firefox caching iframes

Today, P asked me to do a website update by ftp. But after putting in the required file, the youtube video in the embedded iframe did not change when I checked with Firefox, so I wondered if the correct file had been modified. Even refreshing the page did not help. Safari showed the correct iframe, so I cleared the Firefox cache, and then the correct video appeared. 

video stutter issue

I needed to increase brightness and contrast in a video warped with GL_warp2Avi but when I just loaded the video into virtualdub and tried to do it, vdub was reading the video two frames forward, one back and so on. Not sure whether the problem is with the xvid codec used, or with GL_warp2Avi or with vdub. Anyway, the workaround was to make an avisynth avs file with just directshowsource("myfilename.avi") and use that as the source for vdub. That worked fine. 

Airtel and Reliance speeds

P got USB dongles for M - Reliance and Airtel. The Reliance data plans are cheaper, but the speeds are lower. Airtel speeds are higher and the tariff is higher too.

Speedtest.net gave Reliance 0.9 Mbps up as well as down. Airtel got 2.5 Mbps down, 0.5 Mbps up. This was done in the afternoon around 2 pm, so the networks were probably not congested. 

adventures with a Xiaomi Mi3 phone

Was gifted a Xiaomi Mi3 phone in mid October. Now that I've used it for nearly a month, can write a bit about it. As the reviews say, it's a very nice phone, looks very distinguished. The few disadvantages from my point of view are maybe the large size and the slippery feel of the metallic body. Also the audio quality of the built-in headset needs a bit of tweaking - too much bass, making conversations somewhat unintelligible sometimes. Privacy concerns may have been addressed by the firmware update which I have applied.

Just a day or two after I got it, it fell into water and was completely underwater for a second or two, during a power outage when I was using it as a torch. Switched it off as soon as I fished it out, and kept it for 24 hours in an airtight container with raw rice for drying it. Then kept it on top of a warm fridge voltage stabilizer for another 12 hours to ensure that it has dried, and then switched on. No damage to normal operations, except for a sort of water stain which can be seen on the screen when the screen is completely white.

The processor + GPU is more capable than my work computer in playing high bitrate high resolution videos. For eg. a 10 Mbps 2K video which played at 0.5x on my laptop played back perfectly on the phone, using ES File Explorer to read it over a shared volume. The phone's 1920x1080 screen is higher res than my laptop's 1280x720!

Skype, Viber, Youtube etc etc all work without a hitch, and the mobile browsing experience is really good. The touch response is iPad-esque, not skittery like the cheaper Samsungs. Another good point is that the lock screen swipe does not happen accidentally from the pocket, unlike my earlier HTC. Overall, very happy with it. 

automatic deletion of files

PB had set up a cron to automatically delete files from a shared folder two weeks after they were put there. But folders were not being deleted. Now, he updated his script.

Earlier it was

/usr/bin/find  /path/to/folder/expires/* -ctime +15 -exec rm -f {}  \;

Updated to

/usr/bin/find  /path/to/folder/expires/* -ctime +15 -exec rm -Rf {}  \;

Traffic causes cloudflare issue

Due to Akhanda Bhajan traffic I assume, Cloudflare was showing radiosai.org/program and associated pages inside that folder as being offline, or timed out etc, probably due to high load. I have put in a page rule by logging in to cloudflare, bypassing everything, so that cloudflare will be bypassed, and the page will load, even though it may load slowly.

(Removed this rule after a week).

spindles of solar system exhibit

KR noted down the speeds of the spindles of our solar system exhibit, which run using worm gears. The worm gears slip, and need to be aligned exactly for the planets to rotate. The spindle speeds are 8, 12 and 90 seconds per rotation, in the order below:

90


               8


12

(technician inside)

New IP for Server with Reverse DNS

Once we set up the new IP address and Reverse DNS via the hosting control panel, we were supposed to set up signing emails with dkim like
https://hnsws.blogspot.in/2009/05/signing-emails-with-dkim.html

apt-get install dkim-filter
error'd out with 
Unable to locate package dkim-filter

Looking around,
https://askubuntu.com/questions/116553/what-package-replaces-dkim-filter-in-12-04
Opendkim is what was needed - 
https://www.exratione.com/2014/07/setting-up-spf-and-dkim-for-an-ubuntu-1404-mail-server/