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Openvswitch - Overview

In this Openvswitch series, I will talk about mostly configuring openvswitch for different use cases. This is as much a tutorial as a personal reference for me. Today we will go through the openvswitch main components.

Before reading, first go to http://openvswitch.org/ . This is the official site, though not too many resources to get in-depth knowledge about openvswitch, it will be a good start.

As we know, Openvswitch( Called OVS from now) is a software switch or you can say a virtual switch. We will not go into Why OVS and where exactly it fits into the modern networking needs. Focus of this series will be to understand openvswitch configuration or to act as config reference.

To this end, first lets begin with going over various components of openvswitch. There are many resources on net about how to Install and Run openvswitch. Please go through them first.

Openvswitch Components

Openvswitch is compromised of three main components. i.e ovsdb-server, ovs-vswitchd and openvswitch kernel module. Lets look at each of these in brief

ovsdb-server -- maintain openvswitch configuration tables and configuration is preserved across restarts.

ovs-vswitchd -- This is the main deamon controlling all instances of OVS switches in the host. On startup, loads the configuration from ovsdb-server by connecting to it. Connection can be over a network or in same host. This is also the brain of openvswitch. Vswitchd stores the flow configuration received from the controller, acts on packet received from datapath and configures flows into the datapath.

openvswitch.ko -- This is the datapath of openvswitch. caches flows configured from ovs-vswitchd. processes packets based on flows and incase of flow miss, forwards the packets to the vswitchd. Note: this module is not valid when dpdk-netdev or userspace netdev is used. we will talk about this at some in future.

Openvswitch utilities

As with any other network component, Openvswitch comes with a set of utilities used to configure and manage openvswitch. we will go through them in brief

ovs-vsctl -- Main utility to do configuration changes in ovsdb-server. Any changes in ovsdb-server are synced to ovs-vswitchd

ovs-ofctl -- Utility to send openflow commands to the vswitchd.

ovs-appctl -- This utility can control or query both ovsdb-server or ovs-vswitchd

ovs-dpctl -- This ultility can create,modify,delete or query openvswitch datapaths. Note: this wont work when datapath is dpdk-netdev or userspace netdev

Next in this series we will look at various constructs of openvswitch and configuring them.

Animal Bird Sounds and quiz

We are delighted to publish our new app  "Animal Bird Sounds and quiz" in google play store.

Please follow the link to download

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.inforagestudios.animalbirdandobjectsounds



toddlers kids have fun with sounds of various animals, birds and test with Quiz


Have fun with your kids listening to sounds of various over 30 animals and birds. Fun doesn't stop there. We have bundled a quiz along with the APP to test your kid. Various Animals and birds are included. Quiz has two modes. . sound quiz (guess animals based on sounds) . image quiz (guess animals based on sounds and images)

following Animals and birds are included. In case you want more animals or birds, please let us know.

bee
cardinal
cat
cattle
cougar
cow
crocodile
crow
dog
elephant
goat
gorilla
hawk
horse
lamb
lion
meadow lark
mocking bird
monkey
mosquito
nightingale
owl
peacock
pig
rattle snake
rhinoceros
sheep
tiger
vulture
whippoorwill
woodpecker

If you can help in translation, please contact us.

word clouds

Wondered how do people make images like this ?
Want to make an attractive word cloud for your site or blog or facebook page ?

Here's how you do it

1. Goto wordle 
2. Write down all the words you want to have in the word cloud
3. Repeat a word multiple times if you want it to appear bigger in the word cloud. The more the repetition the bigger the text
4. For a better image, add lots of unique texts which relate to the topic(if you couldn't find that many, then add random words. Who is going to read all the words). Point is "more words = better image"
5. If its not working, it means java is not enabled in the system. To fix this, follow the instructions given here
6. If you are not happy with the image generated, then click on "Randomize" button. Continue till you are happy with the result.
7. Instead of randomize, you can set your preferences by tweaking the attributes which are listed in the options. 
8. When done, save the image.

A Newspaper Fruit Basket :)

I just discovered how easy it is to make a basket using newspaper! It's so simple to roll paper tubes out of newspaper and then use the tubes into a basket.

1. You need to cut long strips of newspaper to about 10cm wide. Fold the newspaper horizontally in half and then half again, and use a sharp knife to cut into sections.  Place the thin stick on a corner of the newspaper at 90 degrees. This will give you longer tubes. Roll the newspaper stripe over the stick

When you reach the end, apply on a small amount of glue to maintain its stiffness.

2. Make plenty of such thin-long newspaper sticks.

3. Take a newspaper stick and roll with your fingers. You can use the stick as your base to roll.

4. Insert another stick, to the previously rolled newspaper stick's opening.

5. Continue this process of rolling, until you have a big disk of newspaper sticks.

6. Once done, apply glue to the end of the stick.

7. If you want to make the lid of basket as well, make 2 such disks.  Bigger disk for the lid and smaller one for the base.

MAKING OF THE BASE

1. Now, roll the newspaper stick to the cylindrical object to make a circular coil. You can use vicks bottle, acrylic paint bottles.

2. Make many such cylindrical coils of small and medium sized.

3. Apply glue all over to the disk's one side to make it stiff

4. Now pushup the disk to give the shape of the container. Make sure the glued side is inwards. Keep it aside for few minutes to dry

5. Stick the coils of smaller size over the container edge. Take the medium sized coils and stick it over the smaller ones, all way round.

MAKING OF THE LID.

