United Lanka

Gaamani - Awesome Sinhala Movie

noreply@blogger.com (Nishadha Silva) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 16:53:00 +0000

I was interested in watching Gaamani as soon as I heard it was based on a true incident. I was expecting a good movie but what I got was an awesome movie. It had everything a movie lover would like to have. Good acting, entertaining dialogues and some nice action sequences. It gives you a great picture of the brutality of the war and what people in the villages near the war zone had to go through during that period. The opening scenes are definitely not for the faint hearted. The middle of the movies is the part I enjoyed the most with some nice acting and funny dialogues. The film goes on for about two and a half hours and you wont feel the time pass. A thoroughly entertaining movie although I wouldn't say its a family movie.

Refresh Colombo August 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Nishadha Silva) — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:15:00 +0000

With the new rules in place it isn't exactly easy to leave office at 5 when you get there by 9, so this time I was a bit late to arrive for Refresh Colombo. Took the 154 because it is easier and only one bus but it took close to 45 minutes to reach Royal from Wellawatta. I could have gotten there faster by walking. I did manage to catch part of the first presentation and it was about

Breaking Down Information Barriers with Technology and Social Sharing

It was done by Charitha and his Twitter handle is @diya_rakusa. I don't know what he said in the beginning but it is probably about SL2College which provided free advice and guidance for Sri Lankan students who wants to pursue higher studies. This is a great idea and and something really useful for any Sri Lankan. There forum section seems to have wealth of information for students looking to study abroad. As he mentioned in the presentation they give data to the students so they can make up there own minds. Useful as it is there website can do with some redesigning. I have no idea whats the purpose of having "Welcome to SL2College" at the top of the website. That seems to me like a waste of prime website space.
The questions after the presentation also went very well. There were some discussions about how Sri Lanka can attract Sri Lankans who go abroad for studies. Quality of life in different countries, mindset and the maturity level of the individuals leaving the country, salary scales offered for individuals and the area of expertise pursued by users all contribute to making the decision to come back. And according to the bold headed WSO2 guy US job opportunities are going down and in the future there will be more and more high tech job opportunities that pays well available for Sri Lankans.

Cloud Computing Facts and Myths

The next presentation was done by Samisa Abeysinghe who is VP Engineering at WSO2. He went on to explain what cloud computing is and the facts and myths about cloud computing. It was a simple and to the point presentation and very useful for someone like me who always wondered what cloud computing is. If you are a Sri Lankan you should be proud that a company like eBay that handles millions of transactions uses WSO2 ESB software for there day to day operations. By the way WSO2 sponsored today's Refresh Colombo and the food was great. I especially liked the roll :-) .

Generating and Selling Tech Business Ideas

Although the first two presentation were great I was really looking forward to the presentation by Adnan or commonly known as kiriappeee. It was a very inspiring and thought provoking presentation about coming up with business ideas. As he said Sri Lankans are very good at finding faults so if you use the same energy to find a solution then you can come up with plenty of business ideas. Ideas are a strange thing, they come to everyone but the problem is most people don't realize it. Even if they realize it they hardly act upon those ideas which is the reason for low number of entrepreneurs. Since I make a living out of writing articles I have my special system to store my article writing ideas whenever they come up. You can read more about that here at my blog. He generously gave away his email address so if you think you have a bright idea you can discuss it with him. If you can find it do try to find his presentation which can be very useful to anyone who thinks he has a great idea.
Then there was a final announcement about the TweetupSL which is happening on 27, August. I got my TweetupSL T-shirt today and it is awesome. As usual Refresh Colombo was great and if you are doing something related to technology or online business then this is a must visit event. Hope to see you all tomorrow at TweetupSL.

Blogging Builds Your Brand

noreply@blogger.com (Nishadha Silva) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 16:45:00 +0000

Blogging is a great tool to build your brand and share your knowledge. It is also a great way to build your authority in an area. I have being blogging about various things related to making money online in Sri Lanka and this led to several job offers recently. I guess the offers suddenly came in a short space of time because I ranked for certain keywords very recently. Just goes to show the power of SEO and why it is almost insane that more Sri Lankan companies are not doing it. With a few tweaks you can rank for almost any keyword related to Sri Lanka and the traffic potential for some of these keywords are huge. Since no one is doing that I can write a simple post about anything, rank for it and make money with Adsense. Want to know what SEO is and about SEO in Sri Lanka ? Click Here.
As I said blogging has helped me build a brand for myself and when you get few job offers it makes it worthwhile. But when you get few offers its not easy to choose a one. First of all there is the disappointment of loosing all your friends in the current workplace. The new salary package is also a consideration. Then there is the possibility to learn and expand your knowledge. There isn't exactly a course to learn social media marketing, SEO and conversion optimization in Sri Lanka. What you know is what you learn from reading and experimenting. And the ability to expand that knowledge is also a good motivation.

