Fabric script used to push updates to an activity topic on convore.com

fabfile.py

def update():
    """
    Cause the site to pull in the latest changes to its code and touch the
    wsgi file so it reloads
    """
    global site_path
    with cd(site_path):
        extra_msg = run('git pull --all')
    reload()
    send_convore_update(msg="Push Live", extra=extra_msg)

def reload():
    """
    Reload the apache process by touching the wsgi file
    """
    global site_path, wsgi_path
    with cd(site_path):
        run('touch %s' % wsgi_path)

CONVORE_CREATE_MESSAGE_URL = "https://convore.com/api/topics/%s/messages/create.json"
ACTIVITY_TOPIC_ID = '<TOPIC ID HERE>'

@runs_once
def send_convore_update(msg, extra=""):
    """
    Send update message to activity topic on convore.com
    """
    try:
        import urllib, urllib2, base64
        url = CONVORE_CREATE_MESSAGE_URL % ACTIVITY_TOPIC_ID
    
        username = '<username>'
        password = '<password>'
        msg = "%s \n %s" % (msg, extra)
        
        values = {'message': msg}
        
        data = urllib.urlencode(values)
        req = urllib2.Request(url, data)
    
        base64string = base64.encodestring(
                    '%s:%s' % (username, password))[:-1]
        authheader =  "Basic %s" % base64string
        req.add_header("Authorization", authheader)
        
        handle = urllib2.urlopen(req)
    except Exception, e:
        print e