ThE uSeFuL

UILabel/UIButton not showing text - iPhone 4

2012-01-23T22:04:00.000-08:00

If the text is showing perfectly fine in other devices, first thing I would check is the font assigned. There is a small issue with the new Xcode version (version 4.2). Some of the fonts you get in the IB (Interface Builder) are not available in all iOS versions and devices. For example the font "Helvetica Neue Medium" is not available in iPhone 4 running iOS 4.3.5

The same problem (UILabel/UIButton not showing text) happened to me because of this font issue. Changing "Medium" to "Regular" was my fix. If you are looking for a font list, you can get it by executing following code.

for( NSString *familyName in [UIFont familyNames] ) {
for( NSString *fontName in [UIFont fontNamesForFamilyName:familyName] ) {
NSLog(@"%@", fontName);
}
}

Getting NSStatusItem co-ordinates (Position in the NSStatusBar)

2012-01-12T08:50:00.000-08:00

You can achieve this by setting an NSView to the NSStatusItem and getting its frame when needed.

NSRect rect = [[[statusItem view] window ] frame];

statusItem is a NSStatusItem object. You can get the current item as follows,

NSStatusBar *statusBar = [NSStatusBar systemStatusBar];
statusItem = [[statusBar statusItemWithLength:21]retain];

To handle any actions you will have to add a NSButton to this view. Everything works fine but there is a small drawback. This button will not have the default behavior as in the blue highlighting you get when you click on standard NSStatusItem. We'll see how we could achieve this.

1. Set the NSStatusItem the normal way

NSStatusBar *statusBar = [NSStatusBar systemStatusBar];
//statusItem is my NSStatusItem object. I have declared it in the header
statusItem = [[statusBar statusItemWithLength:21]retain];

[statusItem setHighlightMode:TRUE];
[statusItem setImage:[NSImage imageNamed:@"appIcon.png"]];
[statusItem setAction:@selector(statusBarItemClicked)];

2. In the selector you handle the click event set a NSView temporary to the NSStatusItem get the frame and remove it as follows.

- (void)statusBarItemClicked{

NSView *statusBarView = [[NSView alloc]initWithFrame:NSRectFromCGRect(CGRectMake(0, 0, 25, 21))];
[statusItem setView:statusBarView];
[statusBarView release];
statusBarView = nil;

NSRect rect = [[[statusItem view] window ] frame];
rect.origin.y = rect.origin.y - 533;
rect.origin.x = rect.origin.x - 280;
int y = rect.origin.y;
int x = rect.origin.x;
//I'm printing the co-ordinates of the NSStatusItem
NSLog(@"status bar co-ordinates");
NSLog(@"y %d",y);
NSLog(@"x %d",x);

[statusItem setView:NULL];
[statusItem setHighlightMode:TRUE];
[statusItem setImage:[NSImage imageNamed:@"appIcon.png"]];
[statusItem setAction:@selector(statusBarItemClicked)];

//anything you want to do when the NSStatusItem is clicked goes here

}

How my girlfriend's oooloo looks this Christmas...

2011-12-20T22:21:00.000-08:00

Christmas could be very interesting and eventful, especially if you have a Catholic girlfriend ;) Well, yeah, I’m going to be busy this season. I had a sneak peek at her oooloo yesterday and found it very interesting and sweet the way she has planned everything.

Merry Christmas :)

Transparent NSWindow controls

2011-11-02T18:23:00.000-07:00

If you are trying to find a way to make a NSWindow transparent then you should have a look at one of my earlier posts, titled "Draggable transparent NSWindow". Today I'm going to show you how to have the default NSWindow title bar controls (close,minimize,maximize).

Step 01:
Design images for the buttons. You require two sets of images, one set for when it is focused and another for when it is not (default).

Step 02:
Add NSButtons using the IB (Interface Builder) and set the images (default).

Step 03:
Tell the NSWindow to accept mouse moved events by placing the following code inside the "init" method in your NSWindow subclass.

[self setAcceptsMouseMovedEvents:TRUE];

Step 04:
Track mouse movements and change the button images when the user moves the mouse on top of them. Have the following in your NSWindow subclass.

- (void)mouseMoved:(NSEvent *)theEvent{
[super mouseMoved:theEvent];
theEvent = nil;
NSPoint point = [self mouseLocationOutsideOfEventStream];
//btnClose is the IBOutlet I have for the close button
int minX = btnClose.frame.origin.x;
int minY = btnClose.frame.origin.y;
int x = point.x;
int y = point.y;
int maxX = btnClose.frame.origin.x + 15;
int maxY = btnClose.frame.origin.y + 15;
BOOL mouseOnTop = FALSE;

if ((minX <= x) && (x <= maxX)) {
if ((minY <= y) && (y <= maxY)){
mouseOnTop = TRUE;
}
}else{
mouseOnTop = FALSE;
}
if (mouseOnTop) {
if (![[btnClose image] isEqual:btnRedImage]) {
[btnClose setImage:btnRedImage];
}
// NSLog(@"mouse on top");
}else{
if (![[btnClose image] isEqual:btnBlackImage]) {
[btnClose setImage:btnBlackImage];
}
// NSLog(@"mouse not on top");
}
// NSLog(@"mouseMoved x:%d, y:%d",x,y);
// NSLog(@"btnClose origin x:%d, y:%d",minX,minY);
// NSLog(@"btnClose max x:%d, y:%d",maxX,maxY);
}

Step 05: Bind the button events

Tuk Experience - Sri Lanka

2011-11-01T21:37:00.000-07:00

The current 'tuk-tuk' setup is a modification of a Japanese delivery vehicle popular in the '60s. Drivers operate the engine with a motorcycle style steering mechanism to guide the vehicles. Originally two-stroke engines, they are also available in four-stroke versions with delivery and pick-up models on offer as well.

The name 'tuk-tuk' quaintly mimics the sound of their idling engines, which is a 'soundtrack' that is part and parcel of Asian city life. Most tuk-tuks in Sri Lanka are a slightly modified version of the Indian Bajaj model imported from India, though there are few manufactured locally and increasing imports from other countries in the region, as well as Piaggio (an Italian brand). Bajaj enjoys a virtual monopoly in the island with its agent being David Pieries Motor Co. Ltd.

In January, 2007, the Sri Lankan government imposed a ban on all two-stroke three-wheelers and, therefore, three-wheelers with only four-stoke engines are now imported to the island. Most three-wheelers are available as hiring vehicles, while the few others are used as private vehicles or haul goods.

Provided you have bargaining skills, three-wheelers have proved to be the most economical way of travelling quickly for some time now. Whilst some people avoid three-wheelers simply because they cannot be bothered bargaining, others avoid them for their notoriety in hospitality. Women, especially those travelling alone, avoid hiring three-wheelers at night. However, there are instances when they do come in handy. They are mostly found at main junctions, near bus stops, on the go, or at 'three-wheel stands' (a.k.a. three-wheel parks). They take turns at hires and, most of the time, they occupy their idle time playing cards and chatting. Some maintain their parking area (I have seen places where they have planted trees and has taken the initiative to build religious place of worship of their own).

Recently, along came the metered three-wheelers. A very reliable set of people compared to the previous lot. They require no bargaining skills (the fare is displayed on the metre) and comes to your doorstep when called (there are several three-wheeler companies to choose from, some providing 24-hour service). Nevertheless, ladies still avoid night travel alone with them.

Customer feedback - Metered taxi

"One day a driver stopped by to give an umbrella to a person while I was in it. At first, I thought he was somebody known to him, but later he told me that it was someone who forgot his umbrella in the three-wheeler."

"I called this guy around 10.30 p.m. and the fellow was so sleepy and went all around the road. We almost died that day!"

"This guy was talking non-stop and it was very annoying."

"One day the fellow left me and went because I got late to show up. I had to call the taxi company again."

"There was a huge traffic jam and fellow took a shortcut and I arrived right on time for work."

"When giving directions to the operator, tell them the closest main town, as they know only the main towns. On the other hand the three-wheeler drivers know every place."

"Don't ask them to come to regular three-wheeler stands. They are bit reluctant to do that."

"The three-wheeler driver helped my drunk friend with water and a face towel even though he ruined the vehicle with vomit."

"Most of them have the courtesy to say good night and thank you. :)"

"Their waiting charges are very reasonable."

"Some even settle the balance money to the rupee."

"At night, some pretend not to recognise the currency notes when settling the fare. Beware!"

"I forgot my wallet once and I didn't know the driver's number to call because I found him on the road (I didn't call their office to book the hire). I called their office and explained what happened as soon as I realised that my wallet is missing. They located the driver for me and he delivered my wallet! :)"

Future tuk tuk

UITableView section index view without sections

2011-10-07T02:18:00.000-07:00

You must be familiar with 'sectionIndexTitlesForTableView' method which allows you to define a list of shortcuts for your sections in an UITableView (like the iPhone contacts app). What if you want a similar behaviour without having any sections? This is how you could tweak apple's default behaviour of 'sectionIndexTitlesForTableView'. Implement the following methods in the delegate class of the UITableView.

