Foreigner's Guide to Rediscover Japan

Auto publish test

Sat, 18 Jun 2016 12:49:00 +0000

This is a test again e.

This is a test update on my iphone

Fri, 17 Jun 2016 16:43:00 +0000

Setup my iphone to upload post to this blog.

Haven’t update my personal blog for a while now, but I will try to update it more often.

Move my website from Drupal to Jekyll

Fri, 28 Nov 2014 16:43:00 +0000

Since I work with cloud infrastructure and DevOps on a daily basis, slow websites and servers are always haunting me. I would like my all my websites to load quickly, even for my personal blog. Although I love to work with Drupal’s powerful framework, it costs too much time to keep up with the maintenance and plugin update.

I decided to move my blog from Drupal to Jekyll, a static website generator. The reason behind the migration is that I want to focus more on the blog’s content instead of server maintenance. After the migration, the response time went from 3000ms down to 40ms, Now that is what I called improvement. A blog should only have one function - delivery of a message to the audience, nothing more.

One of the benefits of Jekyll is its importer; it allows you to import your old posts from different platform without any difficulties.

Update this blog with SSL and alias domain with www redirect

Tue, 14 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +0000

First, I registered a new domain for this website - chow.red, short and simple, right? I know you will love it :D

Second, for your security concern, I enabled Full SSL (strict) on CloudFlare alone with free “Class 1 SSL Certificate” on the server using StartSSL. This is not an advertisement or anything like that, I just want to share freebie like this with you all.

FREE SSL (startssl.com)
FREE CDN (CloudFlare.com)

Who don’t like freebies? I know I do :)

Here is how I did it.

Sign up on https://www.startssl.com/ and CloudFlare (Free SSL enabled on Oct 9)
Create your key and certificate request (your_domain.csr) with the following code
```
 openssl req -new -keyout your_domain.key -out your_domain.csr
```
Verify your domain with the “Validations Wizard” in startssl.com
Use “Certificates Wizard” to create your certificate, copy your_domain.csr and click next
copy the cert to your server your_domain.crt

Setup your nginx config

//  Redirect all your www and non-www traffic to https non-www domain
server {
    listen 80;
    server_name  your_domain.com www.your_domain.com;
    rewrite ^(.*) https://your_domain.com$1 permanent;
}
server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    ssl on;
    ssl_certificate      /etc/ssl/certs/your_domainSSL.crt;
    ssl_certificate_key  /etc/ssl/certs/your_domain.key;
    ssl_client_certificate /etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt;
    server_name  www.your_domain.com;
    rewrite ^(.*) https://your_domain.com$1 permanent;
}

// Set up the SSL
server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name your_domain.com;
    root   /var/www/your_domain.com/root;
    ssl on;
    ssl_certificate      /etc/ssl/certs/your_domainSSL.crt;
    ssl_certificate_key  /etc/ssl/certs/your_domain.key;
    ssl_client_certificate /etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt;
    location @rewrite {
          # Some modules enforce no slash (/) at the end of the URL
          # Else this rewrite block wouldn't be needed (GlobalRedirect)
          rewrite ^ /index.php last;
    }
    location @rewrite {
        rewrite ^/(.*)$ /index.php?q=$1;
    }
    location ~ ^/sites/.*/files/styles/ {
        try_files $uri @rewrite;
    }
}

Set you your CDN on CloudFlare, and enable FULL SSL (strict).
Enjoy looking at the green lock next to your URL.

Chef Server Installation Guide for Amazon linux

Fri, 11 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Chef Server Installation Guide for Amazon linux

rpm -Uvh https://opscode-omnibus-packages.s3.amazonaws.com/el/6/x86_64/chef-server-11.0.12-1.el6.x86_64.rpm

chef-server-ctl reconfigure

chef-server-ctl test

Set /etc/hosts otherwise you may not be able to login on the web UI

xx.xxx.xxx.xxx your.awesome.domain.com
127.0.0.1 localhost localhost.localdomain</host>

If you are installing Chef server on Amazon Linux micro instace you may run across the following problem:
 Stuck on ruby_block[supervise_rabbitmq_sleep] action run 

 Add the following line to /opt/chef-server/embedded/cookbooks/runit/recipes/default.rb will solve the problem.
 when "amazon"
  include_recipe "runit::upstart"
 


Memory 
Make sure you have enough memory and swap space

// Run this command to create swap space
dd if=/dev/zero of=/swap_1 bs=2048 count=1000000
mkswap /swap_1
swapon /swap_1


// Add the follow line to /etc/fstab so it will auto mount after reboot
/swap_1 swap swap defaults 0 0

// Now you should be able to see the swap space you just created with this command
free -tom

Dependency
You may have problem configure your Chef client(workstation) on your Mac,  when you run "knife configure --initial" it will show you the following error:
Ohai::Exceptions::DependencyNotFound: Can not find a plugin for dependency os

That is the problem of chef client 11.12, try to install 10.32 first and install 11.12 again. This will bypass the problem in the mean time, when the patch will apply to the future release.(https://tickets.opscode.com/browse/CHEF-5211)

curl -L https://www.opscode.com/chef/install.sh | sudo bash -s -- -v 10.32.2 
</ul>

Newrelic's nginx plugin install

Thu, 20 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Today, Newrelic announced a new open platform for you to install your own plugin to monitor your own stack.

It featured a list of default plugin - http://newrelic.com/platform that you can use. Since

I use Nginx on my server, so I decided to give it a try.

First the plugin require you to install Ruby and bundler for Ruby, after that you need to download the tar file from http://nginx.com/nrform.html.

