L I F E

Who wants SF out...?

2011-12-26T10:23:00.003+05:30

Before answering the $subject - let me raise another question.. Who wanted SF to win?

I do not need to justify why Ranil and his UNP didn't want to - if you were in Sri Lanka for last 10 years - you will realize - but if you were out and reading/watching through CNN, BBC or whatever media - cannot help my friend...

I truly believe JVP wanted SF to win... or let me rephrase, in fact they wanted MR to loose more than they wanted SF to win. But looking at the history of JVP, they sure would have debated about the subject - but did they have a choice ? They knew it's hard to beat MR - they had no option than going ahead with SF. But my question is - if JVP wanted him to win, how come they let SF made such immature statements from his very first speech ? May be SF didn't care what JVP advised him ? I still recall, he very proudly invited Mangala to accept his propaganda leader in a public meeting.. Why not picking a JVPer there?

SF was given false information from the very beginning. It's no surprise when people around, didn't wish him to win. If he was strategic, its not the presidential election he would have entered in to the politics - but the parliamentary election. Why on the earth Ranil gave him the ticket to contest? You need not to be politically that much matured to understand it. But, unfortunately, SF failed... in fact he was made to fail by the forces around him.

How many years it took him to be the army chief..? It's hard to be a President of a country in months... Why our mastermind who defeated world's deadliest terrorists, failed to understand that... Once again it's the forces around him made him to believe he could win...

The role of the supporters - cannot afford to forget them... Let's get the numbers speak first.. When SF contested for the Presidential election he got 533,022 votes from the Colombo district - few months later when he contested for the Parliamentary election from the same district, he only got 98,456 votes. Where were the 400,000+ supporters gone..? If they wanted SF to win - why they didn't vote him... Majority didn't want SF to win - but who voted in Presidential were the UNPer who wanted MR to loose...

Let bygones.. be bygone... we need SF out today from the jail.. But who in fact wants him out..?

Neither the UNP nor the JVP wants him out... They will be benefited as long as SF is behind the bars... They are using SF as a bait to achieve their political objectives.

I am not surprised with no support from any major political parties - pushed Aparna Fonseka to take the case to white house. I personally don't agree kneeling down in front of Obama - but, if that is the only option she has - I admire it - appreciate it.. BTW I am sure she, herself has read these lines from the White-house pettition web site..

"Welcome to We the People on WhiteHouse.gov. This tool provides you with a new way to petition the Obama Administration to take action on a range of important issues facing our country."

How come this becomes an important issue for USA - Aparna knows that, but she is doing what she could do - to release her father - a brave daughter..!

Mahinda's government is considering to release SF out, if a request from his family being made. So far seems like no requests. In an interview to a newspaper, Aparna has told, they will do as his father wishes... - means SF doesn't want his family to do such a request.. I am sure he is still following the guidance offered to him by UNPers and JVPers - who want SF to be in - to carry out their political propaganda...

SF, dear sir..we appreciate you as a great hero in our history.. we want to see you out soon... You need to be thoughtful to identify who your friends and foes... Failing for the second time to do so - won't benefit anyone - but the political casualties...

The first PhD from Rahula 98 A/L batch - Congrats Jaliya...!!!

2011-01-03T18:30:00.003+05:30

It's my pleasure to congratulate Jaliya for his well earned PhD and becoming the first to do so from Rahula 98 A/L batch.

More details http://sanjiva.weerawarana.org/2011/01/congratulations-dr-jaliya-ekanayake.html

Amazing set of photographs by Stephen Oachs

2010-12-08T07:05:00.001+05:30

Completely self-taught, Stephen’s unique and distinctive style has earned him recognition as one of today’s finest nature photographers. He was recognized in 2007 as wildlife photographer of the year by the National Wildlife Federation and was awarded best nature photographer in 2008 by National Geographic. His work has graced the pages of such notable publications such as National Geographic, Popular Photography, Outdoor Photographer, National Wildlife Magazine and many others.

Malata bambareku se....

2008-01-27T22:15:00.000+05:30

Dhaink,Ramesh & Suresh in the Video - Kukuleganga premises.

Bye, Bye Bill!

2008-01-13T23:08:00.000+05:30

A must watch!
Bono, Jay-Z, George Clooney and other A-Listers bid Bill Gates a fond farewell on his last day on the job at Microsoft.

Wedcasting

2007-12-15T14:48:00.000+05:30

Yes - you read it correctly, it's not webcasting, but wedcasting.

Please check this out for more.

Mobitel goes HSPA

2007-12-13T20:49:00.001+05:30

This is no NEWS. Mobitel M3 is the new generation of 3.5 G HSPA technology from Mobitel, introduced few weeks back.

M3 comes with few packages. If you already have a 3G handset and a postpaid connection, the maximum downlink/uplink speed will be 384 kbps. For first 20 MB downloads/uploads you have to pay 2 cents per KB. After that you get a free 200MB bundle. In other words, for the first 220MB you need to pay Rs.400/=. If you exceed 220 MB then once again you have to pay 2 cents per KB.

Also with a PCMCIA card you can connect your laptop to HSPA.

All together there are four other packages.

Zoom 256 - monthly rental Rs.400/= , downlink - 256 kbps, uplink - 128 kbps - first 250 MB free, after that Rs.1/= per MB.

Zoom 1024- monthly rental Rs.1500/= , downlink - 1 mbps, uplink - 384 kbps - first 1.5 GB free, after that Rs.1/= per MB.

Zoom 3600 - monthly rental Rs.5000/= , downlink - 3.6 mbps, uplink - 384 kbps - first 5 GB free, after that Rs.1/= per MB.

Zoom 7200 - monthly rental Rs.15000/= , downlink - 7.2 mbps, uplink - 2 mbps - first 15 GB free, after that Rs.1/= per MB.

Image Building, Business Etiquette and Dining Workshop

2007-12-12T20:54:00.000+05:30

Today we had a workshop on Image Building, Business Etiquette and Dining, at Trans Asia - Colombo. The event was sponsored by WSO2 and conducted by Nedra of Social Skill Development Institute. The event was very neatly organized and cleverly done.Though it was full of fun and humor - every bit of a second we spent there, added us extra value.

Following are some useful presentations I found on YouTube, on Table Etiquette.

NO free LUNCH, BUT WiFi

2007-12-10T23:59:00.000+05:30

Today, around 5.40 in the afternoon I left the office, heading home - Maharagama. Fortunately [very rarely...] I was not on the driving seat and we took 120 route [Colombo - Piliyandala] to avoid traffic. I had my laptop with me and while we were around Pamankada - I thought to take it out to go through few stuff that could not finish at office. And, to my surprise I could detect few wireless connections when the machine booted up. Initially it was 3 or 4 - and the amount kept on increasing. From Pamankada to my home - I could detect more than 40 wifi hotspots.Most of them were password secured - but there were around 15 wireless connections which were not secured. While moving slowly in the traffic - I also could login to few and surf the net as well. Even some secured connections were protected with very weak passwords and with few tries I could enter into some of them. Wifi hotspot density was quite high near Kohuwala and Pepiliyana junctions.

Please take this as a note to secure your wifi hotspot.

WOT

2007-12-06T19:24:00.000+05:30

Trustworthiness of web is what the community decides - not a single agency. This is a nice add-on for IE [also available for Firfox] which keeps yourself protected from unreliable online vendors, spam, spyware, adware, viruses, identity theft, credit card fraud, phishing and other scams. When ever you visit a site - or do a search [on the search result page] WOT indicates the trustworthiness of each web site - which is a decision collectively taken by the web community it self.

Amazon's Kindle

2007-12-06T01:44:00.000+05:30

Amazon released Kindle, a revolutionary electronic-paper display which provides a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper, on 19th November.

With this Amzon.com brings forward a new concept to replace 'papaer-based' reading. Amazon.com also provides a Kindle version of many popular books at a discounted price.

Also - it states 'free wireless delivery' :) - so you can buy these books and download those directly to your Kindle. Also many newpapers and magazines offer special subscription services to Kindle - which too can be subscribed through Amazon.

Kindle uses Whispernet for wireless access, which utilizes Amazon's optimized technology plus Sprint's national high-speed (EVDO) data network.

As per Amazon.com, "Unlike WiFi, you don't have to find a hotspot. Amazon pays for Kindle's wireless connectivity so you will never see a monthly wireless bill for shopping the Kindle Store. There is no wireless setup—you are ready to shop, purchase and read right out of the box."

BTW - if it does not have the wireless setup option to connect to any WiFi hotspot, I wonder how this is going to be useful out side US - definitely not in Sri Lanka.

Murali's Majic

2007-12-03T22:58:00.000+05:30

Not only Tamils got their eyes wet, ears open and palms touched - but we all. All Sinhalese, Tamils and the rest - we all Sri Lankans celebrate Murali's world record. Ringing bells were heard from both the Hindu Kovils and Buddhist temples. Keep going Murali...! You are our ambassador to the world, carrying the message of ethnic unity of my country.

Facebook

2007-11-27T17:28:00.000+05:30

I didn't find that much of interest in social networking sites - so, was very much reluctant to get going. After ignoring a whole set of invitations to Hi5 finally I decided to have a try - a year or two ago. But, to be frank - it's so simple to be very much of a dull site. Facebook, is very much great - it has the real sense of Web 2.0 - bringing the desktop environment to the web and building up a connected world. I can now acceess and list my stuff in YouTube, SlidShare,Flickr and get feeds from my blog into the Facebook profile. The ability to pugin applications to the Facebook is a great feature - those who are interested this links to Microsoft Facebook Developer Kit - have a go.

Sri Lanka a safe destination

2007-11-27T17:13:00.000+05:30

http://www.news.lk reports:

Sri Lanka is one of the safest destinations for tourists and the security situation in the country has been exaggerated overseas by false propaganda, Chairman of the Faith Task Force, UK, Anthony Bailey said in an interview with the Daily News.