- (NSArray *)sectionIndexTitlesForTableView:(UITableView *)tableView {
NSInteger numberOfSections = [contactSectionTitles count];
NSMutableArray *indexTitles = [NSMutableArray arrayWithCapacity: 0];

//fill the array with the titles you want

return indexTitles;
}

- (NSInteger) tableView: (UITableView *) tableView sectionForSectionIndexTitle: (NSString *) title atIndex: (NSInteger) index {

/*this method will get called when you click on a shortcut and it will scroll the UITableView to the respective section. But in our UITableView we have only one section, so when 'index' is not equal to 0 we'll have write some code to scroll the UITableView.*/

if (index != 0) {
// i is the index of the cell you want to scroll to
[self.tableView scrollToRowAtIndexPath:[NSIndexPath indexPathForRow:i inSection:0] atScrollPosition:UITableViewScrollPositionTop animated:TRUE];
}
return index;
}

Performance tools (Instruments) in Xcode 4

2011-09-20T21:26:00.000-07:00

Unlike in previous versions of Xcode accessing performance tools aren't straight forward in Xcode version 4. But if you follow the following steps, you would do just fine.

1. Go to edit schemes

2. Select Profile from the list to your left

3. Set the build configuration to debug

4. Select the instrument you want to run from the list (or select ask on launch)

5. Click ok

6. Click and hold the run button and select profile. Instrument will launch according to your configuration in step 4 (or press keys ⌘I).

Note: configuring schemes is a one time thing.

Top 4 Mac icon apps

2011-09-14T22:55:00.000-07:00

Following are 4 awesome apps I came across as far as mac icons are concerned.

Iconator - A recently released app with a cool user interface and over 100 icons to choose from

CandyBar - An app by www.panic.com

Want to design your own icons? The following might interest you...

IconBuilder - An app by iconfactory

iConvert - upload an image of your choice for tailor-made icons

Beautiful Sri Lanka - Kandy

2011-08-27T23:03:00.000-07:00

Esala Perahera (parade) is the grandest festival held in Kandy and hosts elegant costumes. The Buddhist festival, which has become a unique symbol of Sri Lanka, boasts a vast array of traditional upcountry dances (fire dances, whip dances, Kandyan dances, and other cultural dances), and colourfully adorned elephants. During my recent visit to Kandy, I did not fail remember to bring back with me some cherished memories of the city to share...:-)

Pond at the entrance to the Dalada Maligawa premises (temporary toilets ruined my photo :-S)

A tusker

Elephants love water

Excuse me :)

This is not all. There is a whole new cultural museum, don't miss it.

View from the balcony window (people are now allowed to go there)

Draggable transparent NSWindow - Objective C

2011-08-08T22:37:00.000-07:00

Subclass NSWindow as follows to get a draggable transparent NSWindow.

Draggable transparent NSWindow interface

@interface AppWindow : NSWindow {
NSPoint currentLocation;
NSPoint newOrigin;
int offsetX,offsetY;
}

@end

Draggable transparent NSWindow implementation

#import "AppWindow.h"

@implementation AppWindow

- (id) initWithContentRect: (NSRect) contentRect
styleMask: (NSUInteger) aStyle
backing: (NSBackingStoreType) bufferingType
defer: (BOOL) flag
{
if (![super initWithContentRect: contentRect
styleMask: NSBorderlessWindowMask
backing: bufferingType
defer: flag]) return nil;
[self setBackgroundColor: [NSColor clearColor]];
[self setOpaque:NO];
[self setMovableByWindowBackground:TRUE];
[self setMovable:TRUE];

//this will make the app not respond to F11 (show desktop)
// [self setCollectionBehavior:NSWindowCollectionBehaviorStationary];
return self;
}

- (BOOL) canBecomeKeyWindow{
return YES;
}

- (void)mouseMoved:(NSEvent *)theEvent{
}

- (void)mouseDown:(NSEvent *)theEvent{

currentLocation = [self convertBaseToScreen:[self mouseLocationOutsideOfEventStream]];

offsetX = currentLocation.x - [self frame].origin.x;
offsetY = currentLocation.y - [self frame].origin.y;
}

- (void)mouseDragged:(NSEvent *)theEvent{
currentLocation = [self convertBaseToScreen:[self mouseLocationOutsideOfEventStream]];

newOrigin.x = currentLocation.x - offsetX;
newOrigin.y = currentLocation.y - offsetY;

[self setFrameOrigin:newOrigin];

}

@end

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Transparent NSWindow controls

5 Reasons Why Geeks Are Better Lovers

2011-07-26T01:14:00.000-07:00

For all the geeks and not so geeky to read and comment :)

1. Rarely are they possessive. They trust you, so, you can be yourself when you’re around them.

2. You won’t have to worry about him ogling another girl. They’re more concerned with gadgets and PCs. Heehee.

3. You don’t have to worry about what he’s up to when you guys aren’t together, simply because of the previous reason.

4. Geeks can do amazing things with their fingers ;)

5. Geeks are sensitive and loving

Objective C UITextView, select all tweak

2011-05-03T22:11:00.000-07:00

Anybody who have used a UITextView in Objective C will know the select all option. For those who didn't understand, I'm talking about the select all option you get when you tap on a UITextView. Today I'm going to show you how to change its behaviour.

First things first :) Did you know that you can programmatically select a range of text? This is how you can do it.

[textView setSelectedRange:NSMakeRange(2, length];

textView - your UITextView object
2 - start position. In this example I have started from the second row
length - length of the text. This should be and integer value

So the above code will select a string of length specified starting from row 2. If you call this method when ever the user taps select all you can specify what select all actually selects. When the user taps on select all the following delegate function of UITextView get called. So the next step would be to implement it in your UITextView delegate class.

- (void)textViewDidChangeSelection:(UITextView *)textView{
[textView setSelectedRange:NSMakeRange(2, length];
}

But now the problem is when the user taps on select the same function will get called. So how do we know that he tapped select all. We can check this by checking whether his action (select/select all) has indeed selected an area which we don't want to be selectable. The following check whether the user's selection include the first two rows and makes a custom selection.

- (void)textViewDidChangeSelection:(OLTextView *)textView{
if ([textView selectedRange].location < 3) {
[textView setSelectedRange:NSMakeRange(2, length)];
}
}

Since we want the custom selection for the select all only we have to make the first two rows non-selectable via the select option. Since select option works only for editable text area we can make the first two rows non editable. The following code will make the first two rows non-editable.

- (BOOL)textView:(OLTextView *)textView shouldChangeTextInRange:(NSRange)range replacementText:(NSString *)text
{
if (range.location < 3) {
return FALSE;
}
return YES;
}

[self.tableView setContentOffSet:] does not work

2011-04-12T08:03:00.000-07:00

In the iPhone app I'm developing these days there was this instance where I was required to have a search box on top of a table view and to show/hide when required.

When the page loads I didn't want it, so I added the following in the view will appear method.

[self.tableView setContentOffset:CGPointMake(0, 44) animated:FALSE];

44 = height of the view/searchbox at the top of the table view

User could see it when he/she pull the table view down. I wanted away to hide it when the user pushes the table view up. So in the scrollViewDidEndDragging delegate method I tried calling the set content offset method. But this worked only when I had my view filled with cells. When the table view contains only one or two cells this didn't work. So I had to check the table view content height and set it pragmatically and then set the offset. So the final code looked liked the following

if ([self.tableView contentSize].height < 460) { [self.tableView setContentSize:CGSizeMake(320, 460)]; [self.tableView setContentOffset:CGPointMake(0, 44) animated:FALSE]; }else { [self.tableView setContentOffset:CGPointMake(0, 44) animated:FALSE]; } But before you used this inside the scrollViewDidEndDragging delegate method you need to check scroll view's content offset to identify whether the user really wants to hide the search. You can check this in the following way, CGPoint point = scrollView.contentOffset ; if ((point.y > 22) && (point.y < 44)) {

if ([self.tableView contentSize].height < 460) {

[self.tableView setContentSize:CGSizeMake(320, 460)];

[self.tableView setContentOffset:CGPointMake(0, 44) animated:FALSE];

}else {

[self.tableView setContentOffset:CGPointMake(0, 44) animated:FALSE];

}
}

Pair bluetooth device - Mac (connecting and configuring bluetooth devices)

2011-03-10T23:22:00.000-08:00

In today's lesson I'll show you how you could pair your mac with a bluetooth device. A bluetooth device can be of any nature not necessary another mac. When paired you can send/receive files and even share common directories for file sharing. The following are few self explanatory screen shots which will guide you through the process.

Find the bluetooth icon in the top menu and got to "setup bluetooth device".

If the bluetooth device you are going pair with is discoverable, it will get listed. Select the device and click continue.

You mac will then try to pair the selected bluetooth device. Accept/enter the code when prompted in the other device.

Once you have successfully paired the two devices you can configure what type of sharing you are going to do with the paired device from system preferences -> sharing (specially if you are pairing with another mac)

If you pair another mac using the above settings, your mac will appear in your finder as below. Accessibility of that mac's folders and files will depend on how that mac is configured for bluetooth pairing (sharing).

Custom NSMenu - Objective C

2011-02-22T22:59:00.000-08:00

The following code is an example for a way you could customize a NSMenu in Objective C. It will add customized list items to your NSMenu by setting NSAttributedString objects for the title of the NSMenuItems instead of NSString objects.

