Chandana's Blog

Marquee Display

2009-10-15T23:13:00.007+05:30

24x8 LED matrix marquee display is implemented around the PIC16F877 with three DS7221 as the LED drivers. Each DS7221 can drive 8x8 matrix therefore three are needed to drive 24 columns. A clock module using DS1307 is also being used and a temperature sensor will also be added later. Soldering the LED matrix consumed a lot of time; it took 15-20 minutes to solder a single column. I had to spend more than a week to finish the soldering. Coding the program is still in early stages. After a couple of revisions I managed to scroll a text massage but still have to go a long way.

Matrix - Front

Matrix - Back

Final product - Component side

Final product - Wire side

Marquee in action

Father & Son: Conversation

2009-07-02T12:33:00.000+05:30

I was traveling in the car with my kid (who is 2 years and 9 months old) on the way to his pre-school. A thick black smoke came from a double-cab in front of us, he couldn’t see the vehicle but he saw the smoke. And here is the conversation between us,

“Thatha (father) what’s that smoke?”

“It’s coming out from that double-cab”

“What double-cab?”

“The one in front of us”

“Why is it smoking?”

“Because it is old”

“Why?”

“Since that uncle bought it a long time back”

“What uncle?”

“That uncle who is driving the double cab”

“What double cab?”

“The one which smoked a while ago”

“Why was it smoked?”

“Because it is old”

“Why?”

……..

Hygrometer: Back on track

2009-05-15T13:27:00.004+05:30

I've explained what has happened to my humidity sensor (SHT11) due to an accident in one of my previous posts. I told the same story to S*nsirion and they were kind enough to send 'four' of them, couriered to my doorstep, free of charge. Wow, what a company. So, thanks to them, I'm back on my project once again. I soldered the new one to the same board and attached it to my Altimeter. Surprisingly, PIC16F88 could handle both sensors in its 4k code space. Actually it used only 80% so 20% is left for some improvements.

Here it is in action;

It shows temperature, relative humidity, atmospheric pressure and height from sea level.

If you could refer my previous photo of the hygrometer, the reading was around 62% and that was in January. After 5 months, the reading is 76% for the same temperature. This explains the hot humid condition we are experiencing currently.

I have to format the output in a suitable way which I'm working on currently. At the same time, I must think a way to use the other three sensors too...

Altimeter - Contd...

2009-04-21T16:41:00.005+05:30

MAX187 12-bit ADC with 3v external reference provided a sufficient resolution for the altimeter. To make the calculation accurate, a temperature sensor (DS18S20) is also attached to the microcontroller. The following picture shows the Altimeter in action displaying pressure, height, temperature and output voltage of the pressure sensor.

Altimeter

2009-03-19T13:43:00.005+05:30

I got four pressure sensors (two MPX4250 and two MP3H6115A) from freescale sometime back. I tried the two 4250s but they didn’t work for some reason. MP3H6115A is a surface mount device (SMD) which can measure pressure from 15kPa to 115kPa. Since I have previous experience working with SMDs, (SHT11, humidity sensor) I decided to work with this. The output (pressure) is reported as a voltage ranging from 0 to 2.8 v. I used PIC16F88 since it has an internal 10-bit ADC (analog to digital converter) and 4k code space.

Pressure is given by
P = (Vout/Vs+.095)/0.009 kPa

Where Vs, supply voltage = 3v
Vout, Output voltage measured from ADC

Altitude is given by

H = -ln(P/Po)*R*T/g

Three variables have to be measured:
T - average temperature in degrees Kelvin
Po - atmospheric pressure at ‘zero’ level
P - atmospheric pressure at current level

Remaining values are fixed constants:
R – universal gas constant = 286
g – gravitational acceleration = 9.81

Assuming Po=101.325 kPa and T=303.15K (30C)
The device reported H = 52.5m

Accuracy of this value is largely depending on the resolution of the ADC.
10-bit resolution of the ADC is not even near to get a reasonable accuracy of the altitude. One unit change in the ADC measurement will change 10m of height. To obtain 1m sensitivity, I need at least 12-bit ADC. So I ordered 12-bit ADCs from Maxim-IC and waiting until they arrive for the final product.

PIC Relay – 230v

2009-03-03T15:44:00.003+05:30

This simple PIC circuit can be used to pre-program the on/off time of 230v electrical appliances. The PIC is programmed as a clock and at specified times, it can turn on/off a relay to control the appliance. I found a broken power guard (which protects electrical equipments from over and under voltage) in my old parts ‘yard’ at home. It was good source for the relay, diods, step down transformer, voltage regulator, the plastic container and even the LEDs. This relay is having good characteristics since these power guards were produced mainly to protect refrigerators. Only drawback in this design is that it doesn’t have a user interface. If you want to change the on/off time, you have to do it using the program. (I was too lazy to add a display unit for the device) It is being tested with our refridegerator and is working fine. I put the fridge to turn off at midnight for about four hours.

/*
* Project name:
PIC Relay
* Copyright:
Chandana Inc.
* Description:
PIC Relay - 230v
* Test configuration:
MCU: PIC16F88
Oscillator: XT, 04.0000 MHz
SW: mikroC v8.0
* NOTES:
Time might not be accurate.
*/

unsigned int countdown ; // interrupt counter
unsigned char update ; // update output
unsigned char secs, mins, hrs ; // tally variables

unsigned char ticks, correction,mode;
char oldstate_min, oldstate_hr, PowerOK, Powerchange, OutputStatus;

void interrupt()
{
if (--countdown == 0)
{
countdown = 8000; // 8000 x 125us = 1 second
update = 1; // flag to update clock output
}
PIR1.TMR2IF = 0; // clear interrupt flag

}

void Clock24()
{
if (++secs == 60) // check each tally for rollover
{ secs = 0;
if (++mins == 60)
{ mins = 0;
if (++hrs == 24)
hrs = 0 ;
}
}
update = 0;
}

void Initialize()
{

CMCON=7;
secs = 255;
mins = 23;
hrs = 15;
update = 1;
countdown = 8000;

INTCON.GIE = 1; // enable GIE
INTCON.PEIE = 1; // enable PEIE
T2CON = 0; // prescaler=0; postscaler=0; Timer2=off
TMR2 = 0; // clear timer2
PR2 = 124; // TMR2 resets when matching PR2
PIE1.TMR2IE = 1 ; // interrupt enabled
PIR1.TMR2IF = 0 ; // interrupt flag cleared
T2CON.TMR2ON = 1 ; // start Timer0
}

void main() {
Initialize();

PORTA = 0;
TRISA =0b00010;
PORTB = 0;
TRISB = 0;

oldstate_min=0;
oldstate_hr=0;
mode=0;
PowerOK=0;
Powerchange=0;
OutputStatus=1;

do
{
if (update == 1) // advance seconds?
Clock24(); // yes...then output

if (Button(&PORTA,1,1,1))
{
PowerOK=1;
//mode=0;
}

if (PowerOK && Button(&PORTA,1,1,0))
{
PowerOK=0;
PowerChange=1;
mode=1;
}

if (Powerchange && PowerOK) //power restore
{
Powerchange=0;
mode=0; //back to normal
}

if (mode==0)
{

if (OutputStatus==0) //turn off
{PORTA.F0=1;
PORTA.F2=1;
PORTA.F3=0;}
else
{PORTA.F0=0; //Turn ON
PORTA.F2=0;
PORTA.F3=1;}

}
else
{
PORTA.F0=0;
PORTA.F2=0;
PORTA.F3=0;

}

} while(1); // endless loop
}//~

Oops...

2009-01-29T15:44:00.002+05:30

Electronic components are very sensitive. Anything beyond the tolerable range within a fraction of a second is enough to destroy most of them. I learned this lesson in the hard way. A tiny piece of exposed metal of a hanging wire touched the high voltage side of the voltage regulator and destroyed the OLED 20x2 LCD Display (I bought this from eBay for $20) and the SHT11 Humidity Sensor (I got this free but worth more than $40). I can live without the display since there are alternatives but loosing the humidity sensor is a real blow. Buying a new one at this moment is very unlikely. It seems I have to postpone (abandon ?) my weather station. I was about to finish it by adding the barometer module using an atmospheric pressure sensor.

But hey... I got a new project... this time, I have to be extra cautious because it involves 230v. A small mistake can be deadly. Will post the details later...

