Rene Schrieken

Virtual PC 2007 and Lenny

2010-01-06T20:16:00Z

Lenny is the latest Debian release. I did build a virtual machine on my Vista 64 bits pc starting with the net installer cd. It refused to boot but adding noapic nolapic and noreplace-paravirt to the boot command did the trick. Put the vhd on the usb drive, transported it through the harse winterweather to the office. Picked a PC from the storage. It had a fresh company approved domain joined Windows XP SP2 image on it. Offcourse it was a 32 bits machine.

Installed VPC 2007 SP1, copied the VHD, created a new virtual machine, attached the vhd, booted and....

Kernel Panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill the idle task!

...just after the bootimage started.

Retried... added vga=771...added vesa... wondered if 64 bits virtual hard drives are different....googled...found remarks about faulty memory (in a vpc?). Changed to my laptop, same issue. Downloaded a fresh iso from Debian, same issue. This is driving a man crazy. It used to work....

I finally googled the address of the instrcution pointer: EIP: [<c01012d0>] and that brought me by the bugs in the P2 processor with regard to the i387 or floating point processor. In the kernel documentation looked up the kernel-parameters and searched for any no.... regarding the fpu.

The first was no387. That did bring the boot further in the process but the Debian kernel didn't had the math emulation compiled in so that failed there

The next was nofxsr. Hurray, that worked! Debian Lenny is now working in my VPC on both Intel x64 cpu and good old Intel x32 cpu.

Lesson learned:

The cpu is not virtualized in VPC2007 (as opposed to the networkcard and video card)

Always Google for the EIP address in case of kernel panic.

Mike and Thomas

2009-12-02T21:15:00Z

I just returned from the theatre in Gouda where I watched the performance of Mike en Thomas.

These two comedians use music and slapstick in a way that makes it look easy but leaves you flabbergasted after all. How about a very jazzy song about how much Mike hates Jazz. Or the observations in the office. The guy from IT is mentioned twice and is not flattering.

If you're into comedy a must see. Mike and Thomas are a league on their own.

Travel Light Tip

2009-09-20T16:29:00Z

If you are an expierenced flyer you probably recognize this picture.

You are bound for home. Due to some regulations you have to appear two hours early to go through a routine that only takes 5 minutes. Before you had a chance to enter your flight you're bored to dead. Just after boarding you find out that your window seat is just beneath a family that takes at least two-and-half seat. Quick learners take an aisle seat. Be surprised how much people think they can squeeze in without having you to stand-up. I just want to go home, not being molested as an inflight entertainment.

After landing (why do people clap?) you're spit out in an airport hoping for a smooth transfer. Everybody has all the time of the world, we are on holiday remember? Except for me, my connecting flight will leave in 20 minutes and I have to find the gate. Sweat runs down your body as you enter the plane just in time. Now you only have to survive a couple of more hours, survivng new neighbours and inflight meals. You start to feel that the chairs are not comfortable, cramp in several muscles. Landing at your final destination is a blessing.

The survival run after touchdown is for the baggage reclaim hall. Waiting, peering, switching to different conveyer belts, keeping your eyes on luggage that has the same looks as yours. You jump forward across three lines of people, with an agonizing scream "MINE!" you rip your 20kg suitcase of the conveyer, swing it on a trolley, hitting at least one child and leave for the exit. The suitcase doesn't fit well in a overcrowded commuter train and on the platforms you drag your suitcase to the last spree which will bring you home, at last.

Got the picture? Now here is the tip for the part after landing on your final destination. Walk calmly to the baggage reclaim area. Proceed immediately to the lost-baggage desk. Report that your suitcase is missing. The ground-crew will fill-in a form with your address, phonenumber etc. They will appologize to you that your luggage got lost but they assure you that they will do their utmost to hunt down your luggage. You leave the airport and head for home. A day later you're called by a friendly lady who informs you that your suitcase is found and wants to know when it suits you for delivery at your frontdoor. I bet the two men handing over my suitcase would even be so pollite to bring it upstairs. Great service, no hassle, relaxed homecoming.

Sao Miguel - Architecture

2009-09-19T19:27:00Z

It is mandatory to pay attention to the specific architectural beautiness of your vacation destination. The Bradt guide did describe for every single town the churches/chapels and other historic buildings of interest.

