alex.polvi.net

I spent all day today writing and then refactoring shell scripts for our linux virtual server environments. It is pretty slick. At this point we can control all of our webnodes (on private networks) centrally — even with color terminal output!! Like, woot.

Tomorrow (6/30) we plan on cutting over a bunch of services to test it out. Nobody should notice, because it will be DNS changes. The most important one is aus, as tomorrow we hit the infamous “hour of terror”. With the new infrastructure we should be able to serve up enough rdfs to finally update the remaining buggy clients. Glorious.

Had a nice dinner in the city with Larry and Chase. We had sushi, and it was amazing! It was fun to hear Larry talk about pissing off all the open source guys… He also had some good ideas for speeding up builds with ram disks. He actually had plenty of other interesting things to say too — but those are the two that jump to mind.

Good company, food, and conversation makes up for a nice evening. Even got back to the apartment before 10pm!

Dave and I worked last week trying to get services moved out of the old colocation to the new one. While we did make a little progress, we still have a lot of work to do. Dave has put together an outages page with our current status: http://nagios.mozilla.org/outages/

As part of this move we are going to start using the Linux Virtual Server to do some fun Linux based clustering. We plan on having enough of the infrastructure up in time for the “hour of terror” on July 1. This time the plan is to put two virtual servers in round-robin dns each backed with four real servers. This will give us eight total servers powering aus.mozilla.org when all said and done. Last month we tested this out with one virtual server and four real servers, and it seemed to be able to hold up — eight should be able to do it with out even breaking a sweat. :)

After we solve the aus.mozilla.org load issues, I have a personal vendetta to solve the feeds.spreadfirefox.com issues. The feed is like 5kb, yet we are unable to serve it up live — I think we will be able to solve this with our clustering efforts. The little download counter is a prime example of how widely used the mozilla.org infrastructure is. We need to get to a point were nothing this trivial makes us stumble, and I think LVS is going to help.

In a rather recent post I said:

What if a project like ebay open sourced its code under a license that only allowed people to contribute back to the project? So instead of allowing everyone to deploy their own ebay, people interested in helping would improve the single large project. If someone had a user interface annoyance, for example, they could write up a patch and send it in.

And now, a few weeks later slashdot is reporting:

eBay Starts Open-Source Community

The software will be available under a new program called Community Codebase, which was announced at the eBay Developers Conference in San Jose, California, on Tuesday. The Community Codebase is free for all members of eBay’s Developers Program and PayPal Developer Network. (Pay Pal is owned by eBay.) It allows individual developers and companies to access source code for various eBay and PayPal tools and applications. An example is a Java application that allows TiVo users to search and bid on items via their digital video recorder boxes. Other examples include a Firefox toolbar, various Pay Pal toolkits and an application used to extract information from Pay Pal’s database and putting it into Microsoft Corp.’s Excel spreadsheet software.

Probably just a coincidence, but still — maybe people are reading this thing….

Alright, here I am, with a wifi connection in hand. Lets talk.

Parents friends rule

Kyle, thank you for being my friend. Via our relationship I was able to share the time with two wonderful people, Karl and Amy. I am quite certain that they are two of the nicest to people ever exist. Not only did they allow me to stay with them in San Francisco (the city), they fed me, entertained me with a Canary, and even took me to grandma house for a potluck! It was so much fun! Thank you thank you thank you.

Housing situation

My biggest concern with moving to work for Mozilla was housing. I had no idea where I was going to live. Leaving Oregon, I still had no idea, but I left anyway (with the confidence from Karl and Amy). My only lead was meeting with a person the Saturday before I started work… however, Saturday rolled around and nobody called. The plan was to do the 45min commute and then try to find a place after work. To my luck I got a call Saturday afternoon… we met Sunday and now I live in an awesome condo. I have my own garage, bathroom, and fully furnished room. I do not think it could have worked out any better!

Work

Work. Holy crap this is fun. Already put in two 12 hour days (I know, I need to settle down). It is hard to leave. They have all the food, drinks, and people to keep you at the office for eternity. The work is a riot too. The OSL has given such valuable experience that I feel I will be able to help make huge leaps forward within the organization in my short, 3 month, time. Right now I am not learning a ton, but I am using straight up experience to help. It is very empowering to offer solutions to problems after walking in the door. I am starting to get that “oh, so thats why we did it that way” sort of feeling…

Other random things

• One of the colos has a hand scanner, I feel like James Bond
• Work is going go-karting, this is very exciting
• The roommate creates chunks of synthetic DNA, fly fishes, rock climbs, and drives a black Camry
• Moving to a different state with no where to move is not that bad
• In less then a month I will no longer be a teenager
• Everything works out

Stuart and I made it to San Francisco. We had all sorts of fun on the way down. Put a little over 1100 miles on the Camry. Today we are taking Stuart to the train station, and I will run by the MoFo to check it out.

Big thanks to Karl for putting us up while we all get moved!

OSU news gave Brandon and I some props today. Thanks OSU news!

Bigger thanks to the OSL.

Mozilla too :)

INTERNSHIPS MAY AID COMPUTER USERS, CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES

06-06-05

By David Stauth, 541-737-0787
SOURCES: Alex Polvi, polvi@osuosl.org
Brandon Philips, brandon@osuosl.org

CORVALLIS - Two undergraduate engineering students at Oregon State University who gained valuable computer software programming experience with the university’s Open Source Laboratory are anxious to begin what they call “the perfect summer internships.”

