Hardest phase in life

Life can be divided into several stages or phases, childhood, adolescence , young adulthood, adulthood. One can further divide adulthood but since I have not experienced I will not venture there.

Childhood is a stage in life most enjoy, it's carefree life, parents make all the decision for you. You just have to play and have fun. Learning is also made fun by games and other learning related activities.

Thereafter comes the "hardest phase in life" according to most of the people. The adolescent or the teenage years . These are the hormonal fueled years where drastic changes happen to your body. This is the basis upon which many people say that "teenage years are the hardest phase in life". However in this phase of life you are still concentrated on learning, doing exams and still somewhat carefree. You still receive all the attention from your parents there is not a major change in life other than the changes that happen to you with in. Your school years finish in your late teens but at that time you are well adapted changes that happened 5-6 years back.

Let me take you back 65 million years. At that time, it was the dinosaurs that ruled the earth. These are huge reptile like mammals who were thriving in volcanic atmospheric conditions. But dinosaurs disappeared from face of the earth following a gigantic asteroid collision. As a result of this there was massive changes in the atmospheric conditions and it was believed that because the dinosaurs could adapt to these changes that they faced extinction. This is a very similar belief like I mentioned above. But later scientists found out that they did adapt to the changes but it was earth changing back to its original state that made the dinosaurs extinct.

As you can see life can adapt to change, but if more than one major change occur in relatively small period of time, adapting becomes even harder. Therefore I believe that it is not the teenage years but young adult phase that is the hardest in life. I will prove it to you why.

In young adulthood, ages between 20 - 30 years are the most hardest years in my perspective. This is where the social perimeter changes several times, you enter into several new relationships, and you are still trying to stand on your two feet in life. Early in your young adulthood university life changes your social perimeter. You encounter new people from various social backgrounds, then your primal instinct comes into play and many start relationships with partners all the while trying to study and finding your footing in life. After a relative small amount of time like 4 years, you turn another different chapter in life; work. Again you encounter new people and new a lifestyle. Then you are forced to balance work, love, family and your future aspirations. That is the second major change within 4 years. When you are about to feel comfortable in it, another asteroid collide in your life path; marriage. These major changes in life within a very short periods of time is the killer. That's why I say, young adulthood is the most hardest phase in life.

Hence these are the make it or break it years of life. Conquer these years and your rest of the life will be a bliss. Finding a good job, finding a partner in life, securing your future with further education are the key features of this phase in life. It is the hardest phase in life because you encounter several major changes in life and balancing them. I'm still to conquer this phase of life, as of now almost half of it is gone and great many things to be achieved. Have trouble in concentrating in further studies, but determined to drive ahead and achieve great many challenges in life.

Sri Lankan Postal Service

With the advancement of information technology the need for postal service has been reduced by a great degree. Back in the day, I also used to stay in touch with my friends by post. But now it’s all about email and social networking. However there are at times we rely on the postal service to deliver our post safely and confidentially. Even though technology has developed, still humans haven’t found a way to transport objects through the internet; therefore postal service is still a necessity in delivering goods and letters.

However lately I have lost faith in our Sri Lankan postal service. I have experienced quite a few times that International post doesn't seem to arrive to the recipient correctly. Quite a few others also have experienced these kinds of similar situations.

My brother and sister-in-law reside in USA, and they love to send cards. They never miss a chance to send a birthday card or seasonal greeting cards to all of the family and friends. It is with great joy that they go and select special cards to send to family and friends, however this joy is greatly diminished when they get to learn that the cards that selected with care hasn’t reached the recipient. Recently it was my birthday and my sister-in-law had selected one special birthday card for me, yet I didn’t receive it. However we got cards that they sent a week later wishing seasonal greetings.

I don’t have any proof to say that it got lost after it arrived in Sri Lanka, or it got lost while coming across the great Indian ocean, but it is sad to see that letters filled with love and care just simply join the great big ocean or get trampled to dust by unknown people. This is just one occurrence. We’ve experienced this situation twice earlier, and few times by relatives. Just imagine if we ourselves have experienced this thrice, may be thousands may be millions of letters doesn’t reach the recipient.