Bailey, an advisor to the British Prime Minister, was spending his honeymoon in Sri Lanka and had traveled to the South, Dambulla, Sigiriya and Nuwara Eliya over a period of ten days.

He observed that there was a concerted effort to tarnish the image of the country overseas focusing on the conflict in the North and East.

Bailey who wedded Crown Princess of Austria, Franz Ferdinand, said that now that has seen the reality first hand he will carry the message to other countries that Sri Lanka is a safe destination with a unique scenic beauty. He also noted that the country has a unique spiritual harmony with people from all communities and subscribing to different religious co-existing without any conflict.

Linus Torvalds on git

2007-11-26T20:53:00.000+05:30

Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5

2007-11-20T16:22:00.000+05:30

Microsoft released .NET framework 3.5 on last Friday - can be downloaded now.

A good day for my country

2007-11-19T21:20:00.000+05:30

Today is a very good day for my country.

The government was able to pass the crucial 2008 budget by 16 votes and Sri Lanka cricketers raised the hopes of winning the first test against Australia in Australia.

WS-* vs. REST

2007-11-18T20:35:00.000+05:30

Dr.Sanjiva Weerawarana, the current Chairman & CEO of WSO2 speaks at QCon, San Francisco.

Web Services with Apache Axis2 made easy

2007-11-18T20:12:00.000+05:30

Developing and deploying web services with Apache Axis2 is made simple with Eclipse WTP. Lahiru Sandakith of WSO2 explains all you need to know, chek this.

How to compile Linux Kernel

2007-11-18T00:49:00.001+05:30

WCF, WF and .NET 3.5 Whitepapers

2007-11-18T00:16:00.000+05:30

David Chappell released 4 white papers on the subject, last Friday.

Can be downloaded from here.

Mashup

2007-11-17T01:37:00.000+05:30

Also please check this out as well.

Movie codec for VMWare avi movies

2007-11-16T05:08:00.000+05:30

Downloaded few torrents from http://elbitz.net which are in the .avi format. When played with Windows Media Player 11 - it gave the error 'Required Codec Missing' - but did not figured out what exactly missing. You can use GSpot to identify which video codec and audio compression method is used on .avi files and whether the matching codec is installed. With this it figured out VMnc is missing and had to installl VMware Workstation 5.0 Movie Decoder. With this it worked fine with both the Windows Media Player and the RealPlayer.

Neokernel Web Server for ASP.NET

2007-11-16T04:46:00.000+05:30

[Extracted from the official web site - this is not freeware :( - 30 days free evaluation copy is avaiable to download]
The Neokernel Web Server is a fast, lightweight replacement for bundled servers like WebDev.WebServer.exe, PWS (Personal Web Server) or the Cassini sample webserver. The Neokernel Web Server supports features like SSL, http-auth, keep-alive, multithreading, web services, logging, XML based configuration, and more.

-Embed a web application server in your .NET solution instead of relying on
Internet Information Server (IIS).
-Build dynamic web applications with Visual Basic or C# server plug-ins
-High performance multi threaded execution.
-Supports ASP.NET, SSL, passwords, virtual hosts, proxying, and redirection.
-XML based server configuration.
-Includes APIs for working with certificates and cryptography.
-Runs as a Windows Service, in the Console under the current user account, or embedded in other applications.
-The Neokernel assembly is small (500 KB).

Future directions in computing

2007-11-15T09:49:00.000+05:30

This is a good on the subject which gives a very highlevel overview.

Clean, Colorful and Horizontally Divided

2007-11-15T09:13:00.000+05:30

One of the web 2.0 design and layout trends which the author of this article terms as "clean and horizontally divided". Read it - quite interesting. You might have already noticed this...

An Indian man marries a bitch

2007-11-14T12:45:00.000+05:30

BBC Reports: An Indian man has married a female dog, believing the union will help him atone for stoning two other dogs to death.

Android

2007-11-08T15:06:00.000+05:30

Android is a Linux-based smartphone software platform announced by Google and the other members of the Open Handset Alliance in November 2007, after months of rumours that Google was going to release a mobile phone product, tentatively known as the Google Phone or gPhone. Parts of the Android platform are free software available under the Apache open source licence. The release of the Android platform was combined with the announcement of the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of 34 hardware, software and telecoms companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices.

Android™ will deliver a complete set of software for mobile devices: an operating system, middleware and key mobile applications. This will be released On November 12, for an early look at the Android Software Development Kit (SDK) to allow developers to build rich mobile applications.

A hack to get IIS running on WIndows XP Home [?]

2007-11-08T01:13:00.000+05:30

As per this from Microsoft;

Windows XP Home Edition does not include or support any versions (1.0, 2.0, 4.0) of Microsoft Personal Web Server (PWS). Users that need Web server functionality in a desktop operating system should use Windows XP Professional.

But, this says there is a workaround. Anyway I tried it, but did not worked fully - [may be prevented from a patch] - I could see the IIS appearing in the 'Windows Components' window - but could not selelect any.

[Update]
This works fine. You have to use IIS.DL_ and IIS.IN_ from Windows 2000 Server CD and also point to the same CD when ask for the CD. Earlier it didn't work for me, since I copied the above two files from a Windows XP Professional CD.

LTTE Child Soldiers

2007-11-06T23:31:00.000+05:30

Tiger cadres carrying the coffin of former LTTE Political Wing leader S.P.Thamilselvan to a cemetery in Kilinochchi yesterday. He was killed on Friday morning in an SLAF raid. This was the first picture released by the LTTE to the media yesterday. In the original photograph a small boy in LTTE uniform was present. Subsequently the picture had been cropped deleting the boy from it.

Reference: The Island

Tips for your first interview

2007-11-06T09:55:00.000+05:30

This is a good link on the subject...

VS 2008 to be shiped before the end of November

2007-11-05T23:07:00.000+05:30

Somasegar mentions in his blog...

My first day at WSO2...

2007-11-01T17:35:00.000+05:30

Today is my first day at WSO2.

It's really nice to be here and I'll be mostly working with the security team on the WSO2 Identity Solution.

Looking forward for a great, challenging experience.

My last day at Virtusa...

2007-10-26T22:59:00.000+05:30

Today is my last day at Virtusa...

It's my privilege to work for this prestigious company during last 3+ years. I learnt a lot - technical as well as professional skills during my stay.

I have seen many resigning... I have gone through many 'Good Bye' mails... it's my day today... and everything I did from swiping in my access card to swiping out the Visitor's pass - was very special to me. Everything I did was - for the last time...

I wish Virtusa and its employees all the very best.

The brain child of Kris – the icon of Sri Lanka’s ICT industry, will get from strength to strength, to make its dreams a reality. I’ll be still among all Virtusans, to share the tears of joy – though an outsider.

Charles Web Debugging Proxy

2007-10-05T23:23:00.000+05:30

Charles is an HTTP proxy / HTTP monitor / Reverse Proxy that enables a developer to view all of the HTTP traffic between their machine and the Internet. This includes requests, responses and the HTTP headers (which contain the cookies and caching information).

Charles can act as a man-in-the-middle for HTTP/SSL communication, enabling you to debug the content of your HTTPS sessions.

Charles simulates modem speeds by effectively throttling your bandwidth and introducing latency, so that you can experience an entire website as a modem user might (bandwidth simulator).

Releasing the Source Code for the .NET Framework Libraries

2007-10-04T00:48:00.000+05:30

ScottGu's Blog :

We'll begin by offering the source code (with source file comments included) for the .NET Base Class Libraries (System, System.IO, System.Collections, System.Configuration, System.Threading, System.Net, System.Security, System.Runtime, System.Text, etc), ASP.NET (System.Web), Windows Forms (System.Windows.Forms), ADO.NET (System.Data), XML (System.Xml), and WPF (System.Windows). We'll then be adding more libraries in the months ahead (including WCF, Workflow, and LINQ). The source code will be released under the Microsoft Reference License (MS-RL).

You'll be able to download the .NET Framework source libraries via a standalone install (allowing you to use any text editor to browse it locally). We will also provide integrated debugging support of it within VS 2008.

BlogEngine.NET

2007-10-03T00:57:00.000+05:30

BlogEngine.NET is a full featured blogging platform that is a breeze to setup, customize, and use.

Nice & tiring weekend...

2007-09-30T19:23:00.000+05:30

A busy, but excited weekend.

Saturday we had a practice cricket match at parliament grounds as everybody at Virtusa has started preparing their sides for Canakeratna Trophy to be held on 13th October at NCC. It was bit tiring for most of us since we had little or no cricket during last few months.

Sunday – we had a get-together [UoM] at White Heavens – Panadura. Only few turned up for the event since it was of very short notice. Anyway it was really nice to meet everybody there after a very long time. Had lot of fun… everyone enjoyed.

IronRuby

2007-09-25T23:44:00.000+05:30

IronRuby is an upcoming implementation of the Ruby programming language targeting Microsoft .NET framework. It is implemented on top of the Dynamic Language Runtime, a library running on top of CLR 2.0 that provides dynamic typing and dynamic method dispatch, among others, for dynamic languages.

The Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR) from Microsoft is a set of services that run on top of the CLR.

It can be used to implement dynamic languages like Python and Ruby on the .NET Framework. The DLR services are used in IronRuby, a .NET implementation of the Ruby language, IronLisp, a .NET implementation of the Lisp language, IronPython 2.0, dynamic Visual Basic .NET (VBx) and Managed JScript (ECMAScript 3.0).[

You can download the IronRuby source from http://iunknown.typepad.com/IronRuby-Pre-Alpha1.zip

This is a good article on the subject.

Castle

2007-09-24T18:31:00.000+05:30

Castle is an open source project for .net that is to simplify the development of enterprise and web applications, offering a set of tools (working together or independently) and integration with other open source projects.

Castle has similar capabilities as Spring [Spring.NET for .NET].Following link direct you to a good comparison on the subject: http://wiki.cuyahoga-project.org/wiki/index.php/Castle_vs_Spring.NET
Following tools/frameworks are integrated with Castle.

