TCNJ Campus Events Calendar

I recently had some spare time, so I figured I’d take a look and see if I could figure out what the main causes were for the slowness.

Ugh.

Major Issue: AJAX Insanity

In an AJAX application, you’d think it’d make sense to make requests for the information needed to display to a user, and only transport the data needed.  Actually that’s pretty much the point of AJAX – being able to transport only the data needed asynchronously.

So in an AJAX calendar application, if we’re going to load a “day” page and display all events for that day, you’d think we’d make a request to a service with the parameters needed… (e.g. service.json?yr=2010&mo=12&day=30) and get back a response with a list of the events in that day, like…

[
  {
    "title": "Interest Session for ACM",
    "description": "This is an interest session for blah blah blah blah.",
    "author": "thegit@tcnj.edu",
    ... etc ...
  },
  {
    "title": "Another event on the same day",
    ... etc ...
  }
]

A response in this format for even a busy day (with a bunch of events) would be a few KB, tops.

Yeah… I guess that would make too much sense.

Actually watching the AJAX requests fly by quickly revealed what was going on, and why this app is so slow. It requests a 1MB XML file containing every event listed on the calendar. Even worse, it requests this every time you click a link to switch days/weeks/months, etc.

1 Request for each link you click

So want to check on each day in a week to see what’s going on? 7MB. Want to check each day in a month? 30MB. Even if every day you check has no events to show.

Instead of a ~1 KB request when you click on a link to view a day, a ~1 MB is being transferred. That’s about 1000x less efficient than it could be. I can’t even imagine what this was like with a dial-up connection.

Each request is huge (~1MB), and takes awhile (a few seconds)

This answers the question of why bandwidth on campus is so dismal.

Major Issue: Broken in Google Chrome

Try clicking on the days using Google Chrome in the current live calendar. It doesn’t work.

Considering Google Chrome usage is up to 20%, I’d consider this a major issue. The calendar currently doesn’t work for 1 out of every 5 people that tries to use it.

Minor Issue: Visual Feedback during loading.

If you’re going to have requests that take that long, you should at least provide the user with some visual feedback that something’s happening in the background. The current application doesn’t do anything to that effect.

Enough Complaining… Why Don’t YOU Fix It?

Fine. Here.

Improvements:

• Reduces the requests down to a single request instead of once every time a link is clicked. This makes switching between views, days, weeks, and months much faster, and reduces bandwidth usage by a huge margin.


Fixed! Only one request for data per page load instead of per link click

• Works in Google Chrome
• Adds a spinner as the page loads to let the user know something is happening

Anyway, these are some quick fixes (only ~20 lines of code, total) that had a huge effect on the overall performance and usability of the app. There’s plenty more that could be done (a complete re-write using a framework like Prototype, for instance), but hopefully they’ll give this app at least enough attention to fix the things I mentioned at some point in the near future.

Update 1/1/2011: Added a permalink feature so that you can actually link to day/month/event pages. (linking to a week view makes the browser crash for some reason… looking into that.)

After helping my good friend and fellow photographer Chris Cheng set up his own website, I realized I should actually make an attempt to update my own blog.

Earlier this summer, I attended this year’s NYC Obon Festival in Bryant Park.  You may remember my post from the same event in 2008.  This year’s was even better, and both Hoh Daiko and Soh Daiko put on great performances!

Friend and fellow photographer Irene Wu helped cover the event.  We shot two video angles, both in 1080p, and edited them together afterwards, and also shot photos.

[Soh Daiko: Matsuri, on YouTube]

My last year at TCNJ was quite enjoyable – I caught up with a lot of old friends, met a bunch of new friends, and still found time for class and other projects.

This year saw (among other things) the release of collegiatetaiko.org (a hub for collegiate taiko groups and players), a refactoring of mtwstudios.com, work on TCNJ’s COMTOR and IJIMS projects, and work on a soon-to-be-released site!