What we presume is that people, open letters to see if there is anything valuable is sent with it (especially money). It’s hard to believe that people are still uneducated enough to send money through post. But maybe people do find valuables in letters because this continues to happen.

It’s just greeting cards that we lost. People must be having private and confidential information in letters that they send. May be these letters are intercepted and used for blackmailing. I’m just assuming, but this may be happening. I think it’s time that we raise our voices against this very serious matter.

May be we should be able to enable tracking, like parcel packages sent through courier. Then at least we know whether the letter is and if it is received by the recipient safely and confidentially. It’s time that the Sri Lankan postal service take a serious investigation in to this matter and catch the culprits who commit this serious crime.

Well, please comment below if you have also experienced this situation.

Bus Service in Sri Lanka

Show of hands, please the ones who fancy travelling in the bus? As expected, I can’t see anyone. Why? The answer is pretty darn obvious, because it sucks! Every country in the world tries as much as possible to make public transport the most efficient mode of travelling. Why? Because if a person spends more time travelling to get to their work place, there will be less time for that person to do their job.

Let’s do some simple mathematics to prove this point. Let’s say it takes a person 1 hour to get from point A to point B. When he takes the bus, it takes him 15 minutes more. It’s not only one person that is getting 15 minutes late it’s the whole bus full of people. Assuming there are 50 people in the bus that is 12.5 man hours. And if 1000 people travelling in the same bus route that is 250 man hours. Can you see how much time we are wasting? Think of how much work can we achieve if we can utilize this time?

The image below shows the recommend time allocation per trip on the 154 bus route in Sri Lanka.

For the many years I have travelled in this bus route, it has never made it to bambalapitya in 55 mins. It has taken an average 1 hour 10 minutes. That is on a happy day. If they actually take off the 10 min pit stops at Borella and Dematagoda they can actually make it in this time.

Aside from the long travelling times, the bus is packed to the brim on rush hours. I’m very fortunate to get in when there are empty seats but many of them commuters aren’t that fortunate. I can see a lot of frowning faces when I travel in the evening. It’s very uncomfortable when you are being tossed around like a rag doll from the way that the bus driver is racing against the other and at the same time being shoved around by other nasty commuters.

I’ve noticed that going in SLTB (Sri Lanka Transport Board) buses are quite alright compared to private buses. They don’t usually do 10 minute pit stops at Borella or Dematagoda. It’s travels comparatively faster than the private buses but at rush hours when there is traffic on the road and plenty of people trying to go home, it’s still packed to the brim and doesn’t make much of a difference in time wise either.

Well, the government should do a better job at improving the service quality of the bus transport. That way most of the commuters will prefer travelling in SLTB buses. They should not give the upper hand to the private bus companies; otherwise the bus fares will rise according to the whims and fancies of the private bus owners and not deliver a good bus service to the people.

YouTube Sensation Charice Pempengco as Sunshine Corazon on Glee Season Premiere

Glee is a musical comedy drama TV series and its second season premiere was aired 21^st September 2010. I was anxiously waiting for this after watching all of the episodes of season 1 and I loved every single one of those episodes. Many of the stars of the last season were back to bring an awesome season premiere. What I love most about the show is the songs that they perform. They take the most influential song of all eras into the storyline and make every episode a fun filled one to watch.

Charice Pempengco acts as an exchange student from the Philippines on Glee Season 2 premiere. Before this episode went on air, I’ve never heard of this name or that she is has become a sensation on YouTube. From the first moment that she started singing the song “Telephone” (originally sung by Lady Gaga) I was blown away by her voice. For a person of such a small build she has one powerful vocal chord. And then later on the show, when she sang “Listen” from Dream Girls, which is also not an easy song to sing, I was yet again mesmerized by her voice. I could see she was making such tough songs look easy to sing.

After watching the show I really wanted to know who this is, and when did some searching on the internet I was thrilled to see that she is an upcoming artist who got her big break on the Oprah and on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show “. Watching the two songs that she performed on Ellen DeGeneres Show I was yet again captivated by her singing skills and her performing skills. The two songs “And I am Telling You” from Dream Girls and “I Will Always Love You” By Whitney Houston are two awesome songs and she sang both of those songs magnificently. She has been called on the show after Ellen saw one of her performances on YouTube.