1. ActiveRecord

This is an implementation of Active Record Design Pattern.

This adds the ORM capability on top of NHibernate.

Unlike, NHibernate – in ActiveRecord we need not to maintain .hbm files to map the Object properties to database table columns. ActiveRecord avoid this through attribute based programming.

External Articles on the concept: Martin Fowler on Active Record

Getting Started Link: http://www.castleproject.org/activerecord/gettingstarted/index.html

2. MonoRail

MonoRail differs from the standard WebForms way of development as it enforces separation of concerns; controllers just handle application flow, models represent the data and the view is just concerned about presentation logic.

Getting Started Link: http://www.castleproject.org/monorail/gettingstarted/index.html

How to configure MonoRail on IIS is available here…

Documentation: http://www.castleproject.org/monorail/documentation/v1rc2/index.html

3. Castle MicroKernel/Windsor

The Castle MicroKernel is an inversion of control container that was designed for extensibility.

This concept facilitates to create a highly decoupled application to fit into the design concept ‘design to an interface not to an implementation’.

With this, we load the concrete types dynamically during the runtime.

External Articles on the concept: Martin Fowler on: Inversion of Control Containers and the Dependency Injection pattern
Getting Started Link: http://www.castleproject.org/container/gettingstarted/index.html

Active Record

2007-09-24T12:28:00.000+05:30

This is a design pattern we all being using for sometime, sometimes without knowing this is a design pattern.

Martin Fowler describes Active Record as;

An object that wraps a row in a database table or view, encapsulates the database access, and adds domain logic on that data.

Active record is an approach to accessing data in a database. A database table or view is wrapped into a class, thus an object instance is tied to a single row in the table. After creation of an object, a new row is added to the table upon save. Any object loaded gets its information from the database; when an object is updated, the corresponding row in the table is also updated. The wrapper class implements accessor methods or properties for each column in the table or view.

This pattern is commonly used by object persistance tools, and in object-relational mapping. Typically foreign key relationships will be exposed as an object instance of the appropriate type via a property.

1. Castle Project Active Record an open-source Microsoft .NET Implementation
2. Dunn & Churchill Diamond Binding a commercially supported Microsoft .NET Implementation
3. Ruby on Rails contains a Ruby implementation of Active Record.
4. Subsonic Project contains a .NET implementation of Active Record.
5. Akelos PHP Framework contains a PHP version of Rails Active Record.
6. Cake PHP contains a PHP implementation of Active Record.
7. Elixir is a Python implementation of Active Record.
8. Grails contains a Groovy implementation of Active Record.

AJAX Control Toolkit 10920 Released!

2007-09-22T07:56:00.000+05:30

2007-09-20 release of the AJAX Control Toolkit has a number of bug fixes identified as important by the community in Calendar, PopupBehavior, AutoComplete, Accordion, ConfirmButton, ModalPopup, MaskedEdit and Slider.

Oracle's Wrap Utility

2007-09-21T11:34:00.001+05:30

Explained here...

Another good one : How to unwrap PL/SQL

LCD TV vs. Plasma

2007-09-20T22:15:00.001+05:30

Plasma technology consists hundreds of thousands of individual pixel cells, which allow electric pulses (stemming from electrodes) to excite rare natural gases-usually xenon and neon-causing them to glow and produce light. This light illuminates the proper balance of red, green, or blue phosphors contained in each cell to display the proper color sequence from the light. Each pixel cell is essentially an individual microscopic florescent light bulb, receiving instruction from software contained on the rear electrostatic silicon board. Look very closely at a plasma TV and you can actually see the individual pixel cell coloration of red, green, and blue bars. You can also see the black ribs which separate each.

Whether spread across a flat-panel screen or placed in the heart of a projector, all LCD displays come from the same technological background. A matrix of thin-film transistors (TFTs) supplies voltage to liquid-crystal-filled cells sandwiched between two sheets of glass. When hit with an electrical charge, the crystals untwist to an exact degree to filter white light generated by a lamp behind the screen (for flat-panel TVs) or one projecting through a small LCD chip (for projection TVs). LCD TVs reproduce colors through a process of subtraction: They block out particular color wavelengths from the spectrum of white light until they're left with just the right color. And, it's the intensity of light permitted to pass through this liquid-crystal matrix that enables LCD televisions to display images chock-full of colors-or gradations of them.

More available here...

EMAIL 2 SMS

2007-09-20T15:41:00.000+05:30

This an easy way of sending SMS through your Email account. Works for any phone number, even out side SL.

Say, my phone number is, 0714000009.

You can type your message in your favourite email editor and send it to the following email address. [Max length : 160 characters]

+[CountryCode][PhoneNumber]@msdw.mobile-alert.com

Ex:
+94714000009@msdw.mobile-alert.com

.NET HttpWebRequest : Sending content exceeds 1024 bytes

2007-09-20T15:22:00.000+05:30

When we use HttpWebRequest in .NET to send an HTTP request with some content being attached, we may use, code something like the following.

httpWebRequest = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.CreateDefault(serviceUri);
httpWebRequest.Method = "POST";
httpWebRequest.ContentType = "application/xml";
httpWebRequest.ContentLength = steRequest.Length;

writer = new StreamWriter(httpWebRequest.GetRequestStream());
writer.Write(steRequest);
writer.Flush();
writer.Close();

This has some limitations. In this case, steRequest is a string, which contains the content which is to be attached to the HTTP request. See what happens, if the the length of steRequest exceeds 1024 - you won't get the rest attached.

Following is the work-around for that.

Remove the line; httpWebRequest.ContentLength = steRequest.Length;

Add the following instead; httpWebRequest.AllowWriteStreamBuffering = true;

Upgrading VS 2005 Web Site Projects to be VS 2005 Web Application Projects

2007-09-17T05:49:00.000+05:30

A good one...

Form to Email

2007-09-13T23:58:00.000+05:30

Well this is about having a web control, drag and drop to your web form, will be able to scan through the other controls[Textbox, Listbox...] in your form and send an email with the extracted values.

You can find a nice, working web control on this at http://www.codeproject.com/aspnet/SelfConfigFormMailer.asp. Well, this is a good start - but has few issue - anyway since you have the code you can easily work on this.

BizTalk Server 2006 R2 released today...

2007-09-11T18:27:00.000+05:30

Today, over 7,000 organizations rely on BizTalk Server to integrate systems, automate processes and communicate across global supply chains. With the introduction of the fifth full version, BizTalk Server 2006 R2 builds upon the Business Process Management and SOA/ESB capabilities in prior releases to help organizations extend core process management technologies even further with new capabilities like native support for Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), AS2 and RFID, and close alignment with the upcoming releases of 2007 Microsoft Office system and Windows Vista, including key .NET Framework technologies such as Windows Workflow Foundation and Windows Communication Foundation.

A career moulded with care

2007-09-07T21:25:00.000+05:30

Being nominated for Outstanding Young Professional Award - 2007, by ICTA - I got the opportunity to make a speech at National IT-BPO Capacity Summit 2007 - Career Fair, BMICH, Colombo on last Sunday, 2nd September. The majority of the audience were students and school leavers. Basically my speech was about my career and I felt it was a bit of boasting. So, till the last minute I wanted to skip, but organizers never allowed. Anyway at the end I was surprised by the response from the audience. I am happy, they got something from it.

The complete speech can be downloaded from SaveFiles.

ODP.NET : NLS datafile or invalid environment issue

2007-09-07T16:15:00.000+05:30

I've being using ODP.NET Oracle 11g ODAC 11.1.0.5.10 Beta, which provides a new OracleProfileProvider to connect to the Oracle server.

But, I had to solve the following issue to make it work with my code.

"ORA-12705:Cannot access NLS datafile or invalid environment specified"

To solve this, you need to change the following registrty entries to point to your ODP.NET installation.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ORACLE]
"ORACLE_HOME"="C:\oracle\product\11.1.0\client_1"
"ORACLE_HOME_NAME"="OraODAC11g_home1"
"ORACLE_GROUP_NAME"="Oracle - OraODAC11g_home1"

Also make sure you delete the "NLS" registry key.

This new version of ODP.NET includes following features for ASP.NET,

1. Membership Provider: Stores and retrieves registered user information in the Oracle database
2. Role Provider: Stores and retrieves user role information in the Oracle database
3. Site Map Provider: Stores and retrieves site map information in the Oracle database
4. Session State Provider: Stores and retrieves session state information in the Oracle database
5. Profile Provider: Stores and retrieves user profile information in the Oracle database
6. Web Events Provider: Stores and retrieves ASP.NET health monitoring event information in the Oracle database
7. Web Parts Personalization Provider: Stores and retrieves personalization data in the Oracle database
8. Cache Dependency Provider: Automatically invalidates ASP.NET cached data based on changes made to the base data in the Oracle database

This explains the full feature list.

LINQ to NHibernate

2007-09-07T10:07:00.000+05:30

If you went through my previous post, you are aware that I had an issue in migrating an application which uses DLinq with SQL Server to work with Oracle.

Finally I decided to do a PoC with NHibernate and LINQ to NHibernate. I am optimistic that this will work.

NHibernate is available to download at http://sourceforge.net/projects/nhibernate

ORM in .NET 3.5

2007-09-05T07:26:00.000+05:30

A good article on this available at http://dotnetslackers.com/articles/net/ORMInNET35.aspx.

DLinq is the major strength behind the ORM in .NET 3.5. DLinq, a component of the LINQ Project, provides a run-time infrastructure for managing relational data as objects without giving up the ability to query. It does this by translating language integrated queries into SQL for execution by the database and then translating the tabular results back into objects you define. Your application is then free to manipulate the objects while DLinq stays in the background tracking your changes automatically.

This provides a good overview of DLinq.