Humidity Sensor

2009-01-09T17:05:00.005+05:30

SHT11 is a humidity + temperature sensor developed by the Sensirion. They had a sample give away program sometime back and I also got one. Since it is SMD (surface mount device) and really small (7.49mm x 4.93mm), it took a long time for me to play with it. Usually I don't use PCBs (printed circuit boards) simply because I don't have the facility to make them. Instead, I use vero board (strip board) for my circuits which has copper strips with pin holes in specific distances. These boards can only be used with through hole devices; not with SMDs. But this SHT11 is too good to be dumped. So I decided to 'mount' the device on the strip 'surface' . I found that the width of one strip is eqaul to width of two pins of the device (One strip is roughly 1mm wide and the distance between two pins is 1.27mm). The device has 4 pins in the same side consuming the width of two strips. I split each strip into two which matched perfectly with the 4 pins in the device. The hardest part was the soldering. SHT11's datasheet has specific instruction for soldering. For manual soldering, contact time must be limited to 5 seconds at up to 350C. One needs a steady hand and sharp eyes to do this kind of a job. Somehow I managed to solder it without any problem. After soldering the device, it has to be stored at 75% relative humidity for 12 hours to re-hydrate. I kept it inside a plastic container with a wet piece of wool to maintain the humidity.

These pictures show how small it is...

After that I had to wait another couple of weeks for the LCDs to arrive. I bought (actually I won) a 20x4 LCD character display from eBay for $9.5 including shipping. Since the program is a bit heavy, I had to use PIC16F88 which has 4k of memory. First I tested the display and it worked fine. Then I attached the SHT11 according to the guidelines given in the data sheet (with pull-up resistor and conditioning capacitor). At first it didn't work but after several attempts it worked and displayed the temperature and relative humidity. To verify the temperature figure, I hooked up another temperature sensor; DS18B20; one-wire device from Dallas. Wrote a quick and dirty procedure to display the temperature along with the rest. The difference between the temperature figures of two sensors are almost negligible. It didn't exceed 1C anytime. Based on this I assume the Relative Humidity is also correct.

Temperature & Humidity

Temperature from two devices and Humidity

Temperature, Humidity and Dew Point

PIC CLOCK - WITH ALARM

2008-10-22T09:29:00.005+05:30

You may think that I’m obsessed with clocks. When I build my first clock, everybody at home needed clocks (except my kid of course but he really enjoys looking at blinking LEDs). Mother-in-law needed one in the kitchen and an alarm clock in her bedroom; wife needed a clock in our bedroom and one in the living room and so on. The main reason is, these clocks show time even in dark which they find very useful at night.

The demand for the alarm clock is satisfied finally. It is the same circuit and the same program as before. Only difference is that it stores alarm settings in EEPROM and having a buzzer. Unfortunately, the buzzer was not loud enough. So I’m thinking of having something louder. I’ll be able to find something from my kid’s toys collection since he’s got all types of music cars, broken and lying around.

In operation...

Wiring side... (like hell)

Needs a final touch...

PIC CLOCK - MATRIX DISPLAY

2008-10-22T09:08:00.006+05:30

Ever since we moved to our home (in late 2003) we couldn't have a permanent wall clock in the living room. We tried putting several clocks but they stopped after running several weeks even though the clock and the battery is good. Some of them are still working in other places. So we didn’t try to put any more. After I build two small scale clocks, I wanted to build a bigger one for the living room. Here are some pictures of the clock. Still it is too early to say that the same thing will happen to this as well.

The display is created using a LED matrix. This is because I couldn’t find a suitable size seven segments in the market. Display comprises of four 4x7 matrices with a colon and a decimal point which is driven by two MAX7221. RTC is DS1307 with DS32KHz crystal. Temperature sensor is DS18S20. The brain of the clock is gigantic 40 pin PIC16F877A with 8k code space. Everything is assembled inside a plastic box file. Working with the two display drivers (MAX7221) was not that difficult but they didn’t work without the two 0.1uF capacitors close by. Program was slightly modified to accommodate two display drivers with the new numeric font. I designed several fonts and finally settled with the one shown.

PIC CLOCK FINAL VERSION

2008-09-12T08:15:00.022+05:30

As promised in the earlier post, here comes the photos and a video of the PIC CLOCK using the DS1307. The features of the clock are;

1. Displaying the Time, date, month and year
2. Displaying the Temperature
3. Display Time, Date & Month and Temperature Alternatively
4. Battery backup
5. Display illumination reduced at night (From 10pm to 6am)
6. Highly accurate. (DS1307 RTC and temperature compensated crystal DS32kHz)

The following video shows how the clock is in action. It displays Time, date and temperature alternatively. All the parameters (hour, minute, second, date, month, year etc.) can be set by selecting the appropriate mode and increment buttons. Display blinks when entered into the change mode. There are modes to display Time, Seconds, Date , Year and Temperature continuously. Everything is fixed inside a floppy disk box. I'm gonna wrap it with something to hide the internals, may be with a dark sticker.

Some pictures of the clock in different angles;

Parts List

PIC16F628A microcontroller

DS1307 Real Time Clock IC

DS32kHZ Crystal

MAX7219/21 Display Driver

DS18S20 Temperature Sensor

4 Seven Segment LED Displays

2 AA Battery Holder (3v)

7805 5v regulator

9v ac power pack

IC holders, wire, vero board and lots of patience

Code snippets I used for the project;

Defining the SPI & I2C connection in PORTB. Display driver MAX7221 uses SPI while DS1307 RTC uses I2C.

void InitMain() {
Soft_Spi_Config(&PORTB, 4, 5, 3);
Soft_I2C_Config(&PORTB, 0, 1);

}//~

Initializing the RTC.

void ds1307_init(){
char seconds=0;

Soft_I2C_Start();
Soft_I2C_Write(0xD0); // WR to RTC
Soft_I2C_Write(0x00); // REG 0
Soft_I2C_Start();
Soft_I2C_Write(0xD1); // RD from RTC
seconds = Bcd2Dec(Soft_I2C_Read(1)& 0x7F); // Read current "seconds" in DS1307
Soft_I2C_Stop();

Delay_us(3);

Soft_I2C_Start();
Soft_I2C_Write(0xD0); // WR to RTC
Soft_I2C_Write(0x00); // REG 0

Soft_I2C_Write(Dec2Bcd(seconds)); // Start oscillator with current "seconds value
Soft_I2C_Start();
Soft_I2C_Write(0xD0); // WR to RTC
Soft_I2C_Write(0x07); // Control Register
Soft_I2C_Write(0x80); // Disable squarewave output pin
Soft_I2C_Stop();
}//~end of function

Initialize MAX7221

void max7219_init1() {
PORTA &= 0xFD; // SELECT MAX
Soft_SPI_write(0x09); // BCD mode for digit decoding
Soft_SPI_write(0xFF);
PORTA |= 2; // DESELECT MAX

PORTA &= 0xFD; // SELECT MAX
Soft_SPI_write(0x0A);
Soft_SPI_write(0x03); // Segment luminosity intensity
PORTA |= 2; // DESELECT MAX

PORTA &= 0xFD; // SELECT MAX
Soft_SPI_write(0x0B);
Soft_SPI_write(0x03); // Display refresh
PORTA |= 2; // DESELECT MAX

PORTA &= 0xFD; // SELECT MAX
Soft_SPI_write(0x0C);
Soft_SPI_write(0x01); // Turn on the display
PORTA |= 2; // DESELECT MAX

PORTA &= 0xFD; // SELECT MAX
Soft_SPI_write(0x00);
Soft_SPI_write(0xFF); // No test
PORTA |= 2; // DESELECT MAX
}

Display the values using MAX7221

void Write_7219(int x, int y) {

PORTA &= 0xFD;
Soft_SPI_write(x); // send i to max7219 (digit place)
Soft_SPI_write(y);

PORTA |=2;

}

Reading & writing to the RTC

unsigned short read_ds1307(unsigned short address)
{
Soft_I2C_Start();
Soft_I2C_Write(0xd0);
Soft_I2C_Write(address);
Soft_I2C_Start();
Soft_I2C_Write(0xd1);
data=BCD2DEC(Soft_I2C_Read(0));
Soft_I2C_Stop();
return(data);
}

void Write_DS1307(unsigned short Address, unsigned short _Data) {

Soft_I2C_Start(); // start a serial transfer
Soft_I2C_Write(0xD0); // which device, 1101000 = DS1307, + direction bit (R=1,W=0)
// thus 11010000 = 0xD0 ie write to DS1307
// need to tell the DS1307 which address is to be written to
Soft_I2C_Write(Address); // send the address to be written to the DS1307
Soft_I2C_Write(_Data); // send actual data to be written into Address on the DS1307
Soft_I2C_Stop(); // finished serial transfer (and release the I2C bus)
}

Read Temperature (DS18S20) & Display

void Read_temp()
{
ow_reset(&PORTB,2); // onewire reset signal
ow_write(&PORTB,2,0xCC); // issue command to DS1820
ow_write(&PORTB,2,0x44) ;

delay_us(120);

ow_reset(&PORTB,2);
ow_write(&PORTB,2,0xCC); // issue command to DS1820
ow_write(&PORTB,2,0xBE);

delay_ms(500);

j1 = ow_read(&PORTB,2); // get result
_Decimal = j1 & 0x01 ;
j1 = j1 >> 1 ;

}

void display_temp()
{
Read_temp();
j = j1%10;
j = j+0x80;
Write_7219(2,j);
j = j1/10 ;
Write_7219(1,j);

if (_decimal==0)
Write_7219(3,0x00);
else
Write_7219(3,0x05);

Write_7219(4,0x0F);

}

To display time, date and to edit the parameters, I wrote separate modules using the above basic building blocks. If somebody needs the schematic and the complete source / hex, drop me an email or leave a comment with the email address. I used Mikroelektronika forum (http://www.mikroe.com/forum/) heavily and almost all the above coding segments are taken from the forum. Therefore, full credit goes to all the people who contributed to the forum.

