I’m (was?) not a big football fan but watched many world cup matches during the last 4 weeks. Head is still on echo mode after hearing that Vuvuzela for so long. At time it sounded very annoying but then again the tune in the entire FIFA 2010 was that. Wonder how a normal football match will look and sound like without the Vuvuzela. It became so popular … even YouTube added a special button to play the sound on the video player.

Anyways … couple of us got together to watch the finals and during that I was thinking. A FIFA comes once every 4 years. Same goes for Olympics, Cricket world cup and I don’t know what else is out there. If a human lives an average 60 years and if we consider only 40 years of that … the fella gets to see only 10 of these world events. In my memory … in the parts that I can recall … I have watched/seen three cricket world cups, three FIFA’s and three Olympics … anything before that I barely remember. Dang! only 7 left for me … I’m not going to miss any of those in the future.

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/07/14/chicken-egg-mystery-finally-cracked/?test=faces

British scientists believe they have found the answer to an ages-old question: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Scientists cracked the puzzle after discovering that the formation of eggs is possible only thanks to a protein found in chicken's ovaries. That means eggs have to be formed in chickens first.

The protein -- called ovocledidin-17 (OC-17) -- speeds up the development of the shell. Researchers from Sheffield and Warwick universities in England laid out their findings in the paper "Structural Control of Crystal Nuclei by an Eggshell Protein."

They used a supercomputer to zoom in on the formation of an egg and realized the protein is vital in kick-starting the crystallization process. It works by converting calcium carbonate into the calcite crystals that make up the egg shell.

Dr Colin Freeman, from Sheffield University's Department of Engineering Materials, said "it had long been suspected that the egg came first -- but now we have the scientific proof that shows that in fact the chicken came first."

"The protein had been identified before and it was linked to egg formation, but by examining it closely we have been able to see how it controls the process," Freeman said.

"It's very interesting to find that different types of avian species seem to have a variation of the protein that does the same job."

It is hoped the discovery leads to the invention of new materials.

Not sure where many of you know about this. 2nd-4th July an exhibition was hosted by the Rotary Club of Colombo at the Exhibition and Convention center which was called the Hobby Fair 2010.

 

Organizers invited Microsoft to put up a stall and demo some products. So our Student Champs gang took the challenge and did a fantastic job manning the stall for 3 full days and kept the tempo going. This was the first time Sri Lanka hosted an event on this nature. I mean not the exhibition … but an exhibition of hobbies. There were 70+ stalls and some pretty awesome stuff. I loved the coin collections and stamp collections.

At our stall Champs demonstrated products like Windows Security Essentials, Songsmith, Worldwide Telescope, AutoCollage etc. Couple of presentations were also delivered for large audiences.

It was a bit disappointing to see a low crowd. I mean hobbies are something which people are drawn into. I mean who doesn’t have a So theoretically unlike any other exhibition this should have more attendance. It was pretty obvious that something had gone wrong in the awareness creating. Anyways … it’s the first time something of this nature was organized, so there is enough room to improve next year

No not me. I only drive fast. Never like an idiot. If you are driving you’ll understand what I’m saying here and I’m pretty sure that you already understand that driving is not an easy task when there are plenty of idiot in the road. Let me explain …

There are plenty of obvious kinds of idiots like … who go in the wrong side of the road; especially 3 wheelers and bikers. Some who signal right and turns left – most of the times motor bikers; met one today morning also. One most annoying type is people who drive really slow in the right-hand side lane. And another type is people who keep headlights on at nights; this almost blinds everybody coming from the opposite direction.

Last night I was on my way back and this jeep guy behind me was having the headlights switched on the whole time. It was pretty annoying as the lights were crystal white and extra bright. I was very patient from Orugodawatta to Peliyagoda. But right on the ‘Aluth Palama’ bridge in a major traffic jam this guy started flashing the lights, there were no room to go anywhere. But still this guy kept doing it. So I just stopped in middle the road and went to him and gave a piece of my mind. ‘idiot’ was decent enough to knock off the headlights after that.

