Gallery2

Well I am having lots of trouble with a simple gallery2 installation with 15 pictures for my wife's hobby pictures. While I am running a 1600 picture gallery on the same server with out any problem touch wood. The back on the main one not there.

And i am having wonderful tech support from dot5 hosting to say the least. The guy does not even know what is Unix he replies it is FreeBSD.

A quick a dirty way to get around. Let's name the site as www.mysite.com Here the user name for your web server is not same as your account. So when you create a file ftp you see the owner/group as "joe/joe" and when web server creates it it is "web/web".

Connect via ftp create a gallery2 directory ; chmod 777 the same on the Top most Document root.
put this file in the same directory "gallery-2.0-full.tar.gz" make sure binary more
also FTP this php file foobar.php with these lines in it

<?
system ("tar -zxvf gallery-2.0-full.tar.gz") ;
?>

Now connect to this foobar.php via a web browser.

Follow the instruction from gallery2 installation when you point your browser to this location

http://www.mysite.com/gallery2/

Need to create the g2data directory and chmod 777 via ftp again .

to finish the same Gallery will ask you chmod 755 gallery2 directory.

Running Paris Versailles

Almost after one and half year I was running in any event. The weather was very grey but it was very pleasant for running. Temperature was around 16 degree Celsius. The race was 17KM long starting from bottom of Eiffel Tower to Château de Versailles.

For the first time, Pamela accompanied me to the starting point of the course so as to take a photo of mine with Eiffel Tower. The first part of the run was along River Seine and then it goes to Forest of Meudon; this was the most crucial part as it has a steep climb (approx.2kms).

Well, the water stops were quite nicely spaced and I did not felt like a trash any time during the whole course. There were around seventeen thousands people in total but at a time only 350 runners departs so when I started it was almost 30 minutes after the first group started.Anyway, the route was quite scenic as the main part was bit away from the city in the forest & I finished by 1h 29mn 59s which is not that bad :D

New look to web site

Migrated to Wordpress along with Gallery2, the choice for the same was not easy. As for a long time Mambo and custom home grown Photo Album was doing the job fine. In fact the template I used for the same was appreciated by friends. But as days passed and numbers of pictures are growing it was getting difficult to manage the same with custom gallery. But the idea to grab Wordpress and dropping Mambo is a personal one. I will not compare the two. The fact is they two are different and just I felt like blog software will be a better choice for a personal website compared to a CMS

Well there is lots of lots work left to organize the pictures now after this migration as there was no tool or script that I could use to automate the same :(  Hope to finish this by end of September.

banner with imagemgick convert

To create a banner with mirror effect!!

convert -size 600x130 xc:transparent -font forte -pointsize 72 -fill "#cccccc" -annotate 0x180+12+80 "Pamela's Gallery" -gaussian 0x2 -stroke black -strokewidth 1 -fill "#ff3600" -stroke black -strokewidth 1 -annotate 0x0+12+55 "Pamela's Gallery" -draw "line 0,68 570,68" banner.png

ssh and scp

Via tunnel

scp -P 2222 font_slewed.gif santm@localhost:/tmp/banner.gif
ssh -p 2222 santm@localhost

nomally :

[How To] Puttygen Puttssh for ssh

1. Run PuttyKeyGen
1.a Make sure you choose SSH2DSA at the bottom
1.b Click on Generate
1.c Move Mouse as mentioned.

2. Once the key is generated
2.a Put proper comment for Key username and hostname
2.b Type your Password please try to choose a proper password i.e. with number, special character, upper case hard to guess
2.c Save the public and private key I saved in
C:\Documents and Settings\santanu.misra

3. Now add pageant.exe to your startup programs as shortcut.

4. In the property box modify these
4.a In “Target” Box add the Private-key file name
4.b In “Start in’’ Box put the directory where you stored the public key ; look at step 2.c
4.c Make “Run” to minimized

5. Right click on pageant and you will see there is an option for adding the key.
5.a Choose your private key file that was generated with “PuttyKeyGen” and it will ask for the “Passphrase” enter the password you entered in step 2.b
5.b You can see your key with “view key” option. There is a option to delete your key as well.

6. Now we need to configure putty to work with our public and private key. The screen shoots are quite self explanatory.

How ever I did modified “ScrollbackLines” for putty with regedit as I like to have more scroll back line; default is only 200. The ket is located in
MyComputer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham\PuttY\Sessions\Default%20Settings
For quick access to known servers you can do this to automate login via (ssh)
ssh-add -L >> .ssh/authorized_keys

Back to Work

When I was on my vacation last week in Spain and Portugal, was thinking about to write down all that we had experienced there - the places we visted and food we tasted and others. But back to work it is such a Dilbert place that I can not explain with my logic.

Also I need to find a cheap solution to restore pictures from Smart Media. It looks like there is a well suited option commercial for 40 Euros. But I am still looking around for a free one if I can as I am not going to use the same again.

Stay tuned for experiences from Madrid, Granada, Seville and Lisbon.

Lost Pictures Recovered

After discovering that one of the SmartMedia Card from my Camera not working at Seville we were really very heart broken and anxious. It had pictures from our first three days of our trip. And in those first three days we traveled from Madrid to Granada. We had captured lots of evening pictures in Madrid and sunset view of Alhambra at Granada.

