Computers - Thank You

If I am asked to name the most powerful profession a person could be in I would say it is the field of Computers, due to two reasons

1. Computers are the only field that could be applied to any field (Medical, Legal, Sewage Treatment, you name it).
2. This is the only professional who can talk with non living things  - Afterall they speak with silicon chips to get the work done.

However it is ironic to see that the IT professionals are yet take the advantage of this for the benefit of themselves and the humankind as a whole.

Still a long way to go!!

Poetry Time : George Keyt

George Keyt
Source :Dailynews.lk

George Keyt ? A poet ?? Well yes people have been knowing him as a Painter (or Artist in Archaic English), but every person whose Right brain is stronger than the Left Brain, ie: Artist, suffer with memory blocks.This is where George Keyt the Poet awoke, diverting his artistic skills in the form of Rhymes.
It is interesting to note that his poems were not as popular as his paintings, but during the recently concluded bookfair I came across a collection of poems by George Keyt. I browsed through the book and the usage of language was interesting. I wish I could have bought the book, but for some odd reason I couldn't make it, perhaps the next time I should try to get a copy.



Source: Nation.lk

P.S: There is a Hidden agenda behind writing this post, I have written several poems in old exercise books and other peculiar places (I can remember writing poems in papers that came inside shirts that were pressed by the laundry), the collection was immense that I had to throw away some of them, facing the similar fate to William Blake's Copper Plates, next time I will be using the same title to publish my poems and proses (Poetry Time: See me Rhyme).

Computers and Music

Source:  Musée des Instruments de Musique

Having Professed (and still professing) in both these fields I thought of jotting down the similarities of both these fields

• Revolutionary - Both created revolutions, In the Beginning, Middle and End
• Enjoyed, Not Valued - Just like classics which are quoted and scarcely read, people talk of them and boast exaggeratingly about them but are not brave enough to experiment with them.
•  Power - Both these field have the power to create and those creations in turn have the power to change the thought process of the human (to some extent the world)
• Reachable to everyone - Year 5 Scholarship cut off marks, 8 distinctions for O Levels, 3A's for A Levels - As long as you have the equipment you are master (By the way BSc in IT and Trinity College exams for music is a different story).
• Prone to be expensive - This I would say is the only downside of both, as the brand name earns success or features become complex, they value of the product increases.
• Mysterious - This could be the only two non living objects in the world, that can influence the human by its mere appearance.

Finally Long Live Computers and Long Live Music!!!! 

Colombo Book Fair 2013

After attending the Colombo Book Fair this year, I realised that it is more profitable to sell food than books, because people buy the former and browse the latter, however to be fair by the domain I did buy some books (A CD and a Gum Bottle)
Brought the following books from the following stalls

• Stories the Buddha told (S.Dhammika and Susan Harmer) - Buddhist Publication Society
• Stories from Buddhist Lands (S.Dhammika and Susan Harmer) - Buddhist Publication Society
• Seven Years in Tibet(Heinrish Harrer) - Dean the Bookman
• On the Streets and Other Revelations(Sakuntala Sachitanandan) - Godage Book Store
• CD containing songs of the lyrics penned by Chaminda Rathnasooriya - A CD Shop (Didn't notice the name)
• A Gum bottle - A stationary shop (Didn't notice the name)

Lets hope I could come up with a better collection in the next years book fair (if they have one), until then I will start reading these books, listen to the songs in the CD and use the Gum bottle.

Macbook Air - A Shortcoming

Source:Apple.com

 

Apple Corportaion has earned a name for the sleek finish in its products, having used Apple related products for just four months I was inspired by the experience it delivers.

However I was suprised to see something unexpected in Macbook Air(Netbook released by Apple), it is the screen in Macbook Air, which has been placed in such a way that it seems as if it had been fitted from another vendor. This may not be categorised as a flaw but compared to the perfectionism seen in Apple products this is something that suprised me.

Lets hope that I will not notice this in their next Macbook Air release.

Who Copied Whom?

It was while listening to a popular song sung by H.R. Jothipala in Youtube that I came across the first comment in the video, which stated that the song has been borrowed from a Bollywood film named 'Star', however once I saw the other video I realized that there was something familiar in the latter as well. This song had some touch of a Modern South East Asian (Japanese/Korean) Music.

Nevertheless the sound track of this film was popular in India as well as H.R Jothipala's song was popular in Sri Lanka, This was when I recalled the famous phrase by Pablo Picasso  (and Steve Jobs)"Good Artists Copy Great Artists Steal".

Here is the Sinhala Song sung by H.R Jothipala (This song did appear in a Sinhala film).



Here is the Hindi Song 'Zindagi' from the Bollywood Movie 'Star'

Sri Lankan Kings - Aren't they?

