Performance vs. Featuritis

Performance Research, Part 1: What the 80/20 Rule Tells Us about Reducing HTTP Requests:

"The conclusion is the same: Reducing the number of HTTP requests has the biggest impact on reducing response time and is often the easiest performance improvement to make."

Uhoh, while I've been thinking of and coding various small utilities that i can place in my already full side bar, it seems the very opposite is true for improved performance. Oh well, its not like my blog is business critical so I guess I'll keep adding features to my sidebar.

VLC and screencasting

How to Capture the Screen Using VLC for ScreenCasting | TechMag

I tried out the method shown in this article, but it put quite a load on my Powerbook. The load reached something like 12 on the poor machine. But it can be done.

VLC has to be run with command line parameters for this to work. To get this to work I had to go to my applications folder (cd /Applications), and then "cd VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/" and then run the VLC executable with the command line parameters given in the article (./VLC screen://).

I messed up though, I must have chosen the wrong codec, since the output file created was corrupt and unplayable. I'll try again later.

REST is Hazardous to Your Career?

Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life - REST is Hazardous to Your Career?:

"RESTful API"

Ok, I've read what Rest is, and I know what WS-* is. But I still don't understand what makes an API ReSTful! Why is the Atom Publishing protocol ReSTful?

Why do technologists blog...

tuvock.png
Originally uploaded by awasim.

Its to see the expression (similar to the one in the picture) of their non-tech friends when they read their posts. Which to the friend might resemble the quote below:

"We've got another particle wake.. since we can't get plasma directly from the eddies maybe we can collect some from their wakes."

(Spoken by the Character "Commander Chiqutai" on StarTrek Voyager Season 3 Episode 22 "Real Life" around 18 minutes into the show)

Blogger Woes

bloggerwoes.png
Originally uploaded by awasim.

Yes, today is "Post about your problems with screenshots" day! :)

I've been having all sorts of problems posting stuff to blogger. Poor Blogger, Googles forgotten child! Marsedit won't post anything. Flickr makes you click again and again, but at least gets the post through. Google Docs is a hit and run, maybe it posted, maybe it didn't.

And then, Blogger says, update your blog to the new latest, greatest and superb Blogger Beta! Only to follow with "Sorry your blog is too big", or something like that!

Google please give Blogger.com a little attention!!

Ok, now I'll have to get ready for a clicking spree on flickr, dance around like a monkey, cross my fingers, and hope to God this posts to my blog!

Update: Also the wind must be blowing in the right direction!

Vista and Updates

vistaandwinupdate.JPG
Originally uploaded by awasim.

One thing I hated in Windows XP was the fact that windows update would create arbitrary directories on your hard drive that would just look really ugly. I was surprised to see that this problem hasn't been fixed.

As shown in the image, this is a directory listing of the root of my C drive on Vista (RTM version downloaded from msdn). Their is this directory with the name beginning with f4f5...

The directory contains a log file from an msxml update done via windowsupdate. I took the screenshot using Microsofts new "snipping tool".


And if I had known the following I would've not blown away my XP install and wasted a day or so reinstalling everything!

Upgrades are super-charged Clean Installs

Upgrade to Windows Vista are no longer a 'merge' with the old OS. First, Windows Vista's setup gathers old OS settings and user settings and data and stores them. Then it wipes away the old OS and applies the new operating system image (which is really fast thanks to Image Based Setup). Next, setup applies stored settings and data to this clean install based on per-component logic in manifests and plug-ins, which magically brings back your applications and data in a brand new OS. Your registry and file system are free of goo that is no longer needed by Windows Vista.

hacking a web application...

WritelyMenuIssue.png
Originally uploaded by awasim.

Here is an example of a hack to get a web application to behave like a native application. Writely has inline spell checking. However, in firefox when you right click on the misspelled word, their are two menus that show up. The first one is the browsers right-click menu, and the second is googledocs own right click menu.

This is a good example that shows the short comings of current web applications. Web applications will always remain second to native applications as long as these issues remain. I have no problems with that myself, I prefer native applications. I want to be able to buy software, and own it. I want data to be on my machines. The world is moving away from that though.

Running a web server at home

I've been trying to run a web site from home for a while now. I've had the following issues:

1. Electrical shorts
2. Computer limitations
3. Site outage for a large period of time (for instance because of hardware failure)
4. Network availability
5. The server is running on a dhcp connection from the provider, this means the IP of the connection can change at random.

I've been able to address each of these limitations.

1. Electrical shorts
The server hardware is an old laptop that has a battery that provides about 30 minutes of power. The shorts are usually less than that, and the server stays up.

