S u m u d u P e r e r a

Vacancies @ Kandysoft New Zealand

2007-07-24T23:28:00.000-07:00

http://www.kandysoftglobal.com/careers.htm

Check Out Rubber Ducky System Monitor

2007-07-06T03:06:00.000-07:00

It's a little aquarium that sits right above the system tray and displays contents representing the system state. For example, the water level indicates how much memory is being used. If the rubber ducky in the aquarium is drowning, your system has insufficient free memory. It has many other cute indicators, like bubbles for CPU and fish for network activity.

It's a very small download and yours to keep free, for as long as you like. Don't worry - it doesn't have any spyware or adware in it either. Just good old freeware.

Thanks buddhima for sending this link.

Click here to try it:
http://www.mimarsinan.com/rubberducky.asp

Life is hard

2007-07-06T00:59:00.000-07:00

I being kept away from my usual bloging, since last few months are very hectic and tried with my office work and besides looking for rent a place somewhere close to my mother in laws house to move out from my in laws place with our new family member to have better life.

So we thought my mother in law would come and stay with us to look after my son since both of us (me and wife) are working. Unfortunately it was not an easy task for everybody, though I found a place my mother in law did not accept it, and then we agreed to stay there for my son’s safety and etc.

But still we are sort of worried to leave my son alone with in laws even though their taking good care of my son.

Conversations on .NET

2007-03-14T02:09:00.000-07:00

This is very intersting series of conversations with Microsoft engineers, designers, and developers, looking at issues involving C#, ASP.NET, and the Common Language Runtime - source form msdn

A Conversation with Anders Hejlsberg and Peter Golde on C#

Anders Hejlsberg is a Distinguished Engineer in the Developer Division at Microsoft Corporation. He is the chief designer of the C# programming language and a key participant in the development of the .NET Framework. Previously, Anders was the architect for Visual J++ and the Windows Foundation Classes.

Peter Golde is a Software Design Engineer in the Developer Division at Microsoft Corporation. Peter has worked on development tools at Microsoft for over 10 years, contributing to products such as Microsoft C, OLE Automation, Visual Basic, Visual Basic for Applications, and Visual J++.

Q: Peter, you attended the ECMA meetings in March. Can you disclose anything about what's going on there that is new?

Peter Golde: Sure. As some of you may know, Microsoft, Intel, and HP jointly submitted two specifications to ECMA for standardization via the ECMA process. These two specifications are the C# language and the common language infrastructure (CLI), which is a subset of the .NET Framework. We're meeting with a number of companies every month as part of the standardization process. It's difficult to predict the schedule with absolute certainty, but we hope that ECMA will be able to complete standards for both parts by the end of 2001.

Q: How does the CLI compare to the CLS and the CTS?

Anders Hejlsberg: CLS stands for Common Language Specification, CTS stands for Common Type System. The CLS is a specification of what features any programming language implemented on the .NET platform must support.

Q: OK, the CLS is less than the CTS. Where does the CLI fit?

Anders Hejlsberg: The CTS is basically another word for the type system in .NET, i.e. a specification of what a class, struct, enum, or such is. CLI is really just another word for the large subset of the .NET Framework that we submitted to ECMA.

Peter Golde: The CLI includes the CLS and the CTS.

Q: Anders, after your work on Turbo Pascal, Delphi, Visual J++ and now C#, how do you see programming languages evolving today?

Anders Hejlsberg: Jeeez, had to ask an easy one, eh? I guess I'm becoming less and less of a believer in revolutionary approaches to language design. It really is amazing how much the capabilities of computing have evolved, yet we're basically still using the same kinds of programming languages. It gives me hope that we can go even further with an evolutionary approach where we don't just invalidate all the work that went before.

Q: Have you thought much about moving toward an intentional programming model?

Anders Hejlsberg: Can't say that we have. As I see it, one of the problems of intentional programming is that you're basically creating a new programming language for every domain specific application. I really am more of a believer in having a core set of abstractions (such as classes, methods, properties, and events) and then applying them in each domain—but in a way that preserves familiarity.

Q: Customers looking at the .NET Framework for their application development efforts have asked whether or not the common language runtime (CLR) is a virtual machine (VM), and if so, what limitations or penalties associated with VMs (performance and so forth) will folks need to consider in their efforts?

Peter Golde: Yes, I think that the CLR can be considered in the broad class of things that one might call a VM. As to performance, though, I don't think that this classification says much of anything interesting about performance. You should judge performance by measuring performance on the applications that you are interested in. Don't try to prejudge performance based on your preconceptions about what will and won't be slow—just test it!

Q: Peter, are there any kind of applications that you would explicitly not build on the CLR due to issues with running managed versus unmanaged code?

Peter Golde: In terms of what applications I wouldn't write, I would say that "hard real-time" kinds of programs probably wouldn't be a good fit (at least right now), because we don't make very strong guarantees about the garbage collector, things like robot control and the like. There are real-time friendly garbage collection algorithms, so I don't think this would be a limitation forever.

Q: Can you discuss any advantages C# would have over Visual Basic (VB) in terms of the framework?

Anders Hejlsberg: Regarding C# vs. Visual Basic, it really primarily comes down to what you already know and are comfortable with. It used to be that there was a large perf difference between VB and C++, but since C# and VB.NET use the same execution engine, you really should expect the same perf. C# may have a few more "power" features (such as unsafe code), and VB.NET may be skewed a bit more towards ease of use (e.g. late bound methods calls), but the differences are very small compared to what they were in the past.

Q: Ok, can you contrast C# with VB.NET? Questions usually come in the form of "I know you guys say VB.NET and C# let you do the same thing, but C# was designed for the CLR, so I don't believe you when you say VB.NET is just as good."

Anders Hejlsberg: Regarding C# versus VB.NET, the reality is that programmers typically have experience with either C++ or VB, and that makes either C# or VB.NET a natural choice for them. The already existing experience of a programmer far outweighs the small differences between the two languages.

Q: It has been said a few times that C# is the language designed for the CLR. Considering that all the languages that Microsoft will ship with the VS.NET will be able to target all the features of the CLR, what makes C# more CLR "friendly" than the other?

Peter Golde: I don't think that C# is necessarily any more friendly to the CLR than other languages. The CLR has been designed to be accessible via multiple languages. However, you will probably find that C# is more strongly focused on the CLR than other languages like C++, which have a number of other facilities that are less oriented toward the CLR. By designing C# in conjunction with the CLR, we have the "luxury" of not having backwards compatibility constraints.

Q: Is there any difference between the DEFAULT Equals function (implemented in Object) and the =?

Anders Hejlsberg: For two reference types (classes), the default Equals() method is the same as ==. But for value types (structs), there is no == operator unless you provide an implementation in the value type.

Q: Is Lock (this) similar to the synchronize key word in Java?

Peter Golde: Yes, lock (<expression>) is extremely similar to synchronized (<expression>) in Java. We don't support the notion of a modifier on methods, because our experience is that it leads to deadlock or poor performance in too many cases.

Q: We mostly want the COM+ benefits of memory caching, independent process space, etc.; we don't need to worry about database transactions. Is this a valid reason to place CLR components into COM+, or is it better to just let the CLR handle it?

Anders Hejlsberg: I would look at .NET Application Domains and not use COM+ in that case.

Q: Can you elaborate on .NET Application Domains?

Anders Hejlsberg: Sure. An Application Domain is sort of like a light-weight process. Two application domains will share the same GC heap, but the CLR provides automatic and transparent marshalling between the application domains. It allows you to protect light-weight processes from each other without taking the fairly large overhead of an OS process.

Q: Is the Application Domain a similar concept to the Java Package?

Anders Hejlsberg: No, a Java Package is a different thing. The closest analogy in .NET is an assembly.

Q: What are the plans to allow C# code to run on a PocketPC?

Peter Golde: We've announced that we'll have a ".NET Compact Framework" that will be optimized for portable devices. Obviously there are limitations in terms of the scope of the class library, memory limitations, and so forth compared to the desktop or server. I should add that one of the focuses of the ECMA standardization work is to standardize a library framework that is appropriate in size and scale for portable devices. There is obviously a large amount of interest in this from many companies.

A Conversation with Mark Anders and Scott Guthrie on ASP.NET

Scott Guthrie co-founded the ASP.NET Team and leads the design team responsible for architecting the product. His individual technical contributions include: ASP.NET Web Forms Page Architecture, ASP.NET Web Services Infrastructure, ASP.NET Compilation System, ASP.NET Distributed Session State Infrastructure, ASP.NET Deployment Architecture, ASP.NET Reliability System, and the ASP.NET HTTP Runtime Architecture. Prior to ASP.NET, Scott was a member of the IIS and Windows NT teams.