PIC Clock - with DS1307

2008-08-27T09:06:00.003+05:30

After so many sleepless nights I managed to run a clock using a PIC, this time using the Maxim RTC chip, DS1307. This time I didn't use multiplexing to drive the four seven segments, instead I used another Maxim product, MAX7221 display driver. It has SPI interface and can drive upto 8 seven segments with display brightness control and that is cool... Since I'm using the PIC16F628 at the moment, I had to use Sotware SPI to drive the display. It worked without giving much problems but later came the most difficult part, DS1307. Oh boy, what a mess... It gave me thousand and one problems and took nearly a month to get it worked. But truly speaking I leaned a lot and mastered the DS1307. This fellow is really great and extremely easy to communicate via the I2C interface. I had problems because I used Software I2C routines in MikroC. I think SOFT_I2C has a problem with PORTA and after so many trial and error attempts it worked when I moved the DS1307 to PORTB. Now both DS1307 (I2C) and MAX7221 (SPI) are in PORTB and work without any trouble. DS1307 needs an external crystal (32.768kHz) to operate and again Maxim has another great product DS32KHZ, a temperature compensated 32.768kHz crystal which I found extremely accurate. So far the clock is running smoothly and accurately, which needs lot of other things, a way to set time, view calendar, set alarm etc. And I'm thinking of attaching a Temperature sensor too. Pictures, videos, schematic and code segments will appear shortly.

LED (OIL) LAMP

2008-07-30T11:09:00.003+05:30

This time I am using another PIC, 16F628, which is better than 16F84 in number of ways. It has internal Oscillator, more IO pins, PWM, more space (twice) etc. As my first program with 16F628, I wrote this quick and dirty code segment to simulate an oil lamp. It uses the built in PWM to change the duty cycle of the LED.

Here is the video

Here is the code in MikroC

unsigned short j, oj,i;

void InitMain() {

PORTB = 0x0; // set PORTB to 0
TRISB = 0; // designate PORTBpins as output
PWM_Init(5000); // initialize PWM module
}//~

void main() {
CMCON=7;

initMain();

j = 127; // initial value for j
oj = 0; // oj will keep the 'old j' value
PWM_Start(); // start PWM

while (1) { // endless loop

j=rand(); // Generate Random Number
if (j>=255)
j=254;

if (j==0)
j=1;

if (j>oj)
{
for (i=oj;i<=j;i++)
PWM_Change_Duty(i); //Smoothen the level change
}
else
if (j {
for (i=oj;i>=j;i--)
PWM_Change_Duty(i);
}
else
PWM_Change_Duty(j); // set new duty ratio,

oj = j; // memorize it
PORTB = oj; // and display on PORTB

Vdelay_ms(200+j); // slow down change pace a little
}
}//~!

PIC Clock - Final Version

2008-07-30T10:03:00.007+05:30

My PIC clock is almost done. Only thing remaining is that to give it a nice look. (at the moment, it is inside an ice cream box and it deserves a better place than that). It has following functionalities;

• 12H/24H mode; when in 12H mode, a PM indicator is used.
• Battery backup; when the mains power is not available, it automatically gets power from the batteries and keeps the clock ticking.
• Ability to work totally on batteries. i.e. When the mains power is not available, it automatically switches into battery mode and the display goes blank. But if you want to see the time, you can get back the normal display manually.

Here are some pics

24H mode

12H mode

Inside view

(Video quality is not that great but clear enough to see that the clock is running :-) )

Convocation

2008-06-26T10:40:00.003+05:30

Yesterday, I got my MBA in IT at the General Convocation of University of Moratuwa. I started my MBA early 2006 and continued it through 2006 and 2007, occupying every single free time slot. Still I cant believe that I completed it having 3.76 GPA and 'A' pass for the Research Project. I had the opportunity to publish and present a paper at International Conference of Business Management held at University of Jayawardanapura (ICBM 2008). I was thrilled to see most of my colleagues got their MBA titles yesterday, but there were several who aren't that fortunate. I missed the accompany of my beloved wife (she too graduated in the convocation) since she was out of the country. She went to present a paper in an IEEE conference in Canada.

PIC Clock

2008-05-23T14:51:00.004+05:30

Finally I managed to build the initial version of the Desktop clock using PIC16F84. Still its in the vero board as you see in below video.

It shows Time (Hour, Minute) and Seconds alternatively. It has two buttons to advance hours and minutes. An Interrupt routine is used to calculate the base time and to multiplex the four seven segments. The program is written in C and compiled using MikroC compiler. I got lot of ideas from so many people and used code samples from various resources. Specially the MikroC comes with very useful code samples. Here is the program listing. It is not optimized yet. You'll find unused variables here and there. Comments and suggestions are welcome.

#include "Display_utils.h"

char kraj;
unsigned short zz, v, j, countsec,displaysec;
//unsigned int i;
unsigned short por[4];

unsigned char sec, mins, hrs, ticks, correction;
char oldstate_min, oldstate_hr;

void interrupt() {

if(INTCON.T0IF)
{
ticks++;
correction++;
TMR0=101; //96; //102

if (correction==180) // Correction routine
{
ticks--;
correction=0;
}
}

PORTA = ~0;
PORTB = por[v];
PORTA = ~zz; // turn on appropriate 7seg. display
zz <<= 1;
if (zz > 8u)
zz = 1; // prepare mask for digit

v++ ;
if (v > 3u)
v = 0; // turn on 1st, turn off 2nd 7seg.
//Delay_ms(1);
//TMR0 = 0;
INTCON = 0x20;
}//~

void main() {
OPTION_REG = 0x84;
j = 0;
v = 0;
zz = 1;
TMR0 = 101;
INTCON = 0xA0; // Disable PEIE,INTE,RBIE,T0IE
PORTA = ~0;
TRISA = 0;
PORTB = 0;
TRISB = 0;
sec=0;
mins=0;
ticks=0;
correction=0;
hrs=0;
oldstate_min=0;
oldstate_hr=0;

do {

if (ticks==200)
{
sec++;
countsec++;
ticks=0;

//if (PORTB.F7==1)
// {
// PORTB.F7=1;
// }
// else
// {
// PORTB.F7=0;
// }
//}
if (sec>59)
{
mins++;
sec=0;

//}

if (mins>59)
{
hrs++;
mins=0;
//}

if (hrs>23)
{
hrs=0;
}

}
}
}
TRISB=0b00000011;
if (Button(&PORTB, 0, 1, 1))
oldstate_min = 1;
if (oldstate_min && Button(&PORTB, 0, 1, 0)) {
mins++;
if (mins>59)
mins=0;
oldstate_min = 0;
}
if (Button(&PORTB, 1, 1, 1))
oldstate_hr = 1;
if (oldstate_hr && Button(&PORTB, 1, 1, 0)) {
hrs++;
if (hrs>23)
hrs=0;
oldstate_hr = 0;
}

TRISB=0b00000000;

if (countsec==5)
{
countsec=0;
if (displaysec==1)
{
displaysec=0;
}
else
{
displaysec=1;
}
}

if (displaysec==0)
{
por[0]=mask(hrs/10u);
j=(char)(hrs%10u);
por[1]=mask(j);

por[3]=mask(mins/10u);
j=(char)(mins%10u);
por[2]=mask(j);
}
else
{
por[0]=mask(5);
//j=(char)(mins%10u);
por[1]=mask(11);

por[3]=mask(sec/10u);
j=(char)(sec%10u);
por[2]=mask(j);
}

} while(1); // endless loop
}//~

Display_utils.h file

//-------------- Returns mask for common cathode 7-seg. display
unsigned short mask(unsigned short num) {
switch (num) {
case 0 : return 0x3F;
case 1 : return 0x06;
case 2 : return 0x5B;
case 3 : return 0x4F;
case 4 : return 0x66;
case 5 : return 0x6D;
case 6 : return 0x7D;
case 7 : return 0x07;
case 8 : return 0x7F;
case 9 : return 0x6F;
case 11 : return 0x79;
} //case end
}//~

PIC Programming

2008-02-21T17:00:00.009+05:30

Programming a micro controller has been in my mind for nearly a decade. I have done micro controller programming when I was an under graduate. That was for the 8080 processor. It is too big for small projects. I was looking for a suitable type of micro since there are couple of good ones PICs and AVRs. But I couldn't find any AVRs in the market but PICs are available for an affordable price. I bought two PICs, 16F877A and 16F84A, for Rs. 460/- and Rs. 320/- respectively.

