Cloud Computing Mind Map

I invite anybody wishing to share their knowledge of the Cloud Computing market to edit (click the MindMeister image on the bottom righthand side of the map or here) the following wikimap:

Update: I'd like to thank Jim Dowson ( linkedin profile ) for his extended contribution!

Update 2: I would suggest collaborators complete their Skype profile when registering with MindMeister: this facilitates group discussion. Thanks!

Uploading Outlook .pst to GMAIL

I was digging through old backups just recently and I decided to make some .PST files more productive ( e.g. searchable ). I could have opted for Google Desktop ( I think ) to sift through those backups but I instead followed the GMAIL road since I am in the process of trying to convince my wife to move completly to GMAIL from Outlook.

• Step 1: install readpst ( link ) on a Linux machine ( I use Ubuntu primarily )

apt-get install readpst

• Step 2: extract mail from the .pst file into mbox format

mkdir /tmp/mail

readpst "some-pst-file" -o /tmp/mail

• Step 3: Configure Mozilla Thunderbird with GMAIL through IMAP: instructions can be found here.
• Step 4: Install an mbox import/export extension for Thunderbird: available here.
• Step 4: Import mbox folder hierarchy in Thunderbird: use Tools -> Import/Export in mbox/eml format -> Import mbox file menu option and select the appropriate dialog option ( I used #4 i.e. Select a directory where searching the mbox files to import (also in subdirectories ) ).
• Step 5: Move the emails as desired.

Warnings

• It appears that the use of the IMAP interface through Thunderbird might be cause some "silent failures" from time to time. I suggest moving/copying emails by small batch in order to track & manage this shortcoming.
• Also, I would seem that GMAIL's web-interface is not able to track "in real-time" the changes and of course this problem is compounded by the amount of moving/copying being done in a particular time interval.

Have fun :-)

DNS-323 hacking: Adding Telnet support

I bought myself a DLINK DNS-323 (hardware revision B1) NAS unit. I fitted it with 2 Western Digital WD10EADS 1TB "Green Caviar" hard drives.

I was a bit disappointed that the "independant disk" operation couldn't be used so I had to revert to a RAID-1 configuration.

Upgrading the firmware to 1.06 was a breeze ( don't forget to unzip the distribution file before attempting the upgrade :-)

Telnet

Hacking the device for Telnet support was a bit more problematic: the good source of information I could find was here. The package release 0.5 works like a charm.

Details

• DNS-323 HW rev B1
• 2x WD10EADS hard-disks
• Firmware rev 1.06
• Fun_Plug release 0.5

My Python library: command-line backup tools mainly

Through my daytime work, I use online tools a lot ( e.g. Gliffy, MindMeister )  so one could say I am confident about conducting work online.  Sometimes though I feel I need a safety net and this is why I like to use my moonlight time to calm my qualms about the possibility of loosing my work.

To this effect, I have created a python library with several command-line tools ( cross-platform i.e. Windows and Linux, tested on Ubuntu ) to perform, amongst other tasks, backup of my online documents.  The library documentation page is available here.

Gliffy diagrams backup tool

Delicious  is a useful tool. I use it in an unconventional way sometimes: I bookmark some resources with tags which serve as indicators for my backup tools. As an example, when I tag my Gliffy diagram pages with the my-diagrams tag, my backup tool grabs the corresponding diagrams and makes local copies on my server.

The backup tool I am referring to is readily available here.  I configure the backup tool to run periodically through cron jobs on my Linux server.