As the Microsoft Product Unit Manager of the .NET Framework, Mark Anders leads the team that designs and develops the .NET Framework, including ASP.NET, Windows Forms, Base Class Libraries, and other class libraries. Prior to this, he co-founded the ASP.NET team and held lead positions in program management as well as development.

Q: Scott, Mark, if you had to pick one thing, what do you think is the single coolest developer feature of ASP.NET?

Mark Anders: Well, I'll tell you the feature that gets the most applause: it's tracing! Seriously, it's almost a spontaneous standing ovation. One guy who I showed it to said that it was "the coolest thing I've ever seen." (Note, I wouldn't go that far!) Actually, my favorite feature is server controls.

Scott Guthrie: I think the partial page output caching feature that we are going to ship in Beta2 is probably the coolest developer feature, because it can dramatically impact the performance of literally any site. The xcopy deployment features (no restart on DLL updates) we have I think also are pretty close.

Q: Tracing is a great feature. One of the questions we get a lot: is there any penalty for having all the tracing code but turning it off when going into production?

Scott Guthrie: There shouldn't be any noticeable performance difference when tracing is turned off (but code left in). One thing to keep in mind, though, is that if you have expensive "trace calculations" that you output as part of tracing, then you should scope it within an "if (Trace.Enabled = True) Then" block. When tracing is turned off, "Trace.Enabled" will return false

Mark Anders: Note that we don't gather all of the statistics if trace==false.

Q: Could you discuss the security of the config files. I have seen a lot of concern that since they are simple XML files, they can be hacked into easily.

Scott Guthrie: We do block all access to the config files from remote users. However, I think the concern people have is whether a rogue user who gets access to the config file can modify and take over things. Note that this problem exists with ASP today as well, in that the metabase APIs can be written to, which would effectively do the same thing. However, there are some things that you can do to reduce this problem. Specifically, with ASP.NET we support the ability to "lock down" settings at a parent directory. For example, you might want to lock down the security identity of the worker process (i.e.: the username it runs under) at the machine level and then restrict sub-applications' abilities to override it.

Q: I see confusion as to whether to mimic the Windows DNA model by creating ASP Presentation interfaces talking to COM+ components, or in the .NET era to just write code behind and stick Dynamic Link Libraries (DLLs) in the \BIN and be done with it.

Mark Anders: I would say that services provided by COM+ are still required if you want transactions. However, the model of using DCOM to put components on another box and scale out that way is not recommended.

Scott Guthrie: In general I would recommend continuing to logically partition your application code (which was one of the things Windows DNA suggested). For example, putting all of your data access logic within modular classes that you then call them from pages—like we do from the IBuySpy applications. ...In general, you shouldn't use COM+ transactions unless you are actually doing distributed transactions across multiple data store machines. If you are just updating a single database, then leverage the transaction capabilities within it.

Q: What if you are planning on using remoting to communicate between our first and middle tiers, and you've only gotten C# working? Are there any known issues today with using remoting to communicate from ASP to Visual Basic (VB)?

Scott Guthrie: There shouldn't be any problems doing remoting from VB (like C#), although you should be a little careful about how to use remoting. In many cases it is best not to do the extra network hop. There is a big performance penalty to going to the other machine, so you shouldn't look to do it for either performance or scalability reasons. It does make sense if you are connecting to a different application or data center, where for org/technical or political reasons you need code to run elsewhere.

Q: What if you want to use it to communicate from Web servers that are hosted at an outsourcer across a firewall back to the network where the databases are? For security reasons, we won't put the database out in the DMZ.

Scott Guthrie: One other possible solution you might also investigate for that would be to leverage ISA (Internet Security and Acceleration) server, where you would put ISA in front of the firewall, and then ASP.NET and the database behind it. We actually just finished doing some benchmarking numbers with that solution and saw really great results. It is also really easy to set up and administer, and might be easier to ultimately deploy and manage going forward. One nice thing about ISA is that it doesn't require any ASP.NET code changes to leverage it, so it is pretty easy to try out and evaluate.

Q: Could you comment on interoperability (via Session Objects, Query Strings, etc.) between ASP and ASP.NET? Any gotchas?

Mark Anders: There are a few. First, we've made the object models as close as possible. However, if for example you store COM objects (not new CLR objects) in sessions, and you want those to be out of proc, they won't work. You need to have new objects that can be serialized. One thing to note is that ASP and ASP.NET will run side by side on a box, because at an application level ASP and ASP.NET do not share sessions.

Q: I've seen a lot of concern that data can be passed page to page (ASP to and from ASP.NET).

Mark Anders: Since we really use standard Web techniques, passing info page to page should not be a problem. However, page to page in ASP and ASP.NET typically assumes services that are provided by each, such as session and application state. These services are not shared, and so you can't rely on them.

Scott Guthrie: I have a list of things you can do to ease migration of ASP code to ASP.NET.

Use only a single language within the ASP application. Don't intermix VBScript and JScript together in the same page (in general a bad programming practice with ASP, but also a migration issue for ASP.NET in that we now require only one inline <% %> language.
Explicitly declare all of ASP page functions within a <script language="VBScript" runat=server> block as opposed to <% %> blocks. In ASP.NET we no longer support this later function declaration option. It is just a copy/paste change in order to fix I
Explicitly use VBScript's "Option Explicit" keyword at the top of every ASP Page (this will become the default with ASP.NET and will also ensure that you write slightly better code today).
Use the "Call" keyword anytime they call a subroutine in VBScript today (for example: "Call FooBar (1, 2)"). This will enable/require them to wrap parenthesis around all subroutine arguments (if you don't use the "call" keyword, then VBScript today will raise a compilation error if you have parentheses). In VB.NET, parentheses are now required (note that the "call" keyword is still supported in VB.NET). So if they didn't use the "call" keyword, they'd have to go back and change all subroutines.
Avoid relying on "default properties" in VBScript, and instead fully qualify property references: (For example, with an ADO Recordset write: rs("a_name").Value instead of just rs("a_name")). Default properties are no longer supported in VB.NET.
Avoid using "render function" tricks (a specific unintended hack/trick that people can use in ASP but which was never intended as a feature). Instead explicitly use Response. Write blocks when constructing render functions.

Q: Scott, are there any estimates on the time needed to migrate a project from ASP to ASP.NET? I've seen a rough number of 5 percent of the development time to migrate a VB 6 project to VB.NET.

Scott Guthrie: I actually don't have any good time estimates. It's going to depend somewhat. In general, if you follow the ASP coding suggestion I posted above, then I think the porting effort should be pretty minimal (a day or two for even complex apps)

A Conversation with Brian Harry on the Common Language Runtime

Brian Harry is the Product Unit Manager for the Common Language Runtime. He has contributed to the design and features of the CLR from its very beginning, serving first as Development Manager and then as Product Unit Manager. Before the Common Language Runtime, Brian worked on SourceSafe and the Microsoft Repository. He joined Microsoft in 1994.

Q: We have heard a lot about possible support for generics in future versions of the runtime. Can you explain your current thinking about generics, and how they might be used i.e. functional languages, templates etc.?

Brian Harry: We have had an effort in Microsoft Research for over a year to design and implement generics in the Runtime. The research team has, in fact, already implemented generics in both the Runtime and the C# compiler. The product team has reviewed the design and implementation and is generally happy with the approach. It is similar to the implementation we have for arrays. You'll note that arrays are a form of generic (or parameterized type).

Q: Is the CLR for NT4 and Windows 2000 a fully self-contained module for deployment purposes? In other words, does it upgrade IIS on NT4 and supply all the elements needed as a fully self-contained entity?

Brian Harry: No, the CLR does not redistribute many other pieces of the operating system. We will have a set of pre-requirements that will specify the OS service pack, version of IE, etc. There will be a .NET Framework redistributable that is pared down from the SDK by quite a bit.

Q: What is the relationship between the CLR and the CLI that's been submitted to the W3C?

Brian Harry: The CLI is a specification for many of the core designs that the CLR implements. In addition to the CLI specification, the CLR implements many Windows specific features like COM interop, Windows Security Policy, Windows Forms, etc.

Q: Where are we in the ECMA process?

Brian Harry: We are working with the technical committees to refine the specifications for submittal. This is a fairly long process and involves a lot of input and consensus building.

Q: Please explain how Long and Short Weak References work and the usage scenarios for both.

Brian Harry: The differences between long and short weak references are when the object reference inside the weak reference gets nulled out.

Q: So if the reference is held after GC then it is considered long?

Brian Harry: For short references, the contained reference gets nulled out as soon as the object is deemed unreachable. This is ultimately more performant because we remove the reference sooner. Long weak references are nulled after the object has been finalized.

Q: What benchmarks have been run comparing the CLR to native code?

