Pmc (old posts, page 1)

Python Miro Community status: 11-09-2010

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In my status report on November 1st, I reported that I had written a script to fix invalid download links. Turns out my script doesn't work as well as I had hoped. For example, I only fixed 30 of the 120 or so PyCon 2010 videos. I'm working on fixing it so that I can more programatically work through all the videos on Python Miro Community and update download links.

I'm really sorry about this. Not having working download links and podcast feeds sucks.

Python Miro Community status: 11-01-2010

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Last status update was in August and now it's November. I can't believe how fast the time is flying by.

Last month, I imported the DjangoCon 2010 videos. That took a while. I might still be sitting on a lightning talk, but for the most part, they're all there.

Today, Tom sent me an email pointing out that the enclosures in the PyCon 2010 feed weren't working. I spent an hour looking into the problem and cobbling together a script to link check all the enclosures. I discovered that there were a lot of problems. I balked at the workload and I sent an email to the pycon-av list to get some help. Carl pointed me at the code he uses for conference video post-production which allowed me to tweak my script and fix everything myself. As of now, the enclosures for the PyCon 2010 feed should be valid.

Valid feeds are really important because they allow you to use a podcast client to download the videos. That makes it easier for you to watch it on devices that are convenient to you. That's an important method of access. I'll be running my new feed checker script on other conferences and feeds on the site and fixing problems I discover.

In the queue of things to do:

  • checking feeds for valid enclosures
  • importing a few lightning talks I've been sitting on
  • DjangoConf EU
  • Kiwi PyCon
  • PyCon APAC 2010
  • PyCon India
  • fixing video listing templates so they're all listing videos the "long way"
  • converting Python Basics and Advanced Python to playlists
  • keeping an eye on Universal Subtitles--looking forward to adding that to the site

We pushed out Miro 3.5, so I should have some more time I can spend on Python Miro Community things to clear out the queue.

One last thing, I'd like to send a big welcome to Asheesh who's taken over Miro Community development. He also works on OpenHatch which is a site designed to connect new contributors looking for fun projects to work on with FLOSS projects that need help. It's exciting to have him on board at PCF.

And that's where things are at!

PyOhio 2010 videos posted to Python Miro Community

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Last night, I spent a few hours going through all the videos from PyOhio 2010, added metadata from the PyOhio site, added notes about video issues, and approved all of the videos except one which I'm talking with Carl about.

It looks like PyOhio 2010 was a really great conference: the talks are really great, you can feel the energy in the rooms from the people who attended, the questions are interesting, and the videos from the conference are fantastic. Also, I'm a huge +1 on using the headset mics--they absolutely make a difference in being able to hear the presenter throughout the video.

Here are three sessions I watched all the way through:

  • Teach Me Python Bugfixing - http://python.mirocommunity.org/video/1794/pyohio-2010-teach-me-python-bu
    This session walks new people through how to contribute to Python core. It's worth watching for new contributors. I also think this is useful for illustrating the barriers to entry and required workflow knowledge for new contributors.
  • PyPy and Unladen-Swallow: Making your Python Fast - http://python.mirocommunity.org/video/1804/pyohio-2010-pypy-and-unladen-s
    Alex did a test-run of this talk at ChiPy. I studied programming languages and compilers in grad school and find these talks really interesting. I liked the analysis of "slow" in respects to the language and the cpython implementation--it's towards the beginning.
  • Wrangling the bits, standardizing how apps get built - http://python.mirocommunity.org/video/1789/pyohio-2010-wrangling-the-bits
    This covers things in virtualenv I didn't know where there. It also talks about modern-package-template which I didn't know existed and fabric which I haven't played with before. Rick also mentions searching Google Code for "after_install" and "fabfile" for virtualenv and fabric usage examples. He says there's a wealth of code snippets in there. I watched the session and immediately started adjusting my scripts. This session had mic problems and the session starts at 7:20. I'm working with Carl to get the first 7:20 clipped.

