http://www.thepapare.com/index.php/live/646-live-134th-battle-of-the-blues

/Rakhitha

These RAM are now officially retired.

In case you are wondering why your monitor flicker and computer crash after a hardware upgrade, this might be the answer. New hardware can drive the voltage bellow 5% tolerance level required to run the PC smoothly. You can check the voltage level in BIOS or with a Multimeter. But don’t rush to buy a new PSU. It is most likely a loose power connector.

Here is what happened. It’s a bit long. I decided to give a RAM upgrade to the old computer that we are having. I bought  two Samsung 1GB sticks (DDR 400Mhz) from a local refurbished RAM shop. After the upgrade computer simply kept crashing while loading windows. If I plug just one of the memory cards, computer boot up, but it was very unstable. Display kept flickering and eventually it crashed.

I took the RAM cards back to shop, but they ware working just fine. But anyway I got them replaced with a different brand. With those two RAM sticks computer booted up but display was still unstable and sometimes it just crash.

After searching the web, it seemed to be a common problem. But pretty much every post I found suggested that I have busted the VGA card or the RAM is bad or incompatible with VGA.

Interestingly, flicker happen when the hard disk is active. So I checked the voltage levels. BIOS reported that 3.3v rail is at 2.86v and USB voltage at 4.1v. First of all, these numbers can’t be right. Because if it was true, computer should not even start. But they ware way bellow what it used to show. I tested by connecting just one memory card and the voltage was about 0.1 ~ 0.2v higher.

First I though it was the old PSU being over taxed. But after poking the power connector to the motherboard with my finger, voltage on 3.3v rail increased to 3.1v. After a good cleanup of power connector to remove dust and dirt it collected over the years, 3.3v rail is showing 3.28v and USB power is at 4.98v. And the computer is running very smooth .

Here is the thing with bad connections. They create resistance in the power line. As a result, even a slight increase of power consumption will significantly drop the voltage. Therefore if your computer is unstable after an upgrade, check the power levels and connections first. Specially if it is old and dusty. Hope the next guy to have this problem will not have to waste as much time as I did .

Btw, I am not responsible if you electrocute yourself or destroy your computer. Make sure the power is off,  mains power cord is disconnected, and equipment is well grounded before you touch anything.

/Rakhitha

This Saturday  I went to Colombo airport to drop off my wife. Usually once I drop off someone, I leave the airport as soon as they pass the scanners to go to check in counters. But since this was Saturday morning and there was nothing much to do afterwards, me and another friend who came to drop off his wife decided to hang out a little longer.

He remembered that there was some place you can watch take offs and landings which he visited when he was a kid. We decided to find that place and spot some aircrafts.

It was not that difficult to find it. As soon as you come out of departure terminal, there is a sign post labeled “Public Viewing Area” pointing to your right hand direction. after that there is no direction posts. We had to ask few security guys for directions before we find the place.

It is looks like a small-scale pavilion that you find in a small school ground. You have to buy a 20/= ticket and sit on concrete stares to watch aircrafts through a very high wire fence. There were at least 50-60 people and there was lot of space for children to play. Most of the people there seemed to be extended families who has come to drop off someone at the air port. But I noticed at least one couple on a date.

The view is good but not great. Viewing angle is from ground level. It would have been great if there was a raised viewing platform. You can see few aircrafts that are parked and also about 70% of the runway. Newly built airport building which houses gates block about 30% of the view. Before it was build, entire runway should have been visible.

At the viewing area there is a decommissioned propeller aircraft (don’t know which modal it is) parked. And there is one discarded jet engine and few old broken propellers on the ground.   There is a canteen which sells regular Kimbula banis, Malu pan, soft drinks and plain tea.

Place is in bit of a run down state. It looks like the it has been forgotten while all the renovation work is done in rest of the air port. This place has potential to develop in to a good restaurant with great but noisy views. Similar to harbor room in Grand Oriental Hotel. But first you need some extra air traffic to make that happen. While we were there we only spotted three parked aircrafts, about two landings and three take offs. That was during a 3 hour time span. Airport looked kind of empty. May be it was not the peak hours.

I didn’t have a good camera with me. Above pic was taken with my phone camera which is nearing end of its life. As you can see it does not even focus.  And apparently it’s not allowed to take pictures. One of the friendly air force personal told us so when we were taking pictures. But once he is not looking, we noticed most of the people were clicking with their cameras.

Overall its a nice place to hang out if you have few hours to kill. With some investments it can become a great place.

