Oops...

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...

Cricket Humor

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

Tech-GSM, two thumbs up...!

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...

New Look

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

Father & Son

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."

My Blog Visitors....

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

My Search Engine...!

Search...

Lazy and Dumb programmers...

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

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

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

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...

The Sith Sense

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

Quote of the Day!

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

I, ROBOT

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...!

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

Ten reasons why I am Blogging

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.)

Tsunami… What next?

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.

Tsunami…!

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.

Friends…!

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…

Happy Birthday...!

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…

.lk Domail Name Registry stuff

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.