Here is one video from my trip to San Francisco.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Monday, March 12, 2007
Trip videos
When I was browsing through my camera's memory yesterday, I revisited the videos I had taken during my road trip from MN to CA. Two of them I found worth uploading.
The first one I shot in the evening of second day of my drive. I tried to describe it with words in my last post. Here is how it looked like. But it is still far from the actual experience.
This one was just something cool to capture in camera.
Enjoy!
The first one I shot in the evening of second day of my drive. I tried to describe it with words in my last post. Here is how it looked like. But it is still far from the actual experience.
This one was just something cool to capture in camera.
Enjoy!
Saturday, December 23, 2006
across two hours
Recently I moved from Minnesota to California. I took the opportunity to see U of S by road. After spending 48 hours behind the wheel of my toyota corolla, I traveled across 9 states and 2 timezones to reach the sunny state. The journey was full of memorable experiences, mainly the variety of landscapes that drove past me. The first day through Iowa, Missouri, Kansas wasn't very eventful. I enjoyed the ride down the I35 with lots of podcasts on my iPod. In Oklahoma city the route turned westwards along I40. Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and finally California were rich with variety of terrains.
Here are some of the moments ...
... It was the evening of the second day. I was heading west through Texas on the endless road that was going through an empty landscape. Sun was about to set on my left below the southwest horizon. The brightness of the sky was dimming slowly. The gray grass on both sides of the roads was now shining in the orange light, which looked even redder through the tint of the upper edge of my sunglasses. Most of the sky was clear except for few clouds. They looked like some careless finishing strokes on an otherwise clear painting, put by the artist while cleaning up his palette. Suddenly I became aware of the stink in the air. It was hard to see on the left against the setting sun. But soon the source of the stink was visible - huge cattle farms. At a distance ahead where the road made a curve, sun's rays reflected from several speeding trucks creating an illusion of orange squares hurrying towards the horizon. The drive felt more calm with John Mayer's 'Continuum' in the background ...
... It was in Amarillo, TX. I was 100 miles tired after my last gas stop. There wasn't any bypass for this city, so I decided to continue on I40W through the city. It was 5 in the evening, the rush hour for the city's commuters. I was in left most lane at 65 mph. All of a sudden the SUV about 15 feet in front of me glowed its red lights. Within fraction of a second slight smoke was visible around its tires and it came to a screeching halt barely avoiding to bump into the car ahead of it. Now it was my turn for a near-to-impossible halt. Assuming there was no one on my right I suddenly turned into the right lane and then adjusting the speed as soon as possible. Fortunately the assumption was right. But the moment left me totally drained off all energy. An exhausting moment ...
... I was planning to reach phoenix on the second night, but it seemed impossible when I was good 300 miles away from Arizona border itself and it was already pitch dark. With shorter milestone in my mind, I started for the last leg of my second day journey. As I mentioned, it was pitch dark, so I had no idea if there were mountains on the sides or just miles of plain dry desert. From my experience with the terrain so far it was flat empty space. Another proof of that was very strong winds. That's what made this segment of drive one of the difficult ones and also a memorable one. A '02 Toyota corolla is not that powerful a car, and that becomes evident when you are driving it up a steep slope. (Later in California I verified this when I couldn't keep up with the aggressive traffic in the mountains) But here in New Mexico it was miles of level road. But yet I could not push my car beyond 60 mph at times. I suspected there was something wrong with the car. To make it worse, I was only surrounded by behemoth trucks that could push their way to 70+mph (the limit being 75mph, they could hurry). Sometimes I could push the car beyond 70 and overtake group of 4-5 trucks, but then later on when I couldn't keep up above 65, they would pass me. Switching places with heavy trucks in such a way is annoying in a long journey. When they pass you or you pass them, there is some action in air pressure that needs your concentration on the wheel. It is tiring after a while. And it needs more effort in such heavy winds. What made this 3 hour drive memorable, was the presence of that enormous force of the wind with no visible signs. With the windows closed there was no indication of this force. This force only showed itself in the RPM meter and the speed dial in front of me and occasionally in the irregular swaying of the trucks around me. Hell of a windy moment ...
... On last day I started very early in morning. I had to cross Albuquerque, NM first so, I started around 6. That plan worked out pretty well. Next 3 hours of drive and I entered Arizona, had red mountains at distance on both sides of the road. The sun was rising from behind. The peaks and troughs of the mountains were so smooth, they looked like orange red cover sheets covering the mannequins in a fashion store, that was yet to open for the day. These sheets had dull green spots in the form of sparse tiny bushes. Oddly enough it was so cold, some snow was visible on both sides of the road ...