You'll notice that although Sao Miguel is the green island this doesn't count for the color scheme used in their architecture significant buildings. I just photographed those churches in its different locations.

If their just down the road...

Or on the top of everything...

In the middle of town...

Or enormous...

They all served their primary goal, being a church, not a tourist attraction. And that makes them very special.

Sao Miguel - The Craters

2009-09-18T11:05:00Z

As you probably know the Azores are formed by volcanic activity. It gives the island its dramatic landscape with gentle slopes, steep cliffs, typical almost symetrical lakes, micro climate and stunning views. The best way to experience the crater landscape form my point of view is to hike in, over and aroind them. On Sao Miguel you can do right that in three different hikes, on three different days, the easy way, the long way and the hard way.

The easy way

The easiest way to endure the beauty of a crater is to walk round its inner base. Most craters on Sao Miquel have a lake (it is the greenest island and that is not because it never rains) and the furnas lake is just the right size. A nice pathway goes around the lake enabeling you to make good progress. As the walls of the creater are steep and high you get dramatic views where the clouds just tip over the ridge. I didn't test the water for its temperature but the boiling mud indicates that not all heat is coming from the sun.

The Long Way

The long way is not just a matter of going in the wrong direction or take the route public transport normally does. The long way is following the crater rim all around. On Sao Miguel this can be best done at the Site Cidades crater. Starting at Visto do Rei, with a stunning view inside the crater which is big enough to hold two lakes, some other craters and a small village, you simply follow the edge of the crater. On one side steep cliffs, on the other side the gently slope ending in the fast atlantic ocean.

The Hard Way

The hard way is just pure torture. You start at sea-level (ok, admitting I did start at 75 meter) and then climb up the crater out-side wall, reach it highest point at 581 meter and then descent to the lake inside the crater. The walk to Lagoa do Fogo is just that. I did choose a hot and sunny day so the levada came as a bonus. Dipping in the cap to cool the head was very welcome. Sitting at the lake side inside the crater it is great to see the clouds just tumbling over the top of the rim, start falling down but then evaporate in the process. Very relaxing and guaranteed with an empty mind you retrace your steps. It is worth it.

Sao Miguel

2009-09-17T18:30:00Z

Last week I spend my vacation on Sao Miguel, the largest island of the Azores. I needed the help of a colleague to persuade me to actually book the trip (thanks Jantine) and another colleague, Teresa, adviced me with respect to the destination.

Being a meticulous holiday planner I booked the flight, hotel, car and insurance 4 days in advance. As my flight was on monday I could still visit on saturday the bookshop Pied-a-Terre in Amsterdam to get the essentials for the trip and buy a printer so I could print-out my boarding pass and the route to the hotel. The rest I needed was time to read the german and english travel guides and hiking books. Fortunately flying time was 4 hours and a 4 hours stopover in Lisbon.

The Google Maps "directions" didn't quite bring me where the hotel was. It did bring me in one of the "rougher" neighbourhoods of Ponta Delgada although there is no reason for fear. Finding someone who speaks just enough english to give the correct directions was the hardest part. At that moment I even didn't managed to learn the portugese for "Thank You". Shame on me. The cab driver was helpful enough to try to explain with a lot of hand gestures where the hotel was. After driving around for over an hour I finally reached the lovely hotel. Later that week I was able to drive to the airport within 10 minutes. The exact location is here.

This was my view from my terace. Don't be fooled by the clouds. The clouds come and go. I enjoyed the sun and a good glass of wine.

CSV export

2009-09-06T20:12:00Z

I had to export a bunch of data in a CSV file. Turned out that at the receiving end the Perl script didn't want to eat my export. Luckily there is a standard for CSV files here and as strong Microsoft follower I adhere to the standards. Read up on RFC 4180 here.

