Managing life in the Internet era

Friends are those who enjoy being with us. Out of them, there are special friends who enjoy being with us in both the happy and sad moment. During the days when there were no phones and internet, it was not a hard job to select those few special friends out of the handful of companions. Simple logic, if there are 5 candidates for 3 vacancies, selection is easy for the interviewer.

With the advent of the mobile phones mania to our little island, many had sms friends. They replaced pen pals of the olden days and guess what, these sms pals are more funky than the pen pals who takes months to reply for a snail mail.

Then comes the email, chat rooms and social networking and with them, floods in lot of unseen friend to our lives. Now, the number of friends are not handful but thousands of handfuls. Selecting the best few to be with is a bit difficult task. Lot of people may seem to appear best friends but only lord knows who they are in reality.


But, there are this special buddies you met online, then met in reality and have a good friendship maintained and some although have never seen, continue to be best of friends for a long time.Apart from them, there are school mates and class mates on your chat lists. The third kind of people in most of your lists may be the professional or work crowd. For example, there can be your colleagues at work who chat with you about the present project you are working on. Fourth category is the people you love. May be family or your fiance.

It is always nice to have lot of friends around when you log into skype, Gtalk, Yahoo or facebook for that matter. But how are you going to manage them all? There are hundreds of best buddies online. You do not know what they are up to, you do not know where they are. Thus, having a green bulb next to a name of a buddy does not mean that he or she is ready to chat and similarly, having a red bulb always doesn't mean he/she is not ready to have a chat.


Talking in general, the fourth category and the third catogory are in the top of the list of priorities.

The reason is no other than their importance to your present life. If you do not respond to your GF, she will shout at you and being silent for the professional list is too dare to think of.


But hey, you got to give the others a hearing too. Some times, you are exhausted with work that you postpone some work that you have to do.

For example, when I logged into facebook one day, it said that the next day is going to be the birthday of one of my best buddies. I told my self that I am going to wish him early the next day. The next day comes in, I sit in front of the computer thinking that I have to wish him. In a moment I forget it with the whole load of information/work put in front of my eyes.At the end of the day I turn eyes out of the computer and then only remembers that it was his birthday. I log into the chat using phone, he is no where to be found.

I thought I would SMS, but that too was postponed forever. Later he showed up in the chat list , I tried to say hello and say sorry but he was silent..then yesterday there comes a message saying that I have forgotten his bday and I have forgotten him.

Well, I was helpless. what he says is true. I have forgotten him. I didn't even emailed when he was not replying for chat. I was embarrassed and believe me it was a hurting to get such a message from one of the handful of my best buddies.

True that Internet is helping us to get to know many friends but that is not all, it creates new needs for us and sometimes makes us stranded among the friendships that come along the wires (and for the wi-fi users : over the air.).

The first time I used the internet was to do some research for an English Debate and that day, I thought internet was a great tool for education. The moment I got to know about email, I was crazy sending forward emails to friends. A friend invites me one day to Hi5 and from that day I was not only crazy sending forward emails,reading them but also making new friends. then comes Facebook. (count the numbers everybody, now 3 needs, turn on the computer, read mails, go Hi5ing, see the faces of Facebook and do some research for school work), Then comes chatting, blogging, twittering, stumbling, you tubing, flickering, LinkedIning and a whole lot more.

Its true that they are great services, but still, do you not feel the needs they create? if you create a blog, you feel like monitoring the visitors, so you put up a script in the blog to track them. Than each time you log on, you not only feel like reading the comments of the visitors but to know the countries from where they came and how did they found the link to the blog. The list goes on and so is the day.

We sure can live without those but, "It" sometimes makes us all slaves of the internet and ultimately forget humanity.

Forget it so much that you postpone wishing a person through a call or a SMS because you feel it is better to wish him over the chat which is spontaneous and some times more fun than a phone call.