I also found time to hone my photography skills by lugging my trusty Rebel XTs around with me everywhere I go, and holding impromptu photoshoots in the PAR.

Much of the Spring was spent preparing for Mystique of the East, an annual cultural showcase run by TCNJ’s Asian American Association.  I performed with TCNJ Taiko, debuting a new original song written by Mike Smith, and sang with Mariko Curran in a rendition of “All I Ask of You” from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera… in Japanese.

When I wasn’t worrying about things at TCNJ, I was preparing for life after college by sending out various applications, interviewing, etc.  I eventually was offered (and accepted) a full-time position as a Web Developer for The New York Times!  I’m in the Client Technologies department which is responsible for (among other things) the front-end development on nytimes.com.

I started on May 17th (3 days after graduation.  Breaks are overrated.), and am working in the brand new building on 8th Ave. in Manhattan.  Come visit if you’re in the city, and we’ll do lunch! : )

In two weeks, I’ll be heading out there for the 15th Annual Intercollegiate Taiko Invitationals, coming back to NJ, and then heading back a few days later to Cupertino, CA until September.

I will of course be making regular updates (via facebook, twitter, and this blog) and posting photos, etc.  So check back! : )

Hard drives fail.  All the time.  (Google says so.)

It’s happened to me before, and I’ve seen it happen enough to my friends to know it’ll happen again.  They just weren’t built to last.

Somehow, I’ve been lucky so far in that I haven’t had a major loss due to hard drive failure yet… I’ve always managed to replace them before they die.  I can’t count on that though.

One of these days I’ll turn on my computer and hear that all too familiar click… click…. click buzzz. Or worse, have some component on the bottom circuitboard burn to a crisp (they’re called Quantum Fireballs for a reason…).  And I’ll have lost my games, videos, music, operating system, and/or (perhaps the worst) my pictures.

My needs?

So instead of waiting for that day to come and for me to be left with nothing, I decided I need to start backing up at least my more important data on a regular basis.  This includes my photos, personal documents, video/audio recordings and projects, and whatever else I feel like.  At this point I’d like to come up with a decent backup solution, not just an extra drive in my desktop (besides, I don’t have any bays left!).

I’d like to leave open the possibility to serve other clients off the same box, not just the one I happen to be working on.  It needs to be accessible by multiple clients at once.

I’d like for it also to be network ready/accessible, in case I want to lug it somewhere else to work (home/dorm?).  i.e. I have my main desktop to do work on at my dorm, but on the weekends I usually come home, so I should be able to grab it and hook it up at home for a weekend full of video-editing-goodness or whatever else I’m working on.

It needs to have fast network transport, 1000Mbps is required.

My options?

Online backup – There are a bunch of online services (Mozy, Carbonite, iDrive, to name a few) which can do scheduled or manual backups from your computer to offsite servers over the internet.  They offer some ammount of data storage, usually for a monthly rate, and you can do restores over the web or have them send you DVDs (usually for an extra fee) of your data in the case of failure.

That’s all pretty cool, but for now it’s too expensive, and the storage is too limited for my purposes (my photos from just 2008 total about 100GB!).  Plus, 2/3 of the year I’m at a location with a HORRIBLE internet connection *cough*tcnj*cough*.  I’d probably take all semester to sync my photos up to their servers.

Offsite (manual, ext. HD or DVD) – I could also manually copy all the files onto an external hard drive and take it home every week or something and swap it out, that way I always have a weekly backup off-site in case something happens at my dorm.  That’d be nice, but it’s not a complete solution… maybe as part of a bigger backup strategy.

I could do the same thing with DVD.  Burn all my photos to DVDs as I take them and keep a copy on-site and a copy off-site.  I might so some of this, but with DVDs only holding 4.7, that becomes a heck of alot of DVDs to burn and keep track of.