I would love to see her more on Glee and also listen to her upcoming albums.

How I utilize my travel time

In the modern day almost all the people travel long distances to get to their workplace, school, or may be on vacations and so on. Have you ever wondered how much of your time is spent on travelling alone?

Well, in Sri Lanka, travelling even short distances takes a considerable amount of time. For example to get to my workplace by bus it takes around 1 ½ hours and to come back it takes nearly 2 hours. This is merely a 25 km ride. Doing a small calculation I found out that it is approximately 20% of my active day time.

When travelling I see that most of the people just do nothing while they are travelling. This article is about the way I utilize my travel time and if you agree with me you could also do the same or do something better.

So what activities could you do while travelling in the bus, train or even in Aero plane? I don’t travel at all by plane or by train. My usual method of public transport is by bus. And the following are the activities that I do while travelling in the bus.

1. Read a book
2. Sleep
3. Thinking about articles to write on

From what I see, handful of people sleeps, like I do while some listen to music or radio stations on the phone. But I hardly see people reading in the bus.

Sir Francis Bacon once said that “Reading maketh a full man”. In this age of information technology fewer people have an interest in reading. Even I, a software engineer by profession, (just started) am having a very hard time in reading. If I do get my hands on a good novel I can read it without much of a problem. But when it comes to text books and the newspapers it’s not easy to sit and read. But that is something that I should improve on.

When I tell people that I read in the bus, they tell me that it gives them a headache. It is not surprising that people get headaches because the roads in Sri Lanka aren’t the best in the world. Even in the city of Colombo you can find roads with pot holes right in the middle. Therefore it is not surprising people having headaches while reading in the bus. I also do get them from time to time but that doesn’t make me stop reading.

I have heard my mother telling me that in Japan people read newspapers while going in the bus. Since the text is in small columns, what they do is fold the paper as much as they can so that they can read it column wise and also not disturbing the person seated beside. She has also told me that in England, when the harry potter mania was at its peak she has seen people of various ages read it while travelling in the bus.

You might think that how come sleeping in the bus isn’t a waste of time. The profession I do involves in me looking at the monitor screen full 8 hours. And also when I go home most of the time I’m on the computer. This makes your eyes really tired and sleeping that hour in the bus makes a lot of difference. And on top of it when you wake up you feel refreshed. I mostly sleep on the way home, when it is too dark to read. Another thing that people say is what if you miss the stop? Over the years of travelling in the bus I have figured out that people have a sense of where they should wake up even while sleeping. For example, if I happen to fall asleep while going to work, I wake a halt or before the halt that I should get down. The fact that Sri Lankan buses travelling in extremely slow pace may also be one fact that I don’t miss the halt. But on the way home I get down at the bus station there it is perfectly ok to sleep to my heart’s content. But even so, I wake up before it stops at the station.

I should also mention that, some of the most creative ideas come when you travel. There are numerous incidents where people have come up with such ideas. One such incident that I can think of is where J.K. Rowling came up with her life changing idea of “Harry Potter”. It was when she was travelling from Manchester to London on the train (flowrider, 2008). May be you could also come up with an idea worth multi-millions. All you need is a creative mind and time to think. Travelling time is ideal for it.

Taking that into consideration, I also think about that what articles to write from time to time, while travelling. Most of them are just ideas, sometimes I write them but I don’t feel like putting them up for display.

So don’t waste precious travel time chatting nonsense with people, hanging on the phone chatting or staring outside aimlessly. Do something worthwhile.

Another major chapter of life comes to an end

In the wee hours of the 31^st May 2010, I got up because my mind was telling me to wake up. I had set the alarm to 6.30am but when I got up to see it was still 4.30am. If it was a regular day I would have said to myself “Oh! What the hell, I’ll go to sleep again”, but this was no ordinary day. It is day that the second biggest chapter of my life comes to an end.