Brian Harry: We have run a large set of benchmarks comparing the CLR to native code and are still measuring and tuning performance. We have broken benchmarks down into a variety of categories, including: Web, rich Windows apps, Benchmarks and micro benchmarks. For Web we have compared mostly to ASP and a bit to JSP. ASP.NET proves to be substantially faster than both in almost every scenario. For rich windows apps we have taken a variety of forms-based apps and have focused on tuning working set and startup time. We have also done a variety of benchmarks like Spec 95, Spec 2000, Bytemark, etc.

Q: There have been a lot of questions about running transactions on the .NET platform. Care to comment?

Brian Harry: We fully support transactions on the .NET platform. We fully support the COM+ Services and have worked hard to make sure that writing CLR components is the best way possible to write software that takes advantage of the COM+ services.

Q: Is there a lot of sample code for leveraging transactions from within .NET code?

Brian Harry: Indeed, there are quite a lot of samples of using all of the COM+ services available. Some are in the SDK and some are on gotdotnet.com

Q: If I utilize COM+ on Windows 2000, will the CLR enable COM+ like functionality on NT4 or will some sort of MTS interop have to occur?

Brian Harry: We have not done anything to move COM+ Services to NT4. MTS is on NT4 and there have not been any recent updates to that code.

Q: Tell me about deployment of the CLR and Whistler—will it be native (in the shrink-wrap)?

Brian Harry: We have been looking at the schedules to decide whether the .NET Framework could ship with Whistler. No decision has been made, so I have nothing to announce.

Q: I am interested in your opinion of distributed transactions (two phase commit) over Web Services?

Brian Harry: My opinion is that you should not, in general be doing DTC style 2 phase commit across Web Services. I am not the expert on this, but Web Services were designed for loosely coupled computing and compensating transactions is a better approach to this style of application. That said, it is possible to build a tightly coupled app over web services, it just wasn't the design point.

Q: So if you need to span a transaction across two Web Services calls, use a compensating transaction on failure?

Brian Harry: Yes, that is my opinion, I'd be interested in what the COM+ Services team has to say about that, but I believe they would agree with me.

Q: Idempotent transactions then?

Brian Harry: I'm not sure what you mean by idempotent transaction. What I mean is a transaction that can be reversed.

Q: Can you talk about features of the CLR that help high volume applications run faster and more stable than our existing platforms? For example, memory allocation appears to be rather streamlined now that GC is in the picture.

Brian Harry: There are several aspects to the .NET Framework that help improve reliability and scalability. Starting with things like the built in thread pool, easy asynchronous programming, the general approach of a stateless server programming model that enables scale out, the ASP.NET process model that enables process recycling, auto restart, etc.

Q: I know that was a pretty generic question. Can you talk a little bit more about the built-in thread pool?

Brian Harry: The CLR has a thread pool that has been heavily optimized to cooperate with the GC and the managed environment. It has a very simple and approachable API but is very powerful. Further we are strongly promoting using the thread pool, especially in server apps rather than spinning up application threads to process work loads. Using the thread pool will result in a much more scalable application

Q: What exactly do you mean by "easy asynchronous programming."

Brian Harry: Easy asynchronous programming. I mean, there is a well-established design pattern, our frameworks expose it where appropriate, we enable many modes: callback, polling, subsequent block for completion, etc. Also, you can use asynchronous delegates to easily turn any API into an asynchronous API.

Q: How is interoperability testing going with the CLR being installed onto a system with many other apps already installed—Office, Visio, etc.?

Brian Harry: At a lower level type safe code helps reduce memory leaks, eliminates dangling pointers and deployment issues, all helping contribute to more reliable applications. We are thoroughly testing internally in every configuration we can imagine. Further, we are doing a VERY wide beta program. Recent data I saw showed that the .NET Framework Beta1 had reached almost 1 million people.

Q: What are the definite "no-no's" for developers writing to the CLR?

Brian Harry: Hmmm, most of the no-no's are the same as always—don't allocate too much memory, don't write n^2 algorithms, etc. The main things that are added, are you need to be careful where your managed/unmanaged boundaries are and how many times you cross them. You also need to be aware of security checks. Too many can kill your perf so you need to design for them.

Q: Can you comment on the CLR on other non-Windows platforms?

Brian Harry: We have a product under development called the .NET Compact Framework targeted at devices and designed to be very portable. We also have submitted the core specs to ECMA and expect to get a lot of cross platform implementations as a result of that.

Q: Are there design considerations for those writing applications to the CLR to make it easy to run on Starlite? I'm thinking architecture of the applications to make it easy to have a CLR version and a read-made Starlite version? "Ready-made" type.

Brian Harry: Yes, the .NET Compact Framework will have a subset of the overall .NET class libraries (in order to keep the size down) but it will also include device specific features (like wireless APIs). You can either write an app that targets .NET compact framework, leveraging the device APIs, or you can write one that targets the intersection with the desktop. I believe the docs will help you identify this intersection.

Q: In reference to string manipulation, it appears that we can no longer directly manipulate the buffer in managed code. For example, string[0] = 'a'. Instead we do something like string.Replace(0, 'a') and get a new string back.

Brian Harry: Yes, the reason for this is that strings are immutable. This makes for a simpler programming model and eliminates problems around synchronization and sharing of strings. In some cases, it allows us to give better performance by avoiding copying strings.

StringBuilder allows you to modify the string in place. A string builder can be converted to a string and then it becomes immutable.

Q: Does this mean if I had a member variable that is a StreamReader, I will need to implement it to be able to call the StreamReader's close method?

Brian Harry: StreamReader—It will depend on how your class is used, but if you are exposing it out to arbitrary clients, then yes you might want to.

Q: Under what conditions do I need to implement Idisposable.

Brian Harry: A class should implement IDisposable if it encapsulates "limited" resources. Examples are: window handles, file handles, database connections, etc. Anything where the user of the resource needs to be able to free itpreemptively.

Q: A related question is why do you really care about resurrection, i.e. getting the object back to life once it has died?

Brian Harry: Actually, I don't care about resurrection; it is a terrible thing in my opinion. It is somewhat of a necessary evil of the notion of Finalizers. We had a plan (which we may bring back in a future version) for something called "static finalizers" that would eliminate the possibility of resurrection.

Q: Is it true that deterministic finalization cannot be achieved because of resurrection, or am I mixing them here?

Brian Harry: No, deterministic finalization has nothing to do with resurrection. Resurrection is an issue after we have already run the finalizer. Deterministic finalization (as I have most frequently heard it used) has to do with not calling the finalizer at a well-defined point in time.

Q: Which brings us back to my question about when to use long and short weak references?

Brian Harry: Long/Short—As a general rule, always use short weak references. Only use long ones if you need to access the handle to find the object even during finalization. This is a very rare need. There are some caching schemes where this turns out to be valuable but I don't think I could describe them very well without spending a while to think about it.

BI Documenter - The leading SQL Documentation Tool

2007-03-12T02:28:00.000-07:00

With BI Documenter you can...

Generate complete SQL documentation at the push of a button

Document SQL Server, Analysis Services, Integration Services and Reporting Services in the same documentation set

Capture metadata snapshots for historical analysis

Output HTML Help (*.chm) or plain HTML

Use either a graphical wizard or command line interface

Document SQL Server 2005!

Tell your own story using the built-in diagramming tool

Source: BI Documenter - The leading SQL Documentation Tool

The SAP-Microsoft Relationship

2007-03-08T03:14:00.000-08:00

The SAP-Microsoft relationship enables us to:

Maximize the value of existing investments in SAP and Microsoft technology
Leverage existing expertise to build innovative new applications and business processes based on SAP and Microsoft solutions
Reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) by enabling seamless integration across diverse IT platforms
Facilitate the development of integrated SAP and Microsoft solutions with dedicated tools, support, and expertise

Microsoft Launches New Web Site for Beginner Developers

2007-03-01T23:42:00.000-08:00

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/beginner

The Beginner Developer Learning Center (BDLC) is a free, one-stop shop for learning Windows and Web programing fundamentals. It includes a learning path which starts with the absolute basics like how a Web browser works and builds on that with videos, tutorials, and downloadable sample projects using CSS, JavaScript, HTML, ASP.NET, VB, and C#.

Oracle to Buy Hyperion for $3.3 Billion

The $3.3 billion cash deal announced Thursday will give Oracle an arsenal of Hyperion products that are used by more than half of SAP's customers. Hyperion's tools, known as "business intelligence" software, help chief financial officers and other top corporate executives track their company's performance.

more info

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/tech/D8NJFM3G0.htm

from digg

After 38 weeks my baby boy made it into this world.

2007-02-26T04:33:00.000-08:00

wow.. last week I9th my baby boy (Nisul) was born, it was very hectic week for me to get things arranged quickly as possible, as it was about two weeks before we expected. more sleepless nights to come.

I'm loving every moment with my cute baby.