In the three-wheeler park there is one metered tuk tuk to which almost all customers go to. But once the passenger mention destination, driver point another three-wheeler and ask the passenger to use that one. And it is not metered. When inquired about price, they will tell you that it will charge the same amount as the metered guys for the stated destination. I observed this behavior in front of MC as well as couple of other three-wheeler parks. Bottom line is, non-metered tuk tuk will charge at-least double the amount it will cost of taking metered one. Even if that metered one is rigged to overcharge.

In one occasion a non metered tuk tuk quoted 150/= from MC to House of Fashion.  But the metered one cost us only 60/=. (And another 50/= for the return trip). I know this is not a massive save. But for a longer trip this would be much worse. Moral of the story is, always insist on a metered taxi. Even a rigged meter will cost you less than a non metered one.

There are few three-wheeler guys who don’t do this. In one occasion a trip from Wellawatte to Kollupitiya only cost me 10/= less than what the non metered guy quoted. And the metered taxi I took was not even from the same park. That non metered tuk tuk might be simply a guy trying to survive with the old ways in an industry that has already changed.  But still I would always insist on a metered taxi. Because there is no way to know if you are being ripped off or not. And to the honest non-metered guys I would say, World has changed, get yourself a damn meter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmers’_Day

PS: Wonder if Apple considered this when setting iPhone 5 release date.

Dentists are nice bunch of people, but I just can’t stand the sound and vibration inside my mouth. Also most dental clinics are not sound proof. You can here all the drilling and screaming of the previous patient while you wait for your turn. Its not a very nice experience, as it scare the s*it out of you even before you go inside. Also this could be partly because the image we build during the childhood. Visit to a dentist will most likely be the penalty for not taking care of your teeth. Even the regular checkup visits during childhood are often done against your will.

End result is of-course you don’t go to the dentist until your teeth get pretty bad. That day finally caught up with me as I ended up with a large tooth cavity. At the dentists after further examination, it turned out there are three more teeth that need filling as well. In x-rays it looked like I am going to need a root-filling for the largest cavity. But fortunately after drilling the Doc concluded that it could be filled normally as there is no nerve damage. End of the day I walked out with four fillings.

Best part of this dentist visit was, I went for a dental facility in one of the major private hospitals instead of the nearest small dental clinic, which use old, noisy grinding machines inside your mouth. This decision was taken mostly because I feared that my worst tooth would need a root filling. And I wanted to get that done in a proper hospital which x-ray your teeth before they dig in. But end of the day prices were quite similar to a basic dental clinic and the biggest plus was equipment was quite new and the patient friendly setup. No loud noises of compressor and drill. Vibrations and discomfort was minimal. Place was well sound proofed so you don’t hear any noises while you are in the waiting area.

My dental work is not over yet as I have to get one temporarily filling replaced with a permanent one. Until then, worst part is keeping an eye on the temp filling to make sure I don’t break it by biting something hard with the wrong side of my mouth. And hopefully I’ll visit dentists more regularly in the future.

This version on Madagascar  incorporated more music, including the best version of “I like to Move it” yet. But the movie has lot more music than just that song and as result  ”I like to Move it” is pushed to end credits. But that wasn’t a bad thing. With the car chases, circus, and some fighting this could also be the most action packed Madagascar.

It’s a common story where some one in trouble find another person/group who are also in a trouble and then decide to use those people to get out of the trouble. This will require the first party to work together with the second party in a way that both benefit and form a bond. But at some point the first party has to dump the second party to go on their own way. And second party figure that out at some point and get emotional. This is a concept that has been used so many times. But this movie had so many things to enjoy. Therefore having a not so original story was not a big deal.

My favorite parts of the movie include the banana gun sequence with a mad French animal control officer doing bullet time, monkey powered helicopter with a built-in Wrap drive, car chase, and of course the animal only circus.

I watched this in a 2D theater but some of the sequences should look really cool in 3D. Liberty at Kollpity is done screening this movie. But Savoy 2 is now screening it. That might be a good experience even-though it is a smaller screen. Watching Madagascar  was indeed time well spent.

Image from Wikipedia

Around this time of last year, Sri Lanka did not have any 3D movie theater.  If you wanted to have a 3D movie experience, only choice was to go for a movie while in another county. Finally with the end of 2011, MC Cineplex opened with one 3D theater. Now we are half way through 2012 and there are 3 theaters with 3D credentials.

MC 3D tickets are priced at 600/= per head at the moment, which I think is bit high. Recently upgraded Savoy 3D is priced at 400/= per head. 400 seems reasonable price to pay for 3D. We will have to wait and see how prices play out since now there is competition in 3D arena.

