Sunfish Pond

I went hiking at Sunfish Pond today in Columbia, NJ (just before exit 1 on Route 80 West).  My iPod Nano’s pedometer shows I walked just over 18,000 steps, so that’s roughly 9 miles.  The terrain is very rocky but the hills are not very steep so a beginner hiker should be fine, it’s just pretty long.  Just follow the white trail all the way to the pond.

The main attraction, the Sunfish Pond, is very nice and big.  There are plenty of big rocks around it where you can sit down and relax.  I spent a few minutes checking out the area and then found a nice spot where I can take a break, eat my lunch, and enjoy the scenery.  About 5 minutes later, a park ranger stopped by just letting everyone know that there’s a severe thunderstorm warning (great…).  And sure enough, a few minutes after that as I was finishing up my lunch it started raining! .  So that pretty much ruined my plan of chilling here for at least an hour reading Vagabonding.

This trail is supposed to be a loop so I was thinking of just continuing to follow the trail but I spoke to some of the hikers there who were also going to the same direction and it looks like they parked at a different parking lot so I decided to just go back the same way I came from.  I was wearing my new KSO Treks for this hike, by the way.  They’re very comfy thanks to the soft, flexible kangaroo leather but they’re even more comfortable with Injinji socks.  They also do a great job protecting your feet from sharp rocks thanks to the thicker rubber sole.  You can still feel the rocks but they don’t hurt at all!

On my way back, the rain got worse, saw a deer crossed the trail right in front of me (I guess it’s running from the rain), and still saw a lot of people on the way up to the pond.  I guess this is a pretty popular trail, the parking lot near this trail was actually full when I got there (around 11:00ish) and had to wait for someone to leave.

My KSO Treks really got a nice test today.  The rocks on the trail are now wet but the Treks seem to do a  good job hugging them, they didn’t feel slippery at all.  Also works great on mud.  The kangaroo leather is also water resistant, I was hiking in the rain for about 4 miles and when I got home my Injinji socks were completely dry, I don’t think even a drop of water got through.  I also started running downhill near the end of the trail and it felt great! With my regular KSO I really had to watch my steps when going downhill as I’ve landed on some things before that hurt my feet, but with the Treks they don’t seem to be a problem.

I’ll probably still use my regular KSOs and alternate the two.  But for long hikes on rough terrains, the KSO Treks would be my choice.  For easier terrains and water activities I’d wear the regular KSOs as they give a better “barefoot feel.”

I was pretty soaked when I got back to the parking lot.  I’m glad I brought my MSR Packtowl (learned about this from Tim Ferriss’ blog) with me, which I was originally planning for just wiping off sweat on my face.  I’m also glad that I bought this backpack (love this backpack!) a couple weeks ago as my old one is not water resistant.  I was also wearing a polyester shirt that wicks moisture and dries very quickly so it was still pretty comfortable hiking in the rain.  The only piece of clothing that wasn’t prepared for the rain was my shorts, I actually just ordered one that is water resistant/quick drying (and if you’re wondering what underwear I was wearing it’s this one – “17 Countries, 6 weeks, 1 pair of underwear” ).

Well, next time, I’ll be more prepared.  It was actually a pretty good experience hiking in the rain and it cooled me off.  I’ll probably post something in the future about hiking gears/clothing as I get more experienced (I’m still a newbie hiker).  Right now the only parts of my body that are sore are my ankles, I guess they’re still pretty weak and need more strengthening (thanks shoe companies that make thick-soled shoes and offer too much foot “protection”).  Looking forward to next weekend to do more hikes!  Some pictures below (hmm…this blog seems to be turning into a hiking blog).

The application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect

Error Message: “The application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect.”

Received this error after submitting an application written in C++ to the Microsoft HPC Server 2008 cluster.  To fix it, simply install the Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package on the compute nodes.  I recommend you install both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions as you may have some users compiling their applications in 32-bit and some in 64-bit.

Reference: http://docs.hp.com/en/BA683-90006/ch13s08.html

Downloads

• Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package (x86)
• Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package (x64)

Ramapo Valley County Reservation

I hiked for almost 3 hours this afternoon at the Ramapo Valley County Reservation in Mahwah, NJ with my VFF KSOs.  I’ve been hiking a lot lately and I can thank the VFFs for that, it’s just so much fun to hike/walk with these shoes!