Update your Outlook Calendar with Holidays 2007

2007-01-05T20:37:00.000-08:00

This is very interesting and Useful for Local viewers, thanks to meril again.

Meril has published the list of holidays and instructions,

here's the link : -

http://www.merill.net/2007SriLankanHolidaysForOutl...

MDX Filter Problem - MSDN Forums

2006-12-16T00:40:00.000-08:00

Link to MDX Filter Problem - MSDN Forums

ex - Microsoft whiz and next Space tourist

2006-12-15T23:44:00.000-08:00

Hungarian-born billionaire and ex-Microsoft whiz kid Charles Simonyi sees his trip next year on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station as a chance to do some good.

Simonyi, 58, left his native Hungary at 17 for the United States where he made a fortune after joining in 1981 the "start up" Microsoft, for which he oversaw the development of Word and Excel and which he left in 2002 to co-found Intentional Software Corporation.

http://www.charlesinspace.com/

Link to Charles Simonyi, billionaire, ex-Microsoft whiz and next space tourist - Yahoo! News

Arpico Food Court

2006-12-07T00:21:00.000-08:00

It was last week Saturday, after spending the first half in the office, I had to shop with my wife, as we were absolutely starving first we started with our lunch at arpico food court, as I entered to the food court I noticed that setup has been changed,

it was not the way it used to be, earlier each food outlet had their Owen individual cash machine with them (POS), which was very convenient and time saving, I mean when you decide which type of food you want and you can find that desired outlet pay the money and you can order you food while you wait without wasting your time, which is most effective for place like server foods,

my point is that if the selected outlet is having along queue or if they are busy still you have option to find some other outlet and eat as much as you want,.

Unlike that these people have made it worst and its a full of crap, now they have a single place with couple of cashiers where you can see the huge list of all outlets and their menus with menu numbers on the wall and since they have only two cashiers, you have to wait in the queue till your turn to order what you want and get the order receipt, then you have to find that outlet and handover that receipt to them then again you have to wait for your turn.

So most of the time you may have to wait in long queues and another thing is they don't have a food show case.

I just want to share this bad experience, anyway I have decided to not to go their again.

Consider this when you go to a food court in rush our.

Using the Enterprise Library Data Access Block for .Net 2.0

2006-12-01T21:48:00.000-08:00

Using the Enterprise Library Data Access Block for .NET 2.0

Read the Article

Summery :-

Writing database-access code is a repetitious and time-consuming task, but now that it's available as a reusable Enterprise Data Access Application Block, you'll never have to write such code again.

Microsoft has redesigned version 2.0 of the Data Access Block to take advantage of new ADO.NET 2.0 features. You can download the EntLib Data Access Block from MSDN.
Using the Data Access Block
To use the Data Access Block successfully, you will need to go through the steps listed below:

Add a reference to the Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Common.dll and Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Data.dll assemblies from your solution. You can do this by using the "Add Reference" option and navigating to the <Drive Name>:\Program Files\Microsoft Enterprise Library January 2006\bin folder.

Add the necessary configuration entries to the web.config or app.config file or a custom configuration file. To this end, you add the below <configSections> element under the root <configuration> element.

   
         <configSections>
            <section    
              name="dataConfiguration"             
              type="Microsoft.Practices.           
              EnterpriseLibrary.Data.
              Configuration.
              DatabaseSettings,  
              Microsoft.Practices.
              EnterpriseLibrary.Data" />
          </configSections>

Then you also add the <dataConfiguration></SPAN< class=pf element directly under the root <configuration> element as shown below:

         <dataConfiguration          
            defaultDatabase=
            "AdventureWorksDB"/>

In this example, I have marked AdventureWorks as the default database, declared separately under the <connectionStrings> element.

          <connectionStrings>
            <add
             name="AdventureWorksDB" 
              providerName=
              "System.Data.SqlClient"   
              connectionString=
              "server=localhost;
              database=AdventureWorks;
              UID=user;PWD=word;" />
          </connectionStrings>

Import the core Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Data namespace for the Data Access Block.
Start writing code against the classes in the preceding namespace.

Whenever you work with the Data Access Block, you'll have to deal with the Database class first. The Database class represents the database itself, and provides methods that you can use to perform CRUD (Create, Read, Update and Delete) operations against the database.

Execute a Query Returning a DbDataReader

I'll start with a simple example. You'll execute a simple SQL statement against the AdventureWorks database and retrieve the results in the form of a DbDataReader object, which you'll then bind to a GridView control in an ASP.NET page. contains the full page code. Here's the Page_Load script:

   <script runat="server">
     void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
     {
       Database db = DatabaseFactory.CreateDatabase();
       string sqlCommand = "Select " + "EmployeeID, 
         NationalIDNumber," + "LoginID, Title from " +
         "HumanResources.Employee ";
       DbCommand dbCommand = db.GetSqlStringCommand
         (sqlCommand);
       using (IDataReader reader = db.ExecuteReader(
         dbCommand))
       {
         gridEmployees.DataSource = reader;
         gridEmployees.DataBind();
       }                
     }
   </script>

Transactional Code Block for Performing
Multiple Updates

There are times where you may want to execute
multiple operations against a database,
but perform them all within the scope of a
single transaction.
The EntLib Data Access Block enables this scenario by
providing the Database.CreateConnection() method
that allow you to get a reference to an ADO.NET 2.0 
DbConnection object. Using the DbConnection object,
you can obtain a reference to a DbTransaction object
by calling the BeginTransaction() method,
assigning the return value to a DbTransaction
variable. Subsequently, you can then easily control
the transaction behavior by invoking either the
Commit() or Rollback() methods when the execution
succeeds or fails, respectively.
The following pseudo code shows how to execute
multiple stored procedures within the scope of a
single transaction.

   Database db = DatabaseFactory.CreateDatabase();
   //Two operations, one to add the order
  //and another to add order details

  string sqlCommand = "InsertOrder";
  DbCommand orderCommand = 
  db.GetStoredProcCommand(sqlCommand);
  //Add InsertOrder parameters
  sqlCommand = "InsertOrderDetails";


   DbCommand orderDetailsCommand = 
   db.GetStoredProcCommand(sqlCommand);

   //Add InsertOrderDetails parameters
   using (DbConnection connection = 
     db.CreateConnection())
   {
     connection.Open();
     DbTransaction transaction = 
       connection.BeginTransaction();
     try
     {
       //Execute the InsertOrder
       db.ExecuteNonQuery(orderCommand, 
         transaction);

       //Execute the InsertOrderDetails    
       db.ExecuteNonQuery(
         orderDetailsCommand, 
         transaction);
       //Commit the transaction
       transaction.Commit();                    
     }
     catch
     {
       //Roll back the transaction. 
       transaction.Rollback();
     }
   }

PIN Number Reversal

2006-11-30T23:37:00.000-08:00

I got this information from Anuradha (friend of mind) wanted to share with you all as its knid of important, but don't no how true it is.

----------------------------------------------

THIS WAS SENT TO ME BY A HEAD OF A LEADING BANK IN SL.

PIN NUMBER REVERSAL (GOOD TO KNOW)
If you should ever be forced by a robber to withdraw money from an ATM Machine, you can notify the police by entering your Pin # in reverse.

For example if your pin number is 1234 then you would put in 4321. The ATM recognizes that your pin number is backwards from the ATM card you
placed in the machine. The machine will still give you the money you requested, but unknown to the robber, the police will be immediately dispatched to help you.

This information was recently broadcasted on TV and it states that it is seldom used because people don't know it exists.

Have you faced these issues in ASP .Net 2.0

2006-11-30T23:25:00.000-08:00

Last few years i had to stick to a one big product in my company, Its a Business Intelligence tool called Cerebiz, this is currently running on Sri lanka, Pakistan and Australia.

So after the initial development and implementation, I have been adding new features and modifications to this BI tool, anyway I was asked to hold this product by the management for sometimes and had to work on a new system as it is kind of urgent (web base Parking slot management system).

This is my first asp 2.0 assignment, u know its always nice to get in touch with new stuff and fresh system.

So this what I came across -

You can not simply address a control in java script. I spend hours on this to find out. (I am using Master page)
document.getElementById('TextBoxEmpName').value

you have to replace the above code line with..

document.getElementById('<%=TextBoxEmpName.ClientID %>').value

Thanks to MVP Rick I found that from his blog.
If you use GridView and you have a " Date " field column that you want to format it using DataFormatString="{0:d}" , this won't happen unless you change the property HtmlEncode="false".
Actually this is not an issue, this is what my friend Sanjaya has found, for 24 hour display time column field you have to use formating string as DataFormatString="{0:HH:mm}".

Microsoft releases Vista

2006-11-30T22:27:00.000-08:00

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer addresses a news conference at the Nasdaq MarketSite after he rang the opening bell, in New York Thursday Nov. 30, 2006 to celebrate Microsoft's launch of its new Vista operating system. For the first time in five years, Microsoft Corp. is finally unveiling a new system for operating personal computers.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/1700AP_Micr...