This weekend I watched Ice Age 4 at Savoy 3D. Movie was quite good. And It had used 3D with some caution. Without overdoing it. Because there were some sequences in the early stage of the movie which could have been made to feel like a Roller coaster ride with overused 3D. Fortunately it has not gone down that path.

And ofcourse the 4th installment is slightly different form the previous movies in one aspect. In earlier parts of the movie, story take place as animals try to survive mass extinction events triggered by mother nature. But this time around the events are rolled in to motion by one of the most loved characters . And you will discover not only how continental drift, and rotation of earth inner core start. You will also discover how North American Continent was formed and City of Atlantis submerge. Also unlike Ice Age 2 (Dawn of the Dinosaurs) creators has not let the the full surprise out in the trailer.

Show I went was the morning show. It was pretty much fully booked by Friday. And the entrance was bit crowded and chaotic. I guess there were lot of people waiting to watch this movie.

Overall experience of watching the movie in upgraded/renovated Savoy Main theater was quite good. With the new silver screen and projection technology, brightness and picture quality was way better. There was no flicker in high-speed action sequences. However there is one small complain to make. That is, on the screen there is a few inches wide and few feet high color patch. It was quite visible during the movie. Specially when the focus of the eye change due to 3D effect, suddenly you see two color patches instead of one. Hope they fix it soon. Because when you go in to an upgraded shining new movie theater, even the smallest of the scratches can stand out.

By the way, I felt the 3D glasses at Savoy more comfortable compared to the one I got at MC. But I think in the long run all 3D theaters should consider switching to less expensive, light weight disposable/recyclable 3D glasses. Because having to wipe out the finger prints of the previous user of the glasses and some times even things he/she was eating is kind of annoying.

This post has more technical details of the savoy projection system and what makes it special.

Long Live Mother Nature! – A flag hanging on Bo tree at Kelaniya temple.

When you visit a temple you can always see many flags hanging on the branches of Bo tree with text written on them to invoke blessings on various people for various reasons. It could be a simple wish to pass an exam, get well from a sickness… ect.

But this one made my day when I visited Kelaniya temple. Some one took his time to invoke blessings and thanks on Mother Nature. Considering what mankind has done last few decades I think she needs all the help she can get.

Long Live Mother Nature!

There wasn’t much of a damage as I had backups. Since I am not sure what is compromised and what is not. I deleted the entire site and restored it from backups. Blog was on maintenance mode for about 12 hours as I had to wait until I get home to do the restoring. I am pretty sure no one noticed it. Only damage was it cost me few good hours to restore things and change all the passwords. I am not exactly sure how the attacker got in. So there is more head scratching left to do.

But at least It gave me something to write about

/Rakhitha

In True Blood it’s all about the interaction between vampires and humans, and the things happen as a result of that. In most vampire stories humans aren’t aware of vampires. You only find out that some one is a vampire just before your death.

True Blood is different. Vampires has always existed in the world in secret like in all the stories, killing people, drinking blood. But for humans they were only legends. But this change when Japanese scientists invent a way to produce synthetic human blood. This is the main plot device. A drink called ‘True Blood’, which is synthetic human blood available in restaurants and bars.  This allows vampires to surface as a race. And create a whole bunch of issues like vampire rights, vampire marriage, human-vampire marriage in number of levels such as religion, society, business, politics ….

Vampires and humans co-exist but barely. Vampires as a race as well as co-existence is at its very early stages. As a result there is a lot of friction and conflicts. Of course most people don’t like vampires and vice versa. Which is understandable. Most vampires are not nice guys. Existence of ‘True Blood’ does not mean they don’t kill any more. ‘True Blood’ just give them a politically and legally correct way to exist. Killing and drinking human blood is not just something vampires do for survival. It’s a social activity. Also people hunt/kill vampires because of their religious/social views or just to hunt for vampire blood.

Center of the story is a relationship between a vampire and a human. But its only another plot device to keep main vampires characters and human characters bumping in to each other. Story runs through the stuff that happen around an neighborhood where both vampires and humans live. And also there are no full-time good guys and full-time bad guys. There are only good things, bad things, and down right disgusting s**t. All people do all things at different times and they always have reasons to justify them.

Just like every vampire story there is a set of ground rules which govern what vampires can and can’t do. And they are exposed one by one over the episodes. And here is few. Vampires exposed to sun light burn to death. But new/young vampires burn slower than the old ones. Vampires are stronger than humans. With age strength increases. But some viruses and silver can make them weak. Vampires cannot enter to a house of a human. Unless invited by someone who live there. Vampire blood is a powerful drug. It gives temporary strength, healing powers to any human who drink it.

