Sandarenu's Blog

I added few new features to my blog. I changed my label section in to Tag Cloud. This was a feature I wanted to add to my blog for some time. I finally managed to find a method to do that. I had to modify my template for that. I found the code and the instruction to do it in phydeaux3 blog. He has given all the instructions on how to do it. I just copied and pasted the code.....
Here's the result, Nice ha...
Other new feature I added was showing related post user go to a specific post in my blog. Related items are taken according to the tags given to that post. You can find the method to do it from Hoctro's blog.

Try these hacks and enjoy......

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• Blogger Hacks
• Programming


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For last 6 months I was working as an intern at Navantis IT (Pvt.) Rajagiriya, Sri Lanka. My internship ended last Thursday (22nd Feb). It was very exciting and challenging time period. It is at Navantis that I learned what is actually being a software developer means. At the university we learn lot of theory; in last 6 month I learned how those theories are actually used in the industry. I learned a lot about .Net, ASP web application development and MSSQL 2005 during my internship.
When I first came here I had considerable knowledge about .Net and ASP, but I was mainly using the nice GUI of VS2005 to do all the designs. But the project I was put in to at Navantis required to all the web controls as Custom server controls. We have to cut code for every thing, No drag and drops... At the beginning it was difficult but after creating few custom controls it became much easier. Because of that I learned a lot about C# and .Net controls.
We had a excellent team at Navantis. Everybody was very friendly and helpful. I have to thank everyone at Navantis for all support given. Our next semester (Level3 Semester2) is gong to be staring in mid April, that’s two more months. Till then I'm doing part time at Navantis, 3 days per week. I'm planning to spend other time on Patrick’s Project. And I have to prepare a report about our internship as well.
So I guess there won't be any spare time to relax.

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ViewState is one of the 3 way that used by ASP2.0 to retain state information about the web page. ViewState allows the state of objects (serializable) to be stored in a hidden field on the page. It is transported to the client and back to the server, and is not stored on the server or any other external source. I’m not going to go deep in to what is ViewState or how to use it. You can find more about ViewState here>>.

Since ViewState is kept in the webpage itself, it can become a performance bottleneck. If the ViewState is too large then the roundtrip delay for postback can increase significantly, especially if the user is having slow internet link. So it would be wonderful if we can find out the size of the ViewState during the testing phase of the application. So we can get relevant actions to improve the performance.

To do that create a class (I named it as MainPageBase) class that all the other pages in the application need to inherit. The code for the class is as shown below.

public class EmsBasePage : System.Web.UI.Page
{
/// <summary>
/// Get the page name of the current page.
/// </summary>
/// <returns></returns>
private string GetCurrentPageName()
{
string path = System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Request.Url.AbsolutePath;
if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(path))
{
System.IO.FileInfo oInfo = new System.IO.FileInfo(path);
string name = oInfo.Name;
return name;
}
else
{
return "";
}
}

protected override void SavePageStateToPersistenceMedium(object state)
{
int viewStateSize = 0;
base.SavePageStateToPersistenceMedium(state);
LosFormatter format = new LosFormatter();
StringWriter writer = new StringWriter();
format.Serialize(writer, state);
viewStateSize = writer.ToString().Length;
string pageName = GetCurrentPageName();
HttpContext.Current.Trace.Warn(pageName + ": The ViewState Size is:", viewStateSize.ToString());
}
}

It writes the size of the ViewState to the Trace. To view the Trace you have to enable it first. To do that adds following line of code within the section in the web.config file.

<trace enabled="true" pageOutput="false" requestLimit="40" localOnly="false"/>

That’s all. Compile the code and do the testing of your application. Finally to view the results of what we did open the Trace viewer(Trace.axd page). For example http://yourApplicationroot/Trace.axd.

• Labels:
• ASP
• C#
• Programming


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SyncMyCal is a simple plug in to MS Outlook which allows you to synchronize your Google calendar and Outlook calendar. Using this tool you can keep both your calendar up to date.

Key Features

• Two-way calendar synchronization – Outlook to Google and Google to Outlook
• Selective event synchronization through date range selection
• Flexibility of publishing/not publishing private events information in Outlook Calendar to Google Calendar
• Multiple Google Calendars can be connected to single Outlook Calendar and vice versa
• Works with Outlook 2007
  

It has two versions SyncMyCal Lite and Pro. Lite version is free and it has all the features to get things done except Auto Sync and Synchronization Date Range Selection.
Download SyncMyCal here >>

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• Google
• Microsoft
• Utilities


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Have you ever wanted to view every detail about your computer using a single program? Then SIW (System Information for Windows) is the solution you are looking for. Using SIW you can view lot of information about your computer, which previously needed to run different tools included in Windows.