Does your mobile phone Go Live ?

2006-11-08T01:46:00.000-08:00

Have you thought about mobile chatting and browsing, or you looking for free tools.

My Sony Ericsson K700i is fully loaded with chatting and browsing.

All you need is java and GPRS enable phone.

You can download chatting tool from your phone, its called mig33.

wap.mig33.com

www.mig33.com

It’s free and secure; I have been using this more than a year. So far it has been giving me a good service and I just thought to share with you guys.

My friend Gogula has found this fast mini browser called mini Opera, in fact, Opera is very fast.

http://mini.opera.com

I am sure most of you guys would have heard of these tools.

Trip to Sinharaja Rain Forest

2006-09-13T01:45:00.000-07:00

Located in south-west Sri Lanka, Sinharaja is the country's last viable area of primary tropical rainforest. More than 60% of the trees are endemic and many of them are considered rare. There is much endemic wildlife, especially birds, but the reserve is also home to over 50% of Sri Lanka's endemic species of mammals and butterflies, as well as many kinds of insects, reptiles and rare amphibians.

Sri Lanka's tropical rain forest, the Sinharaja is a UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site. One of the few virgin forests left in the world. Visitors are required to obtain permits from the Wildlife Department in order to visit this sanctuary. Streams, springs, rivers, waterfalls, leopard, monkeys, butterflies and moths, rare trees, valuable shrubs and medicinal herbs are all found within its green canopy. A trek along prescribed paths would provide nature lovers with a never to be forgotten experience of sights and sounds.

There are also shrews, giant squirrels, porcupines, civets, mongooses, venomous snakes, 20 species of birds and 45 species of reptiles!.

My company's Sports club palned to trip Sinharaja forest, my frirend Puspaka with few other colleagus organizsed whole event & things .. bus, forest bunglow ( where we going to stay ) , foods and so on, unfortunatly they couldn't find camp sites to stay.

It was last friday late evening around 4.30pm we all ( unfrotunatly few colleagus couldn't make it due to varies other reasons) started the journey through the rathanapura root, basically it's a 5 - 6 hrs tour, we managed to reached there around 11pm midnight, it was raining and very cool night. as we planed we stayed at Sinharaja forest bunglow.

Saturday morning we strated the hiking, we went about 13 km hike in the forest.

It was a great trip indeed, unlike other places this rain forest atmosphere is brilliant, freash air, greenish eye sights etc.

Person Who Invented "CTRL + ALT + DEL"

2006-08-23T20:30:00.000-07:00

Have you ever thought of the person who invented "CTRL + ALT + DEL " key combination.

"David Bradley"

He is the One who spent 1 minute and 23 seconds in writing the source code that rescues The world's PC users for decades This extraordinary IBM employee got retired on Friday, 25th March 2005 after a prolong service of 29 years.

His formula forces obstinate computers to restart when they no longer follow other commands.

By 1980, Bradley was one of 12 people working to create the debut.

The engineers knew they had to design a simple way to restart the computer When it fails to respond the user Bradley wrote the code to make it work.

Bradley says. "I did a lot of other things than Ctrl-Alt-Delete, but I'm famous for that one."
His fame and success is achieved each time a PC user fails.

He Commented His relationship with Bill gates by saying
"I may have invented it, but Bill gates made it famous by applying my formula When ever any Microsoft's Windows operating system made by him CRASHES,
Thus I win when ever he looses...... ....."

Budu ras from BuddhaStatues

2006-08-03T05:03:00.000-07:00

Buddhima has send this to me.............Check this out

Plese see the margin of the 2 colors. Then u can see a green line, on the yellow area.

It has become a fashion to say some people see budu ras from BuddhaStatues, and Bo Trees. Some are simulating colour difference illusionsand try to disprove that. However, it's important to know that Buddhismis not something exists because of miracles. A Buddhist is not an Idolater, whose beliefs are based on super natural things. Read following if interested.

* What is Buddhism?
Buddhism is a path of practice and spiritual development leading toInsight into the true nature of life. Buddhist practices such asmeditation are means of changing oneself in order to develop thequalities of awareness, kindness, and wisdom. The experience developedwithin the Buddhist tradition over thousands of years has created anincomparable resource for all those who wish to follow a path - a pathwhich ultimately culminates in Enlightenment or Buddhahood. Because Buddhism does not include the idea of worshipping a creator god,some people do not see it as a religion in the normal, Western sense.The basic tenets of Buddhist teaching are straightforward and practical:nothing is fixed or permanent; actions have consequences; change ispossible. Thus Buddhism addresses itself to all people irrespective ofrace, nationality, or gender. It teaches practical methods (such asmeditation) which enable people to realise and utilise its teachings inorder to transform their experience, to be fully responsible for theirlives and to develop the qualities of Wisdom and Compassion.Buddhism is a religion to about 300 million people around the world. Theword comes from 'budhi', 'to awaken'. It has its origins about 2,500 years ago when Siddhartha Gotama, known as the Buddha, was himself awakened (enlightened) at the age of 35.

* Is Buddhism a Religion?
To many, Buddhism goes beyond religion and is more of a philosophy or'way of life'. It is a philosophy because philosophy 'means love ofwisdom' and the Buddhist path can be summed up as:(1) to lead a moral life,(2) to be mindful and aware of thoughts and actions, and(3) to develop wisdom and understanding.

* How Can Buddhism Help Me?
Buddhism explains a purpose to life, it explains apparent injustice andinequality around the world, and it provides a code of practice or wayof life that leads to true happiness.

* Why is Buddhism Becoming Popular?
Buddhism is becoming popular in western countries for a number ofreasons, The first good reason is Buddhism has answers to many of theproblems in modern materialistic societies. It also includes (for thosewho are interested) a deep understanding of the human mind (and naturaltherapies) which prominent psychologists around the world are nowdiscovering to be both very advanced and effective.

* Who Was the Buddha?
Siddhartha Gotama was born into a royal family in Lumbini, now locatedin Nepal, in 563 BC. At 29, he realised that wealth and luxury did notguarantee happiness, so he explored the different teachings religionsand philosophies of the day, to find the key to human happiness. Aftersix years of study and meditation he finally found 'the middle path' andwas enlightened. After enlightenment, the Buddha spent the rest of hislife teaching the principles of Buddhism - called the Dhamma, or Truth -until his death at the age of 80.

* Was the Buddha a God?
He was not, nor did he claim to be. He was a man who taught a path toenlightenment from his own experience.* Do Buddhists Worship Idols?Buddhists sometimes pay respect to images of the Buddha, not in worship,nor to ask for favours. A statue of the Buddha with hands rested gentlyin its lap and a compassionate smile reminds us to strive to developpeace and love within ourselves. Bowing to the statue is an expressionof gratitude for the teaching.

* Why are so Many Buddhist Countries Poor?
One of the Buddhist teachings is that wealth does not guaranteehappiness and also wealth is impermanent. The people of every countrysuffer whether rich or poor, but those who understand Buddhist teachingscan find true happiness.

* Are There Different Types of Buddhism?
There are many different types of Buddhism, because the emphasis changesfrom country to country due to customs and culture. What does not varyis the essence of the teaching - the Dhamma or truth.

* Are Other Religions Wrong?
Buddhism is also a belief system which is tolerant of all other beliefsor religions. Buddhism agrees with the moral teachings of otherreligions but Buddhism goes further by providing a long term purposewithin our existence, through wisdom and true understanding. RealBuddhism is very tolerant and not concerned with labels like'Christian', 'Moslem', 'Hindu' or 'Buddhist'; that is why there havenever been any wars fought in the name of Buddhism. That is whyBuddhists do not preach and try to convert, only explain if anexplanation is sought.

* Is Buddhism Scientific?
Science is knowledge which can be made into a system, which depends uponseeing and testing facts and stating general natural laws. The core ofBuddhism fit into this definition, because the Four Noble truths (seebelow) can be tested and proven by anyone in fact the Buddha himselfasked his followers to test the teaching rather than accept his word astrue. Buddhism depends more on understanding than faith.

* What did the Buddha Teach?
The Buddha taught many things, but the basic concepts in Buddhism can besummed up by the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path.

* What is the First Noble Truth?
The first truth is that life is suffering i.e., life includes pain,getting old, disease, and ultimately death. We also endure psychologicalsuffering like loneliness frustration, fear, embarrassment,disappointment and anger. This is an irrefutable fact that cannot bedenied. It is realistic rather than pessimistic because pessimism isexpecting things to be bad. lnstead, Buddhism explains how suffering canbe avoided and how we can be truly happy.