//first you need a NSMutableDictionary to hold the attributes
self.folderItemFormatDictionary = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc]init];

/*NSAttributedString class has lot of attributes you can use to customize your list item

NSString *NSFontAttributeName;
NSString *NSParagraphStyleAttributeName;
NSString *NSForegroundColorAttributeName;
NSString *NSUnderlineStyleAttributeName;
NSString *NSSuperscriptAttributeName;
NSString *NSBackgroundColorAttributeName;
NSString *NSAttachmentAttributeName;
NSString *NSLigatureAttributeName;
NSString *NSBaselineOffsetAttributeName;
NSString *NSKernAttributeName;
NSString *NSLinkAttributeName;
NSString *NSStrokeWidthAttributeName;
NSString *NSStrokeColorAttributeName;
NSString *NSUnderlineColorAttributeName;
NSString *NSStrikethroughStyleAttributeName;
NSString *NSStrikethroughColorAttributeName;
NSString *NSShadowAttributeName;
NSString *NSObliquenessAttributeName;
NSString *NSExpansionAttributeName;
NSString *NSCursorAttributeName;
NSString *NSToolTipAttributeName;
NSString *NSMarkedClauseSegmentAttributeName;
NSString *NSWritingDirectionAttributeName;

*/

//In this example I will change the colour of the list item
[self.folderItemFormatDictionary setObject:[NSColor lightGrayColor] forKey:NSForegroundColorAttributeName];

//Using a for loop to add five list items
for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {

//Allocate and initialize a new NSMenuItem
NSMenuItem *item = [[[NSMenuItem alloc]init]autorelease];

//Use the function setAttributedTitle to set the title of the list item with the attributes you specified
[item setAttributedTitle:[[NSAttributedString alloc]initWithString:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"folder %d",i] attributes:self.folderItemFormatDictionary]];

//add the new list item to the menu
[self.folderMenu addItem:item];
}

Stop asking yourself "why it happened?" learn to think what you can do about it - Ajahn Brakmawanso Thera

2011-02-17T07:07:00.000-08:00

In life sometimes shit happens. When they happen no point trying to figure out why. You can always find something to do about it. So when shit happen ask yourself whether you have done anything about it.

Will Sri Lanka make Asia proud in 2011?

2011-02-11T10:17:00.000-08:00

Well it is that time again where Asia is going to host cricket world cup. It will be Bangladesh's first time co-hosting a Cricket World Cup. Welcome to the club brothers :D The World Cup will take place between February and early April 2011, with the first match to be played on 19 February 2011 with co-hosts India and Bangladesh facing off at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur, Dhaka. The opening ceremony will be held on 17 February 2011, two days before the start of the tournament, with the final on 2 April 2011 at Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai (click here for more details on times and venues of matches)

Sri Lankans are going to enjoy this time a lot and I'm sure there will be lot of noise (support) for the Sri Lankan team this year.

New stadiums constructed targeting the world cup (Sri Lanka)

Muttiah Muralitharan International Cricket Stadium
Pallekele - Kandy

Mahinda Rajapaksa International Cricket Stadium
Hambantota

And the happy Sri Lankans,

Hot & Spicy

"Here We Go" Yes World Cup Anthem 2011 Video

Play for the Game

Hiruge Kiranai (Lak Amme) - Rookantha Goonathilake

And much much more...

How to build a drop copy like app? (objective-c)

2011-02-05T21:49:00.000-08:00

Few things,
1. Drop copy is transparent
2. It is fixed to the desktop (F11 will not hide it)
3. It accepts drag and drop
4. Cool animation

Making your window transparent
You can make your window transparent by using a subclass of NSWindow and including the code below.

- (id) initWithContentRect: (NSRect) contentRect
styleMask: (unsigned int) aStyle
backing: (NSBackingStoreType) bufferingType
defer: (BOOL) flag
{
if (![super initWithContentRect: contentRect
styleMask: NSBorderlessWindowMask
backing: bufferingType
defer: flag]) return nil;
[self setBackgroundColor: [NSColor clearColor]];
[self setOpaque:NO];

return self;
}

Fixing the app to the desktop
Drop copy app stays fixed to the desktop. At a glance it is more like a desktop icon where we could drag and drop files into. This is how we could make our app work like that.

1. Include the code below in the above function

[self setCollectionBehavior:NSWindowCollectionBehaviorStationary];

2. Make the app background only from the .plist file

Making the app accept drag and drop
I have explained it in one of my previous posts. Please do have a look :)

Multiple Drop - Objective C Sample Code

Cool animation
The simplest way to achieve this would be to use a .gif in an image view but you could also try using a web view or core animations in objective c.

USB Detection - originally posted on velocity reviews

2011-02-02T03:21:00.000-08:00

Question:
My PC seems to be having problems installing hardware which uses a USB connection, it either fails to install the hardware or installs it within my device manager with a yellow question mark, when I right click and go to properties I get the message 'this device cannot start [code10]' or 'this device is not configured properly, [code1]'

Even when it appears in my device manager without any apparent problems the hardware still does not show up in my control panel and is unusable. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling many times but am getting nowhere.

I would be really grateful if anyone had any ideas.

Thanks Rick
www.velocityreviews.com/

Answer:
1. Go to the device manager
2. Right click on the hardware with the yellow question mark.
3. Click uninstall. The list will refresh itself and the hardware you uninstalled will be removed. Don't forget where it was listed under as you will need that for the next step.
4. Right click on it's (the one you just uninstalled) parent hardware
5. Click scan for hardware changes

Multiple Drop - Objective C Sample Code

2011-01-26T06:01:00.000-08:00

The sample code below shows how you could customise a NSView to accept drag and drop of files. The code will give you the file path(s) of the dropped file(s).

Steps
1. Create a subclass of NSView by using the code blow
2. Add a NSView using interface builder to your app window
3. Change the NSView's class to your new subclass (in this case, to DropArea)
4. Run the app
5. Drag file(s) to the view and drop when the cursor changes
6. The app will print the file path(s) of the dropped file(s). Open the console to see :)

@interface DropArea : NSView {
}

@end

#import "DropArea.h"

@implementation DropArea

- (id)initWithFrame:(NSRect)frame {
self = [super initWithFrame:frame];
if (self) {
// Initialization code here.
[self registerForDraggedTypes:[NSArray arrayWithObjects:NSFilenamesPboardType, nil]];

}
return self;
}

- (void)drawRect:(NSRect)dirtyRect {
// Drawing code here.
}

- (NSDragOperation)draggingEntered:(id )sender {
NSPasteboard *pboard;
NSDragOperation sourceDragMask;

sourceDragMask = [sender draggingSourceOperationMask];
pboard = [sender draggingPasteboard];

if ( [[pboard types] containsObject:NSFilenamesPboardType] ) {
if (sourceDragMask & NSDragOperationLink) {
return NSDragOperationLink;
} else if (sourceDragMask & NSDragOperationCopy) {
return NSDragOperationCopy;
}
}
return NSDragOperationNone;
}

- (BOOL)performDragOperation:(id )sender
{
NSPasteboard *pboard = [sender draggingPasteboard];

if ( [[pboard types] containsObject:NSFilenamesPboardType] ) {
NSArray *files = [pboard propertyListForType:NSFilenamesPboardType];
// Perform operation using the list of files
NSLog(@"Dragged files");
int i;
for (i = 0; i < [files count]; i++) {

NSLog(@"%@",[self.files objectAtIndex:i]);
}
}
return YES;
}

- (void)dealloc{

[super dealloc];
}

@end

Streaming TNL radio fails in mac

2011-01-14T01:13:00.000-08:00

Recently I tried to stream TNL online and ended up listening to a loop. After digging into the problem I realized that the windows media player embedded in the website I used to stream is not supported in my mac (MacBook Pro, MAC OS X 10.6.4). I had Microsoft silverlite product, Fip4Mac installed too. I guess no online streaming in mac as long as service providers stick to windows media player. Well for the lovely lot who use windows, below are two links you can use to find most of our local (sri lankan) radio channels.

www.apramana.com
http://apramana.com/personal/list-of-sri-lankan-radio-stations-and-online-streams/

www.surfmusic.de
http://www.surfmusic.de/country/sri+lanka.html

It's not my fault

2011-01-05T10:17:00.000-08:00

This was something I picked up from the bag in which my breakfast came in. The poem took me back to my school days where some of us were very mischievous, thought I should give some credit to the author by publishing it in my blog.

It's not my fault
It isn't fair
It's not my gum
In Jenny's hair

It wasn't me
I didn't do it
The brick was his
I know he threw it

I wasn't there
What broken dish?
It's not my turn
To feed the fish

What missing cake?
Which chocolate cake?
I didn't push her
In the lake

It isn't fair
Why pick on me?
When I leave school
Just wait and see

Forum marketing - asking questions yourself

2010-12-05T22:50:00.000-08:00

A forum is a great place to promote your product. It can help you from creating awareness to developing a good brand image. The first step is to identify the correct forums. Sometimes the results will not be instant but I can assure that the bonds you create with your potential customers would be strong. Answering a question posted in a forum with your brand in your signature is the most obvious way to approach. But did you know that asking the question yourself will work too? Create an account with a more personal name (don’t use the company name or mention about it) and start asking the correct questions. Sample questions would be,

Is there a KFC in your town name goes here?
How to increase the battery life of my iPhone?
What does the colour LEDs of Proporta’s turbo charger mean?

A real example,
http://stackoverflow.com/search?q=force.com

I’m not saying that the above questions were initially asked by force.com with a marketing intention. What I’m trying to say that a marketer could try it out. Even though I took a more technical example, hope you got the point.