... The dusk on the last day had fallen and I had just come out of Mohave desert heading down I15 towards Los Angeles. I was getting my first few glimpses of california traffic. The I15 comes form Las Vegas and leads into Los Angeles while passing by San Bernardino. Just before San Bernardino the freeway runs down a big mountain. And it is one steep joy ride. Before the steep slope starts there are several cautionary signs for vehicles to check their breaks. Once the downslope starts you feel like one sitting in one of 100s of toy cars glowing their red tail-lights gliding down the curves at the speed of 65 mph. Even when you are in an enclosed car, in your mind you feel the wind in your face. As you descend down the mountain, you see San Bernardino city glowing with thousands of lights. In the dark dusk the hundreds of speeding cars look like, a stream of light points trickling through the mountain peaks heading to meet a huge lake of light. After that race down the mountain it is literally a breath-taking view ...
It took 6-7 hours along I5 north from Los Angeles to San Jose. This last stretch was about pushing the envelope. It had been 20 hours of continuous driving with momentary stops for gas or food. I was desperate to reach at the final destination. The last hour was particularly worse. I chose to take a small highway to switch from I5 to Hwy 101. From the available map it wasn't clear how long this highway was. It turned out to be the worst drive in entire journey. It was a 26 miles of road, going through pitch dark woods and hills, completely ill-documented - without any milestones telling how far is next main road, with no exits to anywhere at all, remote from cellular phone signals, with dense fog at places allowing only 10 feet visibility in some parts. I had really pushed myself to limits at the point, the car felt like just another extension of my body now. Fortunately I had had a cup of coffee so at least I wasn't sleepy. I was afraid I had missed the 101 exit and was leading towards pacific. Fortunately it wasn't true and after 45-50 minutes I successfully came out of those woods and back to civilization with 4 bars of T-mobile.
I concluded my journey at around midnight.
Needless to say, the whole journey was a memorable experience. It left me with an interesting feeling though...
... I had only "seen" all these places. I felt like, a lifetime is too short a period to experience what each of these towns, terrains, farms, roads, woods, hills, people would "feel" like. There is so much to do, so much to see, so much to learn and I am so tiny a part of it. How insignificant one's own worries are when compared to such a huge world. Aren't they?
Here are some of the moments ...
... It was the evening of the second day. I was heading west through Texas on the endless road that was going through an empty landscape. Sun was about to set on my left below the southwest horizon. The brightness of the sky was dimming slowly. The gray grass on both sides of the roads was now shining in the orange light, which looked even redder through the tint of the upper edge of my sunglasses. Most of the sky was clear except for few clouds. They looked like some careless finishing strokes on an otherwise clear painting, put by the artist while cleaning up his palette. Suddenly I became aware of the stink in the air. It was hard to see on the left against the setting sun. But soon the source of the stink was visible - huge cattle farms. At a distance ahead where the road made a curve, sun's rays reflected from several speeding trucks creating an illusion of orange squares hurrying towards the horizon. The drive felt more calm with John Mayer's 'Continuum' in the background ...
... It was in Amarillo, TX. I was 100 miles tired after my last gas stop. There wasn't any bypass for this city, so I decided to continue on I40W through the city. It was 5 in the evening, the rush hour for the city's commuters. I was in left most lane at 65 mph. All of a sudden the SUV about 15 feet in front of me glowed its red lights. Within fraction of a second slight smoke was visible around its tires and it came to a screeching halt barely avoiding to bump into the car ahead of it. Now it was my turn for a near-to-impossible halt. Assuming there was no one on my right I suddenly turned into the right lane and then adjusting the speed as soon as possible. Fortunately the assumption was right. But the moment left me totally drained off all energy. An exhausting moment ...
... I was planning to reach phoenix on the second night, but it seemed impossible when I was good 300 miles away from Arizona border itself and it was already pitch dark. With shorter milestone in my mind, I started for the last leg of my second day journey. As I mentioned, it was pitch dark, so I had no idea if there were mountains on the sides or just miles of plain dry desert. From my experience with the terrain so far it was flat empty space. Another proof of that was very strong winds. That's what made this segment of drive one of the difficult ones and also a memorable one. A '02 Toyota corolla is not that powerful a car, and that becomes evident when you are driving it up a steep slope. (Later in California I verified this when I couldn't keep up with the aggressive traffic in the mountains) But here in New Mexico it was miles of level road. But yet I could not push my car beyond 60 mph at times. I suspected there was something wrong with the car. To make it worse, I was only surrounded by behemoth trucks that could push their way to 70+mph (the limit being 75mph, they could hurry). Sometimes I could push the car beyond 70 and overtake group of 4-5 trucks, but then later on when I couldn't keep up above 65, they would pass me. Switching places with heavy trucks in such a way is annoying in a long journey. When they pass you or you pass them, there is some action in air pressure that needs your concentration on the wheel. It is tiring after a while. And it needs more effort in such heavy winds. What made this 3 hour drive memorable, was the presence of that enormous force of the wind with no visible signs. With the windows closed there was no indication of this force. This force only showed itself in the RPM meter and the speed dial in front of me and occasionally in the irregular swaying of the trucks around me. Hell of a windy moment ...
