I agree with @noahth that its a easier way to prevent from Spam post. However, it may reduce activities of users. There are pros and cons and its tricky to balance them.
I am also facing the same issue. Number of facebook likes for my sites is also inconsistent. Change in the number is not that significant, however, the inconsistency problem is there.
Yes, datastore backup and restore using bulkloader is not comfortable. For getting backup in local machine i am using bulkloader. However, i am doing online backup using backup(dummy) appengine project. I am coping data back and forth between production and backup projects for backup and restore purpose. Its comparatively easier.
Python-appengine is really cool. However, i wish they provide full text search soon. I am using whoosh-appengine search which work fine for me. I am not sure whoosh-appengine search fit in all use case or not. Can you make it clear, for what type of projects app-engine is not a good choice?
I have been programming for last 8 year, however, both python as well as app-engine was new for me. Below after few posts i have written how i learn python so i dont want to repeat here. However, i think python on app engine is boon for python beginner like me. Since i have worked on cake-php and ruby on rails i found webapp also somehow similar. My website www.lolzwow.com is live and getting good number of hits, however, i don't have to pay a penny and statistics shows that free quota can handle still more traffic than what i am getting now. So, python app-engine is a good gift from google to python community. Thanks Google
Yes, those videos cover from very basic of programming to quite advance stuffs. If you follow all in sequence i think it wont be a problem. So, i suggest you to take first two lectures if that helps you then go for remaining.
Anyway i think python is good programming language to start with.
All the best
Starting with the simplest idea you have in your mind will be the best way to learn python.
Let me share my story, I started thinking about learning python two months back. My brother has been using python since last four years, so i asked him how should i start.
His answer was simple "Learn it by doing". Stumbling with different ideas for a week i came up with a simple idea to write a script that collects publicly shared videos in facebook (I love viewing videos shared in facebook). I have been programming since last 8 years but this was first time i wrote a script in python. I got very excited when 20 lines of python script collected thousands of videos shared in facebook. Next day i shared my script and results with my brother. He was really excited and i asked him to help me to extend the project to collect the interesting videos shared in social media. After the iterative process of learning and refinement of idea, we built http://lolzwow.com.
My idea of learning python by writing simple script that collects videos evolved into a complete site that collects and features Funny, Amazing, Inspiring and Interesting videos shared in web. On top of all i learned Python (one of the most beautiful language i have encountered so far)
By sharing my story, I want to say
1) Start with simple idea that can be converted into computer program
2) If you have someone who knows about python, ask for help
3) If you have any questions that confused you, join python IRC on freenode. From my experience, I can say people in python IRC channel are the most helpful people that i have encountered in any IRC channel. I really love python folks out there in #python channel.
4) Learning by doing encourages you and highly reduces static friction that every people faces when learning new thing.
If you don't have prior knowledge of programming I suggest to go through Introduction to Computer Science and Programming video lectures made available by MIT OCW
http://bit.ly/bdRzad.