You should also keep in mind the following when you get involved in forum marketing.

1. First thing you should do is register on the forum you'd like to post on. You have to wait a few days before you will be able to post in the forum. While waiting, read comments from residents and check on their thoughts and concerns. It is also a good opportunity to familiarize yourself with the each forums rule.

2. When you sense that you're ready, you can start posting in the forums discussion, but be sure to take it unhurried and simple. Begin by answering the remaining questions and concerns of the residents there. This does not mean that you can start to promote your business, don't do that. This may turn the other residents away from you and you can even be prohibited due to spamming. Keep in mind that you want visitors to see you and not to be annoyed by you.

3. You can start earning your reputation on the topic you post. To do this, be sure to assist others with their problems and respond to their questions on what you know.

Think of your questions thoroughly and format them the right way. If you answer a question, research the answer first before you answer so they won't think you don't know what you're doing.

Life cycle of a facebook post - How to make sure that your post live long?

2010-11-06T06:02:00.000-07:00

A facebook post can be your status update or the link that you shared or even a photo album. Unless you are super popular you must have noticed that some get the attention of many and some don't. There could be two reasons why you didn't get your friends' attention. The most straight forward reason would be that they were not interested in what you published and the other being they never saw it. The facebook wall is bit messy anyway. Sometimes you do miss the things of your interest even if they appear in the wall, unless you use filters and you are seriously organized. There could be another reason; which being your post never appeared in their walls.

A facebook post has a simple life cycle. The posts which appear in your facebook wall would be the most recent or the most popular; well, mostly a combination of it. The facebook shows you the things that you might be of interest. When listing a post in your wall the facebook considers the following,

1. How interactive you are with the owner of the post
2. How popular is the post
3. The date on which the post was published/shared

How interactive you are with the owner of the post
This is something I fancy and think that facebook is doing but I still can't prove this scientifically, so leaving that for later :)

How popular is the post
A post gains popularity from the feedback you get from your friends in your facebook. The likes and comments they make are the popularity generators. But facebook considers the date on which the post was initially published when calculating the popularity. Even if you have a very popular post which has lot of likes and comments but if the post was published sometime back, then facebook prefers to show fresh content (gossip) over that. The comments and likes you get are out of your control. But just imagine if your post gets a considerable amount of likes and comments daily that post's lifespan would increase. It will live longer than anticipated. But you can't do this unless you have your friends on your payroll and you are in control. But something you can really do is to moderate your responses. When you (the owner of the post) is required to enter in to the conversation make sure not to put all your input at once. Contribute gradually so your post will live long in your friends' walls.

3 reasons why any person would want to become rich

2010-10-17T02:19:00.000-07:00

Can you remember the last time you got annoyed,

when one of your co-workers back stabbed you to get that promotion
when that guy in the shop overcharged you
when that bus conductor purposely escaped with your balance
when that three wheel (taxi) driver overcharged you

I’m sure your mind is taking you for a ride in your memories by now. I’m sure we all are hard working to achieve one common goal, which is to improve our living standards. One could say differences in income levels and quality of lives motivates people to work hard to achieve higher levels and the others to maintain their standards. But the sad story is that no matter whatever they do some remains poor always. This is not a problem to which we could find an answer easily. Have you ever thought when your co-worker back stabbed you (or when one of the above mentioned or a similar thing happened) that he/she is just trying to make his/her life better. It is bit unfair to make somebody Else's life miserable to make your own better but don’t you think he/she must have run out of options? Not all could be sympathized in this manner. Some cases are genuine and most are not. This chaos will remain till people learn to lead a simple lifestyle.

In a world where almost everything come with a price tag, the genuine motives to become rich would be,

Health needs
- Provide his/ her family with the best food
- Consult the best doctor when his/her family need medical attention
- To fill his/her home with all the comforts
Education
- Every parent tries to put their children to the best school because they understand the importance
Reliable transportation
- Having your own vehicle is always reliable than depending on public transportation
Also
If you are a man, then to impress your wife/girlfriend

There could also be few reasons why some can never be rich.

Lack of Financial Intelligence
Pride: Some feel too big to start small
Lack of saving culture
Laziness

Windows runs chkdisk on most of the time I boot my machine

2010-09-09T10:15:00.001-07:00

Past few days my PC gave me a hell of a time. Sometimes after the chkdisk finishes some of my files (windows and other software) are missing. Therefore I had to reinstall them and sometimes the whole OS itself. Later I noticed that on some boot ups my PS2 mouse also does not get detected. I switched to linux as solution since I couldn’t think of any other option. I couldn’t survive one single day on linux because I failed to configure my usb modem on linux. It was some PPOE/PPOA issue. I’m using an Allied Telesyn, AT-AR206 USB modem. Well I wasn’t techy enough to sort that out. Then I was starring at windows in no time with the problem running in back of my head. I took a risk and changed my PS2 mouse to an USB. Now it has been a week (I’m a regular user) and windows never ran chkdisk on any start up since then. I didn’t experience any failures in detecting my mouse as well.

I’m still in the hunt for a technical explanation for what really happened there. Can I think that due to some mother board (Intel DG 31PR) error my PS2 mouse (Genius) failed and my hard disk (SATA) also got corrupted at the same time? According to my knowledge windows run chkdisk when it feels that the hard disk is corrupted (may be due to improper shutdown).

My boss thinks I’m psychic

2010-08-13T21:38:00.000-07:00

Actually this was an experience from my previous work place. I was in the marketing team back then and I was in charge of SEO and selling company’s products in Amazon. Above all marketers was her, our manager. She was a very busy person with a very tight schedule even though you’ll see her smoking around 5-6 times a day, jumping from bridges and sometimes across the globe traveling. She loved ideas flowing from bottom up. Even when I was not involved in marketing she wanted to hear my ideas as well. I soon became one of her favourites because she found my ideas interesting. It also helped me to join the marketing team. It was not because my ideas were new. She told me that I came up with ideas which they have already researched, discussed and agreed upon. Me not being involved in any decision making had no way of knowing what they were planning, and I am not nosy (I’m not interested in others’ businesses). I had my social networks organized to the maximum. That was my secret. Ah! Yeah I’m going to share some tips with you, yes :-)

I follow the correct people on twitter
I have subscribed to the people/pages/groups in my trade on facebook
I have subscribed to emails/blog updates of individuals and companies of my trade
When I read the paper I pick articles in the order of relevance to my trade (I never had time to read a paper fully)
I never let my facebook/twitter home pages get filled up with spam. I always use the filters available and in twitter of cause I simply stop following spammers

Also,
I was awake during company meetings, group sessions, reviews and training sessions
(Don’t rely on meeting minutes or documentation you get. They might sometimes not contain everything discussed. So always stay awake)

How to optimize your website's internal search for search engines?

2010-07-29T08:21:00.000-07:00

Some say Google consider Google analytics when indexing web pages and some says not. What ever you believe you can make use of what your customers actually search for to reach out for potential customers.
You can do this is by optimizing your website's internal search for search engines. I want you to type the following in the Google search first.

site:your search page URL goes here

If you have not blocked search engines crawling the above URL you will get some results. These results are the actual searches your customers carried out using your internal site search. Search engines do index these pages as well. What I'm concerned about here is the browser title. URL might probably contain the key words which the customers searched for and there might also be a place where it displays the searched keyword inside a H1 or H2 tag, but most web masters miss the browser title. It is a good practice to change the browser title dynamically when displaying the search results and include the searched key words in the browser title. If you got a set of similar results with the same title when you searched the above text I gave, that means your browser title requires a fix. Also keep in mind that if your internal search is programmed well this is a place where you can generate some keyword rich (high keyword density) pages.

Check list

Dynamic browser title
Display the searched keyword in H1 or H2 tags
Use strong tags to highlight the keywords in the search results
Display similar searched terms (previously searched by customers)

Hope this answered most of your questions like,
Best practices when designing a search for a website
Importance of a search tool for a website
How to use customers to reach out to potential customers?
How to use Google analytics data to optimize your site for search engines?
Which pages are the most keyword rich in a website?

Why you should not think but Google?

2010-06-28T22:04:00.000-07:00

It saves time
Can get to know several view points of the same idea
Google search is logical

Let me take you back to the days you first heard about fire. You probably came to know that in olden days man made fire by rubbing two stones or sticks together. As the human evolved more easy and innovative methods came up and you picked the most convenient way to use it. If somebody thinks of fire now, the first thing that will come to his/her mind will not be stones and sticks. He/She will start thinking at least from a match box. Learning is a fast way of gathering experience and if you want to accelerate your development you should always keep on learning. Thanks to information technology most of the knowledge of the human civilization is documented digitally. So this why I think you should Google your problem first as you will get several leads, many view points and lot of resources to think on. Next time when somebody accuses you of googling without thinking, here is a point you can make. But I really don't encourage anyone copying another person's hard work without giving due credit. Google to learn, not to copy.

Waiting for a reply

2010-06-23T20:36:00.000-07:00

Some replies are sweet
Some are short
Some leaves us hope
Some disappointment

Some join hearts
Some splits them
Hearts are not be broken
But treasured

From some we learn
Experience that would be
The broken pieces we collect
Will be, the building blocks
Of your future

SEO site review session (Google I/O 2010) at a glance

2010-06-15T10:57:00.000-07:00

I'm a great fan of Matt Cutts. Well I should be, since I belong to the SEO industry. Matt Cutts recently organized a SEO site review session. I saw the video and thought of summarizing the topics discussed for the benefit of the majority. I also have the video if you have an hour to spare.

