I have had this idea of creating a portal for the mobile users in Sri Lanka for some time. Since I have been sitting on my idea and not doing anything about it, I went ahead and purchased a domain name to force myself to do something about it. I purchased jangama.com a few months back. Jangama means mobile in sinhalese. I thought it was an apt name to call the portal which was essentially going to be a user community for mobile device users. I actually wanted to create a strong consumer lobby of mobile users.
Now I was sitting on the domain name as well. It is still pointing to un underconstruction page. But this time around the reasons were partially financial. I need to purchase web hosting space.
I was quite determined that I was going to base my portal on the dotnetnuke portal engine. More than anything else, it was going to save my time spent on developing the portal. Besides I found that DNN had almost all of the stuff (modules) that I needed to have in my portal (and a few more). But the problem was, as I mentioned earlier, was web space. I needed to find web space of around 17 MB's that supported ASP.NET.
There were free web space providers, like brinkster.com, etc, etc. But all of them had plenty of limitations. For example, most of the free web space providers did not support ftp access to the free accounts. Or they had limitations on the file sizes, or they expired the accounts after a while (webmatrixhosting.com). Hence I was left helpless.
Then I came across somee.com. They are fantastic. They offer 15MB free space with ASP.NET 1.1 support. And for a free hosting account, their bandwidth seems quite good.
I have uploaded DNN and created a portal @ www.jangama.somee.com for my portal. I am in the process of carrying out dual tasks at the moment. First is testing out the hosting service, before I upgrade my account to a paid account (yes you heard me right, I am planning to get a paid account with somee.com). Second is building up the portal, getting the modules together. So far I am pretty happy with both elements of my infrastructure, the DNN portal engine and my hosting provider somee.com.
I hope to finish work on the first version of the portal by the end of the month. And hopefully, by next month I can unveil my portal to my friends for their comments and eventually to the broader internet community.
Monday, October 25, 2004
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Making Relationships Work
Watched an interesting movie called "Love Actually" recently. It's an interesting movie in the sense it tries to prove that love does exist in this world no matter what may be seen from the outset. It was a pretty good analysis of relationships.
Taliking about relationships though I am still a novice (meaning being married for only a short period of time, still) I have a few ideas about making relationships work.
Like every task we do in life, relationships also require some work put into them. When you fall in love, when the relationship is still new, you see everything in a new light and you are too exitied to be thinking about the serious side of it. You are just enjoying the moment and the bliss of the events that are happening around you.
But once you mature in the relationship, over time people become complacent about the relationship and allow the relationship to take care of itself. But believe me, that is the last thing that you need to do. If you need your relationship to work, you need to work ON your relationship.
A relationship is all about adopting to the fact that your life is being shared with another. In that sense, you need to be mindful about the other person.
You will no longer be able to do all the things that you were doing earlier. The other persons tastes, opinions and ideas need to be considered as well. If you are trying to live your life just like earlier and if your partner does the same, you are headed for disaster.
One thing that I realized after getting married is that my life will never be the same. And I welcomed the change in my life. I liked the fact that now I have a person to share an opinion permanantly. I loved the fact that now there's a pesont that I need to take care of!
I cannot and will not just stand by and allow my marriage to just go on. I want everyday to be special. And I am willing to put in the work requried for that. I am trying to renew the roamance everyday! I am determined to not to take her for granted!
You can make any relationship work, if you give the other person the due consideration and put an effort to make it work. Just tell your partner how you feel about her. You know that she knows it, but I'm sure she wont mind hearing it again. If you need space, give her some space as well. But dont think for a moment that you are on your own. So, be considerate about her feeligns as well. And you will have a happy life together!
Taliking about relationships though I am still a novice (meaning being married for only a short period of time, still) I have a few ideas about making relationships work.
Like every task we do in life, relationships also require some work put into them. When you fall in love, when the relationship is still new, you see everything in a new light and you are too exitied to be thinking about the serious side of it. You are just enjoying the moment and the bliss of the events that are happening around you.
But once you mature in the relationship, over time people become complacent about the relationship and allow the relationship to take care of itself. But believe me, that is the last thing that you need to do. If you need your relationship to work, you need to work ON your relationship.
A relationship is all about adopting to the fact that your life is being shared with another. In that sense, you need to be mindful about the other person.
You will no longer be able to do all the things that you were doing earlier. The other persons tastes, opinions and ideas need to be considered as well. If you are trying to live your life just like earlier and if your partner does the same, you are headed for disaster.
One thing that I realized after getting married is that my life will never be the same. And I welcomed the change in my life. I liked the fact that now I have a person to share an opinion permanantly. I loved the fact that now there's a pesont that I need to take care of!
I cannot and will not just stand by and allow my marriage to just go on. I want everyday to be special. And I am willing to put in the work requried for that. I am trying to renew the roamance everyday! I am determined to not to take her for granted!
