As of now we have 6 technical communities in the country. Now! don’t panic if you have registered only in few of these. Yesterday a dude called trying to figure out which one he should register. So for his sake and for many others who might have similar confused sentiments I just thought of writing this.

In a short summary we have 4 Technical communities, but 6 Technical Community Websites represent them. Total member count goes over 8,000 as of not and expected exceed 10,000 registered members by end of 2010. Student Champ Community is lead by Microsoft Student Ambassadors and currently we have 10 of them. Other technical communities are lead by the Most Valuable Professionals.

Among these .NET Forum, IT Pro forum and both MSDN and TechNet sites are developed using Community Server. SQL Universe was originally developed using the same but recently was migrated to DotNetNuke. Student Champs websites is 100% developed by students using ASP.NET 3.5.

Sri Lanka .NET Forum .NET Forum is the largest Technical Community in the country with over 6000 registered members, and dedicated to talk about .NET and other related technologies. Started in July 2004 with few enthusiasts and have grown at a phenomenal rate due to the commitment of couple of passionate individuals. Monthly Meeting Date: Every first Thursday of the month URL: http://www.dotnetforum.lk

Sri Lanka IT Pro Forum This community currently have a approx. 1000 registered members. Started in 2005 as the Tech2Guys community and was later renamed to Sri Lanka IT Pro Forum. Dedicated for discussions on Microsoft Server Technologies. Monthly Meeting Date: Every last Wednesday of the month URL: http://www.itproforum.lk

SQL Server universe Started in 2007 by couple of SQL Server gurus, this community now have about 600 registered members. Dedicated to discuss about Microsoft SQL Server and related services such as Reporting Services, Analysis Services etc. Monthly Meeting Date: Every third Wednesday of the month URL: http://www.sqlserveruniverse.com

MSDN Sri Lanka This was is a new addition to the developer community in the country with the focus on adding more blogs and resources into the community. Launched about a year back and this has already grown to a base of 200 members and 20 active bloggers. URL: http://www.msdnsrilanka.net

TechNet Sri Lanka This also was a new addition to the IT Pro community in the country providing more resources. This was also launched parallel to the launch of MSDN Sri Lanka portal. URL: http://www.technetsrilanka.net

Microsoft Student Champs Currently being the largest student technology group in the country this has about 200 student champs as active members. There are 10 Ambassadors who lead the community. Monthly Meeting Date: Every first Friday of the month URL: http://www.champs.lk

So to summarize … if you are a developer go and register in .NET and MSDN Sri Lanka Forums, SQL Universe also can be recommended for developers. If you are an infrastructure professional you should register in IT Pro Forum and TechNet Sri Lanka forums. If you are a hard core database guru you should take the SQL Universe, Since SQL is not integrated with .NET it might help in registering in both developer forums as well. If you are a university students you can register in the Student champs community,in this case your registration will be activated only after considering by the Student Ambassadors.

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?

Well! wishes are not for you or me, it for our .NET User Gruop. Yeah! guys it's beign 2 years. We started the whole thing in July 2004 with Merill leading the team and our good old mentor Ed Guiding us. We have continued the meeting every month expect last October where we had the TechEd and this February where we had the VS Launch.

Due to the busy schedule I actually forgot about this. Otherwise I would have atleast brought a cake to the Today's User Group Meeting. A Big thanks to Jinath for reminding this.

It really feels good to be a part of something important.

Guys and Gals ... checkout this cool blog. http://deppcharge.blogspot.com/ 

It's funky view point about all of us. Well! one way or the other

I check Gizmodo, the Gadjet blog almost everyday, following are few cool things came up in last couple of dyas.

Intel Names Next-Gen Chips: Core 2 Duo
Shocking Lie Detector
Sony to Ship 50GB Blu-ray Blanks in June
Quad-Core Chips From AMD Due in ‘07-‘08
Korea’s Ever-1 Android
Minority Report Screen at ORD
Adjustable Hot Sauce
Samsung High-Contrast LCD Display

It's a little bit over one year for my blogging experience. Woo! Hoo!

Finally got my hosting sorted out to .NET 2.0 ... well! its a new hosting. ... so very soon i'll be putting up welasharp.net 2.0 on the new server powered with .NET 2.0 with couple of enhancements.

It's been a great year with my blog, got to know lot of new friends through the blog. It was always a happy moment(s) to see the encouraging comments. Over 100k hits within 1 year is a big number. I think publishing the imageineCup stuff made lot of hits. "ImagineCup" is one of the top search keywords which brought tons hits to my blog.

Thanks to all my friends who gave me valuable suggestions to enhance the blog. ALSO a BIG thank to all my friends and unknown friends who commented.

Hmmm! Good old memories :)