Jiaqi's Blog

On Nov 14th, in AWS re:invent conference day 2 keynote , Netflix announced 2013 Cloud Prize award winners . I was very lucky and my project, datamung , is one of the ten winners. Datamung received the award for best datastore integration. Datamung is a Java open source web application that backs up RDS MySQL database into S3 using AWS Simple Workflow and EC2. It's a RESTful service and website on top of it, a single installation allows multiple AWS users to backup their database living in their own AWS accounts. The fact that it uses mysqldump command indicates that the backup result in S3 is a SQL file ready to use across AWS accounts, regions, VPC, or outside of AWS network. If you are interested please jump into the Datamung project wiki to find out more. Ironically, in the same keynote session where winner list was announced, 40 minutes later Werner Vogels announced a cross-region RDS replication feature which targets the same problem that Datamung attempts to so...

Finally, it's July 4th when everyone comes to Navy Pier, pays $20/hour parking to watch exciting fireworks, despite the fact that the exactly same fireworks happens every Wednesday and Saturday night here all summer long.

Ömer Aşık had a decent season in Houston Rockets and my wife's best friend is getting married in Turkey. Therefore Yilin, my wife and I decided to spend a week in Istanbul, which turned out to be the most amazing and memorable vacation we ever had. Way too many things to do If I ever going to visit Istanbul again, I would definitely reserve at least a month. There are way too many interesting things to do in Istanbul for a week-long vacation. Heaven of food Restaurants cover every inch of the old town. I wonder if people here ever need to cook at home. The restaurants look good and cheap. Then later we asked a Turkish friend if she cooks, she said not really since restaurants are good and cheap. Being a Chinese picky eater, I felt dubious about the quality of food from these "good and cheap" restaurants. Finally we had chance to have a bite, from which point we couldn't stop. If I were born in Turkey, I would be a happy Turkish programmer who never cooks....

This morning Yilin and daddy was having a little conversation while having breakfast Daddy: Who's the best? Yilin: Me Daddy: Who's smart? Yilin: Me Daddy: Who's strong? Yilin: Me Daddy: Who's funny? Yilin: Hmm.. you are funny, daddy. Daddy: You are funny too, you are a funny little girl Yilin: No, I'm not funny because I don't watch Family Guy Daddy: (Running to bedroom hysterically) Honey, did you hear what Yilin said?

Like many folks here in the building, every noon I order sandwich from Snarf's online and pick it up from store to feed my starving tummy. But today is not any day, today I received my lucky order.

There's a surprise every day.

Hotel Felix in Chicago   The building of Fix-it Felix Jr.  

Having lived in Seattle for 6 years, I thought Seattle is the one with notorious weather. Turns out I was wrong. Shopping experience Seattle Chicago Working environment Seattle Chicago Weather Seattle Chicago Living Seattle Chicago Driving to home Seattle: 2158 miles, 31 hours Chicago: 96 miles, 1 hour 39 minutes