Install python on your system you can get both 32 and 64 bit version from http://www.python.org/download/
Create sample file as shown in post: Python says “Hello World” from PromoSquare and test your script.
Navigate to folder of your “hello promosquare” script. Now execute it by running python interpreter directly from installation folder and as a parameter pass your script name.
c:/your/python/forlder/python.exe helloPromoSquare.py
Next step will be to make sure that your script can be called from anywhere. To do that you need add python directory to your windows system path. Go to your console again and type
set path=%path%;C:\python27
You should be able to invoke python.exe from anywhere in the system. You can also add path manualy. Right click on “My Computer”. Go to properties and click link “Advanced System Settings” and button called “environment variables”. Find variable called Path and add location to your python interpeter folder.
After this is done you will be able execute your files without typing full path every time. You might want to give it a go. Execute your script again
python helloPromoSquare.py
Last step is to make sure you can execute script from url address field of your browser. Navigate http.conf file.
Path will be simillar to:
C:\xampp\apache\conf\httpd.conf
Now you need to add following code
# Python script handler
AddHandler cgi-script .py
ScriptInterpreterSource Registry-Strict
All done! Make sure you restart your Apache service and try it from the browser now.
http://localhost/test/helloPromoSquare.py
This post has been written while PromoSquare R&D.
Please follow @PromoSquare on Twitter to stay up to date.
31
Python says “Hello World” from PromoSquare
2 Comments · Posted by Mark Makani in Troubleshooting
“How to install python on 1and1″ was my the first question. It is already there? Oh… nice! But how the hell to make it run?
As non-python user decided to give it a go as python suppose to perform much better than his server side friend PHP. I am quite familiar with PHP and as running .php script seems quite straight forward I believed 5 min is more than enough to produce ‘Hello World’ in the web browser. I wasn’t! At least for the first time.
If can see error similar to the one below this post might be for you.
Error 403 – Forbidden
You tried to access a document for which you don’t have privileges.
Below few important tips of how to run python script
- create file with .py extension
- set python execution command pointing
#!/usr/bin/env python
- send header
print “Content-type: text/html”
- header has to be closed with additional print command to avoid an error
- you don’t have to put your_script.py files into bin-cgi if you trying to run it on 1and1. Files can be executed from main folder
And here is Hello World script
#!/usr/bin/env pythonprint “Content-type: text/html”print “”print “<html>Hello world!</html>”
1and1 · configuration · python
“Damn it!”
“Damn it!” I repeated again and again after realized that ‘it’ won’t work. Maybe I should go permanent again? I would but somehow it didn’t feel fully satisfied last time. I spent almost two years building someone else business and at the same time wanting to start on my own. So I did. Why it didn’t work out (again)? Eric Ries answered this question quite well on his blog. Check his post titled “Achieving a failure“.
Why it didn’t work out again?
Why should it? The list of ‘whys’ became so long that at some point I just decided to not finish it. I love to be able to publish the lists of useful tips that could help turn good idea into business model. Unfortunately I haven’t done it right just yet on my own. So that is why below you can find “don’ts” along with reasons why they mustn’t be done at all cost.
- development started before idea was checked against the market and as It turn out no one needed what was being built
- sacrificing all spare time and no breaks eventually slowed down and finally stopped the whole project due to general exhaustion and lost enthusiasm
- fear of stealing the idea was a reason to keep it secret what brought no feedback whatsoever
- involving QA in first stage didn’t do any good but did some harm instead, consuming some of precious time
- putting team together from people available at the time instead out of SKILLED people resulted in application… lets say… not entirely working
- little starting budget meant no wages which meant there was just a lobby of people sharing ideas (and cakes) but not necessarily workload
- no realistic deadlines were set and no deadlines were met
- persistence was rather good but persisting bad execution was just… stupid
- target was set but lack of pivot makes it irrelevant really
You are not alone!
Chris Lunt posted a comment below Eric article. I decided to copy it here as no doubt it is one of the best comments I have ever read.