Refresh Colombo - July 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Nishadha Silva) — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 12:48:00 +0000

After missing the last two events I was very eager to attend the July edition of Refresh Colombo. I was very bitter about missing the last edition because there was a presentation about mobile marketing. I guess you can't have everything in life. There was a huge crowd for the event, probably somewhere close to 150. This is the largest crowd I have seeing after the FireFox party. The organizers were actively promoting the event by mailing previous participants and encouraging them to display poster in there offices and universities and the large crowd could be a result of that. Kudos to @nazly, @alokag, @HamidAfzal and everyone else who plays a part in organizing such a useful event.

MongoDB

The first presentation was about MongoDB, done by Dinesh and Susantha. A nice comparison was done between the traditional databases and mongoDB.Different situations where mongoDB can improve performance in certain cases were also discussed. There was a small demonstration as well showing how easy it is to add, delete and modify records etc. From what I understood the main idea with mongoDB is to reduce the disk space as much as possible and thereby improve performance. ( mongoDB experts feel free to correct me in the comments section). Another good things about mongoDB is you don't need to do any installations. Its just matter of running an executable file. Since I'm having trouble installing various Oracle versions and finding compatible PLSQL developer versions this sounds like a great idea. And there are no JOIN's :-) . I hate joins, specially when there are like four joins in one big view.

Social Media beyond Marketing

The next presentation was by Thushara Hettihamu who is a senior manager in Dialog Axiata. He spoke about how dialog is using social media to respond to customer inquiries etc. I have being using Twitter for a while now and have seeing some complains about dialog and its a good things that they are actively using social media to counter those things. If you want a quick response from dialog the best things to do is post it on there Facebook walls, buy the looks of things you are guaranteed a quick response. In answering a question he briefly talked about how to handle negative reviews as well. Early that morning I attended the Digital Dojo by Ogilvy and some facts mentioned there were also mentioned in the video Hetti showed. Internet and social media users are rising in Sri Lanka and if you don't respond to its as a brand you might find yourself losing customers and crushed by competitors. There were some questions about fair usage policy and things were just about to interesting when Nazly jumped in and ruined the fun :P .

Future of Web Apps

The next presentation was by Lakshan Perera and he talked about the future of web apps. Although I'm a software engineer I wouldn't call myself a hardcore geek and this presentation was a bit beyond me. But since lots of techies come for Refresh I'm sure many of them enjoyed it a lot.

Mobile Trends - From Symbian to Android

The next presentation was done by Thejo, who gave a very entertaining presentation. He talked about how Symbian failed both the users and the developers. If you listened to his presentation you might get the feeling that Symbian was the worst creation made by mankind. But he gave some really good examples of why Symbian failed. Although he talked about the OS one general message you can get from his speech is keep things simple. The world, specially the technological developments are moving at a fast pace and you should make it easier for people for keep in touch with your developments. He also talked about the difference in revenue model, which was another factor that made developers switch to Android. A very entertaining presentation I'm sure enjoyed by many.

TweetupSL 2

After that there was a announcement about TweetupSL. Which is an informal meetup of Twitter users in Sri Lanka. You get a T-Shirt if you register quickly for the event ;) . Using social media is much more effective when you know the person in real life and these events are the perfect opportunity to build connections.

Bus Route Finder

There was another presentation which was not on the agenda and that was the introduction of the much talked about bus route finder by Chav. It seems to work fine for the destinations I checked. It is an open source project so can check out the code and give feedback or make improvements.
Another great Refresh Colombo event and definitely looking forward for the next one. If you are not attending you are missing out on a lot and it is definitely not a geek only thing.