... On last day I started very early in morning. I had to cross Albuquerque, NM first so, I started around 6. That plan worked out pretty well. Next 3 hours of drive and I entered Arizona, had red mountains at distance on both sides of the road. The sun was rising from behind. The peaks and troughs of the mountains were so smooth, they looked like orange red cover sheets covering the mannequins in a fashion store, that was yet to open for the day. These sheets had dull green spots in the form of sparse tiny bushes. Oddly enough it was so cold, some snow was visible on both sides of the road ...
... The dusk on the last day had fallen and I had just come out of Mohave desert heading down I15 towards Los Angeles. I was getting my first few glimpses of california traffic. The I15 comes form Las Vegas and leads into Los Angeles while passing by San Bernardino. Just before San Bernardino the freeway runs down a big mountain. And it is one steep joy ride. Before the steep slope starts there are several cautionary signs for vehicles to check their breaks. Once the downslope starts you feel like one sitting in one of 100s of toy cars glowing their red tail-lights gliding down the curves at the speed of 65 mph. Even when you are in an enclosed car, in your mind you feel the wind in your face. As you descend down the mountain, you see San Bernardino city glowing with thousands of lights. In the dark dusk the hundreds of speeding cars look like, a stream of light points trickling through the mountain peaks heading to meet a huge lake of light. After that race down the mountain it is literally a breath-taking view ...
It took 6-7 hours along I5 north from Los Angeles to San Jose. This last stretch was about pushing the envelope. It had been 20 hours of continuous driving with momentary stops for gas or food. I was desperate to reach at the final destination. The last hour was particularly worse. I chose to take a small highway to switch from I5 to Hwy 101. From the available map it wasn't clear how long this highway was. It turned out to be the worst drive in entire journey. It was a 26 miles of road, going through pitch dark woods and hills, completely ill-documented - without any milestones telling how far is next main road, with no exits to anywhere at all, remote from cellular phone signals, with dense fog at places allowing only 10 feet visibility in some parts. I had really pushed myself to limits at the point, the car felt like just another extension of my body now. Fortunately I had had a cup of coffee so at least I wasn't sleepy. I was afraid I had missed the 101 exit and was leading towards pacific. Fortunately it wasn't true and after 45-50 minutes I successfully came out of those woods and back to civilization with 4 bars of T-mobile.
I concluded my journey at around midnight.
Needless to say, the whole journey was a memorable experience. It left me with an interesting feeling though...
... I had only "seen" all these places. I felt like, a lifetime is too short a period to experience what each of these towns, terrains, farms, roads, woods, hills, people would "feel" like. There is so much to do, so much to see, so much to learn and I am so tiny a part of it. How insignificant one's own worries are when compared to such a huge world. Aren't they?
Friday, December 01, 2006
What I read...
Recently I have been reading news/blogs through many different channels - Google Alerts, Google Reader, digg, del.icio.us, slashdot, plus website hopping. So when I try to recall where did I read particular piece of news, very likely I don't recall. That's what happened today at a friend's place.
But still I will keep using them...
I have added a new window on this blog page in the right panel - titled 'What I read ...'. This is Google Reader's cool (this adjective is now a cliche when used with Google) tool, which will post some top N blog posts that I decide to share from my Google Reader. So you can read what I like to read. ... just another way to solve the problem I mentioned before.
But still I will keep using them...
I have added a new window on this blog page in the right panel - titled 'What I read ...'. This is Google Reader's cool (this adjective is now a cliche when used with Google) tool, which will post some top N blog posts that I decide to share from my Google Reader. So you can read what I like to read. ... just another way to solve the problem I mentioned before.
Monday, November 20, 2006
How do I backup to Amazon S3 storage service
All of today I spent putting together all the tools to do an incremental backup to the Amazon S3 storage service.
Amazon is a good brand and providing storage as service is very good utility. But I was not very happy by the fact that Amazon has tried to reinvent storage with this web service. Web Services are a good interface for remote inter process communication. But why do storage operations like function calls. Anyway, cheap cost of the offered storage and good brand were enough for me to pursue it as my backup solution.