My experience (3 time founder, 6 startups, 1 IPO, 5 colossal failures) is that we spend too much time looking for what we do wrong, when in fact, we may have done nothing wrong. My thought on the evolution of the entrepreneur:
* Green: “The idea is what wins!”
* Tenderfoot (1 failure): “OK, idea is fine, but you need the right team”
* Battered (2 failures): “OK, the right team AND the right execution.”
* Hardened (3 failures): “Well then, idea, team, execution and TIMING.”
* Wizened (4 failures): “I think I got it: idea, team, execution, timing and funding terms” (this one really hurts, you think you succeeded, and then find out due to preferences you don’t actually get any money)
* Sagacious (5 failures): “It’s luck! If you do everything right, you’ve got maybe a 25% chance”So then how do you succeed? Fail faster.
source: Chris Lunt on Eric Ries blog
Brilliant! If you doubt yourself or thinking of starting on your own read 3 questions to see if you’re ready to start your own business by Chris Lunt. It is quite interesting view of what Startup can be and what you should be ready for.
What went wrong?
Everything and.. nothing as failure is just a lesson while climbing learning curve. Current one is quite steep! I lost around £30k and almost 6 months of time. I keep repeating to myself learning business is like learning how to riding a bike. You need to hurt yourself to learn quicker. Fortunately few strong punches forced me to take a break to recover and rethink.
What next?
I went back to contracting for next few months to fix hole in the budget. However already started sharing new idea to get a pivot at the early stage. This time MS PowerPoint was more than enough to explain the concept and ask some questions to get feedback. Marvellous experience! First clients actually loved it. I was suggested few improvements and surprisingly given idea of how to commercialize whole concept. Next few meetings already scheduled. And all without single line of code so far. This time basic prototype should be available in next few months. Follow @promosquare on twitter if you would like to hear more about what are we up to this time.
Give me a shout if you had “interesting” startup experience yourself or you currently bootstraping something.
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23
How to use full potential of the Influence?
1 Comment · Posted by Mark Makani in Promo Thoughts
Today I got inspired by 41minds article titled “What is Influence“. Going through its questions I found answers which helped me to understand how to use potential of the influence that is within my reach. To give a little background I would have to go back in time 10 years.
Different types of influence
As 18 year old student of university in Elblag I became leader of IT Science Laboratory. That morphed into little business and as a business it grew with influential power. With few articles in local newspapers and short radio audition my ability to demand and execute demands got stronger. How did it happen? Young people tend to follow their friends who have something to say and act on it. I experienced this privilege which made me realize man’s potential is based upon skills and abilities of others.
Four years ago I left Poland for the United Kingdom with hope of making my great dreams real. As much as I am proud of this step I miss what has been left behind. New to English culture and language, without social backup I had to start everything from the scratch. During last four years I spent half of this time to practice language. Another big chunk of time has is gone due to daytime job and necessity of earning.
I have been doing freelancing for about 2 years now. While contracting for biggest digital agencies in London I was asked couple of times to lead small teams. Did it make me more influential person? For sure yes but… only temporarily. After project is completed team is not obliged to follow any more as it has new project leader to take orders from. My observation is that (1) influence can be described as an ability to have others act upon one’s demand and (2) there are different types of influence:
- Person’s influence level can be increased by higher authority delegating some of his/her influential power.
- Influence level can be built up over time by words and actions. I call this gained influence.
- There is direct influence when there is no mediator between influencer and influencee.
- Logically indirect influence would be involving one or more influencers into the process of achieving a goal.
Using influential powers
Everyone can affect environment and by knowing the strength of the impact, right strategy can be prepared. As I am bootstrapping PromoSquare (new idea) I have to decide where to focus my efforts. First thought might be to tell as many people as possible about the idea. Is it efficient enough? Much wiser would be to prove value of the idea to influential people. Next step, persuade influencers to spread the word. Would it increase impact of influential action? Definitely yes.
How to use full potential of the Influence?
