Top 10 List of Week 03

How to extract metadata from a image using python?
Again, I’ve chosen a stackoverflow thread as my link of choice. This time, the topic is about metadata, specifically the technical side of extracting metadata. This thread discusses metadata extraction using the python library pil and this should be interesting for anyone who wants to get a deeper experience of extracting metadata with basic knowledge of python.
Why You Can’t Name A File CON In Windows
This topic is more on the interesting side rather than an informative one, but still worth a spot on this list, nonetheless. In short, you can’t name a file or folder with CON. Why is that? CON, which is short for console is one of several words that are names of device files. I actually don’t know what will happen, but another device files word is LPT1, the port on your computer. Hilariously, if you try to create a file named LPT1, you can actually trigger your printer to print those characters (based on tom scott). Definitely a must try for you windows user folks.
Spotlight: Don’t take your Mac’s powerful search engine for granted
If you’re using a mac, then you should know the search engine called spotlight. Spotlight is mac’s search engine for things ranging from Applications to files. Spotlight is pretty fast, as it uses a method called indexing, a term you might be familiar with if you’ve already taken database course in college. From this article, I learned that spotlight indexes the text of every document it can find, really impressive! You can even use NOT and OR to filter searches.
What Is a TAR File?
I’ve never actually know what a TAR file is, and what a better time to learn it than now? Tar is usually referred as tarball and is an extention file in the Consolidated Unix Archive format. Similar to a zip file, you need a program or command to extract it, but different from zip files, tar files aren’t compressed. Making a TAR file: tar -czvf name-of-archive.tar.gz /path/to/folder-or-file Extracting a TAR file: tar -xvf file.tar This article is beginner friendly and has code examples, which I love.
What Does .tar.gz and .tar.bz2 Mean?
Continuing from last number’s topic, I’d like to learn more about tar.gz or tar.bz2 as it sounds very mysterious. This article is kind enough to explain, also with code examples, on what those file extentions are. Basically, tar.gz and tar.bz2 are tar files, but compressed. I personally loved this article as it explains the arguments:
-x: Extract, retrieve the files from the tar file.
-v: Verbose, list the files as they are being extracted.
-z: Gzip, use gzip to decompress the tar file.
-f: File, the name of the tar file we want tar to work with. This option must be followed by the name of the tar file.
Code snippet for extraction of bz2 and gz tars:
tar -xvjf guitar_songs.tar.bz2
tar -xvzf ukulele_songs.tar.gz
Key points:
.bz2 extention means it’s been compressed using the bzip2 command.
the j in -xvjf flag in the command snippet is for bzip2 option.
588. Design In-Memory File System
Now lets do something different. Because I just got rejected from one of my dream copmanies to intern at, I’m more motivated than ever to crack the coding interview. This is an algorithmic question about file systems, titled Design In-Memory File System. Because this is a leetcode premium problem, you won’t be able to do submissions, unless you have leetcode premium. This person has over 1000 documented leetcode problems and it’s solutions, insane! Who knows, this might be asked on your next interview question.
146. LRU Cache
Ok, I promise this is the last leecode problem, (for this week). This is very much related with the previous link, technically about file systems and it’s implementation with data structures. This time, rather than a file system, it is to design a Least Recently Used Cache. Even though caching will be in a future topic, this is a grat segment for transitioning from file systems to how to make it more efficient and less cost heavy. This is a highly loved interview questions with 8000 likes, so I highly recommend you to try to solve this problem, again, this might help you get your dream job.
Partitions, File Systems, Formatting, Mounting
This is, by far the most complete link from this link. It is structured like a documentation with such a complete explanation of all the topics it promises to cover from the title, yet isn’t as intimidating as normal documentations tend to be like. This article also has tables and illustrations, my most favorite thing to help me visualize what I’m actually learning. Though the number of unknown words might be intimidating, try to read the The Physical Disk Structure, Partitioning a New Disk, Formatting Devices, and the Device Mounting subsections as it will give you a stronger fundemental on one of Operating System’s major topics, File Systems.
What is DFS(Distributed File System)?
Finally, a geeks4geeks article, and this time it’s about Distributed File System!. I actually learned a lot from this article, as it is short, concise, and has illustrations. Two components of DFS are Location Transparency, achieved through the namespace component and Redundancy, achieved by replicating file components. These components are key to improve data availability in case of a heavy load by having data from different locations into one folder, the DFS root. Surprisingly, this topic comes up in interview fairly often, with connections such as HDFS (Hadoop Distributed File System and NFS which we will be discussing on the next link.
Network File System (NFS)
As we close this list with another geeks4geeks article, this time we will be discussing about NFS, Network File System. NFS are an application of DFS, which is why I’ve decided to put DFS prior to this topic. NFS is a client-server architecture that allows a client (computer) to do day-to-day activities with a file system, but r-e-m-o-t-e-l-y, how cool is that?. Something that pops unto my mind are VPS (virtual private server) which most of those services include an NFS as an add on. Another acronym you might find when learning about NFS is NAS, Network-Attached Storage, which is what NFSs as a standard are based on.