Drive to Wayanad

It has long been on our mind to visit Wayanad and finally, we managed to make it this December. I always enjoy driving in and around the forest zone that comes after Mysore and Gundalpet. We left Bangalore around 6 AM and visited Edakkal Caves near Sultan Bathery on the way to the resort Wynberg.in located between Sultan Bathery and Kalpetta. Edakkal Caves fulfilled our enthusiasm for trekking. It was great fun to walk along with Eesha besides the constant negotiation to make her walk :-) If you are travelling with kids who wouldn't walk, you better prepare your mind to carry those extra few kilos up.
Later in the evening, we reached the resort - 100 acre coffee & spice plantation - that is apparently owned and manged by some wildlife photographer. This was the first time we visited this place and there was some apprehension about the quality of the accommodation and luckily, it was a very pleasant stay overall. After driving 280KMs and some hiking, we were totally tired and looked forward to some food and warm blankets. Next day morning, we walked around the nearby fields and motivated Eesha for some 100 metres sprint...It was a good break from pollution and noise...We enjoyed the fresh air and surrounding greenery.
As per the recommendation of our host, we drove out to Bansuri Dam and Pookootu lake. Frankly speaking, the driving around the hair pin bends and observing the local culture were more enjoyable than the dam and that lake. The boating at the lake was not very well organized. The attraction for the kids is perhaps the play area with slide,swing and merry go round etc..While Eesha played around with some new found friends, I just sat on a concrete wall without wanting to think much. When we returned to resort, I realized that it was about 100KM overall..it could have been 15-20KM less if Rekha had navigated us right...stupid GPS :-)...Though it was tiring at the end of the day, driving around the hilly terrain gives some pleasure and thrill...

Trip to Wayanad

Commuting to office by BMTC Volvo

Since I started dropping Eesha to school in the morning, I have started using BMTC Volvo bus to commute further to office (Manyata Tech Park @ Nagawara Jn,Hebbal). I'm happy and relieved!!
Actually, Manyata Embassy Business Park (MEBP) has tied up with BMTC to ply Volvo buses from Manyata campus to various routes within Bangalore and these buses covers pretty much all prominent localities. This is valid for 'all' employees working in Manyata irrespective of which company they work for. This is effective since 01-Jul-2013. To me, I have to say this couldn't have come at a more appropriate time. Since I opted out of the company transport facilities, I have been struggling to commute between office and home.
I really appreciate the efforts taken by Manyata Embassy Service Planning Limited in bringing Volvo to everyone and of course, many thanks to BMTC for running buses covering every areas.

The monthly pass is Rs.3600 and one can buy this from MEBP information center by paying cash. Additionally, this entitles the pass holder to utilize this pass for commuting in all BMTC buses (except BIAL shuttle) throughout the month. Only caveat - we need to get BMTC ID card that is available at BMTC counters @ KBS/Majestic.

I wish they continue this in the long term and more employees opt for this service instead of using their own four wheeler.

mens sana in corpore sano

Eesha started going to the new school Auro Mirra International School @ Ulsoor,Bangalore since 03rd June 2013. Once again, there was a PEP (Parents Enrichment Program) session on 01st June Saturday which I and Rekha attended. This event was to introduce us to what is going to come..kids' education journey and the role of parents alike...I'm happy that school management takes the concept of integral education with total commitment and walks the talks through their action and behavior.
During the event, the one of the key question to parents was the expectation on school.
There were many interesting answers from different parents and we were just thinking deep and deeper...Finally, it came to my mind that it doesn't matter whether Eesha becomes a doctor or lawyer or journalist or artist etc ...but we certainly want her to have a sound mind in a sound body and nothing can be more worthwhile to pray for..So, our expectation on the school is that the school emphasizes this principle in developing the qualities in every child...

It has been just about two weeks since beginning, Eesha is certainly enjoying her school...