This is a pretty nice park for hiking, it’s big and there’s quite a variety of terrains.  There’s a paved section, dirt trails, rocky ones (both with big rocks and small rocks), some area with grass, some covered with leaves, etc.  There’s a lot of people also walking their dogs here and there’s a lake area where they take their dogs for a swim (this is a nice spot to take a break as well, nice view and breezy).  I also passed a couple of old guys riding their big horses further down a narrow trail, which I thought was pretty weird (definitely didn’t expect that).  There’s also an overlook (follow the blue trail) but it wasn’t that nice of a view, the trees are blocking most of the view.

There’s a bunch of spots I missed, though, so I’d probably come back here at some time.  There’s supposed to be a waterfall here, some old ruins, and another lake passed the other lake where I stopped to take a break (someone was asking me about it on my way down).

My feet are a little sore right now, I guess it’s a good sign that they got a pretty nice workout, I just hope it doesn’t get worse when I wake up tomorrow!  Vibram also has a  KSO Trek model which is designed for this type of activity and I’m actually considering a pair of those.  They’re supposed to have a little bit thicker sole which would definitely help on rocky terrains as I’ve stepped on some sharp rocks and they hurt quite a bit (didn’t leave any bruises or cuts though, so the VFFs did their job).

I also found this nice website while doing some research on the KSO Treks that seems to be dedicated to Vibram Five Fingers and has a lot of information: http://www.birthdayshoes.com

If you’re near the area and like hiking, check out this park.  Just watch out for snakes…and dog poop!

Some pics below:

My Favorite WordPress Code Highlighter Plugin

If you’re wondering what I used for the code highlighter in my previous post, it’s the SyntaxHighlighter Evolved plugin.  It’s just like the Google Syntax Highlighter plugin but much easier to use.  I’ve tried a bunch of other ones such as the WP Advanced Code Editor, Developer Formatter, and WP-Codebox and this one is the best in my opinion.

To use it you just put your code between these tags: “[language] …code goes here… [/language]” where “language” is the programming language (i.e. python, java, sql, etc.).

Here are some examples of what the code would look like:

Python

import shutil

class Copy:
    '''
    Copy files.
    '''

    def __init__(self):
        '''
        Nothing to see here.
        '''

    def copyFile(self, src, dst):
        shutil.copy2(src, dst)
        print "I don't know why I'm printing this."

SQL

SELECT * FROM cool_websites
WHERE domain = 'calazan.com'
AND ranking IS NOT NULL

Java

public class HelloVisitors {

	public static void main(String[] args) {
		// Just saying hello
		System.out.println("Hello visitors!");
	}
}

Python’s ‘zipfile’ Module

I was writing some scripts today and part of it is to compress some files.  I normally make an external application call to 7-Zip command line when I do this, but then I decided to just do a quick Google search to see if Python has one built in.

It turned out there’s this zipfile module that’s part of the standard library that can compress and decompress files for you (only the standard ZIP compression method is supported).

Here are a couple examples:

Zipping a File

import zipfile

sourceFile = r"C:\ziptest\testfile.txt"
outputFile = r"C:\ziptest\testfile.zip"

try:
    zipper = zipfile.ZipFile(outputFile, "w", zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED)
    zipper.write(sourceFile)
except zipfile.BadZipfile as zipfileException:
    print zipfileException
finally:
    zipper.close()

Unzipping a File

import zipfile

sourceFile = r"C:\ziptest\testfile.zip"
outputFolder = r"C:\ziptest\unzipped"

try:
    unzipper = zipfile.ZipFile(sourceFile)
    unzipper.extractall(outputFolder)
except zipfile.BadZipfile as zipfileException:
    print zipfileException
finally:
    unzipper.close()

Core FTP Mini SFTP Server: A Free SFTP (Secure FTP/SSH FTP) Server

Here’s a nice free little Secure FTP server from Core FTP called Mini SFTP Server.  I use it from time to time at work when people from other departments need to send me files and company policy requires them to use a secure (encrypted) medium.

It’s not a fully featured SFTP server but it’s very easy to use and doesn’t require installation.  Simply double click the executable, set the username and password, set the upload path, click start and your computer will start accepting connections on port 22!

Official Download Site: http://www.coreftp.com/server/

Download From This Site: Core FTP Mini SFTP Server

Free Open Source FTP Client with SFTP Support: FileZilla

How to connect to your Netgear WGPS606 print server in Windows Vista or Windows 7

In Windows XP connecting to the Netgear WGPS606 wireless printer server is pretty simple, you connect to it the same way you connect to a Windows print server, using the UNC path (i.e. \\print_server_name_or_ip).  In Windows Vista or Windows 7, however, this won’t work.