The first step was to build a programmer (burner). I saw different types of programmers but thought of building a JDM type one. It has the advantage of operating without an external power supply and is much simpler to build. It takes power from the PC serial port. The disadvantage is, modern laptops cannot provide the required voltage level. Since most of the laptops (including mine) do not have a serial port, it has no effect.

Found the following circuit and built it on a vero board. It can program PICs upto 40 pins so there wont be any problem for a long time. (Full credit goes to the designer of the circuit, I just build his circuit)

This is how the final one looks like;

Then needed the software to connect the hardware to the PC. After reading many comments, I wanted to settle with IC-Prog. It is a great software which supports many types of programmers including the JDM. It also has a hardware test option to verify the hardware. Initially it didn't verify my hardware correctly and after so many sleepless nights, I found the bug. I have connected the Serial port incorrectly; more precisely, I have swapped the left hand side and the right hand side of the port. After rearranging, it worked like a charm.

I tested the programmer and the PIC using the famous "hello world" LED blinking program which ended quite successfully. Then I wrote a counting program using two seven segment LEDs with 16F84. Two segments are in multiplexed mode. The following video shows it in action.

These are my future plans with PICs.

- Build a clock with small digits (desktop clock)
- Build a wall clock with a big display
- Include the stealth mode to the clocks. i.e. it will retain its time when there is no mains power. I hope to use a real time clock IC like DS1307 or DS1302 with a battery backup.
- Include a thermometer function to the clock to display the room temperature. For this, I will use DS1820 IC.

Although I already have necessary hardware i.e PICs, clock ICs, temperature ICs (I got them from Dallas Semiconductors as samples), writing software takes a lot of time. Therefore it is impossible to figure out how long it will take to complete the above things. May be before next Christmas... :-)

Hi...

2007-11-08T14:01:00.000+05:30

Well, it's more than 6 months after my last post. Few things kept me away from blogging;
MBA - which is almost finished now
Office work - few interesting projects occupied me
Laziness - Oh.. never ending

Hmmm.. from where should I begin...

I'll start from the personal things...
My kid... now he's one year old... can walk without being assisted. But somebody has to follow him all the time b'cos he wants to explore everything, everywhere. :-)

I changed my car... Toyota Carina Si MyRoad

A more spacious, comfortable ride than before. But not so good for the pocket...

Michael Dell uses Ubuntu

2007-04-19T09:31:00.000+05:30

Look at Michael Dell's biography here
He uses Ubuntu 7.04 in his home laptop. Must be a beta version since the final version is due this week. (I'm waiting for it to install in my acer notebook)

Cricket Humor

2007-04-18T09:21:00.000+05:30

I saw the following video sometime back at IESL in the time of our MBA get-together. I found it very hilarious and what a guy Vickram is...

Mihiri has an equally good one here

Acer Aspire

2007-03-20T14:03:00.000+05:30

My Notebook arrived yesterday. It's Acer Apire 5630 series Core 2 Duo 1.66 GHz (T5500 processor) , 15.4" Wide Screen, 1GB RAM, 160 GB HD, WiFi, 1.3 MP WebCam, 5-in-1 card reader etc. Not that flashy with compared to the notebook I dreamed from Apple (macbook). My poor cash flow prevented me from going for it. This one was $1025 (roughly SLR 115,000) and bought from Amazon. Still couldn't play around with it that much and haven't tested WiFi, LAN and Modem yet. There's a bluetooth button but specs don't say anything about it.

Today I saw the same one with 2GB RAM and nVidia GO 7000 for a lesser price ($999) in amazon. Sigh...

Mevinu's pics update

2007-02-27T10:34:00.000+05:30

"Am I good for a desktop background?"

"Hey, I can roll now..."

"Hi grand ma, Hi grand pa"

Tech-GSM, two thumbs up...!

2007-02-27T08:49:00.000+05:30

I am learning E-commerce as a subject in my MBA and our lecturer most of the times mentions how electronic commerce can be applied in Sri Lankan situation. Here is a good example. I found Tech-GSM web site, a promising company entered into the electronic commerce arena, selling memory related items, and doing it successfully in the local context. They don't have many products listed in their site, most of them are pendrives, SD cards, DIMMS etc. When you want to buy, an E-mail is generated and they'll contact you via your contact details via E-mail or phone. When the order is confirmed, they'll deliver it within Colombo city limits free of charge and you can pay for it at the time of delivery.
I bought a Kingston Data traveler II 2GB pendrive for Rs 3850/- which I found very competitive pricing even when compared with the price given in Amazon.com (only Rs.150 difference). I chose DT II merely because of the data R/W speed which is mentioned as 7 MB/s write and 11 MB/s read. The maximum waiting time to write the entire capacity is less than 5 minutes. (cool...)
To my surprise, they delivered it in the same day I confirmed the order. And the product is Original Kingston which I verified via the Kingston website. Two thumbs up for Tech-GSM guys...

SMS Calendar Events

2006-12-27T14:51:00.000+05:30

Google Calendar offers free SMS notification service to your mobile phone about the events you save as calendar events. This facility is currently available for Dialog & Celltel connections only. Mmm... neat facility if you have a volatile memory. But there are limitations, only 20 notifications per day and 150 per month.

Pics update...

2006-12-20T10:54:00.000+05:30

My kid is 3 months old. His name is 'Mevinu Dinsath'. Now he recognizes me and happy whenever I'm around. Most of the days he sees me only in the morning and I think he knows it. So he wakes up early in the morning and he wants me to speak with him. Sometimes I fell sleep while talking to him but he kicks me or shouts loudly to wake me up.
My MBA exam for the 3rd semester is going to start on 30th December and I'm thinking of stay at home for 3-4 days to study. But don't know how long I can do it with the little one.

Mevinu with his mother

with his grandma

New Look

2006-10-17T14:42:00.000+05:30

I transfered my blog to blogger beta... Mmmm... Looks nice to me...

Life Upgrade!

2006-10-17T12:16:00.000+05:30

I rarely post about myself and this is no exception. I became a father on September 18. The little one is a boy and the above picture was taken after 2 hours of birth. (more photos will come soon...)
My friends and colleagues ask how's the life now? My answer is now I feel that I'm living :-) Well, there is no need to mention that I'm busy. Didn't sleep continuously more than two hours since the little one wakes up every two hours. It was very hard during the first two weeks but now I'm used to it. To make the things worse, MBA work load in this semester is like hell. So much of work compared to the previous semester. That's why I couldn't post a single blog during the last three months. I couldn't see any difference in the future also.

mmmm....

2006-07-20T15:42:00.000+05:30

My Office PC is dual boot; having Windows 2003 server and Ubuntu 6.06. I have been in windows for a long time therefore all of my work related files, developments and mail are in windows partitions (ntfs). Ever since I changed to Ubuntu, I was searching ways & means of full access to ntfs partitions. It only gave me read-only access. But today I found this great link on how to get access to ntfs partitions under linux. I immediately implemeted it but due to some reason, it couldn't mount both partitions instead it mounted only one. At least, I have one partition which I have full access.

Well, what more I need? EMail. Yes, I love OutLook. It's a great program. Couldn't believe its from M$. I'm using Thunderbird from mozilla in Linux. The pain is, I cannot use two mail clients in different OSs. Its not only wasting my precious space but also finding a particular mail drives me to nuts. Sometimes I cannot remember which mail is in which mail client. But the beauty of a cross platform mail client like Thunderbird is, it works in both OSs. I found this great article on how to configure Thunderbird to have a single mailbox (profile) no matter in which OS you work. Now I've lost one reason to goto Windows.

wiki

2006-07-14T11:31:00.000+05:30

I thought of starting a corporate knowledge base in our company to share views and thoughts of employees mainly on technical topics. I had previous experience of wiki based engines since 'trac' uses a wiki engine to maintain its knowledge base. I googled for wiki engines and came across so many but only two of them impressed me, Twiki & MediaWiki. After installing both, MediaWiki came to the top of the list because of the features it has and the easiness to install. Now it is up and running successfuly. Later I came to konow that wikipedia, the best knowledge base in the world, is also running using MediaWiki. Cool...