To make life a little easier in getting all fields of my class String.Formatted the correct way I hammered down a CustomFormatter to format output according RFC4180. Your WriteLines can now look like this where the CsvFormatter takes care of adding double-quotes for the fields that matter:

<snip>
// boring code omitted
sww.WriteLine(
       String.Format(
                           new CsvFormatter(),
                           @"{0},{1},{2},{3},{4},{5},{6},{7},{8},{9},{10},{11},{12}",
                            topic.id,
                            topic.title,
                            topic.description,
                            topic.createdBy,
                            topic.createdOn,
                            topic.lastModifiedBy,
                            topic.lastModifiedOn,
                            postitem.id,
                            postitem.title,
                            postitem.content,
                            postitem.createdByUserName,
                            postitem.createdDate,
                            postitem.replyToId)
                            );

</snip>

The code for the CsvFormatter is here:

public class CsvFormatter:IFormatProvider, ICustomFormatter
    {
        #region IFormatProvider Members
       public object GetFormat(Type formatType)
        {
            if (formatType == typeof(ICustomFormatter))
            {
                return this;
            }
            else
            {
                return null;
            }
        }

#endregion

#region ICustomFormatter Members

        public string Format(string format, object arg, IFormatProvider formatProvider)
        {
            if (arg == null)
            {
                return "";
            }
            string result = "";
            if (format == null)
            {
                result = arg.ToString();
            }
            else
            {
                result = String.Format(format, arg); // this part is never tested...
            }
            char[] escapeChars = new char[] {'"','\n','\r', ',' };
            if (result.IndexOfAny(escapeChars) > -1)
            {
                result = result.Replace("\"", "\"\"");
                result = "\"" + result + "\"";
            }

            return result;
        }

#endregion
}

Obvious more ingenious ways are possible especially if you need more flexibility but this one did the trick for me (and Google didn't bring me a quick answer).

.Net Design for Performance

2008-10-27T18:42:00Z

The sunday of PDC is traditionally focussed around a few session that delve a little bit deeper into the subject than you would normally have on an normal PDC session. I attended (a little bit late I must admit but luckily Rob did text me) a session on Design for performance. Rob did sit thru the whole session and updated me quickly on what Rico Mariani told. Nice to see that some tools I already stumbled across in the last year or so (like vadump, clrprofiler) are getting more and more friends. One of them is xperf, or the Windows Performance Toolkit. It enables you to capture performance traces for your box. The whole range of tools for tracing and logging on the windows platform are still somewhat scattered and are not yet on the end-to-end monitoring that tools like AppSight (now from BMC) provide. However the Microsoft Teams are working on it and we will get solutions in the next year.

Another tool worth mentioning is MeasureIt. Nice to see Vance Morrison use his own tool to demo the different performance characteristics of single operations in the framework. He is really an performance architect to my heart. Working out which collection classes you should use (none), how a faster serailizer can be written and best of all find a performance bug in Activator.CreateInstance, a bug that is going to be solved.

Rob did log the most interesting links:

Measure Early and Often for Performance, part 1 & part 2

- What Every Dev Must Know About Multithreaded Apps

- CLR Profiler

- Visual Round Trip Analyzer (vrta.msi) link (still) broken…

- Vadump

- Pigs can fly

- Windows Performance Tools Kit

If you are into performance it is worth getting your hands on the deck...

Mount Hollywood

2008-10-27T13:48:00Z

This was about to happen. Naturally when you are in LA, in West Hollywood you have to visit Mount Hollywood (or Mount Lee if you're only for the sign in LA). But before I set off I had to pack my stuff and say goodbye to my B&B. It worked out like I hoped for, an laid-back approach, good room, great breakfast, good location for getting around in LA.

To start the walk (rather not call it a hike) I parked in griffith park and from there I headed for the observatory strangely enough named after the Park. The observatory is located on a nice hillside which is reachable just under 30 minutes. Over there you find out that you could also have taken the car to get in front of the observatory.

From the observatory to head for Mount Hollywood but before that take a 'I was here picture' from the hollywood sign because on top of Mount Hollywood the angle for viewing the sign is not well.

A very wide fire road leads you to the top of Mount Hollywood. That a fire road is needed becomes clear as you are actually walking across an area that has been recently hit by brush fire. There are no trees or other shady bits so make sure you are in enough supply of water and sunblock. After a 30 minutes uphill hike you reach the top where you are met with some nice overviews of the LA-bassin and thr surrounding mountains.

The reward is worth the effort.

Tnx LA for a lovely stay.