Getting a Housing Loan in Sri Lanka

noreply@blogger.com (Nishadha Silva) — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 05:00:00 +0000

Getting a housing loan in Sri Lanka can be a very tedious and a time consuming task. There are so many documents to produce and so many approvals to get that you might be forgiven for thinking it is better not to buy a house at all. Looking at the advertisements in television you might think that it is something that can be done in two three days but it sure takes a whole lot more than that. It becomes worse if you have misplaced an important document or you have an outdated document. Some bank wants documents that are less than ten years old so they can be assured about the validity of the document. After producing all that they you need to pay additional charges for the registration and for lawyers. This can be done for an reduced price if you have some sore of connection with the lawyer, otherwise it will cost a considerable amount. I thought finding a house for sale in Sri Lanka is a hard task, but it looks like buying it is even harder.

Trying Out Different Ad Networks

noreply@blogger.com (Nishadha Silva) — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 13:57:00 +0000

I get so many emails asking me how to get approved for Adsense. The reality is if you don't have your own domain name then it is next to impossible to get accepted to the Adsense network. This was probably a step taken to get rid of all the spammers who create blogs using free platforms and fill them with advertisements, but the step has hurt some genuine bloggers as well. If you have a hard time getting accepted to Adsense then you should check out some alternatives to Adsense as well. I personally use InfoLinks so if you are interested then you can read my InfoLinks Review. I added some extra tips on how to improve your earnings as well.
If you have a hard time getting accepted to international networks then you could try some local network as well. There are some advertisement networks specific to Sri Lankan's but the payout is a bit low per click. You might be able to get some advantage because of the high click through rate as they are related. If you are looking to make money online then it is important to get your own domain names, so the best way to get accepted to Adsense might be getting your own domain.

Mobile Phone Recycling in Sri Lanka

noreply@blogger.com (Nishadha Silva) — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 15:38:00 +0000

Today I got a very interesting question from a friend who came from UK. He looked at all the old mobile phones stored in a rack and asked me why I'm not recycling old mobile phones. I thought mobile phone recycling is something to do with protecting the environment, but I was surprised to learn that it means getting cash for your old mobile phones. It is also used when people give there old mobile phone and get the latest model for a discounted price. He went on to explain the environmental and the social benefits of the whole procedure. I personally don't know of any company in Sri Lanka that offers money for old mobile phones, and it might be not a good business idea especially since most Sri Lankans are on the lookout for the latest mobile phone models. Anyway it seems like a good idea to recycle those old mobile phones because they are potentially harming wasts.

Refresh Colombo - April 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Nishadha Silva) — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 13:45:00 +0000

I'm not a big fan of rain, it usually means lightning is around and I have to switch off the computer. I absolutely hate it when it rains when I need to go out. So I was contemplating whether to go for Refresh Colombo this time, especially because today everything was going to be about Firefox 4 and related stuff. Although I love the browser with all its plug-ins, talking about how it was developed didn't really appeal to me. But so far Refresh Colombo managed to serve up something new and worthwhile in every meeting so I thought of braving the weather and going for the meetup. And it turned out to be the correct decision :-) .

HTML5
The first presentation was about HTML5 and it was done by Dilantha Nanayakkara. He went through a slide show ( http://slides.html5rocks.com/ ) and explained the contents of the slides. The guy has being building websites since 1996 so I'm sure he appreciates the new features in HTML5. One thing I noticed while attending meet ups is that it is increasingly getting easier to build cool looking websites, will this lead to a reduction in prices :P ? Anyway I mostly build niche blogs using WordPress and you can build a cool looking blog easily enough if you have a decent WordPress theme. Here is my recent niche blog about Birthstone Jewelry which took me around 30 minutes to set up, it still needs some dressing up with a decent header images but setting up navigation etc is so easy with WordPress.

Firefox 4 Party
The next event was the Firefox 4 party and there was a big cake sponsored by the Cake Factory. I guess Dilantha was the oldest guy at the event so he was given the honor of cutting the cake. After the refreshments various features of Firefox 4 and Firefox for mobile were discussed. Danishka Navin showed some videos explaining the various new features. I have only used the "Pin as App Tab" so it was interesting to get to know about the new features. I was impressed by the new Firefox button which saves a lot of space. If your using Windows as the operating system this doesn't come as default. To get the button you need to go to View -> Toolbar and deselect the Menu Bar. I think it is a good idea if Firefox explains how to enable these features while listing down features.Thejo explained how Firefox 4 mobile version has improve the user experience and some more cool new features. We were also given some Firefox souvenirs to remember the event. You can view some photos of the party visiting this link ( via Malintha ).

