Instead of using a tarfile, you can output your tarfile to stdout or input your tarfile from stdin by using a hyphen (-). With these options, you can tar up a directory and all of its subdirectories by using:

tar cf archive.tar dir

Then, extract it in another directory with:

tar xf archive.tar

When creating a tarfile, you can assign a volume name with the option -V . You can move an entire directory structure with tar by executing:

tar cf - dir1 | (cd dir2; tar xf -)

You can go even farther and move an entire directory structure over the network by executing:

tar cf - dir1 | ssh remote_host "( cd /path/to/dir2; tar xf - )"

GNU tar includes an option that lets you skip the cd part, -C /path/to/dest. You also can interact with tarfiles over the network by including a host part to the tarfile name. For example:

tar cvf username@remotehost:/path/to/dest/archive.tar dir1

This is done by using rsh as the communication mechanism. If you want to use something else, like ssh, use the command-line option –rsh-command CMD. Sometimes, you also may need to give the path to the rmt executable on the remote host. On some hosts, it won’t be in the default location /usr/sbin/rmt. So, all together, this would look like:

tar -c -v --rsh-command ssh --rmt-command /sbin/rmt -f username@host:/path/to/dest/archive.tar dir1

Although tar originally used to write its archive to a tape drive, it can be used to write to any device. For example, if you want to get a dump of your current filesystem to a secondary hard drive, use:

tar -cvzf /dev/hdd /

Of course, you need to run the above command as root. If you are writing your tarfile to a device that is too small, you can tell tar to do a multivolume archive with the -M option. For those of you who are old enough to remember floppy disks, you can back up your home directory to a series of floppy disks by executing:

tar -cvMf /dev/fd0 $HOME

If you are doing backups, you may want to preserve the file permissions. You can do this with the -p option. If you have symlinked files on your filesystem, you can dereference the symlinks with the -h option. This tells tar actually to dump the file that the symlink points to, not just the symlink.

Along the same lines, if you have several filesystems mounted, you can tell tar to stick to only one filesystem with the option -l. Hopefully, this gives you lots of ideas for ways to archive your files.

Source – http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/stupid-tar-tricks

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Zo Boston is different from other gyro places.. The way they are different is because of how they cook and add the meat to the sandwich. Other places have strips of meat in their sandwich whereas Zo shreds it’s pork meat!!

The last time I was there, I found out that they also serve a chicken and pork combination Gyro sandwich… Man!! I love it when places have secret menu items.. It makes the experiance even more fun!! I can’t wait to go back and try the chicken and pork combination Gyro!!

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The recipe goes like this -

Ingredients

Rotini                                                         1 pound
Egg yolks                                                  3
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese    7 tablespoon
Ricotta Cheese                                        1 cup
Light Cream                                             4 tablespoon
Butter                                                         3 tablespoon
Onion (sliced)                                          1
Green peppers                                         1
Salt, red chilly flakes and pepper per your taste

Method

• Cook pasta as per instruction
• Meanwhile mix the egg york, grated Parmesan and ricotta cheese in a bowl. Add the cream and mix it with a fork.
• Melt butter in a pan. Saute garlic. Add onions and fry till golden brown
• Add green pepper and salt. Cover and cook till the green peppers are tender.
• Add the cream sauce and then add pasta.
• You can add black pepper and red chilly flakes according to your taste.

This pasta has to be eaten hot as soon as it is cooked. The sauce tend to thicken if you wait.

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So the only way I can watch these AVCHD videos is to convert it to either an MPEG or AVI format. I know.. I know.. I am loosing video quality by down converting these videos… but till the time I can find a better way to watch these videos… thats what I am going to do. I did find a script at videohelp.com which was using some freeware tools.. But in my opinion the process was still painfull. My ideal tool would be to take these AVCHD files and either convert them to AVI/MPEG or to burn them to a DVD directly. Did I mention, I want this to be free too . You could also pay $50.00 for ConvertXtoDVD which does that for you.

Another option is to create an AVCHD DVD which will play directly on a blue ray player or a PS3. Scott Johnson, CEO of AtTask has a script on his blog which will create the DVD disc which will play on a blue ray player.

