For the past 6 years I have been using Adobe Photoshop and it has been a fantastic piece of software. Recently I self learnt how to use Illustrator and InDesign because those two also became quote essential for me. But started trying a trial version of CS4 few days ago and ... its awful. I have no clue whats going on here. Seems like Adobe have put a significant effort to enhance the UI. But by doing that seems like they have sacrifised performance.

I dont think this is due to something wrong with my laptop. It's a super fast laptop with a Vista Experience Index at 5.3 and a whooping 512 MB dedicated VGA. Above all I was using Adobe CS3 applications without any problem. Now with CS4 I have to wait after every brush stroke. Anyways i'm not a expert designer. Can any experienced designer help me? Am I missing anything here?

Couple of month ago I wrote about the movie Dark Knight mentioning that it is almost about to total a billion dollars. Few minutes ago I checked the IMDB site and guess what! .... Dark Knight had made it to the billion dollar movies club.

So far only 4 movies have ever made it there ... Lets see how the upcoming movies Terminator Salvation, Transformers Revenge of the Fallen, StarTrek etc will do.

This is a historical moment! well! at least for me. After trying really hard for many long hours even in holidays I have finally cleared up my tasks list in outlook, sent out all the draft mails in my Outlook Drafts folder and actioned all the things I have noted in my 'Today' notepad.

Normally whenever an important email comes to my inbox and if i'm not in a position to reply or do the needful at the time I flag it and put a completion date/time. Depending on the importance of the mail I reply or complete the task. Normally there are many task items in the list :) .... there were few times it exceeded 100 ... No matter how many items I clear every day ... at the end of the day there is a new list of things as mails keeps coming. But right now there only 2 items on my tasks list and i'm going to clear it out in the next hour.

Some cases I have to search for information and write long replies with information which means if it is taking couple of hours/days it can result a draft email in the Drafts folder. Had 31 draft mails in the folder on last Wednesday when I went home for holidays. But as of now ... only 3 draft emails which i'm just about to send out and clear. So you can imagine how the holidays were like. Well! it was not that bad. During holidays found time to do many things ... emails, couple of movies, new year celebration, spent time with my wife, met couple of old friends etc.

Normally I have a text file on my desktop named 'today' with a list of items I want to finish within the day. While I manage to finish most of the things in this today list of mine few remains based on the importance. Right now this is also down to one action item ...

So I have like few moments to feel cool. Because ................. more mails will come.

Another cool feature in my new HTC Fuze. I can shoot panoramic photos without using any additional tools etc. Check these out. You can do the same using the Panoramic option in Windows Live Photo Gallery. But doing it using the phone is much better because I can check the panoramic view right away.

View from my seat ....

Moments before we start the vehicle parade to the R. Premadasa Ground to start the one day match

@ R. Premadasa Ground Yesterday

Couple of months back when I got my Lenovo X61 Tablet PC I thought this is it. Being 64bit and with a whooping 4 GB of RAM and Vista Experience Index rating @ 3.5 ... it was a fantastic machine ... until Yesterday.

I got a new Lenovo ThinkVantage W500 with 4 GB RAM. Dang! Vista Experience Index is @ 5.3 ... its super fast, super hot ... and its super super :).

Well! this is going to be my backup laptop for user group and students presentations. Yup! Guys, we now have a laptop for our user groups.