I am involved in migrating a project which uses DLinq to access an SQL Server database to use an Oracle database. But , unfortuately found that still DLinq provides no support for Oracle.:(

VS 2005: Ignore return codes from pre-build events

2007-09-04T22:13:00.000+05:30

I wanted to keep a single master page for all my web applications. So I wanted to keep it at once place and to be referenced by other web apps. But you can't refer a resource in a web application that does not inside you web app's parent directory. At the same time if you copy it manually to a local folder of all the web apps, it going to be a tough task to be in sync with original set of master pages. But this can be automated using pre/post build event. Doing so I just wanted to avoid giving errors in case one of those two events failed.

To make this happen, you can simply add the following to the end of your project file - just before the 'project' closing tag(such as a vbproj or csproj file):

[Target
Name="PreBuildEvent"
Condition="'$(PreBuildEvent)'!=''"
DependsOnTargets="$(PreBuildEventDependsOn)"]
[Exec WorkingDirectory="$(OutDir)" Command="$(PreBuildEvent)" IgnoreExitCode="true" ContinueOnError="true"/]
[/Target]

* replace "[" with "<" and , "]" with ">" in the above code

This provides more detail on the above...

ASP.NET master pages with style sheets

2007-09-04T21:52:00.000+05:30

I wanted to have a style sheet added to an ASP.NET web form which uses a master page. The easiest way is to have the style sheet added to the master page it self inside the "header" tags. But this is not what I wanted... I want to have a common master page for all of my web applications[not only for all the web pages in single web application], so I do not want to add the style sheet to the master page it self. I wanted to have it in the ASP.NET web form which uses the master page.

You can't simply add [link href="StyleSheet.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /] to the aspx, since this conflicts with the "asp:Content" tag. So, the best way to do this is, add a ContentPlaceHolder to the master page, inside the "header" tag and add content to this ContentPlaceHolder , from the aspx page. This article explains this approach in detail.

Installing Ubuntu on Virtual PC 2007

2007-08-28T16:38:00.000+05:30

I wanted to have GForge running in my home environment and to have it installed we need to have a Linux box. So, I decided to install Ubuntu on MS Virtual PC 2007. Well, it went okay - but detected some issues related to VGA... so I just gave it up. But, surprisingly in few hours time, I got a popup from my feed reader, with the subject 'How install UBUNTU on Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1'. This post pointed out few good links, which helped me solving the issue.

MediaWiki

2007-08-28T14:59:00.000+05:30

MediaWiki is a free software wiki package originally written for Wikipedia. It is now used by several other projects of the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation and by many other wikis.

This can be configured on a windows platform with PHP & MySQL and it takes no more than 45 minutes. This is a good article describes the installation process.

I wanted a Wiki running in my home environment, for a long time.Only found time today - a poyaday, which is a holiday in Sri Lanka. Wikis are being used in many software development companies within their intranet as a way of knowledge-sharing.

Open Source Wiki Engines in C#

2007-08-28T10:09:00.000+05:30

http://csharp-source.net/open-source/wiki-engines

trac - Integrated SCM & Project Management

2007-08-25T11:00:00.000+05:30

Trac is a minimalistic approach to web-based management of software projects. Its goal is to simplify effective tracking and handling of software issues, enhancements and overall progress.

All aspects of Trac have been designed with the single goal to help developers write great software while staying out of the way and imposing as little as possible on a team's established process and culture.

Following are two good links for initial trac configurations.

For Python 2.4 : http://trac.edgewall.org/wiki/TracOnWindows

For Python 2.3 : http://trac.edgewall.org/wiki/TracOnWindowsStandalone

Improving SOAP Message Serialization

2007-08-24T07:22:00.001+05:30

WHY EMPLOYEES LEAVE ORGANISATIONS?

2007-08-23T23:32:00.000+05:30

by Azim Premji
Every company normally faces one common problem of high employee turnout atio. People are leaving the company for better pay, better profile or simply for just one reason' pak gaya '. This article might just throw some light on the matter......

Early this year, Arun, an old friend who is a senior software designer, got an offer from a prestigious international firm to work in its India operations developing specialized software. He was thrilled by the offer. He had heard a lot about the CEO of this company, charismatic man often quoted in the business press for his visionary attitude. The salary was great. The company had all the right systems in place employee-friendly human resources (HR) policies, a spanking new office, and the very best technology, even a canteen that served superb food. Twice Arun was sent abroad for training. "My learning curve is the sharpest it's ever been," he said soon after he joined. "It's a real high working with such cutting edge technology." Last week, less than eight months after he joined, Arun walked out of the job. He has no other offer in hand but he said he couldn't take it anymore. Nor, apparently, could several other people in his department who have also quit recently.

The CEO is distressed about the high employee turnover. He's distressed about the money he's spent in training them. He's distressed because he can't figure out what happened. Why did this talented employee leave despite a top salary? Arun quit for the same reason that drives many good people away. The answer lies in one of the largest studies undertaken by the Gallup Organization. The study surveyed over a million employees and 80,000 managers and was published in a book called First Break All The Rules.

It came up with this surprising finding:

If you're losing good people, look to their immediate supervisor. More than any other single reason, he is the reason people stay and thrive in an organization. And he's the reason why they quit, taking their knowledge, experience and contacts with them. Often, straight to the competition. "People leave managers not companies," write the authors Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman. "So much money has been thrown at the challenge of keeping good people - in the form of better pay, better perks and better training - when, in the end, turnover is mostly manager issue." If you have a turnover problem, look first to your managers. Are they driving people away? Beyond a point, an employee's primary need has less to do with money, and more to do with how he's treated and how valued he feels. Much of this depends directly on the immediate manager. And yet, bad bosses seem to happen to good people everywhere.. A Fortune magazine survey some years ago found that nearly 75 per cent of employees have suffered at the hands of difficult superiors. You can leave one job to find - you guessed it, another wolf in a pin-stripe suit in the next one. Of all the workplace stressors, a bad boss is possibly the worst, directly impacting the emotional health and productivity of employees. HR experts say that of all the abuses, employees find public humiliation the most intolerable. The first time, an employee may not leave, but a thought has been planted.. The second time, that thought gets strengthened. The third time, he starts looking for another job. When people cannot retort openly in anger, they do so by passive aggression. By digging their heels in and slowing down. By doing only what they are told to do and no more. By omitting to give the boss crucial information.

Dev says: "If you work for a jerk, you basically want to get him into trouble. You don't have your heart and soul in the job." Different managers can stress out employees in different ways - by being too controlling, too suspicious, too pushy, too critical, but they forget that workers are not fixed assets, they are free agents. When this goes on too long, an employee will quit - often over seemingly trivial issue. It isn't the 100th blow that knocks a good man down. It's the 99 that went before. And while it's true that people leave jobs for all kinds of reasons- for better opportunities or for circumstantial reasons, many who leave would have stayed - had it not been for one man constantly telling them, as Arun's boss did: "You are dispensable. I can find dozens like you." While it seems like there are plenty of other fish especially in today's waters, consider for a moment the cost of losing a talented employee.There's the cost of finding a replacement. The cost of training the replacement. The cost of not having someone to do the job in the meantime. The loss of clients and contacts the person had with the industry. The loss of morale in co-workers. The loss of trade secrets this person may now share with others. Plus, of course, the loss of the company's reputation. Every person who leaves a corporation then becomes its ambassador, for better or for worse. We all know of large IT companies that people would love to join and large television companies few want to go near. In both cases, former employees have left to tell their tales.

"Any company trying to compete must figure out a way to engage the mind of every employee," Jack Welch of GE once said. Much of a company's value lies "between the ears of its employees". If it's bleeding talent, it's bleeding value. Unfortunately, many senior executives busy travelling the world, signing new deals and developing a vision for the company, have little idea of what may be going on at home.That deep within an organization that otherwise does all the right things, one man could be driving its best people away.

HTML WYSIWYG editor control

2007-08-13T05:13:00.000+05:30

I've been evaluating few HTML editor controls to fit into a widget. First one went through was, Ext HTML Editor control. This works fine with a normal HTML page or an ASPX page - but does not function properly when added within "form" tags. Seems to be an issue to deal with the javascripts attached to it.As always - debugging javascripts is a tedious task.

The second one to evaluate was TinyMCE HTML editor - which seems to be the best match for my requirement. TinyMCE is a platform independent web based Javascript HTML WYSIWYG editor control released as Open Source under LGPL by Moxiecode Systems AB. It has the ability to convert HTML TEXTAREA fields or other HTML elements to editor instances.

Power Tools released yesterday

2007-08-12T08:58:00.000+05:30

This release includes 5 new refactoring types, a new dependency viewer, additional data generators and editors, 2 new MSBuild tasks for Schema and Data Compare as well as the introduction of the TSQL Static Code Analysis feature

TSQL Static Code Analysis
• Static Code Analysis - A precursor to the functionality that will be in future versions of VSTS that will allow you to perform Static Code Analysis on T-SQL code.

Refactoring
• “Move Schema” Refactoring - Allows a user to right click on an object and move it to a different but existing schema
• SP Rename Generation - Generate a new script that will contain sp_renames for all rename refactored objects that the user can then execute.
• Wildcard Expansion - Automatically expand the wildcard in a select to the appropriate columns.
• Fully-Qualified Name Support - Automatically inject fully-qualified names when absent in a script
• Refactoring extended to Dataset - Refactor into strongly typed dataset definitions

MSBuild Tasks
• Data / Schema Compare Build Tasks - MSBuild tasks that can generate scripts as if the user had run the Data / Schema compare UI

Schema View
• API Access to Schema View - Insert / Update / Delete to schema View and list schema objects and their associated files

Dependency Tool Window
• Dependency Tree - Show the dependencies ( incoming / outgoing ) for selected schema objects in a new tool window

Miscellaneous Tools
• Script Preprocessor - Expand SQLCMD variables and include files and command line version (sqlspp.exe) & an MSBuild version ( wraps the command line version )

Can be downloaded from Microsoft downloads...

Same opponents in a decade's time...