I actually first ran into this problem about a year ago when I upgraded to Windows Vista.  I then did a fresh install of Windows 7 a few months ago and I finally had to actually print something over the weekend (tickets) and completely forgot how I did it the first time.  So after a few minutes of searching around I found the guide I used last time: http://help.lockergnome.com/vista/Netgear-Server-Vista–ftopict17927.html

I missed an important step while I was reading the instructions from this site this time and I was going crazy trying to figure it out for quite a while (I forgot to check the “LPR Byte Counting Enabled” option, causing my print jobs to not fully complete, it will print about 2/3 of the page then stops).  So I decided to put together this nice step-by-step instructions here with pictures as I’m sure I’ll have to do this again at some point and some people probably ran into the same issue.

Step 1 – Click the Windows icon on the taskbar and select “Devices and Printers.” Click on the “Add a printer” button, then click “Add a local printer.”

Step 2 – Select “Create a new port” then select “Standard TCP/IP Port.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Vibram FiveFingers Update 1

Finally had some time to really test out my new VFFs!  Here are my experiences so far:

• Hiking

I went hiking twice yesterday at different parks, in the morning and late in the afternoon.  I have to say that it’s definitely a different experience hiking with the VFFs than with hiking boots.  It’s a lot more fun with the VFFs and the hike actually felt easier with these than with hiking boots.  It was very light and it felt like I really had more control, especially when going uphill.

Both trails I did were very rocky (about 2-3 miles long) and while there were a few spots that I stepped on that did hurt my feet a bit, for the most part the VFFs did their job protecting my feet.  You can definitely feel these small rocks while walking which actually made the hike more enjoyable.  I actually wasn’t planning on doing two hikes yesterday but I had so much fun from the morning hike that I decided to do another one in the afternoon (and to burn some of those fat from all the meat I ate during lunch at a rodizio ).  My feet were a little sore after that second hike (this trail was also steeper from the first one) but it wasn’t bad at all and still able to walk at a normal pace.

• Water Park

So I spent my entire day today at Hurricane Harbor wearing my VFFs, seems like the perfect day to go to a water park (4th of July weekend, 95 degrees out).  I was there from 10:30AM to 5:00PM.  The park of course was very crowded and I couldn’t find a single beach chair that’s available so I ended up doing a lot of walking.  A lot of people were actually wearing water shoes and from far away they actually looked like VFFs!  Then when I got closer I noticed they’re missing toes .

At first, the VFFs were very comfortable, protecting my feet from the very hot pavement (I actually felt the heat from the surface just a little bit).  I spent about half an hour walking, checking out the area, and then finally decided to get myself wet and jumped in to the lazy river and walked with my VFFs.  The VFFs worked quite well on water and also gave a nice grip thanks to the rubber soles.  After than, I went to a couple of the rides and it’s nice not having to take off your footwear when you ride them (normally I’d wear flip flops and usually have to take them off so they don’t come off).  I then went to the wave pool where I spent most of my time as the rides have pretty long lines and don’t feel like waiting.  I also did a lot of walking back and forth to the locker (these lockers are pretty hi-tech now, by the way, they give you a wristband with an RFID attached in the back and you scan it on the scanner in the middle of the lockers and it opens/assigns the next available locker, very convenient and cool!, smartecarte made them if you’re curious) to get my sunscreen and money to buy food/drinks.

Now the bad part.  Around 3:30PM I started feeling some pain on the side of the bone near the big toe on both my feet.  I thought there was a small rock that got in but when I took off my VFFs I found they were small blisters!  They weren’t that bad so I decided to keep wearing them and of course they got worse but still not that bad, I could still walk .  I’m not sure if my feet just haven’t adjusted yet, or if it’s just the shape of my feet (I have wide flat feet), or the VFF KSOs are just not designed to be worn wet for a long time.  I actually brought flip flops with me as backup but left them in my car because I got too confident that I won’t have problems .

Overall, it was still a very good experience so far, I just have to remember to bring backup footwear with me on those occasions where I’m planning to be walking for long periods until I’m fully adjusted to walking barefoot.  I’m definitely planning on using these shoes again for other outdoor/water activities.  If my blisters fully heal by the time I wake up tomorrow I’m actually planning on doing another hike in the morning .