Visited Wonder La

Last week on 1st May holiday, went to Wonder la (@ Bangalore) and as usual Eesha was totally thrilled... We reached around 10:30 in the morning only to witness some good number of people already waiting at the ticket counters...It took us about 30-40 minutes to get our tickets and we were inside the amusement park in the next minute..
The huge crowd at the venue made us think probably we visited on the wrong day.It was too late to repent and the greediness to experience all the rides pulled our mind back. Attended to usual errands..rented one medium locker,dumped the belongings and returned with a venue map...

Most of the rides required minimum height of 140 cm and Eesha is just close to 90 cm ;-) Eesha was not allowed on the Flying Jumbo and we didn't take her to Moon walker..though she took this ride last time..Overall, she took about 10 different rides...Her most favorite is that giant wheel that even we haven't been...

We mustered courage to ride on Insanity and Y Scream and enjoyed the thrill of being thrown upside down. It really feels insane to realize that your life hinges on the normal functioning of one mechanical equipment operated electronically. There are few more rides that throws you around even worse. Once you make up your mind to trust the machines and sit on the ride, it is a matter of 60-90 seconds that you scream and voila, you can claim I'm not scared...Actually, I felt the fear is more due to not experiencing the ride than facing the risk in the riding itself...fear of not confronting ;-) Truth is it was quite safer with those clamps clutching your body and there was not much of a feeling of free fall anytime. It reminds me of that Vertical Velocity that I took at Six Flags (California,US)...that was scary, perhaps the clutch was bit loose (or we indians are too thin) ;-)

Recently, I have been seeing Ad about the Wonder la on National Television. Seems like company is planning to go public.
So far I have good opinion on the overall experience at Wonder la..Well managed and well trained staff. However, they need to ensure that the wait time is not too long..if you have to wait for 30 minutes or more for a 90 seconds ride, it can be frustrating..OK they have this premium Fast Track entry that entitles you to walk-in but the ticket costs twice ;-(

Overall we had good time and it was a good way to spend the day especially with kids...I wish they continue to maintain the quality and safety standards and I'm sure people will continue to flock.

Check out some photos and videos

Wonder la @ BLR

Linux - Some useful applications of sed and grep

1) sed - how to find and replace within a file

This is one of the basic application of sed

sed -i 's/find-pattern/replace-pattern/g' filename


2) sed - How to search between two patterns:

sed -n '/start-pattern/,/end-pattern/p' filename

This is useful when you want to limit your search to a region within a file

e.g Between two time points

sed -n '/01:44:39/,/02:41:44/p' abc.log


3) sed - how to prefix/suffic something to the start/end of every line

You know this well if you are exposed to regular expression (makes way for some most powerful text manipulations).

^ - Denotes beginning

$ - Denotes ending

e.g Comment out some lines in a config file

sed -i 's/^/#/g' filename

e.g Add some comments to every line at the end

sed -i 's/$/<your text>/g' filename

4) grep multiple strings

grep 'warning\|error\|critical' /var/log/messages

5) grep and display few lines above the matched pattern

grep -A  2 'warning\|error\|critical' /var/log/messages

6) grep and display few lines below the matched pattern

grep -B  2 'warning\|error\|critical' /var/log/messages

Drive to Coonoor

Last week, we drove to Coonoor via Mysore,Gundalpet,Mudumalai National Park and Mashinagudi...Stay at YWCA Coonoor was a very pleasant experience as this holiday home was located away from the Coonoor town overlooking the nearby valley...Certainly looks like more than a century old, this colonial bungalow had the charm that is hard to find in modern hotels loaded with luxuries...I particularly liked this place for the fact that they don't (pseudo?) pamper you much as done at other places but attend to your needs in a simple manner...Most importantly, the food was prepared as per the request and served at the ground floor common hall...

We got a room at the first floor...waking up in the morning upon the chirping sound of birds and sipping the hot coffee served at the room with the view of gracious Nilgiri mountain up and the expanding valley down were joy compared to our daily rut life at Bangalore.