In this session Matt and his colleagues pointed out both SEO and non SEO tips related to online marketing.

SEO

Google give less preference to the content in meta tags
Keyword density of the page is very important
Google like genuine content
Use Google webmaster central tools to see how google sees your site and for many more other features
How to optimize a photo blog for search engines and the importance of user generated content
SEO knowledge for copy writers
Be aware of hackers

Non SEO

Be aware of SEO companies and web development companies, they might not be telling the truth always
Order the items in your layout according to level of importance/relevance to the visitor
A personal blog and a corporate blog are always two things
SEM should be backed up by other means of online marketing like press releases, affiliate, spam and etc.
Consider cross browser compatibility and compatibility for different screen sizes of your design

And oh the 1 hour long video...Enjoy!

Click here to view the original post by Matt Cutts

Examples for fake facebook profiles (fakebook) - What are they? How can they harm you?

2010-06-13T00:21:00.000-07:00

I have been using facebook for almost two years now and I started to notice that facebook keeps on getting populated with fake profiles. With all the security issues facebook users face nowadays fake facebook profiles have become the source where misuse of facebook originates and where malware is being distributed. Experts say that 40% of facebook profiles are not legitimate (source: Lauren Gerber - pc1news.com). Probable security issues arising via fake profiles are,

Spam
Virus writers can proceed to persuade users to click on malicious links

It is very hard to figure out the authenticity of a profile unless you know the owner of the profile in person. Sometimes we like to add celebrities as friends. But you should be cautious as not all celebrity profiles are managed by the celebrity itself. Fake profiles I found on facebook so far,

Please be kind enough to contribute to the list for the sake of genuine facebook users. You can post your link/fake profile name as a comment of this post. I’m not going against fake facebook profiles. Once a wise man told me that it will not be interesting or thrilling if there is no risk, so that is why I thought of writing this post instead of reporting the fake profiles I found to facebook.

30 Days Challenge for all the tough guys out there

2010-06-01T21:34:00.000-07:00

30 days with no TV
30 days of 10,000 steps each day
Cycling to work for 30 days
30 days with no Microsoft software or operating systems
30 days with no caffeine
30 days with no Twitter or Friend Feed
30 days with no sugar
30 days with no email after 10 pm
Read the Tripitaka (a book containing Buddhist teachings)/Bhagavad Gita (or Bhagavath Geethai)/Bible/Qur’an in 30 days
Meditate 10-15 minutes a day for 30 days
Try one new thing a day for 30 days
Write down one thing I’m thankful for each day for 30 days

3 things you should remember when copying content to your site

2010-05-22T05:02:00.000-07:00

Don’t use the same title as of the original article
Don’t use the same browser title as of the original article
Don’t use keywords which the original article get indexed in your title or browser title

Be humble enough to mention the source(s) - not relevant to search engine optimization though

Search engines will give first priority to your content if it thinks that you are a more reliable source. To gets thing clearer let’s hear it from a professional.

Search engines mainly deal with duplicate content by choosing one of the pages to be authoritative, and filtering out all the rest from the search engine results. After all, Google is in the business of providing hyper-relevant results, so why would they want to present what amounts to the same page multiple times to a searcher? Now all those other pages are not necessarily penalized in any way, they are just not returned in search results and often they are not even indexed at all. For example, if a search engine finds duplicate content on two or more different domains, they will only choose one of these pages to list in their index. And you can still lose out on being listed in search engine results even if you own the content.

John Somerton
President
Ozone Search Engine Marketing

I didn’t write this article with the intention of helping webmasters who copy content illegally. This is just for the webmasters to know the possibilities. Sometimes knowing how you could be tricked will save you from being tricked.

Related articles,

How to pick topics for your corporate blog?

2010-05-21T05:35:00.000-07:00

The golden rule every expert stress is that the corporate blog should not be another marketing space for your company. Then what goes there? At least it should not come to readers' attention that the company is marketing their own product. But some companies use their blog as a place for their press releases. Better to have a separate web space for that but if you want to include that in your blog then at least categorize posts related to product releases and promotions as something like press releases.

It is a good idea to have a dedicated personnel to manage the blog. For example take a company in UK and industry being technology. If they were a typical company their blog would contain anything related to technology, anything British, news from the company and it's products and promotions. First two categories are the best in my opinion as technology being the industry and the company being UK. Its not cool to promote your products via your blog. It should be the place where you socialize with your customers and potential customers, a place filled with resources and info of industry you are in. You should be building your own culture there. A place where your customers group themselves as community. Just like a facebook page. Feed back you get from your readers is free market research. So keep this in mind when choosing topics for the blog. By maintaining a corporate blog you'll also gain good traffic to your website and also you get a chance to promote your brand. It is your company's blog they are reading after all.

Related reading
Business Blogs: use your sidebars effectively

How to group facebook fan pages and organize updates?

2010-05-10T06:19:00.000-07:00

Facebook fan pages are very good for celebrities, companies and professionals to let the world know what they are doing and latest news from the industry of expertise. Say you are following your competitors on facebook. Did you know that you could at a glance see what they are up to just by being in your home page? I know you could go to their profiles everyday or subscribe via sms, but I think if you get all the updates in one single page you get the chance to compare and I also think that it is more detailed and convenient than a text update on your mobile with a text limit. Also you will not want to spend your time on unnecessary updates and you will not want to read about what your friend had for breakfast when you are looking for updates from your fan or resource of your expertise or competitor. Unless you are a fan of your friend :s

I hope you are familiar with grouping friends and its uses. Did you know that you can experience the same benefits with fan pages?

How?

Go to Account -> Edit friends
Like you group friends (normal profiles) you can group pages as well
Once you have grouped your pages, go to home
Click on friends and you will find all the groups (for friends + pages) you have created and then click on the group to see the updates

How to nail that competitor who uses Black Hat SEO (Search Engine Optimization) methods?

2010-04-30T20:11:00.000-07:00

Whom?

For webmasters and marketers who practice ethical SEO techniques
For people who hate Black Hat SEO
For people who think Google can do better
For people who got caught to Black Hat SEO

What is Black Hat SEO?
The simplest way to explain Black Hat SEO is that it is practice of deceiving search engines with false information. Sometimes you’ll find the first result you get on the SERP (Search Engine Result Page) irrelevant. Sometimes the title and the description shown in the SERP are relevant but upon visiting the site you find nothing relevant. If you have experienced this then you are a victim of Black Hat SEO. Read more

How?
You can report the web page to Google.

What can you report?

Hidden text or links
Misleading or repeated words
Page does not match Google's description
Cloaked page
Deceptive redirects
Doorway pages
Duplicate site or pages
Any other Black Hat SEO practice

What do you need?

A Google account
Spammer’s URL
Exact query that shows a problem (copy this from the Google search box)
Resulting Google page that shows problem (copy the Google URL)

Click here to report the site that is misbehaving to Google

Related Articles
Rosetta Stone loses court case against Google - ARLINGTON, Va. -- Foreign language education company Rosetta Stone Inc. said it lost a court case in which it sued Google Inc. for allowing rivals to advertise copycat software when Rosetta trademarks are used in search terms. Continue Reading

What is the best start for an online article?

2010-04-28T06:42:00.000-07:00

This post is for all bloggers, journalists, webmasters and whoever want to get their article read. Among us live lots of great writers and journalists who provide quality content to the internet. Quality and genuine content always get the highest respect from the readers. They refer your article on their blogs, social networking media and also word of mouth. I would say getting back links is the electronic version of word of mouth. Somebody linking to your article means that he recommends you. May be that’s why Google thought of considering back links for their page ranking.

You could be a SEO (Search Engine Optimization) expert or a good writer, I guess you both like to see your article popular. For it to become popular it should first get listed on search engines. So if you are a SEO expert you know what to do (If not Google for “SEO best practices” and you will end up with lots of quality articles). SEO is a very competitive task nowadays. So getting to the first page is really tough. Even if you are on the first page the probability of somebody reading your article decreases as you go down the SERP (Search Engine Result Page). Sometimes people do not just click on the first result they get, blankly. Since SEO is very popular nowadays and most of the people aware that company webmasters try to trick search engines, they sometimes do not click on the first result they get. Sometimes they scan through the first four results reading their titles as well as the small descriptions Google gives.

It is very important for the content owners to understand how these short descriptions are generated. If the search engine finds the searched keyword in your article it will try to squeeze in those sentences there. If the search keyword matches only your title the first few sentences of your article will be shown. So your first sentence should give a complete idea about your whole article. Writers might think that sometimes this will compromise creativity and literature part of your article. Then it that case you can have small introduction section or few lines (point wise) explaining what this article is about or to whom this article is intended for. Then you can start your creative writing. If you practice this method then your creative writing won’t be compromised plus you will have a quality description in the SERP.

Example

Original Article: http://the-useful.blogspot.com/2010/04/beautiful-sri-lanka-is-this-another.html

Article title: Beautiful Sri Lanka – Is this another spam mail? – NO, I have visited most of these places

Browser title of the web page: ThE uSeFuL: Beautiful Sri Lanka – Is this another spam mail? – NO, I have visited most of these places

First paragraph: With the ending of the war against terrorism, and Sri Lanka’s ground security situation rapidly returning to normalcy, there is certainly considerable focus and interest on the tourism sector, which is expected to bounce back very soon.