The Move

2006-06-30T10:19:00.000+05:30

Now I am on the verge of moving to Ubuntu from Windows. I spend 90% of my time on Ubuntu in my dual boot system. Still I'm testing the OS and so far it has being great. I can do most of the things I did in windows without any problem and sometimes better than in windows. Browse using FireFox, Email via Thunderbird, Chat using Gaim, Documentation using OpenOffice etc. And I managed to get most of the third party software to burn CDs, media players, mp3 players and popular codecs to watch dvds and divx movies. Printing, File sharing, SSH, connecting to Remote Desktops and vmware clients are also possible without any glitch. What I missed was .Net & Delphi. I don't do much development work these days and I keep my windows partition for that type of work.

Two days back, I received Ubuntu & Kubuntu CDs which I ordered from Ubuntu web site. They are shipping 3 types of Ubuntu variants for the lates release 6.06 Dapper Drake.
1. Ubuntu - The normal distribution wiht Gnome desktop
2. Kubuntu - Ubuntu with KDE (K-Desktop Environment)
3. Edubuntu - Ubuntu for the entire Family - This has lot of educational programmes for kids.

(I forgot to order Edubuntu but I managed to download it from the site.)

P.S.
I downloaded Ubuntu from a mirror site even before they officially release it :-) I did a kernel upgrade to suit my PIV Hyper Threading PC. Now it recognises two CPUs. Actually there aren't two CPUs but Hyper Threading simulates two CPUs. I installed a customised version of Firefox called SwiftFox which is optimised for PIVs. It loads and runs faster than the normal FireFox.

Camera Mouse...!

2006-06-22T14:06:00.000+05:30

Yeah.. no kidding... there is a camera inside the optical mouse. This is not a very comprehensive one. It is just a CMOS sensor (CMOS sensors are actually being used in inexpensive(?) cameras) which sends images to digital signal processor (DSP) for analysis. This DSP then analyses the image and identifies the patterns in the image to compare it with previous images. Based on the change in patterns, the DSP determines how far the mouse has moved and sends the corresponding coordinates to the computer. Pretty cool huh...

UPDATE!!!!

2006-05-29T09:39:00.000+05:30

I'm back after about more than three months! My studies kept me away from most of my enthusiastic activities including blogging. (but I always managed to read other's blogs) I post this, not because it is over, still I'm in the middle of it, to tell you that I'm still alive :-)

Apart from my studies (its a two year MBA), following things kept me busy all the time. I'll post separate entries for each one when I take my mind out of the busy schedule.

1. We were asked to statndardise our software development process introducing version controlling, process tracking, project management, code tesing etc. We thought of trying open source products rather than pumping money on commecial products. I saw CVS has been used by many people to keep the different versions of codes in a repositary. When I was meddling with it, I found a better one called subversion (SVN). I tested it in the windows environment but the results were poor. Then I turned towards Ubuntu (my personal preference) Linux and it was very successfull. Installing and confuguring (i'll post a separate blog entry on this later) svn was really enjoying and it bahave as it is intended to be.

2. Then we wanted to have a project management system and immediately we found that "trac" is a good option. Not only it integrate with svn but also it has other advantages like fully web based, has wiki facility and bug ticket issuing feature. It also get installed without much trouble. (I'll post the steps later)

3. All these (svn and trac) were installed in a temporary machine which was the only one I could find. The specs of the machine are not that appealing, it's a PIII 500MHz, 128MB machine but thanks to Ubuntu, everything went smoothly. All of a sudden we got new PCs, PIV 3GHz with HT, 1GB RAM, 80 GB SATA HD and luckily, I could reserve one PC as a permanent server. We've got one server but got so many requirements. We should have a SQL Server, Apache Tomcat, svn, trac, and many more to come. SQL Server must be running on windows platform and svn & trac must be run on linux. We've got one PC. The only solution I had was to go for PC virtualization. I installed Vmware on top of windows 2003 Server host and installed Ubuntu as a guest. I managed to transfer all the repositories from the previous PC to the new server. (I hope to post a blog entry on this as well). Installation of guest OSs didn't stop there. I installed XP with office 2007 beta, Ubuntu Dapper Drake (ver 6.06) RC. When all these guest OSs are running, the performance degraded a liitle bit but thanks to Hyper Threading, processor managed to keep it in acceptable level.

Father & Son

2006-02-10T11:47:00.000+06:00

I copied the following conversation from a blog which I used to read. The person who writes the blog has a six year old son living with his ex-wife. He sees his son once per week. This time, they met in a restaurant;

"Are you eating healthy today, dad?"

"Yeah."

"Do you like eating healthy?"

"Not really. I like hot dogs most."

"Yeah, and you eat a LOT of them."

"I love taking you to lunch. Someday you'll have a little boy that you can take to lunch too."

"Yep. And if you eat healthy you'll get to meet him."

iPod shuffle

2006-01-06T15:28:00.001+06:00

The latest addition to my gadget collection, the iPod shuffle, arrived yesterday. Its a cool device in every aspect; size, design, quality,... everything is perfect. It may hold more than 100 songs I assume (its a 512MB) and the battery may last 12 hours according to the manual. Re-charging is possible only when it is connected to a PC via the USB. It supports a wide variety of music formats including mp3, aac, wav etc. Sound quality is good but lacking Bass Power. Its really light weight, not even an ounce. I am braining these days to find a method to connect it to my car audio.

Microsoft using FireFox Icon!

2005-12-21T09:21:00.000+06:00

Microsoft is planning to use the FireFox RSS icon in IE7 and OutLook 12.

What is great about this news is that Microsoft actually asked the community in the first place, and then worked with the Firefox team to make it happen.

The best Linux Desktop for Business: UBUNTU

2005-11-28T09:01:00.000+06:00

ZDNet has been testing Linux for business, trying to work out what the best distro for small businesses. After testing Mandriva, Novell Linux, Red Hat Desktop, SUSE Linux and Ubuntu Linux, Ubuntu came out as the winner.

BreezyBadger

2005-11-11T13:15:00.000+06:00

Finally, the waiting is over... I received 5 copies of the newest version of Ubuntu (v 5.10) a couple of days ago. I tried the Live CD first and decided to install it in my home PC. The installation is same as I explained in my previous post. It comes with the latest versions of OpenOffice and FireFox which is great. Other than that, it is more or less the same thing as before...

My Blog Visitors....

2005-10-31T10:27:00.000+06:00

more than 60% of visitors are from Asia...

My Desktop Thermo

2005-10-25T12:50:00.000+06:00

I made this cool desktop thermo using DS1820 which is plugged into DS9097U – DB9 Com Port adapter. I got these samples from Maxim Dallas Semiconductors a long time ago but couldn’t find enough time to play around. The program is done using C# after so many trial and error efforts. It is based on the OneWireAPI.dll which can be downloaded here. The program nicely sits inside the system tray and displays the temperature when the mouse pointer hovered on to the icon. (the icon is made by me which is not in great shape…).

I have two units of DS1820s at home which are plugged into the same port, one is on the CRT (it heats up a lot; so that I can turn on the fan) and the other one lying on the desk monitoring the room temperature. The one shown in the picture is the unit in my office. (otherwise, how could I be at 23.94 Celsius; normally it’s 28-30 Celsius outside). If anyone interested about this, I am willing to share my knowledge. (even the software).

I am .mp3

2005-10-19T12:01:00.000+06:00

Which File Extension are You?

Ubuntu wins best Distribution Award.

2005-10-10T16:45:00.000+06:00

At the UK Linux & Open Source Awards dinner held on October 5th, Ubuntu was awarded the Reader Award for best distribution. Debian and Red Hat were also on the short list.

Ubuntu was also nominated in the embedded/mobile solution category (with HP for the custom Ubuntu/HP work) and the corporate contribution category.

Not only that, it was among the best 100 products of 2005.

My Search Engine...!

2005-09-26T17:33:00.000+06:00

Search...

Ubuntu Linux

2005-09-12T12:22:00.000+06:00

I think most of the people are now tired of using Microsoft products specially their lousy OS and IE. That's why everybody jumps into other products when they get a chance. A very good example is FireFox. I think now it's the turn of OS. Linux is there for some time but is still limited to enthusiasts and Pros. I could remember how I installed Linux in my 486 in 1999. It took more than a week to get the job done compiling some of the drivers manually. The monitor gave me the greatest headache since the X windows system didn't recognize it. I couldn't play around much since my knowledge was limited and the applications were rare. After that, I have used random versions of RedHat Linux in couple of times but it didn't hit the spot.

