Pre-posterous

Recently, I came across posterous and found that be a good site to write about something in more than 140 characters. I guess for a lot of what I would like to write, especially random thoughts, observations and fun stuff, posterous looks easier to use - and much faster and simpler to post !

So, I am experimenting with posterous for a while - project "pre-posterous". Here is a link to my posterous site

No access / slow loading / timeout of Linkedin

I have been experiencing slow response (initially), and more recently, timeout while attempting to connect to Linkedin from home (Dell Inspiron 1420 running Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04, Firefox 3.1x or 3.5x, with D-Link 2640T ADSL/Wi-Fi combo modem/router. Apparently, there was no problem connecting with the office VPN, or through a proxy (e.g. www.tntproxy.com), but then Javascript is disabled with a proxy access --> I cannot update the profile or manage contacts.

I finally fixed the problem with the material discussed in:
http://marzoa.com/2009/03/08/d-link-dsl-g624t-and-linkedincom
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager/+bug/314713.

The ADSL default configuration for PPPoE is MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit) at 1400 and MRU (Maximum Receive Unit) at 1492. (I have Airtel 512 kbps DSL connection) Changing this to match the eth0 MTU default value of 1500 on the DSL modem did no good - apparently the modem cannot handle MTU = 1500. So, I tried the two steps to remove the iptables FORWARD and change the eth0 MTU:

(a) Delete the iptables rule as described from the router. I too had the offending line in position 1

iptables -D FORWARD 1

(b) Reset MTU on the machine (interface eth0 in my case)

sudo ifconfig eth0 MTU 1400

The MTU value is 1400 since TCPMSS is set to 1360 in the router. (Note: TCPMSS = 1400 - 40 = 1360)

Naturally, it is not a stable fix: I have to telnet to my modem, reset the iptables each time, but something is better than nothing... Next step: Try to upgrade router firmware and pray it does not screw things up any further ;-)

More fun with ffmpeg...

The standard ffmpeg installed with Ubuntu does not have libmp3lame for mp3 encoding. Paul Maunders describes how to install ffmpeg with libmp3lame support from the Medibuntu distribution. Now it is easy to rip mp3 off a flash video file in either of the following ways:

ffmpeg -i some.flv -acodec mp3 some.mp3
ffmpeg -i some.flv -vn -acodec copy some.mp3

Here is the output from my machine:

apillai@giraffe:~/Videos/$ ffmpeg -i some.flv -vn -acodec copy some.mp3
FFmpeg version SVN-rUNKNOWN, Copyright (c) 2000-2007 Fabrice Bellard, et al.
  configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-pp --enable-swscaler --enable-pthreads --enable-libvorbis --enable-libtheora --enable-libogg --enable-libgsm --enable-dc1394 --disable-debug --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libfaadbin --enable-libfaad --enable-libfaac --enable-xvid --enable-x264 --enable-liba52 --enable-amr_nb --enable-amr_wb --enable-shared --prefix=/usr
  libavutil version: 1d.49.3.0
  libavcodec version: 1d.51.38.0
  libavformat version: 1d.51.10.0
  built on Mar 17 2009 21:37:49, gcc: 4.2.4 (Ubuntu 4.2.4-1ubuntu3)
Seems stream 0 codec frame rate differs from container frame rate: 1000.00 (1000/1) -> 29.97 (30000/1001)
Input #0, flv, from 'some.flv':
  Duration: 00:04:43.9, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 64 kb/s
  Stream #0.0: Video: flv, yuv420p, 320x240, 29.97 fps(r)
  Stream #0.1: Audio: mp3, 22050 Hz, mono, 64 kb/s
Output #0, mp2, to 'some.mp3':
  Stream #0.0: Audio: mp3, 22050 Hz, mono, 64 kb/s    <=== mp3 stream
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0.1 -> #0.0
Press [q] to stop encoding
size=    2219kB time=284.0 bitrate=  64.0kbits/s  
video:0kB audio:2219kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.000000%
apillai@giraffe:~/Videos/$

Now we have a clean mp3 that can be played on your ipod! Tux Radar has a nice write up on ffmpeg tips and tricks.

Holy crap !

Here is an extract from a recent post by Uncle Bob in the ObjectMentor Blog:

"CRAP is a metric that is applied to each function in the system. The formula for CRAP is: CRAP = comp(f)2. X (1 – cov(f)/100)3. + comp(f), Where comp(f) = the cyclomatic complexity of the function f. and cov(f) = the unit test coverage of function f. So a function’s CRAP will be small iff the cyclomatic complexity is low and the test coverage is high. CRAP will be huge if cyclomatic complexity is high, and there is no coverage."

They even have a tool available for measuring this: crap4j ! Take a look at that sample report ! Holy crap ! What a change from the dry formality of percentage of dead code, fault density and so on... A follow-up post is here.

The twp (thin wallet program)

I started an active intent to reduce the size of my wallet around the New Year. My wallet was becoming a dumpyard of transaction slips, cash, coins a few credit / debit cards, assorted visiting cards and what not... After all, size zero is so much in vogue these days and I didn't see why I should not cut the wallet to size first.

So I sat down and looked at what is really essential and came to the following conclusion: At any point of time, a couple of cards, copy of my driving license and some petty cash is fine. Coins are useless - not even beggars accept them these days. Transaction slips can be shunted out every other week; visiting cards can be kept elsewhere.

I purchased a new thin wallet that can hardly accommodate these items (lest I fall prey to stuffing once again) and I have been happy since the last few months. Optimization at times is not so much of an evil...

Movie List

I have listed down a few interesting movies I have seen over the last few years. None of them are of the popular genre, nor are they too artistic to leave you with a sinking feeling of "what the hell was that" after the movie is over. UTV world movies has been airing a few of them - for the others you have to search other sources (Youtube ?). More of them, in a later post.

• A man without a past, Drifting clouds (Finland): Amazing movies from the Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki
• Darkness in Tallinn (Estonia) : Powerful play of darkness and light to depict the greed of the powerful and life of the ordinary
• Dead man (English) : Haunting... that is all I can say about the movie and the music by Jim Jarmusch. Johnny Depp at his best ?
  
• Junoon : A 1978 movie of Shyam Benegal, based on Flight of the Pigeons by Ruskin Bond.
• The Valet" (France), Swindled (Spain) : Light comedies interspersed with realism.
• My Girl (Thai) : You cannot but laugh nostalgically about childhood.
  
• Children of Heaven, The Circle (Iran): So realistic, so poetic, so powerful...
• Massacre in Rome (English) : Another war movie at the surface, but there is an eerie similarity with the functioning of a modern day corporate, especially in the politics and decision making around the preparation of execution list...
  

Free MBTI Online Analysis

There is a comprehensive, yet free online test for Myers-Brigg Type Indicator. For the curious ones, I tend to be somewhere in between an INTJ and INTP.

Samsung SCX 4300 on Ubuntu

I bought a Samsung SCX 4300 multifunction device a couple of weeks back. Getting it work with Ubuntu was a little tricky, but thanks to information from Volatile Yard, I got it working completely in a couple of hours. The experiences are listed in Ubuntu Launchpad and in Ubuntu Forums