Mount Williamson

2008-10-25T14:53:00Z

With 8214 feet this days mountain will be the highest of my trip. Off course higher peaks are available (Mount Baldy being the highest) but I considered them either to far or to difficult yet to conquer. To get to the start point to need to drive the Angles Crest Highway to the parking lot at Islip saddle, just past two tunnels. Any further was not posible anyway.

From the car park the trail named Silver Moccasin leads you in a moderate ascent with steep drop offs through low bushes and white fir and jeffrey pines (got that from the hiking booklet). Quickly you are up to some beautifull views across the San Gabriel crest.

And this was only 2 miles in the trip. After the much needed water and sandwiches entered the system I was ready for the last stretch towards the summit and the steepest part of the hike. The pros for hiking at this altitude is the lower temperature which make you sweat less, the cons is the very much unpaved road. It needs some clever navigation to choose a path that is and doable and doesn't lead you to a dead-end (on a 200 feet cliff).

After reaching the top the views are much different when you look into easterly direction.

The mojave dessert lay at your feet. The contrast couldn't have been higher.

Take a break

2008-10-24T14:59:00Z

Today no thrilling new hikes. I did get out just to get some mileage but I had to adjust my plans just as I arrived at Trippet Ranch. The area was closed because of the high danger for bush fires. So I drove to Agoura hills to walk into the Cheeseboro canyon and take it easy.

You see: all joy. Or this explains why I'm not IT's next top model.

I already told you I drive around the Los Angeles County. The lonely planet warned for the driving habbits of the LA-inhabitants but it feels not much different than in the Netherlands. You just have to watch out for at least 3 cars, the one in the front, the one in the back and the one left of you. If they don't start touching you or you don't start touching them you can continue. The only difference between here in LA and at home the cars interchange every second. Just to monitor three cars assumes you drive on the far right of the road. And that causes a bit of an issue. Because most of the time you're screwed in the right lane. Either the lane changes in a 'right lane must turn' strip in the most unexpected moments (I have a GPS in the car, it recalculates new routes very often), a parked car comes into sight or you're sandwiched between traffic leaving and entering the highway/freeway/interstate. A better choice is to keep as far left as possible (but still keep the right part of the road, you're not in Great Britain). The problem then is speeding. All cars are by definition driving to fast. And I'm not saying that I never drive too fast but I really don't want to be booked here. So I most of the time end-up somewhere in the middle of the road having to keep track of all traffic around me.

This in the VW rabbit (2.5 litres: that is far more that I have in the Netherlands in my Renault Megane, but I also had to re-fuel on tuesday, which is also far more often than in the Netherlands). Not sure about those environmental aware californians. On the other hand: they still have some things to improve their CO2 bookmark.

(picture taken at the car park at the Josphine Saddle Trail head)

Sandstone Peak

2008-10-23T14:58:00Z

Having been in cayons for the lats few days I decided it was time for some serious work. The Sandstone Peak Loop of 6 miles and an elevation of 1300 feet seemed a good choice. Sandstone Peak is the highest mountain within the Santa Monica Mountains. The peak is located in the middle of what's called Circle X Ranch. It is an hour ride from Hollywood and the last miles of Yerba Buena Road winds itselfs around rough rock formations and beatifull views to the Mishe Mokwa Trail head.

After a mile into the walk the balanced rock comes into view. It is not hard to recognize and it doesn't need a lot of imagination to understand why it is named that way.

The lunch stop was at split rock. From this point onwards no more shady bits, just open wilderness. The factor 30 sunmilk is used a lot. The hike continuous to reach Backbone trail just below a few giant watertanks. From there I reached the first goal of this days hike: Inspiration Point.

This point is just on 2800 feet elevation.

The last stretch brings me to the small path that heads up to Sandstone peak and brings me to the highest point in the hike, 3111 feet. The last few feet require some mountaineering but the views are more than worth it.

I'm not sure if you can read the plaquette but it states 'Mt. Allen'. The fact is that it is also Sandstone Peak. Names doesn't tell it all though. This rock is not from Sandstone, it is some volcanic rock, very, very hard. Looking around gives you views on the ocean, the LA bassin (smoggy) and the San Gabriel Mountains. When the body and mind is focussed again for finishing this hike I head downhill to reach the car on the exact spot I left it.