In true blood each season has a main plot arc. In Season one, it’s about finding a killer who kills girls that hang out with vampires. In season two, story is about looking for a very powerful vampire sheriff who has gone missing. Season three covers some intense vampire politics.  One thing I didn’t like is except in season one other seasons take little too much time to build up the story. And as a result first few episodes tend to be bit slow and boring. But things pick up after episode six and become very intensive. Another thing I don’t like about this show, is the fact that every episode ends with a cliffhanger. That is completely unnecessary. You don’t need that to keep viewer coming back.

In overall True Blood is a sophisticated, multi-dimensional story. It has drama, fantasy, horror, romance and everything. Most characters has a significant dark side. There are no all round nice guys.  Also it might still been a great show even without most of its sex seens. How ever let me repeat this again. This show is not for kids and sensitive people. Also there is a lot of row violence, and sexually explicit content ranging from romantic to very disturbing. IMO it is done intentionally to show that vampires are note a nice bunch of lovable people. This show is not made to show the nice side of things.

Do you remember that Neutrino! The one which seemed to beat the speed of light? You should, because it made few good rounds in local blogspear as well. And it captured lot of imagination. Well, it seems to be a false alarm. After repeated experiments it has been concluded that the anomaly was due to a measuring error. It is interesting how little press it get compared to the original news. But I guess that’s how things work in the universe.

However this entire incident did one good thing. It captured public attention for the scientific process for a short period. It put the scientific process on display for everyone to see. When you find an unexpected/strange/exciting result you collaborate with others to repeat the test and put the findings down for scrutiny. And end of the day we find out something about the universe or we don’t.

Related Links:

Neutrinos sent from CERN to Gran Sasso respect the cosmic speed limit

Faster-Than-Light Neutrino Results May Be Due to Bad Cables

Faster Than Light – BBC Documentary on Youtube

Thing I liked the most was, how most parts of the hotel is designed to give you a semi outdoor experience regardless where you are. Most of the public areas are very spacious, open to the surrounding and facing ocean. Specially when you are at the lobby and restaurant your view is entirely ocean. However if you are not found of the strong winds and the tropical temperature there is air conditioned areas covered with glass walls.

Rooms are not the largest that I have been to but they are quite spacious. And hotel have about 140 of them. Rooms has  ocean facing , very spacious balconies with beautiful views. Rooms were well furnished with a king size bed, two day beds (one in balcony), dressing table and tea table. In room entertainment system included a LCD TV with cable channels and a DVD player. You can borrow DVDs from the reception. Up to 3 DVDs at once. They had a quite a good collection of DVDs with most of the recently released movies.

Restaurant was quite large and there was no trouble of finding a good spot even though the hotel was almost full. This was also one of the well staffed restaurants. Even though it was large and accommodate a large number of guests you can always find a waiter nearby if you need anything. And their service was really good. There are two sections of the restaurant. Indoor and Semi outdoor. In the Indoor part of the restaurant you can enjoy your meal while fully protected from the elements. In the out-door you have the full view of ocean and the full force of wind to experience with delicious food. Food was really good and there was a huge verity covering local, western, south and east asian.

 The swimming pool was excellent place to chill. It’s large and well maintained. And it is built following new regulations. That is, the deep end is not deep enough to drown you. Which is a good thing if you are not a world-class swimmer. Shower area and dressing rooms are very well planned to fit the number of guests that hotel can accommodate.

Hikkaduwa is a tourist city. Apart from beech related activities such as taking a boat trip to see corals, diving and surfing, there are many fun things to do and interesting places to visit on land. I am not going to write much about those as you can find plenty of information on Hikkaduwa on the web.

If you are taking a boat trip the starting point is only 60 seconds walk through the beach from hotel. Even if you are not going anywhere, there is plenty of space to chill out and relax in the hotel either in the lobby or pool. Also if you are up for a game of cricket or volleyball, squash, table tennis there is room for that too.

Now I’ll get to the parts I did not like.

Only thing that I felt the management haven’t well thought through was the hotel night club. It was bit boring. Also the room used for night club was not designed for loud music. Sound get reflected off the walls and get distorted. This is probably because the fact that Hikkaduwa has a teeming nightlife. So the hotel do not have to give the same, when gusts can find plenty of places to party outside the hotel.

Hotel has decided to go high-tech with its in room entertainment syatem, and installed an “IP based Interactive TV system”. You can change channels as well as order room service using your remote. But there is bit of a learning curve to use it. Don’t be surprised if you had to call the reception to ask how to change the channel. But if you call them, reception will send a guy to teach how to use it.

