Looks like the next language that Google’s App Engine will support is going to be Java! I was hoping for PHP or maybe ruby, but this is pretty cool too. So far the python version is great and I’m sure this will be just as good!
via TechCrunch
This is an obscure tip, but if you are using wxWidgets as the GUI library in your application, this may come in handy. We currently use it for Remobo and it has served us well as a cross-platform GUI framework. In particular we are using the C++ lib.
Never try to call any GUI related functions or even instantiate any wxWidgets GUI elements such as Frames and Dialogs from any other thread except the main one!
This is a documented caveat, but for some reason we thought it would be ok to just instantiate a custom wxDialog object in the secondary thread and leave the actual GUI calls to the main thread. Turns out that even creating the object in a secondary worker thread will cause subsequent UI calls to hang indefinitely. What made this worse is that it did not show up in MAC OS X but only on Windows…
We just spent a few days on this and it was impossible to find via regular debugging methods since the calls went deep into the Windows UI library… no fun at all. The solution is to call soemthing like wxPostEvent() to post some event from your secondary thread to the main thread and do all your wxWidgets stuff from there… including the wxWindow instantiation.
I did a “lightning talk” today at a local meetup for developers interested in cloud computing and Google’s App Engine specifically. The demo covered the basics of how Rotzy (which is built entirely on AppEngine) works and what it does etc… but I also tried to fit in as many tips and tricks for using App Engine as I could. Seemed like at least a few devs found it useful which is great!
Here are some of the (poorly made) slides I used while explaining some of the App Engine specific stuff. Hopefully some more people will find it useful too. Also, definitely check out Rotzy for the iPhone… it was built in our spare time and we are excited that it is growing steadily with a great community of users 
This thing is tons of fun… super light and compact. I use it mostly to take candid videos of my 16 month old son, but I also find myself bringing it out everywhere I go just for kicks Here’s a fun video I took today at our local Milk Tea hangout.
3 Straws, 3 Cups
Here’s a pic of the device itself… if you are in the market for a $200 mini HD camcorder then definitely check it out.
Its pretty cheap at Amazon right now or you can get it directly from the people who make it and customize it with custom colors and graphics.