Sarath Chandra Pandurangi's Blog

Over the last weekend, I evaluated DisQus commenting platform. I saw compelling reasons why Blogger's default commenting is primitive in comparison. Today I am launching DisQus on this blog. Here are 3 most important reasons that made this decision easy.

For a long time this was due. Here it is, finally. If you think this site has ever been helpful, please consider installing and using the Search engine from SarathOnline on your browser. This will help us offset the maintenance cost. Thank you. Updated! May 29, faster search, with more options..

This site rendered js and css (now even images) dynamically. Contents of files are stored in Google BigTable Datastore and are served by a DynServlet. The DynServlet maps the name of the file to content of the file in DB. This was slowly using up a lot of resources. Adding a layer of memcache, saved some Datastore API calls. But the memcache calls were still significant. So an ETag mechanism is introduced. A Global ETag is generated on any file posted or updated, and (G-ETag is) stored in Datastore. To save App Engine resources (which are counted to cost), the ETag header is obtained from each request checked with GDTS from backend. If it is the same a "304 – Not Modified" response is sent back, asking the client to use the local cache copy. If it is not exactly same, a the request is passed through and rendered dynamically. This guarantees all content will be served fresh after every deployment. Requests in between deployments may be served from client-side cache, because ...

Fresh out of the oven, The new site is running on Java. The v6 version released in private had been trimmed down to remove extract bloat. One of the major changes in this version is serving images and jscss (with stiching) , not from the filesystem, but the Datastore. So the file content is a stored in BigTable. So It can be updated without having to redeploy the whole application. Having to deploy a whole application is one inertia causing aspect in a appengine app development. With Dynamic resource serving, this inertia is completely eliminated. Ofcourse, this will mean the site MAY slow down. The stats will be monitored over the next couple of weeks. Hopefully it won't be that bad. Fingers crossed.

As it goes, We ought to give thanks to people who power us. This page will be updated, like the version page , to show all the tools, and people this site is Powered By! Ubuntu GIMP Firebug Blogger Google [AppEngine, Ajax and other Apis] AddtoAny Project Fondue jQuery

hence the bump in minor version - 3.1 While researching on grails and the patterns around it, I looked at django , rails , and lift . All these are quite amazing frameworks that get you started on an application like in 5 mins or less (That includes database layer, view pages, and controllers). Yeah it cannot do everything you want but its there to get you to kick off. And then I realized, how much effort I am putting in maintaining my site on hand coded - wsgi.webapp based - Python app. So I started working to move this to django based multi app site. If you dont know, I host this site on Google App Engine . It does come with a patched, short featured, django of its own. However, I preferred to use app-engine-patch and deploy with a supplied django 1.0. You get most benefits of django with this port. A very big tip of hat to Waldemar Kornewald and his team for this patch. (Guess what, They also have a similar concept of stitching mutiple js/css files - media generator ) I ...

Just 2 weeks of work, I am very happy to see how it came out. My Blog is now available to browse completely on ajax. Tested in FireFox 3 on windows and linux. IE7 and Chrome. Since I host my blog on Blogger, I am able to avail Google's Blogger Ajax Api. I would want to distribute to opensource community. However, Due to limitation of time, much of the code is tighly scripted to sarathonline.com and its template. Albiet, The Source is javascript and can be viwed by checking the source . You are free to any part of code, with optional attribution (a link back would be appreciated :) ). The Search box (based on Google Custom Search Engine) is also updated for some slick animation, if you are looking for a Google CSE with animation. You can check out the source . Please check out the my Ajax blog. I would appreciate any bug reports, suggestions or comments.

I made some minor updates to the blog site over the weekend, it now covers a wider screen area. Wider Sider bar. And a very own Ajax Search Engine. More coming. To widen the layout, I not only had to change the width attributes of container and side bar, but also recreate newer top, bottom and shadow images using gimp and existing images. The Search bar uses google Custom Search Engine and Ajax Search API . Also there is an attempt to solve IE 6 png transparency fix via this jquery plugin . I havent tested it myself, but if someone has IE 6 or less, please let me know.

I have decided to decommission v2.sarathonline.com . I took the back up of the site yesterday and have taken the site down. All PHP apps on v2 will be moved to GAE hosting on v3 . v2 will be completely from dns in a couple of days. so start using www.sarathonline.com Look forward to better things.

[Page always Updated , Last: May 2010] Sep 2010 v6.1 - Site running on a custom simple MVC framework is now live. Also includes Dynamic Resources - images and jscss files. These are now served from BigTable datastore. Apr 2010 v6 (small v) - Back down to Plain old java. Wrote own non-reflective Java mvc framework to mimic spring mvc. Objectify for Data access. Released in May. released only as beta. 2009 - 2010 V5 discontinued attempt - Spring. App engine cold start up times better, 12 sec - but still a worry. Best optimized configuration, with minimal libraries still around 8 secs. Aug 2009 V4 discontinued attempt - Grails. Tried in vain. App engine cold start up times as much as 30 sec (really awful). Fall back to python v3.1. Trying Spring 2.5.2. Plans to upgrade to 3. 2009 V3.1 Began the year with Ajax (Google API) blog. Quickly followed by Django . A big reason was there was an application at work using grails. Cought up grails, rails, and django frameworks. So ...

Look ma.. New site.. My yesterday's post was only the beginning of my "chasing" the development of v3.sarathonline.com . Actually, by the time you see this post, it might very well be sarathonline.com . My Grand weekend plan, went very well. I was able to finally re-do my site 3.0 template for sarathonline.com. The new logo, The template design, even the FAVicon - all these happened in the last two days. What is more exciting is I have moved from my PHP host to Google App Engine. The plan to keep the 2.0 version till it expires this June, and then it is all FREE GAE hosting, Google Mail hosting (which I joyfully migrated to, 4 months back). Moving to 2.0 had a few considerations at that time Minimal Template (no images) Introduce DB features Introduce Ajax Hosted Gallery But that was in 2006.The newer release is a complete re-write GAE hosted, with Python and Rapid development CSS Template, web 2.0 Images Redisigned Blog, with its own sub domain more to come.. In this pr...

Long weekend. Time off after a long time. What to do? Lot of things on list. SarathOnline, Ubuntu, GAE, Grails, IBM MQ implentation et al. I started off the first one. You could see the new logo in the home page . Expect more changes.. Coming Soon.

My Project at work is near release. Its a grueling yet exciting time here. Too much work on desk to handle. Deadlines visible closer than ever. Shifting priorities, severities, what can be delivered, what can be patched later, Its a very tough time for all of us in the team. But I feel we are doing well. Things are much in control, as I see it, than what they were when I first came on. Life is fast now.. but On this memorial day weekend, I am assuming, I will be relatively free and will start on SarathOnline again. Till then.. Shine on..

I have been working on my website from 2.0 to the next version at an extremly slow pace. But a few things have been coming up as you could see in Blogs. I have plans to integrate all information sources (My blogs, flickr, picasa, friend feed, resume) everything in a seam less website. I will write more about this integration process in coming blogs. Here Whats coming and Whats new. Plans to use more API for User login, allow openID / Google Account Blogs already are loading in JSON format, Load Comments and allow posting comments. Expose feed for my blog, burn it. Update Gallery - use and expose feeds, light interface.

First Ajax Application of its kind is launched, visit sarathonline.com/test.php. Running now in Beta Mode. You will need to be a registered use this. Signup on the right menu. Enjoy your Stay Leave comments in scriptPg=www/contactme/gbook">Guestbook