You can make any relationship work, if you give the other person the due consideration and put an effort to make it work. Just tell your partner how you feel about her. You know that she knows it, but I'm sure she wont mind hearing it again. If you need space, give her some space as well. But dont think for a moment that you are on your own. So, be considerate about her feeligns as well. And you will have a happy life together!
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
Is Balance Bunk?
I read an interesting article titled Balance is Bunk, which went on to say there is no such thing as balance between work and life. And teh author logically presents a set of arguments to say why we have to become workoholics, citing current trends in the world economy.
Reading this article made me think about what balance was actually. As the article tries to say, is this balance based on taking our pet to work? Taking dinnner home from the company cafetaria? And the author says that the balance movement is fundamentally flawed, propogating mythical ideas.
And what is suggested? To embrace imbalance! That is, to give what ever the task that we think is important, give it your full attention, neglect the rest. Over time balance a portfolio of diverse experiances!
Well the thought is good, and it may even appear as a solution to some. But if you think further, this is what most people do and what leaves them totally lost, dis-satisfied and without any feeling of purpose after some time.
The arguments presented suggests that virtues such as commitment and passion often requires one to be imbalanced. Is this really the case? Can we not strike a balance and still be committed and passionate? And without leading an imbalanced life, can we not be successful? These thoughts are scary to say the least.
The article quotes John woods, who has given up a succesful career with Microsoft to do something he finds internally stimulating, something that makes him happy. And he says, when work becomes a passion, it isnt work anymore! Good thought. But how many of us can actually do that! I have heard enough and more complains about people lamenting saying that thier jobs arent what they like doing. They would like to become an artist, a poet, or whatever else, but their commitments of supporting a family and seeing thier kids through college, keeps them in thier day jobs, whether they like it or not!
What is the price that you pay for being a workaholic! Is it worth missing your kids first years? Is it worth missing thier special moments? Is it worth finding out that the person you married has completely turned to another person and you had no clue about it, is it worth many other things which may be worse, which I dont want to mention here?
Havent you met or known enough people who seem to have everything but still seem totally lost? Who go back to an empty home aftera very productive day at work? Who, at thier moment of glory dont have antone to share thier happiness with? I have! What do you think the reasons are?
But thinking on the topic made me realize that the issue is not on the striking the balance, but what aspects are you trying to balance? you cannot achieve any kind of balance by trying to do too many things. There's only so much you can do within any given time. Hence obviously, you are going to end up doing only certain amount of things and end up not doing some other things. the trick is to identify the things that are important to you. And that doesnt mean that you need to give up one or the other. What is more important to you, suceess, inner happiness, or both. And if both is the answer, how much of each?
It is amazing to think that all these phenomena is mainly affecting western societies. This is mainly due to the fact that they search for one-stop solutions for these. They want pre-cooked, tried and tested sokutions to make them happy and be succesful. And they are now slowly arriving at the conclusion that you cannot be succesful without sacrifice.
Asian cultures have for long managed to host balanced life styles. These were destroyed and started to vanish after the asians also embraced western everything without ever considering the suitability of these concepts. I think the trick aboiut being happy and writing your sucess story is understanding YOU! An understanding of the human species and its mind will help us strike a balance in our lives. Abd you dont have to fall short in any aspect.
And you dont have to be super human to be happy in all fronts, as some of the research cited in the article suggests. The little that I know about Buddhism has taught me enough to understand and accept the realities of life. It helped me to deal with the death of my father, it enriches my relationship with my mother, it teaches me to become a better husband, guides me to be a better employee and a manager. It teaches me to manage my time productively, teaches me to mange my anxieties and fears, etc. In a nutshell it gives me a "Way of Life". I am sure it isnt just buddhism that teaches all these things. The otehr religions would give some pointers at least!
And it shouldnt get so omplicated. After all, you should LIVE your life. Be spontaneous. Do things on instinct. Face challenges. Embrace new ideas. All of these will be possible and more enjoyable, is you have come to terms with who you are, both internally and externally! That's what religion helps us to do! To come to terms with ourselves!
Reading this article made me think about what balance was actually. As the article tries to say, is this balance based on taking our pet to work? Taking dinnner home from the company cafetaria? And the author says that the balance movement is fundamentally flawed, propogating mythical ideas.
And what is suggested? To embrace imbalance! That is, to give what ever the task that we think is important, give it your full attention, neglect the rest. Over time balance a portfolio of diverse experiances!
Well the thought is good, and it may even appear as a solution to some. But if you think further, this is what most people do and what leaves them totally lost, dis-satisfied and without any feeling of purpose after some time.
The arguments presented suggests that virtues such as commitment and passion often requires one to be imbalanced. Is this really the case? Can we not strike a balance and still be committed and passionate? And without leading an imbalanced life, can we not be successful? These thoughts are scary to say the least.