Firefox 4 Discussion by Sinhalen FOSS
Next item was a panel discussion about Firefox4 hosted by the Sinhalen FOSS team. Sinhalen FOSS is the first Sinhalese podcast and they discuss various things related to FOSS. Although I'm a software engineer I hardly consider myself a geek but I found the session thoroughly entertaining. Bud and SeeJay were joined by Danishka and Thejo in the panel. Various things including how you can contribute to the open source community were discussed. If a non geek like myself enjoyed it I think this podcast will be perfect for geeks. I couldn't find any pattern to there podcast so I guess subscribing to the RSS feed is the best way to keep track of them.
Although I enjoyed the session I personally think it would be a good idea if they diversify the topics discussed at Refresh Colombo so a much wider audience can benefit from it. Maybe this was a one off because of the FF4 party. Looking forward to the May edition :-) .

Finally Optimized It

noreply@blogger.com (Nishadha Silva) — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 13:46:00 +0000

For a product owned by Google, Blogspot is pretty poor when it comes to SEO, that is why I did some code modifications to improve the search engine friendliness of this blog. Inspiration came from SEO for Blogspot article which I have published myself. There are few more things that could be done to raise the standard, like making labels show as keywords in single posts, but that could be a bit cumbersome and since I'm not targeting search engine traffic in this blog that could be done at a later time. Hope you will find my new super optimized blog via search engines.

Refresh Colombo - March 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Nishadha Silva) — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 05:43:00 +0000

When you are looking forward for something it usually is something pretty good and that's the feeling I get with Refresh Colombo. Organizers were ~~kind~~ wise enough to move the event to Tuesday, because there was a quarter final on Thursday. There were four presentations lined up today, all of them different but related to me in various ways.To learn more about the event visit the Refresh Colombo Website.
The first presentation was done by @Joe, Wishmini and Harith and it was about Open Space. I have being seeing tweets about Open Space for a while now so I was very interested to learn more about the company and what they offer. They are promoting a concept called co-working and it looks like a nice idea. Niche blogging and freelance SEO can be a lonely job and it is nice to have some buddies around to bounce new ideas. It looks like an ideal place for start up businesses as well with the very affordable pricing structure. For a location based business I think they could do a better job promoting the location. Finding the address in there website is not the easiest thing to do, and if I'm the owner I would surely add a map or image highlighting the fact that it is near Galle Road and it is very easy to get there. And if you came to Refresh you are entitled to a discount ;) .
Next presentation was by Yasas and it was about Business process outsourcing. I have written some articles about this topic for the sake of back links but they tend to perform well in search engines. I get a web design gig here and there from those articles but I have to turn them down or refer it to someone else because I don't know web design :-) .If you are a web design company and want to be listed there you can contact me.Yasas talked about how BPO could be good source of revenue for Sri Lankans, challenges faced by Sri Lanka to improve this as an industry etc. As he pointed out in his presentation, Sri Lanka cannot compete with countries like India when it comes to providing man power, so we should focus on small niches that requires skill, where few people can get high returns. One area where Sri Lanka already have a reputation is in Financial accounting and I think Web design and Search Engine Optimization are another two areas we can compete in. They require specialized skills and few people can easily handle multiple clients and there are plenty of excellent web designers in Sri Lanka. If you want to learn more about BPO and want BPO certification then visit Lanka BPO Academy.
The next presentation was done by @Anudi and it was about Intellectual Property Law and how to protect your rights. In Sri Lanka soon as you publish something online it is very hard to protect those rights. Take celebrity pictures for example, how can you take action against a pictures published in a free blogspot blog with no contact information. You can complain to Google and get the blog banned but it's a tedious process. She also talked about the importance of adding © ( copyright symbol ) for any creative work you do. You can easily add this to a blog post by going to HTML mode and typing &#0169 .What she said about Facebook TOS is what really got my attention. Before the recent changes in FB TOS every photo we uploaded is owned by FB and can be used by them. I have few clients who work with ShutterStock and they promote there photographs thorough Facebook. Definitely need to check out if this could impact there earnings and violate ShutterStock terms. If you are a photographer looking to earn some money from your photos then give ShutterStock a try.
Next presentation was a bit of technical one with @Jerry talking about CSS3. ~~IE haters~~ Web designers in the room seem to enjoy it and I guess that is how they create those premium Wordpress themes that cost a small fortune these days. If you take a WP theme like Thesis there are so many things you can do with it and I suppose technologies like this are what makes them possible.
To conclude it was another great Refresh Colombo meet up and definitely looking forward to the next one. And thanks a lot for all the presenters who shared valuable information with us.

