Kartograph is a framework for creating interactive maps without any mapping provider (like Google Maps).

It consists of 2 libraries:

• a Python library thatrenders vector maps from shapefiles or PostGIS and converts them to SVG
• a JavaScript library for turning these SVG data into interactive maps

If you already have the SVG data (for ex: any drawing can be converted to SVG with Adobe Illustrator), only the JavaScript library can help too.

The JS library uses jQuery + Raphaël, outputs can be styled with CSS and a very good documentation is provided.

Today, HTTP requests are used widely in websites as we fetch data using APIs, get screenshots or AJAX requests.

Unirest is a pack of lightweight HTTP libraries for many languages (PHP, Ruby, Python, Java And Objective-C).

It has support for GET, POST, PUT, UPDATE, DELETE operations and its methods + response structure are the same in all languages.

The usage is very simple and straightforward. Also, it is documented well.

Ok, copying is not good.. but getting inspired from other successful projects and learning from them definitely makes sense.

Pinry, an open source web application, eases building Pinterest-like (dynamic-column-grid-layout) websites.

It allows users to register to the app and pin, tag and share media (images, videos and webpages) quickly.

And, a bookmarklet exists for saving the content without leaving the pages being browsed.

The application is built with Python (Django) and it is a good starting for creating a community around pinning contents or a bookmarking site for personal use.

Grappelli is a free and open source project, built with Django, that can empower any website with an admin interface.

It is a skin to the Django’s default admin interface which has a plain, grid-based and good-looking design (uses Compass for styling) and offers some extras.

There is a built-in WYSIWYG editor (TinyMCE), search with auto-completes, several jQuery plugins and sorting data with drag ‘n’ drops.

Also, its dashboard can be customized with ease and works well with the django-filebrowser extension.

oAuth is the industry standard today for authenticating users or 3rd party apps to reach their data via APIs.

However, specially for anyone that didn’t ever deal with it, it is not the most developer friendly mechanism to deal with.

foauth, a free and open source service, removes the need of oAuth usage for ~40 popular web services and converts that auth process to HTML Basic authentication.

It already has the oAuth integrations with the services (like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Dropbox, GitHub, etc.) and developers can simply use foauth as an authentication proxy.

Once any number of services are authenticated through the service, it simply adds a https://foauth.org/ in front of any official API call (like https://foauth.org/api.twitter.com/1/statuses/update.json).

In means of security, bear in mind that any requests made are sent through foauth.org. If this sounds unsafe, self-hosting it is the option (built with Python).

Sentry is an open source web application that can log application events and aggregate them in realtime.

The ability to monitor events is very useful considering it is possible to know any issues when they happen.

Also, using Sentry, we can easily see the trends of events (errors, warnings, 404, etc.) which is also nice to have a strong opinion about their frequency.

The application supports adding multiple projects and users (with each user having their own custom rights).

It is built with Python but comes with a complete API (for adding and getting events) that can be used with any language (libraries for PHP, Ruby, JavaScript, Java, Node.js exist).

Everyone has a method for handling forms but it usually gets complicated when there are file uploads in that form.

Fine Uploader is a plug 'n' play script that ease file uploads and improve usability with the Ajaxed interface.

The script was known as valums-file-uploader (was featured at WRD) and deserves a 2nd shot with the improvements it had.

It only requires us to insert a CSS + JavaScript file and the rest is taken care of on the server-side with your favorite scripting language. No worries, ASP.NET, ColdFusion, Java, Node.js, Perl, PHP, Python implementations are offered in the download package.

Uploader can be the standard "file input" or it has support for drag 'n' drop uploads as well.

Also, there are options to limit the file size, file types, number of files and more.

If you are always developing with a specific language, using a development tool that is built specifically for that language can ease the process.

NINJA-IDE is an open source and free development tool that focuses on Python developers at first but has support for code highlighting for various languages.

It has a handy code locator which enables us to access to any file, function or class inside the projects and a debugger that can highlight static and PEP8 errors in the document.

The application allows managing Python Project automatically, saving descriptive information about them and letting the user to perform file management related task in the IDE itself.

NINJA-IDE is highly extensible with its plugin support and there are already multiple plugins like a snippet manager or Git integration.

P.S. It works in all major operating systems.

QR Codes, a tracking code technology which was created in 1994 by Denso<Toyota to keep track of vehicles, is now a standard being used everywhere from websites to magazines, apps or stores.

In the web, considering the mobile devices are used as the barcode reader, QR Codes are usually used as an alternative way to show app download/purchase links, wi-fi passes, mobile version URLs of websites, etc.

I needed to create few of them in the past, used online QR Code generators and I was done in a few minutes.

Recently, a project required hundreds of them being generated automatically and I have played with many different JavaScript + server-side solutions. I have faced solutions that are -sometimes- not working correctly, not supporting too short or long texts or they were not simple enough. Here is the list of solid and good-quality QR Code generation resources that all work very straightforward:

P.S. I ended up using a JavaScript library which is so easy to implement, flexible in all levels, and, I knew that it would always be used by a modern browser. You can choose the solution that  fits the best to your case from the list below.

Online QR Code Generators

QRhacker

QRhacker is a beautifully implemented online QR code generator with many options for creating the QR code we want.

It allows many different input types (text, URL, phone number, VCard and Wi-Fi access) and offers customizations like the roundness of the blocks, their foreground/background colors, using images for them and more. Also, the code can be painted pixel-by-pixel.

Once the QR code is created, it can be downloaded either as an image or PDF.

Unitag

QR codes have a built-in error-correction mechanism and codes that are slightly morphed can still be recognized correctly.

Unitag makes use of this and allows users to transform QR codes by curving the blocks, adding extra shaped and more.

Read the rest of this entry »

strftime, the popular function for formatting date-time (with PHP, Ruby, Python and C) has many parameters which are usually hard to remember.

There are several web-based references that ease the usage of strftime by enabling us to view the details of each parameter and test them instantly. Here they are:

strfti.me

Strfti.me simply lists the parameters for dates + times separately with an explanation to each and allows us to view the output of any custom format.

Strftime.net

The website displays all the parameters where each of them can be clicked to create the custom function.

P.S. It would be much better to see the result of the function instantly (feature request).

For a Good Strftime

Besides presenting the parameters, there are presets for for the widely-used formats.

Also, there is a drag 'n' drop custom format builder.

Other References

• PHP strftime reference
  
• Ruby strftime reference
  
• Python strftime reference
  
• C strftime reference
  
• Strftime cheatsheet (this & that)