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2011 Resolutions
Jan 6th
I wanted to write a detailed post about how 2010 went, but it seems like my 2011 is already in full swing. 2010 was amazing and one of the best years in my career. Highlights include my best paper award and the GENI high profile demo. I also started running and lost about 5 kilos.
So, what’s in store for 2011?
- Focus. I worked on a lot of different things in 2010, but in 2011, I hope to focus on one specific project (yet to see the light of publication) and pool all my resources into it.
- Writing. I have a ton of back log on writing research publications and blogging. Hope to change that this year. Not sure, if I can get to blog more often. I really enjoy writing the HOWTOs (1, 2) that seem to get a lot of hits. Hope to do more of those.
- Running. I probably ran about 250-300 miles this year (started in May and skipped two months in between), which is ok, but not great. My goal in 2011 is to run at least 700 miles and hope to lose 5-10 kilos. Will try more difficult terrains like dish run.
That’s it! Happy New Year!
How to Build Custom Xen Kernel Based on CentOS/RHEL Xen Kernel
Oct 1st
The HOWTO on compiling CentOS kernel based on RHEL code base (currently 2.6.18) is overly complicated. Follow the following steps to build a custom Xen kernel, maybe with different kernel configuration.
- Setup the rpmbuild directory, and install prerequisite packages.
mkdir -p ~/rpmbuild/{BUILD,RPMS,SOURCES,SPECS,SRPMS} sudo yum -y install rpm-build redhat-rpm-config unifdef kernel-devel kernel-xen-devel - Grab the kernel source RPM, you want to modify and compile, and install it.
wget -c http://mirrors.kernel.org/centos/5/updates/SRPMS/kernel-`uname -r`.src.rpm rpm -i kernel-`uname -r`.src.rpm
- Create the spec file for the downloaded kernel
cd ~/rpmbuild/SPECS rpmbuild -bp --target=`uname -m` kernel-2.6.spec
- Modify the config to your needs. The config file are stored in
~/rpmbuild/SOURCES. - Modify the buildid. This is a good practice, if you are making extensive changes.
cd ~/rpmbuild/SPECS sed -ibak -e 's/#% define buildid/%define buildid .ppadala/' kernel-2.6.spec
- Build the kernel
cd ~/rpmbuild/SPECS sudo rpmbuild -bb --with xenonly --without debug --without debuginfo --target=`uname -m` kernel-2.6.spec
- This will generate a RPM that you can install on other machines as well.
WordPress Hello World!
Jan 17th
Just imported the blog to WordPress. Don’t like any of the themes, will be working on styling the blog and integrate with main site as well.
The best software I have ever used …
Apr 13th
The award goes to Turbo Tax! Once again I am amazed at how great the interface has been designed. Worth every penny!
P.S. Yep, I am done with my taxes, 
(HP + Yahoo + Intel)Labs = Cloud Computing Testbed !
Jul 29th
We (people@HP labs) have known about this for some time, but are told to strictly keep it a secret. HP, Yahoo and Intel research divisions are working together on a huge cloud computing testbed that can be used by researchers in academics and else where. You can read the corporate blurb here.
This has a lot of interesting implications for the business divisions of all three companies. However, I feel that this is a cool thing for research folks. It has always been difficult to do research in data center management in universities, as we don’t have the infrastructure similar to what Google or Amazon has. This initiative goes beyond Planet Lab, EC2, and Emulab, where you are using the resources, rather than researching the management of resources. Once you gain access (hopefully I will soon ), you will be given complete control over the physical machines rather than the containers/virtual machines that you get in Planet Lab and Co.
Cuil: A Google Competitor
Jul 28th
A new search engine called Cuil (formerly Cuill, they dropped one ‘l’) launched this weekend. They claim to have built the largest index with a fraction of Google’s cost. My initial simple testing shows me that they still have to improve quite a bit in relevancy. A search for ‘Pradeep Padala’ doesn’t even turn up my home page, and an image of some one else is shown along with my publications. Ouch! The blogosphere people are already testing it out. See some test results on TechCrunch and Search Engine land.
I got interested because of their claim that they can handle this massive data analysis with commodity machines and by spending only a fraction of what it cost to Google. I met with some of the folks working there a month ago, and despite my prodding, they didn’t reveal much about how exactly they built the system. Fair enough.
It will be exciting to see a good search engine that can compare to Google. We are so accustomed to taking Google results as the “search truth”, that we need some one to show us the “real web”.
A Defining Moment in History of America
Jun 3rd
For a country of immigrants, it took more than 200 years after independence to have the first black candidate for president. Yes, we can!
Glass paintings and Cross stitch work from Vinaya
Apr 5th
For those in Hyderabad, must see art work from Vianaya.
Venue: Saptaparni at Banjara Hills road No:8, Hyderabad.
Date: 5th and 6th April.
The awesome Office 2007
Apr 2nd
Whoa! I seem to be falling in love with (the evil empire) Microsoft’s products. I recently upgraded to Office 2K7 after Rama’s suggestion. I was a bit skeptical as I never was a big fan of Office products, but maan, this product is really awesome. Yes, even compared to Latex. Creating styles, citations, references, table of contents, every thing that’s a bit difficult to do in a WYSIWYG editor has been made very easy. The equation editor has been re-vamped quite a bit, and it’s the best of both (Latex, WYSIWYG) worlds. I can type x_1^2 + x_2^2 = y_1^2 and the editor typesets the subscripts and superscripts correctly. I don’t have to do any twiddling with mouse. I have also fallen in love with Visio, Powerpoint and Excel. The graphs that are created in Excel are looking very professional.
I think some people didn’t like the suite, because of the contextual menu thingy. I think we got too accustomed to the old school, but once you start familiarizing yourself with the menus, it’s actually much easier to use.
Overall, Word is coming very close to getting the best of WYSIWYG and Latex worlds. It saves so much time when you can write the document and typeset it without much effort. All the other tools have been revamped to create more polished, stylish and professional looking documents. I haven’t used OpenOffice in a while, but I can’t imagine creating such glossy documents, drawings and presentations with any open source tool yet.