Refresh Colombo - February 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Nishadha Silva) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 13:23:00 +0000

After missing two editions of Refresh Colombo for various reasons I managed to attend the February 2011 edition. I did a presentation about "Outsourcing for Freelancers" and Amisha Amarasinghe did a presentation about using social media beyond a marketing tool. Although it was scheduled to start at 5.15PM it was around 6PM when things got underway.Gihan Fernando of GTS Game Studios was kind enough to sponsor the event and provide the refreshments.
Speaking is not my strong point and this was one of those moments where I wished I finished all my speeches at IFS Toast Masters Club. Most people were interested in Fiverr, which I use heavily to outsource various things. I guess everyone can use some extra cash and if you missed the presentation by any chance you can read my full Fiverr Review. Another thing I noticed is that not many people are aware of search engine optimization or at least that's the feeling I got when watching the crowd. This is an area with lots of potential for most companies and very few are seriously using it to increase there traffic and sales.
After my presentation Amitha did a great presentation about how you can use social media for other purposes other than marketing. I wrote a post about Social Media Marketing in Sri Lanka a while ago, it wasn't a detailed study, just some random thoughts about various social networks with some affiliate links mixed in. Presentation by Amitha was more focused on how you can build your online reputation using social media and why it is important to have an online presence. He also showed some social media sites like LinkedIn that are critical to building your online reputation. Apparently HR managers Google your name before making a hiring decision and you don't want your drunk pictures you posted on Facebook coming as the first result. LinkedIn profiles and Facebook profiles rank easily for your name searches so make sure to have a good professional looking profiles if you are interested in getting a job.
Since there was time left Indu Nanayakkara did a quick presentation about digital radio and how ITN is ready to support that technology etc. At the time of writing this I'm not too happy with ITN because of there allegations against Mahela and Thilan and hopefully they will own up and apologize.
If you are reading this and haven't attended Refresh Colombo you are missing out on a great opportunity. Not only will you learn many interesting things but you will get to interact with many interesting and successful people and that can only be a good thing.

Peiris or Pieris

noreply@blogger.com (Nishadha Silva) — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 07:42:00 +0000

I hope you can notice the subtle difference of words in the title.While writing an article about the popular television actress Nehara I was in dilemma about her surname. Is it Nehara Pieris or Nehara Peiris. For people who are wondering what difference this would make, this would make a big difference when it comes to search engine ranking. This is somewhat common problem faced by Internet marketers because of English way of spelling and the American way of spelling. Jewelery vs Jewelry is a good example and there are quite a few other examples. Although the spelling of surnames doesn't come into that category it is somewhat a similar problem. What do you think the correct spelling is ?

Affiliate program for selling music and songs in Sri Lanka

noreply@blogger.com (Nishadha Silva) — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 11:36:00 +0000

Recently I wrote an article about Daddy, Sri Lanka Band. The most obvious way to make money from this article is to sell songs of Daddy within the article. I looked for them in iTunes but couldn't find there songs listed there. Out of curiosity I looked for other Sri Lankan songs and could find only one or two listed in iTunes. This is a great market to explore for Sri Lankan artists and it doesn't take much to register and get listed there as well.

X-Mas gift for bloggers from MaxBlogPress

noreply@blogger.com (Nishadha Silva) — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 07:08:00 +0000

Pawan Agrawal of MaxBlogPress is giving an early Christmas present and it is targeted towards blogger. If you have spend some time trying to make money with Wordpress blogs you probably have heard about MaxBlogPress. They are renowned for there amazing Wordpress plugins that help you achieve lots of things. Some of his products sell as high as 147$ so I'm sure he's making a decent amount of money from them. This Christmas he's bundling together some of his best products and giving them out for an insanely low price. The products include some of there top products like Subscriber Magnet, Ninja Affiliate, Wordpress Wizard, $365k traffic formula and Blog traffic blueprint. This is a great deal and you really should take advantage of. Check out MaxBlogPress Christmas deal review and quickly make the decision.