But we kept our nerve cool and continued with other media cards and tried our best not to remember about the same. Getting home and after finishing lots of house hold chores at late evening we started trying Google for an answer. And quickly it became clear that we were not the only one with this problem. The commercial solutions offered were OK but bit pricy($40) for one time use. Since those pictures were precious to us, so I tried to buy the same over internet and my credit card got declined.

But today my luck was better as I found a better web site with lot of good links(shareware) for the same. Check out, if you happen to have same problem in future (touch wood).

http://www.jr-worldwi.de/photo/index.html?SmartMedia_recovery.html

Well time to go to bed and prepare pictures for posting them on web. Adios

Hotel Train Lisbon to Madrid

We were at the very last phase of our vacation. We took train back to Madrid tonight as from there we had our flight back to Paris.

We booked the train ticket long back; I went in-person to get the same from Spanish Railway ticket office based in Paris. The office is kind of hidden by all the stores near to Boulevard Haussmann; ever busy shopping place.

Being Indian it was a really something new although we had experienced few other different night trains in Europe. As this was a Hotel Train, there are mostly 4 kinds of tickets in this night train which connects Lisbon and Madrid. The cheapest one being the chair car, next one is four person cabins where passengers are divided according to gender. Then there is two people's cabin, there is also two kinds of the same. One being first class with attached personal shower and loo while the other one is only with personal wash basin. These cabins are maintained and operated by Accor Hotel Group, one of the largest hotel chains in continental Europe.

Well,our booking was two persons cabin with wash-basin. As a matter of fact we were kind of surprised with the hospitality and the cabin itself. It really worth the money we spent in fact I wish and wondered how much extra it would have been for the first class. With first class the dinner and breakfast were included but for us it was only breakfast.

So far I have seen this kind of train service in Hindi (BollyHood) movies experiencing the same in real life was a dream. May be our beloved Laloo-jee can travel once in this first class and he introduces the same service from Patna :))

Lisbon - Portugal

Second day at Lisbon, as we had covered most of the top attractions on day one we started our day in ease, but I am sure lot of people might not agree with us ;) on easy going part.

We headed towards Colombo Shopping Mall which is one of the largest shopping mall in Europe and built very recently. After being mall rats for a while we bought some and had lunch there in one fast food Mexican place. Depositing those shopping bags to hotel we went to Baixa again. We walked more in Baixa streets and then headed towards Belem. The weather in Lisbon being till far was with overcast all the time and temperature much lower than Spain, we took a long walk along the river side.

Before going back to Lisbon we entered the famous Paties House dating back to 1837. Oh! Those paties they are so good and mouth watering I feel like tasting them now as I am writing. Resturant is really big inside and with very reasonable prices. It should top the list for going to Belem.

For dinner we had some fusion food which had Indian spices with Portugal taste in Chaido. The restaurants are too small and packed so there is always someone waiting near the door.

Lisbon - Portugal

Well the over night bus journey between Seville and Lisbon was not very long one. We had an hour long stop as soon as we entered Portugal. The road condition was good and we reached the Oriental Stop of Lisbon at very early hours and the sky was still dark. From there it took another 20 minutes or so to reach the final destination near Zoological Garden. We took a taxi and the ride was a short one to our hotel for only 6 Euros. The driver was nice and he was mentioning about the drought Portugal is facing.

The Hotel (Novotel) was under renovation but the staff was kind enough to get us a room at 4:30 in the morning although we had by mistake booked for only one adult which we came to knew then and there.

After having rest for few hours we headed out from our hotel to Lisbon downtown by metro. It was a very cloudy day. I was feeling heavy headed and wanted to get some coffee.

After walking in Rossio Square for a while we bought day pass for Lisbon Trasport. The Metro system is run by the Government while the Bus, Tram and trolleys are run by a company. Lisbon have lots of trams and it seems like one of the attractions. Lisbon downtown is divided in three major part Bairro Alto, Alfama and Baixa. The first two one are on hills and the last one in the middle of the two.

It took us a while to figure out the starting point of Gloria funicular. We took it to reach the top of Bairro Alto Neighborhood. The ride is very small and full of tourists only. At the end of the 2/3 minute ride the people who bought a single trip ticket was wondering is it really worth or not.

Just getting out of the funicular on the right towards hill there is park, from there we get very nice view of the other part of the city and the river from there. There is also the ‘Porto’ wine collection place just across the street. Start walking downhill towards Chiado. Chaido is very happening place with lots of designer shops and places to east and drink. We visited Sao Roque Church which is very beautiful with lots of excellent tile and marble works inside; it was built in the glory days of Portugal.

We had lunch in one of the restaurant of big mall in Baixa Chaido. After that we took tram 28 for going to Alfama. This one is also a old tram most likely built in 1930s and it passes Baixa district. We visited the Caste of São Jorge. After spending a good time and taking the view of Lisbon & River Tejo we took the same tram back to Chiado. In Chaido we took Bica funicular which is like Gloria a old one but it is very stiff and goes down to the river front. The buildings along side are very old and in poor condition.

Once reaching the river front we took tram 15 towards Belem. There are both new and old tram on this track. Belem is 5 KM outside of Lisbon. On the way we saw 25th April Bridge, which just looks like Golden Gate bridge of San Francisco. The reason may be both are built by the same company. Belem tower and Monastery are the main attractions along with the ‘Monument to the Discoveries’.Well it was a quite a long day and we headed back to Chiado for dinner and then to Hotel.