All posts by Ruturaj Vartak

Biking

Guhagar, Velneshwar Bike Ride

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Guhagar and Velneshwar was “pending” since our last Malvan-Goa Bike ride. Many events had passed by which halted our progress towards it. But finally on 27th Apr 2012 was engraved for the start of the tour.

I messaged Manas @4.30 just to check if he is awake, and he called back, “जलदी निकल सकते हैं क्या ?” And we pre-poned our start-time to 0500 hrs instead of 0530. Ride to Guhagar was kind of disappointing with Kashedi Ghat “closed” for construction. 3 days of maintenance work. It had to align with our riding date !!? We took a big de-tour through unknown roads and relatively bad roads if compared to the winding corners of Kashedi ghat


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After being back on NH17, we were quick to reach Velneshwar via Chiplun-naka – Modka Agar – Velneshwar by about 1215. The road from Modka Agar to Velneshwar was horrible to say the least, 18km of ride out of which 15km was under construction with pebbles, gravel, tar – but no road and the rest with pot-hole laden hell.

Velneshwar beach, however was a paradise, similar to Ganpatipule’s decent from the top of the hill, for Velneshwar, we start climbing another of “n” hills after Palshet village, and then come down to Velneshwar. It has just about 2kms of beach, but it was breezy and reminded us straight of Agonda beach in Goa.

The next day we spent our time roaming north of Velneshwar, Gopalgadh, Dabhol power project, Guhagar beach. Due to our lazy-planning we had to cover the 18km worth of hell-road times! we could’ve checked out of Velneshwer the 2nd morning, and then stayed somewhere in Guhagar.

On our return trip, we didn’t want “no-Kashedi” experience, but also wanted turning, climbing, descending roads. Manas suggested we take a huge de-tour to Mumbai via Satara! Which would then cover the awesome Kumbharli ghat.

Our final bike route looking something like this –


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Photos

Welneshwar Guhaghar Bike Ride Apr 2012

Things to see and visit

We both were not of the religious type, but we did visit the Velneshwar temple in the night where there wasn’t a single soul, tranquil hear the crickets, the westerly cool breeze coming from the sea and us

  • Baman ghal (must see), a narrow gorge in the rocks through which the sea has cut a section almost 15feet deep and a 3 feet wide
  • Gopalgad
  • Guhagar beach
  • .. and try taking a de-tour through Koynanagar, and visit the Kumbharli ghat !

Baman Ghal

Uncategorized

Web beacons with node.js

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Node.js is also used as an extremely efficient Webserver, so why not leverage the efficiency for a typical adserving web-beacon logging.

The node service has to do the following

  • Data Logging
  • Serving a 1×1 pixel image

Data Logging

Select through a list of available connection providers available for node.js through npm

Image Serving

Here you have 2 options, either read a file and output the buffer like below

...
var img = fs.readFileSync('./log.gif');
res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'image/gif' });
res.end(img, 'binary');
...

or you can read the content of the small file into a buffer, convert to a hexadecimal string, and save hexadecimal string as a javascript variable, and then at runtime convert the hex to a buffer and flush out the buffer as image/[type].

This shall greatly help remove all the file IO while serving the images.

to read the image as a buffer,

fs = require('fs');
imgBuffer = fs.readFileSync('1x1.gif');

// Convert the buffer to hex
imgHex = imgBuffer.toString('hex');

Following sample code can then be added to the beacon script

//The hex string can now be directly added to the beacon script, simply as ..
var imgHex = '47494638396101000100800000dbdfef00000021f90401000000002c00000000010001000002024401003b';

// Then at runtime convert the hex back to a buffer
imgBuffer = new Buffer(imgHex, 'hex');

// This buffer can directly sent on the HTTP response stream
response.end(imgBuffer, 'binary');

The following gist is a complete integration for serving with the HTTP Server

References

Web, Linux

git merge specific files from another branch or revision

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You have a perfect git branch model, neatly dividing code between the release and the development or trunk branch. Now suddenly you realise that you need to use the file from the other branch. But you can’t merge the branch for that sake !! WTF !

git checkout !! help !