Hotel staff think they have a crow problem. And occasionally use fire crackers to scare off crows. During my stay I did not experience that crows causing any problems to the guests in any way, but the sound of occasional fire cracker was annoying. They need to find another way of dealing with crows without using fire crackers.

Overall it a very good hotel with enough capacity for the large number of guests it can host. Public areas such as pool, lobby, restaurant … are built to handle the large number of guests and has everything you need to relax. You will not have trouble finding a good spot to chill even when the hotel is almost full. Wherever you go in the hotel you will experience the ocean and it’s wind. There are many outdoor activities to do in the area and hotel is equipped for many sports and activities. Staff is very friendly and helpful, in overall the hotel is very well staffed. Last but not least, food in the restaurant is excellent and has a huge variety. This is a place that any traveler will enjoy and find this place very relaxing.

This was my second time at Deer Park Hotel. I normality don’t  stay at same place twice unless I like that place or there is no other place to stay. In this case it was the former reason. Deer Park is one of the good hotels in Polonnaruwa. You do not find many hotels owned by popular chains in the area.

It is located near the Giritale tank. About 10km away from historic city of Polonnaruwa. If you are traveling from Colombo you can take Colombo-Kandy road up to  Ambepussa and turn towards Kurunagala and travel all the way up to Minneriya, passing Kurunagala and Dambulla and then turn east towards Polonnaruwa. Except last couple of kilometers where you drive on the bank of Giritale tank most of the driving will be on well-built highways. There is another hotel right next to Deer Park which is called Royal Lotus.  On your way you will pass few places like Minneriya National Park and Sigiriya if you wish to make a stop.

Deer Park is a 4 star hotel with a bit of nature built in to it.  Rooms are built based on a luxury cottage style. There are 2/4 rooms blocks and duplex cottages where you have an upstairs bedroom and ground floor living area. Rooms are quite spacious and well furnished (king/Queen size bed, writing/dressing table, day bed, mini bar, separate tea table, and stuff to make your own tea). In overall well worth the price. Lighting was quite god. Only thing that did not fit in there was the old CRT  TV. IMO duplex rooms are the best. But you might find that the stair case is bit narrow and steep as it is built using as little space as possible. Older travelers and people traveling with children might not like it and prefer regular rooms.

Reason why I said that the hotel was not at its best is because it’s the off-season. Therefore the most of the guests are local and some of the things such as restaurant menu seemed bit downgraded as a result. Seriously hotels should stop doing that for locals. But still it was quite good. Other thing is, most hotels schedule their renovation work during this time of the year. As a result you can notice work being done at every corner. They somehow managed to do it without generating much noise or disturbances. Main swimming pool was not available due to repair work. Otherwise they have a quite a nice twin swimming pool setup where water from one flow in to the other creating an artificial waterfall which is quite cool. Based on my experience in my previous visit things should be lot better during tourism season.

Food at the restaurant was reasonably good and the staff seems quite friendly and helpful. One thing you just cant escape wherever you go in the hotel is the nature. It is pretty much built in to it. There is tree cover all over. You don’t see much direct sun light except in the car park. Giritale tank is right in front of the hotel. There is plenty of wild life. There are birds, squirrels, monkeys, few resident cats and dogs. In overall the surrounding is very beautiful and relaxing.

Duplex and Ground level rooms has a feature called outdoor bathroom. Which is basically a very spacious bathroom with no roof. And there are some plants growing in the bathroom. It was pretty cool, but when you look at some reviews it seems  not everyone like it. Because if you are in a ground floor room you can see the upstairs balcony while in the shower. I experienced this during my previous visit but I still like the setup. Mainly because It’s not your average tiny bathroom.  This is not an issue for duplexes. Also since there is no roof, insects in the trees above can take a trip down in to the bathroom with a little help from gravity. There is some sort of net over the bathroom to prevent leaves and larger animals making the trip down. But it can’t stop wood ants and anything smaller. Don’t let this scare you from enjoying this feature, but keep an eye open for ants while you are at it. If you are not up to this, you should probably ask for a room with regular bathroom.

There are few things to do in the surrounding area. You can visit ancient city of Polonnaruwa. There are wildlife parks nearby and I think hotel can arrange you trips. Also you will find jeeps parked near the hotel entrance by local tour operators to catch some business by taking visitors to wildlife parks. I don’t think they are affiliated with hotel. This part of the country can be very hot and dry. Make sure to carry enough water/drinks when you go out. Even if do not want to go out and just want to chill inside the walls of hotel, there is plenty of things to keep you excited but relaxes at the same time.

