Summer is just around the corner in the northern hemisphere – here in London we can tell because the rain is just that little bit warmer. We’re taking full advantage of the lighter and later grey in the sky by working even longer hours to make PythonAnywhere better. How? Just read on…
Better databases!¶
Over a year ago, we started supporting Postgres databases. Since then, we’ve found that we’ve been able to optimise the service so that it scales better than we thought, so we’re pleased to pass on the cost savings to you.
Postgres is now $7/month instead of $15, so if you’ve ever thought about checking it out but been put off by the price, now’s the time to take a look!
We’ve also applied the new price to existing Postgres users for their next bill. So that’s more moolah in your pockets dear users, don’t spend it all at once ;)
Also – the way we handle MySQL databases needed some work to make it faster, more efficient, and more scalable. Over the last month we’ve learned more about obscure aspects of database administration than we ever wanted to know… but the end result for you should be that your database access is faster and smoother. Let us know how it’s going!
Useful tips and interesting ideas¶
- Do you want to make sure that the NSA can’t snoop on any of your site’s visitors? Well, a good start is to automatically redirect all HTTP requests to HTTPS.
- Our very own Giles posted about how we tracked down an obscure error that was making certain websites give spurious CSRF errors.
- Harry has also been hard at work on the help pages, with a guide to hosting a static site on PythonAnywhere
The inside scoop from our forums¶
- Want to change the colours in your PythonAnywhere consoles? Harry knows how.
- Looking for a domain name provider? Some ideas here.
- Did you know you can run machine learning code using TensorFlow on PythonAnywhere?
- If you’re using IPython notebooks and are wondering how to get matplotlib plots inline, here’s the answer
- A hint on how to get Conda installed for Python 3.4 or 3.5 on PythonAnywhere from carlisle
- bcrypt or py-bcrypt – do you know which one you’re using?
New modules¶
Although you can install Python packages on PythonAnywhere yourself, we like to make sure that we have plenty of batteries included.
We haven’t added any new ones since our last newsletter :-( – but we’ve got a bunch in the pipeline – more next time!
New whitelisted sites¶
Paying PythonAnywhere customers get unrestricted Internet access, but if you’re a free PythonAnywhere user, you may have hit problems when writing code that tries to access sites elsewhere on the Internet. We have to restrict you to sites on a whitelist to stop hackers from creating dummy accounts to hide their identities when breaking into other people’s websites.
But we really do encourage you to suggest new sites that should be on the whitelist. Our rule is, if it’s got an official public API, which means that the site’s owners are encouraging automated access to their server, then we’ll whitelist it.
Here are some sites we’ve added since our last newsletter:
archive.organdweb.archive.org– the Internet Archive!ifttt.comandmaker.ifttt.com– If This Then That*.cartodb.com– “the easiest way to map and analyze your location data”blockcypher.com– Blockchain web servicesapi.coinbase.com– more Bitcoin goodnessapi.geonames.org– a geographical databaseapi.greenhouse.ioandapp.greenhouse.io– APIs for human resources applicationsapi.infobip.com– enterprise messagingapi.ipify.org– an API for digging up information about IP addressesapi.locu.com– a GoDaddy service for posting your details to aggregators like Google, Yelp, and so on.api.trackingmore.com– parcel trackingapi.tropo.com– phone and text APIsapi.yummly.com– a recipe sitelapi.transitchicago.com– Chicago Transit Authority
And that’s it¶
Thanks for reading our newsletter! Tune in the same time next month (ish) for more news from PythonAnywhere.