Road in front of the national library is now properly built with 4 tracks marked etc. Last week I was driving towards the Museum and I was in the second lane on the library side. I saw an army jeep parked right at the other side of the road. When I got near the new color lights this army jeep just went passing me … basically a 4 lane cross in less than 50ft … and turned to the road parallel to the Viharamadevi park. I actually turned to left in a split second and ended on the pavement … actually 2/3 of my car was on the pavement at the end. Still the jeep just missed the front right side of my car by inches. There was a traffic cop right there who saw the whole incident but when I looked and him he was stupid enough to give an answer as ‘what to do .. they are army ne’ … I got really pissed … and put my 2000cc engine to use and chased after the army jeep and crossed them and stopped before the color lights and blasted the hell out of them. I respect our soldiers a lot for the dedications they have made to eradicate terrorism. But still this kind of behavior is not acceptable at all.

Everybody who passes town hall knows that there is a big bottleneck just in front of the Buddhist Ladies College. There’s only two tracks in the road and most of the times one is occupied by the busses because there is a bus stand right there. Couple of weeks back I faced a situation where one bus driver stopped the bus blocking both lanes and loaded passengers. this was creating an utter mess; the whole road was blocked. Surprisingly there was a cop right there who watched the whole incident but did nothing. When I asked him later he said that’s not what he was assigned there to do. Funny … but fair enough. So after the road got cleared I stopped the car right in front of the bus (without blocking the other lane of course) … so he will feel the pain as myself and many other drivers behind me felt. I actually kept it there blocking this bus’s way for about 10 solid minutes   till another cop came there to resolve the situation.

Dang! Silly mistake or what. This morning when I logged in to my Live Home I was thrilled to see the Wave 4 Menu. At the same moment I saw a post in Bink mentioning the Office is now live on SkyDrive!. So I rushed to http://www.windowslivepreview.com and saw the whole site is updated. Without thinking much straight went to the control panel and uninstalled all my current Windows Live tools.

After that just before clicking the download button on the new site saw the message … ‘Newer version of Windows Live Essentials will be available soon … bla bla bla’ … good kick for me for not reading and rushing to get the new version.

Anyways Skydrive is updated and few bits and bobs. Not sure when the desktop tools are coming. I just finished re-installing the good old Live Essentials and seems like going to have to wait a while to get my hands on to Wave 4.

Couple of weeks back Madhuka pointed out that Sri Lanka is not listed in the country dropdown when entering comments.

I just checked the BlogEngine.Net Code and realized it's loading the coutry list from Cultures and for some reason Hosting Server didnt had Sri Lanka in the list. I have no way of fixing it in the server. So I added a customer culture in the code and fixed. Now you can select Sri Lanka in the list.

Apart from that I have done couple of enhancements to BlogEngine.NET, basically replaced the basic edior with the FreeTextBox and reformatted couple of options in the admin section ... bla bla bla. Still havent had a chance to test these fully and put live.

Just checked the IMDB All-Time Box Office: World-wide page and I'm surprised. Earlier I have written about the movies that generated a total sum of over a billion dollars. Since my last note on this couple of movies came so close to the big number and Avatar by James Cameron kicked ass on all existing records. So far Avatar has grossed over 2.7 billion dollars. Good heavens! that's a sh*t load of money.

Right now I'm surprised to see Alice in Wonderland is only 5 million below the big number. Without a doubt this is one of the most popular fairy tales and this is not the this story was taken to a movie, probably its like the millionth time :). But this is the first time it grossed so much money. So what the deal? I think its the 3D.

Now! when on earth are we; poor movie fans in Sri Lanka going to be able to watch a movie in 3D.

Was exploring Windows Live Writer a bit more and noticed this nice feature to include a photo album in a blog entry which is directly linked with my Windows Live Photo Gallery.

If anybody needs the high resolution printable versions please feel free to contact me. i can point you to a download location.

I have like a zillion photos and a million albums … well! not really that much. Now my brain is thinking … whether to upload all those into the blog using the Insert Album features in this.

On a separate note … Windows Live Wave 4 release is just around the corner and I the new Live Writer have some cool features packed with it. Just saw some screenshots etc on the web, and I cant want to get my hands on it.

I just uninstalled my antivirus software (too bad I had paid for it for 2 more years) and installed Microsoft Security Essentials. Installation was simple. Just a 7 MB download, and then the updates; all took only 5 minutes. It was worth the risk. It has already detected two major viruses that existed in my machine which my old virus guard didn't detect. In terms of performance it seems like this is far ahead than any thing out there. Over the last couple of years I have used Norton, McAfee, CA, Kasprasky, OneCare etc, but I think the simplicity in this out beats all ... it loads faster, performs the scans like a charm, and the security seems much better ... i'm not 100% convinced yet though.