I spent whole evening setting up different tools that provide front end for S3 service. The most useful tool would be a NAS server that provides NFS/CIFS mounts and does S3 transactions at the backend. However it was hard to find any such direct tool. As of today there are many under-development or beta scripts written in perl, python, ruby, java. I gave a shot to few of them, but they weren't very handy for solving my simple backup solution. JungleDisk is very good frontend tool for S3-service. It gives WebDAV frontend interface (again why WebDAV and not NSF?) and it's available for all platforms. It is good if your needs are manual access to this storage. It is difficult to treat WebDAV URL as a drive so that a backup utility can write to it just like any other local drive. I investigated lot of options, NFS-to-WebDAV bridge, WebDAV CLI clients which can be called by backup scripts, but there isn't a great solution for all platforms. My current need is Windows desktop backup. Finally I got 'S3Drive'. It mounts the S3 storage as just another drive on your windows box. This was gr8 for my current needs. One thing to note - JungleDisk does not show the files stored by other front end tools to the same S3 bucket - it didn't show the files stored by S3Drive. There are some other tools however which show objects stored by other tools as well, e.g. S3Safe.
So storage is ready, now the backup software. I was using EzBack-it-up. But after reading through its docs, I realized that it is very dumb in doing incremental backups. I had considered WinRAR some time back as backup option, but didn't get its archiving logic. After reading thru some documentation and its CLI options I figured out a way to do incremental backups. When its CLI tool is run with -ao option it "adds files with Archive attribute set". With -ac option it "Clears Archive attribute after compression or extraction". Thus "rar a -ao -ac backup.tar
I had to put rar.exe in one of the directories in PATH, but it worked. The Cron scheduler can run this script as per the schedule I set.
I have few MBs of source directory that I need to backup. I expect its contents to change under an MB per day. Looks like pretty good deal with cheap prices of S3 service.
Amazon is a good brand and providing storage as service is very good utility. But I was not very happy by the fact that Amazon has tried to reinvent storage with this web service. Web Services are a good interface for remote inter process communication. But why do storage operations like function calls. Anyway, cheap cost of the offered storage and good brand were enough for me to pursue it as my backup solution.
I spent whole evening setting up different tools that provide front end for S3 service. The most useful tool would be a NAS server that provides NFS/CIFS mounts and does S3 transactions at the backend. However it was hard to find any such direct tool. As of today there are many under-development or beta scripts written in perl, python, ruby, java. I gave a shot to few of them, but they weren't very handy for solving my simple backup solution. JungleDisk is very good frontend tool for S3-service. It gives WebDAV frontend interface (again why WebDAV and not NSF?) and it's available for all platforms. It is good if your needs are manual access to this storage. It is difficult to treat WebDAV URL as a drive so that a backup utility can write to it just like any other local drive. I investigated lot of options, NFS-to-WebDAV bridge, WebDAV CLI clients which can be called by backup scripts, but there isn't a great solution for all platforms. My current need is Windows desktop backup. Finally I got 'S3Drive'. It mounts the S3 storage as just another drive on your windows box. This was gr8 for my current needs. One thing to note - JungleDisk does not show the files stored by other front end tools to the same S3 bucket - it didn't show the files stored by S3Drive. There are some other tools however which show objects stored by other tools as well, e.g. S3Safe.
So storage is ready, now the backup software. I was using EzBack-it-up. But after reading through its docs, I realized that it is very dumb in doing incremental backups. I had considered WinRAR some time back as backup option, but didn't get its archiving logic. After reading thru some documentation and its CLI options I figured out a way to do incremental backups. When its CLI tool is run with -ao option it "adds files with Archive attribute set". With -ac option it "Clears Archive attribute after compression or extraction". Thus "rar a -ao -ac backup.tar
- " will backup only the files that have changed since last backup (unless someone else changes the archive flag - I need to check with my CVS tools for this). So I got incremental backup tool.
How to enforce policies and schedules. CronForWindows solves schedules problem. I spent better part of an hour on very minute problem. Being alergic to BATCH files I couldn't find a programmatic way to create the unique target tar file name that will have timestamp embedded in it. I tried running bash script using cygwin, but backslashes and/or '%' symbols in date command format caused problems. I thought of writing quick java code, but thought that wasn't really quick. So I decided to give python a shot. After half an hour I came up with following script:
from datetime import date
import os
today=date.today()
today_str = "%s%s%s"%(today.month,today.day,today.year)
command = 'rar a -ac -ao'+'b:\e%s'%today_str+'.tar'+' c:\workspace\project'
os.system(command)
I had to put rar.exe in one of the directories in PATH, but it worked. The Cron scheduler can run this script as per the schedule I set.
I have few MBs of source directory that I need to backup. I expect its contents to change under an MB per day. Looks like pretty good deal with cheap prices of S3 service.
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