– Do neatly logout of their web application, before switching machines. As they keep the records, which would not let you login using a different machine till a session timeout which ranges from 0.5 to 6 hours.

– Spoof Your MAC Address, if you are using multiple laptops/desktops

use ifconfig utility:

MAC address can be changed very easily using ifconfig. Run the following command as root user.

#ifconfig eth0 down hw ether address

eth0 is the name of the interface/NIC which address is to be changed.

down means the NIC is to be shutdown before changing address.

hw ether means hardware address class is ether(which indicates ethernet).

address is the address which will used as the new mac.

After the successful execution of the command. start the NIC again using the command:

# /sbin/ifconfig eth0 up

– Release your IP after successful log out

# dhclient -r -pf  < path to the current dhclient pid file >

The path of current dhclient pid file can be found using

# ps -eaf  | grep dhclient

Path is usually /var/run/dhclient-eth0.pid or /var/run/dhclient-wlan0.pid

This is the MG Road, this one goes to Indian Express Bus stop .. bla bla etc. At one junction, the auto stopped under semi-constructed namma metro flyover.  He started enriching my knowlege with some stats. Construction of these metro tracks started way back in Dec. 2006 and its 2009, they have not achieved anything concrete yet. They are spoiling the garden city by erasing all the gardens. What’s the point, 2012 is near, nothing is gonna survive.

Gosh !! I was amazed. The movie 2012, seems to have made a real impact even on the autowalas.

Case 2: Weekly shopping at Reliance Fresh for the vegetables. At the vegetable counter, the reliance guy, Bhaiyya 2012 dekhi kya? Ekdum mast movie hai .. jarur dekhiye … kya mast effects hai …

Looks like the movie has made an impact in different segments and sectors of the Indian Population. What’s your take on this ? Bunch of my friends liked it and appreciated. I am yet to watch it

Huntplace as the name suggests let’s you hunt for the place where you want to go . It basically aggregates/mines the data from resourceful and rich web applications like Flickr, Youtube, Wiki, etc. and makes your life easier. Instead of stumbling upon those stale and old sites, get the data from the popular and reliable sources. It is a mashup that calls the pulic APIs and let’s u explore your travel destination based on the content received.

The whole idea is in a very early phase and has been implemented. There are bunch of enhancements and ramifications that can be done.

9:45PM – 12 K.Ms - Old Madras Road signal. Lights, red.  Gigantic water drops started falling. Being on a two wheeler, had no option but to stop. Parked in Indira Nagar on the juice shop. Had an awesome mango shake. Rain pouring in at gushing speed. Roads started submerging , water everywhere. All traffic rules violated, everyone rushing here and there. No option , but to wait, cosy and dry under the shop.

10:15PM – 12K.Ms – Making calls to friends to kill boredom

10:20PM – 12K.Ms – More calls !!! geez, I am bored.

10:30PM – 12K.Ms – More calls !!! geez, I am bored.

10:40PM – 12K.Ms – Rain seemed to reduce in intensity. Made an attempt to proceed further, drenched slighlty. But bearable. Heading south.

10:50PM – 10K.Ms – Whoa, what’s that? Never seen so many vehicles and jam on a flyover (Domlur flyover). Cars coming in from all the directions. What’s happening. Rainfall intensified.

11:00PM – 10K.Ms – Managed to get down from the flyover, swerving in between car spaces. Drenched badly. Roads submerged in water till knee length. Parked the vehicle and hid under the big stationary shop.

11:00PM – 10K.Ms - Waiting for rain to reduce. Cars, trucks , buses all stuck up on the road. Honking honking ! Jam packed. No one goes anywhere. No movement on other side of the road. Looks like the other end is witnessing a phoenix, ganges in south !!! World came to standstill.  People trying to manoeuvre their bikes across the water logged gaps, pavements. People falling in water logged ditches, heading in some direction. Total chaos. Power went off. Street lights off. Can see big shiny blue DELL on the far end.

11:30PM – 10K.Ms No traffic movement ahead. Looks like the inner ring roads are submerged totally under water for a stretch of 4KMs. No one goes ahead. The mob broke the divider to let the water flow out.

12:00 AM – 10K.Ms Still waiting under the shop. A noble voice shouted: The inner ring road is totally submerged and vehicle movement is impossible. Cars take a reverse and follow Old Airport Road, Old Madras Road, MG Road etc. Slight movement in vehicle began.

12:15 AM – 10K.Ms The traffic reduced. All vehicles headed in reverse direction. Drizzling. I too took the reverse route .

12:30AM – 8K.Ms. Brigade Road . Roads damp, but not flooded.

12:30AM – 6K.Ms. Bannerghatta Road.  I am an idiot that i did not take this route. May be I would have escaped that Domlur inner ring road crisis.

12:45AM – 2K.Ms Outer Ring Road. Whoa, I am reaching home finally . Hurray.

12:50 AM – 0K.Ms Alas ! Reached home. Drenched. Took a shower to freshen. Had dinner. Did some tweeting and finally slept at 2:00AM . It was a tiring day .

Epilogue

Wallet got drenched badly. It took two full days to dry. Luckily, the two 500 notes managed to stay off from getting biologically recycled owing to excessive hydration.

Catastrophes bring people closer. They seamlessly start helping each other without thinking as otherwise they would.

