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Last four weeks has been painful but in a good way. We trained hard every weekend pushing ourselves hike longer. I learned quite a few things – how to select the right backpack, how to pack, what food to carry, how to watch my breathing, stride, etc.

Weekend Hikes

Now it is 2 days before i start the journey. Bags are all packed trying to rest up and calm my nerves. I wouldn’t be here with out the support of my family – my wife who has been encouraging me through out the process, giving me time and space to deal with my craziness. All my friends especially my hiking buddies Sachi and Pankaj. I cannot express my gratitude to all my supporters who helped me reach my fundraising goals. THANK YOU!!

Routes

It will be the 21^st anniversary of an accident I had in which I almost lost my right leg. August 31^st 1997, it was a sunny afternoon I was cruising on my motorcycle to reach the train station to catch a train to home, visiting my family during a short break I got during my 3^rd year of undergrad.

With lot of help from my family and friends I was able to quickly recover from the injury and life went on. However, I never got back the agility I used to have in my feet. Few years back I found that I have tendentious in my right ankle and I am over compensating on my left leg causing my knee to wear more than they should. Last year, I got the wakeup call and decided to get better so that I could be there for my family and not be an anchor slowing us down.  we got a fur baby (Shadow) to our family he definitely keeps us active on our feet. This year with help of my friend Sachi I am embarking on an ambitious journey to climb 4 14ers  (Mt. Massive, Mt. Harvard, Grays and Torreys Peak) in Colorado from  August 31^st 2018 to September 3rd 2018). Celebrating the 21^st anniversary of my accident and showing myself that I can still keep going.

When I decided to hike in Colorado I also wanted to do it for a cause, so I choose to raise funds for the Wounded Warriors Project. I am honored to work for USAA. It’s a company with a great mission and purpose that keep you coming to work every single day. At work I get to meet people with inspiring stories of what service meant to them and how they fought with their fears, inabilities and still went above and beyond for the call of duty. Wounded Warrior Project was the first one that came to my mind, their mission to serve people who are not only physical injured but also for those who are combating mental injury and illness. This effort of mine is a small way to honor and give back to those who sacrificed for the country and our freedom.

Please help me carry forward with your donation. Every little bit will help reach my goal.

https://www.facebook.com/Suresh.C.Susarla/posts/10214184988593462

Thanks for your support.

After a very long time it was nice to do some real geekery stuff. I recently got a MBP, i was on PC for the last two years at work. I started porting all my PC stuff to mac everything was going smooth until i was at a point of transferring all my old email from Outlook 2007 to Entourage 8. I started this project 2pm this afternoon and after 5 hours of struggle finally managed to do it all.

For those who have been this path before you would understand what i am talking about. There are few commercial tools for price that “claim” to do the job but there were also all sorts of errors that people reported. This is when the geek in me raises and said WTF its just data that need to be ported from one app to another app. Upon some serious search i found two libraries libpff and libpst these are opensource linux packages that convert any pff files and pst files to mbox exactly what i need. All is well so far, but here is where the real trouble beings. These packages need to be complied, configured and make files are to be run. So i have here summarized the steps. PLEASE FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS TO THE DOT. I have done this on MBP running Snow Leaport (10.6.2).

0. Check if you have gcc installed by opening Terminal and typing “which gcc” at the command prompt. It should return “/usr/bin/gcc” or another path where gcc is installed. If there is no response (as in Snow Leopard) that means gcc needs to be installed. Insert the Snow Leopard CD. Enter the “Optional Installs” folder. Run Xcode.mpkg. This should install gcc. Once the install is complete check again by running the command “which gcc” at the command prompt. Alternatively you can download xcode from ADC. You need to be a member to download. Don’t worry its a free to signup. I have downloaded mine here, http://developer.apple.com/tools/xcode/

1. Download libpst source from http://www.five-ten-sg.com/libpst/packages/ (I downloaded libpst-0.6.45.tar.gz which was the latest version). It should automatically unzip in the folder you downloaded it into. Remember this directory path for later.

2. In order to install libpst you also need to install “boost”. Download the latest source from the boost site here http://sourceforge.net/projects/boost/files/boost/ and download the latest version (mine was 1.41.0).

3. Open Terminal and ‘su’ as root (you can also use sudo for each command from here on but su is easier in my mind. If you do not have a root account setup on you mac then google for the steps to activate it.) and “cd” to “/usr/local/” and run this command at the command prompt
“tar –bzip2 -xf /your/download/directory/boost_X_XX_X.tar.bz2” (where X_XX_X represents the release number).

4. Once that is complete you will see a directory now under “/usr/local/” called “boost_X_XX_X”. “cd” into this directory.

5. At the command prompt type “./bootstrap.sh –prefix=/usr/local/”. This will take a few mins to run.

6. Once that is done at the command prompt type “./bjam install”. This will take a while to run – 15 to 30 mins. Get a cup of coffee. Note: you will see some deprecated errors. Dont worry the package will be installed.

