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MVP Open Day ....

by Wela on 30 August 2006 22:06

As uaual the schedule got nuts and couldn't blog about this.

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Last Saturday we had our first MVP open day event. Manzi was in charge of organizing the things and he did a kick ass job. Selected destination was Royal Palm Hotel @ Kaluthara. We were planing to start the drive @ sharp 9 AM, but guess what ... as usual we started bit late. How can we start early and break the traditions.

Once we got there first thing in our agenda was to have the planning meeting before we start anything with the booze. Meeting went on about 45 minutes and we discussed about all the .NET Forum activities for the next couple of months, which included stall at Tech.Ed, Deepdive session, Community Day etc. So guys stay tuned ... there's going to be lot of cool things happening in the near future. After the planning meeting it was all fun + fun + fun.

From the MVP team Manzi, Jinath, Pras, Dinesh, Padman and me participated. Merill and Buddhike couldn't make it. And from Microsoft Alan and Indica Joined (a big thanks to Alan for initiating the whole thing). and we invited our buddies from the .NET forum ... Razor, Casper, Charith, Chandana, Rajah etc. but Chandana and Rajah couldn't make it.

Looking forward for the next MVP Open day ... who wants to join ?


Tags:

Posted in Events | MVP

Nations Trust ?

by Wela on 29 August 2006 18:16

On July 3rd I opened a new account at the Nations Trust Bank. Actually a sales gent from the bank came to meet me and he processed the whole thing. at that time he was really helpful and it happened smoothly. But until today I haven't received the pass book or the ATM Card. Last time when I called the guy it was about a month back and he promised me to deliver the card. But he never showed up.

As usual my schedule was busy and I couldn't follow the case up. Finally got some free time yesterday and I went to the Colombo 03 branch to check what happened. And they called the Nugegoda branch (account was opened @ the nugegoda branch) and found out the sales guy no longer works there and his superior officer promised to deliver everything within the next week?  

Today also I got some free time, so I decided go to the Nugegoda branch and close the account and finish it off. Because there is no point in having an account like this. After I explained the situation branch Manager came and explained that there has been an issue with the sales guy and he was fired. Branch manager was really helpful. So I decided not to close the account. They issued the passbook immediately and the ATM will come latest by Monday.

I was actually planning to maintain this account as my primary account from September onwards. Considering what has happened there is no way I'm going to do that. I'm having second thoughts on continuing the account !!!!!   Because ....

  • If the card or the passbook is not delivered to a customer isn't it the responsibility of the bank to check why?
  • If I didn't get a time to go and check it yesterday what will happen? Account will be just there and I will never have access to it ... is it?
  • If the sales guy was fired shouldn't the immediate officer look into what he has been doing? Why did they wait till a customer complains.

Anyways thanks to the Branch Manager and the other Gent for explaining the situation and helping out.

Has anybody else experienced similar cases with the Nations Trust Bank?


Tags:

Posted in Personal

is it ever going to stop?

by Wela on 23 August 2006 01:43

I have installed Windows Desktop Search Beta 3 because every time I open Outlook 2007 it says ... dude .. you need Windows Desktop Search to perform search stuff. And now it is taking up about 200mb of memory and a considerable percentage of the processing power. I have kept the machine on for several hours for it to do it's indexing stuff and give all the resources to me, but the dang! thing stays up all the time.

What to do? I badly need the folder wise search facility in outlook. Without it I'll be lost and will be wasting lot of my time to look for things. Maintaining several mail accounts and many folders is not an easy task. Windows Desktop Search Beta 3 is very useful but very resource hungry.

I'm wondering .. is it ever going to stop this indexing process?


Tags:

Posted in Software

TechEd 2006 Sri Lanka - Change Your Destiny

by Wela on 17 August 2006 23:39
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Yeah folks, It's that time of the year where all great technologies are showcased and talked about.

www.teched.lk is up with information about the event and more will be posted as I get details. Stay tuned. This time also it is going to be at Waters Edge. And the event is going to be bigger than the previous year. I'll publish the RSS feed very soon, so you can add it to your RSS burner.

Also MVPs and .NET Forum will have an exciting exhibition stall at the event.

Change Your Destiny ...

 

btw: this time also i'm doing the website for the event with the help of few of my buddies. For security :) reasons i'm not disclosing their names here. Don't want them to get kicked out from their jobs for doing private work :)


Tags:

Posted in Events | Tech.Ed

Imagine Cup 2007

by Wela on 15 August 2006 17:56

Imagine Cup 2007 is going to be @ Korea and the theme for the competition is 'Imagine a World where Technology Enables a Better Education for All'.

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Sorry about the logo is not that clear. just took it from a photo I shot at the world festival. Couldn't find a good quality logo in the net yet :)


Tags:

Posted in Imagine Cup

visit to the Taj Mahal

by Wela on 15 August 2006 17:50
There is only one word to explain it ... AMAZING!!!
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DSC03703.gif DSC03754.gif DSC03756.gif DSC03770.gif DSC03771.gif
DSC03779.gif DSC03800.gif DSC03802.gif DSC03814.gif DSC03817.gif

It took 22 Years and 20000 workers to build the Taj Mahal. I was actually wondering what took such a long time. After seeing the artworks done with semi precious stones that are carved into the white marbles I started wondering how the hell did they did this within 22 years. I wonder how much was spent in building the Taj Mahal. Probably like couple of zillion dollars.


Tags:

Posted in Imagine Cup

Imaginers @ Community Work

by Wela on 15 August 2006 17:03
On Wednesday morning we participated a community activity which was some at a restoration project. Even though this was an optional item for the imagine cup participants majority signed up for this. And the site was a place named Shikandar. It is the tomb of King Akbar.

Once we got there we were grouped it to four teams based on the activities ... filling cracks in stones, wall cleaning, sweeping etc ...