Encountered species:
Grey Squirels: 1
Rabbits: 1
Lizards: lost count
Birds: yes
Humans: 2

Sturtevant Falls

2008-10-22T14:42:00Z

This day I opted for a moderate walk 4 and a half hours hike in a historic canyon and to a free-leaping watefall. The hike started with a 0.7 miles steep descent. This is always a great moment to realize that at the end of your day of have to walk uphill again.

Down in the canyon I was welcomed by the sign 'Bear Country'. I thought there was already enough danger out there but no, the califonians just added bears. Making a lot of noise should scare them away. Strangly enough the rules of the Angeles Forest prohibit making noise. I wonder if they will ever find out why so many hikers get killed by bears.

The great thing about canyon walks is that they block the sun hence the tempertures are more convenient. On the downside you are always faced with a climb to reach the end and top of the canyon. But thas was for later, first find a real waterfall.

On the way to the fall I encountred my first snake. Tecnically speaking the snake encoutered me and decided to slide away into the fallen leaves, which give him away. He didn't rattle so it wasn't a rattle snake. Near the waterfall I was warned by an fellow hiker that a snake was passing the path. It was a king snake, one of the not poissionous species but neither of us wanted to verify that.

A few miles in the hike the free falling waterfall appeared. The lack of water is also influencing this waterfall but at least for this one its intentions are clear.

From this point onwards the hike went uphill for 3 miles and I can tell you I was quite pleased to find that I reached spruce grove which marked the start of the return leg of my walk. Still a modest climb was needed to 3500 feet near mount Zion. By this time the battery of my camera was empty so no evidence. The last few miles just brought me back to my startpoint where I still had to face the 0.7 miles uphill.

Score for today:
Bears: 0
Mountain Lions:0
Rattle Snakes: 0
Snakes (non possiones): 2
Possiones Oak: yes

Colby Canyon and Josphine Saddle

2008-10-21T15:29:00Z

This days hike went to the Angeles National Forest. You need a permit for parking the car so I first drove to the Los Angeles River Ranger District office to buy the permits. On my way I drove through area that was hit by the recent forest fire. It looks like a moon landscape. You realize that the warnings for the use of open fire are to be taken very serious.

In the Angeles National Forest I drove up the Angeles Crest Highway past Clear Creek junction in the hart of the San Gabriel Mountains. There the Colby Canyon trail starts. I must admit that the trail gives you the oppertunity to either climb Josephine Peak or Strawberry Peak but in the ascent to Josepehine Saddle I realized that the last few months the extra hours on the project didn't helped the stamina. I had two options: go on in a terrible slow pace and return to the car far after sunset or just enjoy the views at the Saddle and then return. The latter was the obvious choice.

To give an impression of the Colby Canyon:

No rattlesnakes yet but the fast amount of lizards can't be missed:

Latency and Througput

2008-10-20T15:02:00Z

Yesterday I drove with my rented VW Rabbit to the visitor centre of the Santa Monica Mountains in Thousands Oaks. The lady at the desk provided me with the maps for the different areas and the well ment advice: be aware of the mountain lion. She didn't mentioned the Poison Oak and the rattle snake though.

I picked 'the waterfall' as my destination. Water is a problem in California so I shouldn't expect much 'fall' more 'drizzle', explained the desk lady. I took the car (somehow the visitor centre is in the middle of town, far, far away from the actual parks) and arrived ten minutes later at the car park. The Rancho Sierra Vista/Satwiwa park was home for centuries for farming and ranching.

After a hike of 2 hours I finally got to the 'waterfall'. Calling it a drizzle is offensive to drizzle. I would like to stick with 'drip'. The water dripped form basin to the other, several times.

And that reminded me immidiately of our latency (but maybe also througput) issues of our prodcution server located in a datacentre in Silicon Valley. We ran several tests from The Netherlands and India but always ended up with complaints on the performance. We claimed the fast atalantic ocean contributed to this and now I confirmed. From West Holywood the performance is great. It simply takes too long for the water to reach its goal: The bottom of the canyon, enabling the plants, wildlife and trees to flourish.