I got my camera in 2007 and in 2010 I have finally found a software which does the video conversion for me. It’s called Free HD Converter V1.6.
The software works on my old machine.. It’s not fast but I just batch all the videos and a couple of hours later, I have the converted MpEG files. I wish this tools would stitch the many generated mpeg files together too. Maybe it does and I haven’t found the setting! I can now burn a DVD from the Mpeg files and send the videos of my new born to my Mom or upload to YouTube directly!!

Next step is to convert all my AVCHD videos to MPEG. Now only if somebody could just do that for me too

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Going back to my little project, I thought I will study what is involved in sending a wake-on-lan packet to a PC to wake it up. I read the lifehacker article in detail and then googled for other resourses. I came across a really nice resource which explained how the wake-on-lan packet is constructed along with a sample java program. I also found, I am not the only person who thought about using this technology to start their media server from their xbox. I found this script in the forums at xbmc.org. Here you go -

# Wake-On-LAN
#
# Copyright (C) 2002 by Micro Systems Marc Balmer
# Written by Marc Balmer, marc@msys.ch, http://www.msys.ch/
# This code is free software under the GPL
 
import struct, socket
 
def WakeOnLan(ethernet_address):
 
  # Construct a six-byte hardware address
 
  addr_byte = ethernet_address.split(':')
  hw_addr = struct.pack('BBBBBB', int(addr_byte[0], 16),
    int(addr_byte[1], 16),
    int(addr_byte[2], 16),
    int(addr_byte[3], 16),
    int(addr_byte[4], 16),
    int(addr_byte[5], 16))
 
  # Build the Wake-On-LAN "Magic Packet"...
 
  msg = '\xff' * 6 + hw_addr * 16
 
  # ...and send it to the broadcast address using UDP
 
  s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_DGRAM)
  s.setsockopt(socket.SOL_SOCKET, socket.SO_BROADCAST, 1)
  s.sendto(msg, ('<broadcast>', 9))
  s.close()
 
# Example use
WakeOnLan('aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff')    # My PC

The last line in the script is calling the WakeOnLan method and passing the MAC address of the PC you are trying to wake up. You can get the MAC address of your PC from a DOS command prompt by the command -

c:\> ipconfig /all

It will show up as Physical Address in the detailed listing. Read the lifehacker article given above for more details. You can wake more than 1 by duplicating the WakeOnLan(MAC) line in the script.

You have a couple of options of executing this script. You could create a sub-folder under the scripts folder in your XBMC install and place this script there. In which case you can call it anything you want. I have created a script for every PC I want to wake up in my network and have the machine name as the script name. You could also start up all your computers as soon as the xbox is switched on. Just name the file autoexec.py and put it in XBMC/scripts. It’s similar to how autoexec.bat works for windows

I also put these scripts on every PC in my network, so I can start any of them remotely. The pre-requisite is that you need python installed on your PC for the script to work. You can either install python or just use the python which comes with cygwin. I recommend that if you need a decent command line on windows, just get cygwin and give mintty a try. Andy Koppe the creator of mintty recommended it to me the other day and I love it so far!! I have also further recommended it to my friends at work. I just launch mintty to get a bash shell on my windows box and execute the script this way -

$ python /path/to/WakeOnLan.py

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1. The Album name has to be the same for all the songs
2. The Album Artist name has to be the same for all the songs
3. All the songs should be set as a part of a compilation.

Here is how you do it . Select all the songs in itunes you want to show up as an album, then right click on one of  the chosen songs and click ‘get info’  -

1. Type in the Album Name and Album Artist
2. Under the options tab, make sure the ‘Part of A Compilation’ is checked and set to Yes.

That’s it… That will make sure the album shows up only once for the entire album

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I was making my usual Mutton Curry and half way through making this dish I realized I did not have any crushed tomatoes.. so I had to improvise. According to some purists Goat curry should not have any tomatoes. I have always used tomatoes.. so this was a chance to try make this dish without tomatoes… Unfortunately I don’t have a picture to show on how this looks.  It was a big hit at the party and that’s what counts

Here is how I did it…

Ingredients

1. Goat leg – cut into small pieces (1 inch)
2. Onions chopped – 4 large onions chopped
3. cinnamon – one 2 inches stick
4. cardamom – 5-10
5. cloves – 10-15
6. curry leaves – 10-12 leaves
7. green chillies – 4-5 cut into big pieces
8. garlic – 5-6 pods finely diced
9. ginger – finely diced – 2 inches
10. turmeric – 1-2 tsp
11. garam masala – 3 tsp
12. dhaniya powder – 4 tsp
13. lal mirch – 2 tsp
14. degi mirch – 2 tsp
15. jeera powder – 2 tsp
16. MDF Meat masala – 1 tsp
17. Coconut milk – 1 can

