I just wasted my weekend getting psycopg2 running on OSX 10.6.8. These things always seem easy at first but rarely work out that way. There are lots of posts pointing to a similar problems to the one I experienced but none offered a solution that worked for me. The bottom line is that Python can not run in 64-bit mode with psycopg2. The posts and tutorials I found mentioned this but none provided a solution for a virtual environment (virtualenv). Fortunately for you the solution is dead simple and I have documented it below, but first, to make sure your problem is the same as mine, the problem can easily be replicated by running the following in the python interactive shell:

jnorthrop:~$ python
Python 2.7.2 (v2.7.2:8527427914a2, Jun 11 2011, 15:22:34)
[GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5666) (dot 3)] on darwin
Type “help”, “copyright”, “credits” or “license” for more information.
>>> import...

Last month Google launched their Good To Know campaign which, among other things, is their effort to be more transparent about what they do with the personal data they collect. I applauded the effort here. Unfortunately for them the public didn’t share my enthusiasm. Then this week Pinterest, Path and Hipster are all under scrutiny for same same sort of privacy violations that CarrierIQ was accused of late last year.

The rub is that no one is doing anything illegal. They are all just doing it wrong. The common thread with all of these stories is that they weren’t up front with their intentions from the outset and the result is a loss of trust from their otherwise loyal customers. The long-term damage is significant – trust is fragile and once lost it is a really tough climb back to re-earn it.

Coincidentally, or maybe not coincidentally, these episodes are unfolding at a time when...

In December I wrote about MIT’s upcoming online program which will offer a certificate for some. At the time I said:

MITx is changing that paradigm. While they don’t plan on offering a full degree through the program, you will be able to get some sort of certificate of completion for the courses you take. Would an HR manager consider an MITx certificate equal, alongside candidate with a degree or a professional certification? My bet is that they will, and if I’m correct, then this program has the potential to bring a revolution to the higher education business.

Today Udacity announced a program that looks to compete directly with MITx

We are doing this with a new university: Udacity. In the next months, we will offer an entire computer science curriculum through Udacity, and offer certification services so that an entire degree can be obtained online.

Looks like it’s “game on” and we...

Who wants a free self-hosted blog – raise your hand. Well, almost free, I did have to pay for the domain name.

I decided this past weekend to move this blog from Tumblr to my own platform. I used it as an excuse to play with some technologies I’ve been wanting to ramp up on. Specifically Django and Heroku, so beware, if you decide to follow in my footsteps understand that my choices are likely not the most sound choices, and you might be better off with a standby like Wordpress or even Jekyll (which seems to be a popular choice at the moment). /disclaimer

Going into this I thought the biggest difficulty I would face would be choosing among all of the Django-based blog platforms that surely were out there. Boy was I wrong. While there are many tutorials for creating your own blog in Django I didn’t want to role my own. Surprisingly, I only managed to find a few somewhat active Django...

‘ll be representing the IAPP at the RSA Conference in San Franciso from February 27-March 2 and again at InfoSec World from April 2-4. Come find me and we’ll chat about why us IT folks need to be cognizant of privacy laws and regulations. Also, as a reminder I’m speaking at SecureWorld in Boston on March 28th.

I read a blog post the other day about how to properly negotiate a salary. It received a lot attention on Hacker News and generated a heated discussion. Obviously this is important to many of us — me included.

However, I see things differently than Patrick. I’ve liked almost all of my bosses (5 to date), and enjoyed my past places of employment. I’ve generally felt fairly compensated and when I haven’t, I’ve done my research to make sure my feelings match reality then talked to my boss about it. In short I’ve treated salary negation like a considerate human relationship, not a game to win. Maybe I’ve “left money on the table,” but I hate playing games and frankly compensation negotiations aren’t a game.

The gist of the post is this: “Be more assertive and shamelessly demand more.” I’ve been thinking about that advice quite a bit since reading it and it makes me feel sorry for those who...

As expected The European Commission released two principal documents outlining proposed reforms of the EU’s 1995 data protection rules. And as promised last week I will do my best to put it into context for IT professionals. First off, from all accounts, It appears to be relatively close to what was leaked in November so there are no big surprises in it. However, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a big deal—it is.

At least it has the potential to be. It’s important to remember that the next step is for the Commission’s proposals to be passed on to the European Parliament and EU Council of Ministers for discussion. Then, if passes as is (which is unlikely), they will take effect starting two years after adoption.

Keeping all that in mind, to follow are the key points from the proposed reforms. Keep in mind I’m not a lawyer, I’m an IT professional, so key provisions from the document that...

Did you catch Google’s full page ads in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today as well as other papers around the country this week? If privacy isn’t your business then you may have just passed them over, but for those of us who make a living either convincing customer’s to given us their data or struggle to keep those within the company who want to mine that same data at bay, it was a breath of fresh air. And quite possibly revolutionary.

Back in October Google started their Good To Know campaign, and this week’s advertising was the big kick-off. The primary goal appears to be public education. The site teaches the public about protecting their personal data. It also makes Google more transparent about how they are using the personal data they collect which helps comply with FTC regulations and European Union laws.

Why I call it “revolutionary” though is the tertiary...

Anyone still think they can keep their head in the sand over privacy issues? Think again. Check out this post by 37Signals. Here’s the meat of it.

Taylor’s post about our growth in 2011 included a bunch of numbers showing how the pistons inside the 37signals engine are pounding faster, but it all got swept away by what seemed like an innocent side-note: The 100 millionth file was called cat.jpg.

Being as it is that the internet is constantly accused of being just an elaborate way of sharing pictures of cats, sharing pictures of cats, we thought that was funny. But it wasn’t. We shouldn’t make jokes about anything even remotely related to people’s data.

At the moment privacy is a hot topic. Most of the chatter on the internet and in the media can be characterized as “Company X is abusing the trust (or taking advantage) of their customers.” I’m not going to debate that side of the issue but there is another side and it isn’t getting much coverage. What’s missing from all the hoopla is the coverage of the impending political ramifications of the major privacy story lines.

Governments around the world aren’t sitting still. They’re reacting to the general public’s growing attention to privacy rights and the results will have a direct impact on the way consumer companies operate. If you’re responsible for IT security, website development, data warehousing or any other job accessing or protecting customer data you need to start paying attention to what is going on because it will likely effect your job. And now is the perfect time.

In the...