 

 

 

Sri Lankans have been privileged to have a wide variety of Kings, ranging from different ethnic origins and nations. Here are some of them

King Prakramabahu - A Sinhala (Also known as Parakramabahu the Great) ruled the Country somewhere during the 2nd Century AD

King Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe - The Last Sri Lankan King  - A Tamil

King George - An Englishman, ruled Sri Lanka (Then known as Ceylon) together with other Countries belonging to the British Commonwealth.

Its nice to have a variety, After all they are Sri Lankan Kings, Aren't they?











To the point

Picture by: Julian Colten

If you want your blog to be popular one thing you should keep in mind is that keep all your posts simple to the point, however the term 'To the point' has a deeper meaning. The most important person is the reader, if we become successful in exhausting and disappointing him/her, we have not been to the point. Our posts should convey the message to the point and be relevant to the point.
For instance we will not expect to see a review of a mobile phone on a Culinary Recipe blog, this is where personal blogs score over blogs related to a subject matter, yet people prefer to stick to the subject to read to the point. 

Programming a Trackpad

Picture: Fabián Rodríguez

When I was first introduced to the Magic TrackPad, I was a bit hesitant to use it partly due to the familiarity of working with the mouse and partly since it resembled of the touchpad in my laptop which I never use (I use a USB Mouse instead).
However after playing with it for sometime I loved it, I loved it to the extent that I am trying to be a bit more friendly with the touchpad in my laptop, but it lacked the sleekness and above that the features of an apple product. The most useful feature in the Magic Trackpad is that you can find the meaning of any word presented in HTML by just placing the cursor on top of the word and pressing it with three fingers, the definition pops up; This feature is not available in my touchpad, so the only option available for me is program my embedded touchpad. However the Success or the failure of this feature will be left to the future.

P.S: Eureka! According to a blog post in one of the popular Technology blogs 'Digital Inspiration', you can sync the Trackpad with a Windows PC.
Click here to read the post.  

Pictures and License

Pictures that are freely available online are not freely available for disposal.

They need to be used according to the license that has been attributed to the picture, this is rather scary, even though the original user may not bother to take the next step of taking you to courts it will always be a good practice to follow the license in the image and use the picture according to the conditions in the license.

Some individuals and organizations have been generous enough to include their pictures under the Creative Commons License (Many of these Pictures could be used freely unless they are been utilized for Commercial Purposes, while proper attribution should be given to the owner).

In case you are not sure always speak to the owner of the image, this is a good and appreciative practice. As people living in the Information Technology era it is always good to follow something that is beneficial for the new entrants to the Information Technology arena.

From a Technical Writer to a Game Developer

Imagine you hire a plumber to repair your bathroom pipe and he turns out to say that he can repair only pipe fittings and not pipes. Trust me I will never get angry, but I will politely suggest him to change his profession from a Plumber to a 'PipeFitting' Plumber as that will inform the society as to what he could do.

 

Similarly a if Someone calls himself a Computer Scientist or an IT Professional he/she must be able to handle any part of the IT process ranging from Technical Writing to Game Developing. He may not be knowing all the programming languages in the world but should be able to handle the learning curve effectively.

 

Having worked as a Technical Writer, I am now employed as a Game Developer - Such is the power of having a Computing Degree. Sky is the limit in the silicon chip universe.

   

Websites and Blogs - Presence of Information from Humans

 

When I visit a hut I don't expect to see a mansion and vise versa when I visit a mansion. Similarly when I visit a Website I don't expect it to be a blog and neither do I expect to see blog decorated to be a Website.

However the presence of some materials have confused me to the extent that I am yet to know which is which (i.e. A Blog or a Website), certain blogs have not even been organized to the extent that the reader is unable select posts based on certain dates or categories, but its good to see creations of all shapes and sizes.

However such is the revolution of the Information era, where information irrespective of its medium of delivery (e.g: Postal, Fax, Website, Blog) is power.

Long live the presence of the World Wide Web

Blogger and Wordpress

 

For those who have heard them for the first time, they are two popular blogging platforms that provide bloggers to create their own blogs free of charge. I have been a Wordpress blogger and enjoyed it to the brim, while I am using Blogger (for this blog) and enjoying the same.

Saying Wordpress is good while using Blogger is like presenting and promoting open source software slides through a presentation created in Microsoft Powerpoint. Saying Blogger is better than Wordpress is equally against my conscious. However let me conclude, what matters is how well you present and maintain your blog and not the platform.

Long live Blogging !

Hello and Welcome

Welcome to my personal blog.

After three years of blogging, I retired from it not with the intension of starting another blog but ended up starting one, It is difficult for a writer to stop writing and a blogger to stop blogging specially if he has so much to covey.
I will write as long as what I think is appropriate stands appropriate.

Regards
Hasala Perera