2007-08-12T06:21:00.000+05:30

All in all a nice/tired day ended with a quick, but a great dinner at Ramesh's place. The event was planned a month ago when Dhanik, Ramesh & Suresh, suddenly - with no prior notice, rushed into my house. Well, it was years back - when we played our last cricket match. We had two regular opponents, each time we met. Dhanik, Ramseh & me were in one side, Lakitha, his brother, Gayan, Ashwin, Prasanga & Suresh were the other side. Well, Lakitha, his brother & Ashwin were 'small' kids [at the time we met last - roughly 10 years back], and they were given a bigger side. Heh..heh.. we still won :).

This time, when we met yesterday at the Parliament grounds, around 2.30 in the afternoon, we had the same two sides, except Suresh coming into ours and few more new additions. Thank God! - the weather was very comforting - no burning sun, but lovely breeze across the ground. We played a three match limited over series - and history repeated, as usual - we won 2-1. Well... who cares, who wins or who loses, what matters the most is the great fun we had there - meeting the same opponents after a decade or so.

At the end, everybody wanted more of these events... I too looking forward for the next...

Team Development with TFS

2007-08-07T03:25:00.000+05:30

Team Development with Visual Studio Team Foundation Guide - PDF Version, released yesterday. Available here...

.NET library for the Google Data API

2007-08-04T09:49:00.000+05:30

The Google Data APIs (GData) provide a simple protocol for reading and writing data on the web.

Each of the following Google services provides a Google data API:

-Base
-Blogger
-Calendar
-Spreadsheets
-Google Apps Provisioning
-Code Search
-Notebook

The GData .NET Client Library provides a library and source code that make it easy to access data through Google Data APIs.

Open XML

2007-08-01T03:26:00.000+05:30

By default, documents created using 2007 Microsoft Office products will be based on new, XML-based file formats. Distinct from the binary-based file format that has been a mainstay of past Microsoft Office releases, the new Office XML Formats are compact, robust file formats that enable better data integration between documents and back-end systems. An open, royalty-free file format specification maximizes interoperability in a heterogeneous environment, and enables any technology provider to integrate Microsoft Office documents into their solutions.

Reference: http://office.microsoft.com/

SDK for Windows Server® 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5

2007-07-31T08:07:00.000+05:30

The Windows SDK provides prerelease documentation, samples, header files, libraries, and tools designed to help you develop Windows applications using both native (Win32®) and managed (.NET Framework) technologies.

Released yesterday and available for download at here...

ASP.NET AJAX Security Webcasts

2007-07-31T07:58:00.000+05:30

Vijay Pathak's Blog has some good links on the subject.

Mobile 2.0

2007-07-29T09:46:00.000+05:30

The seven principles of Mobile web 2.0

1. Mobile content and the changing balance of power (The power of user generated content)
2. I am not a number, I am a tag (The impact on the telecoms industry's management of numbers)
3. Multilingual mobile access (Everyone, Everywhere with a phone running .. )
4. Mobile web 2.0 and Digital convergence (Mobile web 2.0 is a driver to digital convergence)
5. The disruptive power of Ajax and mobile widgets
6. Location based services and Mobile web 2.0 (LBS has never quite taken off. Will mobile web 2.0 help?)
7. Mobile search : Much more than Google on your mobile phone.

Reference: http://www.mobileweb20.futuretext.com/

A good article on the subject : Understanding Mobile 2.0

Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2

2007-07-28T19:11:00.000+05:30

Microsoft released Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 few days back

Available for downlad at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/default.aspx

Don't miss Soma's vedio[Orcas Beta 2: What's in it?].

Ubiquitous Computing

2007-07-25T03:49:00.000+05:30

Ubiquitous computing (or "ubicomp") is a post-desktop model of human-computer interaction in which information processing has been thoroughly integrated into everyday objects and activities. As opposed to the desktop paradigm, in which a single user consciously engages a single device for a specialized purpose, someone "using" ubiquitous computing engages many computational devices and systems simultaneously, in the course of ordinary activities, and may not necessarily even be aware that they are doing so.

Source: Wikipedia

Thamindu Baba...

2007-07-22T14:55:00.002+05:30

My sister's little son... still 10 days.

Post through office 2007 :)

2007-06-29T08:24:00.001+05:30

Office 2007 is quite a great user experience than its predecessor. As usual, Microsoft has worked a lot on its user interface – 'Wow'; it's been crafted very smoothly.

I heard it has many new features – just downloaded yesterday and exploring a bit now.

It also provides direct access to your phone via Bluetooth, so - simply you can save your documents directly to the phone.

Blogging directly from the Word is another smart feature – this is how you see this post in my blog.

CISSP exams in Colombo

2007-06-28T15:12:00.000+05:30

Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) is a vendor-neutral certification governed by the non-profit International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium (commonly known as (ISC)). The (ISC) has certified over 49,000 information security professionals in more than 120 countries. CISSP was the first certification to earn the ANSI accreditation to ISO/IEC Standard 17024:2003, a global benchmark for assessing and certifying personnel. It is formally approved by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) in both their Information Assurance Technical (IAT) and Managerial (IAM) categories. The certification is also endorsed by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) as the benchmark for information security.

CISSP exam is scheduled to be on 1st September 2007 in Sri Lanka & this opens the door for many Sri Lankans to get the opportunity to obtain this globally recognized qualification.

There are limited seats and please register early to avoid disappointment. You can contact Sujit Christy, the Founder/President of iSPA Sri Lanka through his email address sujitchristy@hotmail.com.

Memory Bank's tribute to our professor. V.K. Samaranayake

2007-06-08T10:48:00.000+05:30

Message by ICTA:

CHAMPION OF SRI LANKA’S ICT INDUSTRY VIDYA JYOTHI PROFESSOR V.K. SAMARANAYAKE PASSES AWAY

The ICT industry in Sri Lanka lost its most valued member after Professor V.K. Samaranayake passed away on Wednesday, 07th June 2007 aged 68, in Stockholm whilst attending a review of the Swedish government’s ICT development assistance programme.

Prof. Samaranayake was the Chairman of the Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka from 2004. He was also the Emeritus Professor of Computer Science of the University of Colombo. He was the founder Director, University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC) of the University of Colombo. He served the University of Colombo for a continuous period of 43 years since his first appointment in 1961 immediately following his graduation from the same University. He was the founder of the Department of Statistics and Computer Science (DSCS) and of the Institute of Computer Technology (ICT) of the University of Colombo. These two institutions were merged as the UCSC in 2002. He was a Fellow of the Harvard Information Infrastructure Project and the National Centre for Digital Government of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. In 2005 he was a Visiting Fellow of the Digital Vision Program of Stanford University, USA.

Prof. Samaranayake served the Council for Information Technology (CINTEC), the apex National agency for IT in Sri Lanka as its Chairman for a period of 12 years. In the field of IT he has pioneered work on IT Policy, Legal Infrastructure, EDI/E-Commerce, Security, Internet Technology, Computer Awareness and IT Education. He was actively involved in the formulation of the ISO 10646 standard for Sinhalese Characters and in the development of multilingual web sites. He was also instrumental in helping to apply computers in many areas of governance, including in national elections. He was also actively involved in introducing ICT to rural communities and is engaged in developing Multipurpose Community Telecentres. He was a member of the advisory panel of the Asia IT&C program of the European Commission. He chaired the National Y2K Task force that coordinated the very successful crossover to year 2000. More recently he initiated the External Degree of Bachelor of Information Technology (BIT) of the University of Colombo which in its very first year of operation has attracted 5000 registrations. He is the Chairman of the Project Management Committee of the SIDA funded project to enhance internet connectivity of Sri Lankan Universities. He was the President of the National Academy of Sciences during 1998-1999 and the Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science during its golden jubilee in 1994. He is also current President of Infotel Lanka Society.

The Government of Sri Lanka has honoured Prof. Samaranayake for his contribution towards IT by the award of Vidya Prasadini in 1997 and the national honour Vidya Jyothi in 1998. The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has presented its President's Award for International Cooperation to Prof. Samaranayake in 1996 in recognition of his contribution. At its convocation held in January 2005, the University of Colombo conferred on Prof. Samaranayake the Degree of Doctor of Science ( Honouris Causa ) for his outstanding contribution to the University.

Reshan Dewapura, COO, ICTA said: “Everyone in the ICT industry in Sri Lanka has either met or worked with Professor Samaranayake. It was his sense of commitment towards ICT development in the country coupled with his boundless energy that set him apart and allowed him to make lasting alliances and friendships both personally and professionally around the world. There is no doubt that Prof’s tireless commitment to the ICT industry has made his contribution over the years remarkable. He will be greatly missed.”

Funeral arrangements will be notified later.

Tiger claws & green teeth

2007-05-26T15:09:00.000+05:30

It took only minutes from the Pettah bomb – Thursday, to make Sirikotha media mafia busy.

Not surprising at all – if you were in the country for last decade or so.

This is not the first time - hope you can recall incidents took place few weeks before late Mr. Kadiragamar’s assassination. It was Sirikotha supported media who brutally ‘killed’ Mr. Kadiragamar before Tigers’ sniper fired.

Defense secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse escaped narrowly from another LTTE assassination attempt in last December – but not from the Sirikotha media mafia. Ranil took over from where Prabhakaran failed and still trying at his best. He wanted Janaka Perera to replace Gotabhaya. But, neither his nor his party’s voice could overweight the voice of general public. As always, Ranil & his henchmen covering him are isolated from what majority thinks. People questioned Ranil, ‘why didn’t you have Janaka Perera, during your time?’

Sirikotha media mafia never gives up – came up recently to challenge the wealth of Gotabhaya Rajapakse. Memory Bank backs no politicians – but in this case it’s more than obvious, a ‘story’ was made – just for nothing – but to feed tired Tigers. If somebody tries to finger point Mahinda’s government for helping Gotabhaya to build a million dollar house in US, he may be living in the Moon for last few years. Gotabhaya Rajapakse is a dual citizen of both the Sri Lanka & the United States and he’s been living in US for many years before Mahinda came into power.So it’s his wealth he earned or inherited.

