As most of you are already aware Imagine Cup 2011 Sri Lanka Software Design round is OOONN! and the 6 finalist teams are preparing for the big day. This year the Sri Lanka finals event will be held at the Moratuwa University Civil Engineering Auditorium as Moratuwa is our event hosting partner.

Sri Lanka finals : April 27, 2011

Project: makePossible, Team: Vishwa, From: University of Moratuwa Team Members: rumalp, Pasan, akiladarshana, Gayashan	Project: Savior, Team: Team Titan, From: University of Colombo School of Computing Team Members: Tharidu, Moditha, Chandula, Kalindu	Project: Child@EDU, Team: Sentinels 2.0, From: Universiy of Moratuwa Team Members: Madhusha, Thuru, Vimukthi, Yasoda
Project: V-Labm Team: CR-Coderzsm From: Informatics Institute of Technology Team Members: Sabry,  Renien, Raathigeshan, Thiru	Project: Hear through Eyes, Team: PeraSoft, From: University of Peradeniya Team Members: Dinushan, Lahiru, Lakshitha, Madusanka	Project: Project Amma, Team: MISL, From: Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology Team Members: Mastercpj, Pahanimg10, Nim.sathsara, imalkacg

Click here to download the Sinhala Windows 7 LIP via the Microsoft.com Download Center.

Please note that the Sinhala  Windows 7 LIP can only be installed on a system that runs an English client version of Windows 7.  It is available to download for both 32-bit and 64-bit systems.

Localization was done by Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA)  (Translation and Linguistic Moderation), and Lionbridge (Strategic Engineering Partner). 

Facts about the language:

• Sinhala contains loan words of Portuguese, Dutch and English origin, which reflects Sri Lanka's colonial history. English was official language from 1833 to 1958 (that is until 10 years after independence).
• There is a crucial distinction between "high" and "low" Sinhala: The colloquial form used in everyday life is quite different from the literary form which is also spoken in formal environments and in the media. The differences are so big that the two forms could be considered two different languages. Not only is the vocabulary very distinct, but also the grammar: In the colloquial version there are no inflected forms for verbs, for example. This is a little like having King Edward's English used on MSNBC and slang in everyday conversations.
• There are no sub-clauses - comparable constructions are created with participles and adjectives. Therefore a phrase like "The man who gives information on LIP languages" becomes "The information on LIP languages giving man".
• There are no prepositions but only postpositions. "under the book" would literally retranslate as "book under".

Classification:

Sinhala is an Indo-Aryan language of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. It is most closely related to Dhivehi, which is spoken on the Maledives.

Click here for more information on the Sinhala language.

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.

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.

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.

SkyDrive: 25 GB of free online storage

Windows Live Hotmail just now got a face lift. this new UI is much faster than the previous and it looks cool.

Finally :)

It's been a while since this was launched. But i never got a change to dig deep into this. Finally managed to spend some time with the WWT (WorldWide Telescope) and it's amazing. Too bad i'm not much of a space guy. But i'm sure those who are really space geeks are getting the best use of this. Also school kids can learn a loads of stuff through this. Imagine teaching the grade 8 star constellations lessons through WWT.

Just goto http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/ and download and try this fantastic piece of software. Hope one day this will directly link to the Hubble Space Telescope or some kick a** telescope somebody (probably NASA) sends out there so we can have live peeks into space. Hope it'll happen soon ... otherwise it'll be too late for Hubble ... it's getting old.

from the site ...
http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/whatIs/whatIsWWT.aspx

The WorldWide Telescope (WWT) is a Web 2.0 visualization software environment that enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope—bringing together imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes in the world for a seamless exploration of the universe.

Choose from a growing number of guided tours of the sky by astronomers and educators from some of the most famous observatories and planetariums in the country. Feel free at any time to pause the tour, explore on your own (with multiple information sources for objects at your fingertips), and rejoin the tour where you left off. Join Harvard Astronomer Alyssa Goodman on a journey showing how dust in the Milky Way Galaxy condenses into stars and planets. Take a tour with University of Chicago Cosmologist Mike Gladders two billion years into the past to see a gravitational lens bending the light from galaxies allowing you to see billions more years into the past.

WorldWide Telescope is created with the Microsoft® high performance Visual Experience Engine™ and allows seamless panning and zooming around the night sky, planets, and image environments. View the sky from multiple wavelengths: See the x-ray view of the sky and zoom into bright radiation clouds, and then crossfade into the visible light view and discover the cloud remnants of a supernova explosion from a thousand years ago. Switch to the Hydrogen Alpha view to see the distribution and illumination of massive primordial hydrogen cloud structures lit up by the high energy radiation coming from nearby stars in the Milky Way. These are just two of many different ways to reveal the hidden structures in the universe with the WorldWide Telescope. Seamlessly pan and zoom from aerial views of the Moon and selected planets, as well as see their precise positions in the sky from any location on Earth and any time in the past or future with the Microsoft Visual Experience Engine.