You'll get information about the operating system and the installed patches, the software licenses, drivers, Windows services, codecs, open files, saved passwords, hardware information (motherboard, CPU, memory, video card, ports) and some useful tools (like Eureka, that reveals passwords from some applications).

Cool thing about SIW is that it doesn't require setup, so you can copy it to your USB drive and use it where ever you need. You can export all the data in different formats (CSV, HTML, TXT or XML), and use the program from the command-line.
You can run SIW on almost all windows platforms (Microsoft Windows 98/Me/NT4/2000/XP/Server 2003/Media Center/Tablet PC/Windows 2003 Server R2/Windows Server 2003 x64/Windows XP x64/Windows Vista).

• Labels:
• Utilities


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• "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction."
• "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
• "Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love."
• "I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details."
• "The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax."
• "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
• "The only real valuable thing is intuition."
• "A person starts to live when he can live outside himself."
• "I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice."
• "God is subtle but he is not malicious."
• "Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character."
• "I never think of the future. It comes soon enough."
• "The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility."
• "Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing."
• "Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."
• "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."
• "Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds."
• "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
• "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."
• "Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it."
• "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
• "The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education."
• "God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically."
• "The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking."
• "Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal."
• "Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding."
• "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible."
• "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
• "Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school."
• "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing."
• "Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater."
• "Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the present, but an equation is something for eternity."
• "If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut."
• "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."
• "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."
• "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."
• "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
• "In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep."
• "The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead."
• "Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves."
• "Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!"
• "No, this trick won't work...How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?"
• "My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind."
• "Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever."
• "The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker."
• "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
• "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."
• "A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeeded be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
• "The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."
• "Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."
• "You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."
• "One had to cram all this stuff into one's mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year."
• "...one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought."
• "He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."
• "A human being is a part of a whole, called by us _universe_, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
• "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." (Sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton)

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Last weekend I participated for the first faculty trip organized by our faculty in it's short 5 year history. Well it was a historical moment where more than 150 students participated for the trip from 4 batches. 3 university buses were used for the trip. According to the trip plan we were suppose to visit Knuckles mountain range and Wasgamuwa National Park. Nearly 20 students from my batch(Batch4) participated the trip.


But unfortunately because of the heavy rain we couldn’t visit some places that we planned, heavy rain foiled every thing. We were planning to have a mountain hiking at Knuckles and visit tow beautiful waterfalls.
Road to Knuckles mountain park is very difficult. Specially with large university buses. It was very difficult to drive on that road. In one place one of the buses get stuck in a bend.


On that day we were able to visit "Pitawala Pathana", a high plain and "Punchi Lokanthaya", small Worlds End. Both were covered by heavy mist, we couldn’t see more than few feet. So obviously we couldn’t see any thing at "Punchi Lokanthatya".





Next day (Saturday), as it was on Friday heavy rain foiled every thing. We have to cancel mountain hiking at Knuckels and we continue our trip to Wasgamuwa national park. We were able see quite a few wild life there. Peacock, verities of cranes, Dears, Foxes, monkeys and an Elephant. Near Mahaweli river we were caught in heavy rain again.


Finally we went to visit "Sorabora Wewa", master peice of anciant Sri Lankan irrigation technology. We spent nearly 1 1/2 hours at "Sorabora Wewa".
Then It was time to go home. Return trip took very long time. So when I came home it was around 4am in the morning.
This trip was not as fun as our Batch trip to Sinharaja. But any way we all had a very good time together. And it was a very good occasion to get away from the office life.

More Photos >>

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LearnVisualStudio.net is a great site which provides thousands of videos on how to program in .Net. But you have to get subscribed to get access to their full set of videos. But occasionally they release free videos as well. You can get information about these free videos through email by subscribing. These are few free videos I received that way.