I was to conduct a presentation about the Final Year Project I have done, and Viva to conclude it. I said to myself, “Why don’t you practice your presentation instead of going sleep like every other day”. That’s how the last day of my B.Sc (Hons) Software Engineering degree started.

After the usual “getting ready” war with my mum in the morning, I was there at IIT by 8am. I was the first to arrive at the lab as usual, and setup my laptop to start practicing my presentation again. My presentation and viva was scheduled at 2.30 in the afternoon so I had plenty of time in my hands to practice.

As the day went by fellow undergraduates trickled into the lab to setup their computers and start practicing their own speeches. Some had it all covered, confident about themselves about making it through this last day. Some were anxious to getting this done and over with. While others were there it see how things go and find out what are the probable questions that they ask so that it’ll assist them when their day of viva comes.

One of my best friends was up first in 4LA lecture hall. I envied him a bit he’d got the better hall to conduct his presentation because it had the better projector, and also for the fact that he is the best bullshitter I know when it comes to presentations. So I stayed in the lecture hall to support him and listen to his great presentation. And as always he pulled out a brilliant presentation. But unfortunately for the rest of the people who was there to listen to the questions that the panel asks, we were chased out of the lecture hall so that they could ask the questions peacefully without any one listening to them.

Well, time went by and it was my time for the presentation. I should say that I was a bit worried, but with my usual stammering for words I finished my presentation without any big drama.

The questions asked in the Viva were a bit tough but I know I handled them well. Thus, concluded my last day of my degree program and coming out of the lab in which the presentation was held I felt relieved and free after a long time. All the months of hard work I put through came to an end and all that I could do now is hope for good marks.

Now, it’s time to face the real life, where you have to go to work to make a living and start a new chapter in life. Honestly though I looking forward for it. There some companies in my mind that would so love to work in. If I can get into one of those I would be very glad.

Thanks for reading this boring update of my life. Well, all the best for your future endeavors.

My Final Year Project Questioner

Hi,

I'm sorry I haven't posted a blog in a quite a while now. Well, now I'm in my final year of my B.Sc Degree in Software Engineering @ IIT which is affiliated with the university of westminster, UK. As for my final year project I have selected to do a project, which will enable the users to identify a lichen by just inserting an image of it on to the software tool. The once the image is processed by the software, the user will be informed about the name of the lichen and some small description about it. It will also have the feature, where users can input data like where the lichen was found and some basic information so that the user can keep track of the lichens that he has identified.

As for the current methods of lichen methods consume a lot of time and effort in identifying a lichen I have thought of automating this process. As at present I'm in the phase where I have to gather user requirements for the project. As there are not many lichenologists here in Sri Lanka, I have already made an online survey. I've already posted this link in a forum called the UBC Botanical Garden and center for plant research where people have started threads where they have posted images of lichens and asking experts in helping them to identify them.

As at now I'm not getting great many responses from it. So I thought of getting your help in this matter.

If you are a lichenologist, a student who is working on lichens, or person who is interested in identifying lichens please take 2 minutes in filling this questioner and help me in making this project a success. Please feel free to forward this link to any person who is interested in lichens so that they also can give feedback to improve this project.

Link to take the survey

I also thought of having a separate blog to keep log of my Final Year Project. I will be posting the link to that once I've created it.

Thanks.

8 Months have gone!

It’s the month of April and the date is 12th Sunday. Yes, the Sinhala and Tamil New Year is around the corner and I’m bored. So I thought of making this time a little productive by writing a status on how my placement @ IFS is going so far.

It’s like yesterday that I joined IFS as a total newbie to the co-operate world. Since that day I have done what I can for the foundation 1 JSF team. I tried my best to utilize every minute that I have for the betterment of the team. I can’t believe myself that it’s almost time to go back to IIT and study for the final year of my degree. 

And recently Nawavi a friend of mine who joined IFS as an employee @ the same time as me said that he patched a bug that I did to a German customer. I hope that particular customer will not send back a mail scolding him that the bug patch doesn’t work. 

It can sometimes be a bore doing the same thing over and over each day. Morning go to work, Work, and then come back home and eat sleep. And when that routine is being broken like today, it gets really bored doing almost nothing @ home. 

