March at paulcarvill.com, the home of Paul Carvill on the web 2009 at paulcarvill.com, the home of Paul Carvill on the web

link: paulcarvill at flickr

paulcarvill.com

Hi, I'm Paul Carvill and I'm a web developer. I am Head of Interface Development at LBi, Europe's largest digital agency.

I also like walking, cooking, Bollywood and rock 'n' roll.

Archive for March, 2009

links for 2009-03-30

Monday, March 30th, 2009

links for 2009-03-27

Friday, March 27th, 2009

links for 2009-03-26

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

links for 2009-03-22

Sunday, March 22nd, 2009

links for 2009-03-21

Saturday, March 21st, 2009

links for 2009-03-19

Thursday, March 19th, 2009

links for 2009-03-18

Wednesday, March 18th, 2009

Using Python with MySQL on Mac OSX 10.5 Leopard

Wednesday, March 18th, 2009

If you try to build the MySQL Python library on Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) you’ll get an error similar to this:

/usr/include/sys/types.h:92: error: duplicate ‘unsigned’
/usr/include/sys/types.h:92: error: two or more data types in declaration specifiers
error: command 'gcc' failed with exit status 1

I found the fix for this error here: http://www.keningle.com/?p=11, via a comment on this site: http://dotnet.org.za/ncode/archive/2007/01/31/setting-up-mysql-for-python-mysqldb-on-mac-os-x-2.aspx. It’s just a couple of lines in Terminal, adding a symlink so the library knows where to look to find the files.

Some background: Unless you’re using SQLite, you need to install a Python library to interface with your chosen database (PostgreSQL, MySQL or Oracle).

The MySQL library can be downloaded here: http://www.djangoproject.com/r/python-mysql/

But it seems there are a few problems running this library on Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard), hence the above fix.

links for 2009-03-17

Tuesday, March 17th, 2009

How to do music lists

Monday, March 16th, 2009

How to do a list of songs on a newspaper or magazine website:

And how not to:

  • The Telegraph’s 100 Greatest Songs Of All Time — in which the adjudicating panel of one – Neil McCormick – hilariously abandons grammar in favour of enigmatic SMS-length capsule reviews. Sample description of The Doors’ Light My Fire, “Provocative, sensual, slinky song weaving erotic desire.” And another one of U2’s Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For: “Gospel rock hymn of doubt and spiritual quest.”
  • Esquire’s 50 Songs Every Man Should Be Listening To — let me get this straight: you want me to click through at least 50 times, even more with ads, and if I haven’t heard the band you’re talking about the onus is on me to wade through the internet to find one of their songs to listen to? OK, thanks.