Surprisingly the UI is so simple. None of those unwanted useless memory hungry features are not there. If you are really tired of those memory hungry bloated security software (bloatware); and if you haven't already tried this yet, I would like to highly recommend. The best part is it FREE.

Technically absolutely nothing wrong with it! but on the other hand something seems not right. Now, don’t get confused or don’t get to the attack mode … this is not one of those “this one is better than the other one” kind of a post. I’m just writing based on a serious long discussion I had with a very good friend mine who is a 100% Open Source dude. One thing I really admire about him is he actually lives and breaths OSS, unlike some so called OOS folks who talks about it and run Windows in their machines.

We just met after a long time for a beer (many beers apparently) and started talking about stuff and this topic popped up. Even though both of us wanted to stop the topic several times I think the dense alcohol levels wanted to keep it going. Anyways … after a 3 hours we were still good old friends and we were glad all other friends enjoyed the friendly fight.

When you really look at the OSS space there are plenty of software applications most of the times mimicking software in the proprietary world. The list goes on … Microsoft Office vs Open Office, Windows vs Linux, Adobe Photoshop vs Gimp, Microsoft SQL vs MySQL etc. Even the small apps like WinZip, CuteFTP, WinAmp have OSS flavors. In a world where people look at saving cost, still over 90% of the computer users pay big $$$ and stick with proprietary software when there are countless number of OSS applications available free. Honestly that doesn’t sound right. If it is free and still people are not using it there must be something seriously wrong with it. I think a significant contributor for this situation is the support and usability.

Most of you who read this post are for sure capable of dealing with any technical challenge to get your broken computer up and running, but if you look at the average computer user out there he/she just worries about getting the work done using the computer. So when installation of applications, updating, upgrading and using is bit difficult .. the average user naturally turns to the easier options. I think that’s what has happened. Companies like Microsoft, Adobe, Apple etc have gone an extra mile on this by Innovating new ways where average user can comfortably work with a computer.

In the corporate world … big companies have better things to worry about than IT problems. They need IT to be a contributor for them to run their business better and more efficiently. In this area I think the technical support and services is the main driving factor. Even locally I have seen companies who have gone and deployed a full stack of OSS software and struggle to keep things up and running due to lack availability of patch/update management techniques. Motive in deploying OSS was to save a quick buck which resulted in suffer to the mainstream business. Microsoft on the other hand have a much better approach and a solution to this problem through the System Center products.

Also another major enabler on this is situation is the developer platform. Most of the times when Microsoft releases a new tool or a version there is an SDK/API with it so developers can start their game. Recently Apple also realized the importance of having a developer force behind them, see the effect on enabling developers to develop apps for iPhone. Surprisingly I haven’t seen any similar trend in the OSS world except the popular saying that “the source code is available for you to do anything”. Well! having the source code of a massive software application is one thing and being able to understand and edit/change/update the complex C/C++ code is something totally different. For an instance lets say I found the complete blueprint of a space shuttle … if I think for a moment I’ll be able to engineer the entire shuttle and go to space just because I got the blueprints I must be a real idiot … a real ambitious one at that. For me … having the source code of an OSS software is somewhat similar. Take the total number of computer users in the world … how many of them are programmers, how many of those programmers are C/C++ programmers? and how many of those C/C++ programmers are capable of handling something so complicated. I’m sure the number is very small compared to the billion+ who uses computers.

My friend’s vision is “everybody should be using OSS because its free and the source code is available and you can do anything you wish”, while I stick with my end of the story where “masses of people should be able to access and use computers with minimum or if possible zero trouble and shouldn't have to worry about whether the source code is rectangular or circular”.

Anyways … things ended up with many unsolved questions … until next time bro …

I have had couple of really bad experiences with Windows Mobile over the years ... remember my 90000 paper weight.

Anyways this are a million times better after getting the HTC Fuze. right now i'm super excited about the Windows Phone (or can I call it the version 7). I'm using WinMo 6.5 at the moment with couple of custom applications from Resco and things are nice and smooth. Looking forward for the new and exciting stuff planned for the next major release of WinMo.