Drobo – I’ve had my eye on the Drobo for awhile, and it seems to be a pretty good solution for backup that you don’t have to worry about.  A drive fails?  A light turns red until you replace it, and your data is always accessible.  No commands to run to rebuild, no worrying about matching drive sizes like you need to in most RAIDs, the Drobo makes all of that invisible to the user, and the system.  Drobo just uses whatever you give it and it makes your data safe/redundant and it appears as just another hard drive to the system.

Dream come true?  Maybe.  I’ve heard these things aren’t foolproof either though, as they’ve been known to fail.  If they do, it’s not just as simple as taking the hard drives out and throwing them in another Drobo.

Also, just the unit by itself costs $500, and it doesn’t have any network capability.  DroboShare is an add-on that connects the drobo to the network, but that’s another $200.  That’s $700 for a box with no hard drives.

In the end, the Drobo seems a bit too proprietary/creepy for me.  I like to know I have control over my data and can recover it

NAS box – A NAS box of some sort would be more configurable than the Drobo, and for a lower price.  I was considering the QNAP TS-409 for awhile.  It’s still $600 though (empty) and I’d still like a bit more flexibility in what I’m working with.

Home built server – This would give me the ultimate flexibility in hardware and software, but it also costs a fair deal.  Even using the cheapest parts, I priced an empty server at about $500 incl. shipping.  Then add the drives to that and… yeah, might as well grab a Drobo.

The plan…

ZFS / OpenSolaris

While doing research for this project, I discovered ZFS, and I’m hooked.  Basically it’s a new filesystem from Sun which can do native snapshots, volume management, continuous integrity checking and automatic repair, RAID-Z, storage pools, and best of all, it’s open-source!  Read more about it here.  Anyway, it hasn’t made its way into mainstream Linux (due to some lisencing issues), but OpenSolaris (which is F/OSS) includes it!  Score!

Inspiried by other people who had set up similar servers with ZFS and cheap hardware, I decided this was probably the way to go.

The hardware

By luck I stumbled upon a Dual Opteron 2.0GHz, 4GB RAM, 120GB, with 3 free SATA ports 1U rackmount server which I should be able to score for ~$125.  I can then grab 3 x 1TB SATA drives for ~$100 each, install OpenSolaris in a RAIDZ configuration, and that’ll be 2TB of redundant, networked storage for about $425.  Not bad…

Eventually I’d like to do the exact same thing with something like a Rackable System S3012 ( (4x1TB RAIDZ) x 3 for 9TB total redundant storage!?!? ) , but I think I’ll have to wait until I can afford something like that / I can pick a cheap one up second-hand.

Once I get it up and running, I’d like to connect to it as an iSCSI target from my desktop (Vista), and also test how OpenSolaris’s built-in CIFS/SMB server runs.  If I this works well ( / if my parents fund it) I could set one of these up in the basement, hooked into the home Win2k3 domain controller for Active Directory authentication, which would be really cool!

Anyway, it’s going to take me a few days to get my hands on one of these things, so I’ll post back when I actually have it and let you know how it goes!

Last Sunday, a number of us had the opportunity to go to the New York Buddhist Church‘s 59th Annual Obon Dance Festival in Bryant Park, NYC. Most of us had never been to an Obon before, so we weren’t sure exactly to expect, but it turned out to be a very enjoyable experience and I’m glad we made it out : D

Two of the main reasons we were planning to go were to see Hoh Daiko and Soh Daiko, the area’s closest non-collegiate taiko groups.

Sunday turned out to be a nice day for a festival, with bright sunny skies, and Bryant Park providing nice shade for us. We got there alittle early (Brian and I took a trip over to B&H beforehand since we were in the city anyway) and waited while Hoh Daiko set up and warmed up beforehand.