My Squidoo experiment continues

noreply@blogger.com (Nishadha Silva) — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 14:41:00 +0000

Squidoo has become a nice way to earn some money while being a great source for back links. In Internet Marketing if you have access to back links then you can make money much easier than most other. Squidoo pages are a great source for back links and as an added bonus you can make some money too. I'm starting to see some Amazon sales as well from Squidoo so this is something I think that has good potential when it comes to money making. Another great thing is with Squidoo you can write about almost anything you like, so you are not limited to one subject like in a blog. So if you have knowledge of something but it isn't worth starting a blog over then a Squidoo page might be just the thing you need.

My experimenting with Squidoo continues and today I created a Squidoo lens about hot Sri Lankan actress Nehara Pieris. There is nothing special about the lens and I haven't acquired any back links yet as well. Just waiting to see how this will rank for the specific search term and how much traffic it will pull as well. I have a feeling it will do pretty well :-).

Refresh Colombo - November edition

noreply@blogger.com (Nishadha Silva) — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 03:21:00 +0000

Yesterday I attended the November edition of Refresh Colombo, which could be roughly classified as a monthly gathering of techies who are willing to share there knowledge and expertise. There were four presentation planned for that day and I was especially interested in the presentation about "Adopting social media in local companies". Unfortunately there wasn't enough time so there were only three presentations, but those were great presentations and you can definitely learn a lot from them.
The first presentation was done by @Chamara of Apramana and it was about "Benefits of web standards to your visitors, clients and you.". The only kind of web designing I have done is changing some CSS in my blog templates and it was fairly easy. So it was amusing to hear how it was done in the old days and how hard it was those days. After hearing those I felt really glad we have web standards now. Then he talked about how to validate your websites and the advantages of doing that. Being an Internet marketer one point that got me thinking was, IT HELPS in Search engine rankings. If you are a web designer then there were some great things to take from this presentation.
The next presentation was done by @Devaka of WSO2 and it was about "Being more than just the Ordinary". Its no wonder this guy is in marketing because he sure knows how to sell a product and to capture an audience. He talked about how we can compete with the rest of the world in terms of quality and showed how much Sri Lanka, as a country has contributed to the creation of different technologies. There were some amazing facts like per capita contribution to open source, how we have consistently performed well in Google summer of code and lot of other facts. He also showed how there business module is sustainable compared to most other outsourcing companies in Asia.
The last presentation was done by @Gihan of GTS and it was about "Creating games in Sri Lanka and Optimistic entrepreneurial spirit".He seems to have money to spare because he gave away Rs.1000, but not to everyone, but to someone who wanted to grab the note from his hand. It sure was a unique way to demonstrate why you should grab your opportunities. His session was entertaining and interactive, which is not surprising since he is into game development. His company created Colombo ride, the first Sinhalese mobile game. Now they are releasing Colombo Ride 3D. He talked about gaming industry in Sri Lanka, History of Colombo Ride, more released coming from there company and challenged faces by his team when developing and marketing games.
If I can summarize this edition of Refresh Colombo in one word, it is "INSPIRATION". Attending this session made me feel proud to be a Sri Lankan, it is amazing to see how much we have achieved in the software and technology field with a relatively low resource pool. Also there were enough examples of how successful you can be if your are willing to take a risk and follow your dreams. If you are looking to do your own thing and looking for advice then this is the place to be, where young entrepreneurs hang out and share there ideas. Looking forward to the next edition :-)

The much talked about visiting card of Gihan, courtesy - @InduNan

Colombo Ride Game

Cool things to have -

How can we improve a great event like Refresh Colombo ? Well one thing I can think of is having there presentations available online. The best place I can think of is there website. This gives the attendees a chance to reference past material and and look up on points they might have missed. Also then the presenters can prepare a more detailed presentation with more points, helpful resources etc as well. So they can go through the presentation quickly and give the audience more resources to follow up.

Efficient way to manage bills

noreply@blogger.com (Nishadha Silva) — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 05:04:00 +0000

Managing bills can be a tedious thing, especially if you are not a very organized person. The problem with paper bills is they are easily misplaced and even if you have them filed away it is not easy to find them quickly and it certainly isn't accessible from everywhere like office. This is where an online bill management service comes in handy. One good thing I found for this is Shoeboxed, where managing your bills is simple as taking a picture. You take a picture of your bill and upload it to your Shoeboxed account and they will human verify and do the data entry for you. All you have to do is log onto your Shoeboxed account and you can view the sorted and categorized bills. They also provide a iPhone application to manage your bills free of charge. Looks like a great service to try out and definitely a time saver.

