An okay start, they at least have some information on taking loans and stuff, the highlight being the forms are available for printing. The site though is doggone slow just to serve out plain static html.
My thoughts on the keynote that was presented at Tech.Ed Sri Lanka.
To start off with the keynote was way too long and went on for what felt like four hours. I expected the presenters to excite the large gathering of developers about the new innovations that will be comnig in the .NET platform. Instead the damn PeopleReady message was stuffed down our throats. Repeatedly.
What do I care about some marketing initiative bs from Microsoft? Is this the sign of things to come with SteveB taking over the reins? I sure hope not.
The demos by Matty on the other hand were a treat to watch.
In basic calculus we learned that the first derivative of a function is the “rate of change” of the value of that function with respect to another variable. In the case of your career, the other variable is time. The basic equation for a developer career looks like this:
C = G + LT
C is Cluefulness. It is defined as an overall measure of your capabilities, expertise, wisdom and knowledge in the field of software development. It is the measure of how valuable you are to an employer. It is the measure of how successful your career is. When you graph your career, C is on the vertical axis.
G is Gifting. It is defined as the amount of natural cluefulness you were given “at the factory”. For each individual, G is a constant, but it definitely varies from person to person.
L is Learning. It is defined as the rate at which you gain (or lose) cluefulness over time.
T is Time. It is on the horizontal axis of your career graph.
As you can see above, your career success is determined by three variables, only one of which you can control:
- You obviously can’t control T. Time marches forward mercilessly at the same rate for everyone.
- You also can’t control G. The truth is that some people are just naturally smarter than you are, and that’s the way it is. But G is not the sole determiner of your success. I have known some truly gifted programmers with lame careers, and I have also known some less-gifted folks who have become extremely successful.
- You can make choices which affect the value of L. In fact, you do make choices which affect the value of L, every day, whether you know it or not.
Need I say more?
Last weekend I heard about the podcast while listening to the radio. Somewhere at TNL is a geek whose into some really wicked cool stuff. The station that pioneered internet broadcasting now offers podcasts at http://www.tnlpodcast.com/.
What’s better is that my favorite radio station is powered by my favorite platform.
.NET rocks and so does TNL 101.7!
I dunno if it is the WMP 11 Beta, but the audio played super fast sounding mostly like Alvin of the Chipmunks.
Sri Lanka is finally starting to take it’s fledgling steps in moving to the internet. Yesterday I booked tickets over the web through www.etickets.lk (wow 2006 and finally).
The whole experience was quite good, but it will be a long time before these become mainstream (I’m only talking about Colombo). One impeding factor is that unlike in most other countries, the business model is not ad based instead an additional payment of 25/– is charged for each ticket. Given that these reservertions are only available for balcony tickets this is not a major problem.
In addition to this the membership fee costs 250/– but as a promotional offer is free till August 23 (tomorrow). If I were you I would simply create a login for myself just in case. My advise to the company, drop this membership business.
eTickets.lk uses a simple AJAXy interface to show the box plan and allows you to select the seats you want to book and add them to your shopping cart.
The current listing shows only Liberty and Majestic cinemas, but they plan to add more stuff like concerts, theater and seminars.
Oh and BTW the site is developed using ASP.NET, goody, goody!
You’ll need to change the timezone on your box to be +5.30 (India Standard Time) until we have a service pack release from Microsoft that moves Sri Lanka back into the +5.30 offset.
Note that changing just the time is a fruitless exercise as the time server will reset it on a periodic basis.
You have been warned! Resistance is futile.
Jina just started announcing the five finalists for the Imagine Cup ‘06 so I guess I can blog about it. The shortlisted teams in no particular order are:
Congralutions guys! So what happens next is that each team will be assigned a mentor (one of the MVPs) and then each finalist will present their entry at the grand final which will be held on the 31st of May. There’s going to be a whole lot of tension and excitement since the presentations will be live in front of the judges as well as all the invitees and the winning entry will be announced immediately.
I also need to congratulate all the other teams that sent in entries as well, believe it or not, you too are a winner for the simple fact that you did compete.
This is so friggin cool and I thought were so behind on things. SLT has already installed and is testing out WiMAX broadband wireless in Sri Lanka.
If these guys can get the price point just right like they did with ADSL, it’s going to be really sweet.
How many times have you scheduled a meeting in Outlook only to find out later that it was a holiday? I just did today and here’s how I’m going to prevent myself from doing it again.
In Outlook you can add custom holidays so that they show up in your calendar like this.
So here’s how you do it.
– – – – – – – – – Start Copy – – – – – – – – –
[Sri Lanka] 20
Duruthu Full Moon Poya Day,2006/1/13
Tamil Thai Pongal Day,2006/1/14
National Day,2006/2/4
Navam Full Moon Poya Day,2006/2/12
Medin Full Moon Poya Day,2006/3/14
Milad-Un-Nabi (Holy Prophet’s Birthday),2006/4/11
Bak Full Moon Poya Day,2006/4/13
Day Prior to Sinhala & Tamil New Year Day,2006/4/13
Sinhala & Tamil New Year Day,2006/4/14
May Day,2006/5/1
Vesak Full Moon Poya Day,2006/5/12
Day following Vesak Full Moon Poya Day,2006/5/13
Poson Full Moon Poya Day,2006/6/11
Esala Full Moon Poya Day,2006/7/10
Nikini Full Moon Poya Day,2006/8/9
Binara Full Moon Poya Day,2006/9/7
Vap Full Moon Poya Day,2006/10/6
Il Full Moon Poya Day,2006/11/5
Unduvap Full Moon Poya Day,2006/12/4
Christmas Day,2006/12/25
– – – – – – End Copy – – – – – – –
Update the current holiday file
To do so:
1. Exit Outlook if it is running.
2. In Microsoft Windows Explorer, locate the following file:
drive:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\1033\Outlook.hol
3. Open the file using notepad.
4. Add the contents of the above text (between Start Copy and End Copy) at the end of the Outlook.hol and save it.
Updating the Outlook calendar with customized events
The final step is for employees to update their calendar with the new holiday file.
To update the Outlook calendar:
1. Start Outlook.
2. On the Tools menu, click Options.
3. On the Preferences tab, under Calendar, click Calendar Options.
4. In the Calendar Options dialog box, under Calendar options, click Add Holidays.
5. Select the check box for your customized set of events and holidays, and then click OK. For this example, select the box labeled
Note It’s possible that a set of holidays or events observed in your country/region has already been selected in the Add Holidays to Calendar dialog box. If you try to add the same country/region again, you see the message, “Holidays for country are already installed. Do you want to install them again?”
Click No. If you click Yes, the holidays and events are installed a second time, and you will see duplicate holiday and event entries in your calendar.
This turning the clock around thingy is becoming a fashion statement that every Sri Lankan President wants to do. Right now its Mahinda mamaa’s turn and he wants us to go back by 30 minutes. This way we go into the same timezone as that in the LTTE controlled areas as well as India’s.
Personally I prefer the time as it is now since I get to work early and have more daylight in the evenings. What I’m interested in finding out is whether there will be a Windows patch to change the timezone or if we’ll need to wait till Vista is out.
We do live in interesting if not wierd times.
