May 20 2013
Aero is brought home this weekend.
Aero is our new puppy – Labrador breed. He is about a month old and we bought him over the weekend.
Still there are a few things to arrange for him at home, but he is finding the marble floor comfortable enough to sleep at will. He already found a few cozy “nap-spots”.
Needless to say, Spurthi is on cloud nine.
May 19 2013
Summer made us to gulp lot of fluids of all sorts. This float is one of those.
I would love to get more of these…
May 18 2013
Viruses knock your doors quite often. You should ask the right questions before letting anyone in.
For the last 2+ weeks, a specific version of Skype virus is on unleash and impacted many people I know. The virus looks more like a nuisance initially, but has the potential to impact the infected systems to a greater level.
The virus spreads itself with a message that looks like this “When was the last time you saw this photo [link]“. This message is broadcasted to all the contacts of a compromised account. Once the recipient clicks on the link, multiple things are observed to happen to the system. Firstly, the message is now broadcasted to the contacts of the newly compromised account. Secondly, the system leaves a trace of itself on the system. More often, the firewalls on the impacted Windows systems are turned off and the skype settings for the user are set in such a way that arbitrary programs can be executed by skype sessions.
The virus also appears to have two variants, in terms of the messages it sends – the URL can be a generic URL or a personalized URL that includes the skype id of the recipient. The second variant, IMO, has a better hit rate – who would normally ignore a link that is so personalized?
There are multiple fixes recommended for impacted systems/accounts.
Not clicking on such links is a prerequisite though.
Apr 11 2013
అందరికీ విజయ నామ సంవత్సర ఉగాది శుభాకాంక్షలు. ప్రతీ రోజూ తెలుగు చదువుదాం. తెలుగు చదివిద్దాం.
పై ఫొటోలో ఉన్నవి ఈ రోజు చదవడానికి సిద్ధంగా ఉన్న పత్రికలు, పంచాంగం.
Apr 10 2013
[ ఇది యధార్ధ సంఘటన. కల్పితం కాదు. ]
ఈ రోజు ఉదయం సుమారు అయిదు గంటల సమయం. సంజీవరెడ్డి నగర్ నుండి అమీర్పేట్ మీదుగా సైకిలు తొక్కుకుంటూ వెళుతున్నాను. వంటిపై నీలం, తెలుపు రంగులు కలిసిన జెర్సి, తలపై రెఫ్లెక్టివ్ హెల్మెట్, చేతికి పాడెడ్ గ్లవ్లు, కాలికి ట్రయినింగ్ బూట్లు, వెరసి విశ్వనాథ సత్యన్నారాయణగారి వ్యాకరణబద్ధమయిన వాక్యాలలా ఉంది నా సైకిలు తొక్కే వేషధారణ. విద్యుత్తు వాడకం తగ్గించే ప్రణాళికలో భాగంగా కిరణ్ కుమార్ రెడ్డిగారికి సహాయపడుతూ వీధి దీపాలు అంతకు కొన్ని నిముషాలకు ముందే ఆరిపోయాయి. నా సైకిలుకి ఉన్న ఎల్ఈడీ లైట్లు, దారిన పోయే వాహనాల హెడ్లైట్లు తప్ప రోడ్డు అంతా చీకటిగా ఉంది. అలాంటి సమయంలో ఒకానొక విషయం వల్ల రోడ్డు పక్కన ఆగి ఎవరితోనో మాట్లాడుతుండగా ఒక ఆటోవాలా నా పక్కన ఆగాడు. నాతో “వాడ్డూయూ వాంట్” అంటూ ఇంగ్లీషులో సంభాషించే ప్రయత్నం మొదలెట్టాడు. ఒక రెండు మూడు వాక్యాల ఇంగ్లీషు సంభాషణా ప్రయత్నం తరువాత నాకు అర్ధమయిందేమిటంటే వాడు నేను తెలుగువాడిని కాదని అనుకుంటున్నాడు. సైకిలు తొక్కుతూ హెల్మెట్ వగైరాలు పెట్టుకునేవాడు తెలుగోడు (కొండొకచో భారతీయుడు) అయి ఉండడని వాడి గట్టి నమ్మకం అయి ఉంటుంది. ఆ తరువాత వాడితో తెలుగులో మాట్లాడడం మొదలెట్టాను. అప్పటికి కూడా వాడు నావంక అపనమ్మకంతో చూడడం మానలేదు. ఆఖరుకు వాడితో హైద్రాబాదీ హిందీలో మాట్లాడిన తరువాత నేను తెలుగోడిననే నమ్మకం వాడికి కలిగి వాడి దారిన వాడు వెళ్ళిపోయాడు.