I just realized what I’ve just written…. Seems like I’m bored each day of the week! *confused smile* 

Well, these days work a bit hectic since I have come across a problem that is proving hard to solve. And on top of that I have 2 bugs to correct, which I have already corrected but I need to put them in to the code repository. Other than that I’m free as a bird. :)

Working in IFS is very enjoying because there is little or almost no stress (At least for me). And the lunch and tea time gives me the opportunity to ponder about the future and chit chat with friends. :O I'm gonna miss the free lunch! :)

Well, all in all life is going on fine here. Hope yours is too… 

Wishing you all a Happy Sinhala and Tamil New Year,

Mayura “podiman” Wijeyaratne.

Six months have passed @ IFS

I can’t believe that I have already worked for six months @ IFS. It seems like yesterday that I started my placement. I think that I feel like that because I have been working and working and if there isn’t any work I nudge them until they give me work and that maybe why I feel this way.

            Well, to be honest, at the moment I have nothing to do. The bug queue is almost empty and there are a couple cases but all waiting for answers from the customer. I’m in the 7^th floor and in the middle of the floor but a really good place (if you get what I mean ;) ). I have a couple of friends from the training days in my floor so I’m not all lonely J.

            My work isn’t much hard any more, since I know where to look for the files now. I’m working on some GUI enhancement of an installer and waiting for it to get approved by the high ranked people. This is a really negligible little enhancement when you consider the product that we already have but I feel that I have done a good job on it.

            Prof. Alfred is supposed to come to IFS to see if I’m filling in the “log book” properly and to see how good is my work but he has still not come (good that he is late coming cuz if he comes and see me doing nothing and writing this, I might not get the degree ;) ).

            An assignment came today from IIT telling to write an essay on how well I’m following the PDP (personal development plan) I gave before coming for placement! Ya right…. I have followed that to the dot! I can’t even remember the stuff I had written in it! Will have to find it ASAP it should be some where in my comp or one of my pen drives (I have soo many pen drives. xD )

            Good that I bring ayya’s Zune to work because if not I’d be bored to death! Listening to TNL at the moment! TNL rox!

            Well, I dunno what else that I should be including into this note so I’ll stop here.

 Caio.

The Tales of the Beedle Bard

The author of the famous fantasy book series “Harry Potter” (J.K. Rowling) will be releasing a book that is mentioned in the last book in her series “The Deathly Hallows” called “The Tales of the Beedle Bard” to the general public.

This is a fictious book mentioned in the book was used as a plot device; it was given to Hermione Granger by Albus Dumbledore. This book is described as a popular book among the wizarding children, therefore Harry Potter and Hermione Granger didn’t know about the book but Ron Weasley knew about the tales since he was brought up by a wizarding family.

J.K. Rowling has included 5 short stories into this book but the only tale that was mentioned in the book “The Deathly Hallows” is the “Tale of the Three Brothers”. The other tales included in the book are

• The Wizard and the Hopping Pot
  
• The Fountain of Fair Fortune
  
• The Warlock's Hairy Heart
  
• Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump
  

First it was said that J.K Rowling will only be publishing 7 hand written books but later have decided to release it to the general public but all the earnings from it's sales will go towards charity.

From the 7 hand written books, one book (moonstone edition) was auctioned and was bought by Amazon.com for a whooping 1.95 million pounds ($ 3.98 million). The money earned by this auction was donated to The Children's Voice charity campaign. The other copies were handed out as a way of thanking to the people who were greatly involved in making the harry potter series a success.

Here are some pictures of the hand written book purchased by Amazon.com

Now for the great news for all the harry potter fans out there. The general public edition of the story book will be launched on the 4th of December 2008. Many of the news articles state the realease of this new book as “Christmas comes early for Harry Potter fans!” which is very true. I know that I will be very much longing until this is released world wide.

Sources: -
Pictures: - Amazon.com
Information: - Various sources in the internet.

Heroes Vol. 3:- 2 hour Premier

After like a life time, another season of Heroes started. It was a 2 hour special with 2 episodes being broadcasted back to back. Even though I’m bit disappointed about where the story line is headed I was really happy that a long standing question was answered brilliantly. That question was 

Does Sylar eat his victim’s brains to gain their power?