SERP screen shot:

So by reading the SERP the reader would know that this article is written by somebody who has visited the places which were shown in the mail which he/she got with the subject “Beautiful Sri Lanka” and from the first sentence (underlined in red in the screen shot) the reader would understand that he is going convey some true facts as well.

Ok now let’s take another example. Say you are going to post an article from somebody very famous and respected. Say you have done all your SEO homework and you have managed to get your article to the first page. Now we’ll focus on how you have started your article. If it is your own elaboration of something that person said, then its fine you can think of a good start by keeping what I said above. If it is a copy paste then it is best to have “by thegreatperson” just after the article title or in the article title so the probability of somebody clicking on it increases. Even though it is your own article then you could still go for phrases like “inspired by thegreatperson” or “an interview with thegreatperson”.

May all write good articles and prosper :-)

Further reading,
How can you change the way your site info appears on SERPS?

Beautiful Sri Lanka – Is this another spam mail? – NO, I have visited most of these places

2010-04-16T21:18:00.000-07:00

With the ending of the war against terrorism, and Sri Lanka’s ground security situation rapidly returning to normalcy, there is certainly considerable focus and interest on the tourism sector, which is expected to bounce back very soon. Read more

Fast Facts about Sri Lanka (source: lonelyplanet)
Number of waterfalls: 103
Highest waterfall: Bambarakanda Falls (240m)
Population: 21.1 million
Tip top sportsman: Muttiah Muralitharan (spin bowler)
Cost of a new three-wheeler: US$3500
Adult literacy: female 90%, male 95%
Life expectancy: female 77, male 73
Population density per sq km: Colombo 2500 people, dry zone less than 50.

Sri Lanka is a wonderful place to visit. Recently I happen to get several mails (spams rather) about tourist destinations in Sri Lanka and some photos were unbelievably beautiful.

I recently got this mail with the subject “Beautiful Sri Lanka” and I think you can trust this one as I have visted most of the places mentioned in that mail. Another pieace of advice I would like to give tourist is that always carry a map and be informed (read about Sri Lankan tourist destinations) prior to visiting Sri Lanka. Because you might end up with a fake tourist guide. If it is place/person recommended by the Sri Lanka tourist board then you have some assurance. Else do your research prior to selecting your tour guide. Here are the photos I got from the mail with subject “Beautiful Sri Lanka”. They are real. I have been there. Enjoy!!!

Colourful Rock Formations - Aberdeen Falls , Ginigathhena

Waterfall and the Explorer - Fishing Huts, Maskeliya

Adams Peak falls at the edge of Mausakelle resevior - Maskeliya

View of a paddy field with mountains and blue sky in the back-drop, Mahiyanganaya

Giant Boiler at st.Clair Tea Centre - Thalawakele

Green Bee-eater - Vilpattu National Park

Frescoes - Sigiriya UNESCO World Heritage Site

A family of Sri Lanka deer - Vilpattu National Park

Lonely, wind battered tree at Reverstan peak - Knuckles mountain range

A herd of elephants marching towards water - Minneriya National Park

A Buddhist Monk Meditating - "Ruwanmali Stupa", Anuradhapura

Portrait of a water buffalo

A flock of Open-Bills flying over a lake at dusk - Minneriya

Quite and peaceful morning at MahaEliya (Horton Plains)

Tranquility of early morning at Horton Plains

Close up of a Pitcher Plant - Sinharaja Rain Forest

Light filter through the storm clouds gathered above paddy fields - Mahiyanganaya

A Hill slope prepared for paddy cultivation - Kaikawala, Udadumbara

Mausakelle Reservoir in a Misty Morning - Maskeliya

After a rough journey through hills, Mahaweli river calms down in north central plains

Elderly woman, plucking tea leaves in a low land plantation - Kudawa, Rathnapura

Dawn at Attala-Mettuwa (Corbett's Gap) - Dumbara (Knuckles) Mountains

Nilaveli - Trincomalee (Trinco)

You might also like,
Beautiful Sri Lanka - Kandy

LOST

2010-04-08T02:36:00.000-07:00

He gets visitors
Visitors from unknown
Quite many a day
So has lost his count
Parts of him too

Parts of him
Which they borrowed
Never returned
All scattered

All scattered
With no means of conservation
With no intention
Waiting for a miracle

Visitors he gets
Are they real?
Question remains
Unanswered

You might also like

Install Realtek HD Audio Driver Failure!! [Error code: 0xE0000227]

2010-04-04T08:19:00.000-07:00

I got this error and I found an answer from a site called ComputerBoom.com. But the exact steps mentioned in the site didn’t work for me. So thought of posting what really worked for me.

1) Open device manager (start -> right click my computer -> properties -> hardware -> device manager) click "system devices" disable "microsoft UAA bus driver for high definition audio"

2) Install realtek driver.

3) Open device manager click "system devices" disable "microsoft UAA bus driver for high definition audio"

4) Uninstall "UAA bus driver" make rescan devices (Please keep the realtek driver installation CD inside the CDROM for the system to scan and reinstall it)

How to be optimistic when your site is slow?

2010-03-30T01:48:00.000-07:00

Did you know that how quick your site gets loaded to your customer (or reader) does really matter? This is quite true unless of cause if the visitor desperately wants to see your content or you are market major like Apple.

Experts say that it is also easy for search engine crawlers to find your site (it will take less time to grasp your content) when your sites loads faster. They also say that your page should be less than 3 clicks away to the user; else the probability of your page getting his/her attention will be low. I think the click he/she makes in the SERP (Search Engine Result Page) should also be counted. So if your site is slow then there is a high probability for you to lose your customer.

If you ask an expert (or if you Google) you will find lots of reasons why your site should load fast.

Can you still be optimistic and work on it?
Can you still convince your marketing manager with alternative options till you fix the problem?

Well I think it is a golden rule that your site should load fast. But it also doesn’t mean that you should compromise anything. What you must do is to identify your priorities and decide on what can wait (load slowly) and what must load fast if you can’t make the whole site load fast. Sometimes the marketing people could be very demanding.

If you can’t make the page load faster or it requires some development time you will have to think of alternatives. One alternative you can think of is to keep the user occupied with something. Give him/her something look at or read. In the mean time he should also notice that his/her early requirement is being processed simultaneously (hello! the progress bar). But that should not distract him from the initial goal as he/she might no longer be interested in seen what he/she came to see then. Something for Marketing and IT to work together ;-)

Happy Marketing, Guys!!!

You may also like,

Making the Web Faster - by Google Analytics Blog
How To Measure The Quality Of An Online Form
You enter information into them all the time. You fill them out to make online purchases, sign up for things, sing into things, complete surveys, and more.
- by Google Analytics Blog
Is speed more important than relevance? - YouTube

Status

2010-03-26T09:19:00.000-07:00

He has one
They belong to one
She has one
I belong to another

A switch has one
On or Off
Every task has one
Start, In Progress or End

Defines who you are
What to expect
How she’ll be
And how you should be

Draws a line
Between, right and wrong
A choice of acceptance
And rejection

Inherits from parents
Shared with your spouse
Gains through knowledge
Popularity, will add a little more

Click here to read more poems from ThE uSeFuL

Gas Home Delivery Service – Pitakotte, Sri Lanka

2010-03-24T08:50:00.000-07:00

Do not have your own vehicle?
Use Shell Gas at home?
Lives near Pitakotte?
Have trouble with bringing Gas home?

Then ThE uSeFuL has good news for you. If you have been to pitakotte junction you must have surely seen the grocery shop with the name “Chandrika’s Super”. A very famous shop and it was there from my small days (in 1991 I was in grade 1). It is right at the Pitakotte junction adjoining the CTB bus stop and at the beginning of the Pagoda road (the road which leads to Nugegoda). They have been dealers for Shell gas for a long time and now the management has decided to improve the level of convenience to its customers by starting Gas Home Delivery Service.

Tel: 0112813492/0778428877

I can give my personal recommendation as I have been going to this place for a long time now. I have not tried the home delivery though. I of cause bring the cylinder in a three wheeler. Even when bringing so you are not required to carry your empty cylinder from home. You just have to pay for the new one and they will call a three wheeler (you have to pay the three wheeler separately) for you and upon coming back you just have to give the three wheel guy the empty cylinder.

For all these years there was only one instance where they sold a faulty cylinder to me. I was given a cylinder with a leak in it once and I had a hell of a time dealing with it. According what I learnt any dealer will refund (with a new cylinder) for faulty products. But in the case of leak the agreement is bit tricky. They will only refund you if the cylinder you are returning posses a certain weight. It is advised to keep the cylinder with the leak outside and I also don’t think it is safe to carry in a closed vehicle.

The Hope - WOOD N JUICE to help Sri Lankan Children

2010-02-17T22:43:00.000-08:00

WOOD N JUICE Rock / Electro / Punk band making history under the union jack is planning to perform at The Hope (Queens Road, Brighton, UK) on Saturday 27th March 2010.

Diego (singer) told that they are planning to donate all their earnings to the Proporta Education Foundation (PEF). Proporta education foundation is a charity program conducted by Proporta a mobile device manufacturer. The PEF gives bright and extremely poor children in Sri Lanka the chance to an education, which they wouldn't normally get. It is very small and very efficient (they cover all the admin costs themselves). Diego is also one of Proporta’s reseller managers and has helped Proporta with many profitable reseller deals.