* What is the Second Noble Truth?
The second truth is that suffering is caused by craving and aversion. Wewill suffer if we expect other people to conform to our expectation, ifwe want others to like us, if we do not get something we want,etc. Inother words, getting what you want does not guarantee happiness. Ratherthan constantly struggling to get what you want, try to modify yourwanting. Wanting deprives us of contentment and happiness. A lifetime ofwanting and craving and especially the craving to continue to exist,creates a powerful energy which causes the individual to be born. Socraving leads to physical suffering because it causes us to be reborn.

* What is the Third Noble Truth?
The third truth is that suffering can be overcome and happiness can beattained; that true happiness and contentment are possible. lf we giveup useless craving and learn to live each day at a time (not dwelling inthe past or the imagined future) then we can become happy and free. Wethen have more time and energy to help others. This is Nirvana.

* What is the Fourth Noble Truth?
The fourth truth is that the Noble 8-fold Path is the path which leadsto the end of suffering.

* What is the Noble 8-Fold Path?
In summary, the Noble 8-fold Path is being moral (through what we say,do and our livelihood), focussing the mind on being fully aware of ourthoughts and actions, and developing wisdom by understanding the FourNoble Truths and by developing compassion for others.

* What are the 5 Precepts?
The moral code within Buddhism is the precepts, of which the main fiveare: not to take the life of anything living, not to take anything notfreely given, to abstain from sexual misconduct and sensualoverindulgence, to refrain from untrue speech, and to avoidintoxication, that is, losing mindfulness.

* What is Karma?
Karma is the law that every cause has an effect, i.e., our actions haveresults. This simple law explains a number of things: inequality in theworld, why some are born handicapped and some gifted, why some live onlya short life. Karma underlines the importance of all individuals beingresponsible for their past and present actions. How can we test thekarmic effect of our actions? The answer is summed up by looking at (1)the intention behind the action, (2) effects of the action on oneself,and (3) the effects on others.

* What is Wisdom?
Buddhism teaches that wisdom should be developed with compassion. At oneextreme, you could be a goodhearted fool and at the other extreme, youcould attain knowledge without any emotion. Buddhism uses the middlepath to develop both. The highest wisdom is seeing that in reality, allphenomena are incomplete, impermanent and do no constitute a fixedentity. True wisdom is not simply believing what we are told but insteadexperiencing and understanding truth and reality. Wisdom requires anopen, objective, unbigoted mind. The Buddhist path requires courage,patience, flexibility and intelligence.

* What is Compassion?
Compassion includes qualities of sharing, readiness to give comfort,sympathy, concern, caring. In Buddhism, we can really understand others,when we can really understand ourselves, through wisdom.

* How do I Become a Buddhist?
Buddhist teachings can be understood and tested by anyone. Buddhismteaches that the solutions to our problems are within ourselves notoutside. The Buddha asked all his followers not to take his word astrue, but rather to test the teachings for themselves. ln this way, eachperson decides for themselves and takes responsibility for their ownactions and understanding. This makes Buddhism less of a fixed packageof beliefs which is to be accepted in its entirety, and more of ateaching which each person learns and uses in their own way.

DeskTask

2006-08-01T19:49:00.000-07:00

HI........

Check this out .. I got this from Asela (MIB)

Home Downloads Purchase Support Forums Blog About us

DeskTask

DeskTask connects to Microsoft Outlook and displays your calendar and task items on the desktop.
Your tasks will always be visible, saving precious time to launch or switch to Outlook.
Just minimize every window, and see what are the items due for today or tomorrow.
DeskTask displays the whole week so you can be prepared to organize your work.
Besides the calendar items, the Outlook to-do list (Folder Tasks) is also displayed. If you work with Outlook, DeskTask is for you
If you have errors like The specified module could not be found at startup please read this, you might have a damaged outlook installation
Requirements
Microsoft Outlook 2000 / XP / 2003 (Not tested with previous versions of Outlook)
Registration
DeskTask is freeware. It can be freely used and distributed in commercial and private environments, provided the supplied Zip file is not in any way modified and there is no charge for it other than nominal handling fees.

More on DeskTask
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Download DeskTask

Version History

Discussion Forum

Microsoft and Microsoft Outlook are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation

FAQ Download Forum History
"DeskTask has to be one of the best pieces of software I have seen in years. Simplicity and functionality in such an elegant package is rare indeed. Keep up the great work!"
Mark Allshouse

When Is a Throw Not a Rethrow?

2006-07-16T22:40:00.000-07:00

I found this blog post from Chris Burrows .Net Blog ,but this snippet is originally from Craig Andera's blog.. Check this out, It is very important indeed.

Reading made me remember about the first time I had an issue in production, and I was throwing the exception in the first way and could understand why I wasn't getting all of the stack trace information. Definitely, a good thing to remember.

There’s something I ran into recently that even experienced programmers can get wrong. We were adding error handling to something, and I saw this in the code:

catch (Exception e)
{
LogError(e);
throw e;
}

The idea being that we log all errors in our components, but then throw them again to let the higher level systems actually figure out what to do. This works well. The problem comes in with the throw – it actually works much better to do this:

catch (Exception e)
{
LogError(e);
throw; // Rethrows the exception we just caught
}

Notice the absence of an argument to the throw statement in the second variation.

The difference between these two variations is subtle but important. The second variation is the only one that actually re-throws the original exception. Meaning that the exact same information is passed along up the stack. With the first variation, the higher level caller isn’t going to get all the information about the original error.

For example, the call stack in the exception is replaced with a new call stack that originates at the “throw e” statement – which is not what we want to record.

Microsoft Releases Public Beta of Live Messenger

2006-05-18T23:01:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has launched a public beta of its Windows Live Messenger, the next-generation of its instant messenger software with a number of new communications features.
The software has been in testing since December but only by invitation. This is the first public beta, which can be downloaded from the Windows Live Ideas Web site.
One of the major features of Live Messenger is support for Internet telephony, allowing you to call someone via the Internet with the Windows Live Call feature. With the public beta, six new international destinations have been added – Austria, Belgium, Finland, Ireland, Italy and the Netherlands. Live Call already supported calls with the U.S. plus England, Germany, France and Spain. The Full Story...
Source: InternetNews.com

Joke

2006-05-10T22:24:00.000-07:00

Programmer to Team Leader:
"We CAN NOT do this proposed project. It will involve a major design
change and no one in our team knows the design of this system. And
above that, nobody in our company knows the language in which this
application has been written. If you ask my personal opinion, the company should
never take these type of projects."

Team Leader to Project Manager:
"This project will involve a design change. Currently, we don't have
Any staff who has experience in this type of work. Also, the language is
unfamiliar to us, so we will have to arrange for some training if we
take this project. In my personal opinion, we are not ready to take on a
project of this nature."

Project Manager to 1st Level Manager:
"This project involves a design change in the system and we don't have
Much experience in that area. Also, not many people in our company are
appropriately trained for it. In my personal opinion, we would need
more time than usual to complete it."

1st Level Manager to Senior Level Manager:
"This project involves design re-engineering. We have some people who
Have worked in this area and others who know the implementation language. So
they can train other people. In my personal opinion we should take
this project, but with caution."

Senior Level Manager to CEO:
"This project will demonstrate to the industry our capabilities in
remodelling the design of a complete legacy system. We have all the
necessary skills and people to execute this project successfully. Some
people have already given in house training in this area to other
staff members. In my personal opinion, we should not let this project slip
by us under any circumstances."

CEO to Client:
"This is the type of project in which our company specializes. We have
executed many projects of the same nature for many large clients.
Trust me when I say that we are the most competent firm in the industry
For doing this kind of work. It is my personal opinion that we can
Execute this project successfully and well within the given time frame."

I wish U all the best

2006-05-10T20:59:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was working with dinesh till late night to get things arranged, in cerebiz, bcoz it was the last day for him at Kandysoft. He is moving to another Company from next Monday.
Anyway we have been coping with the new cerebiz implementation from last month and now we are almost 90% completed.

about 5 years a go, when I was in logical, we were doing a computer system for Vanrees, at that time dinesh was working for Vanrees, and that is how we got to know each other.... even that time also he is hell of a geek....

And later he joined with us, and until yesterday we were working as team with team sprite, and like a small family helping each other, most of the time I had to work with him with my other Co - workers and I want say that he is hell of Geek, grate friend and always brother to me.

I wish U all the best to achieve ur goals!

I'm Back

2006-05-10T20:06:00.000-07:00

HI................

Long time no See ...
Since of late I couldn't do much blogging. :-(
So thought of wring a quick summery of what I have been doing.

The main reason is that I do not have a Internet connection at home and their for, U know... It’s kind of hard to daily update my blog, because I ‘am not interested to do much blogging in the office.