2. Computer limitations
The old laptop is dedicated to being a server, I've got an uptime of 55 days, and that too because I've had to reboot the machine after kernel updates.

3. Site outage for a large period of time
This was the most critical. If the site goes down a huge blackhole exists which might confuse readers. The least that I wanted for this was a way of notifying anyone trying to reach my site, that the site is temporarily down, while I fix the issue. This is easily solved by changing the DNS entry to point to a site that explains that the site is down for a particular reason, and gives an estimate of when the server will be up again.

4. Network availability
Sharing a network connection at home causes load on the connection, plus port sharing is a problem. Solved by moving in to an apartment of my own, with my own network connection.

5. The server is running on a dhcp connection from the provider, this means the IP of the connection can change at random causing the domain to be unreachable.

I've used no-ip.com, their tools, and a free no-ip domain name for a while now. When I got my own domain, I just created a CNAME entry that pointed to that free no-ip domain name. The no-ip tools notice a change in the IP address of the server, and sync the free domain name to the new IP. This way, my real domain name is always pointing to the right place. Ofcourse their is a short period of time when the DNS servers sync up, but the change in IP doesn't happen often, and I can live with it.

So why am I still at blogspot? Simply because I've put too much time into this site, and it has visibility. But any other site I work on, will be on my own server at home.

Gentoo article

Linux.com | Tips for new Gentoo users:

Gentoo is one of the most difficult distributions to learn, though veteran Gentoo users might point out that its friendly community and extensive documentation can help new users. Here are some tips that might make Gentoo easier for anyone who wants to give it a try.

Gentoo is the only major distribution that I haven't used. Mind you, I have installed it, I just haven't used it. I couldn't bare to wait for all the applications to finish compiling, and got rid of the install. I just never had a spare/fast system that I could install Gentoo on. Its a regret, and perhaps one of these days, I'll actually get down to installing Gentoo on one of my systems.

Vista wallpapers

Download Windows Vista Wallpapers » Digital Inspiration © Amit Agarwal:

Anybody notice the prevalence of green here! Not that I mind, I love the color green! :)

Firefox flickering fix...

This seems to fix the problem with windows shakes/flickering I've been having with firefox on Windows Vista! :)

Managing Logs

On my web server, I have several name based domains setup, each with its own access_log and error_log. I kept them separate because I figured it would be easier to track each sub domain that way. But now I have so many sub domains, its become hard to keep track. A better management system is needed. I thought I'd make a note of it, in case life happens and I forget for another six months!

Blog issues

Everytime I log in to blogger, I am shown an option to upgrade my site to blogger beta. If I go through with it, it fails to upgrade. Its kind of irritating.

At the same time, Marsedit is giving a new error now. Earlier, I'd have to refresh the blog in marsedit, before making a new post. Otherwise the post wouldn't succeed. Now every time I try to post, I get an error message that says "Secure Connection failed". I wish Newsgator would update Marsedit/NetNewsWire. Its turning out to not have been such a good thing that Ranchero got bought by Newsgator.

The problem with Marsedit could simply be a result of a change in the API or Server settings, but I kind of expect that with a web service. What I also expect is that the software being used to work with that API is updated in a timely manner.

I just want to be able to post to my blog, from a native OS X application! (without having to pay for a new application (Ecto)) I already paid for Marsedit!

iAdware

iAdware

We recently received a proof-of-concept sample of an adware program. Normally that wouldn't be worth blogging about, but in this case it's for Mac OS X.

2007 I guess is when we find out how well the Apple environment can handle spyware. How well designed is Apple software/scripting environment (such as applescript) engineered in terms of security. I really hate the idea of having to pay for/run third party software, that uses "my" cpu cycles to secure "my" computer from malicious bits. An OS should have security engineered into it. So far, I didn't have to run third party software to protect my Mac, or Linux machine. Lets hope it remains that way.

Memetrackers

Scoble revisits memetrackers:

"All three of these are interesting ways to see what the blogosphere is talking about. But, I notice I keep going back to TechMeme, and I think I found the reason why:

More info density per scroll."

I've tried Tailrank, but I too have stuck with techmeme. Might have something to do with the fact that my blog has shown up on techmeme before ;) Its doesn't show up any more though. :(

I still love techmeme, but I've noticed somethings recently that have left me a little unhappy. First their are a lot less conversations listed around stories. Perhaps its just because there aren't many conversations going on. But I also don't like the fact that the conversations even though tech related, are mostly just hype around press releases and such.

For instance, right now as I glance through the stories are about:
1. Microsoft/Google
2. Microsoft
3. Youtube/CBS
4. Techcrunch/Valleywag
5. XBox
and so on.