Hoh Daiko kicked off the Obon with a great performance of two songs! The first was an intense Yatai-style song, and the second a more upbeat song played in slant style. Both were performed with great skill and energy

During most of the time between performances, there were traditional dances being done in the main area. Although there were times when the music would randomly cut out, alot of people picked up the dances pretty fast and joined along. We decided to sit out at a table to talk and rest, since we had done so much walking and standing throughout the day. I took that opportunity to snap a few pics of us and the dancers, of course.

We also took this chance to meet up with members of both Hoh Daiko and Soh Daiko. They were both very friendly and hopefully we’ll be able to see them in the future and strengthen the bond between our groups!

Soh Daiko performed in the last half of the Obon, performing a short theatrical intro involving Nemo, a version of Matsuri (slant style), as well as another piece with some drums on up stands and some on slant, all of which were performed with great energy and technique.

Afterwards we had alittle time to kill before heading home, so we stopped by Yoshinoya, just west of Times Sq., which had cheap and tasty beef bowls and other rice-bowl type things (I got a bowl with chicken IIRC).

I’m glad we got the chance to go – it was a good chance to see some experienced taiko groups perform, get to meet and network with them, and also experience some other facets of Japanese culture.   I hope we get to go next year!

[pictures from the day]

Friday, May 23rd, 2008

Chris spends quality time with Apollo Justice in EWR

So we originally arrived at Newark at midnight the night before for a 6:30AM flight, because we were accounting for extra time due to getting through TSA.  Just our luck that the security checkpoint for our gate wasn’t even open, so we couldn’t do anything until 4:30.  After failed attempts to sleep, we passed the time playing cards and eating the fried rice I had made and brought.  Chris spent some quality time with Apollo Justice (of the Phoenix Wright series)…

After two long plane rides and various mass-transit trips, we arrived in sunny Palo Alto, CA around 1PM.  Of course check-in didn’t start for about 8 hours, so we ditched our bags in Chris’s room and explored Stanford’s beautiful campus, the Stanford Shopping Center and downtown Palo-Alto.  We had a nice dinner of really cheap (compared to the east coast) but really good sushi, and browsed all the shops and restaurants up and down University Ave.

The first night was pretty uneventful; we met in our dorm groups for the night and just had some time to hang out and get settled.  Most people started arriving around 9PM or so, but about half of the people coming didn’t come until closer to 1AM or so.  Until then, we got to know each other, played some games to pass the time, etc., and then passed out around 2 or so.

Saturday, May 24th, 2008

After an early-morning wakeup and breakfast, everyone was ushered into White Plaza for warmups.  We did some basic stretches and exercises, and then broke into our workshop groups to learn Modori.  Modori (meaning “somersault”) is a piece written by Stanford Taiko’s David Wells which was taught to everyone in attendance, and played by representatives of each school at the end of both of the weekend’s concerts as the Finale piece.

My first workshop, Improvisation

After warmups and learning Modori, we went to our first workshop.  Mine was Improvisation with Russel Hisashi Baba and Jeanne Aiko Mercer of Shasta Taiko.  First we talked a bit about improvisation and the theory behind it.  Then we did an exercise where we went around in a circle and all created patterns that the rest of us then had to repeat, and another exercise where we all improved for increasing amounts of time.  After that we did a cool exercise where we improved with two other players to create a whole song, completely improvised, which was really cool and ended up working better than I thought it would.  There was another exercise to build confidence in soloists, and then we did a quick exercise to practice Oroshi on O-daiko, which was cool, after which we had to wrap up because the workshop time slot was over.

After lunch, we had moved on to our second workshops.  Mine was Group Performance with San Jose Taiko.  We started off with an exercise which tuned us in to stage presence and what needs to be running through your mind as a performer, and how your actions need to reflect purpose.  We then did a 15-minute “Roy drill”, which really brought out the energy in the group.  We then learned an exercise, building it up first by learning the notes, then adding kiai, and then movements.  Using that exercise, we learned how to connect with the audience, and our fellow taiko players.