Tigers are made to kneel down by all the heroic Sri Lankan security forces and the brave political leadership. Prabhakaran is totally aware that, this is the last ‘eelam’ war in progress. He will not hesitate to play all his trump cards – but still fails and fails. We - Sri Lankans should never waste this last opportunity – a win over terrorism is a dream made a reality, in the near future.’War for peace not for a piece’, is what Memory Bank supports.

Our 'Sarala' - the best in the world...!

2007-05-25T21:25:00.000+05:30

The Sri Lankan child artist Sarala Kariyawasam won the Best Child Actor of the World in an international feature film Award from Hollywood’s Young Artist Foundation. Her acting in the film “Water” was undoubtedly great - one of the best films I've ever watched. You brought a great honor to your country, we all proud of you – Sarala.

Majority wants Ranil to go home

2007-05-22T10:40:00.000+05:30

The result of the web-poll conducted by Memory Bank reflects 71% majority wants to have a better opposition leader. 28% thinks the other way. 1% voted for ‘no idea’.

Results available at: http://prabath.freepolls.com/cgi-bin/pollresults/001

Guerilla Marketing

2007-05-20T12:49:00.000+05:30

As revealed by Memory Bank on 18th May, today’s Sunday Observer published a Sinhalese advertisement on its 95th page insulting the image of Ven. Kiribathgoda Gnananda thero. It was very clever marketing to attach the name of Ven. Kiribathgoda Gnananda thero to something which he is never involved in. The advertisement never says it’s supported by the thero, but simply says ‘Ven. Kiribathgoda Gnananda thero mathu budu wewa”. This is where they escape from the law. That is clever marketing, ah?

The advertisement is about a VCD for a price of Rs.600/=. A spokesman from Mahamevna Asapuwa told Memory Bank they never guarantee the content of the VCD and had no any sort of involvement in making it. Further he explained MB, the people behind this attempt are trying to use the reputation of Ven. Kiribathgoda Gnananda thero to market their product & in most of the cases they pretend to be promoting Buddhism, but truly what they do is giving wrong explanations to Buddhist preaches.

An attempt to insult Ven. Kiribathgoda Gnananda thero uncovered, but...

2007-05-18T22:22:00.000+05:30

From very trusted, but confidential sources Memory Bank learnt, there is an attempt to insult Ven. Kiribathgoda Gnananda thero. The people behind this coward attempt are going to publish an article in Sinhalese on 20th May, Sunday Observer. By the time of this post [Friday 10.30 PM], the paper with the article is being sent to print and the page with this article is already being printed. There is an attempt going to stop this publication, but not sure it would be 100% successful since the paper is already being printed.

Ven. Kiribathgoda Ghanandha thero is highly respected among all the Buddhists and attached to Mahamewuna Asapuwa - Polgahawela.

Please be on alert. Memory Bank will update you as soon as more news available.

Update : 19th May, 7:25 AM
The article is going to be published on the 95th page of the Sunday Observer.

Kottu, be genuine

2007-05-17T22:55:00.000+05:30

As you all know by now, Memory Bank was removed from Kottu. I had a mail trail with Indi on this and in my last mail I mentioned, I never want to take this to Memory Bank to criticize Kottu. I desperately wanted to stick to that.

But unfortunately, Indi had opened a platform, to all Memory Bank critics to have their word against Memory Bank. It's obvious, during last few days many anonymous comments were thrown against my political stance from very few. Also I wanted Indi to have a sort of forum on this [future posting], not after Memory Bank being de-syndicated, but before he took that decision. BTW he was very quick to remove Memory Bank, with no prior notice, but even by now he has not reacted to those who put comments in Indi.ca, to interpret his words in different ways to harm Memory Bank.

Also I never argued that Future Posting is a fair thing when it comes to a blog aggregator. Technically competent blog aggregators already have found ways to deal with this, except Kottu. So, even if it's technically not feasible, may be b'cos Indi is busy - then we need to build a discussion among bloggers and come to an agreement, none of us do future posting and if some body violates then he will be removed. Memory Bank is totally okay with this.

But, Kottu had different thoughts. It simply removed Memory Bank with no prior notice and then sent a mail. This is what you find in Indi.ca. I don't think this is professional. Although Kottu is not something belong to everyone, SL blogging community expects Kottu be professional. Indi should have sent me a mail first mentioning Kottu does not encourage 'future posting', and if I still violate that, he would have removed my blog.

Also this is not the first time he acted in this way. Few years back he removed many .Net blogs with no prior notice and this is Indi's response to it.

"The reason that people were deleted without telling them was because I was lazy and frustrated"

Indi: I have no hard feelings with you or Kottu. People do visit Kottu to read what bloggers have written. No bloggers - No Kottu. Please be democratic with your approach.

Right now Kottu has a monopoly over blog aggregators. That has given Indi the freedom to act on his own. Just remember one thing, a monopoly is okay till it serves people - when it deviates, history has spoken.

Memory Bank Threatened..!

2007-05-16T23:46:00.001+05:30

Voice in Colombo started questioning Memory Bank on, how it's posts coming top in Kottu. It was very polite questioning and Memory Bank had no delay in answering. Within an hour the question was answered. Also the Achcharu admin stepped in and clarified how 'future posts' come top in the list. He also clearly explained that he had stopped such scenarios taking place in Achcharu. He too added his comments to Shehal's blog, on this:

"a) future posting is a legit technique which allows a post publish to be delayed. WordPress and MT allow it, blogspot does not. Blogspot will happily publish an entry, even if it is dated in the future."

I wanted to thank Shehal, a guy who never wants to accept something till he has a proof, for his experimental findings. In his blog he says,

"there was a blog post by a self proclaimed voice of Colombo... who i personally think needs to clear his/her throat... and this voice had accused another person of "Stealing Traffic" from kottu.org... 'cos it seems like he/she lives off advertisements in his blog... and probably get a bit upset to find that someone had managed to very easily stay at the top of the list... and since he obviously had no clue of how syndicated content polling works... he felt a bit "unfair" that his posts didnt appear at the top of the list..."

So, for all my blog readers, I would like to say, as correctly pointed out by Shehal, Memory Bank never depends on 'ads' (like the other), so never goes after popularity.

Usually Memory Bank drafts it's posts near mid night and publishes them for the next day - that is, readers won't feel they read something stale when they see those next morning. As per Achcharu admin, this is called "posts publish to be delayed".

I have no objection to have a discussion of this type. But unfortunately some idiots (very few), who were hurt by Memory Bank's previous posts, try to exploit the situation to harm it's image. They have already started their work by putting anonymous comments on some blogs. Also, being unable to add Anonymous comments in Memory Bank it self, they have started to send me threatening emails to my Yahoo account. They use all the bad words they know in those to criticize me & my parents. Also, they threaten to remove Memory Bank from Kottu.

But, I believe they can do none of those they boast about.

At the same time, I hope Kottu will do a sort of modification to it's post listing algorithm, so every post will get a fair chance to be at top.

Who needs Ranil?

2007-05-15T23:59:00.000+05:30

Do we need a better opposition leader? Please do participate in the web poll.

Three more days to go...! Will be closed at 11.59 PM SL time - Thursday 17th May.

“Anonymous” - no more Anonymous

2007-05-14T23:57:00.000+05:30

[Content Removed: Memory Bank apologizes if anybody not related to this bad behavior being hurt]

Tom Moody resigns

2007-05-14T23:36:00.000+05:30

Tom Moody has resigned as Sri Lanka coach to take up a similar position with Western Australia.

He rejected a renewed contract from the World Cup runners-up to return home to his native Australia.

Read More...

Suwaris :-)

2007-05-12T23:48:00.000+05:30

LTTE arms smuggler faces 25 years jail penalty in US

2007-05-12T23:34:00.000+05:30

http://www.news.lk reports:

Thirunavukarasu Varatharasa (36), the only Sri Lankan charged in the second string operation case filed in a Maryland court in USA, for trying to buy arms from an undercover fictitious company was pleaded guilty to the charges.

Varatharasa faces a total of 25 years in a federal jail in the United States for the two charges - 15 years for conspiring to supply material support for a foreign terrorist group, and 10 years for trying to export weapons and ammunition.

The Justice Department announced the pleading of the accused to coincide with Asst. State Secretary Boucher's visit to Sri Lanka. The date for sentencing is not yet announced

Read More...

Politically Tired?

2007-05-11T23:57:00.000+05:30

Do we need a better opposition leader? Participate in the web poll.

The Power Play

2007-05-11T23:49:00.000+05:30

Given the opportunity to hit every ball a six in a power play – no batsman will say no. So do I.

“Do you have any comments Prabath? Why are you so silent?” – questioned Anonymous-6, in his comment to Ranil Exported…!

Anonymous-7 joined the party – “This is clearly mud sliding & why you still silent?”

“…but we want you to answer their fucking comments...” – Jayanga almost touching the limits.

This is my reply – or playing in a power play. Did I say a poor bowling attack, mostly with wides and no-ballls?

Doesn’t matter how you fluent in your English – when you are hit hard on the top of your head – it’s natural, mother-tongue speaks. Anonymous-1 started gently – not politely, here we go… comes the mother tongue out.

“Nathiwa arakatai, mekatai, kakkussi baratai okkotama Ranilge peace eka kiya kiya kaaa nugaha hitapan bang.”

He has no facts in his comment – just rubbish - will leave it with readers to judge.

I don’t know who JM is. By his comments in another blog, I assume both JM and Bardo are the same. Correct me if not. Bardo, too had his comments to the same post lately.

Just after the first Anonymous [Anonymous -1], JM posted his thoughts,

“Not particularly intelligent - amusing nevertheless.”

Have to agree with this – he talks about the first comment.

“He (Ranil) made lanka gain huge strides economically with the CFA” – here comes Anonymous -2. “He split LTTE into two”, he added.

I like the second part. And I agree as well. If we gained something from the CFA, that is Karuna’ separation. Unfortunately only that:(.

There were few other comments on the CFA as well. So I’ll take them all together.

