2006 - look behind

Its just 4 days left for a new year. This is the time; all of us remember the past and have new resolutions and plans in mind for the future. I just want to look behind to see how was this year for me.

A significant event in a lifetime; We got a new family member this year, our wonderful little angel Ashvitha. I should say it was such a nice experience spending 3 nights at the hospital, looking after the child and the mother. I have been always attracted by the new born's actions, sounds and the way she learns about the surroundings and I like spending time with her. However, I had some bad luck with the medical insurance. I could only claim half of the hosipital expenses since my wife had not completed an year in the scheme.

My MSc degree was conferred in the annual convocation of the University of Moratuwa. I was very happy to take my wife and my mother to the event (I was worried too as my father was not alive to participate). I got 2 enlarged photographs which had been framed and mounted on our house walls. Also this year, I sat for the IELTS exams and succeeded with 7.5 overall band score.

I upgraded my old home computer (PII 450MHz) with a P4 (2.8GHz) processor. Actually it was not an upgrade. I had to change everything from the processor to the casing. I re-used only my hard disk (still in good condition) and the monitor (using this as no space is available to keep it). Now I got the power to work with the windows XP Professional even at home.

Also, I bought my digital camera (SONY CyberShot DSC-S600) this year. One of my friends brought it from U.S. for me so it was tax free :-). Its a 6 mega pixel one with 3x optical zoom. I have shot more than 1000 pictures already and I feel that I have become good in photography after buying this.

Its this year, I dropped my old domain (Murali.Org) and I registered a new domain(MuraliOnline.Net) for my personal sit. I didn't like the old name because I felt the name did not represnt a personal web. I have planned to upgrade my personal web and move it to a paid hosting.

How about the country and people? This year have been very disgusting for the Sri Lankans as the internal war had started; living costs went up; many people lost their lives due to the war. People are scared to go out freely as the war had spreaded even to the capital city, Colombo. Also, the central bank had printed and issued the 2000 rupees notes as a result of falls in the rupee value.

Seems that I and the country have some memorable events happened this year. I should be prepared for the next year as I have planned many stuff.

Wish you all a very Happy New Year!

Practice makes us perfect?

It would always be annoying when we make faults in repeating a well practiced shots in games. We always say that its due to lack of practice and we think that our muscles did not corporate with the brain.

But, according to an article which I read today, the cause is not only the muscles but also the brain. It claims that a study from Stanford University shows that human brain is incapable of planning the same movement each and every time. Hence, practice can never make us perfect.

Interesting...?
Here is the source article: Why practice can't make perfect

Google Patent search

Everybody know, a patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor, issued by an authority. Now, Google has launched a new tool for searching patents in U.S. This tool provides the patent number, contents and any pictures associated in the results.

I just searched for the 'Java Virtual Machine' phrase and found that the IBM Corporation had filed a patent on March 11, 2003. Here is a screen shot of the patent details.

You too can start searching at the Google Patent Search site.

Java 6 is out

Sun has released the next major version (6) of the Java platform, an outstanding release ever with the open-sourced Hotspot JVM.

The new release provides "out of the box" performance, where you don't need to pass the VM parameters to tune the heap, threads and garbage collection to improve the performance, as you do in the previous versions.

If you are really interested to know more, its worth reading the top 10 features of the new release, listed by Sun's Java SE platform lead, Danny Coward.

Java 6 at Sun

Planning possible here?

Planning is the key to the success in life. It's necessary in everything you do in your life or work. Bad planning may sometimes result in loss of life too. Recalling this facts in mind, just continue reading the experience about 'planning in sri lanka'.

Many people would have heard about an institution which conducts the international english examinations in sri lanka in addition to the British Council. As many of my contacts recommended the institute, I too registered for a preparation course. The course consisted of 30 hours; 3 hours per week; advertised to be started on a particular date and to be finished on a defined date.

My plan was to sit for the exams as soon as the course was over. I thought I would loose the pace and the concentration if I delay. Also, it was required to register for the exam before 2 months as many tried to register. So I registered for the exams on the next week of the completion week of the course hoping that a famous institue would not slip the scheduled dates after setting them.

Course started, first day was good. The lecturer gave a good introduction about the exam and the course. All were happy. Next week they have divided the class into two and they were conducted without any problems. But the third week, they said the classes were cancelled and informed that there would be no classes for the following week also as its a public holiday in lanka . Then, they conducted the classes for 2 more weeks and again said that there won't be classes for the following week because they woud be shifting their place.
[Even though I have comments about the quality of the course, Idon't want to put them here as it would take some more space]

Like wise they cancelled the classes many times without considering the students' schedules. At the end, when I reached the test date, 15 hours (half) were left to be completed in the course. I had missed the half of the course because of my decision to take the exam as soon as the course is completed. Anybody who did not plan and just waited until the course was finished would have done the exam with the full preparation. I just see, where the planning had lead me in this situation?

I couldn't execute a simple planning because of the fault of a popular (for what?) institute. I should accept this since I'm living in Sri Lanka.