Method

1. Heat oil and some ghee in a big flat bottom vessel.
2. Add Cinnamon, cardamom and cloves
3. Once it sputters, add onions and start frying it. Add the salt to taste and turmeric immediately.
4. Once it is slightly brown, add the chopped ginger and garlic.
5. Continue sauteing and add the chopped green chillies and curry leaves.
6. Add the mixed powdered spices
7. Make sure you don’t burn the spices. Add a little ghee like maybe half a teaspoon.
8. Add the mutton and coat the onions and spices to all the meat.
9. Sear the meat so it cooks and changes color on all sides.
10. Add a can of coconut milk and mix everything together. After 5 minutes transfer all to a pressure cooker.
11. Wash the vessel you used and use the water for the pressure cooker. Put enough to cover the meat.
12. Add a cut potato in the cooker. This helps bring some texture to the gravy.
13. Add 2 tsp of MDF Meat masala.
14. Add chopped cilantro and then pressure cook for 30-40 minutes.
15. Once the pressure comes down, open and check if the meat is tender. If not tender, pressure cook for 10-15 more minutes.
16. Taste and adjust salt
17. Serve with Rice

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Food wise it was a great weekend too.. Friday night we went to Aegean in Framingham. Their bread basket had fresh baked bread and Pita bread. This came with olive oil and feta cheese. This combination was so tasty. The key here was their Pita Bread… Fresh!! For the main course I order their Lamb Youvetsi. This was a Braised Lamb with Orzo topped with grated cheese. My wife ordered the Mousaka. This was  Layered eggplant, seasoned with ground meat, grated cheese and topped with bechamel sauce (My wife is a sucker for white sauce!!). Both dishes were very tasty and very very satisfying. My lamb was very succulent and tender.. This was cooked with tomato sauce, spices and orzo. Did I mention it was very satisfying! My wife’s dish was good too… It was like a lasagna but instead of pasta, made with eggplant.

Saturday morning was bright and started out a little cold but it got warmer and ultimately turned out to be a great day to spend outdoors. We met our cousins in Waltham and spent a couple of hours in Waltham Commons. Got coffee, coffee cake and cranberry scones from Cafe on the Common. A very cute place with some tasty baked goods. The place looked like an old school coffee shop.

For lunch we ended up in Taqueria Mexico. My Bro-in-law recommended it… looked like a whole in the wall..  the Food was very authentic and the prices were not too high. Check out their menu and you will find some traditional mexican dishes not available else where in and around Boston. I wanted to get the Guisado De Carne De Puerco. This was slices of pork cooked in green sauce with onions and peppers. Serverd with rice, beans, salad and tortillas. I got chicken instead of the pork. My Bro-in-law got the original dish and we both agreed the dish was better with the chicken. The corn tortilas were fresh and went good with both our dishes. My wife and my cousin got a chili reileno stuffed with cheese, one green chicken enchilada with melted cheese and sour chream on top. Served with rice, beans, saland. All dishes were yummy.

We then walked down Moody street to do some Indian Grocery Shopping at Patel Brothers. While I was there I got 5 pounds of goat leg from waltham india grocery planning to make mutton curry on sunday (will share the recipe). We then stopped by Lizzy’s Homemade Ice cream where I got their orange pineapple ice cream, my Wife got a chocolate frappe, my cousin got a cup of vanilla ice cream whereas my bro-in-law got some green tea.

Sunday was another fabulous day. The Sri Laxmi temple in Ashland was going to Host the Indian festival Holi. I guess the temple chose to celebrate it on Sunday as it was really cold the weekend of the actual day. I celebrated Holi after like 10 years. It was a lot of fun playing with colors with your friends and family. The organizers did a good job of arranging for food and Indian tea for everybody. I then invited my cousin’s family along with other family friends for an impromptu dinner.

Dinner was a big hit! I made mutton curry, Priya made okra fry. My Cousin Vandana made an awesome dish with Cholle and Spinach. The family friends made Channa Dal. It turned out to be a feast and a fitting end to this awesome weekend!!

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