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One of the entrances to the tomb.
Once again it's a big entrance
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A white marble wall applied with
the mud treatment
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We are busy with giving the mud
treatment to the marble walls
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Me after finishing some muddy
work. It was real fun.
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no need to tell the names again ...
 

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Big building at the back is the
actual tomb

We were in the wall cleaning group and it was real fun. Also it was at the top of the tomb so the view was great. Interesting thing is that this cleaning is not something to do with water, shampoo or soap. the cleaning is done with mud. Strange Hah! Process is simple. A specially formatted mud pack is applied on the white marbles and it absorbs the dust and other unnecessary materials from the marbles so it gets cleaned automatically. It's a natural type of cleaning process so there is no harm to the marbles. After couple of days the mud pack falls off automatically and then they wash it with water. How cool is that.


Tags:

Posted in Imagine Cup

Visit to the Agra Red Fort

by Wela on 15 August 2006 16:34

After the second round winners were announced for the Software design category we had some free time because we didn't make it to the second round. So we decided to spend the evening to visit this place called the Red Fort in Agra. Well! it is a big ass fort made with Red Sand stones and some buildings inside are made of White marbles, some walls were about 100 feet tall and so on. Tour guide explained lot of it's history and details. Everything sound interesting and amazing. As the guide explained the area opened for tourists is only about 10% of the full size of the fort. Another 15% is under restoration and the balance area is occupied by the Indian Army. It's an interesting place to have an Army Base.

View of the Taj Mahal and the Yamuna River was really nice from the red fort. And this is the first time I herd the news about a Black Taj Mahal. Well! it was not built. Only planned. Story says that after king Shah Jahan finished the white Taj Mahal with white marbles for his his wife he wanted to build one for his name on the other side of the river in Black Marbles. Interesting.

Interesting fact that king Shah Jahan was imprisoned by his own son for the last 7 years of his life. Reason! spending too much money to build great things.

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view of the wall of the red fort and
the water canal which provided
protection to the fort.

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this is one entrance to the fort. I
still don't understand why king
always wanted big entrances 
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Sri Lankan team from left to right
Yasith (Yasish), Shanaka, Prasad
and Sandarenu

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It's me. Good that nobody noticed
my redcap. Well! I'm not crazy,
wearing a Genuine Windows t shirt
and a red had cap. just Kidding.
 
 

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This is where the king use to sit to
listen to people. Amazing thing in
thing building is that the kings seat
was not visible from any angle
because it was covered with the
pillars.
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this is where the king Shah Jahan
use to sit to look at the Taj Mahal
in the last seven years of his live.
He was imprisoned by his own son
in this tower.
 
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view of the Taj Mahal from the
Red Fort
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Inside a chamber of where the
king was imprisoned
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side view of the wall of the fort
which is about 100 feet tell.

Tags:

Posted in Imagine Cup

Imagine Cup 2006 - World Festival

by Wela on 15 August 2006 16:20

It is strange that the world festival was not very big in terms of the head count in the audience. Last time it was couple of thousand in that big auditorium. Anyways that's not the important thing. All the required people were there. I think that's enough. World festival was filled with couple of interesting and inspiring speeches, Indian modern cultural dancing items and of course the prize giving. Following is the final results.

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Software Design

  • 1st place: Italy. Even .ctor: Giorgio Sardo, Massimo Paternoster, Silvia Perrone and Andrea Sossich
  • 2nd place: Brazil. Team Trivial: Carlos Eduardo Monteiro Rodrigues, Ivan Cordeiro Cardim and Madson Menezes Costa
  • 3rd place: Norway. Team NTNU, Jan-Kristian Markiewicz, Gøran Hansen, Hans Olav Norheim and Jonas Follesø
Algorithm
  • 1st place: Poland. Piotr Marek Mikulski
  • 2nd place: Poland. Przemyslaw Debiak
  • 3rd place: Poland. Tomasz Blajek
IT
  • 1st place: Austria. Andreas Tomek
  • 2nd place: Romania. Valerica Greavu-Serban
  • 3rd place: France. Daniel Boteanu
Short Film
  • 1st place: Canada. Team Forest: Sam Chow, Nick Haffie-Emslie, Ryan Marr and Meg Majewski
  • 2nd place: Poland. Team Skylined: Jacek Barcikowski and Julia Górniewicz
  • 3rd place: USA. Team LCL: Scott Lynch, Zach Lynch and Cam Crosson
Interface Design
  • 1st place: Brazil. Team Virtual Dreams: Roberto Sonnino and Eduardo Sonnino
  • 2nd Place: China. Team Frontfree Studio-MISG: Wang Guojing and Sang Yingshuo
  • 3rd place: India. Team Avengers: Mohit Bhargava and Mitushi Jain
Project Hoshimi (Programming Battle)
  • 1st place: France. Team Atomnium: Manon Gaucher and Flavien Charlon
  • 2nd place: Republic of Serbia. Team R.A.F: Igor Kabiljo and Uroš Rajkovic
  • 3rd place: France. Team Lya: Laure Portet and Régis Hanol

Tags:

Posted in Imagine Cup

Imagine Cup 2006 - Digital Theater

by Wela on 15 August 2006 16:14

Short Film invitational is a very interesting category in the imagine cup. Teams who made it to the world finals are given the challenge to do a short film within 36 hours. So basically they have to work 36 hours straight. and the out come was really amazing. Thursday evening we got the chance to see all the short films. I loved the Canada and Poland films which made First and Second places later on.

Thursday was a very long tired day because the day started very early morning with a long ride from Agra to Delhi. I'll tell more details about this long trip later :)    And then the software design final six presentations happened and after that there was the digital theater which showed all the short films etc.


Tags:

Posted in Imagine Cup

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