weary winds

rough voice loud voice
cool voice low voice
humble voice hidden voice
so many voice
voice voice
let you not be carried away
let your roots go deep in truth
so no weary winds
can blow you off
hey ho... hey ho...

To run a cookie based web session in httperf...

I was trying to mimic how a user interacts with a web application using httperf tool. I installed httperf in my linux machine using source code from here:
http://www.hpl.hp.com/research/linux/httperf/download.php
(The originators of this tool are D. Mosberger and T. Jin from hp few years back)

Httperf is a command line tool. You have to type httperf followed by the options.
Httperf has an option called --wsesslog to simulate session.
#httperf --server localhost --port 80 --wsesslog 1,1,sessionfile --print-reply > outfile

Now the web server sends the pages requested by URLs in the session file. When you use --print-reply option the the HTML header and body of each resulting page is written to outfile. Otherwise only the performance information of the web server and the network will appear as the output of the command.


A user is represented by the sequence of URLs separated by think time which is called as session. Each URL in the session can be appended with POST data.
The format of the sessionfile is something like this:
/simple/login.php method=POST contents="username=user&password=pass"

Most imprtantly, if you are to have URLs with POST data you must state the Content-Type header. I set content type to 'Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\n' and it worked for me.

Httperf currently allow an option called --add-header but that header holds equally for all the URLs in the session file. But for my task I needed diferent headers for different URLs in my session file. Fortunately I found a patch for getting this done:
http://www.overset.com/2008/03/27/load-test-ajax-applications-with-httperf/

After applying the patch I could use an additional attribute for the URLs in my sessionfile as follows:
/simple/login.php method=POST headers='Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\n' contents="username=user&password=pass"

Now its time to play with Cookies in httperf.... (think)
Of course by simply typing --session-cookie option with httperf command worked with a simple php site with just one cookie. But for me its to work with two cookies sent by server in two parts of the same header.

Will get back to this once I get some good news! :)

Satisfaction...

Job satisfaction is an achievement that not many people get in plenty. But the profession of teaching has made me feel that rare opportunity. Its such great feeling that keeps the fire of motivation when you see the attention, the feedback, the simple nod of a head from the students. You feel the importance of yourself being in that position.
I became a fan of the movie Freedom Writers which says such a motivational story. Hence hope to share. I feel like being a Ms. Erin Gruwell who can toast for change one day.

Watch 12 parts of it at youtube!

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=freedom+writers+part+1&search_type=&aq=0&oq=freedom+writers++-+par

A ship

There are so many ships but not as amazing as this ship
The ships can be built of diamonds and platinum
But this ship made of hearts is so delicate and smooth
A ship that rocks in harsh winds of life
A ship that lulls in calm water
A ship that saves when you are drawning
A ship that carry you when you are alone
It is a ship that evolves
Hey my friend
It is your friendship
The best ship I have ever travelled...

A secret

Last Monday there was an inspiring talk by Mr. Lal Chandranath, the Managing Director of DMS Electronics, Sri Lanka to a bunch of engineering students in the University of Moratuwa, who were newly entering to the stream of Computer Science and Engineering. I was quite impressed and inspired as well. He was so old with grey hair yet the audience could see at a glance the energetic and dynamic youth inside him when he talked.
The secret behind a successful engineer as he elaborated based on the famous book 'Secrets of success in 8 words' was simply the 8 words: Passion, Work, Persistence, Ideas, Focus, Practice, Serve, Push.
Passion is loving what we do. Work is to do things really hard. Persistance is never giving up. Focus in one thing. Have smart ideas popping up. Practice to be really good at something. Serve the world by adding value to what you do. Push, is simply push, push, push yourself, never let you down.
Is your job so passionate to you? do you work for money or work because of love of work? We must fall in love with the work just like we fall in love with a girl or a boy.
Don't you feel so bored when you keep away from work? Can you ever lie on a bed for hours doing nothing. Oops! just think of such a day you spent like that.
These 8 words together makes a value added person who ultimately leads him/herself to success.

I found this short clip of another talk on same line:
http://www.plijnaer.nl/weblog/2008/05/ted-secrets-of-success-in-8-words-3.html

The Narrow Escape!

I was watching the beautiful sky sitting in the veranda of a two storied apartment in a serene morning. The sky was blue, except for few wool-like whitish clouds.
In a little while a small aeroplane, coloured in white and red rose from the nearby air port like a bird. It took off into the blue sky. I kept watching so leisurely that I enjoyed the fly of this artificial bird into the blue.
That attractive scene didn't last long proving once again the undeniable truth that everything is uncertain. Do you know what happened to that aeroplane?
It hit against a huge cloud. Cloud was like a sponge and the aeroplane got thrown back. Oh! it was thrown towards me. The huge bird was just going to blast me into ashes. Luckily I got up from my weird sleep :)
Hey, does anyone of you know what this weird dream say?

World for his kid...

Today on my way home in the small passenger van, along the narrow road I saw a certain incident which captured my heart. The road though small was crowdy and full of small vehicles, three wheelers, motor bikes and pedestrians and so on and so forth.
Among the crowd a motor bike came towards my way, which was heavy with a big bundle at the back and a small kid stting in between father's lap. The car driving in front of this father's motor bike suddenly disposed a cloud of black smoke. This poor father, despite the concentration on balancing the heavy load, finding way through the crowd, despite the disturbed eye sight offered his hand to close his kid's nose, to protect him from inhaling that black smoke.
How many such fathers worry for seeing a world where their kids have at least a bit of pure air to inhale...