Apr 03 2013
Took the pictures from my previous post and checked a few things with gimp. First time play with the levels tool in gimp. Tried to make the colors more striking and here are the results from a few minutes of play with gimp.
First time use of color manipulation tools of gimp…
Apr 02 2013
Its time to tempt with pictures of a chocolate box.
Shot this Ghirardelli cable car box with two different focus points. In both cases, used 5.6 FNumber and 3/10ths of a second of shutter speed. The Focal Length is 72 on the lens and didn’t use flash. Used the light coming out of a wall mounted fluorescent tube.
BTW, the surprising fact is that the box is not opened even after about two weeks.
Mar 24 2013
Today I attended my first meetup of Twin Cities Photography Club (TCPC). Very valuable suggestions from Deepak and Rajeev on using a DSLR camera. What I focused primarily during the meetup is to experiment with Aperture and Shutter speed. Here are some experiments from the day.
Shutter speed at 1/30, F-Number 14 got me this picture:
The same scene, with shutter speed 1/20 and F-number 8 got me this:
Here is a branch and flower, with shutter speed 1/125 and F-number 13:
The same scene, with shutter speed 1/125 and F-number 16:
The same scene, with shutter speed 1/125 and F-number 20:
Here is a tree stem, with shutter speed 1/20 and F-number 16:
Same scene, with shutter speed 1/20 and F-number 10:
Same scene, with shutter speed 1/20 and F-number 8:
Here are a couple of random pics depicting water from a hose:
Shutter speed 1/800, F-number 5.6:
Shutter speed 1/640, F-number 5.6:
Overall, its a Sunday morning well-spent!
Mar 11 2013
Last month was a pleasant milestone for one of the servers I manage – the server is up for more than 1000 days and actively serving public DNS queries.
$ uptime 19:52:37 up 1013 days, 2:44, 2 users, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00 $
The configurations on the device change on a weekly basis, the server serves a few thousand queries every hour. The queries served cover few tens of domains and reverse pointers for large IP blocks.
Given the amount of activity and the dynamism involved, this uptime shows the stability and resilience of the bind program and the underlying Ubuntu linux.
Despite being fully satisfied with bind, the latest one I am getting fascinated by is tiny-dns. Key take-aways from tiny-dns include ability to cache queries and being able to serve PTR/A records off the same configuration lines. Segmenting the responses based on originating (source) IP block is also quite simple in tiny-dns.
Hope to bring up a few production systems in tiny-dns to ensure that we have a choice.
Feb 10 2013
I am not a big fan of watching TV series, except for random watching of shows like AFV or special interest shows like National Geographic. However, when Netflix announced House Of Cards (here), I got a little more curious than usual. Part of the reason is the presence of Kevin Spacey, the actor who left a very strong impression on me when I watched the The Usual Suspects (1995). After watching the first 3.5 minutes of the first episode and liking the next 1 minute of the titles, I am completely sold.
The storyline is very focused; never intends to be a “feel good” one, but tries to give a vivid description of the dark side of politics and its ecosystem (like political journalism). The characters go darker as their inner selves and motives are exposed, yet maintain the political correctness in formal situations. Its an amazing script, from that point of view.
The cast played their roles to the perfection. Kevin Spacey needs no special mention. Whenever he looks into the camera and annotates on the situation and his ruthless next move, he is at his best. Robin Wright is very impressive, especially in situations where the character demands stubbornness. Corey Stoll is surprisingly effective, Michael Kelly plays shroud with ease and Kate Mara plays her complex character with ease. I love the background score and the title sequence – never fast forwarded the title sequence while watching these thirteen episodes.
Friday night happened to be the perfect time to complete the series. Looking back, I couldn’t believe that I completed the entire series in less than one week, given my really hectic work schedules. Credit goes to the gripping series and captivating cast. Waiting for the second series – they left that bait for me!
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