1) Designing Relational Database Tables
Why are relational databases the most popular? Differentiate between primary and foreign keys. Design relational database tables and learn about normalization rules and de-normalization.
Download This Free Video

2) Understanding Security and Network Connectivity
Differentiate between database files and SQL Server processes. Explore scenarios for connecting to SQL Server Express databases, enabling and disabling user instances, login permissions, and other security precautions.
Download This Free Video

3) Introduction to Anonymous Delegates
After reviewing How to Create and Use Regular Delegates, this video explains the concept of creating anonymous delegates, when to use them and when not to, and explains the concept of closure for retrieving the state and scope of the anonymous delegate at instantiation for use upon its invocation. (Anonymous delegates are not available in Visual Basic 8.x or earlier.)
Download This Free Video

4) Introduction to Generics
Generics allow you to create flexible data structures that are strongly typed. This video compares the System.Collections.ArrayList class versus its generic replacement, the System.Collections.Generic.List, explaining exactly why generics are the prefered way to add stability to your collections by catching situations where objects of the wrong type are being added to your collections at compile time.
Download This Free Video

5) Understanding Web Application State
In this lesson, you will see how to maintain state in your ASP.NET 2.0 applications.
Not familiar with the term “state” as it’s used in web jargon?
Basically, the web is inherently a stateless environment … each “page” of a web site is independent. The trick is passing along certain information between each individual visit to a web page for a given user.
ASP.NET 2.0 has several different ways to accomplish this. In about 35 minutes we demonstrate and explain the major ASP.NET classes and various techniques you can use to provide your users a rich web-based experience.
Download C# Version
Download VB.NET Version

6) Debugging and Tracing your Website
In this lesson, you will learn how to debug and monitor your ASP.NET 2.0 Web applications.
Fortunately, Microsoft has made it easy to step through each line of code to observe how it's executing to ferret out difficult-to-find bugs. Skills you've developed in writing Windows applications will definitely help, but there are some more tricks and tips that you can use with live applications (i.e., web applications that you've already deployed).
We'll show you almost everything you'll need to know about debugging and monitoring the execution of your app in less than 30 minutes!
Download C# Version
Download VB.NET Version

7) How to use the BackgroundWorker Control
This video comes from the Windows Forms Controls 2005 Series. This video demonstrates how to use the new BackgroundWorker Control to easily create a multi-threaded application. (Works with all versions of Visual Studio 2005, including the Express Editions)
Download C# Version
Download VB.NET Version

8) Securing your ASP.NET 2.0 Web Site with Membership and Login Controls
Your next free tutorial comes from our "Getting Started with Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition" series. In this video you discover the new membership capabilities of ASP.NET 2.0. In addition, you will learn about role-based security, and how you can use roles to control access to your web site.
Download C# Version
Download VB.NET Version

• Labels:
• Microsoft


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Few days back I received this email from one of my friends….
I thought to put it in my blog in respect to all the heroes of Army, Navy, Air Force and Police who sacrifices their lives to build us a peaceful Sri Lanka…

Take a minute to think on this please...

Your alarm goes off, you hit the snooze and sleep for another 10 minutes.
He stays up for days on end.

You take a warm shower to help you wake up.
He goes days or weeks without running water.

You complain of a "headache", and call in sick.
He gets shot at as others are hit, and keeps moving forward.

You put on your anti war/don't support the troops shirt, and go meet up with your friends.
He still fights for your right to wear that shirt.

You make sure you're cell phone is in your pocket.
He clutches the cross hanging on his chain next to his dog-tags.

You talk trash about your "buddies" that aren't with you.
He knows he may not see some of his buddies again.

You walk down the beach, staring at all the pretty girls.
He walks the streets, searching for insurgents and terrorists.

You complain about how hot it is.
He wears his heavy gear, not daring to take off his helmet to wipe his brow.

You go out to lunch, and complain because the restaurant got your order wrong.
He doesn't get to eat today.

Your wife/mother/maid makes your bed and washes your clothes.
He wears the same things for weeks, but makes sure his weapons are clean.

You go to the mall and get your hair redone.
He doesn't have time to brush his teeth today.

You're angry because your class ran 5 minutes over.
He's told he will be held over an extra 2 months.

You call your girlfriend and set a date for tonight.
He waits for the mail to see if there is a letter from home.

You hug and kiss your girlfriend, like you do everyday.
He holds his letter close and smells his love's perfume.

You roll your eyes as a baby cries.
He gets a letter with pictures of his new child, and wonders if they'll ever meet

You criticize your government, and say that war never solves anything...
He sees the innocent tortured and killed by terrorists and remembers why he is fighting.

You hear the jokes about the war, and make fun of men like him.
He hears the gunfire, bombs and screams of the wounded - and of the innocents who have no one to stand up for them.

You see only what the media wants you to see.
He sees the broken bodies lying around him.