Sessions from PyOhio 2010 are in the PyOhio 2010 category. Take some time today to browse the sessions and watch the ones that interest you.

Also, I'm sitting on videos for two other conferences: DjangoConf EU and Kiwi PyCon. I'm hoping to get to them in the next couple of weeks. I did PyOhio 2010 videos last night because Carl needed someone to spot-check them to make sure the uploads were good.

Python Miro Community status: 07-21-2010

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This is the July status report for Python Miro Community. This site indexes videos from around the Internet related to Python. In particular, we focus on indexing conference session video and videos from our more prolific Python user groups.

In the last month, we've finished approving all the PyCon 2010 videos. They're all in the PyCon 2010 conference category.

I spent a few hours adding metadata to and approving videos from PyCon AU 2010. There are some really great ones--definitely worth looking at. They're all in the PyCon AU 2010 conference category.

PCF released a new version of Miro Community with some bug fixes and a widget that allows you to embed videos on other sites. I haven't played with that yet, but it sounds useful.

I'm still working on recategorizing things per Carl's suggestions from last month.

That's it for this status report. Any thoughts, questions or concerns--let me know.

Call for pygame videos

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I was going through the videos tweaking tags and other metadata when I noticed that Python Miro Community has no videos that cover pygame.

pygame is a library for writing games. It has a huge community and it's a great way to introduce people to Python programming. I'd love to see some pygame material on the site.

If you know of video tutorials for pygame that could be added to the site, please submit them.

If you'd be interested in creating a video tutorial for pygame, let me know and we can work on it.

Python Miro Community status: 06-25-2010

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I spent 20 or so hours over the last few weeks working through the moderator queue for Python Miro Community and making changes to the site. We've almost posted all of the PyCon 2010 videos--I think there are three or four more still in the queue including one of the lightning talks.

I've created a bunch of bugs in the Miro Community bug tracker for bugs that I've encountered and enhancements that would make the site and curation of the site better. Miro Community is a Free Software project, so I'm hoping to find free time to fix/implement some of those.

Carl Karsten is now a curator on the site--that makes two of us. He's been a huge help so far. Having someone to bounce ideas off of makes it a lot easier and he brings a lot of enthusiasm to the site. Right now we're coordinating things through email and we're tentatively going to use the pycon-av mailing list for PMC discussion. If we need to switch to another mailing list, then we'll do that.

At Carl's suggestion, we added a new category of categories for Python user groups. The three groups we have listed now are ChiPy (Chicago, IL), BostonPy (Boston, MA), and PyAtl (Atlanta, GA). The PyAtl videos are mostly from last year--I need to catch up with a PyAtl member to find out what's going on. There are only two BostonPy videos now, but the group is interested in doing more. The ChiPy videos are fantastic. Additionally, Pior from Montreal-Python is working on getting their video workflow working--I really look forward to seeing their sessions.

I've been tagging videos that I think are good for Python beginners with the tag "python-basics". At some point in the near future, we're going to move some/all of those videos into a Learning Python category. There's a large amount of decent introductory material for Python out there ranging from videos on YouTube to tutorials at PyCon. I think this category will make it easier for people new to Python to get their feet wet quickly and easily.

On a slightly related note, the Universal Subtitles project recently launched an alpha demo of their system. I'm looking forward to this project reaching a stable status since I'm planning to use it on PMC to add subtitle/transcription to all videos on Python Miro Community. The project is in Django and it's Free Software. If you're interested in this work, they sure could use the help.

That's it for this status report. Any thoughts, questions or concerns--let me know.

Python Miro Community status: 05-01-2010

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I spent a few hours with the Python Miro Community site today re-applying the template changes I made to the theme to the new version of the theme. Miro Community has released two versions since I tweaked the theme, so I was playing catch-up. I'm putting my edits into version control this time around so I don't lose them again (stupid stupid stupid).