            This question was seen in every forum and because of that even in the TV series they did put this question. But as most of the people thought he does not eat the brains. He just sees how their brains work and learn the power from what he learns from the victim’s brain. 

Even though this big question was answered several other questions popped up in my mind. 

How did that Lindeman guy come into play again? He is just an image for Nathan? Is he actually alive? Was he the one that cured Nathan? 

            This actually reminded me of “Beautiful Mind” where only Dr. Nash can see his imaginary people (Obviously). 

Who is the Nikki Sanders’s double? Is she actually Nikki or somebody else? And if she is her other self how can she have the power to freeze people? 

            This might explained as the story goes on (I hope) 

What happened to the plague stricken future? Did it change due to Peter coming from the future and shooting Nathan? 

            I think he did change that future. (Butterfly effect that Peter’s mum was talking about) 

And oh the big surprise!

How on Earth, Sylar be a brother or may be even a half brother to Nathan and Peter???

Shocker! Hope they will clear this big question in the next few episodes! :)

For me this story is getting bad to worse… There are too many people with powers at the moment and also they brought back Clare’s biological mother back in to the picture (I was wondering what happened to her). And top of that Mohinder Suresh has got a power of his own now, but with some side effects. If he gets that formula right, there will be people with power popping up like mushrooms.

Anyways hope that the story writers won’t do that. I will be watching and waiting how the story is developed. 

Thanks for reading this post. 

Biggest LAN party held in Sri Lanka!

My dear readers!

It is with great pride and joy that I announce the biggest ever LAN party in Sri Lanka is happening on the 26th and 27th of April 2008 at
Capital Mall Banquet Hall,
No.531, Capital Mall Building,
Madiwela Road, Thalawathugoda.


33 hours of non-stop, action packed gaming will be happening with close to 150 gamers from all over Sri Lanka. This LAN party is organized by "Death Company" the first ever organized and multi-gaming clan in Sri Lanka. I'm proud to say that I'm also a part of this great clan.
Sri Lanka is in the infant stage when it comes to hosting big LAN parties attracting large number of gamers. Sri Lanka's gaming industry is also at an very infant stage when you compared to other countries such as India, China or Singapore.
This is a big stride in creating a environment where LAN parties are held for gamers to come out and show their talents to others in the country.
If you guys are also interested in participating in this groundbreaking LAN party please go to www.deathcompany.org/lan and register yourself. You don't have pay anything to register because this LAN party is absolutely FREE!
You can also check out our Death Company website.
Come and Enjoy playing for non stop 33 hours of fun filled gaming!

Demonoid.com is BACK!

There is a good news for all the people using torrents. Demonoid.com is back. YAY!

It was a major disappointment for all the torrents users when Demonoid.com site was closed! That was several months back. All had to use different site and trackers to get their torrents.
But now it seems that everything will get back to normal. Once everyone who was using demonoid come to know that the site is being reopened it'll be back in business.

All my friends who is reading this post!
BE HAPPY! DEMONOID IS BACK! Happy downloading everybody!

Making money from your Blog

In Sri Lanka only a handful of people blog and from that handful only a few try to generate money from it. From this post what I would like to tell is that while you do your blogging hobby you also can make some reasonable amount of money too.
My site hasn't had 500 hits yet but I thought of putting some ads in here just for fun. I haven't got any money from it but there are many guys out there who blog and make a handsome amount of money from it. Why don't you also try it??? You might get lots of hits to your website one day and that day you will regret that you haven't had monetize your blog before!!
Why regret?? I doesn't hurt anyone by monetizing your blog.
It's not a long and tedious process to add some ads in to your blog! Here's how I did it.