Drove around Coonoor and visited Dolphin's nose and Lamb's rock..Eesha had a horse ride at Dolphin's nose. After visiting Sim's park, we heeded to the suggestion of one local street side toy vendor and visited High Field tea factory to buy some spices...While we bought some spices, I must say the Green tea was bit too expensive and luckily overcame that compulsive desire to buy...Little later, bought some decent tea at a wholesale store at Coonoor town and the price was like half compared to High Field factory shop...
It was getting dark when we got there at High Field tea factory and the valley view from the shop was really stunning..Seems like it was popular shooting destination and apparently, hindi movie Raja Hindustani was shot there ;-)

Before leaving Coonoor, visited Needle Craft, an boutique selling hand embroidered linen and cotton clothes,bed sheets,cushion covers etc Rekha bought 50 gms garam masala (Rs250...it better be good..chicken would cost less than this masala)...and one frock for Eesha...Overall, it was not quite compelling buy although we bought something because of our predisposition...Nevertheless, I must say that we witnessed ourselves in a British-built Victorian villa that was tucked inside such a gorgeous surrounding...Just google Erin Villa Coonoor for pictures...

Saturday morning, we checked out and started heading back to Bangalore...Stopped at Ooty for quick snack at Virtue Bakery and some carrots and broccoli on Charring Cross...The trip was over except for the drive back home...Vacation is always shorter than you wish ;-)

Check out some of the photos @ 

Trip to Coonoor Apr 2013

Condensed Wealth of Nations - Quick read

Recently, came across this...condensed version of "Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith"...I have been eager to read this book but the original volume is pretty huge and the language used by Smith is also not too trivial especially for a person like me who has no formal background in economic science..I downloaded this at once and was pleasantly surprised to find that the condensed version is around 75 pages ;-) written in modern English language.

It was a pretty good read as anticipated and gave me a gist of his views on trade,commerce and public policy...Considering the fact that Smith wrote this in eighteenth century and his words and wisdom constitute the basis for the economic science today, two centuries later, is truly ground breaking and make Smith one of the most influential original thinkers.

Reading about the concepts of money in terms of use value and exchange value were interesting...The key message here was that money is a just medium of exchange and by itself has no value. The true value of money lies in what it can buy...so true...Had a chance to understand the diamond-water value paradox better..When water is so important to survival and diamond is not, why is it that diamond has such enormous value compared to value of water...

Apparently, the author of this condensed version clarifies the reason why Smith concluded on some answers other than marginal utility theory...This is one of the other advantages of this condensed version that it outlines the original thoughts of Smith as it was written and explains them in modern language avoiding the chance for misinterpretation...Great initiative by the author...

This book is freely available at www.adamsmith.org/ 

Eesha - Annual Day @ Little Elly Nursery

Eesha had been practicing dance steps for Annul Day celebration for the last couple of weeks..the song is My heart goes sha la la la from Venga boys album...At the function yesterday, Eesha entered from back stage to the dance floor looking for both of us with tears in her eyes...Once reached the floor, she and her partner (I think his name is Kevin) were standing still with hand-in-hand raising my hope that she will start moving legs to the song...but in the next moment, Eesha bursted out into crying and ran towards her teacher...Dance performance of all the kids was pretty good..There was one kid from Eesha's nursery class who refused to leave the dance floor ;-)...It was a great sight to see her enthusiasm and total oblivion to the world around...

After cajoling Eesha to remain calm with multiple offers, we were leaving the function for lunch out and they started playing Gangnam style and to our pleasant surprise, Eesha came back to jubilant mood and made some moves ;-)

Shared some of the photos and video @ Nursery Annual Day @ Manipal County...

tar creation with option C and effect of globbing

There was a need to archive some logs for investigation...

Without much thought, I fire this command and there it was..bummer!!