In overall Deer Park Hotel is an excellent place to stay and relax. And there are plenty of things to keep you busy. Rooms are quite spacious, well furnished and very comfortable. Staff is friendly and competent. Best part is you can surround yourself with nature. Most thing that a guest might complain about are stuff you get as result of being surrounded by nature. It’s an excellent place to stay if you love nature. And it is very good value for the money.

Following is some of the pics I managed to take. Buy the way those pics look bad mostly because of my camera skills. And also I was not taking pics specifically for a review. Otherwise I would have taken few more pics inside the room, lobby, restaurant, entrance …. But you can find many good pics on the hotel website. And those pics on the site are quite similar to what you will experience if you go there.

Guess what! Today (25th May) is the day for Geeks and fans of Star Wars and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Its called Geek Pride Day or Towel Day. May 25th is the release date first Star Wars movie.  Apparently Geek Pride Day was initiated on 2006. While first towel day was held on 2001, two weeks after the death of Douglas Adams. The author of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

First Geek Pride Day celebration also released the Geek Manifesto which lists out the rights and responsibilities of geeks and here is the list.

Rights

The right to ….

… be even geekier.
… not leave your house.
… not like football or any other sport.
… associate with other nerds.
… have few friends (or none at all).
… have as many geeky friends as you want.
… be out of style.
… show off your geekiness.
… take over the world.

Responsibilities

Be a geek, no matter what.
Try to be nerdier than anyone else.
If there is a discussion about something geeky, you must give your opinion.
To save and protect all geeky material.
Do everything you can to show off geeky stuff as a “museum of geekiness.”
Don’t be a generalized geek. You must specialize in something.
Attend every nerdy movie on opening night and buy every geeky book before anyone else.
Wait in line on every opening night. If you can go in costume or at least with a related T-shirt, all the better.
Don’t waste your time on anything not related to geekdom.
Try to take over the world!

Geeks, Don’t Panic. You have  a day.

Around 5 AM I finally decided check the phone as I don’t want to lose the best part of my sleep around 5:00 to 6:30. Well It turned out it’s not my phone, it was my wife’s phone. We happened to have the same ring tone. We don’t keep much privacy when it comes to short messages so I checked one message.

Holly crap. Its her birthday. And I forgot. Man! The whole thing is happening again. Happy Birthday Hunnie!

However this year things were lot smoother.

Here we go…

IndexedProperty Helper Class

As a I said earlier the indexed property simply return an object of a class which has an indexer. And the implementation of the indexer should delegate the getter and setter calls back to the original object which own the property. Here is a sample implementation for the indexer object. I have used generics to make the implementation independent from data type of the property and the data type of index key.

    //This is the class for indexed property
    //this class simply has an indexer
    //and the indexer will delegate the setter and getter calls
    //back to parent object using two delegates
    //Generics are used to avoid having to hard code the indexer key and value types
    class IndexedProperty<IK,IV>
    {
        //These two delegates are used to delegate the get and set calls
        public delegate IV GetterDelegate<IKD, IVD>(IKD key);
        public delegate void SetterDelegate<IKD, IVD>(IKD key, IVD value);

        //Following variables will stor the actual delegate references
        GetterDelegate<IK, IV> getter;
        SetterDelegate<IK, IV> setter;

        //Constructor
        //When creating the object you need to provide the referances to getter and setter methods
        //which will be called ultimately when the indexer is used
        public IndexedProperty(GetterDelegate<IK, IV> getMethod, SetterDelegate<IK, IV> setMethod)
        {
            this.getter = getMethod;
            this.setter = setMethod;
        }

        //The indexer
        //Nothing much here
        //Just pass the call to the relevant gelegate
        public IV this[IK index]
        {
            get
            {
                return getter(index);
            }
            set
            {
                setter(index,value);
            }
        }
    }

In the above code as you can see there is no much magic. The main part of the code is in the indexer implemented in line 28. It just call the relevant delegate. Two delegates are initialized at the constructor using the parameters passed by the creator. Therefore its the creator who is responsible for actually setting and getting the value of whatever the indexed content.

Using IndexedProperty Helper Class

Following code demonstrates how the above class is used. The given example is a very theoretical one and it could have been done using collection classes in .Net framework. But it is implemented using IndexedProperty class just to demonstrate how it is used. Following implementation is just a map which stores key/value pairs of string data. But in a real scenario you will use this in cases where data is not directly stored in an indexed collection (in that case you can directly make use of the indexer of that collection) but the data is accessed in an indexed manner.