This workshop I found especially helpful, as energy and presence is an aspect where TCNJ Taiko has room for improvement.  Having not had much of a chance to practice with other experienced taiko players, it was a good experience to really feel the energy throughout the room, and to feed off the other players.  This year I hope to get our group to feel that same feeling – I’m still excited thinking back to the experience, and I want all of us to get a chance to experience it.

After the second workshops was practice for the concert, where we solidified Modori, and the other groups warmed up.  [video of practice] The concert was informal, so I joined Chris and Steph in the audience since I wasn’t going to be playing until the end.  We got the chance to watch most of the concert, and it was great to see all the groups we had watched on YouTube right there in front of us.  It was also exciting to see all the people we had met over the course of the weekend thus far performing for us!

Playing Modori in Saturday’s Concert

The last piece of the concert was Modori, which we had all learned, and it was played by representatives of each school.  I got the chance to represent TCNJ Taiko on stage, along with 7 other schools.  It was a great experience to perform a new song (and even solo in it!) in front of hundreds of collegiate taiko players!  [video of Modori, Sat. night] Although it started out alittle rocky, it magically came together (thanks Deni >_<) and we all did an awesome job for having learned it only a few hours prior.

After the concert, we headed over to dinner, where we were surprised by entertainment.  Stanford Calypso (Stanford’s own steel drum band) performed a few songs for us (including a really cool arrangement of Billie Jean), and then we were treated to a few dance numbers by Stanford’s Polynesian dance group.  While they performed, we were treated to tasty Indian food and cookies, and then we had plenty of time to hang out and chat with other groups, etc.  We took this opportunity to meet Kenny Endo and On Ensemble (and buy a DVD or two), and got to chat with them about our group.

After dinner, we attended a lecture on The History of Taiko, led by Stanford Taiko’s Faculty Adviser, Steve Sano.  The whole talk was very informational, and we learned alot through the videos and such that were presented.

That concluded the scheduled festivities for the day, so the three of us retreated to Chris’s room to make hachimaki (since we hadn’t had the chance beforehand) for the exchange the next day.  We eventually went back to our respective dorms, where we spent more time hanging out with our dorm groups until we went to bed… again around 2AM, probably alot later than we should have >_<.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

After another early-morning wake up,  breakfast, and rousing set of warmups/exercises, we headed off to our third and final workshop of the weekend.  My third workshop was Shime (and small drum) playing, led by Kris Bergstrom and Kelvin Underwood of On Ensemble.  Chris and Steph had already been to this workshop and liked it, and I’d never had any real instruction on shime, so I was glad to finally learn.  It was a very informative workshop, and I got a good feel for technique and how it differs from larger drums.  I also signed up for Kris’s “30 Days to Better Shime” course which I’m currently following throughout the month of June.

Next we had a discussion panel on Composition, led by Kenny Endo, Shoji Kameda (member of On Ensemble and writer of Omiyage), and Roy Hirabayashi (Executive director of San Jose Taiko).  This was also very informative and gave a lot of insight into the composition process.

Our new hachimaki, with Akemi

Sunday’s Concert

After the panel, we had lunch and our hachimaki exchange.  I swapped hachimaki with Masa from UCD’s Bakuhatsu Taiko Dan, who I’d gotten to know over the course of the weekend.  It was cool to see all the interesting designs (UCB’s were band-aids, and one group made theirs into Pokéman)… hopefully we’ll be able to make cooler ones next year. -_-

After lunch, we had Master Classes / Free Time.  Me, Steph, and Chris decided to attend UCSD Asayake Taiko’s master class with On Ensemble.  Asayake impressed us with their song, Jikan Gire (“Time is running out”), with it’s odd metering and high energy.  It was a great experience, getting to see them work with the group and transform an already amazing piece into something even cooler!  It definitely gave some great examples of how you can think about compositions in a fresh way, and how to communicate that vision to the group.