WWT is a single rich application portal that blends terabytes of images, information, and stories from multiple sources over the Internet into a seamless, immersive, rich media experience. Kids of all ages will feel empowered to explore and understand the universe with its simple and powerful user interface.

Microsoft Research is dedicating WorldWide Telescope to the memory of Jim Gray and is releasing WWT as a free resource to the astronomy and education communities with the hope that it will inspire and empower people to explore and understand the universe like never before.

Not that infotel 2008 is over its time for me to write :) ... wanted to write during the event ... kind of a live blogging. But hell! who can spent time to blog when there is a xbox 360 plugged to a big screen right in front of you. It was a tiring 3 days but with a loads of fun because most of the active community fellows were there.

From our MVP team Jinath, Manzi, Dinesh Asanka, Fiqri, Shaminda, Padman and Dinesh Priyankara joined the party. Also representing the student champ team Uditha, Ransara, Senaka, Bhashitha, Charith and Akila joined. Also Chandana and Seminda volunteered. Special thanks to Shaminda and Seminda for the support given at the end of the event to pack things.

Thanks to Lilian for the goodies sent.

Overall quality of the exhibition is questionable at best. Hope to see something better next year as Infotel is the biggest IT showcase in the country.

Announcing the New .NET Logo!

Microsoft .NET has become an incredible success in the years since it was first announced in June 2000. More than 4 million developers around the world are using .NET to build amazing software and rich, compelling Web experiences. And the momentum for .NET continues to grow with the release of the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 last summer and the upcoming .NET Framework 4 release. Conservative estimates from internal research indicate that over 70% of PC’s have a version of .Net already installed!

Given the success of .NET in the marketplace it is kind of a 'right time to create a new loto to this amazing technology. This new logo was first announced in PDC last week.

Why the New Logo and Brand Identity Were Developed
Why change? The original .NET logo was designed just before Forum 2000. It was designed to be attached to other Microsoft brands as a suffix. The result was a logo that did not stand well on its own and lacked impact.

It needed a logo that was in sync with the key values of the technology: consistency, robustness and great user experiences. Also wanted a logo that conformed to the design principles that are driving Microsoft’s brand identity evolution and is reflected in newer brands such as Silverlight, Surface and ‘Strata.’ Finally, a logo that is more strongly aligned with the portfolio of brands that .NET is most strongly aligned with: Silverlight, Visual Studio and the AppPlat server products was needed.

The result is a design that is being referred to as the “wave.” The design is strong, simple and distinctive. The suggestion of the letter ‘N’ in the design will become instantly recognizable over time as shorthand for the .NET brand name.

Last Thursday (31st) we had the .NET Day [2008] @ SLIIT. It was great to see many new students and everything went well as planned.

We had 6 presentations ...

• Intro to C# & LINQ by Prasanna Amirthalingam
• Building Web Applications with Visual Studio 2008 by me
• Windows Presentation Foundation by Uditha Bandara
• Getting started with Silverlight by me
• SQL Server 2008 new features by Gogula Aryalingam
• Intro to Student Champs Program by Primal Wijesekera & Buddhika Kalupahana

If you are looking for the presentation slides used please Click Here. (Uditha's presentation slides are not in this zip)

btw: I have been to SLIIT auditorium couple of times but this is the first time got a chance to go to the balcony .. just to see ... It's a fantastic view :)

As most of ya'll already know at the last MVP open day we decided to bring all the user groups under one umbrella as Microsoft Sri Lanka Technical Communities. Currently we have 4 arms under it. Those are the .NET Forum, IT Pro Forum, SQL Server Forum and the Student Champ Community. With over a total of 5000 registered members these technical communities stand stronger than ever. Hats off to EdQuek for showing us the ways and hats off to all the members for contributing and adding value.

Wanted to write about this not to talk about the existing four. This is about the FIFTH arm which is going to come out in the very near future ... and it's going to be bigger than the current four. Yup! very soon registration counts will be bigger than even the .NET Forum user base. Right now i'm sure you are totally clueless about what this is and where can I find a bigger user base. Wait and see :)

Just got back from the Malaysia trip. Man that was a busy trip. Shopping malls were too big so couldn't do much shopping. Anyways managed to buy a good camera.

Badly wanted to goto the sky bridge in the twin tower but didn't had enough time for that.

Training program was a top notch, really intense and totally new stuff. It's about LIVE. Ahhh! We'll talk about Live later ... we have plenty of time for that. Back to work tomorrow :)

I'm taking off to Malaysia for 3 days for a training on a new a new project I have to work on within the next couple of months / years.

Will publish more details later.

OMG!

1. Open Notepad
2. Type 'AAAA BBB CCC DDDDD' (or any other 4-3-3-5 letter combination)
3. Save the document, and close notepad
4. Open the saved file

The resulting text has been turned into Unicode - hopefully Microsoft will issue a Critical Security Bulletin for this soon.

Source: Bink