In the following code the indexed property (named Item) is simply a property of type IndexedProperty. They IndexedProperty  instance that we return is initialized with the delegates to get_value and set_value methods which does the actual work.

    //This is just an example of how to use the IndexedProperty Class
    //In this case I have implemented an structure similer to a Perl Hash
    class ClassWithIndexedProperty
    {
        //This is the variable in which we keep the data
        //een numbered elements will contail the keys while
        //odd numbered elements contaim values
        string[] indexedData = new string[100];

        //The object for indexer property
        //in this example both key and value are of type string
        IndexedProperty<string, string> CharIndexer;

        public ClassWithIndexedProperty()
        {

        }

        //This is the method for setter
        private void set_value(string index, string value)
        {
            int nullIndex = -1;
            for (int i = 0; i < indexedData.Length; i += 2)
            {
                if (indexedData[i] == null && nullIndex < 0)
                    nullIndex = i;
                if (indexedData[i] == index)
                {
                    indexedData[i + 1] = value;
                    return;
                }
            }
            if (nullIndex >= 0)
            {
                indexedData[nullIndex] = index;
                indexedData[nullIndex + 1] = value;
            }
            else {
                //Throw an Exception
            }
        }

        //This is the method for getter
        private string get_value(string index)
        {
            for (int i = 0; i < indexedData.Length; i += 2)
            {
                if (indexedData[i] == index)
                {
                    return indexedData[i + 1] ;
                }
            }
            return null;
        }

        //Here comes the indexed property
        //Return type is IndexedProperty which implements indexer
        public IndexedProperty<string, string> Item
        {
            get
            {
                //When we access the property for the first time we create the object
                //And in subsequent calls we just need to return it.
                if (CharIndexer == null)
                    CharIndexer = new IndexedProperty<string, string>(get_value, set_value);
                return CharIndexer;
            }
        }
    }

Even though its 70 lines long, in above example the only part you need to focus here is the actual implementation of the property named “Item” in lines 58 to 67. There we simply return an object of IndexedPrperty which is properly initialized with delegates to methods which does actual work.

Testing

Following is just a simple test program that I wrote to test above code.

    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            ClassWithIndexedProperty test = new ClassWithIndexedProperty();
            test.Item["A"] = "Apple";
            test.Item["B"] = "Banana";

            Console.WriteLine(test.Item["A"]);
        }
    }

To Do…

Read Only and Write Only Indexed Properties

As you can see in the actual indexer in IndexedProperty class it simply pass the call to a delegate. The creator may choose to pass null as one of the delegates to make it read only or write only. Therefore its good to handle the null value inside the indexer and throw a proper exception.

Multi-Dimensional Keys

Given IndexedProperty class handle any data type as long as the key is one dimensional. You will need to change some code to support multi-dimensional keys.

Any Suggestions?

Anyway, this is not about loosing fat. This is just an idea which kept messing with my head. Over the years I have realized when there is something you just cant get out of your head (Ex:- Stuff you got to do at office on Monday but it’s still Friday night) it helps to write it down on something. Once you write it down, for some reason your mind stop worrying about it. At-least it works for me.

Ok. here it goes…

Most gym equipment make us do something against resistance. Sometimes the resistance is the Gravitational effect on our own body. Sometimes it is moving something against gravity. Sometimes it is just pulling on a spring or working against friction. Either way we are trying to move something that do  not want to move. And the energy we produce by burning our fat is just wasted. Why can’t we use some form of regenerative brakes as the resistance. Any equipment which use circular motion can easily be used to turn a dynamo. Also any linear motion can be converted to circular motion…. Also if the resistance given by a dynamo is not enough we can use other forms of transformation of energy. And finally we will be able to do something useful with those extra inches.

Anyway it turned out that some one has already tried it. here it is. Apparently a human being cant produce much energy through exercise to make this economically viable. But it is quite cool.

Until recently my wife was using a Nokia E75. Which is a fine phone when it comes to the specs and the looks but if you drop it, its going to be a few thousand rupees worth of repair. A small drop can break some part of the housing, screen, and ribbon cable. Just to give you the picture of the costs the housing repairs will cost you 3k or above and the screen will cost about 11k if you insist on original parts. E75 is just not a solid build.

After breaking the screen for the second time we decided to get a new phone. But there were few problems. My wife was still quite attached to her E75. So we needed something which gives a similar feel but beats E75 to win her heart.

