflow and have fun! :)

//When I wrote this, only God and I understood what I was doing
//Now, God only knows

Django: ManyToMany field and custom CheckboxSelectMultiple widget

In one of the previous posts I showed how to create a custom widget to use with Multiple Choice model field, but you can also use it as widget for ManyToMany field.

Models/fields definition:

class Genre(models.Model):

    slug = models.CharField(primary_key=True, max_length=32)
    title = models.CharField(unique=True, max_length=64)

class Movie(models.Model):
    title = models.CharField(blank=True, max_length=70)
    director = models.CharField(blank=True, max_length=100)
    genres = models.ManyToManyField(Genre, blank=True, null=True)
    ...

And here a form based on a Movie model:

from model import Movie
from widgets import CustomCheckboxSelectMultiple

class MovieForm(forms.ModelForm):

    class Meta:
        model = Movie

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super(MovieForm, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        # Custom widget for genres selection
        self.fields['genres'].widget = CustomCheckboxSelectMultiple(
            choices=self.fields['genres'].choices)
        # Removing "Hold down "Control", or "Command" on a Mac, to select more than one."
        self.fields['genres'].help_text = ''

Cinemania: First Blood

Cinemania 0.2 (codename 'First Blood') is ready for testing ;-)


Bellow is a short installation instruction:

1. Install prerequisites:
   

   apt-get install python-imdbpy python-imaging
   

2. Checkout cinemania buildout from SVN:
   

   svn co https://cinemania.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/cinemania/buildout cinemania_buildout
   

3. Bootstrap the buildout:
   

   cd cinemania_buildout/
   python2.5 ./bootstrap.py
   

   and run buildout script:
   

   ./bin/buildout -c devel.cfg
   

4. Setup initial database and run django web server:
   

   ./bin/django syncdb
   ./bin/django runserver
   

5. Point your browser at http://localhost:8000/
   for site administration http://localhost:8000/admin/

Quick and simple vsftpd configuration

1. Install vsftpd server:
   
   apt-get install vsftpd


2. Edit /etc/vsftpd.conf file:
   

   ...
   # Allow anonymous FTP? (Beware - allowed by default if you comment this out).
   anonymous_enable=NO
   #
   # Uncomment this to allow local users to log in.
   local_enable=YES
   #
   # Uncomment this to enable any form of FTP write command.
   write_enable=YES
   #
   # Default umask for local users is 077. You may wish to change this to 022,
   # if your users expect that (022 is used by most other ftpd's)
   local_umask=022
   ...
   

   First we close anonymous access to FTP, but instead allow local users to log in and grant them permission to write on FTP.
   

   ...
   # You may restrict local users to their home directories.  See the FAQ for
   # the possible risks in this before using chroot_local_user or
   # chroot_list_enable below.
   chroot_local_user=YES
   ...
   # Specifies the directory vsftpd changes to after a local user logs in.
   # There is no default value for this directive.
   local_root=/home/ftp
   ...
   

   Next we restrict local uses to /home/ftp directory.


3. By default /home/ftp, doesn't have a write permission for unprivileged users (i.e. not root). There are two possible solutions: made /home/ftp directory writable for all users, i.e. chmod a+w /home/ftp or limit write access to group members only, it's a better approach so you can easily grant/close write access to any appropriate user by changing their membership in privileged group:
   

   # addgroup ftpusers
   # chgrp ftpusers /home/ftp
   # chmod g+w /home/ftp
   # adduser username ftpusers
   

That's it! Now our user can upload files on FTP server.