Despite all the ups and downs one thing I love the platform is the support for developers to develop apps. This time things are taking a much cooler route by adapting Silverlight into the core UI of the Phone. So ... Developers who cant wait to get their hands on the new device ... goto http://developer.windowsphone.com/ to get started.

Couple of days back I just saw the blog post in bink about the Windows Home Server, Code Name “Vail” and the demo video seemd pretty interesting. Especially the media streaming functionalities. So immediately I started downloading and when the ADSL failed @ home downloaded the balance 1.5 GB using teh dongle. It seems its all worth it. i'm yet to explore it fully. will write some more details next week after playing with it a bit more.

The mounting suspense of an eager audience was broken by the triumphant out-roar as a team of students from the University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC) were proclaimed the proud winners of Imagine Cup Sri Lanka 2010. After an enthrallingly intense competition between 8 Teams from Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology (SLIIT), UCSC, University of Moratuwa and University of Peradeniya, the Team: Collectivists, comprising of the 4th year students: Gayan Garusinghe, Sudam Liyanage, Chanaka Upendra and Hasini Adhikari, bagged the magnificent Challenge Trophy for the first time, taking it to its new destination: the University of Colombo.

The Winning team: Collectivists, proposed a software design solution called “Speak-Up” which offered a common networking platform for social workers around the world to communicate their efforts, needs and the requirements of silent victims to compassionate hearts who are willing to provide financial and material assistance. The system included a number of innovative features from direction of financial assistance, to provision of relevant logistics, forums and more.

Winner Team: Collectivists from UCSC Project: Speak Up! Team Members: Gayan Garusinghe, Chanaka Upendra, Sudam Liyanage, Hasini Adhikari

1st Runner-up Team : HELY from SLIIT Project: iSponsor Team Members: Lahiru Ruhunage, Eranda Abeynayake, Hamza Naleer, Yohan Jayarathna

2nd Runner-up Team: Saggezza from University of Moratuwa Project: Ideal Lanka Team Members: Prageeth Sandakalum, Malsha Fernando, Jaliya Waidyathilaka, Eranga Kaluarachchi

This project was proposed in adherence to Imagine Cup 2010’s global theme which encouraged competitors “to imagine a world where technology helps solve some of the toughest problems”, reflecting along the United Nations 8 Millennium Development Goals.

Close behind the Collectivists, Team HELY from SLIIT emerged as the 1st Runners-Up whilst Team SAGGEZZA from the University of Moratuwa emerged as the 2nd Runners-Up. Team HELY presented a project named iSponsor aimed at combating the problem of Poverty by creating an environment where sponsors and beneficiaries would be able to interact and link up in a direct partnership. In contrast, Team SAGGEZZA proposed a solution to counter the same problem through its system: Ideal Lanka, a technology based platform for facilitating micro-investments in agriculture by directing funds from investors to required agro-bases.

Having offered fierce competition, Team JIIB from SLIIT, Team 4-Alliance from Moratuwa, Team SATURNIN from UCSC, Team Make-IT from Peradeniya and Team GREENBROS from UCSC emerged as the finalists.

Team GreenBros from UCSC Team Members: Nitish Kumar, Sahan Maldeniya and Charith Pathirana	Team JIIB from SLIIT Team Members: Janaka Bandara, Boominda Anushka, Iresh Bandara and Isuru Jayasooriya	Team MakeIT from University of Peradeniya Team Members: Rasika Bandara, Charitha Ranabahu, Mouly Gunarathne and Dhananjaya Dodanwela
Team Saturning from UCSC Team Members: Kalana Wijethunge, Chathika Gunaratne, Ajith Karunarathna and Lasantha Samarakoon	Team 4Alliance from University of Moratuwa Team Members: Madhusha Nanayakkara, Chanaka Herath, Madhuka Udantha and Mithila Karunarathna

For more details about the projects and teams please refer to http://imaginecup.lk/finalistdetails.aspx

This premier event, which was held on Thursday, 29th of April 2010 at the HNB Towers Auditorium, was attended by a number of students, faculty members, parents, members of the Industry and more, and was considered to be yet another successful execution of Imagine Cup, being hosted locally for the 6th consecutive time by Microsoft.