The details of the gig so far are these...

Date - Saturday 27th of March

Venue - The Hope

Line up:
ACHILLES
+
DIRTY SCAVENGER
+
ORCHID TRIP

Entry: £3

Doors open: 8:30

Diego also said,

Most of you already know where this place is and how amazing Achilles sound so lets see everyone's ass (and everyone's brothers, sisters, boyfriends, grandmas, etc) that day.
(Poster and additional abuse still to come...)

For more info please visit their website http://www.myspace.com/achillesbrighton

Hope you found what you looked for like,

Who is helping Sri Lankan Children?
What’s happening in March 2010?
Latest news from WOOD N JUICE
What’s happening at The Hope this March (2010)?
A place to party on 27th of March 2010

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System Of A Down’s Chop Suey Official Music Video Vs Richard Cheese’s Remake

2010-02-12T01:43:00.000-08:00

System Of A Down’s Chop Suey Official Music Video

Richard Cheese’s Remake

Thanks Suren for sharing this with ThE uSeFuL.

Experience

2010-02-09T21:08:00.000-08:00

Mother’s love
Father’s care
Teacher’s guidance
Elder’s blessings

Brother’s courage
Sister’s comfort
Friend’s company
Enemy’s challenge

Seconds that passes
Minutes we spend
Minutes that passes
Hours we spend

You are not me
I’m not you
You cannot be him
He cannot be you

Click here to read more poems from ThE uSeFuL

Dictionary.com – The new look

2010-01-19T22:07:00.000-08:00

If you are a regular user of the website http://www.dictionary.com/, you must have experienced that it has been evolving from time to time. The services it provides are absolutely very useful. It is a free dictionary available online. The company survives by advertising. They have really thought about user preferences and I think they have studied about the psychology to a greater extent. Having the home page (http://www.dictionary.com/) with one big advertisement and only the search box is a very good tactic. I myself spent some time reading the advertisement before I started typing.

You must have not noticed but our brains have developed advanced filters (without our knowledge) which filters all unwanted (which we think unwanted) content from our view. For example if we see the word Google in a website our brain flags it as an advertisement and moves our attention away from it (you know what I’m talking about). The dictionary.com has its own strategy with regards to advertising. The adverts which appear in the search results are very attractive. Actually you might sometimes not notice that they actually are paid advertisements as they have kept them in the same style as of the actual dictionary results. The user is forced to go passing the adverts to the actual result which is bit unethical I would say, but it works. I think the advertisements get the full attention. For an example if we search for the word "education", below is the result you get.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/education

Being a Buddhist by practice

2010-01-19T21:39:00.000-08:00

This is about a group of friends who spend their free time on social service. All being inspired by the Buddhist teachings try to give something to society in their capacity. The key members are Prasad and Indika. Both have few friends and relatives who support them for this worthy cause. As far as I know they started by donating medicine and some food items to the cancer hospital, Maharagama, Sri Lanka. This donation was dreams come true for Prasad. I can remember once him donating some stuff for his birthday. I also went with him on that day. He was very upset because he couldn’t cover the whole hospital. He and myself both being unemployed at that time couldn’t collect a sufficient fund. It was a very good start for him and now he has many friendly people following his footsteps. He also has the support and guidance of the Buddhist monks at the temple Mahamewnawa located at Pittugala, Sri Lanka. Visiting to the cancer hospital has become a monthly event now. A Buddhist monk from Mahamewnawa also accompanies them and they take pirith threads (a band made out of threads to which Buddhist prayers have been charmed) to the patients for protection and good health. They also have a Buddhist teaching session which is broadcasted to the whole hospital. The hand out they print which has that day’s teaching for later reference caught my attention. I think that was very good thinking.

Memories

Prasad and Indika keep it as a practice to accompany a buddhist monk when ever they visit the hospital

The Donation

Paper work (from right: Director Cancer Hospital, Mrs. Visaka, Ms. Achala)

Medicine for Cancer patients

Join/Participate/Donate

Contact:	Prasad
	eprasadjaya@gmail.com
	prasadjayanandana@ymail.com
	Indika
	indikabchandrasiri@gmail.com

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How to setup a website for your business for free?

2009-12-21T04:33:00.000-08:00

First of I would like to say that free stuff do have something less than the stuff you pay for. But the setup I’m going to talk about is so much close to you getting that perfect product for free.

Ok this how it goes,

Find a good web template (there are lot available for free)
Customize it to fit your business. Getting an idea from one website is copying but learning from more than one site is research ;-). So don’t forget to do your research.
Use a free hosting service or set it up as a blog (its free).
If you need to do market research with the help of your site’s visitors, then the free and easy way to setup a questionnaire is by using google docs.
You can create a contact form for free using wufoo.
Use google analytics to monitor site usage and trends.
No need of payment gateways and all those advance code, use paypal (paypal website integreation, step by step guide)
Paypal will store your customers’ details free of charge.

And Oh!
When things are free as I said before there can be small short comings. As per this one it is the payment method. Your customers will be forced to use paypal hence they will have no other options. But there are benefits as well. Authentication is totally handled by paypal and its hazel free for us and our customers can be surer about their payment as they are doing their payments through a trusted party (paypal).

The next cheapest option
The next cheapest way to get an online presence is to setup a store in amazon or ebay. Both amazon and ebay provide personalized stores with advance features for marketing. You can write your own html and css and create a world of your own inside it.

Ok then have fun selling…

You may also like,

Pages come to Blogger In Draft
Blogger Pages lets you to publish static information on stand-alone pages linked from your blog. For example, you can use Pages to create an About This Blog page that discusses the evolution of your blog, or a Contact Me page that provides directions, a phone number, and a map to your location.
- by Blogger in draft

Window Shopping

2009-11-24T05:58:00.000-08:00

Shopping does not come anywhere in my list of priorities. I will visit a shop if I wanted something. Will be bit disappointed if I have to go to more than one place in order to find something. Ok girls you won, sometime we do have to do some window shopping. Thanks to the internet I can get a machine to help me.

Something I noticed in most commercial websites is that they always have some kind of offer. I sometimes wondered won’t the customers get bored and all. But then again would everyone notice unless they visit the site? It is not like having a promotion in the shop in your lane. Just imagine you experiencing a promotion in a shop every single day you pass it; promotion for a new item is fine, but say a discount offer? I don’t think. You might starting to wonder why all the discounts. Same goes with the television, radio, poster, banner advertisements and etc. But on the web you can give discounts everyday.

I wasn’t actually window shopping. My manager wanted some online marketing ideas and I was looking for them. Back at the university I sat for several subjects in which contained marketing, internet and ecommerce. So had a bit of a stable background to move on with but wasn’t enough to impress my manager. So as usual I did a google search. It gave me about 44,500,000 for online marketing ideas. (0.32 seconds) Valuable info but who can read them all? I had a deadline to achieve. So instead of getting help from an expert I myself step up to the road and did some window shopping to get an idea about what others are doing. i.e. I browsed my competitors’ websites. People can learn from their mistakes and also from the mistakes which others make.

So next time when your manager wants new ideas do some window shopping, it helped me:-)

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An Elephant birth captured in camera

2009-11-24T05:09:00.000-08:00

Note: I do not own this video. I received this video via mail.

Yahoo makes chatting interesting

2009-11-18T21:08:00.000-08:00

Use yahoo chat? Do you get bored while chatting (how come?)? What do you normally do while waiting till the other person reply? If you use yahoo you might have noticed that yahoo in fact keeps you entertained. Yesterday when I was chatting with one of my friends yahoo told me that a pile of book just felled on to his computer. It was funnier what they told about my manager. They suggest her to use more than two fingers when typing. LOL!!!

You should try it out it is so funny!

Having two ears and one mouth

2009-11-12T04:28:00.000-08:00

This was something my parents kept on reminding when I was a child. Didn’t understand it then as I had less to share, other than about the cartoons I watched and trips I went. That was not much of detail for me but my parents insists that I talk too much. I being a Buddhist had to read the Buddhist philosophy. From there I learnt that wise men only talk what is useful.

As I grew older I realized that I need to be responsible for the things that go out of my mouth. I was held responsible for once or thrice and the message registered in my mind, speak wisely all the time. It is quite true that your thoughts become your words. Then what does it mean when somebody says that I didn’t mean to say that? I think that is only because the person had both thoughts (positive and negative) in his/her mind and in the end the negative came out to mess things up. So I think it is sometimes unfair to judge from the things people say. But once told you cannot get it back. So be careful about what you jabber...

Well about the part where I told about talking useful stuff. Why would you want to waste your energy and time talking crap? But there is no harm saying hello to someone you missed even if you have nothing to say, may be talk about something he/she likes to talk about even though you find it crap. The other option is to give a missed call. If somebody is interested in what you say and likes to spend time with you just talking crap, I think you are doing something useful; tricky, yeah? But the golden rule should be to keep in mind that you are responsible to things you say, unless if you are drunk :-)

A Missed Call

2009-11-02T20:29:00.000-08:00

I give one when I think of her
Have nothing to say
But like the company
So gives a missed call

It is not like a phone call
Held unanswered
Deliberately, purposely or accidentally
She is busy working or sleeping
It is meant to be unanswered

Meant to be unanswered
But conveys the message
Wordless thoughts
Endless feelings...