One project may help millions of computer users gain access to a popular Internet web browser, and the other will create new robotics technology to help children with disabilities.

But neither would have been possible, the students say, without the experience they gained in OSU’s expanding work on “open source” software, or systems which are available freely to anyone.

“These opportunities would never have happened if OSU didn’t have such a great open source computer organization,” said Alex Polvi, a sophomore in computer science from Amity, Ore. “Not only has it given us invaluable experience, it has also made us very attractive to industry.”

OSU is one of the universities leading the nation in the development of this evolving concept of software, which creates programs that are free, open for inspection and can be adapted by companies or individuals for their specific needs. Among other things, the university is very active with Firefox, a highly popular software program used in browsing the Internet.

At the same time, these systems are saving the university substantial amounts of money on sophisticated software programs needed in university operation, while also helping people and communities address their computer needs.

The work with Firefox will form the basis of Polvi’s internship - he will work with the Mozilla Foundation, the lead developers of this software, to help increase its availability to many more users. Polvi will spend the summer working in Mountain View, Calif., and then return to his studies at OSU.

“We’re trying to scale up the use of Firefox to hundreds of millions of users,” Polvi said. “I’ll be working in system administration, managing all the servers that are required to run things like mozilla.org websites, build machines, and perform other services.”

The other internship is equally complex, but with a very compassionate goal.

“I’m going to be working with NASA experts on a robot called CosmoBot, which is designed to help educators and therapists give better care to children with special needs,” said Brandon Philips, a sophomore in computer science from Sherwood, Ore. “It will be my job, along with two or three other students, to figure out how to integrate image processing, voice recognition and wireless sensors into the product.”

The project will be at a NASA laboratory in College Park, Maryland, and include visits to artificial intelligence laboratories at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other research centers. Philips said he is looking forward to “working for some very talented people and making a difference in people’s lives.”

Robotic systems such as these, experts say, can combine wearable sensors with voice-activation to control electronic devices by gestures or body movements. Such systems can be used by people with disabilities and their therapists to integrate therapy, learning and play - and they will be tested in actual clinical and educational settings throughout the development process.

This particular project is one part of NASA’s Robotics Internship Program, providing an avenue for students to participate in challenging projects on the frontiers of robotics research. Some of the projects have space applications, and others address societal needs.

The OSU Open Source Laboratory was the first such facility of its type at any public university in the nation. Its work provides international leadership in this computer concept and valuable educational experiences to OSU students.

And for two OSU students, the knowledge gained in the lab has opened the door to a couple of great summer jobs.

-30-

Alright, here it is, finals week:

Today (estimated stress level (esl): 2/10)

• botany
• clean up math
• finish up eecs-graduation seating order (done)
• fill at least one box

Tuesday (esl: 2/10)

• botany final
• Build out some mozilla machines
• Look over physics

Wednesday (esl: 4/10)

• math math math
• eye appointment
• physics

Thursday (esl: 7/10)

• math math math math math
• physics
• pack

Friday (esl: 14/10)

• physics physics physics physics
• eecs graduation practice
• move out of weatherford
• say good-bye to katrina
• pack pack pack
• drive to parents

Saturday (esl: 6/10)

• pack pack pack
• head back to corvallis for eecs graduation
• pack pack pack

Sunday (esl: 0/10)

• leave for a week of camping

Rest of next week (esl: 0/10)

• camp camp camp

Two weeks from today (esl: 2/10)

• Move in somewhere in mountain view
• Start new job at Mozilla

Thats as far as I can see……

Hopefully the end of this week is not too difficult.

Time seems to be more rare and exotic as responsibliities build up into a big steaming pile.

Tonight I took some photos so I could list my G5 on ebay. In the process I uploaded all my recent photos. Looking through the photos I realized there is a lot to blog about!

Built a fly rod

In about 12 hours I was able to build a fly rod. Pretty neat stuff — it even has my name on it.

Went camping with Jake

What an adventure! We camped north of Sisters, OR, close to the Deschutes river. The journey involved rallying Tootsy (the bus) through 20 yard mud puddles and a few miles of hiking. It was nice to fall off the grid and just stomp around in the dirt.

Fishing with Dad

We caught some fish!! They were Salmon headed for the ocean… but still, any fish is a good fish. While hiking down to river on my Uncle’s Farm, we found an bald eagles nest. This must have been the first time the eagle had seen someone in awhile since it was constantly screeching and swooping down at as. We were able to pass safely, but the eagle sure did not want us there.

Watching the Sunset

Katrina and I went to Mary’s Peak for the first time to check out the sunset. What is really neat about this large hill (maybe a mountain?) is that, on a clear day, you can see the ocean.

That is all I got… I should probably be studying for finals…

What a day. 0800: running to work for a staff meeting…. 0930: a trip to Albany to do some last minute shopping for Lar’s BBQ this weekend. As soon as I got back from that I went to work on Mozilla stuff, trying to finish up the developer wiki before finals hit (1100 - 1350). At 1400 I had a physics recitation, followed up by a PAC178 final at 1500. By 1530 I was running over to the library to participate in the Fall 06 TRF grant proposal process. It is a fun committee to be on. I have more things to say about the meeting… hopefully I will find some time to write about them. At 2130 (yes, that was a 6 hour long meeting) I immediately walked over to the computer lab to finish up a math project. And now, at 0130, I am done. What a day.

Last day of classes in the morning! Wooooooooo…..