The last planned festivity of the invitational was the second and final concert.  At this concert, we got to see all the groups that hadn’t performed the night before (minus St. Louis and ourselves).  It was exciting to see all these other groups perform for us!  And the finale performance of Modori went alot smoother than the night before >_<

After the concert, we said our goodbyes since most of the other groups were packing up to leave.  Our flight was the next day so we stuck around until most people left.

At some point we decided to go to dinner, and Chris F’s friend Jill volunteered to drive us to Mountain View for dinner (which was very nice of her).  A little bit of driving, and a few of Chris’s definitive decisions later, we ended up at a nice Chinese restaurant, where we had delicious food and talked about the events of the weekend.  We then headed out to the nearest boba establishment, but due to a slight miscalculation, we weren’t able to order before they closed for the night.

After that we retreated to Colin’s house to sleep for the night, but ended up staying up past 2 talking about taiko (notice a pattern?).

Monday, May 26th, 2008

Cookie Cookie Sundae from Ben&Jerry’s

After 3 fun days in Cali, it was finally time to head home.  The trip home was pretty uneventful – during our 3-hours stop in Denver, we got dinner at Wolfgang Puck Express (which was pretty good but kinda pricey) and dessert at the Ben&Jerry’s, where I got an awesome Cookie Cookie Sundae for only $5.  After that we hung out in the terminal and finally touched down in Newark around 1 and were back home by 2 or so.

Hopefully we’ll be able to go to next year’s invitationals at UCI, hosted by Jodaiko!  Hopefully we can bring more people, and maybe even perform a song (like many of the people we met expressed interest in)!  ‘Till next year!

Links

[videos from invitational 2008]

[my photos from the weekend]

Groups Present

LMU Shin Kanarazu Daiko, St. Louis Osuwa Taiko, Stanford Taiko, TCNJ Taiko, UCB Raijin Taiko, UCD Bakuhatsu Taiko Dan, UCI Jodaiko, UCLA Kyodo Taiko, UCLA Yukai Daiko, UCR Senryu Taiko, UCSD Asayake Taiko, USC Kazan Taiko

• A Plus D (Mims vs. Def Leppard) – Pour Some Hot Sugar
• DJ Earworm (Madonna vs. Cher vs. Whitney Houston vs. George Krantz) – Believe Somebody
• A Plus D (Soulja Boy vs. The Go-Go’s) – We Got The Soulja Boy
• Party Ben (The Snow Patrol vs. The Police) – Every Car You Chase
  
• A Plus D (Kayne West vs. Beethoven vs. Walter Murphy) – Beethoven’s Fifth Gold Digger
• Norwegian Recycling (too many to list) – How Six Songs Collide

And as an Honorable Mention, DJ Earworm (too many to list) – The United State of Pop . This one was released in Jan. 2008, so it doesn’t exactly count, but it does use all songs from 2007 so it’s worth mentioning.

DJ MTW - “I Turn To Mice”
[mp3 format, 6.67MB]

After being introduced to the 杨臣刚 version by WoK a month or two ago, 老鼠爱大米 quickly became a staple on my playlist. At some point, I was like “Hey…. this chord progression sounds familiar.” A few hours of editing in my room later, I Turn To Mice was born.

I actually finished it (to the point it is now) about a month ago, thinking I’d come back to it at some point. Unfortunately that hasn’t happened, and I’ve decided to release it despite of its semi-finished state.

Comments, suggestions are welcome! Enjoy!

The format (packaging and style) will be much like last years, for those of you who bought one.

Included on the recording will be:
- Wind Ensemble
- Concert Band
- Chorus
- Folk Group
- maybe even some bonus content!

The CDs will be available for pickup in the Music Department around the end of Janurary.

Ordering: $10 a CD, any time between now and January 11th.
Please print out a form, fill it in, and give the money and the form in an envelope to the IHS Music Department Office.

CD Order Form [PDF]

Any questions? Feel free to email me at mtw at mtwstudios dot com, or you can comment to this post below.