Click here to read more poems from ThE uSeFuL

Charity Through Marketing

2009-10-22T00:36:00.000-07:00

If you travel through Rajagiriya, Sri Lanka you must have spotted a new item in the junction. Did you see a Bus Stop with a NIBM banner at the top? I guess, yeah :-) Let’s hear there story...

The Lotus Club of the National Institute of Business Management constructed a bus halt at Rajagiriya in front of the Rajagiriya Cargills Super Market and opened for the benefit of the public on September 26, 2009.

This project was undertaken as charity by a group of 12 students as part of their BSc in Management Information Systems (MIS). The Lotus Club raised funds for this cause through sale of stickers. They call their concept "Charity Through Marketing".

They used this concept by selling promotional stickers advertising the degree award status given to the NIBM by the University Grants Commission.

The project was conducted under the guidance of Dr. Sunil Jayantha Nawarathne (visiting lecturer Business Policy and Strategic Management, NIBM). The Lotus Club hopes to continue and undertake similar projects in future. ThE uSeFuL wishes them best of luck!!!

enlarge

Location: Rajigiriya, Sri Lanka
A project of NIBM students, Batch 12 MIS

Click here to read another project of NIBM students.

Hotels in to charity

2009-10-08T06:42:00.000-07:00

Ethiopia Guest Home
If you are travelling to Ethiopia, you should definitely check out the Ethiopia Guest Home! The idea behind it is that it is a guest home for you to stay in while you are there, and part of the money they make goes back into the country, supporting children's homes and assisting women who are HIV positive. The website says... Ethiopia Guest Home is not going to save the world, but we are going to make a difference one child at a time.

We will fund programs that seek to lower the need for adoption. Ministries that seek to de-stigmatize HIV and encourage people to seek treatment will be funded. Single mothers will be assisted with tools, skills, and resources that may be needed to sustain their families. We have partnered with World Orphans, who have contracted to build 15 church-based children’s homes…to support Ethiopians caring for children who may not be adopted internationally. Programs that seek to assist women who are HIV positive to be treated and lower the risk of passing on the virus to their newborn children will be funded. At Ethiopia Guest Home…it is far more than just a place to stay. Read more

Impressed?
Click here to see how you can help...

Source : Hotels Combined

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What is your hobby?

2009-10-01T01:56:00.000-07:00

A common question everyone would ask and I quite sure that you have been asked the same more than once. You might have experiences from your school days or may be in job interviews. Hobbies most of time shows what your like, your aesthetics and etc. It is something that you do apart from what you do mainly. Something apart from what you do for living or studying if you are still schooling. But if you are employed part time, would that be your hobby? Hobby should be something that you do spend your spare time. Ideally you should be doing what you like. It will relax you and help with your health. So if you are in to charity and works for a charity organization part time, your part time employment will be your hobby. But it is bit tricky...

For you tell I was in two minds earlier to answer the question, what is your hobby? Because I wasn’t clear what it should be. Guess I know now and I think I have a long list starting from involved in charity. But I would say I like to write and I have a blog. Writing for a blog is also a charity in one way as it is available for the whole world to read. Of cause please write something useful, well at least things you think useful. Sharing a personal experience will always be useful. No wonder why they ask us to respect elders. Sometime elders have less understanding of modern trends but they have lived there lives enough gain more experience than us.

Ooops back to the topic again...
So think of something you like to do when somebody asks, what’s your hobby? Don’t say that you like to work as it is unhealthy and even if you are a sportsman/sportswoman, actor/actress you should have a hobby. Then again one would say that if you find a job you like you will not have to work a single day. Something for you to think about, hope you didn’t get lost any where among the sentences.

Eradicating barriers in spreading globalization to the rural areas

2009-09-27T21:44:00.000-07:00

Me a student of NIBM (an degree awarding institute of Colombo Sri Lanka affiliated to the University College Dublin, Ireland) recently carried out social service project with my batch mates. We carried out IT work shop for the student of East Hiyare Kanishta Vidyalaya, Galle, Sri Lanka. Prior to the workshop we carried out a book mark campaign to raise some funds for small donation, thank you all for all of your contributions. We were able to donate a computer, books and some hardware for learning.

Following are some memories we brought with us. Enjoy the video.

Edited by: Neranjan
Video: Kanchana

Click here to read another project of NIBM students.

If everyone cared - Nickelback

2009-09-12T00:28:00.000-07:00

If everyone cared
Nobody lies
If everyone shared
Its part of the pride

ThE uSeFuL share everything with its readers :-)
Enjoy the video

A Business Opportunity in Sri Lanka

2009-08-22T06:31:00.000-07:00

Actually I’m going to talk about an environmental hazard. A kind of waste which has become a threat to some countries and it will be to Sri Lanka, soon.

If I think back to the days which I first came across equipment called a computer will be the year 1998 or 1999. My father was not the richest in the neighborhood so was very late in going for latest gadgets. Computers were introduced to Sri Lanka way before that.

Today if I get a chance to wonder around my house (which I rarely do) I will not find any trace of that computer but not forget few parts of other computers which my father bought thereafter. Where would I dump them? I sometimes wonder. I could sell the casing to a person who collects metal, but what about the rest of the circuits and other peripherals? IT being in the development stage most of the equipments goes obsolete after some time. Electronic companies have controls in introducing technology to the world. That is how they survive and it is part of their marketing strategy to make some equipment to go obsolete even though there could be some use we could get out of them. Nowadays manufacturers are concerned about the environmental impact of their products as the whole world has identified the importance of been echo friendly.

So the question still remains. Where can I dump my old computer? I could take my old electronics to a recycling center.

Recycling projects in Sri Lanka

http://environmental.scum.org/slwaste/
Solid Waste Management in Sri Lanka: Plastic Recycling

Following are some images depicting some stages of a recycling process. (Images are taken from ritemail.blogspot.com)

“There really has never been a good way to recycle old electronics. They can’t be thrown into the trash, because electronics are built out of all kinds of compounds and heavy metals that seep into the ground and eventually into the ground water. The virtuous among us who bring electronics to recyclers actually aren’t doing any good either, since recyclers often extract the valuable metals – copper wiring, gold from the microchips – and then chuck the rest into the landfill.”

Eric Wolff

I agree with Eric and there should be other means of recycling. Some manufacturers actively participate in the recycling process. For example Dell accepts its old products, recycles and uses them in their manufacturing process. The latest phone from Samsung is made of recycle plastic.

Going back to the leftovers in my place, those parts could be/not in operational condition. Who knows I have no way to check. Even if I can what use can it be to me? So if one can collect all this junk and get some use out of it, it’ll be great. Therefore the ideal process should be like this.

You collect thrown away electronics for free
Sort (working and not)
Get the working parts and assemble new PCs or any other electronic equipment
Recycle the not working

Costs

Collection – You could setup collection centers where people could bring their old electronics
Sorting
Assembling with old parts – Will have to hire a technician
Recycling process

Income

Sale of assembled computers
Sale of recycled metals and etc.

I think this is a great business opportunity with the rise of usage of electronic equipments in Sri Lanka.

Imports		2002		2003		2004		2005
Electronic Products		2,788,768		3,580,625		4,285,350		2,397,676

Further reading

Some company’s who recycle

http://www.cinnamonhotels.com/images/Newsroom/B2b_Corpora_e2_PR.pdf
http://www.computerhope.com/disposal.htm
http://www.hm2k.com/posts/how-can-i-recycle-my-computer-hardware
http://findit.uchicago.edu/findit.home/action_briefs&recordID=353&mode=single&nextMode=list&column0=Redirector&sortColumn0=Whatwouldyouliketodo&comparisonType0=is+not+equal+to&value0=true&sortDirection0=Ascending

goodwill e-recycling project with Dell Inc.
http://www.networkforgood.org/OffsiteFrame/?PageID=100227

years passed by

2009-08-10T21:45:00.000-07:00

They were a perfect match
Silent moments in classes
Wondered on the streets
Holding hand by hand

Years passed
Ears were filled with love
Hearts with warmth
Pages with letters

Came the rain
He couldn’t stop it
Did what he could
Stood by her
Hoping it to end

People saw
A guy passing by
So did she
They say
She couldn’t resist

The rain
Left the guy in tears...

Years passed
Ears were filled with silence
Hearts with emptiness
Pages with poems

The rain
Left him in tears
cause unknown...

Click here to read more poems from ThE uSeFuL

Useful Vs Helpful

2009-08-02T21:34:00.000-07:00

Useful will show how helpful he could be in the days to come. I will be posting details of social service projects I got the chance of helping. Reading them might help to raise your helping bone. My only intention will be to get my readers to carry out/participate in such projects. Have fun reading...

untitled

2009-07-29T03:22:00.000-07:00

What do we write?
Fancy blocks of lines
Our experiences
In words, could be

A fraction turns into words
Keeping the rest
Stumbling inside
Waiting for its turn

Sharing is in our nature
Hearing is another
Caring would be
Bit of both

If you don’t care
You wouldn’t be reading
Nor writing any
That would help

You might be
Saving the world
Wiping a tear
Lending a shoulder

Even if this is pass time
I think it helps...

Click here to read more poems from ThE uSeFuL

Welcome to The Useful

2009-07-26T22:24:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my Blog. This is still under construction. Soon this will be filled with my crazy ideas and the experiences I feel like sharing. Feel free to leave any comments.