With the merge of the current Aurora branch of Firefox into release, all search traffic to Google would go via SSL. Which means adnetworks doing search targeting could lose about 20% of their search traffic, as Google might stop sending search referrer URLs.

Enabling HTTPS for these searches shields our users from network infrastructure that may be gathering data about the users or modifying/censoring their search results. Additionally, using HTTPS helps providers like Google remove information from the referrer string. While Google users may expect Google to know what they are searching for, Firefox users may not be aware these search terms are often transmitted to sites they visit when they click on items in the search results; enabling HTTPS search helps sites like Google strip this infortmation from the HTTP referrer string, putting the user better in control of when and to whom their interests are shared.

 

via Rolling Out HTTPS Google search | Mozilla Privacy Blog.

The page incorporates Sponsored links block by Google, followed by organic listing. It doesn’t leave any real-estate to waste, stacking in as many direct ads possible.

I messaged Manas @4.30 just to check if he is awake, and he called back, “जलदी निकल सकते हैं क्या ?” And we pre-poned our start-time to 0500 hrs instead of 0530. Ride to Guhagar was kind of disappointing with Kashedi Ghat “closed” for construction. 3 days of maintenance work. It had to align with our riding date !!? We took a big de-tour through unknown roads and relatively bad roads if compared to the winding corners of Kashedi ghat

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After being back on NH17, we were quick to reach Velneshwar via Chiplun-naka – Modka Agar – Velneshwar by about 1215. The road from Modka Agar to Velneshwar was horrible to say the least, 18km of ride out of which 15km was under construction with pebbles, gravel, tar – but no road and the rest with pot-hole laden hell.

Velneshwar beach, however was a paradise, similar to Ganpatipule’s decent from the top of the hill, for Velneshwar, we start climbing another of “n” hills after Palshet village, and then come down to Velneshwar. It has just about 2kms of beach, but it was breezy and reminded us straight of Agonda beach in Goa.

The next day we spent our time roaming north of Velneshwar, Gopalgadh, Dabhol power project, Guhagar beach. Due to our lazy-planning we had to cover the 18km worth of hell-road times! we could’ve checked out of Velneshwer the 2nd morning, and then stayed somewhere in Guhagar.

On our return trip, we didn’t want “no-Kashedi” experience, but also wanted turning, climbing, descending roads. Manas suggested we take a huge de-tour to Mumbai via Satara! Which would then cover the awesome Kumbharli ghat.

Our final bike route looking something like this -

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Photos

Welneshwar Guhaghar Bike Ride Apr 2012

Things to see and visit

We both were not of the religious type, but we did visit the Velneshwar temple in the night where there wasn’t a single soul, tranquil hear the crickets, the westerly cool breeze coming from the sea and us

• Baman ghal (must see), a narrow gorge in the rocks through which the sea has cut a section almost 15feet deep and a 3 feet wide
• Gopalgad
• Guhagar beach
• .. and try taking a de-tour through Koynanagar, and visit the Kumbharli ghat !

Baman Ghal

The node service has to do the following

• Data Logging
• Serving a 1×1 pixel image

Data Logging

Select through a list of available connection providers available for node.js through npm

Image Serving

Here you have 2 options, either read a file and output the buffer like below

...
var img = fs.readFileSync('./log.gif');
res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'image/gif' });
res.end(img, 'binary');
...

or you can read the content of the small file into a buffer, convert to a hexadecimal string, and save hexadecimal string as a javascript variable, and then at runtime convert the hex to a buffer and flush out the buffer as image/[type].

This shall greatly help remove all the file IO while serving the images.

to read the image as a buffer,

fs = require('fs');
imgBuffer = fs.readFileSync('1x1.gif');

// Convert the buffer to hex
imgHex = imgBuffer.toString('hex');

Following sample code can then be added to the beacon script

//The hex string can now be directly added to the beacon script, simply as ..
var imgHex = '47494638396101000100800000dbdfef00000021f90401000000002c00000000010001000002024401003b';

// Then at runtime convert the hex back to a buffer
imgBuffer = new Buffer(imgHex, 'hex');

// This buffer can directly sent on the HTTP response stream
response.end(imgBuffer, 'binary');

The following gist is a complete integration for serving with the HTTP Server

References

• Buffer API
• HTTP API

git checkout !! help !

1. Make sure the file that you want to pull is clean (ie. that file shouldn’t be shown as modified in git status)
2. $ git checkout <other-branch-name>/<commit-hash> -- path/to/the/file

You can now checkout the branch’s HEAD or that hash’s state of the file into your current working directory. You can now play with your file, add, commit. Done !

We had a cold water swim on a super-hot sunny day in the Tringalwadi dam. On our return back, had our lunch around 1.15pm @ the Greenland restaurant near Igatpuri on NH3. The timing was more protect ourselves from the heat.

Next stop was the Bhatsa Reservoir, however being a “protected” dam, we couldn’t really enjoy its waters

Photos

Tringalwadi Dam Bike Ride

Travelling Directions

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Snaps

Lavasa Bike Ride Feb 2012

Travelling Directions

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Remi an official Fedora projects contributor does help older distros to work with latest packages by publishing the new ones. The site supports last 2 EOL Fedora releases.

Installation

Install Repo

Install the correct release, as for my Fedora-14, I installed remi-release-14.rpm

$ sudo rpm -ivh http://rpms.famillecollet.com/remi-release-14.rpm

Enable Repo

For some reason, the repository is disabled, Enable it by opening the file in VIM

[remi]
name=Les RPM de remi pour Fedora $releasever - $basearch
#baseurl=http://rpms.famillecollet.com/fedora/$releasever/remi/$basearch/
mirrorlist=http://rpms.famillecollet.com/fedora/$releasever/remi/mirror
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-remi
failovermethod=priority

I got Firefox 10x , Thunderbird 10x installed on my Fedora 14 (Laughlin) !

Vijaydurg’s 80km trip from Tarkarli through the temples of Kunkeshwar adding more to the “Jai Maharashtra” soul. A visit to a local traditional house in Achara (20 km from Malvan) on the way back like garnishing on the tasty trip.

Goa’s beaches beckoning just 100 kms down south of Malvan. The fort trips continued with Chapora fort overlooking the Vagator beach. Calangute beach however disappointing with its overcrowded sands.

The south of Goa had more to offer with its Agonda fort or Cabo de Rama fort with lovely backdrop of hills’ cliff falling straight into the Arabian Sea. The Agonda beach with its tranquil sunny warmth and egg-laying turtle sands like an icing on the desert.

Travelling Directions

Mumbai to Malvan via NH 17, then to Goa using Coastal highway or Mahasagari Marg.

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Tour of Campo De Rama fort and Agonda beach in Canacona, Goa

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Photos

Sindhudurg, Goa, Dec 2011