I went to Google Adsense and got registered to it. You don't have to pay anything for them to get registered and you can use your existing Google email address(That is if you have one) to make an account in adsense. There are also bunch of other sites who post ads into your blog (Yahoo also has something like adsense but I don't know much about it). And then fill in your details it's that simple. You don't have to put credit card details or anything just fill out the form and they will mail your earning to your doorstep(via post).
You can also get your earnings debited to your bank account too. Google adsense has presentations prepared for users who doesn't know who to add the ads to there blogs and presentations on many more things related to monetizing your blog.
But they only sent in your earnings when it reaches $100. If you are not that much of a blogger and your site doesn't gets hits much(Like my blog) you might think it's a waste of time doing it. But wait!!! Think again!!
If people don't come to your website MAKE them come to your website!! Here are bunch of stuff that might get you to increase your hits and thereby increase your earnings.(I too am trying to do that :D)

1. Post articles about timely and interesting stuff. (People always want know new stuff)
2. Make your post short and sweet. (People doesn't want to read too long articles)
   
3. Put pictures and make things look attractive.
   
4. Don't write long paragraphs and try to use lists and much as possible.

If you do things like this people might be tempted to come again and again to your blog.
Well, monetize your blog and make some money while you are doing your hobby.
So, then Happy Blogging!! :D

3D Instant Messaging Client (IMVU)

  Are you sick and tired of chatting in the same old Instant Messaging Client?? Well, there is a good news for u guys!! There is this Messaging client that takes Instant messaging into a whole new level.
  Now you can create an 3D avatar and configure it to your own way and you can start chatting with your friends or with a randomly selected person.This messaging client is called IMVU. This facility is totally free. You can download the messaging client for absolutely free of charge.
  You can differentiate your avatar from the others by buying new products and using them in your avatar. However to buy the clothes and other accessories one needs pay money and get IMVU credits(The method of exchange in the IMVU community). You can get these credits by paying money directly to the IMVU.inc or you can buy them from third party dealers. You might get discounts when u get from third party dealer but for every $1 IMVU provides users with 1000 IMVU credits.
  This is not the only way that one can earn credits. there are many ways in which you can get credits but they are all termed as promo credits and this can only be used to buy products. One way in which you can get promo credits is by refereeing your friends to this online community.
Below is a snap shot of a chat.

  When you first register for this community you will be getting a avatar name which has the prefix "Guest_". This is due to the fact that you have to get a package called "Account Name". For this a user must pay directly to the IMVU.inc.
Product inventing and selling can be done by the users themselves and for that one need to pay to pay for the IMVU developer program. When you sell your products the money you make will come to you and you can use it to buy new products or to resell them so that you can get money. if you want to join in this 3D instant messaging client the link is given below.
IMVU - The World's Greatest 3D Chat



Oh by the way you'll have to have a good internet connection to chat in this cuz it might get very slow when chatting in a dialup connection.
Well, happy chatting guys!! :D

A Movie Review : Eight Below

This Movie is based on a true story and it is about eight sledge dogs left behind in the cold, harsh antarctic.
Firstly it was just a temporary evacuation but then since the weather was not good it turned out to be a permanent evacuation and the guide and the owner of the eight dogs struggle to go and rescue these dogs.
This portraits the need to be as a team and to work as a team to survive in the most dangerous environments. The dogs find their day to day food by working as a team and it is very encouraging to see dogs act as a team to overcome the problems in life, when some humans don't do that in their day to day lives.
There is this place where one member of the pack is striving to get the leadership position in the pack. He didn't quarrel to get the position, he acted as a leader when the existing one was hurt and also learnt from the existing leader how to overcome problems as a leader. The leader of the pack gave the leadership to a new dog when he knew that he couldn't go on being the leader since he was injured. The new leader didn't abandon him in the antarctic when the owner came to rescue them. He showed the owner where the injured dog was and saved that dog's life.
These kind of acts are rarely seen in the human world. In the human world, when someone gives up the leadership to some one else he who got it doesn't even care for the one who gave the position in the first place. And also few humans in this world will give away their leadership position to someone else even though he feels that he is not fit for the job.
So these kind of good acts can be learnt by we humans from these dogs in this movie. It was such a great movie and I couldn't help myself shed a tear when the dogs reunited with their owner in the end. They went through a lot in the months that they were alone in the antarctic but they ran to great their owner and friends when they came to rescue them.
If you guys have not seen this yet, go on and find the movie and experience this great movie.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