I heard about Ubuntu Linux by accident when I was searching for Debian Linux. I read a couple of reviews about Ubuntu and thought of giving it a try. So I downloaded the version 5.04 (Hoary Hedgehog) and installed it in my home PC which already has two windows versions; Windows XP (for gaming) and Windows 2003 Server (for development). The installation process was quiet and took around 30 minutes. It recognized all my hardware including AC97 surround sound card, GeForce 440MX video card and on board LAN which was a bit surprise.

Ubuntu really impressed me. It's very very simple. Good for a beginner who is shifting towards Linux from Windows. This installation comes with several applications like Open Office 1.1, several games, multimedia applications and networking tools. But it didn't recognize my existing NTFS partitions which was sad. I had to mount them manually and are read only which is a downfall. Overall, I am happy about Ubuntu and waiting to see the next stable version 5.10 (BreezyBadger) in October.

Happy B'day...!

2005-09-07T11:24:00.000+06:00

Google's official Birthday is September 7, 1998. Amazing, it's my wife's birthday too. Happy Birthday to both of you.

GoogleNet

2005-08-29T12:11:00.000+06:00

Google is planning to develop a parallel internet called GoogleNet.
Google already knows enough to blackmail enyone through it's programmes.

1) Knows what we think -- through Blogspot.
2) Knows what's on our hard drives -- through Desktop Search.
3) Knows who we talk to and what we say -- through GMail and Google Talk
4) Knows where we are or where we plan to go -- through Google Earth
5) Knows what we're interested in -- through Google Search

The list will complete when they develop a web browser and an OS.

Lazy and Dumb programmers...

2005-08-29T11:00:00.000+06:00

If you want to be a GOOD programmer, you must be dumb and lazy. Here is the reason.

10th Anniversary

2005-08-29T10:58:00.000+06:00

Yes, today is the 10th anniversary of Windows 95, the first version to include a START button. Hereis a list of Start buttons from Windows 95 to Windows Vista to commemorate this date.

Google Wildcard Search.

2005-08-11T11:36:00.000+06:00

Another Google thing...! Wildcard search...

A wildcard in a Google search query can be indicated by an asterisk and will match one or more entire words of text so that the query matches a contiguous sequence of words.
For example, a search for [ cooking * classes ] will match the phrases "cooking school classes" and "cooking and wine tasting classes."
One common use of the asterisk is to fill in the blanks for a query that corresponds to a question: [the parachute was invented by *].
Also, more than one asterisk can be used, such as [vitamin * is good for *].

Longhorn -> Windows Vista

2005-07-25T09:22:00.000+06:00

The official new name for the Longhorn OS is going to be Windows Vista but the path seems to be not yet cleared.

"Terminal"... Can this happen in real life?

2005-07-13T09:43:00.000+06:00

When I saw Tom Hanks movie "The Terminal", I didn't think it could happen in real life. But I was wrong. Read this

Blog Image

2005-07-08T12:24:00.000+06:00

Blogger.com now supports Image uploading for its bloggers upto 300mb. I uploaded all my images via various image hosting sites before. So, this is kind'a bonus...

This picture is completely irrelevent for this post but I couldn't find anything else to demonstrate...

Windows Timeline

2005-07-06T09:24:00.000+06:00

Visit this site to see screenshots of windows from windows v.1 to windows xp. This is the first time I saw Windows V.1 and V.2. Surely it has come a long way...

Lost in Sri Lanka? Use Google Maps...

2005-07-06T09:20:00.000+06:00

Google Maps has Satellite images of Sri Lanka now. Check this out. They might have higher resolution maps in the future.

The Sith Sense

2005-06-30T12:14:00.000+06:00

AMAZING....! Lord Vedar just read my mind. Try this flash test yourself.

SAMSUNG's 5MP Camera Phone

2005-06-16T08:11:00.000+06:00

Check this out.

PC Magazine's choice: 100 Best Products of 2005

2005-06-13T15:04:00.000+06:00

PC Magazine announces 100 best products of the year 2005. Can anybody guess what came 1st & 2nd? My personal choice, FireFox and GMail... coool...
Read the full list here.

Quote of the Day!

2005-05-31T12:40:00.000+06:00

If everything is coming your way,
you're in the wrong lane!

SONY cybershot DSC-S60

2005-05-31T11:31:00.000+06:00

Waiting is over... my SONY Camera came home yesterday. Although it was delivered to my wife's office at USA on 12th April, we couldn't find someone to bring it here until yesterday. (more than 6 weeks... price dropped by $40 during the time... sigh...).

The total package costs me a little bit more than $380. The camera is $249 and the rest is spend on 512BM memory stick pro and an accessories kit comprises of a cute carrying bag, a memory stick case and a battery charger with two batteries. I didn't have much time to play around with it but the initial photos impressed me very much. These are reasons made me choose this partcular camera.

Cost: The camera is not that expensive. Only $249.
Lens: Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar Lens. This is a high quality german origin lens which helps to produce crystal clear, sharp images
Real Image Processor: This dramatically improves the response time.
2" LCD: This is really impressive. Very large LCD screen.
5 area Multipoint Auto Focus:Focusing is easy.
32MB internal Memory: Can shoot even without a Memory Card
Better Battery Life: Can shoot upto 100 shots with its AA size Alcaline batteries or more than 300 with NiMH batteries.
4.1 Mega pixel: Well, this is not that high MP level but sufficient for my needs.
and other SONY gadgematics. Full specs here.

Hmmm... since I have a camera, why shouldn't I publish some pictures of my personal belongings on the web. Well, I'll open another blog for this and let you know the address when it is done.

Google Tip:

2005-05-25T15:48:00.000+06:00

Want some ebooks? Oh, yeah... google does that easily. Another power searching lesson coming right up.
Google: -inurl:htm -inurl:html intitle:"index of" +("/ebooks"|"/book") +(chm|pdf|zip)

What does all of this mean? The -inurl htm and -inul html is attempting to get rid of regular webpages and show just index pages. Looking for index of in the title is doing the same. Using the pipe ( | ) tells google to look for something OR something else. Here we are telling google to look for book or ebook directories... and we have listed several common ebook formats (zip, pdf, chf).

If you would like to look for a particular author or title just tack it to the end of your search.

GATES VS. GOOGLE ... Search and Destroy!!!

2005-05-05T15:18:00.000+06:00

Pretty good (and lengthy) article on how Microsoft might be in big trouble if Google keeps expanding at its current rate.
The full article is here and I've extracted some pin points.

The darling of search is moving into software—and that's Microsoft's turf.

Today Google isn't just a hugely successful search engine; it has morphed into a software company and is emerging as a major threat to Microsoft's dominance. You can use Google software with any Internet browser to search the web and your desktop for just about anything; send and store up to two gigabytes of e-mail via Gmail (Hotmail, Microsoft's rival free e-mail service, offers 250 megabytes, a fraction of that); manage, edit, and send digital photographs using Google's Picasa software, easily the best PC photo software out there; and, through Google's Blogger, create, post online, and print formatted documents—all without applications from Microsoft.

But the idea that Google will one day marginalize Microsoft's operating system and bypass Windows applications is already starting to become reality. The most paranoid people at Microsoft even think "Google Office" is inevitable. Google is taking over operating system features too, like desktop search. There are fewer uses for the start button in Windows now that Google's desktop search can locate any program, document, photo, music file, or e-mail on a computer.

Microsoft's ambitious new operating system, code-named Longhorn, is more than a year late, even after having been scaled back. Linux, the free operating system that Gates once scoffed at, is fighting Microsoft for share in both the server and desktop markets, forcing the company to do the unthinkable: offer customer discounts. Last year it had to spend $1 billion to rewrite thousands of lines of code to make its programs less susceptible to viruses. Its Xbox gaming console is winning raves from players but has yet to make serious money. Meanwhile, Apple has stolen the show in online music with its hugely popular iPod and iTunes Music Store. Plus, the recently released Firefox browser, which can be downloaded free, has forced Gates to reconstitute an Internet Explorer development team. Indeed, four years have passed since Microsoft released a piece of software that generated the kind of buzz Google seems to generate every month.

Every month it seems as if Google hires away one of Microsoft's top developers. Before Google's IPO last fall, Microsoft executives dismissed this brain drain as a function of greed. But when the exodus continued after the IPO—especially when Marc Lucovsky, one of the chief architects of Windows, bolted for Google—it was clear that Microsoft had a bigger problem on its hands. As of March, roughly 100 Microsofties had left for its search nemesis.
"the first question out of their mouths was 'You're not going to Google, are you?' "

many of the most influential people at Google are hardened Microsoft warriors. Schmidt battled Gates as CTO of Sun Microsystems and CEO of Novell in the 1990s. Omid Kordestani, Google's head of ad sales, was a top executive at Netscape. Three of Google's directors, Ram Shriram, John Doerr, and Michael Moritz, have been on the front lines of Silicon Valley's war with Microsoft over the years.