Get back to the era when the CFA was signed between LTTE and Ranil. It was for the first time in the history the chief of the “international police” – George W Bush got to know that terrorism is a pain. It was a nightmare to see Twin Towers kissing the earth. No American thought this was a possibility. While Bush was talking about an automatic self defense system, Bin Laden crashed into the Pentagon– the glory of US defense took off by surprise.

"As most of the UNPers argue, CFA brought down the number of deaths in SLA. Yes true, why the hell Prabhakaran kills ground level soldiers once the Prime Minister (Ranil) him self has morally killed them."

All in all this lead to the ‘War against Terrorism”. Afghanistan was attacked, Iraq, Iran & North Korea named as the ‘Axis of Evil’. LTTE knew coming colors no good – luckily for them, we had Ranil as our prime minister. At the time LTTE badly wanted to be a “good boy” in front of the international community, Ranil came up with the so called ‘CFA’. LTTE used the CFA as a tool to get rid of the bad time and strengthen their military power. SLA was limited to very few places in north & eastern provinces. But… LTTE continued their terrorist acts. Recruited children as child soldiers, increased and trained their carders, bought much better weapons. Ranil also invited LTTE to participate together with the government in international summits – which gave them the international recognition.

No he stopped from there - took the Tigers all around the world for so called ‘peace talks’, ended in a bullshit. Many western countries had their own internal plans to occupy Sri Lanka. If there’s a way, that is only through LTTE, they knew. One major objective was to sweep the Buddhism from the country.

NGOs came into act, backed by the international power, slowly, but steadily progressed with their agenda. Even the Buddhist MPs in the Ranil’s government kept their mouths shut for ‘dollars’ - a shame, some joined the current government recently.

As most of the UNPers argue, CFA brought down the number of deaths in SLA. Yes true, why the hell Prabhakaran kills ground level soldiers once the Prime Minister (Ranil) him self has morally killed them. But LTTE kept on hunting ‘big guys’ in the game. How many key intelligence unit officers we lost during the CFA?

So, if somebody argues CFA brought ‘luxury’ – better you know Prabhakaran will be the happiest man to see the country ‘luxurious’, under your definition.

"In the Southern province it self Mahinda had a lead over 300,000 votes. This huge lead came from the Tsunami victims, at a time Ranil and his henchmen tried to label Mahinda as ‘Tsunami hora’. It’s a pity, poor Ranil; nothing comes in your way."

Going back to the comments, Jack Point questioned Memory bank,

“…If so why did Prabha facilitate Mahinda's victory?”

I think I made it clear why LTTE entered in to the CFA. They got through their bad period when the entire world is against terrorism – lead by America. Now the force is diluted and LTTE is strong [that is how they think…poh..!], they wanted no more the CFA. They took the advantage of it and made them selves established. They had their spies all over the country. Prabhakaran thought he can win the rest [apart from what they won by CFA] by war. Given him to make a wish – he would have no hesitation today, to rollback his decision to force people in North to boycott the election.

“... my question again does MR say anything against Ranil's MOU after the election... no he just value it and appreciate it...” – questioned Anonymous-14.

I agree with the first part. Yes, he does not talk about the CFA and why he should? Even before Mahinda came into the seat, CFA was hugely violated by LTTE. Once there is no such CFA in practice, why people worry about it. The second part of your comment [I am sorry to say…] nullify the total value of your comment. The effort wasted. You say Mahinda values the MoU and appreciates it – not even an idiot lived in the country for last two years would say such a thing.

“if you think that MR got a mandate for vote, keep it in mind that he didn't receive any majority during the presidential elections. It was the most corrupted election in our history.” – the way the Anonymous-10 thinks.

Yes true, Mahinda won marginally in the election. Given that the poor support he got from his own party lead by CBK then, this is more than a great win. In the Southern province it self he had a lead over 300,000 votes. This huge lead came from the Tsunami victims, at a time Ranil and his henchmen tried to label Mahinda as ‘Tsunami hora’. It’s a pity, poor Ranil; nothing comes in your way. You say it was the most corrupted election in the history. At least don’t you believe the reports given by the so called ‘international community’, where you lick the boots in all the other cases? Don’t try to be funny… try to speak with facts… After each & every election the Election Commissioner gives a report. Better you read it first.

"It was one and half miles away from my home and everyday from my home to school there were at least three or four dead bodies. They were our youth. You hear it my friend… it was the future of our country, Ranil murdered."

Okay, I know you are tired reading, thanks if you came this far – sometimes may be got hurt as well. Let’s move to the next issue, Human Rights violations.

“Now you guys talking about Batalanda. Then prove it at courts. You have your government, president, and a judge to take a decision against him” – Anonymous-10 thinks he made a valid point. Oops… no my dear friend you still beating around the bush.

Batalanda as well as Sooriyakanda are two special cases. “Special cases “can take in place at a time of a war or a similar situation. Such cases have no strong witnesses, since they’ve being destroyed by the people who committed those. So they cannot be taken into courts – but can be heard before the people – that is people’ court. Ranil already being judged to be guilty by people’ court.

Apart from the above “Sri Lankan”, had some nice thoughts on Anonymous-10’s comment. This is what he thinks.

Following is the comment by “Sri Lankan”.

Anonymous-11: "Now you guys talking about Batalanda. Then prove it at courts."
Anonymous-11: "I have proofs, they cut the voting rights of nearly .5 million UNPers."
If you have proofs why don't you go to courts? You marched from Matara to Colombo to reduce CBKs duty time by one year, I never heard you people doing such thing regarding the lost voting rights.

Anonymous-6 had different thoughts.

“Please go back to 1983 then to 1987 -1991. This MR and party which he belongs to spread the news that Sri Lankan government violates the HR and destroy the image of the country.”

How dare you compare 1983 or the 1989 with the current situation? Those are entirely different cases. In 1989 I was a small kid living more than 100 miles away from Colombo. I used to walk to school with my mother. It was one and half miles away from my home and everyday from my home to school there were at least three or four dead bodies. They were our youth. You hear it my friend… it was the future of our country, Ranil murdered. How many times my mother could not answer, when I asked the question ‘why’, pointing to a dead body. So Anonymous-6, you want to compare such a tragedy with the current situation. What a shame? You a Sri Lankan, ah? Just another thing… it seems you are very much worried about MRs act that time, as per you it destroyed the image of the country. What a patriotic? Even in such situation if you believe it is bad to take our problems to the international level, how come you believe today, what Ranil does is right?

Well… this is going into pages. I think I answered most of your questions.

Even in a power play, a ‘doosra’ can take a batsman in surprise. Although we have good players, it's hard to bowl a 'doosra' on the pitch Ranil made.

Ranil Exported...!

2007-05-08T23:58:00.000+05:30

Ranil Wickremasinghe, the current opposition leader and twice the prime minister, is widely considered to be a losing politician. No exception even in his own party, at the ground level.

Very much westernized in his attire and his thoughts, Ranil finds it hard to understand the Sri Lankan sense & flavor – resulted losing 14 elections in last decade or so.

Nearly 18 party members, including the deputy leader Karu Jayasuria, publicly expressed their support to Mahinda’s government and accepted cabinet portfolios recently.

Ranil finds very few listeners in Sri Lanka and might have forced him to find more at the international level. He likes US, UK, Norway, Singapore, Switzerland and many first world countries where he finds good listeners. Sri Lankan opposition leader and the up & coming “global” politician found no time to spend the Sinhalese & Hindu New Year [the most celebrated cultural festival] with his people. Oops… did I say something wrong? May be I did. Wonder he still considers Sri Lankans as his people… I doubt.

Today many consider Ranil as the mouth piece of LTTE. Some doubt, he plays the role of Anton Balasingham to win the support of international community to the terrorists.Ranil desperately wants international intervention to country’s internal affairs. He talks “proudly” about Sri Lanka’s human rights violations in front of western media and emphasizes the necessity of an international human rights commission. All in all, Ranil’s politics brings nothing than the disgrace. On the other hand people get to know how poor he is as a leader – doing nothing locally but cries before western power.

All his voters stay confused with a big question mark. They never find him in Colombo and some think Ranil exported.

Updated on 9th May 12:31 PM with Lakbima cartoon.

Gilly's glory with squash ball majic questions legality

2007-05-07T02:51:00.000+05:30

Either the match wining 149 of Adam Gilchrist or the squash ball hidden in his glove is no news further.

The longest ever world cup in the history of Cricket is still not end.

“His (Meuleman's) last words to me before I left the indoor training centre where I train with him in Perth were, 'Well, if you are going to use it (squash ball), make sure when you score a hundred in the final you show me and prove to me you got it in there'. I had stayed true to that.” - These few sentences by Gilchrist, took the cricket world by surprise. Even now, we all are surprised, that is not for Gilchrist’s squash ball – but for the silence kept by both the ICC & the Sri Lanka Cricket.

“If this is legal, can the fielding team use baskets to catch the ball? Sanga could have applied some Glue on his gloves so that he could have got Gilchrist out.Dilshan could have used special shoes that spring through air to stop all the sixes. Sanath could have had a longer bat etc wide. There are so many gadgets to use. Why Sri Lankan team did not use any gadgets like the Aussies?” - questions a Cricket fan in Yahoo Answers. He believes Gilchrist cheated, as most of the non-Australians.

“If Dennis Lillie’s aluminum bat and Ricky Ponting's graphite-coated bat could be deemed illegal, if Hansie Cronje's earpiece experiment was not OK, if Scott Styris had to remove all the bandage from his right hand before he could bowl in the super eight match, can Adam Gilchrist's 'hidden ball' pass muster?” - Krishna Prasad questions in Yahoo Cricket.

“No player uses equipment other than that permitted” – states the Cricket law. Under its 42 laws, use of a squash ball never listed.

All in all, Sri Lanka Cricket has a case to file.

If Jayasuriya had the squash ball in his glove, ICC would have broken the ice so soon, may be the same night the final played.