One of the things I want to do with Python Miro Community is to build playlists of videos covering a specific theme for helping people come up to speed with those areas: testing in Python, basic Python programming, advanced Python programming, ... I've been faking this using tags, but it's pretty suboptimal because I can't control the order the videos get listed in on the tag listing page. Dean created bug 12627 for implemnting playlists/series. This would also fix the problem I have where YouTube duration maximums force a single "video" to span several YouTube urls and thus be several separated videos. Anyhow, looks like that isn't going to get implemented for Miro Community 1.0.

I started slogging through the queue. We've got 80 videos or so in the approve/reject queue right now. A bunch of them are PyCon 2010 related. A bunch are from Carl's blip.tv feed and are from ChiPy and other things. 50 or so are from a Plone feed that Nate Aune sent me. I'm going to make a concerted effort to get through the queue over the next couple of weeks.

Even though I'm behind in the queue, I encourage people to submit new videos. Some of the best material comes from Python user groups--I'd really like to see more groups videoing their sessions, posting them online, and submitting them to PMC. Don't let ChiPy and PyAtl outshine everyone else!

You can find Python Miro Community at http://python.mirocommunity.org/.

Python Miro Community status: 02-23-2010

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PyCon 2010 is over and the PyCon AV crew is working on taking the video they've recorded, editing it, and posting it. As they post it to the Pycon blip.tv feed, I'm pulling it into Python Miro Community. You can keep track of my status here (RSS).

I sent an email to the Cambridge Python Meetup (Cambridge, MA, USA) asking if they still record video and if so, where it gets posted.

Nate Aune sent me a link to the PloneTV feed. I'm in the process of pulling those videos in.

One thing I've noticed while curating Python Miro Community is that the quality of the image and audio make a huge difference in the usefulness of the video after the event. It's a huge project with a lot of finicky bits to reliably create great video.

Many many props to Carl Karsten, the PyCon-AV team, and all the other people out there doing this work. It allows these presentations to live beyond a moment in time and reach a much larger audience.

Going to PyCon 2010?

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If you're one of the lucky people going to PyCon 2010, you might want to spend some time coming up to speed on some of the talks being given.

Interested in the GIL? David Beazley is giving a talk on the inner workings of the Python GIL. He's given several GIL-related presentations before: Asynchronous vs. Threaded Python, Mindblowing Python GIL, and Changes to the GIL in Python 3.

Interested in documentation? Wesleay J. Chun is giving a talk on writing books using Python and Open Source Software. This will likely talk about Sphinx. Take some time to watch Brandon Rhodes talk about Sphinx at PyAtl.

Interested in PyPy? Maciej Fijalkowski is giving a talk on the speed of PyPy. Take some time to watch the PyPy status talk from PyCon 2009.

Don't go to PyCon unprepared!

Python Miro Community

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Today I'm releasing Python Miro Community. This site is a Miro Community focused on Python. It brings together videos from Python conferences, local user groups, screencasts, and tutorials.

I'm working on it in my spare time because:

  1. I think it's really important to get this video out to a larger audience, and
  2. it's really important to make it easier for users and developers to find video they're looking for.

This site helps on both fronts. The first in that it collects video into one place without re-hosting it. The second in that I'm curating the site and through better descriptions and tags, the video becomes more findable.

It's not finished--it's an ongoing project that I'll continue to work on. My ultimate goal is to connect with Python video producers like Carl Karsten (whose work is phenomenal), conference A/V people, local user group A/V people, and all those people out there making screencasts, tutorials and project status videos to make sure Python Miro Community stays relevant and continues to helps creators and consumers.

It's free. I'm doing this in my spare time, Participatory Culture Foundation (the non-profit behind Miro) is providing the server and resources to host the site, and the video on the site is available for free on the Internet.

Spend some time today to take a look at the site, browse the PyCon 2009 and DjangoCon 2009 videos, spend some time honing your Python skills with either the Python basics or Python advanced tracks, follow along with the ChiPy or PyAtl local user groups, and see what's out there.

Love it? Hate it? Let me know in the comments.

Thank you to Carl Karsten and Steve Holden for their help pulling this site together!