I don’t often (ever) talk about my musical taste. It is unremarkable for the most part, with flights into madness and impulsiveness.

Lately, I have discovered Icelandic music. Mainly Sigur Ros, Mum, Apparat Organ Quartet, Aniima, and (of course) Bjork. Apparently Icelandic music is all the rage, with people trying to understand how such a small country can produce such a wide range of artists.

These artists provide a soothing background to my jangled, often confused, mental state. I played it as I slept while I was on my latest trip, and while I was on the plane returning from Chicago.

However, my deep feelings and desire to visit Iceland has its roots back in my very early teens. A Hardy Boys mystery and a Clive Cussler novel brought it to my attention. It’s a nation of extremes, of wonder, isolation, and survival.

It is among one of the few places I feel I have to visit at least once in my life. I cannot explain this desire. Perhaps it is the latent Viking in me.

But the music draws me as much as the place does.

In a previous paper, the use of mod_gzip to dynamically compress the output from an Apache server. With the growing use of the Apache 2.0.x family of Web servers, the question arises of how to perform a similar GZIP-encoding function within this server. The developers of the Apache 2.0.x servers have included a module in the codebase for the server to perform just this task.

mod_deflate is included in the Apache 2.0.x source package, and compiling it in is a simple matter of adding it to the configure command.

	./configure --enable-modules=all --enable-mods-shared=all --enable-deflate

When the server is made and installed, the GZIP-encoding of documents can be enabled in one of two ways: explicit exclusion of files by extension; or by explcit inclusion of files by MIME type. These methods are specified in the httpd.conf file.

Explicit Exclusion

SetOutputFilter DEFLATE
DeflateFilterNote ratio
SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI .(?:gif|jpe?g|png)$ no-gzip dont-vary
SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI .(?:exe|t?gz|zip|bz2|sit|rar)$ no-gzip dont-vary
SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI .pdf$ no-gzip dont-vary

Explicit Inclusion

DeflateFilterNote ratio
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/*
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/ms* application/vnd* application/postscript

If a client sends a request which does not include the Accept-Encoding: gzip header, then the item which is stored in the cache cannot be returned to the requesting client if the Accept-Encoding headers do not match. The request must then be passed directly to the origin server to obtain a non-encoded version. In effect, proxy servers may store 2 or more copies of the same file, depending on the client request conditions which cause the server response to Vary.

Removing the Vary response requirement for objects not handled means that if the objects do not vary due to any other directives on the server (browser type, for example), then the cached object can be served up without any additional requests until the Time-To-Live (TTL) of the cached object has expired.

In examining the performance of mod_deflate against mod_gzip, the one item that distinguished mod_deflate from mod_gzip in versions of Apache prior to 2.0.45 was the amount of compression that occurred. The examples below demonstrate that the compression algorithm for mod_gzip produces between 4-6% more compression than mod_deflate for the same file.[1]

Table 1 — /compress/homepage2.html

Table 2 — /documents/spierzchala-resume.ps

Attempts to increase the compression ratio of mod_deflate in Apache 2.044 and lower using the directives provided for this module produced no further decrease in transferred file size. A comment from one of the authors of the mod_deflate module stated that the module was written specifically to ensure that server performance was not degraded by using this compression method. The module was, by default, performing the fastest compression possible, rather than a mid-range compromise between speed and final file size.

Starting with Apache 2.0.45, the compression level of mod_deflate is configurable using the DeflateCompressionLevel directive. This directive accepts values between 1 (fastest compression speed; lowest compression ratio) and 9 (slowest compression speed; highest compression ratio), with the default value being 6. This simple change makes the compression in mod_deflate comparable to mod_gzip out of the box.

Using mod_deflate for Apache 2.0.x is a quick and effective way to decrease the size of the files that are sent to clients. Anything that can produce between 50% and 80% in bandwidth savings with so little effort should definitely be considered for any and all Apache 2.0.x deployments wishing to use the default Apache codebase.

[1] A note on the compression in mod_deflate for Apache 2.044 and lower: The level of compression can be modified by changing the ZLIB compression setting in mod_deflate.c from Z_BEST_SPEED (equivalent to “gzip -1″) to Z_BEST_COMPRESSION (equivalent to “gzip -9″). These defaults can also be replaced with a numeric value between 1 and 9.