You are asked to go to the store by your parents. ... And You don't.
He does exactly what he is told.

You stay at home and watch TV.
He takes whatever time he is given to call, write home, sleep, and eat.

You crawl into your soft bed, with down pillows, and get comfortable.
He crawls under a tank for shade and a 5 minute nap, only to be awakened by gunfire.

You sit here and judge him, saying the world is probably a worse place because of men like him.
If only there were more men like him!

WHO is HE?

If you support him , then please send this to everyone you know...
Perhaps people will change their attitude and behavior to support HIS worthy cause...
HE is sacrificing his today for our future Sri Lanka!!!


In dedication of the true Valiant Sri Lankan Men and Women in the Army, Air Force, Navy and Police!

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• Personal


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Have you ever walked into a room and wondered why you are there? Have you ever faced someone you've known for years and couldn't remember his/her name? I don't know about you, but these things do happen to me sometimes.

Today while I was surfing the Internet I came across a very good article about how to keep our brain alive and active.
The article I read points out few things that we have to do in order to healthy brain;

• Run Up Your Brain Cells
• Exercise Your Mind
• Ask Why
• Laugh
• Be A Fish Head
• Remember
• Cut The Fat
• Do A Puzzle
• The Mozart Effect
• Improve Your Skill At Things You Already Do
• Be A Thinker, Not A Drinker
• Play
• Sleep On It
• Concentration
• Make Love For Your Brain
• Play With Passion!
• Cycles Of Consciousness
• Learn Something New
• Write To Be Read
• Try Aroma Therapy To Activate Your Brain
• Drugs To Increase Brainpower
• Build A Brain Trust.

You have probably heard that we use only a fraction of our brain's capacity. By practicing at least few of those methods we may be able to increase the percentage we are using.
Read the complete article 22 Ways To Overclock Your Brain...

• Labels:
• Productivity


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With new Google tool bar you can easily create custom buttons. Creating buttons is very easy, you just have to create a

simple XML file. Most common use of the custom button is to view the RSS feeds of a site. Here is how to do it;

• Create an XML file called yourname.xml
• In that file use the following template
  

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<custombuttons xmlns="http://toolbar.google.com/custombuttons/">
<button>
<title>Name of Button</title>
<description>
What that button does or what the site is about.
</description>
<site>URL of tool or homepage </site>
<feed refresh-interval="900" refresh-onclick="true">feed location</feed>
<icon mode="base64" type="image/x-icon">base 64 version of your icon - not needed but it looks nice to use.
</icon>
</button>
</custombuttons>

The feed refresh # is in seconds, and the refresh onclick ensures you have the most recent version of that feed when you click it.
you can also have a icon in you custom button. To add an icon you have to have it on base64 mode.
Find small 16x16 icon.
You can find thousands of small png, jpeg pictures from famfamfam.com
Convert selected png,jpeg file into *.ico using this site.
Convert your *.ico file in to base64 form using this online tool.
Copy and paste the base64 text for the icon within <icon> </icon> tag.

That's it... Now you have the XML file for the custom button. Next you have to install it to the tool bar. To do that replace the file path of the following URL with the actual path where you have saved the file, and copy and paste it in FF address bar and hit enter.
http://toolbar.google.com/buttons/add?url=file:///<File Path>
eg: http://toolbar.google.com/buttons/add?url=file:///D:\Temp\Custom Buttons\SandarenuBlog.xml





After installing the button you will be able to see it in the tool bar.

I've created a simple button to get RSS feed of my blog. Using it you can see the updates of my blog in a single click. You can try it here.

See Google Custom button API for more details.

• Labels:
• Google
• Utilities


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Everyday we send number of emails to our friends, colleagues, lectures, etc.... Little details that we left out or inadvertently included can suggest that we are lazy, incompetent, inattentive, mistrustful, or unprofessional. Today, while I'm surfing the net I came across an interesting article by Paul Glen which gives some important points that we have to consider when sending a email. Those are;

1. Spelling.
2. Grammar.
3. Signature Block.
4. Subject Line.
5. Format.
6. Length.
7. Urgent Indicator.
8. Bandwidth Usage.
9. Delivery Receipt.

Read the complete article.
So before clicking the Send button there are lots of things to be checked.

• Labels:
• Productivity


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Microsoft has created a comic story to teach the users the importance of Office 2007. It tries to convince the user the importance of Ribbons in the new Office interface and how it can improve the productivity in the office. It is titles as "The Enchanted Office: Once Upon a User Interface," and goes around the character of Madeline a CEO of a company.