This trend is making me lose interest in techmeme ever so slightly. What I'd want is more conversation around tech itself and less press releases. I wish I had an example conversation that I could point to as an example, but I can't seem to find one at the moment.

Now what I would like is a memetracker for my feeds. In fact, thats my thanksgiving project. Now if only I'd actually sit down and design the system rather than reinstalling/configuring my servers, while I read techmeme on the side! :)

The need to bash...

My attempt at installing cygwin on Vista failed. The install fails while running some of the postinstall scripts. They just keep running and running, and never finish.

The reason I began installing cygwin once again was the dissappointment I had with Services for Unix. This is a feature you can try installing on Vista Ultimate.

Go to start->Control Panel->Programs and Features. On the side bar click "Turn Windows features on or off". In the list should be "Subsystem for Unix-based Applications".

Then you an download the "Services for Unix" package, or it does it for you, I forget what it did for me.

In any case, once you have this installed, you have the options of running I either csh, or ksh. No bash. Also you have to do a custom install to get things like gcc and g++. But once, they are their, you can try to install the tools you want by compiling them. I managed to get wget compiled, but bash failed to compile. Thats when I tried to install cygwin, which also failed. Oh well. No bash scripting for now!

I decided to try flock, since I was having problems with firefox on Vista. So far no problems. I've also tried k-meleon, which also worked without problems so far. But I've only tried both for a few minutes so far!

Thats weird, Windows Powershell is not available for Vista greater than RC1.

more vista

Its funny right now, but will probably be really irritating in a few days. I have a couple of apps that come as executables without setup. I create their directories in "Program Files" manually (putty, utorrent...). Each time you create a folder in "Program Files" Vista asks me first that I must confirm this action before it happens, and then actually presents a second dialog to confirm the action. What the hell! Why not just confirm in the first place instead of bothering me twice?

Accidents and Vista

Not in a good mood. Coming back home from work, I got into an accident, thankfully no one was hurt, except my car, and the idiots car who banged into the back :(

So I've installed the version of Vista that was available on msdn, and no problems during installation. After installation, all the hardware seems to work fine. I wanted the latest drivers from nvidia, and they have Vista drivers, so I downloaded those. But the package just doesn't seem to recognize the Nvidia Quadro NVS 110 chip. Oh well, on to more important things.

I started up IE7 and went to google reader. It still has the same problem as when I was in XP. So I downloaded firefox. But their is a weird problem in Firefox. One I can't make a screenshot of. Basically the whole page is moving up and down ever so slightly at a rapid pace. I'm feeling giddy after having tried to read one or two posts as they rapidly moved two and fro.

The security warning when you try to install an app are really distracting. They basically blink the screen real fast, and its throwing me of. Other than that, I like it so far.

Update: Looks like the flicker in firefox has to do with resized Firefox window. I guess if the size is not right, it will flicker google reader up and down the screen.

Its kind of irritating that VLC turns of the glass effects every time it runs because it uses uncompatible components. Very irritating.

More Updates: Actually it doesn't seem to have anything to do with resizing. Rather, it seems like its a problem with the flash player. The flickering started back the moment I installed the flash player.

I'm not sure whats going on here. I tried uninstalling the flash plugin, by removing it from the mozilla directory, but the flicker wouldn't go away and neither would the flash plugin. To remove the plugin, I checked the profiles in the AppData directory, but they didn't have the plugin. The plugin was in the Program Files/Mozilla Firefox folder, which I deleted. But that didn't fix the problem.

Then I uninstalled Firefox, went in manually and deleted all firefox folders in "Program Files" folder, and "AppData" folder. After which I reinstalled Firefox2 and this time I haven't seen the flicker yet.

I give up. It started doing it again. I'm trying Opera. I need a browser that works with Google Reader!

Speaking of linking to other people…

Speaking of linking to other people… :

"What do you think of my link blog? Should I keep doing it? I’ve found it fun to do."

I realized early on that their was very little difference in a link blog and bookmarks. So I switched to del.icio.us. But at the same time, I wanted to let people know what articles I liked. Which meant I wanted some of the articles I read to show up in my blog somehow. I stopped letting this blog be a link blog, more writing in the blog itself. And I added the latest ten del.icio.us posts in the side bar on top.

If people found those links interesting they could subscribe to my del.icio.us RSS feed. This worked well for me, so I haven't tried the google readers sharing feature. I think thats what Scoble uses for his link blog. Who knows, if I didn't already have a solution I might have a link blog too.

But I guess the important thing is that if its fun, then you should keep doing it! :)

four days!

Hak5's new episode has been out for four days! :)
I didn't even know... Stupid FLU! :(

flu

def flu:
   return "No Blogging!"