Voila, it was an amazing experience

File fetchrequest.sh

#!/bin/bash
while [ 10 -eq 10 ]

#Runs in a infinite loop checking request file at server B every second
do
if [ `env | grep -c lastCounter` = 1 ];then
newCounter=`curl -s http://serverB/requestFile.txt | tail -1 | cut -d: -f1`

#Reading request file at server B
param=`curl -s serverB/requestFile.txt | tail -1 | cut -d: -f2` #Extracting the request parameters
echo newCounter : $newCounter lastCounter : $lastCounter

#If there is a new request, sending a response back to the server B
if [ "$newCounter" != "$lastCounter" ]; then
echo "Need to send a response"
echo "Response URL : http://serverA/something.pl?action=something&param1&param2"

#Trimming of the response that needs to be send to serverB and storing it in a variable
output=`curl -s "http://serverA/something.pl?action=something&param1&param2" | grep 'cap\\|img' |
sed \ 's/<src>.*<\/src>//g;s/<cap>/\:/g;s/<\/cap>//g;s/<img>/\:/g;s/<\/img>//g'`
echo "Response received : $output"

#writing the response to a flat file to be FTPed to server B
`echo $output>"rp_$newCounter.txt"`
`export filename==rp_$newCounter.txt`
`echo ls -l "rp_$newCounter.txt"`
typeset -i responseSize=`wc -c rp_$newCounter.txt | cut -d" " -f1`
echo "Response size $responseSize"

#If the process response is garbled, small or null, sending a dummy error in FTP file
if [ $responseSize = 1 ];then
`echo "We are working , try later" > "rp_$newCounter.txt"`
fi

#making an FTP connection to serverB and launching the response file
`curl -s -T "rp_$newCounter.txt" -u username:password"ftp://serverB/rp_$newCounter.txt"`
echo "Uploaded the FTP file for $newCounter request"
`rm -f rp_$newCounter.txt`
echo "Deleting rp_$newCounter.txt after upload"

#Updating the request environment variable
lastCounter=$newCounter
export lastCounter
fi
else
lastCounter=`curl -s http://serverB/mobRequests.txt | tail -1 | cut -d: -f1`
export lastCounter
fi
done

The whole system works very well, and the requests are processed and response send to user. There are however limitations to this model.

Download the new version’s (say FC 10)  iso(DVD) image and save it to a disk drive partition. I used a pen drive for the same. It works very well for filesystems viz. FAT32,ext2 and not NTFS. Copy the image file to any directory say for example /mnt/FedoraCoreDVD.iso( Assuming, that pen drive is mounted at /mnt) . Mount the iso image in a directory(any) to extract the isolinux folder.

#mount -o loop /mnt/FedoraCoreDVD.iso /home/user/Fedora/

Copy the isolinux folder and paste it inside the boot folder.

#cp -r /home/user/Fedora/isolinux /boot

Now we need to make an entry in the grub file to boot the copied isolinux folder’s install.img

# cat /etc/grub.conf

______________________________

title Fedora Upgrade
root (hd0,8) ———–> should be your  partition containing the current linux installation (0->First Hard Drive,8-> Partition number on this drive )
kernel /isolinux/vmlinuz
initrd /isolinux/initrd.img
______________________________

Copy the isolinux folder also to the pen drive(/dev/sdb, mounted at /mnt in this case) and reboot the system. Select the ” Fedora Upgrade” option in grub and the normal installation/upgrade demon anaconda will start. It will ask for the option of disk partition and folder containing the iso image and iso linux folder, which is /dev/sdb1 in this case. Select the same and the upgradation works like a charm.

M: Large coffee machines, surplus supply of beverage, good enough for coffee/tea addicts.

S: Limited supply of beverages, may vary depending on where startup is located, its own office, or a business incubation center.

M: Manager says, you need to be in the office at 9:00AM sharp, they are aussies, ahead of us by 4.5 hrs. We need to bridge this gap. Mails need to be checked every second. Sticking your ass in the office without doing anything is the motto. Punch the clock, 9:15 hrs a day. Some companies have started a early bird offer, earlier you reach the office, say before 8:30 AM, you acquire credit points making you eligible for the lucky draw coupon of Rs 500, Rs 1000 and so on.

S: A product based startup, timings are flexible, no one is going to ask you to push your ass at 9:00AM. But you have critical goals and targets to be achieved, which are of extreme significance for the startup. Hence, you cannot simply laze around in the office. You need to get things done and if you are passionate about work, this can be your dream come true.

M: Please display your ID, where is your ID. I hate this. You are like one in a million. Just another piece of shit in the campus.

S: You know everyone else. The whole comapny is a team and you are a integral part of the company. ID card?  I don’t remember the last time I wore it. Only thing you need is the incubation center’s access card. No one is going to pester you to hang the id round the clock, as if you may be a terrorist.

M: Dress Code. This is the most fascinating part. Mondays-Tuesdays- Ultra Formal, Wed-Thurs- Mild Formals, Fridays-Freedom, but with a limit, off course. Thank god they do not have any restriction your undies.

S: Dress is not a restriction. Work is all what matters. But that doesn’t mean that you can park yourself in the office wearing your sleeping t shirt and shorts .

M: Use of brain, minimal, rather its a rare event. And if you are a fresher, I suppose you will be doomed in most of the cases, they treat you really fresh. They may put you in some low profile, time consuming work and may not listen or ascertain your technical capabilities.

S: Ideas are supposed to nurture in a startup. Brainstorming and impelmentation of cool  thoughts to reality is inevitable.

P.S. Writings here are solely based on writer’s life experience and may not match up with the real scenarios or your beliefs. Contradications are likely to occur. Comments are welcome.