To view the comic click here.

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• Microsoft


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I previously posted about how to add Sri Lankan holiday list to MS Outlook. After that I though how wonderful would it be if I can add those holidays to my Google calendar.
So I did exactly that. Itwas not that difficult. I exported my Outlook holiday calendar to iCal file and import it from Google calendar. I made my holiday calendar public so you also can add it to you google calendar.

Click on the button to add the Holiday Calendar to your google calendar.

• Labels:
• Google
• Time Management


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This is a simple method that enables you to add Sri Lankan holiday list to MS Outlook holidays. I first saw this at Meril’s blog. It only had information to add the holiday list to Outlook. But it is possible to add the same list multiple time creating duplicates. (It personally happened to me) After Googling, managed to find a method to remove those duplicates. I’m including that in this post as well.

– – – – – – – – – Start Copy – – – – – – – – –

[Sri Lanka] 26
Duruthu Full Moon Poya Day(BPM),2007/1/3
Tamil Thai Pongal Day(BPM),2007/1/15
Navam Full Moon Poya Day(BPM),2007/2/1
National Day(BPM),2007/2/4
Mahasivarathri Day(BP),2007/2/16
Medin Full Moon Poya Day(BPM),2007/3/3
Milad-Un-Nabi (Holy Prophet’s Birthday)(BPM),2007/4/1
Bak Full Moon Poya Day(BPM),2007/4/2
Good Friday(BP),2007/4/6
Day Prior to Sinhala & Tamil New Year Day(BPM),2007/4/13
Sinhala & Tamil New Year Day(BPM),2007/4/14
May Day(BPM),2007/5/1
Vesak Full Moon Poya Day(BPM),2007/5/1
Day following Vesak Full Moon Poya Day(BPM),2007/5/2
Adhi Poson Full Moon Poya Day(BPM),2007/5/31
Poson Full Moon Poya Day(BPM),2007/6/30
Esala Full Moon Poya Day(BPM),2007/7/29
Nikini Full Moon Poya Day(BPM),2007/8/28
Binara Full Moon Poya Day(BPM),2007/9/26
Id-Ul-Fitr (Ramazan Festival Day)(BP),2007/10/13
Vap Full Moon Poya Day(BPM),2007/10/25
Deepavali Festival Day(BP),2007/11/8
Il Full Moon Poya Day(BPM),2007/11/24
Id-Ul-Alha (Hadji Festival Day)(BP),2007/12/21
Unduvap Full Moon Poya Day(BPM),2007/12/23
Christmas Day(BPM),2007/12/25

– – – – – – End Copy – – – – – – –

Update the current holiday file

• Exit Outlook if it is running.
• In Microsoft Windows Explorer, locate the following file:
  C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\1033\Outlook.hol
• Open the file using notepad.
• 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

• Start Outlook.
• On the Tools menu, click Options.
• On the Preferences tab, under Calendar, click Calendar Options.
• In the Calendar Options dialog box, under Calendar options, click Add Holidays.
• Select the check box for your customized set of events and holidays, and then click OK. For this example, select the box labeled Sri Lanka.

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.

In case if you accidentally clicked Yes here is how to remove duplicate holidays.

• Choose View | Arrange By | Current View | Events
• Right-click any column heading, then choose Field Chooser.
• In the Field Chooser, switch from the Frequently-used fields list to Date/Time fields, and then drag the Created date to the view to add it to the fields displayed.
• Click on the Created column header to sort by that field.
• You should now see two distinct sets of holidays, each in reverse chronological order. Click on the first holiday of the set you want to delete.
• Use the scroll bar to view the last holiday of that set. Hold down the Shift key as you click on the last holiday. This selects all the holidays in that set.
• Press Delete to remove them all from the Calendar folder.
• Drag the Created column header out of the view to remove it.

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• Microsoft
• Time Management


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Did you check out the new feature in Gmail that enable us to fetch mails from up to 5 different pop3 servers. You will find the mail fetcher in Settings / Accounts. With 3 easy steps you can view mails from your other mail accounts using Gmail itself. I just added my other mail accounts to gmail. This is really cool... Now I can use Gmail as universal mail account where I can access all my mail accounts form one place. It's really fast as well. But I read that this feature is not yet available for all the gmail accounts. Don't be late, check out your Gmail settings now...

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With another year is coming to an end, I thought to do a brief recap of this year’s activities.