In high-spirits, the Winners from UCSC are now embarking on an extensive preparation as they get ready to represent Sri Lanka and present their ideas to the world at the Imagine Cup World finals which is scheduled to be held in Warsaw, Poland in July.

Finally i have migrated everything on my blog to the latest version of Blogengine. It was much faster than me developing a newer version. Only some major very interesting work on the CSS to create this UI.

Still a bit of work to be done. Have to migrate the Comments from visitors properly. and a bit of other stuff. Anyways for now I have a functioning blog, which is the most important.

When it comes to my blog I never wanted to use any of those ready made tools even though I knew those tools had everything needed and fully featured. All I wanted to do was to build it from the scratch ... just to feel good. I even started developing the second version ages ago but never got a chance to complete due to the busy scheudle and seems like never will be able to :(

Last Sunday started working on customizing BlogEngine.NET for another site and I'm suprised by the simplicity it gives when customizing the UI. Within 2-3 hours I managed to change the entier UI to the new look and feel I wanted. It was simple and clear.

Right now i'm thinking of migrating my good old blog to BlogEngine.NET ... any thoughts guys?

Last Sunday I went to the Lavinia Breeze with family to have dinner. Expectations were high as the advertising is good and more importantly I have been to a 'real' Brazilian restaurent when I was in LA last november. So wanted to have the Churrasco again.

Experience @ the lavinia breeze was utterly dissapointing. For that price there are plenty of good restaurents in Colombo to have a good meal. We were there for about an hour and they served meat only twice and even for that I had to remind couple of times. I'm not an expert in grilling meat, but i'm sure I can do a better job in preparing meat. Last BBQ we did with couple of friends was pretty awsome. Also had to ask and remind again after 15 minutes just to get a water bottle. May be there was something wrong with me ... because a group in the next table who came much later was served pretty fast.

Anyways i'm NEVER going there again.

James Cameron had done it again. Previously it was Titanic which stayed the top of the box office for a very long time with a whooping 1.8 billion dollar.

And now it is Avatar … already grossed over 1.8 billion dollars, and already on the top of the list as the highest ever grossed movie and well on the way to become the first ever movie to gross over 2 billion dollars.

Haven’t you watched it yet? I have already watched it thrice and will be watching it for the 4th time soon.

Just watched a making the movie short video about how it was made and its amazing. The new technologies, concepts and tools created for this movie takes the arena of movie making to a new height.

Well! If you haven't watched it yet … go now!

WOW! Tech.Ed is back. Last time when Microsoft hosted a Tech.Ed in Sri Lanka it was 3 years ago and I was not in Microsoft. But now i have the pleasure of putting together the whole event.

Things are going to be really interesting this time at Tech.Ed. Some pretty big names are involved in the list of speakers.

Will write more details later, for now just go to the site and register. http://www.teched.lk

A Big Mac is one of the coolest creations of the fast food industry. OR in other words its one of the three kings of junk food. Other 2 are of course the Zinger from KFC and the Whooper from Burger King.

Yesterday I went to McDonalds during lunch time to grab a quick bite and ordered my usual favorite meal … a Big Mac meal. The guy in the counter by mistake have given me a Chicken Big Mac (A WHAT!). I noticed this only after going to a table. Just thought for a second … ask to change this or give it a try. What the hell! I just decided to take a bite and see. Had two bites and … CRAP! who decided to call this chicken burger a Chicken Big Mac. It’s a damn insult to the Big Mac.

Once upon a time when my office was just walking distance from McDonalds I use to have 2-3 Big Macs a day. Now! In case if you are wondering how fat I am … don’t worry … Big Macs could never made me fat.

I LOVE MY BIG MACS … SO DEAR MCDONALDS … PLEASE DON’T SCREW IT :)

Was thinking a bit about how 2010 will be and the list of activities I have lined up for 2010.

2009 has been pretty interesting, with couple of big initiatives being launched here @ Microsoft Sri Lanka, big stuff in personal side and some good events including PDC etc. I really thought 2009 was interesting. But compared to the things lined up for 2010 i'm excited and now feels like 2009 was a piece of cake. Anyways it seems like 2010 is going to be another exciting action packed year.

Things for 2010 is going to start with a big bang .. a Tech Colloquium (4th Jan), then there is Tech.Ed 2010 in Feb, Imaigne Cup in April and several other pretty big stuff coming.