Microsoft has a long, dramatic history of being a fast follower, rarely first in a market but ultimately providing the most accessible and practical solution, then outmarketing competitors. The company hasn't always played by the rules, but when it has gone after a market, it has done so quickly and aggressively. Current and former executives of companies like Apple, WordPerfect, Lotus, Novell, and of course Netscape can attest to that.

Windows wasn't better than the Macintosh; Word didn't improve on WordPerfect, or Excel on Lotus. Even Explorer was only as good as Netscape. Microsoft's genius was integrating them seamlessly to make them easier for customers to default to, and then using its marketing, distribution, and pricing clout. It won by attacking competitors' business models, not their technology.

Microsoft's array of weapons has so far proved next to useless against Google.

All the same, Microsoft is taking longer to catch Google than anyone could have imagined—and it will take longer still. Unless it can deliver search that is plainly better, most users won't bother to switch, says Piper Jaffray analyst Safa Rashtchy. He adds, "Google is a huge brand. From where I sit, it's their game to lose." The competition could well test Gates' patience as never before. In spring 2003 he told one of his executives, "These Google guys, they want to be billionaires and rock stars and go to conferences and all that. Let's see if they still want to run the business in two or three years." Well, two years have passed, and so far, they sure do.

Hard drive gets all flashy

2005-04-26T15:41:00.000+06:00

ElectronicsWeekly.com Reports

A hybrid memory system, combining a hard drive and flash memory, has been demonstrated by Samsung and Microsoft.
The aim is to combine the fast read/write access times of NAND flash with the storage capacity of a rotating hard drive.
By using the 1Gbit flash as a cache for the hard drive, the drive does not need to spin continuously. When the write buffer is full, the drive is spun up and data written to magnetic storage.
Boot up times can also be reduced, claimed the firms, by using the flash as a boot buffer during shut-down.
Microsoft calls the device a hybrid hard drive (HHD). It is designed to work with Longhorn, the next generation of Windows.
"Hybrid drive architecture... is an advancement that will improve the performance and reliability of any computer using the Windows Longhorn operating system," said Tom Phillips, general manager of Microsoft's Windows group.

I, ROBOT

2005-04-26T09:19:00.000+06:00

Spooner (Detective):
"Can a robot write a symphony?" "Can a robot take a blank canvas and turn it into a masterpiece?"

Sonny (Robot):
"Can you?"

I, Robot

YagooHoogle...!

2005-04-07T10:28:00.000+06:00

With YagooHoogle, you can search the two best search engines at once, saving you time and effort.

Another Blog...

2005-03-28T12:19:00.000+06:00

I am starting a new blog (http://jokesblog.blogspot.com) dedicated for Jokes and humor contents which I receive via Email. I think I will update this blog frequently since I get a whole lot of them daily. Hope you will enjoy it...

Ten reasons why I am Blogging

2005-03-11T14:07:00.000+06:00

Tim Bray from Sun Microsystems posts ten reasons why blogging is good for your career.

1. You have to get noticed to get promoted.
2. You have to get noticed to get hired.
3. It really impresses people when you say “Oh, I’ve written about that, just google for XXX and I’m on the top page” or “Oh, just google my name.”
4. No matter how great you are, your career depends on communicating. The way to get better at anything, including communication, is by practicing. Blogging is good practice.
5. Bloggers are better-informed than non-bloggers. Knowing more is a career advantage.
6. Knowing more also means you’re more likely to hear about interesting jobs coming open.
7. Networking is good for your career. Blogging is a good way to meet people.
8. If you’re an engineer, blogging puts you in intimate contact with a worse-is-better 80/20 success story. Understanding this mode of technology adoption can only help you.
9. If you’re in marketing, you’ll need to understand how its rules are changing as a result of the current whirlwind, which nobody does, but bloggers are at least somewhat less baffled.
10. It’s a lot harder to fire someone who has a public voice, because it will be noticed.

So go ahead... start your own blog. Try Google's blogger.com or MSN’s spaces.msn.com

(For those of you who don't know, Tim Bray is the father/co-inventor of XML.)

.NET

2005-03-02T16:25:00.000+06:00

I stepped into the .NET arena completing my first "Hello World" project using vb.net. It is a sales order, purchase order processing and validating programme which is of the ideal size for a beginner. It took nearly a week (using my spare time) to complete but two days work for a veteran. At first, it was a nightmare to switch from VB6 to .net since the gap between the two was wider than I thought. But later on, when I got used to it, I felt that .NET is really cool and a powerful environment where you can do virtually anything you like. Well, I think, finally vb programmers will get some respect & recognition which they deserve since older days.

I didnt see much difference between VB.NET & C#.NET other than the syntax. The structure is the same and share a common set of libraries. Since I have some C++ & Delphi experience, it is not a bad idea to do the same project using C#. Now, where do I want to go today?

No more Spam...!

2005-02-16T17:38:00.000+06:00

I was using Spartacus Spam Guard to filter spam mail with Outlook but it was successful somewhere around 80%. In otherwords, I get 10-15 spams everyday no matter how hard I trained Spartacus to diagnose them. I tried Spambayes a couple of days ago and the results were AMAZING... not a single spam in my Inbox. It's a FREE tool but does not support Outlook Express (sigh for most of you, I know).

Bye bye CDs.... & DVDs...??

2005-01-28T15:21:00.000+06:00

DVD was introduced to the market in late nineties replacing CDs simply because of the storage capacity. (4.7GB single layer and 8GB double layer). Now the same thing is going to happen to DVD because of the latest revolutionary product in optical storage devices.

Blue-ray also known as Blue-ray Disk (BD) is the next generation optical disk format which can hold up to 27GB of data (single layer) and 57GB in double layer. BD players support CD & DVD as well. The best thing is it can write while reading…

Google Browser

2005-01-28T15:11:00.000+06:00

Hoooreh.... Google is going to develop a web browser . Seems to be its more or less like FireFox. Anyway, it's Google....

FireFox…. Sets fire

2005-01-27T01:59:00.000+06:00

OK folks… once again I switched my Browser… It’s Mozilla FireFox this time. (Hope this is the last one). I was using Opera for the last two months but some web sites didn’t appear well specially GMail which I use heavily. I had to use IE & Opera side by side which is irritating sometimes.

FireFox is good in every aspect when compared with Opera. It has almost all the features of Opera and more than that. (IE is not worth to mention even) Tabbed browsing, live bookmarks, integrated search, adding extensions, lovely themes and it is FREE…

The other reason I hate IE is, its vulnerability to spyware and adware. Both FireFox and Opera are free from those malicious software.

Tsunami… What next?

2005-01-10T14:57:00.000+06:00

Everybody is more concerned about natural disasters these days. We see a lot of new faces in media lecturing about Tsunamis, Earthquakes, Hurricanes, inside out. Thanks to them, now we can sit even for a PhD examination. But, I didn’t hear much about what measures we must take before, during and after an earthquake. I doubt the awareness of these things among the general public. I found this earthquake safety guidebook which is distributed in schools at California and why shouldn’t we? We must act before something happens.

Meanwhile, some predict earthquakes using occult methods (scientifically, no one is successful in predicting earthquakes). Last week, a person gave a call to our office saying that he predicts an earthquake in this month. He has come to this conclusion by examining soil taken from various places in the country. He wanted to put his predictions on a web page. My boss explained him the procedure he must go through in order to create a web site but he was in a hurry to put his information right that moment. There was no any other option than putting it on someone else’s web site and my boss asked me whether I can put it in my blog.

But I had other ideas. We created a new blog for him and posted the first entry just like he wanted. For some reason, he didn’t give us the exact date or a place where it might happen which made his information utter useless rubbish.

Prince of Persia – Warrior Within…!

2005-01-07T10:26:00.000+06:00

The newest in the Prince of Persia series, Warrior Within, with more blood, more gore than ever. I still remember how I played Prince of Persia V1.0 in my XT (8086 processor) with 640kb RAM, low density Floppy (no hard disk), sound came from PC speaker but it ran without a glitch. That was a long time back, early nineties. It took me more than three moths to complete the whole mission of saving the Princess. Then came Prince of Persia 2, Prince of Persia 3D, Prince of Persia the Sands of Time. Warrior Within is the latest. It needs GeForce 4FX Graphics and lots of processing power, surely has come a long way.