Or, is it simply due to the over flooding of information? The information updating in real time makes you forget the real life issues ? I do not know what it is. The only thing I understand is that internet is the modern open economy. It provides you with lot of new oportunities and in order to keep up with the world you have to update your selves, sometimes forgetting or rather not not bothering about the old things/ services etc. Frankly, tell me how many of you are missing your old buddies simple because they do not have IM? In my case a lot.

But they do miss you too, specially in the special moments. So make sure at least you give your all buddies in the contact list a missed call once a week. Believe me, it makes both the parties happy or may be end up in a long gossipy call.

Now what if this thing called the internet go brum and bang one day like in the big bang? Well, im going to experience it soon, just got the red bill from the SLT and my dialog bill is too high so that they are sending me SMS from time to time.

So back to the age when there was no phones and no internet. let us see how am I going to choose the best 3 out of 5.

PS: My dear friend( whose birthday falls on 11th of August) , Wish you a happy Birth day. I know this is too late to say it. But still, I couldn't think of a better way to apologize.

Your message in the morning is still waiting in my inbox because I'm not that strong to bear the guilt of not remembering your birth day :(

the bottom line : Take this as a lesson you internet junkies. Computers and internet does not worth a single penny when compared to human beings


Speaking of being addicted to the internet, this what an online quiz said of me.

85% L33T H@x0r (81% - 100%) You live and breathe the Internet. You rarely leave your computer(s) for fear of going through withdrawl. You are beginning to say "lol" and "brb" in verbal conversations and you haven't seen your friends face-to-face in months if you don't count their web cams. Maybe it is time to back away from the computer slowly and go get some fresh air? The Internet will be here when you get back! The Quiz at Quiz Meme!

yes, it sure is the time to back away from the computer slowly and go get some fresh air

See you soon!!

PowerPoint on the GO--Run PowerPoint eventhough you dont have it installed in the computer--

PowerPoint and Presentation, these two words mean almost the same for some people.

Well, it is reasonable as PowerPoint is an easy way to convince your ideas to an audience. But, PowerPoint can sometimes be a mess too. Specially,when it comes to the 'font' and 'version' problems.

But, the software itself has provided a solution for this headache

If you are using 2007 version, click on the Office Button-->Publish-->Package for CD
and if you are working on power point 2003, go to file menu-->package for CD


This option allows you to copy all the files into a folder or wrote a CD of the presentation with all the linked files to the presentation. For example, font files and audio clips that run within the presentation.

In the dialog box which appears next,select what you want to do.




1. Name of the CD
you can give a name for the CD which contains the presentation

2.Files to be copied
all the linked files are automatically included. for example, sound clips and movie clips. power point will identify the places where they are located in your computer, copy them into the CD and alter the paths in the presentation so that you don't have to worry about, missing paths, and cannot-be-found sound clips.
Any way, if you need any more files to be copied, use add files button

3. options Button



In the package type section, you can select the way you want the presentations to be played.
-Run all the presentations in the CD automatically
-Play only the first presentation automatically
-Let the use select which presentation to be played
-Don't play the CD automatically

In Include these files section, you can select whether you want to add embedded font files as well. (Linked files are automatically selected)

In the security and privacy section, you can password protect the editing and the opening of the presentation.

If you enable inspect the presentation for personal details, PowerPoint will check whether any personal data are hidden in the presentation.

When all the settings are done, you are left with two alternatives.

You can either burn a CD of the presentation or copy all the files into a folder so that you can later copy it to a pen drive.

If you copy to a folder/CD, the presentation folder looks like this.



There are lot of files to be sure...but don't worry.

Double click on the file which is named PPTVIEW

It will open the PowerPoint Viewer.

If it asks whether you accept the terms and conditions of the program, click accept and then, you'll be automatically forwarded into a dialog box, from where you can select the presentation you need.

Power point viewer is so intelligent that it shows me the place of the presentation that I have to run
.

So, you just have to select the presentation and click OK.

No more problems.

Whether you have PowerPoint or not, your presentation will run

Analyze the anatomy of your enemy's web site

This is about a site which can analyze any website that you want to. Just enter the web site you want to analyze and hit enter. If you entered my blog address, you might end up with something like this.