More info on hacking mod_deflate for Apache 2.0.44 and lower can be found here.

My Jimi Wallet arrived today. And it is exactly as advertised.

Small. Compact. Solid.

It forces you to seriously consider the items that you need to take with you on your everyday. I narrowed it down to exactly what I thought it would in this post.

What I am waiting for are the hacks that are sure to appear from the hardcore GTD freaks. Likely they will be able to turn it into a dayplanner, notetaker and laptop computer with a paper clip and folded paper.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that the gift bag the Jimi comes in is a great carrying case for my Sony Ericsson K700i!

Technorati Tags: GTD, Jimi, Jimi Wallet

It turns out that my boss had an old Treo 600 lying around the house he wasn’t using. And it turns out that it was a T-Mobile Treo 600, not the Verizon crud that the company provides. And since the company upgraded him to a Verizon Treo 700 (which doesn’t work in Europe, much to their chagrin), he was gracious enough to allow me to use this device.

I say gracious. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I will restrain my comments on it’s appearance to this: I have seen objects that have been dragged down the freeway behind a car that have fewer nicks, dings and blemishes than this Treo 600.

But it works. Well.

I now understand how powerful the PDA|Phone combo can be, and why it’s so addictive.

Technorati Tags: Treo 600, t-mobile

If you are a long time reader, you know that we have three very large Sugar Maples in the front yard of our house. This allows us to do our very own back to the farm routine every spring: tapping the trees and making Maple Syrup.

It sounds like a romantic exercise, and is often portrayed that way. Well, let’s shatter a few myths this morning, shall we?

First, in order to extract the sap from the trees, you have to know exactly where to drill the hole. Yes, drill into a beautiful old tree; once you get past the general tree-hugger, “trees are our friends” mindset, you realize that this is no worse than you getting a blood sample taken. In fact, all of the tap holes from last year have healed over, or couldn’t even be found.

The objective when choosing a location to tap is to find the trees arteries. I have learned the secret technique: find a spot where there in a large exposed root, and see if it traces up to a large branch. Jackpot. The best kind combine this with a line in the wood that looks exactly like Schwarzenegger’s neck veins after a couple of hours of heavy lifting.

Once the tap is hammered in and the bucket|recycled milk jug is hung from the tree, all you have to do is collect the goodness every 4-8 hours.

Now comes the paint and plaster peeling component of the job.

Maple sap contains 1 gallon of syrup for every 40 gallons of sap. This means that Samantha has been boiling the trees’ gifts to us non-stop for the last 3 days. The house is just now starting to smell like maple, as we keep supplementing our base with more and more sap.

Saving money on the humidifier, let me tell you.

The trick to doing this in a suburban neighbourhood is getting past the disbelief and concern for property values that the neighbours show. They seem to think that this harvest of nature’s bounty is unnatural and should be zoned out of existence or regulated in some way. The best way to overcome resistance is to bribe them with some of the end-product. Every neighbour we bribed in this way has smiled and started drooling when they spot the buckets on our trees.

It is a great experience, and a reminder that there is a very interesting world beyond this plastic box I pound on every day.

Technorati Tags: maple, maple tapping, maple syrup

Ok, this is a weird set of data, gathered by our friends over at the Internet Traffic Report

Any of you black-shirted, BGP-lovin’, AS-hoarding packet geeks out there want to comment on what happened on or about Oct 27-29, 2005? I am sure the rest of us would LOVE to know.