- Have clear vision and objective to achieve
- Understand environment and who affects it the most
- Focus your energy wisely on what provides highest impact
If you liked the article follow us on Twitter -> http://twitter.com/#!/PromoSquare
Good luck!
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I finally decided to push on-line my personal instance of WordPress. Took me two years of asking myself “do I really need a blog” and “is it not to late to start blogging”? Apparently not! Below list of “whys”
1. On-Line presence always demands more
It takes no time to register either on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. Using them is a different story. As a newbie to social networking, firstly I was trying to answer ‘why to use them at all’? That wasn’t too difficult. Answer is: to become and stay accessible for friends, clients and others interested in what we do or have to say. That was a reason good enough to move on.
I got my account on Facebook. Perfect to share pictures, invite friends for little parties and be reminded about birthdays. Unfortunately not enough to stay in touch with business contacts. I got into LinkedIn then. Started building my professional network. It has been adding value to my ‘network’ for quite some time now. Not that long ago I heard about Twitter. Damn it! Another one is coming!
I am there for few months now. I managed to get ridiculous number of 58 followers. I guess half of them are people I never knew or met following me hopping to be followed back.
There is a lot of noise about Twitter and value it adds to the connection network, influential circles, followers value, etc. For sure I have to work on those but… there is something I really like about Twitter. I can use it to update my status on LinkedIn and Facebook at the same time. Great! Unfortunatwhely with that approach I am not able to publish nothing more than a short sentence.
I need a blog!
2. Archiving and sharing experience
For past couple of years as AS3 Flash developer I did encounter number of issues every time I dealt with the code. As a Linux enthusiast I solved problems trying to make things run on my shared hosting. As a Windows user I was constantly and actively involved in little fixes and reconfigurations of my PCs and laptops (which shouldn’t be a surprise I guess. Sorry Bill!).
Every time I encountered issue I used to go to my ‘howto’ folder, open appropriate doc file and add little comment to make sure next time I can quickly reach for solution that worked for me instead of spending hours on research. Always thought It would be good to be able to share it with others. Unfortunately I never managed to publish anything on-line.
I don’t do it any more even for myself. Why? I lost few hundred pages of my archives due to hard drive fault in November 2010. Not difficult to imagine my face after I found all .doc files empty. To lose some data is one thing but to realise time has been lost is entirely different pair of socks. That day I hated myself us much as I hated the fact that for some of the searches I will probably have to spend long hours to figure those “1 min” fixes again.
Lesson learnt. I promised to keep my archives backed up and share them with the world this time. I need a blog!
3. SEO
As probably most of you know SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the “natural” or un-paid (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results.
source: Wikipedia
I will not go through long list of ‘todos’ that help SEO as it is not blog subject. Instead would like to emphasise SEO is not only about tricks that help to drive traffic to the content but is also about quality of the content itself.
Even though 10 words sentence might be an essence of long story, won’t be enough to explain “the” concept. As it becomes even more meaningful for new projects like PromoSquare to attract its early adaptors… I need a blog!
4. Blog officially required
Couple weeks ago I was filling one of web forms and surprisingly field labelled “your blog url” was compulsory one. What? Why?! That is just not right – I thought. I find myself quite inquisitive so that is why questions had arisen. I tried to understand why someone would mark blog url with red start. Was it a mistake? It was not. There is no better way to find out more about anyone than just going through his (or her) publications.
Another interesting hint might be something I heard from one of recruiters I met during my 4 years long career in UK. He told me some of his “big” clients like to have a quick look at the website of the candidate applying for offered role. It is always good to make sure that one does a bit of homework after hours. Is publishing required? No! Neither is uploading work examples and code snippets, asking questions or getting involved in community discussion. So why to blog? It is not required but really useful to stay informed and prove that a little more than bare minimum has been done.
Great!!! I need a blog!
Case closed. Issue solved.
I have a blog now and that is last paragraph of my first post. Let me know if article helped to sort your doubts too.
Good luck!
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Post has been moved to http://www.blog.promosquare.com/2011/01/23/never-too-late-to-start-blogging/
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