7. At this point boost is installed. “cd” to the directory where you downloaded libpst-X.X.XX (Step 1).

8. Type “./configure” at the command prompt. Once that is done type “make” at the command prompt. And once that is complete finish with “make install”.

9. You have now successfully installed libpst. You should find libpst, readpst and pst2ldif under “/usr/local/bin” directory.

10. Run this command at the command prompt in the directory you want the “mbox” created “readpst -r /path/to/the/pst/files/yourfile.pst” and you have successfully converted pst files to mbox. Piece of cake!. If you want to know the complete usage of readpst, here it is http://www.five-ten-sg.com/libpst/rn01re01.html

You need to be well experienced working within terminal. Here are some tips for novice terminal users:

1. How to turn on the root account?
If you are in the admin account you should be able to change the root password. Just type “psswd root”

2. How to see hidden files in finder?
By default Mac OS shows only those files that are needed by user. But if you are familiar in Linux environments seeing all files is helpful. The only reason to hide files is to protect users from deleting important stuff. Type this in terminal “defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES” and restart Finder. You can restart Finder by hold down the Option key, then click and hold on the Finder icon in the Dock.

Hope you find these tips helpful. Save the money by not buying those COTS stuff, be bold and try this solution.

Memphis Bragging Rights!

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Today is the first day after this site is upgraded to 2.7. When i checked this morning the site changed it self to a default theme. My first thoughts were sh** did i just made my server a honey pot during the upgrade. Needless to say i spent the next hour or so frantically looking for holes (if any) but didnt find any. So with no explanations what so ever on how this happened i humbly reactivated the site with the theme of my choice.

I will be watching to see if this happens again..is my site developing its own personality!!!

Yet another book review…”The world is flat” by Thomas L. Friedman.
His aim, in his new book, The World Is Flat, as in his earlier, influential Lexus and the Olive Tree, is not to give you a speculative preview of the wonders that are sure to come in your lifetime, but rather to get you caught up on the wonders that are already here. The world isn’t going to be flat, it is flat, which gives Friedman’s breathless narrative much of its urgency, and which also saves it from the Epcot-style polyester sheen that futurists–the optimistic ones at least–are inevitably prey to.

I manged to get my hands on a audio version of this book and i have throughly enjoyed every chapter of this book.

This is an attempt for me to understand about servant leadership. This is first mentioned to me by my mentor Dr. Xiangen Hu. The phrase servant leadership was coined by Robert Greenleaf, described servant-leadership in this way.

“The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. He or she is sharply different from the person who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions. For such it will be a later choice to serve – after leadership is established. The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.

The difference manifest itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer , is: do those served grow as persons; do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society; will they benefit, or, at least, will they not be further deprived?”

Taken from the Servant As Leader published by Robert Greenleaf in 1970.

This blog is created to hear opinions from my friends, well wishers and who ever that bumped into this page. Feel free to comment…

This is a workshop that i attended in Stanford University from 25th july through 29th july 2005. It was an experiencial thing for me. First this is my first time to visit Stanford and on top of it this is my first time to have such a close interaction with gaming community. After 15 years of long slumber i awakened to start playing video games. It was never that i was interested, its just that things just happened so. When i was teenager i was kept away from games because my parents thought i had better things to do than that and secondly as i grew there is was limited availability of video games. Even though i didnot get a chance to play a lot i always kept myself abreast with the developments in the gaming world. I reliazed after playing my first video game after so many years that what i have missed is incredible.

Playing game is an experiencial thing. No matter how many reviews, articles, interview/show you read and see it will not come close to few hours of playing the same game. Having said that let me shift gears to some serious stuff. This workshop was primarily considered with looking at how games and simulations can play a role in learning.

Gaming community/companies are one of the fast and quite profitable entitites in the real world. To add to that kids just love it. So there must be something really interesting in games for them which keeps them hooked on hours together. There are tons of resources on this very topic of how games help in learning a few we studied for this workshop are:

Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning. New York: Palgrave.
Salen, K., & Zimmerman, E. (2001). Rules of Play : Game Design Fundamentals. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press

First day of the workshop was overvelhming with so many games and genres of games. Played a couple of games in the first two days, i really appreciated what i learnt when i started to de-construct a game like:

What are some of the objects and thier attributes?
What are some game rules/internal relationships?
What is the game narrative(s)?
What are the “social” interactions?

Answering these questions for a game clarifies or shows the actual nuts and bolts in a game. As hours went by we really started seeing games being torn apart conceptually. After this exercise when i went back to the same game i was playing before my whole prespective while i was playing is completely changed. I was like “Neo” in matrix who saw what Matrix was all about….:) (“lines of code dropping on the screen or a simple linux screen saver…LOL..)

This is my first blog at susarla.com

testing picasa import

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