Technorati: bgp, Internet, Routing, internet performance

IceRocket: bgp, Internet, Routing, internet performance

For lack of anything intelligent to say right now…

Step Right Up
Tom Waits
from Small Change

Step right up
step right up
step right up
Everyone’s a winner, bargains galore
That’s right, you too can be the proud owner
Of the quality goes in before the name goes on
One-tenth of a dollar
one-tenth of a dollar
we got service after sales
You need perfume? we got perfume
how ’bout an engagement ring?
Something for the little lady
something for the little lady
Something for the little lady, hmm
Three for a dollar
We got a year-end clearance, we got a white sale
And a smoke-damaged furniture
you can drive it away today
Act now, act now
and receive as our gift, our gift to you
They come in all colors, one size fits all
No muss, no fuss, no spills
you’re tired of kitchen drudgery
Everything must go
going out of business
going out of business
Going out of business sale
Fifty percent off original retail price
skip the middle man
Don’t settle for less
How do we do it?
how do we do it?
volume, volume, turn up the volume
Now you’ve heard it advertised, don’t hesitate
Don’t be caught with your drawers down
Don’t be caught with your drawers down
You can step right up, step right up

That’s right, it filets, it chops
It dices, slices, never stops
lasts a lifetime, mows your lawn
And it mows your lawn
and it picks up the kids from school
It gets rid of unwanted facial hair
it gets rid of embarrassing age spots
It delivers a pizza
and it lengthens, and it strengthens
And it finds that slipper that’s been at large
under the chaise longe for several weeks
And it plays a mean Rhythm Master
It makes excuses for unwanted lipstick on your collar
And it’s only a dollar, step right up
it’s only a dollar, step right up

‘Cause it forges your signature.
If not completely satisfied
mail back unused portion of product
For complete refund of price of purchase
Step right up
Please allow thirty days for delivery
don’t be fooled by cheap imitations
You can live in it, live in it
laugh in it, love in it
Swim in it, sleep in it
Live in it, swim in it
laugh in it, love in it
Removes embarrassing stains from contour sheets
that’s right
And it entertains visiting relatives
it turns a sandwich into a banquet
Tired of being the life of the party?
Change your shorts
change your life
change your life
Change into a nine-year-old Hindu boy
get rid of your wife
And it walks your dog, and it doubles on sax
Doubles on sax, you can jump back Jack
see you later alligator
See you later alligator
And it steals your car
It gets rid of your gambling debts, it quits smoking
It’s a friend, and it’s a companion
And it’s the only product you will ever need
Follow these easy assembly instructions
it never needs ironing
Well it takes weights off hips, bust
thighs, chin, midriff
Gives you dandruff, and it finds you a job
it is a job
And it strips the phone company free
take ten for five exchange
And it gives you denture breath
And you know it’s a friend, and it’s a companion
And it gets rid of your traveler’s checks
It’s new, it’s improved, it’s old-fashioned
Well it takes care of business
never needs winding
Never needs winding
never needs winding
Gets rid of blackheads, the heartbreak of psoriasis
Christ, you don’t know the meaning of heartbreak, buddy
C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, c’mon
‘Cause it’s effective, it’s defective
it creates household odors
It disinfects, it sanitizes for your protection
It gives you an erection
it wins the election
Why put up with painful corns any longer?
It’s a redeemable coupon, no obligation
no salesman will visit your home
We got a jackpot, jackpot, jackpot
prizes, prizes, prizes, all work guaranteed
How do we do it
how do we do it
how do we do it
how do we do it
We need your business
we’re going out of business
We’ll give you the business
Get on the business
end of our going-out-of-business sale
Receive our free brochure, free brochure
Read the easy-to-follow assembly instructions
batteries not included
Send before midnight tomorrow, terms available
Step right up
step right up
step right up
You got it buddy: the large print giveth
and the small print taketh away
Step right up
you can step right up
you can step right up
C’mon step right up
(Get away from me kid, you bother me…)
Step right up, step right up, step right up
c’mon, c’mon, c’mon, c’mon, c’mon
Step right up
you can step right up
c’mon and step right up
C’mon and step right up

You know you want to. DO IT! Click the button!

I really like the maximum zoom level! Very detailed!

Technorati: Google, Google Moon

IceRocket: Google, Google Moon

Surely you remember John Mitchell! Well, he was Attorney-General.

And he went to jail.

© Gary Trudeau — 1973/1974

Michael Feldman reminds us all about this sorry state of affairs.[here]

Technorati: Karl Rove, KarlRove

Just stare at the cross.

Now, if you don’t get seasick, what happens?

Isn’t the brain weird?

Via: OMdC::log

Technorati: optical illusion