Wow… It has been a wonderful year for me. So far 2006 has been one of the best years in my life. I gained tons of experiences and knowledge this year that will help me to gain success through out my life.

I started blogging on March with a very small welcome note . And also March was a great month since our proposal for the Imagine Cup 2006 Software Design local competition was selected for last five. So begin the hard working time. But all that hard work and countless sleepless nights finally paid off when we won the IC local competition on May 31st. It was one of the happiest days in my life. I had to do a 10 min presentation about our system in front of nearly 300 people. My first presentation of that kind. Participating and wining Imagine Cup was the greatest thing happened to me in last year.

In June I participated for our 2^nd batch trip. Two day trip to Sinharaja world heritage rain forest. Most remembered thing in that trip was that I slipped off form a rock, when we went to see a beautiful waterfall on the way to Siharaja and wounded my right small finger. I still have a mark in my finger to remember that wonderful trip.

July and August was very busy months. I had to participate for lectures and parallely prepare for IC world final in Agra India. And also had cover lot of subject matters that I missed during the preparation for the IC local competition. So I couldn’t post a single blog entry during that time. To make the things worse we had 5th year anniversary at FIT . We had number of events to celebrate our 5^th year anniversary including multi religious ceremony, an IT exhibition and a cricket tournament. We exhibit our IC winning project Panchayudha at the exhibition. It was a huge success with lots of good comments from the public.

We fly to India on August 5^th to participate for Imagine Cup world finals. It was another great thing happened to me this year. Even though we couldn’t make it to the 2^nd round it was a great experience to interact with all those great young guys and girls from all over the world. During that short week I managed to learn a lot and got the chance to visit great Indian historical sites like Taj Mahal, Agra Fort and managed to get a glimpse of the Indian life style and people.

Fun ended soon after we landed in Colombo…. I had to prepare for the Level3 Semester1 exam which was going to start on just 3 days. It was a very very busy time period. It was not easy to study six subjects in just a few days (Big lesson I learned). But given the circumstances I think I have done the exam well, even though this was the worse exam for me up to this date.

New chapter of my life opened up soon after the exams, Internship period at Navantis SL. This was a long waited thing for me. I always wanted to see what exactly happens in the industry. I’m still at Navantis undergoing my training. It was bit difficult at the beginning to catch up with the work, but after few days I got into the track. Life remained same ever since. Going to office in the morning and coming home in the evening. I understood that working is quite different from the university life some times it’s very boring, doing same thing over and over again.

After months of delays and tons of problems we started the implementation of the Financial Planning System for Mr.Pattrick . Our very short experience in internship helps a lot for it. With it more work come to my shoulders. After I come home around 8pm I had to start working on Pattrick project, I usually do that work from 9.30 to 11.30. It’s not easy, but what to do… If you promise for some thing you have to do it. And all weekend were spent on project meetings and implementation.

Few weeks back I did my first technical session for our super joiner batch on Introduction to .Net and Programming with C#. I was a wonderful experience to share knowledge with others.

When I look back my year’s activities I think this was a successful year for me with lots of excitements and achievement. I really think that I’ve laid a good foundation to my future in this year. Lot of lessons learned, experiences gained… And I thank every body who help me to spend a wonderful year. I’m looking forward to welcome year 2007. Hope it also will be a year of success…

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We Navantis team in colombo today enjoyed a "Orange day". It was just a fun event where all the people come to work wearing orange color dresses. It was wonderful sell most of the guys and gals wearing orange today. Most of the girls had wear orange dresses but unfortunately only handful guys came to work in orange. This was the first of it's kind at Navantis. So It was a big success for the first try. May be in next time we'll see more orange dresses; hopefully.


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Time management is one of those skills no one teaches you in school but you have to learn. It doesn’t matter how smart you are if you can’t organize information well enough to take it in. And it doesn’t matter how skilled you are if procrastination keeps you from getting your work done.
Penelope Trunk, a columnist at the Boston Globe, summarizes some great tips that coming from the blogosphere. She lists ten important tips to get a better handle for your work and focus to achieve productivity:

• Don’t leave email sitting in your in box.
• Admit multitasking is bad.
• Do the most important thing first.
• Check your email on a schedule.
• Keep web site addresses organized.
• Know when you work best.
• Think about keystrokes.
• Make it easy to get started.
• Organize your to-do list every day.
• Dare to be slow.

Read 10 tips for time management in a multitasking world for more details...

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