Nokia is almost out of the mobile phone market. And they did not ship anything impressive recently. Therefore it’s not going to be a Nokia. Selecting a phone has shifted from selecting a brand to selecting a platform. Therefore it’s going to be either Apple or Android. We both are not big fans of Apple. Therefore it’s not going to be Apple or any other company that try to copy Apple iPhone looks. Seriously how hard is it to come up with a creative original look. Even apple has not made much progress when it comes to looks after its first release. By the way. It has to be RED in color. What can I say. She likes red.

After some scouting, finally we settled for a Red Sony Xperia Neo. It’s a about LKR 3k more expensive than the Neo V but that’s a price worth paying for a better camera. It has really good specs and excellent external design for its range. And the perfect shade of red. It is also one of the few phone models that comes in red color. But I have few complaints to make.

1. Shape of the back of the phone makes it vulnerable to scratches. But you can avoid it if you buy a back cover. And there are covers in the market which does not take away the beauty of the design.

2. Ports that connect the charger/data cable and HDMI cables are covered with a cover which look really fragile. Sony should have done more thinking on it.

3. Camera has the same problem that many Sony camera users complain about. It just can’t capture color red right.

4. It came with a 8 GB memory card. But for some reason this phone is the slowest phone I have used when it comes to transferring files between PC and phone.

But even with above issues it’s a great phone. Unfortunately I am still stock with my old E71. For some reason I like full QWERTY key pad. Sony Xperia Mini Pro is too small and the Xperia Pro is little expensive. And unlike the E75, E71 is as solid as a rock. I have dropped it countless times and in one case in to a bucket wet of cement. But after washing its works just fine. So it doesn’t feel right to replace it.  It reminds me of my old 3310. And it has many battle-scars on its housing to prove it.

Piracy is a problem for any industry I am not  trying to defend it. But this is not how you fight it. And in my opinion this is not even the fight they should be fighting in the first place.

Fight Piracy With Availability

IMO piracy is the answer that internet age has found for inaccessibility. Lower the availability you will find piracy spiking. Just think about it. World is not just US,Canada and UK any more. Most of the population is outside those regions and they too have TVs and Internet. If you live outside US/UK/Canada region how long do you have to wait till you can watch the latest Episode of your favorite TV show or a movie legally. Most likely your local cable channels don’t has it or few seasons behind or you will have to wait till a DVD release. Most people are not that much patient.

What media industry need is a better delivery system. They have to realize that the market is no longer just United States and Canada. It’s time that they explore fast distribution strategies across the world. May be they should have more cable channels to broadcast their programs in other countries. Or they just have to bypass cable operators and just do it on the internet.

This worked with software and it should work for other media as well. One example is Antivirus software in SL and South Asian region. Few years back only way to get a legal version is to pay the outrages price (in south Asian economies) which is set for US/Canada/UK market. As a result everyone used cracked version. Now there is a separate license for this region at a reduced price. Most of us buy it. Company did not lose money by slashing prices. They just made more. Because those who did not pay to use their product are paying now.

All you need is to innovate in order to meet global market and 21st century technology.

Understanding Internet Age

Some of the things in these acts which require sites to filter content posted by users, simply show the lack of knowledge about the social dynamics and scale of internet. It is no different from an Indian judge saying that social media must scan for user comments which insult their political & religious figures. Only difference is what you are looking for, and the powers that are given by the act which is worse in US version.

Old Model Just Don’t Work

Just look around you. World has changed. Business models that made billions 20 years ago don’t work today. Ideas that simply did not make any sence 20 years ago are thriving. Just imagine, If someone tell you 20 years ago, that you can create a damn good encyclopedia bu just letting everyone and anyone write it without paying them a dime, what would you say?

Remember music CDs? Unless you are a collector you are not interested in buying the entire album just to listen to only one or two songs in it. Also if you just want to listen, you don’t want to pay for all the physical material, packaging and distribution costs. It does not make sense any more. If you remember that’s what apple tapped in to.

If you are a Star Gate fan like me you must have watch the financial horrors of MGM finally killed the TV show and its movies we all loved. They blamed bad DVD sales and ratings for it. Who buys DVDs any more. May be only the collectors. Even the pirated DVD shops are not selling as they used to.

Same goes for those who depend on ratings and advertising money. Seriously does current rating systems really cover how well a show is doing popularity wise. Does the companies even try to turn the popularity outside US/Canada/EU in to money.

My point is, many of the models that are running today are based on pre internet age. World has a come a long way, so should the media industry. Their failure to innovate and reach global markets has not only made them loose opportunities to make money, but has also created a void which create room for piracy. SOPA/PIPA is nothing but attempts to holding on to old ways of doing business disguised in IP protection laws by those who cannot innovate.

oh I forgot, Happy New Year!