Does Web 2.0 solutions really solve problems?

Posted on Saturday, 3rd May 2008 16:28:53 (GMT +0530)

If you haven't seen much updates in my blog lately, its mainly because most of my updates are on Twitter. I kinda liked the idea about micro-blogging from the start because updates can be short and sweet + updated via Instant Messaging or SMS to Twitter. I wrote about my Twitter experience in one of my previous blog posts "What am I doing?". I think now it has got up to a point where there are very minimal blog posts in the recent times and everything else is on Twitter. The good thing about it is that there is a set of crowd on Twitter that follows me so that they get notified when I update. Apart from that the Facebook application for Twitter will update my Facebook status and the Twitter badge on my blog will show my latest tweets as well. The bad thing is that there is another set of crowd that want to see my blog being updated more often and not interested in my little tweets. This set of crowd is not the super-techie kind to spot the Twitter badge on the right-side column of my blog. My blog posts are more techie but in between there are posts about Cricket as well. So it can vary. There was a time my blog being categorized to Cricket but its my personal blog. So I really didn't care. I do try to keep it balanced but there is no define rule as such.

But then there are few other services I use on a day-to-day basis to share news, photos and articles on the Web. I use Flickr to share my photos. I Digg. I share news and articles on Google Reader. I share my bookmarks at del.icio.us and the list will surely grow. I already have the Twitter badge on the blog. I was displaying the Flickr photos but removed it for now coz the Flickr API was giving some problems. I surely can incorporate the rest of the services into my blog using the APIs, badges or feeds provided by them. In fact I was in the attempt to do that but have second thoughts and wonder whether it distract the main blog itself.

Now I have a problem. There are too many services I'm using. I need to syndicate all of them in one place. If you are one my friends in Facebook you could easily track all my updates coz I have added all the necessary applications for all the services I use. But then you need to be my friend. There is a bit of an urgency to get everything in one place. So I started working on building a Website for this purpose.


In the process I came across FriendFeed, a service that will grab all my updates from the services I use. You can check my FriendFeed page to get all the latest updates on all the services I use. So I guess I will settle with this for now. But it doesn't mean that I will stop the development on my Website. It will be up soon.

My current situation reminds me of a saying I found in an article that I read.
Are we nerds just making solutions to solve problems created by our own solutions?
I guess the answer is Yes based on the increasing number of Web 2.0 services. Any thoughts?

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Last ball six wins the game for Windies

Posted on Friday, 11th April 2008 10:18:32 (GMT +0530)

West Indies clinched a last ball thriller in the 1st ODI vs Sri Lanka which was played at Trinidad. Requiring six runs off the last ball Chanderpaul hit a massive six over deep midwicket from a full toss bowled by Chaminda Vaas which won the game for the West Indies. They were nine down at this stage so the match could have gone either way. But it was Windies who ended on top.

Chanderpaul's last ball six




West Indies Innings highlights

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Twitter status updates

Posted on Wednesday, 26th March 2008 16:01:24 (GMT +0530)

I'm currently updating my Twitter status through the code when I make a blog post.

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England back to winning ways

Posted on Wednesday, 26th March 2008 13:01:11 (GMT +0530)

Ryan Sidebottom's heroics have given a big confident boost to English Cricket as England have beaten New Zealand 2-1 in the recent Test series which ended today. After losing the first Test, England dropped their pace duo Steve Harmison and Matthew Hoggard to inject some young blood into the team bringing in Stuart Broad and James Anderson. Broad and Anderson were right in business but it was Sidebottom who made a big impact on the team. His ten wicket haul in the first Test which included a hat-trick was followed by a five wicket haul in the second Test and a seven wicket haul in the third Test won the series for England.

There has been some remarkable improvement in the England batting lineup as well. Tim Ambrose, Kevin Pietersen, Andrew Strauss and Ian Bell made centuries during the tour and the rest of the batting line up chipped in as well. So all in all its the break that England needed as they are back in to winning ways in Test Cricket.