The story line is deviated from saving the princess to eliminate Dhaka, an immortal power. And the prince is more acrobatic and can handle two weapons at the same time but easy to control, what they call “Free form Combat”.

Don’t know much about the game yet, still in the first two levels. Got to go now… Have to kill the bad guys….!

Tsunami…!

2004-12-30T03:39:00.000+06:00

12/26, 9.0, the mass destruction in the history…. you name it… Lucky to be in one piece. On that day, I was at Galle (my home town), fortunately, at a safer distance. I was lucky enough not to suffer from any losses to my family members or close relatives but I know, thousands of people are not that fortunate. We were stranded at Galle b’cos there was no fuel and to make it worse, food supplies were scarce. This was nothing to be compared with what happened to the other people. So I leave this note in memory of all those lives we lost. May you all attain 'Nirvana' and rest in peace.

GMail Invitations...!

2004-12-23T10:16:00.000+06:00

At last... GMail granted me 6 invitations to redistribute. If anyone interested, send me an EMail .

Browser war, which one?

2004-12-12T20:17:00.000+06:00

Tired of using IE? Try Opera ...It’s a feature rich sophisticated web browser with pop-up blocking, tabbed browsing, integrated searches, POP E-mail, IRC chat and protection against ad-ware, spy-ware and viruses. When I first open the program, I was stunned by its cool, professional appearance. Now I can open so many browser windows without cluttering the task bar, thanks to the tabbed windows. It remembers the current session so that I can continue browsing on the following day. (pretty cool eh?)

For the con side, the free version includes a banner ad up on top which is practically unnoticeable. (I’ve got a serial number for the registered version, if anyone interested, throw an E-mail this way...)

Though, it’s too early to make a decision, I feel, this is the browser for me. (at least until Google develop a web browser...)

Google AdSense makes sense (cents?)

2004-12-10T00:59:00.000+06:00

Mmmm… not a bad idea to have some Google Ads in my page, since I’m paid when you click on them. So, go ahead, make me rich… (Sshhh…. It’s illegal to ask someone to click on ads though...)

Friends…!

2004-11-21T13:26:00.000+06:00

Ever since I started this blog, I used to post technical stuff. (mostly, its about Google gadgets…). I know what you are thinking… I am a technical junkie…ehh?… Well… in a way, it’s true… but I believe there’s some humanity left inside me… Therefore, I would like to dedicate this post to ALL MY GOOOOD FRIENDS…

o Friendship isn’t a big thing….It’s a million little things.
o Friends are for keeps… and for keeping in touch.
o Sometimes a friend can make it “All Better” just by being near.
o Friendships are made up of little stories… with happy endings
o Life’s journey is easier when you hear a friend’s footsteps beside you.

And my dear friends…
The way you live each moment, giving, laughing, & caring so deeply, I wonder if you ever realize the moment of joy you bring into other people’s life…You are truly indispensable…

The latest entrant to the Web Search Arena…Microsoft!

2004-11-16T15:29:00.000+06:00

I extracted the following from a Yahoo News article, therefore, credit goes to the original author.

Microsoft Corp. finally debuted its own web Search technology hoping to challenge Google’s long dominance of the field. Google signaled that it is ready for a fight, doubling the search index to 8 billion web sites.

Redmond-based Microsoft has long offered a search engine on its MSN Web site, but the technology behind was powered by subsidiaries of Yahoo Inc

The Microsoft search engine, offered in 11 languages, will initially be available on a special "test" site. (Google Search offers more than 90 languages including Sinhalese)

A feature called "Search Near Me" guesses where users are located based on their Internet connections and seeks to provide results nearby. Another feature promises to answer plain-language questions such as "What is the capital of Germany?" by culling through Encarta.

Google also offers a localized search function, with users telling the search engine where they are. And it has a "Google Answers" site, where researchers provide data for a minimum fee of $2.50. Microsoft's version is free but not as tailored.

Microsoft also plans to offer by year's end a test version of its hotly anticipated technology for quickly locating e-mail, Web pages and other files on desktop computers. Google launched a similar product last month. .

You can find MSN Search here.

What I can see is, MSN Search is an EXACT COPY of Google Search with a couple of additives here and there. Shame on you Microsoft…

Google…. The Mathematician!

2004-11-16T15:18:00.000+06:00

Do you know everything about Google search? Have you ever come across that the Google has a built in calculator? Checkout the following;

Formula
5*3+2
sqrt(2^15)

Complex Numbers
(8+5i)*(7-2i)
sqrt(-10)

And more…
100 miles in kilometers
1000 meters*10 newtons in kilojoules
speed of light in miles per hour

Cool…. eh?

Don’t forget to check the other features in Google. (Hmmm.. Google should pay me for this…)

“Google, search My Documents in My Computer...!”

2004-11-08T15:32:00.000+06:00

How long will it take to find a word document in your machine using the Search facility in windows? Well, it depends on how many files you have in the hard disk and sure it will take more than a couple of minutes. How about a tool which can search for a given word not only in the word documents, but also in power point, excel, e-mail or even in chat conversations in less than a second?

Google Desktop Search (Yes, another innovative product from Google) can do the above in a flash. To my surprise, the downloaded program (it's the PC versiona of the Google search engine) is tiny as 400kb but according to Google, it demands 500MB or more hard disk space for indexing purposes. (Who cares about the hard disk space these days….) I was really amazed by the searching speed which is not uncommon in all the Google products. Although it is still in the Beta version, it has gone a long way.

In an earlier post, I’ve mentioned that I’m not a MS-Addict, but, to my surprise, I am becoming a Google-Addict.

Happy Birthday...!

2004-10-28T16:32:00.000+06:00

Hmmm… It’s my birthday today. I copied the following paragraph from a book I read a long time ago which describes the characteristics of a person born on 28.

Number Twenty-eight is a rather complex number for it contains components that have dissimilar characteristics. It has Number Two, which is, of course, the leading number of all those between twenty and thirty. This number is gentle and submissive, and dependent on those around it. Number Eight, on the other hand, is a magnetic personality, one that has tremendous attraction for the opposite sex. The sum of the two numbers is 2+8=10=1. Number One is the leader of the house, the commander, the one with drive and initiative.

So we find that Number Twenty-eight has a combination of the intelligence, softness, gentleness and romantic nature of Number Two; the magnetic personality of Number Eight with intensity, intelligence and sensitivity; and the leadership of Number One with its stream rolling force and drive.

Number Twenty-eights are very interesting persons. They are highly intelligent, for the characteristic of intelligence exists in a very high degree in all the three components of the number. Numbers Two and Eight also combine intensity of feeling along with sensitivity. The net result is that Number Twenty-eight is both intelligent and highly sensitive. Its possessors are responsive to the atmosphere around them. They have a fertile imagination and make' good artists in practically any field. They are also ambitious and ensure that their efforts are brought to a fruitful conclusion. Number Twenty-eights have a positive personality, and those who come in contact with them, feel the effect of their charisma.

Well… not bad… eh?

Let’s see who are the other famous people born on October 28; Julia Roberts (Actress), Michael Crichton (Author), BILL GATES (You know who he is). I’m neither anti-MS nor MS-addict, but no body can under estimate Gates for what he has done for the computing world to make it a better (nicer looking) place. Full credit goes to him… Happy Birthday Mr. Gates…

GMail Rocks!

2004-10-21T16:43:00.000+06:00

I got an invitation from a friend to join for the beta testing of GMail , a webmail client from Google, and ended up with having an email account as Chandana.n@gmail.com. (I wish I had Chandana@gmail.com but I was too late for that…) It’s similar to Yahoo Mail but has more advanced features and is really FAST. Not only that, it also gave me 1GB of space to store my junk. Frankly speaking, I beleive 100MB in my machine is worth more than 1GB in remote. Anyway, google sure amuses me forever…

Does the Mail Box size matter? May be… That’s why HotMail is giving 250MB, Yahoo is giving 100MB etc. but still can’t beat GMail’s 1GB. WAIT…. Check this out… Walla is giving 1GB… pretty impressive…

.lk Domail Name Registry stuff

2004-10-20T14:18:00.000+06:00

One of my friends asked for details in .lk domain name registry. I knew it is done by the University of Moratuwa but couldn't answer further. Thanks Google once again, Full details can be obtained from lk Domain Registry web site.

Cool Search Engine Page...

2004-10-11T15:41:00.000+06:00

I’ve found a very good web site for my Samsung-SGH-C100 but unfortunately, everything is in Russian. When digging out the web for a translator, I’ve found this ALL-IN-ONE website. It has not only the translators but also more precise search engines for specific needs.

Getting Started...

2004-10-08T12:34:00.000+06:00

Just got this BLOG. This is an amazing idea. I’m really impressed about this. Hope I find enough time to update this often.