  1. Make sure the file that you want to pull is clean (ie. that file shouldn’t be shown as modified in git status)
  2. $ git checkout <other-branch-name>/<commit-hash> -- path/to/the/file

You can now checkout the branch’s HEAD or that hash’s state of the file into your current working directory. You can now play with your file, add, commit. Done !

Biking

Tringalwadi Dam Bike Ride

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After a long wait post Lavasa Bike Ride, another was due. I remembered my old trek of Tringalwadi where we had a soulfull swim in the Tringalwadi dam. The date was set, 25 Feb 2012.

We had a cold water swim on a super-hot sunny day in the Tringalwadi dam. On our return back, had our lunch around 1.15pm @ the Greenland restaurant near Igatpuri on NH3. The timing was more to protect ourselves from the heat.

Next stop was the Bhatsa Reservoir, however being a “protected” dam, we couldn’t really enjoy its waters 🙁

Photos

Tringalwadi Dam Bike Ride

Travelling Directions


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Linux

Fedora (post EOL) Repositories for latest packages

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If you’re a Fedora fan, and curse its downside as opposed to Ubuntu where you can add Official PPAs. Here is what I’ve found.

Remi an official Fedora projects contributor does help older distros to work with latest packages by publishing the new ones. The site supports last 2 EOL Fedora releases.

Installation

Install Repo

Install the correct release, as for my Fedora-14, I installed remi-release-14.rpm

$ sudo rpm -ivh http://rpms.famillecollet.com/remi-release-14.rpm

Enable Repo

For some reason, the repository is disabled, Enable it by opening the file in VIM

[remi]
name=Les RPM de remi pour Fedora $releasever - $basearch
#baseurl=http://rpms.famillecollet.com/fedora/$releasever/remi/$basearch/
mirrorlist=http://rpms.famillecollet.com/fedora/$releasever/remi/mirror
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-remi
failovermethod=priority

I got Firefox 10x , Thunderbird 10x installed on my Fedora 14 (Laughlin) !

Biking

Tarkarli, Sindhudurg, Vijaydurg, Goa Bike Ride

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A 1600 k.m. journey in the southern Konkan region of Malvan. Laced with the beach trips of Tarkarli, Devbag. With snorkeling at the base of the Sindhudurg fort and then drying up the clothes in the peripheral tour of the fort itself.

Vijaydurg’s 80km trip from Tarkarli through the temples of Kunkeshwar adding more to the “Jai Maharashtra” soul. A visit to a local traditional house in Achara (20 km from Malvan) on the way back like garnishing on the tasty trip.

Goa’s beaches beckoning just 100 kms down south of Malvan. The fort trips continued with Chapora fort overlooking the Vagator beach. Calangute beach however disappointing with its overcrowded sands.

The south of Goa had more to offer with its Agonda fort or Cabo de Rama fort with lovely backdrop of hills’ cliff falling straight into the Arabian Sea. The Agonda beach with its tranquil sunny warmth and egg-laying turtle sands like an icing on the desert.

Travelling Directions

Mumbai to Malvan via NH 17, then to Goa using Coastal highway or Mahasagari Marg.

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Tour of Campo De Rama fort and Agonda beach in Canacona, Goa

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Photos

Sindhudurg, Goa, Dec 2011
Biking

Barvi Dam Bike Ride

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Sep 4, 2011
Barvi Dam! Took a right at Murbad (NH 222), enjoyed the overflow @ Barvi Dam, then moved along the water reservoir to get back to Murbad. Went on straight forward towards Shahpur (NH3). En-route took a de-tour to a Asnoli-Jamba Dam, which was just lovely quiet place, yet again overflowing.

The rains, the sun and the bad roads were not very greatful to my bike. Poor her, suffering from punctured muffler joint @ the engine.

Travelling Directions

  1. Get on Mumbai-Agra (NH3)
  2. Take the first major right at Murbad

Route


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Photos