Last Shuttle Fly over NYC

I just witnessed last shuttle fly.

Dating in the Dark

On Monday April 23 I went to Dating in the Dark event that was organized by RAJE. The event took place at 6 m South Street Seaport (11 Fulton Street). It was interesting experience - "walking in the city in dark". I got feeling what is like to be blind. Our society should provide more respect and help to blind people. After the event we went to bar and had interesting conversation.

Boston vs. Capital (NHL playoff series 2012)

I used to watch hockey (World Cup, Olympic Games) but did not follow the sport for about 10 years. Last few years I was following Washington Capitals in playoffs. They have good team in last few years but experienced bad luck in playoffs.

This year the had not a very good season but played well in first round - eliminating current Stanley Cups holders (Boston Bruins).

Both team played great hockey and I enjoyed every game of the series.

Go Capitals!

Udacity CS101

I just received first Udacity certificate with high distinction (Building Search Engine).

Drupal Services module

Lunch & Learn

I just have 1 hour Lunch & Learn presentation at work. I talked about Python. The presentation went well.

Display and replace invisible characters in VIM

set list
setlocal display=uhex
tr -d '\000' < file_in.py > file_out.py

Install Screen on RHEL 5.5

1. Download RPM from
  http://www.rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/search.php?query=screen
2. wget ftp://195.220.108.108/linux/centos/5.8/os/x86_64/CentOS/screen-4.0.3-4.el5.x86_64.rpm
3. rpm -ivh screen-4.0.3-4.el5.x86_64.rpm

Screen Tutorial

Upgrade to Python 2.5.6 on RHEL 5.5

Here are upgrade instructions for Python 2.4 to Python 2.5.6:
1. http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.5.6/Python-2.5.6.tgz
2. tar xzf Python-2.5.6.tgz
3. cd Python-2.5
4. ./configure
5. $ make
6. sudo make altinstall
7. sudo mv /usr/bin/python /usr/bin/python_old_2.4
8. sudo ln -s  /usr/local/bin/python2.5 /usr/bin/python

Validate:
# python -V
Python 2.5.6

Change password on Drupal 7

drush upwd myname --password=new_password

InnoDB Performance Tuning

InnoDB becomes the default storage starting from MySQL 5.5. InnoDB is a transaction, ACID complaint MySQL storage engine (including commit, rollback and crash recovery capabilities, and offers row level locking.

I worked on data migration of millions records from Vignette VCM to Drupal 6. Drupal migrate module is not stable and does not perform well on large data sets. So I rewrote migration using raw SQL queries and modify my.cnf settings. Here some useful settings:

innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit=1 
Set to 1 if database transaction is more important than performance. Set to 2 if performance is more important than transaction.

innodb_log_file_size=1024M 
Set the log file size to about 25% of the buffer pool size.

innodb_file_per_table 
Increase performance in optimize, backup, restore, compress and truncating a table

innodb_buffer_pool_size=4G 
Default is 128M. 70-80% of memory for dedicated 64bit MySQL server.

Disable AUTOCOMMIT
When you need to INSERT lots of data, first call SET AUTOCOMMIT = 0;then execute INSERT statements followung by a manual COMMIT;


Useful Links:
InnoDB Performance Tuning

Recommended my.cnf Settings for InnoDB

The Five W's of Life

Who - you are is what makes you special. Do not change for anyone
What - lies ahead will always be a mystery. Do not be afraid to explore
When - life pushes you over, you push back harder
Where - there are choices to make, make the one you wont regret
Why - things happend will never be certain. Take it in stride and move forward