The article quotes John woods, who has given up a succesful career with Microsoft to do something he finds internally stimulating, something that makes him happy. And he says, when work becomes a passion, it isnt work anymore! Good thought. But how many of us can actually do that! I have heard enough and more complains about people lamenting saying that thier jobs arent what they like doing. They would like to become an artist, a poet, or whatever else, but their commitments of supporting a family and seeing thier kids through college, keeps them in thier day jobs, whether they like it or not!
What is the price that you pay for being a workaholic! Is it worth missing your kids first years? Is it worth missing thier special moments? Is it worth finding out that the person you married has completely turned to another person and you had no clue about it, is it worth many other things which may be worse, which I dont want to mention here?
Havent you met or known enough people who seem to have everything but still seem totally lost? Who go back to an empty home aftera very productive day at work? Who, at thier moment of glory dont have antone to share thier happiness with? I have! What do you think the reasons are?
But thinking on the topic made me realize that the issue is not on the striking the balance, but what aspects are you trying to balance? you cannot achieve any kind of balance by trying to do too many things. There's only so much you can do within any given time. Hence obviously, you are going to end up doing only certain amount of things and end up not doing some other things. the trick is to identify the things that are important to you. And that doesnt mean that you need to give up one or the other. What is more important to you, suceess, inner happiness, or both. And if both is the answer, how much of each?
It is amazing to think that all these phenomena is mainly affecting western societies. This is mainly due to the fact that they search for one-stop solutions for these. They want pre-cooked, tried and tested sokutions to make them happy and be succesful. And they are now slowly arriving at the conclusion that you cannot be succesful without sacrifice.
Asian cultures have for long managed to host balanced life styles. These were destroyed and started to vanish after the asians also embraced western everything without ever considering the suitability of these concepts. I think the trick aboiut being happy and writing your sucess story is understanding YOU! An understanding of the human species and its mind will help us strike a balance in our lives. Abd you dont have to fall short in any aspect.
And you dont have to be super human to be happy in all fronts, as some of the research cited in the article suggests. The little that I know about Buddhism has taught me enough to understand and accept the realities of life. It helped me to deal with the death of my father, it enriches my relationship with my mother, it teaches me to become a better husband, guides me to be a better employee and a manager. It teaches me to manage my time productively, teaches me to mange my anxieties and fears, etc. In a nutshell it gives me a "Way of Life". I am sure it isnt just buddhism that teaches all these things. The otehr religions would give some pointers at least!
And it shouldnt get so omplicated. After all, you should LIVE your life. Be spontaneous. Do things on instinct. Face challenges. Embrace new ideas. All of these will be possible and more enjoyable, is you have come to terms with who you are, both internally and externally! That's what religion helps us to do! To come to terms with ourselves!
Thursday, October 07, 2004
Romeo & Juliet
Went to see R&J (as it is titled this time around - I think the acronym craze is hitting on the literary circles as well!). It was a theatrical marathon of over three hours, with a refreshing difference!
To start with I loved the musical score. I think Feroze had attepted to tranform the classic somewhat, at the same time, he had tried to retain the Barts' classical side in it as well.
The music was fantastic. The cast had some major singing talent (assuming it's them that sang the songs). Feroze had selected songs that suits the moments, amazing!
But I think that Romeo was not as strong as I expected. The supporting cast was pretty srong and at times appeared to have overshadowed Romeo. Having said that, I saw the drama only once and this drama has two actors playing the same part on different days, so I dunno about the other actor.
To be honest, towards the end it kinda became boring. I saw a few falling asleep, and I dosed off a few times too! I think shortening would help (just a thought)!
Last but not least, it was the first drama I went to see with my wife! And I enjoyed it throughly! I chose to go for R&J over Micheal Learns To Rock concert, and I think it was a wise decision. Watching all those romance scenes with my love next to me was a feeling I cant explain in words! Made me fall in love all over again!
To start with I loved the musical score. I think Feroze had attepted to tranform the classic somewhat, at the same time, he had tried to retain the Barts' classical side in it as well.
The music was fantastic. The cast had some major singing talent (assuming it's them that sang the songs). Feroze had selected songs that suits the moments, amazing!
But I think that Romeo was not as strong as I expected. The supporting cast was pretty srong and at times appeared to have overshadowed Romeo. Having said that, I saw the drama only once and this drama has two actors playing the same part on different days, so I dunno about the other actor.
To be honest, towards the end it kinda became boring. I saw a few falling asleep, and I dosed off a few times too! I think shortening would help (just a thought)!
Last but not least, it was the first drama I went to see with my wife! And I enjoyed it throughly! I chose to go for R&J over Micheal Learns To Rock concert, and I think it was a wise decision. Watching all those romance scenes with my love next to me was a feeling I cant explain in words! Made me fall in love all over again!
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