Working on Cerebiz Grid (It's a BI Tool) - AJAX and new class library implementation, the new grid is amazing; U got to see that... :).
Shifted to New Place in Kirulapone, we all had to say good bye to Logical ( It was very sad movement in my life, 'cause I stared my carrier in logical) New place and a New Office.

After all ..; looking for a Place to rent, to improve and keep the happiness in my family life.

Decided to sell my car, :( (Make - Daewoo, Model - Lanos).

That’s it.

Get Ready To Rock The VS 2005 Launch

2006-02-01T02:52:00.000-08:00

I got my invitation.
Tomorrow is a very big day for all dot net lovers in Sri lanka, The VS Launch is due on 2nd Feb 2005.

Technology of the Year 2006

2006-01-16T23:02:00.000-08:00

Do read this article...........

By Bradley L. Jones

In 2005, there were a number of technologies that continued to be important. Several, however, rose to the forefront of the news and to the forefront of what developers were doing. Of these, four technologies were recognized as the most important (and possibly most visible) in 2005. These four technologies were the finalists for the Developer.com Technology of the year recognition. These are AJAX, RSS, SOA, and virtualization.
You might ask the question, where is blah? Of course, "blah" might be blogging, Web services, business intelligence, grid computing, multi-core processing, file sharing, or any of hundreds of other technologies that were present in 2005. Although some of these technologies were mentioned and nominated for the recognition, none of them received the same type of push as the four that made it into the finalist category.

And the Winner Is...

Prior to the start of the voting, it was anyone's guess as to which technology would win as the Technology of the Year. All four of the finalists have made been very visible and very important in 2005 and will continue to be so in 2006. Early projections were on RSS taking the lead spot. Enterprise developers were promoting SOA for the winning recognition. Virtualization is a technology that many developers have come to love as well. It was, however, AJAX that took the top honor of Developer.com Technology of the Year.

For more details ..
http://developer.com/db/article.php/10920_3576746_1

Have you ever cope with Office Politics

2006-01-05T20:58:00.000-08:00

Hope this web site is usefull for people who are hate OFFICE - POLITICS.

Welldone Dinesh

2006-01-05T02:43:00.000-08:00

It is nise to here that one of my best friend and SQL expert whose working with us is awarded as MVP.

he really deserve this title.

I wish him all the best for his future.

http://spaces.msn.com/members/dineshpriyankara

World's Largest Floating Bookshop and the Oldest Passenger Ship In Colombo

2005-12-19T00:05:00.000-08:00

There are certain procedures to be done before you see her.........

Because yesterday I went to see her, but it was not a easy task, actually it’s a huge project, they have arranged bus service from gall face to the Ship (port) at gall face ground near by gall face hotel premises. There was long... and long couple of queues, one for issue tickets, (Rs.5o/= per head) and another one for the bus, it seems the organizer would have hired few (about 4) tourist passenger busses. That is hardly enough for the crowed and they won’t load more than 50 passengers. And it would take about 10 to 15 minutes to return.

Lot of people couldn’t make it including my self, the fact that, I feel it is not organized properly, as you know its a usual mistake of our authorized persons.

So my advise is be there in time.

Doulos, the World's Largest Floating Bookshop and the Oldest Passenger Ship, owned and operated by Gute Bucher Fur Alle (Good Books for All- GBA),a nonprofit making charity organisation registered in Germany, will be in Sri Lanka from Friday, December 16 to December 31. From Colombo the ship will move to Galle harbour and Southerners could view Doulos from January 4 to 11, 2006.It will be docked at the Bandaranaike Quay,Leyden Bastian Gate,Colombo Harbour and on Friday, December 16,at 2.00 pm the `family book fair' will be officially opened by the First Lady Shiranthi Rajapakse the Guest of honour of the opening ceremony.

The Doulos will entertain visitors from 2 pm to 6 pm on December 16, and from December 24 to December 31 at 10 am to 3.00 pm daily. While the book-ship is closed on December 25 in lieu of Christmas, on Tuesdays and Saturdays the public can enter the ship during the opening hours 10.00 am to 6.00 pm; on Sundays and Mondays from 2.00 pm to 6.00pm.

The Floating International Charity Book-ship the MV Doulos comes to the Sri Lanka shores when it is holiday time and season for `buying gifts'.

The Book-ship, carries with her a stock of half a million books featuring around 6,000 titles on display and for sale, and these books cover a wide range of subjects such as Science,Sports,Hobbies,Cookery, Arts, Philosophy,Children's books and the like.

Doulos hosts on her upper deck the largest floating Book Fair in the world. The books have been carefully chosen to treat the interest of each and every member of the family and with the educational and social needs of the local community in mind. Most of the books are in English although a small selection of books in local language is available.

The MV Doulos built in 1914,just two years after the Titanic sank an it is still afloat and the uniqueness of the lies being the book-ship recorded in the Guinness Book of Records, being the World Oldest Ocean-going passenger ship still active.

It is on record that this Book-ship has travelled visiting 100 countries during the past 27 years. Princes, Prime Ministers,Sheikhs and Presidents have greeted this `Grand Old Lady of the Oceans" passing through their respective territorial waters and over 17 million people in the countries in Latin America,Africa,Europe, Asia and in the Pacific have climbed the Ship's gangways."It is with this modest pride in mind we return to Sri Lanka for another exciting visit", a communique released by the Doulos said.

The Good Books for All organisations which own the vessel has operated since 1978, and seeks to promote good education and international understanding through its floating book-shop and cultural exchange program. This unusual ship which is a home to over 300 Christian volunteers from 40 different countries and is dubbed as the"Floating United Nations". The caption and the crew members do not earn a salary by working in this ship but they are being sponsored by their families or friends.

The crew on board has been involved in providing long term humanitarian relief in areas of great need or tragedy. This ship at intervals has provided food,material aid,primary health-care and education,rebuilding and re-equipping of medical and educational facilities.

"We hope to give our contribution to the beautiful country Sri Lanka during our stay as we do in some way every port we pass through, an expression of our practical concern", the media release said. (WIRUMA)

Five Defining Characteristics of Great CEOs

2005-12-06T19:23:00.000-08:00

by: Jan B. King

1. Personal insight. Great CEOs are great leaders. They know themselves and what they stand for. They have been called on all their lives as problem solvers because others know them to be fair and impartial. People respect their opinions and look to them for guidance. Great CEOs are mature as people. They can suffer disappointment more gracefully than others and give others credit for their achievements. They don’t come in the office door yelling for something they need. They aren’t as concerned about titles or power structures as they are about the welfare of those who work at the company. They are trustworthy because they’ve always been honest with people and have earned that trust. They care about families, and they know that people are more important than dollars and express it in their actions every day. Finally, great CEOs seek out feedback. They want to know how others see them so that they can understand themselves better and continue to grow as people. They also want feedback about the company from an employee perspective, and they use surveys as a starting point for creating a dialogue to make things better.

2. Resourcefulness. Great CEOs seem to have boundless energy. They come to work with the greatest enthusiasm. Even when they don’t feel like it, they find ways to reenergize themselves and come in ready to go. They take good care of themselves physically and emotionally so that they can be there for the employees and the needs of the company. They give much more than they take every day. They don’t give up. If the wall is too high, they back down and find another way around. They don’t blame, but they do look for solutions to problems so that those problems are less likely to happen again.

3. Courage. The CEO has one of the world’s toughest jobs. No matter how tough it was to start the company, it’s even harder to keep it going and growing. A CEO must decide what he or she stands for and do what is right, all the time. It takes courage to fire the salesperson responsible for the company’s biggest, most lucrative account when that same salesperson drives a company car drunk and causes an accident. There will be many times when CEOs will want to smooth over something that requires decisive action because of the potential consequences or because they just can’t take on one more challenge at the moment. However, CEOs who exercise poor moral judgment will lose their personal integrity with all of their employees watching.

4. Willingness to look at risk. A great CEO isn’t afraid to look at the downside and answer the hard questions he or she hopes will never become a reality. The CEO needs a backup plan—one that is designed by looking at the company’s worst-case scenarios. This plan addresses questions such as: What if your industry experiences a slump? What if new governmental regulations affect your business? What if you lose the client that accounts for 50 percent of your sales? Preparing yourself and your company for these eventualities may be the difference between a tough year or two and bankruptcy. If you are in business for 20 years, some of your worst-case scenarios will probably happen. The key is to be ready and able to take immediate action to reduce the loss.

5. Foresight. It seems some CEOs have an uncanny ability to predict the future. They may have unusual insights into their particular markets, and luck may play a part as well. In addition, they are prepared to create their own luck by cultivating an ability to see opportunities for their company and to make the deals that convert those opportunities into realities. Some things that may seem like amazing foresight are actually the result of the hard work and discipline it takes to constantly look forward to build a successful company. Great CEOs must also constantly develop new products to build and retain a customer base. Foresight is also the ability to hire and retain the right people, looking ahead toward the growth of the company. Finally, over time, each company must develop a steady source of business during both good economic times and bad, because there are sure to be bad economic times during the life of a business.