Summary of the series


England team with the trophy after beating New Zealand

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UNIX Cheat Sheet

Posted on Tuesday, 25th March 2008 14:58:58 (GMT +0530)

Here is a comprehensive document that has a collection of Unix/Linux/BSD commands and tasks which can be very useful in our day to day work.

UNIX Toolbox

This document is a collection of Unix/Linux/BSD commands and tasks which are useful for IT work or for advanced users. This is a practical guide with concise explanations, however the reader is supposed to know what s/he is doing.

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Get Back your Screen Space

Posted on Tuesday, 18th March 2008 16:17:00 (GMT +0530)

Here is a list of tweaks and extensions that would gain more space for viewing websites in Firefox

Get Back your Screen Space: Maximize Firefox Viewing Area

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Mighty Mini

Posted on Wednesday, 12th March 2008 08:26:55 (GMT +0530)

For a long time I had this craze for cars and specially the Mini. I don't own a car though but my motorbike has fulfilled all my transport needs and really happy with that except the fact that I can take a bath when it heavily rains while riding

While I was walking by with a friend of mine I spotted this Mini parked and quickly caught it using my phone cam. The Mini is in excellent condition by the looks of it. My friend and I were really keen and found the owner of the car and asked him whether he has any plans of selling it. He had a one word answer. "No"

This gentlemen who was in front of a computer was really keen on giving us some information about the Mini. Also he shared some info related to their club. Their website URL is mightymini.lk. It was very interesting to talk with him. I have seen Minis go on road trips and I guess this is the only Mini club here in Sri Lanka. Correct me if I'm wrong. Hopefully sooner I can join this club. Of course I'm in the look out for a Mini, definitely not the New Mini

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Embedding YouTube Video as Valid XHTML 1.0

Posted on Tuesday, 11th March 2008 13:16:22 (GMT +0530)

I always wanted to embed YouTube videos to my blog posts. But when I add the YouTube code to embed videos in my blog posts, I get validation errors from the W3C Markup Validation Service. I have been very careful on maintaining my blog to be XHTML 1.0 compliant. So finally I have found the solution to sort out the issue. The main reason being YouTube's use of the <embed> tag, which has been deprecated in XHTML 1.0. So I had to modify that code a bit to suit my need to be XHTML 1.0 compliant.

This is the code that YouTube gives to embed a video to a page



I changed it to



I tested the code on all popular browsers and it works fine. If you come across any browser versions that has any problem with this code not displaying the video please do let me know with the browser and its version.

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Sidebottom hat-trick

Posted on Tuesday, 11th March 2008 12:03:48 (GMT +0530)

England's Ryan Sidebottom bagged a hat-trick during the New Zealand's second Innings, giving some hope for England to win the 1st Test between in the recently concluded Test between the two teams. England trailing by 122 runs after the first innings, bowled out New Zealand for 177 runs in their second innings thanks to Sidebottom who captured six New Zealand wickets including the hat-trick. But England needing 300 to win the match failed to capitalize were bowled out for 110 giving New Zealand 1-0 up in the series.

Here is a clip of Sidebottom's hat-trick

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100+ Resources for Web Developers

Posted on Monday, 10th March 2008 12:31:17 (GMT +0530)

This is a fantastic list for Web Developers.
100+ Resources for Web Developers

From the Blogpost :
There is some amazing stuff out there on the Web-resources, tools, tricks, and tips. Problem is, as a Web developer, you spend so much of your time just keeping up with new technologies - learning, playing - and this doesn't leave much time to go hunting for the latest and greatest tool, or for a better way of doing things.

So we've put together a list of over 100 resources to help make your life as a developer easier; where to find snippets of code, sites that automate processes, cheat sheets, lessons, useful tools and a couple of silly videos to give your brain a break if you make it through to the end. Please enjoy!

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