[root@mysys rmlater]# tar -zcvf /var/tmp/test.tgz -C /root/myapp/log/ 
appProc.log.*
tar: appProc.log.*: Cannot stat: No such file or directory
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors

[root@mysys rmlater]# ll /root/myapp/log/appProc.log.*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 338928 Feb 22 10:47 /root/myapp/log/appProc.log.0
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 460000 Feb 20 22:40 /root/myapp/log/appProc.log.1
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 460000 Feb 18 21:39 /root/myapp/log/appProc.log.2
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 462685 Feb 16 20:38 /root/myapp/log/appProc.log.3
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 907643 Feb 14 20:29 /root/myapp/log/appProc.log.4

[root@mysys rmlater]# pwd
/var/tmp/rmlater

Solution 1:
tar -zcvf /var/tmp/test.tgz /root/myapp/log/appProc.log.*

Solution 2:
cd /root/myapp/log/; tar -zcvf /var/tmp/test.tgz appProc.log.*

Difference between Solution 1 and Solution 2:
1) The files are archived in package structure opt/cpf/oma/esymacstarter/. You will see the 

appProc.log.* under opt/cpf/oma/esymacstarter/ when you extract the test.tgz

2) The files are archived into test.tgz without any package structure

Now looking at the error:
tar: appProc.log.*: Cannot stat: No such file or directory

tar -C option => Instructs tar to change the working directory and perform archiving

Reason why it failed: Due to the wildcard pattern and how it is interpreted by shell
Shell expands the files into matching files as per the wild card pattern. This operation is 
called "globbing"...

When shell does globbing, it does so from the current working directory - It checks for 
files matching "appProc.log.*" in /var/tmp/rmlater

[root@mysys rmlater]# ll
total 0
-rw-r----- 1 root root 0 Feb 22 11:25 opt


No files matching appProc.log.* => Cannot stat: No such file or directory

Why use -C option then:

It comes handy when when you want to go to multiple directories and archive different files from them. Most importantly, when you want to put them into one tgz file!!

One use case I can think of is collecting logs for different SW modules from more than one 
folder. In case you want to explore tar options in detail, check out this excellent resource GNU tar manual

Visited Eesha's school

Last weekend on Saturday 16th Feb, we visited Eesha's (my daughter ;-) ) school to participate in the parent enrichment programme. It was a two hours session on the power of concentration and the numerous ways to help engage the child into developing this faculty. This was the second session that we attended and it gave me a glimpse of their approach towards education. I'm quite happy about the fact that Eesha will start her education journey at such school...More info about the session here

Linux: cpu information processor vs core vs socket

When you run /proc/cpuinfo on linux system, you get the cpu information of the hardware.

I try to explain how to interpret the cpu infomation in order to understand the number of physical processors and whether it is single or dual or quad core and whether hyperthreading is enabled.


processor:    Defines the number of processors on the system (logical)
physical id:   Number of CPU Sockets (physical) - Also referred as Chip - This is what is plugged onto mother board.
core id:        Identifies a particular logical core
cpu cores:    Number of cores (1-Single/2-Dual/4-Quad/8-Octa)
siblings:        Indicates whether hyper threading enabled. If "Number of cores" == siblings, then hyper threading is OFF ; else ON

For e.g look at the below sample:


[root@myhome ~]# cat /proc/cpuinfo | /bin/egrep 'processor|physical |core|sibl' | tr -d "\n" | sed s/processor/\\nprocessor/g | grep -v ^$ | sort -u
processor       : 0physical id  : 1siblings     : 8core id              : 0cpu cores    : 4
processor       : 1physical id  : 1siblings     : 8core id              : 2cpu cores    : 4
processor       : 2physical id  : 1siblings     : 8core id              : 1cpu cores    : 4
processor       : 3physical id  : 1siblings     : 8core id              : 3cpu cores    : 4
processor       : 4physical id  : 1siblings     : 8core id              : 0cpu cores    : 4
processor       : 5physical id  : 1siblings     : 8core id              : 2cpu cores    : 4
processor       : 6physical id  : 1siblings     : 8core id              : 1cpu cores    : 4
processor       : 7physical id  : 1siblings     : 8core id              : 3cpu cores    : 4

Physical id  => 1 => Single CPU Socket/Chip

Cpu cores   => 4 => Quad Core Processor

This system has 1 Physical CPU Socket - Quad Core Processor configured with hyper threading ON...