About The Author
Jan B. King is the former President & CEO of Merritt Publishing, a top 50 woman-owned and run business in Los Angeles and the author of Business Plans to Game Plans: A Practical System for Turning Strategies into Action (John Wiley & Sons, 2004). She has helped hundreds of businesses with her book and her ebooks, The Do-It-Yourself Business Plan Workbook, and The Do-It-Yourself Game Plan Workbook.

See http://www.janbking.com/ for more information.
You have permission to publish this article electronically or in print, free of charge, as long as the byline is included. A courtesy copy of your publication would be appreciated.
janbking0191@sbcglobal.net

E-mail Scammers Pose as FBI, CIA

2005-11-23T20:00:00.000-08:00

E-mail Scammers Pose as FBI, CIA SAN FRANCISCO-- The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation today warned computer users not to open a widely circulating e-mail that falsely claims to have been sent by U.S. authorities. The e-mail attempts to trick users into installing a variant of the Sober worm by telling them that they have been spotted on "illegal Web sites," and asking them to click on an attached "list of questions."
use header link for more info.

Space Movies & Alien abduction movies

2005-11-15T23:15:00.000-08:00

TOP 10 Space Movies

2010
Red Planet
Nemesis
The Last Starfighter
The Day The Earth Stood Still
Silent Running
Mars Attacks!
The Martian Chronicles
Alien
The Dream Is Alive: IMAX

TOP 10 alien abduction movies

The Arrival
The Original Miniseries
Signs
The Astronaut's Wife
Close Encounters Of The Third Kind
Fire In The Sky
Men In Black
Invasion Of The Body Snatchers
Taken
X-Files: Fight the Future

Tachycardia

2005-10-27T21:05:00.000-07:00

he is having the lunch.. :D

This is my brother :

This is the hospital :

I should have post this last month but I couldn’t make it. Anyway this is about the tour of India with my brother. My brother was having a hart disorder ailment called Tachycardia.

Let me explain …….

What is “Tachycardia” means fast hart rate, or rapid raise of hart rate.
The normal adult heart rate, or pulse, ranges from 60 to 100 beats per minute. A heart rate that continues to beat above 100 beats per minute is called tachycardia.

Why “Tachycardia” this is relates to some malfunctioning of this heart's electrical impulse relay system, which leads to either slow beating of the heart which is called - Brady Cardia or fast beating of the heart medically identified as Tachy Cardia.

My brother’s local consultant Dr Asunga Dunuwille (Cardiac, Electro physiologist and Cardiologist) first tried to treated with drugs in general way but later after few test and based on patient’s condition he decided to do 3D mapping and RF Ablation.

Unfortunately in Sri Lanka we don’t have that technology and facilities; so we had to move to India. Before we go to India we had chance meet the Indian consultant Dr Mohan nair (senior cardiologist) when he was in Sri lanka with Dr Dunuwille. So he explained the way how things can be arranged and so on etc.

So we are not that bad :D

Finally we went to (India) Delhi, Hart and lung Institute. And they planed the need full, we had to stay about a week to get over his difficulty.

Now he is being better after whole procedure.

Thanks to Dr Dunuwille and Dr Nair and Hart and lung Institute’s staff, they were so kind.

Thanks again.

Hurricane Name (See ur name is in the list ?)

2005-10-25T04:43:00.000-07:00

Hurricanes are given boys and girls names when they are formed. This makes it easier for scientists and the general public to communicate. It is quicker and shorter to use a name then a code or number for each storm. Every year, a list of names is prepared for the upcoming hurricane season. The names alternate between a boy and girl’s name and go in alphabetical order. (Names with Q, U, X, Y, Z are not used because it is hard to find enough names that start with these letters.)
Just as a hockey player’s jersey number is retired (if he’s a great player), memorable hurricanes can have their name retired. Hurricane names are retired after a really bad storm so that there is no confusion when people talk about that particular storm. A list of names that is used one year is used again in six years with new names for the names that were retired.

Here is the list of the names that might be used over the next six years. Is your name there? Alberto will be the first name used in the 2000 season.
A’s:
Alberto, Allison, Arthur, Ana, Alex, Arlene
B’s:
Beryl, Barry, Bertha, Bill, Bonnie, Bret
C’s:
Chris, Chantal, Cristobal, Claudette, Charley, Cindy
D’s:
Debby, Dean, Dolly, Danny, Danielle, Dennis
E’s:
Ernesto, Erin, Edouard, Erika, Earl, Emily
F’s:
Florence, Felix, Fay, Fabian, Frances, Franklin
G’s:
Gordon, Gabrielle, Gustav, Grace, Gaston, Gert
H’s:
Helene, Humberto, Hanna, Henri, Hermine, Harvey
I’s:
Isaac, Iris, Isidore, Isabel, Ivan, Irene
J’s:
Joyce, Jerry, Josephine, Juan, Jeanne, Jose
K’s:
Keith, Karen, Kyle, Kate, Karl, Katrina
L’s:
Leslie, Lorenzo, Lili, Larry, Lisa, Lee
M’s:
Michael, Michelle, Marco, Mindy, Matthew, Maria
N’s:
Nadine, Noel, Nana, Nicholas, Nicole, Nate
O’s:
Oscar, Olga, Omar, Odette, Otto, Ophelia
P’s:
Patty, Pablo, Paloma, Peter, Paula, Philippe
R’s:
Rafael, Rebekah, Rene, Rose, Richard, Rita
S’s:
Sandy, Sebastien, Sally, Sam, Shary, Stan
T’s:
Tony, Tanya, Teddy, Teresa, Tomas, Tammy
V’s:
Valerie, Van, Vicky, Victor, Virginie, Vince
W’s:
William, Wendy, Wilfred, Wanda, Walter, Wilma

Here is a list of all of the hurricane names that have been retired. Is your name there? Click on it to see a description of the storm that retired it!

Agnes
Eloise
Alicia
Fifi
Allen
Flora
Andrew
Fran
Anita
Frederic
Audrey
Georges
Betsy
Gilbert
Beulah
Gloria
Bob
Gracie
Camille
Hattie
Carla
Hazel
Carmen
Hilda
Carol
Hortense
Celia
Hugo
Cesar
Inez
Cleo
Ione
Connie
Janet
David
Joan
Diana
Klaus
Diane
Luis
Donna
Marilyn
Dora
Mitch
Edna
Opal
Elena
Roxanne

its very sad when loved ones are leaving from our life's........

2005-10-18T01:03:00.000-07:00

I couldn't attend to the last day of the Tech Ed. the resone is that I had a funeral, my mother In Laws father has Passed Away. So from friday to monday I had to stayed up till late mid night, and I have no hesitation to say that he was a great father and grand father to us.

Tech Ed 2005 Started!

2005-10-14T22:59:00.000-07:00

it's all about Upcoming Ms technologies.........
First of all I would like to thanks to the organizers who made the Microsoft Tech Ed reality, because this was the first MS tech Ed ever held in Colombo. even though we had some glitches.. Ultimately.. Its very well done. Hope to have much better Tech Ed in next year.. I personally happy with the sessions that I attended in 2 days and the services provided by the Tech Ed premise's.

opps...by the way, entertainment night was very cool.....

Too Long

2005-06-11T01:58:00.000-07:00

Its Cerebiz........... BI tool. Every day I had to work till late night, Bcoz we are on tight delivery for one of our client, So myself and the team (Madhawa, Dinesh, Gogula) had to accomplish that task. And therefore I was sort of busy.

Anyway, I found a nice article regarding C# Tips and Tricks while browsing,

DotNET has much more to it than the raw aspects of the technology. In this episode, software legend Juval Lowy shares his tips, tricks, and best practices. Juval will demonstrate how to deal with common real life hurdles, and how to effectively apply .NET, by presenting utilities and ideas that can enhance your productivity significantly.

You can download,
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=146ABB93-21BC-44F8-9999-805A476480FE&displaylang=en

Must-Have Tools For Every Developer

2005-05-18T20:52:00.000-07:00

- NUnit to write unit tests
- NDoc to create code documentation
- NAnt to build your solutions
- CodeSmith to generate code
- FxCop to police your code
- Snippet Compiler to compile small bits of code
- Two different switcher tools, the ASP.NET Version Switcher and the Visual Studio .NET Project Converter
- Regulator to build regular expressions
- .NET Reflector to examine assemblies

This is great article, Do Read this..............

Strat

2005-05-18T04:34:00.000-07:00

Hi EveryBody..
Summa is O n l i n e ........
From recent past I really wanted to start a blog, and Today I managed to fulfill it.
So Anyway first Setp is done... and hope to continue.

Thanks.