I think the tool is quite useful for people who are interested in web designing.

And on the other hand, if people start to use the site's technology for unethical purposes, it would be a curse for the whole world too!!

If you feel like interested, click here to visit the site.

Google search finds missing child

i thought it worth while to share this. this time, it was used for a good purpose. but who knows what will happen this Google tracking technology goes into the hands of terrorists and so forth?







A nine-year-old girl, allegedly kidnapped by her grandmother, has been found using a mobile phone signal and Google Street View.

A police officer and a firefighter in Athol, Massachusetts, joined forces after authorities were alerted that Natalie Maltais had been taken.

Officers used GPS in the girl's mobile phone to find her approximate location.

They fed the co-ordinates into Google Street View, pinpointing a hotel where the child was subsequently found.

The alarm was raised after grandmother Rose Maltais picked up Natalie from the child's legal guardians for what was supposed to be a weekend away.

She "said that she wasn't going to return Natalie and then left the state", Athol police chief Timothy Anderson told the BBC.

The police contacted Ms Maltais, but after she didn't return Natalie as promised, they decided to track them down using Natalie's mobile phone.

Since 2005, US law says that mobile phone providers must be able to locate 67% of callers within 100 metres and 95% of callers within 300 meters.

This requirement has led to GPS capability in most new mobile phones in the US.

"This is very useful, although we can only use it in emergency situations such as when a person is missing or lost, or a life is in danger," said chief Anderson.

Knowing this, police officer Todd Neale contacted the mobile phone provider, AT&T, which gave him GPS coordinates every time the phone was activated. Police must submit a compliance form to the phone provider to request location information.

Source :: BBC

Modem hunting in Senkadagala

I think I don't have to explain what is a modem. Any way, if even one of you dont knw what is a modem and what does it do, click here to find out.

So now all of you know what is a modem and how important it is. Let the hunting begin......arm yourselves with bows and arrows and off we go modem hunting in Kandy city

I was looking for a adsl modem because I have applied for a adsl connection from SLT . Teleshop people said that they also sell a modem.since I don't believe them much, had to look around the city.

Kandy shops basically have only one brand : US robotics. but this US thing doesn't have a router as the shop dealers said. So I opted for a Linksys AM300 one (available only in Neat Technologies in D.S. Senanayake Vidiya). It was expensive than the US Robotics and apparently it was powerful as the specifications showed. Lynksis also had a link with Cisco. so i was sure the modem would be of great quality as Cicso is listed as the leading supplier of networking equipment and network management for the Internet.

now, the modem is at home and no body knew how to set up the modem cz it had some advanced set of blanks to fill in the set up page. Had to call SLT several times to get the settings and finally I caught an engineer guy from the techno dept to solve the problem.

Set up done, I let some torrents download. Guys it was a real mystery. The modem would restart after each 30 minutes. And guess what if you spill a drop of water into the modem at the point it restarts it would would vaporize in seconds. My genius bro found a solution for that.

This is the solution:

Step 1: take a cooling fan off the system unit

step 2: keep it on the Modem for absorbing the extra heat

you think it is enough?? nope

here we go the step3. You should keep the modem on a stand like this to make sure that the air passes through the space between the bottom surface of the modem and the computer table. Earlier my modem was proudly standing on two pens laid parrel to two opposite edges of the modem but it proved to be dangerous. so guys this is the best and the safest option.

The heating problem thus solved with the help of a fan taken out from the system unit, I thought it was all and let U torrent do some downloading.

mmm i was wrong again...when the number of connections go high, the modem would stop all the connections. Believe me, it is terrible when you have to look into the monitor whetre the network is ok or not. and above all,this nices modem knows so many tricks that it wont re estblish the connection even after restarting the modem. It is so adamannt than you can imagine.

I have to turn off the computer, turn off the UPS and let some time pass before pushing the power button again to start the connection...mmmm terrible for a modem ha??

now I regert for choosing the best.. I should have bought Us Robotics or either the one offered by the SLT it self.

Above all Kandy sucks with regard to computer shops