1. Take the larger disk, and push it upwards similar to the one we did it for base.

2. Take to smaller coils[glue them to each other] and stick it over the top of the lid.

3. Cover the basket with lid.

Congratulationsss!! Your FRUIT BASKET is READYYY :)

XIAOMI MI3 : A Practical review from a Indian user

We can rightly say MI3 did what every smartphone would dream of i.e pique interest of users as well as media. Every Android Smartphone user must have wondered what is so big deal about MI3. If you didn't, you are either a Apple iPhone user or just lagging behind. For a company dubbed as "Apple of China", this is quiet an acheivement in India. In a country where "Made in China" means "cheap quality", it has done wonders. This could be a new beginning for chinese products in India.

So how did it actually perform in india? Till date it sold  around reported 80,000 units in record time, usually within seconds the sale starts. This record is probably only surpassed by another of MI product i.e Redmi 1S. A quick check on flipkart shows , which is the sole seller of MI3, around 4000 odd reviews with average rating of 4.2. This is pretty good rating from skeptical indians considering its main rival is a more established name MotoG  which is rated only  4.1 in flipkart.

Mi3 is extensively reviewed in lot of sites, for full spec the most trusted site i use is GSM Area. so here is the link. India has only 16gb version.

http://www.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_mi_3-5678.php

A quick glance of the specs and suddenly you can understand why there is so much fuss. These are specs which you find in most of the 30k and above phone. How much does Xiaomi Mi3 cost? its 13,999/- only. How is it possible? i don't know for sure. Whatever is the reason, user gets a beautiful phone for a very reasonable price.


So lets consider few things to consider before you can buy.

 After Sale support and service centres: 
Returning a defective piece should be taken care by Flipkart and there were few cases like this. Flipkart did a good job in replacing the defective pieces, though it may take time.  But in case of addressing issues like broken screen its all too a different issue. This needs a visit to service centre. Expect delays in service and even bad service. This should become better as the company gets a foothold in the market. So be prepared to face some delays initially even for basic service.

 currently Xiaomi site lists following cities with service centre: Bangalore , Mumbai , New Delhi , Chennai , Hyderabad , Pune , Gurgaon , Kolkata , Ahmedabad ,Chandigarh , Coimbatore , Jaipur , Thane ,Trivandrum , Noida , Bhubaneswar , Surat , Faridabad , Nagpur , Indore


 Availability:
You are not in control here and its worse than getting a train tatkal ticket. Mi3 is expected to be back on sale for this Diwali but no numbers have been confirmed and not sure about the process. So if you cant hold for long consider alternatives like MotoG, Zenphone, Redmi 1s  etc.

Accessories:
You have a very limited selection of phone cases etc available in Indian market. Maybe should have a better selection in Chinese Alibaba, but expect a 1-2 weeks delivery time.
 Note: with phone you get only charger and Sim changing pin. No headset is provided. So be ready to spend around 1k for this.


Size and Handling:
Its a pretty big phone for a 5 inch screen . The Bezels are bit bigger than other phones. Though the slim profile of the phone neatly hides the length of the phone. If you are moving from a smaller phone, be ready to use two hands and to use a case. Without the case, this phone is pretty slippery and you don't want to drop it the day you laid hands on this phone.

Hardware:
What can i say about hardware. It has a very sturdy chassis with a strong feel to it. Though quite slippery i assume it can take few drops( don't try it though). Make sure you get a nice case to get over that slippery feeling. The Screen is a stunner. I failed to find any clues to convince myself that this is infact 14k phone and not a 30k phone. If not for the well publicised price, this phone should be classified in premium segment.


Software:
This comes with a Custom MIUI 5 Rom which is based on Android 4.4.2. The look and feel is completely different to normal android, though you can see that phone is Android from the apps and settings etc. Software in pretty slick and expect a very stable software. Updates should be pushed regularly and i saw no problems with the software as such.
One down side is, if you like to experiment with custom Roms, you are out of luck here.  There are very few to no stable Custom Roms out there. But this might change.


Overall:
Other than few concerns over after sale service, i see no negatives with this beast(more a beauty). For the money, this is the best hardware one can get and software is pretty good too. Go ahead, buy it and you wont regret it.



we are always looking at ways to improve and would always welcome constructive comments.





 

What more does your image contain?

What is Metadata ?
      Simply put, metadata is data about data. There are lots of information stored in metadata and these can be broadly classified into

1. Structural metadata - As the name implies, it simply deals with the set of values which describe how the data is structured. For examples how the content of a word file is formated. This data is cannot be discarded since it is this information which tells the application on how to interpret the data
2. Descriptive metadata - This has values like author of the document, when was it created and so on. Discarding this information doesn't create much impact if all you need is just the data
3. Administrative metadata - This mostly deals with intellectual property rights a.k.a copyright details. 

For photographers, adding copyright details in the tags is so simple. See the video for details

    Canon users can add the details in their camera itself, which means the minute you click your shutter, a copyright work is produced. A tutorial on how to do this can be found here

    For smartphone users, most of the phones have Geo-tagging enabled in them. I would suggest to enable the location tagging. In the long run, when you revisit these pictures and want to know where the image was taken, it would be really helpful. The tool which i have specified below points the exact location where the photo was taken in Google map

Apart from the GPS details, the file also contains what camera was used, what lens was used, what was the focal length at which the picture was shot, what was the amount of exposure, was the shot taken with the flash, was the picture Photoshopped, if so using which software(in which operating system) and many much more. Find about the other tags here.

Here's a link to a online tool which processes the metadata from the image and displays them in a readable format. More about the tool by its author can be found here.

A snapshot of the tool's output