Dancing to the British beat

2007-05-06T02:46:00.000+05:30

Recently the British High Commission in Colombo announced Britain is withholding financial assistance to Sri Lanka until the government meets what they called "agreed human rights and defense spending conditions."

Heh...heh... if the British High Commissioner in Colombo, Dominick John Chilcot or the Tony Blair wants us to dance to their beat, better they change their ‘wet’ pajamas first and wake up from the deadly dream. Both…! Better you know Sri Lanka is no further a British colony.

Britain and Australia are two countries which funded LTTE for years. Blair was a baby in the cot till the 7th July incident where for the first time in the modern history English men took off by death fear. The Blair who talks about human rights in Sri Lanka shot dead an innocent German, while he was in a train, suspecting as a terrorist. Oops… we never heard Amnesty International activists shouting then as they did in 2007 Cricket world cup. Also, for any idiot with little brain can understand how Blair’s BBC was biased to LTTE during last few years.

Mahinda’s government day before yesterday blocked a visit to the rebel-held north of the island by a group of British diplomats, led by Colombo’s Deputy British High Commissioner Lesley Craig who wanted to discuss the future of the troubled peace process with the Tigers. Memory Bank appreciates this move by the government and wants to let know all the English men, this is our mother land and we have our own beats, if want to dance.

Colombo under water

2007-05-05T13:41:00.000+05:30

Anyone in Colombo for last 10-15 years knows what rain can do to its highway system. It does not require a rain of 100 mm to flood Colombo roads & bring havoc to day to day life of its residents.

Colombo infrastructure developed in a rapid speed during last two decades or so. Carpeted roads came from heaven & low lands to absorb rain water went to hell. We can’t say no to infrastructure development. It brings investors – it helps economy to grow. Infrastructure development is the key to economic growth. Construction of better roads and high risers is a part of it. But when it is not properly planed – you never know your “economy” runs out of the back door.

It’s no surprise people turn out to think Colombo municipal council doing bullshit with their money. A young woman was drowned when she fell into a large water hole in the centre of the pavement at Wijerama Mawatha – almost the center of Colombo city. The hole was not visible since the whole pavement was covered by flood waters. This is the second time a same sort of situation took place in the same area. Previously the woman escaped narrowly from death. This time she had no luck. The officials took prompt action just after the death – at least will save few others.

It’s not fair to point fingers to Colombo MC. The responsibility should be shared by all the governments ruled the country during last few decades. They all contributed in different portions to the catastrophe today, we all witness. Some governments never took the Engineers’ advice. Crazy construction work came with no plans. Low lands were filled and came up the high risers. Drainage systems given no priority. These bullshits by ignorant politicians resulted what we are today.

At least now… let the Engineers do the town planning.

Pix:A huge crater caused by yesterday’s heavy rains near the Roxy Cinema in Wellawatte.

Mahela for President

2007-05-03T13:16:00.000+05:30

In 2002 football world cup, when South Korea got qualified for the semifinal against Italy, "Hiddink for President" was a ubiquitous banner at all of Korea's matches. Guus Hiddink was a Dutch coach who made the South Koreans semifinalists in the 2002 football world cup. That indicates how far a player/coach can go into people’s heart – though they didn’t really mean it.

In 2007 Cricket world cup, Mahela Jayawardena lead the Sri Lanka to the final against Australia. His batting was superb. The innings he played in the semifinal against New Zealand was one of the best I’ve ever seen. Forget me, even the great Sanath Jayasuriya in a brief interview with the local media mentioned Mahela’s innings in the semifinal was the best he saw in this world cup.

There were many ceremonies organized to welcome the Sri Lankan cricketers returning home, through out the way from Katunayaka to Colombo. People gathered to express their gratitude even under heavy rains. It was pleasing to see many cricketers, including Mahela – who was seated at the back seat, opened the shutters to hand-shake with the well-wishers. They definitely should be tired after flying for hours from Barbados – but Mahela had no such signs on his face. He was so pleasing and anxious to return a smile to everyone gathered to wish them good luck.

So… don’t be surprised if you see a banner suggesting, “Mahela for President” – he has already won the hearts of players and the people of this country to that extent.

Red Carpet for Sri Lankan Cricketers

2007-05-03T09:01:00.000+05:30

Sri Lankan cricket team, loosing the world cup final against Australia, arrived today at Katunayaka Bandaranayake International Airport 15 minutes before the scheduled time, at 7.30 am.

Apart from the prestige guests to welcome them at the air port, a small shower was present to express the sincere gratitude of the nature. The shower made some of the players to run over the red carpet.

Jayasuriya, in a brief interview with the local media expressed that he has no plans to play for the 2011 world cup.

There are many welcome ceremonies organized by the Sri Lanka Cricket and the Ministry of Sports and it seems the rain going to spoil most of them as it did in the world cup final.

Developers’ approach in fixing defects

2007-05-02T04:37:00.000+05:30

Want to see more? Visit Chathura's blog.

SL bloggers report LTTE air raid on 29th April

2007-05-01T12:41:00.000+05:30

Sanjiva Weerawarana's Blog

We had more excitement during the match .. our LTTE brethren decided not to take my advice and leave the match nite alone! At about 1am I heard some sounds like fire crackers (which are legal in Sri Lanka and are used heavily when something interesting happens) and looked outside and saw what appeared to be sky rockets going up from the Ratmalana Airport side (I live about one mile straight line distance from there). But it was too consistent .. and it turned out to be tracer bullets being fired into the sky from the Air Force base at the airport.

As everyone knows now LTTE attacked a gas storage facility in Colombo that night. They did only minor damage but the PR and psychological impact was real: the LTTE can and did fly into and out of Colombo. The economic impact has already started.

The Sri Lanka Air Force will obviously deal with this new threat but most probably these guys will be back soon while they have the early advantage.

Damn, they're not even cricket fans!

Nazly

I was almost in deep sleep when I heard this sudden noise that woke me up. I felt like it was thundering so I kinda got up and sat half asleep and thats when I heard the sound of a plane. It clicked to me immediately that what I heard was not a thunder but an explosion so I rushed towards the front door. When I opened the door I saw fire been hit towards the sky. The electricity was cut off as well. It was pitch black and I heard people were shouting all around. It was not revealed as of what could have happened and rumors were spreading across. It was total chaos at that time but in about 10-15 mins the firing towards the sky stopped. It was one hell of an experience in that time of the night.

Memory Bank

It was around 1.45 AM - I heard a series of explosions. First I thought they might be lightning in the sky. Anyway the TV signals were not disturbed - so I went out to see the sky and witnessed no signs of lightning. SLAF confirmed that they have activated their air defence system - Colombo.

Lakshan

Update on the current situation in Colombo (exactly here in Wattala). Still nothing is yet to confirm and moments passed by were filled with fear and uncertainity. We got electricity back in few minutes ago (around 3.50 am) and now the whole city seems calm and quiet. Still there is no any official update on what [...]

n#

Electricity was off for a few hours, starting some time after 1AM. I also heard two strange sounding explosions that did not seem to be fireworks (What I heard sounded like 2 very low frequency ‘blasts’ followed by deep vibrations/hums.)

A ride down my life

It was the 28th of April and we had to go to Hilton for one of my dad’s award ceremonies. (We in the sense, me and my family) so all of us were excited. After the award ceremony we got to stay the night stay at the Hilton with complementary breakfast at ‘spices’. AND, it was the world cup final that that and everybody was more excited about that. I wouldn’t talk about that coz it’s too heart wrecking.

Anyways, it was around 2.30 am when we started hearing gun shots from outside and opposite the room I was staying was the army headquarters. O me god… when I opened my eyes it was not a pretty sight. The Colombo skyline was roaring with machine gun fire and everything else was pitch dark. There were gunshots going on from all the angles and it was scaring me to death. It must have been around 30mins until the shooting were stopped but still it was freaking out all the guests. The management of the hotel were putting announcement for guests to come downstairs to the lobby to which my freaking brother wouldn’t give a damn. He’s too big in his head and wanted to see what was going on outside.

After sometime the shooting started again and this time they were aiming at two air crafts. We could see the planes and the shots going so close but missing them. It was worse than Sangakkara missing Gilchrist’s catch! Damn.
Anyway, we were at the hotel lobby for about 45mins and somehow the firing ceased. Everything was settled around 4.30 in the morning but I’m not sure of the time.

TamilNet lies again:No Kfir or MiG was shot

2007-05-01T11:15:00.000+05:30

DefenceNet reports:

It was only yesterday that pro LTTE media and Eelamists celebrated the shooting down of a SLAF supersonic jet bomber. However, DefenceNet can confirm that no fighter aircraft of SALF were neither lost nor damaged due to enemy fire or due to technical failure.

However at attempt to shoot down the jet was made by LTTE gunners. We cannot confirm the type of AA weapons used but the pilot was able to out maneuver the 'foreign object' and LTTE did not acquire their target.

The FUTURE awaits...!

2007-05-01T06:04:00.001+05:30

Arnold retired.

Jayasuriya wants to play ODIs only.

Murali only tests.

Marvan, Vass - no comments yet.

BTW neither of them will play in 2011 world cup.

We need fresh blood to replace them.

Murali & Jayasuriya are special cases. No body can get closer to them.

Tharanga doing well as an opener. We need to find a partner for him. Even for Tharanga, we need to create competition. So we need to make sure two or three fight for the opener’s job.

Kapugedara is a promising youngster. He did quite well in last Australia tour. He too can be a candidate for the opener’s place. BTW he can even bat at number six or seven.

How in the earth we replace Murali? Malinga Bandara is no way near him. Murali’s retirement from one day cricket will create a headache for selectors.

Sri Lanka had many promising young fast bowlers during last few years – thanks to Champaka Ramanayaka. We need to absorb those into the national team as soon as possible. They should be given a fair opportunity to establish them selves in the side.

Then comes the question which matters the most. Who will lead Sri Lanka team in the 2011 world cup? I will go for Sangakkara. Mahela needs a long break, I guess.