Installing Google App Engine SDK on Windows

Posted by Troy on April 12, 2008 under Google, IT, Microsoft | Read the First Comment

Installing the Google App Engine SDK for Windows is fairly straightforward.  You can download the SDK here.   Before installing it on Windows make sure you have python 2.5 installed:

http://www.activestate.com/solutions/python/

It is a free download from ActiveState.  The Google App Engine SDK install will fail if python is not installed first.

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By default the installer will install python in C:\Python2.5\ .  Once the install is complete double click on the Windows Installer application for the SDK (GoogleAppEngine.msi).

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By default  it installs the SDK in :

C:\Program Files\Google\google_appengine\

But I prefer to have it installed at:

C:\google_appengine

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After you set the directory for the SDK the installer should complete.  Now you can go to the command line and go to the google_appengine directory.

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The SDK comes with a simple application called guestbook.  To see if your installation succeeded type the following from the google_appengine directory:

> dev_appserver demos/guestbook

You will then be prompted to check for updates on startup.  Respond “n” for the test.   If you have a firewall like Windows OneCare you may be prompted to allow python.exe to access the Internet.  Click “Allow this program”.

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You can now access the guestbook application by going to your browser and entering:

http://localhost:8080

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Type something in the text box and click the button to try out the guest book application.

Troy

Using a Secure Connection with Google App’s

Posted by Troy on March 4, 2008 under Google, IT | Be the First to Comment

I use most of the Google applications like GMail, Calendar and Docs on a regular basis.  I usually access the applications by using a gadget in iGoogle and therefore the links are not secure.

Well there is simple way to ensure you always have a secure connection:

Downloading and installing Firefox is pretty straightforward.  The next step is to install the Greasemonkey addon which you can access from the link above.    Now go to the GMailSecure link and click “Install the Script” located in the upper right hand corner of the web page:

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By default the GMailSecure script only secures connections to GMail (http://mail.google.com).  Whenever you go to http://mail.google.com it rewrites the url using javascript to https://mail.google.com But you can easily modify the addon to include Google Docs and Google Calendar. By adding the following entries:

To do this select Tools>Greasemonkey>Manage User Scripts in Firefox and add the above entries:

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Troy

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