Tagged: Research

Forrest


Last 2 days I’ve been pretty active with [[http://forrest.apache.org | Apache Forrest]]. Primarily with the development and enhancement of the new theme mechanism (skins or views).

Just today I have updated my website with a completely redesigned theme using the new views mechanism. I also wrote the entire CSS from scratch, using the colors from the publicly available KDE, GNOME and Ubuntu color palettes. So far the feedback has been nice, and this theme might actually make its way to the default Forrest theme for the next version!

I’m still tweaking the theme so things might break unexpectedly. If you find something, do drop me a note!

On the academic front, I have read some more papers on virtualization and its kind of disappointing that a lot of the challenges had been very clearly identified and laid out almost 3 decades back, and the worst part is that we are **still** fighting those very same issues today. I have written up some more stuff that I have to go over with Amin tomorrow.

The house hunt for Palo Alto is coming along pathetically, I just have the worst luck ever. [sigh] :-(

Yearly PhD evaluation


I had my yearly PhD evaluation on Thursday. My first, so I was kind of nervous. Fortunately and unfortunately, Amin takes the evaluation seriously. Unfortunately because he focused mainly on my weaknesses (since he said strengths are goody goody anyways). Fortunately because I found the discussion very valuable, and he gave some very constructive comments. I mean Ragesh’s advisor just left his evaluation blank! Now what help is that to anyone?!

I just hope that I’m able to address some, if not all, of the issues that Amin pointed out that day. And next time, I’ll be prepared with some feedback of my own :-D This time I didn’t even know students were allowed to give feedback on their advisors :) The only awkward thing is that the whole thing has to be done face-to-face, with consent. So if I disagree with what he says, or he disagrees with what I say, then it can’t be put down.

You and Your Research

Amazing read!

Here’s my favorite quote so far (reinforcing somewhat my theory on greatness and happiness, but thats debatable)

You have to neglect things if you intend to get what you want done. There’s no question about this.

Apple’s new toys


Everyone’s raving about Apple’s new toys — the [[http://www.apple.com/ipodshuffle|Apple iPod-Flash]] and the [[http://www.apple.com/macmini/|Apple Mac-Mini]]. My reaction? Big deal.

The mini is probably a good idea — atleast now people can plug in their own monitors and keyboards and save up a lot on the crappy keyboards that Apple ships (the monitors are great, but still expensive IMHO).

The iPod shuffle is reasonably priced and stylish, but if I’m getting 20Gig upwards for 100-200 bucks more, why wouldn’t I got for it? Also, I don’t think its a good idea to tie the iPod flash so closely to the iTunes software… I mean, I should always be able to use it as a USB key right?

Work was slow today (read no new progress). Our machine room A/C crashed so a lot of my machines had to be taken down and so I’m stuck without any machines to run my stuff on. Besides, I don’t have any new leads on how to solve my current problem either. Its highly unlikely that we’ll have the requisite work done before the paper deadline, but still there’s no harm in trying.

I also spent some time thinking about designing my own wordpress theme. Played around with Inkscape and Scribus a bit. Also installed Drupal and playing around with it. I think there’s a niche for a personal website management system — which would combine a blog, a photo gallery and static content creation all rolled into one.