This was by far the most interesting book I've ever read in the harry potter series. The Dumbledore and Snape plot was just as I presumed. In a corner of my mind I've always thought that Dumbledore had plotted his own death, but what I couldn't reason my self was up to what extent did his plan will work after his death.
It was very good move of J.K.Rowling to say that Snape had feelings for Lily and that really made that the plot will work even after Dumbledore died.
My concern is that how on earth did Ron learn to speak "Parseltongue". If I have read it right they got the Basilisk's from the Chamber of the Secrets and destroyed Hufflepuff's goblet by Ron speaking Parseltongue and retrieving the Basilisk head. That was a really baffling point to me.
Deathly Hallows and how it helped harry to survive the killing curse the second time is also a bit confusing to me. Was it the fact that he was the rightful owner of the Elden Wand that enabled him to live??? Come to think of it other wands also could not harm him since he had the two way connection between Voldermort and Harry. But why then harry came to the near death experience situation where he met Dumbledore?? Dumbledore said that if he wanted he had the choice of "Moving On" but he also said that he had the choice of staying back and finishing the unfinished work. That part is a bit confusing to me.
But all in all it was the best Harry Potter book I have ever read. It had more near capture and death situations than all the other potter books put to together. The ending was like all children's story books should end. A HAPPY ENDING!! The bad guy was dead. All magical communities came together and to top it all up HARRY & GINNNY got married and had three children, RON & HERMIONE married. Rowling doesn't say who Malfoy married but he has a son just like him. And Oh almost forgot Neville now has to be addressed as Professor since he is the Herbology teacher at Hogwarts!!
BEST SERIES EVER!!! Thanks J.K Rowling for this wonderful fiction series!!

What I posted below has some problems

Well, I have done very stupid thing in creating my deathmatch server. Since i had some problems in an earlier installed mod I have put gun game mod on top of the CSDM mod. After that the DM mod also worked fine. If you do the installing according to the below instructions you will get a gun game not a deathmatch server. You can make the below gun game mod a deathmatch but the mod doesn't contain any preset spawn points so you'll be re spawned in the original spawn points. This will be a disadvantage for one side.
To avoid this I recommend coping the preset spawn point configs(whole csdm folder inside configs) from the CSDM mod(You can get this mod from this link I think CSDM core files will be enough if you have already installed amxmod, but if you have not installed it just download the CSDM with AMX and just extract it into the cstrike folder) and pasting it in the configs folder in the amxmodx.
Then put this line inside the gungame.cfg.
spawnmode = preset
Make sure that
gg_dm 1
gg_dm_spawn_random 1
If you do these you will have a gun game deathmatch mod. Which is really cool!!
If you want only deathmatch I think that putting CSDM mod will be enough.
Make sure that gg_dm_spawn_random is "1" otherwise you will spawn in the original spawn points.
Hope this solved the problem.

How to Create a Deathmatch Server in Counter Strike 1.6

  When i wanted to make a Deathmatch server (DM), I found out that there is no proper site to tell how exactly to do so. With great difficulty I gathered information from various site and put it together and created a DM server.
  There is a software called AMX Mod X you can download the latest version(1.76d).

• Download "AMX Mod X Full Installer" from http://www.amxmodx.org/
  
• When installing select the "Select mod directory" and install it in cstrike folder.
• Then go to this site - http://mods.counter-strike.com/
  
• There you can find many mods for CS 1.6 and CS:S
• If you want create a Deathmatch game I would recommend to get the gun game mod since CS Deathmatch that i got from a another site gave some problems (I don't know if this gives the same problems)
• Then extract this to cstrike folder in CS.
• In the gun game page you will find all the necessary adjustments that you have to do in simple and understandable manner.
• You'll also find the quick commands that you can do while in the game.

Well, hope this gives the information required to put up a DM server. If you have any problems just put up a comment.
  Thanks for coming to this blog.
  Mayura Wijeyaratne.

My first Blog

Hi everybody,
Welcome to my first blog page. Will be posting varies stuff at varies occasions so free to come to my blog to be informed.
Thanks for coming,
Mayura.