Download the file to your server and decompress it, then run

bundle install

If you have problem with the gem's json and see an error like this

mkmf.rb can't find header files for ruby at /usr/share/ruby/include/ruby.h

Make sure you install ruby-devel and other require dependencies

sudo yum install ruby-rdoc ruby-devel

yum install make

yum install gcc

Also the Gemfile's git repository path is incorrect, change it to use HTTPS. You may get a message similar to the follwoing:

git clone git@github.com:/newrelic-platform/newrelic_plugin.git
Cloning into 'newrelic_plugin'...
Permission denied (publickey).
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Change it to this.

gem "newrelic_plugin", :git => "https://github.com/newrelic-platform/newrelic_plugin.git", :branch => 'release'

Now "build install" again and you should be fine. Remember to follow the README file and change the account id. I skip those steps, and just descripted the PROBLEM you may see during the installation here.

Drupal 7 migration to Amazon AWS EC2 micro instance

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Earlier this week my shared hosting for this blog was almost at the end of its contract, so I decided to upgrade my server to a cloud VPS hosting. This will improve the loading speed for this blog and allow me to experiment with my other websites. During the migration process there were quite a few problems with the blog's CMS system - Drupal 7, because earlier there was a lot of spam in this blog so I directly delete the spam users, blogs and comments in database. Ooooo boy, after that I realize it is not a good idea to directly edit the record in the database because the CMS system cannot update the record. The proper way to delete spam user and all of their contents is to use the administrator's panel or type in this URL [www.yourWebsite.com]/admin/people".

Well, if you are here, that mean you have some trouble. Let get start and fix it, after you deleted the spam comment (truncate comment) in your database the record count in your database is not correct, you may noticed the comment counter in your post is not updated and when you add a new comment the following error appear.

Undefined property: stdClass::$comment_count in comment_node_page_additions()

This error mean that your node_comment_statistics table is empty, in order to fix this problem we need to run a query in mysql database.

INSERT INTO `node_comment_statistics` (`nid`, `cid`, `last_comment_timestamp`, `last_comment_name`, `last_comment_uid`, `comment_count`)
SELECT nid, 0, UNIX_TIMESTAMP(), NULL, 1, 0 FROM node

What this query doing is add a record to all the node in your database, this should fix the problem for you.

Fix terminal set locale warning for Mac OS

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

When I try to ssh into my remote server using terminal it give me the following warning.

-bash: warning: setlocale: LC_CTYPE: cannot change locale (UTF-8)

It doesn't happen to every server, but just one particular server. In order to fix this problem, you need to add the following line into .bash_profile in your computer not your server.

export LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8

export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8

After that save and restart your terminal session, then try to ssh into your server again. You should not see the warning again.

The second year in Japan

Thu, 02 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

It is already been 2 years since I live and work in Japan, I can't believe that I stay here for that long. At the beginning, I was a student who study aboard for one semester. At the end of the semester I decided to stay here and experience more, working and enjoying my live in Japan.The first year was tough, trying to adapt to the new environment and language. Then the second year was easier and more enjoyable as I make many new friends and get the hang of the language. Beginning from today I will try to write this blog as often as I can, increase the length in the post and put useful information about Japan. I hope this website will help people in many ways, so you can learn from my mistake.

After working in Japan for a little more then a year, I notice that management system in most Japanese companies are lack of flexibility and efficiency. Management hierarchy is deeply embedded into Japanese culture, lead to poor communication and lack of creativity. There is no doubt that Japanese companies are trying to introduce western management system into their company, but most worker are still believe in their traditional value and obedience to senior level worker. The management system work for most westerner because employees are willing to express their own opinion and the employer are willing to listen. In the case of Japanese companies, most employees will not confront their superior even they know there is a problem. Maybe I shouldn't blame on the Japanese culture, it is more the problem of the poor management. I am sure this happen in companies around the world, but Japanese companies tend to have this problem more often.

I work as a software engineer, mostly work with other engineer and designer. In this environment I personally think that a flat management system is quite important because we are creating a product together. I seem to run into many bottleneck because no one willing to listen my opinion because I am the youngest person in the development team, to be honest I am the one with the less experience but this doesn't make my opinion less important. On most projects, the resource -- ( images or design) I request was not fill by anyone because the manager told me that the designer are busy and have more important project working on. I know all the designers personally and they told me that they have nothing to work on. This is one of the example of poor management system in Japan, my suggestion to improve the management system in Japan is to remove senior hierarchy system and create a more competitive environment at the same time. Employees will feel more motivated to work on their project and create a better product.

One person I really admire is Steve Jobs, his management style is very strict and hard, but at the same time he is willing to listen to people. Some indie developer send him a email inquire about his app approval process, he personal reply the email and help this developer fix his problem. A CEO of a big company reply the email himself not happen very often.

I think this is the end of today's blog post, if you have any question about Japan or want to talk me about any thing. Feel free to reply below or send me an email.

Almost Friday~~

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Made this website for a while now, I am still not sure what should I do with it. I tried to focus the topic on Japan, but honestly I am not a good writer or blogger. I just couldn't keep writing article every week for more that a month.

Is not like I hate writing, it just because no one is responding to an article I wrote. If you have any idea or topic please feel free to let me know, I will write some about it.

Today I just realize how much I hate Facebook, it really like a prison. You just go around and look at other people's wall but do you really understand that person, I don't think so. Facebook just separated us from our friend even more that before. At least you will call that person and ask them to hang out. Now, you just send an invitation to all your "friends" and ask them to hang out. Do you really want everyone to go, no I don't think so.

What a meanness things to do, when you are be friend with another person. You need to communicate with them and interact with them. I am no whining about Facebook, it just doesn't feel right and as comfortable as talk to another person face to face.