Analytic can give you great keyword ideas

noreply@blogger.com (Nishadha Silva) — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 16:56:00 +0000

While optimizing a client website for search engines I went through the list of keywords that is already pulling them traffic and I was pleasantly surprised to find some popular names in Sri Lanka in the keyword list. I started working on that angle and immediately managed to draw highly targeted traffic that my client would love to have. Finding and predicting search patterns hard to do, which is why top SEO companies have special software to do this. However affording there services is a bit beyond a small business owner so most of the time they need to look elsewhere for there search engine optimization efforts. This is where a free but hugely important tool like Google Analytic comes in handy. Search engine optimization in Sri Lanka is still a growing business but I can see some future potential in it.

Planning a wedding is a nightmare

noreply@blogger.com (Nishadha Silva) — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 06:08:00 +0000

Looking at some of my mates I can get a brief idea how hard it is to plan a wedding. The look on there faces when the big day comes close is pretty amusing. Although it looks simple there are so many thing to look into and it is just too much for two persons to handle. Sri Lankan weddings are a complicated affair anyway, from finding a suitable hotel to picking the guest list to find tuning the wedding dress, these things can be overwhelming for anyone. I guess that is one reason why the couple seems so relieved after the wedding.
The cost of a wedding is also increasing by the day. Its amazing how much of an extra cost it takes simply to add liquor to the occasion. Most now prefer to arrange a small drinking party for those who drink and avoid serving hot drinks at the wedding. Another very costly things is wedding photography, it can cost you from 50k to 300k, depending on your preference. I know its once in a lifetime things but spending that much on one occasion just for photography is insane. Money rules I guess

The search for data entry jobs

noreply@blogger.com (Nishadha Silva) — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 07:45:00 +0000

After checking out my Google analytics account I found it strange that more people search for data entry jobs more than ways to make money online. Ranking for them doesn't earn me much money but they do provided some authority when it comes to making money online in Sri Lanka. Considering how hard it is to secure a data entry job, especially for someone who has no experience in the field, I personally think it is a waste of time. But just to check out the trends I wrote an article about online data entry jobs in Pakistan. Even though it is ranked around 8-10 in Google it still gets about 15-20 visitors from Google. It would be interesting to see how much traffic it will get if it comes to 1-3 places in Google and how much money this simple page can earn as well.

Social GoodDay at Refresh Colombo

noreply@blogger.com (Nishadha Silva) — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 03:33:00 +0000

I got an invitation from @rohanvim to join Social Good Day Colombo meet up, and since I was interested in networking with fellow Sri Lankans I attended the event yesterday. The event was held as a part of RefreshColombo, a monthly gathering of tech enthusiasts.
For me the highlight of the event was "Building an Effective Online Marketing Platform" presentation done by Niranka T. Perera of eMarketingEye. Since I'm also interested in online marketing there were some great points to take away from that presentation, and I will try to attend RefreshColombo meet ups as much as I can as well.
Up next was the presentation by Nandasiri Wanninnayake, founder of Horizon Lanka foundation. It was great how a rural village 50-60Km from Anuradhapura managed to overcome all the hardship thrown at them and build a effective Internet portal to the outside world. It is by no means just having Internet, student were thought English via Internet and it has grown to such an level that volunteers from other countries come and teach these rural village children. It is simply amazing how one man managed to do all this without much help from anyone.
Then there was a discussion about how we can use social media to improve the lives of others. It was kick started by Sanjana of GroundViews. I guess the simple message was act upon your tweets, tweeting about social good etc is easy but acting upon them is the hard part. There were some initiatives taken to start a social good movement. I'm looking forward to the ideas that will come up once the forum is set up.
As a whole it was a good experience and a well organized event. @cocoveranda was kind enough to produce some nice refreshments and any event that starts with refreshments is a good event ;)

Sri Lanka chosen as the second best travel destination by National Geographic Channel

noreply@blogger.com (Nishadha Silva) — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 12:48:00 +0000

Tourism in Sri Lanka got a tremendous boost when National Geographic channel names it as the second best place to visit in the world. This was a great point to mention in my squidoo lens about visiting Sri Lanka. The great thing is there are some expert opinion about why you should choose Sri Lanka and of course there is the mention of beautiful white beaches and wildlife sanctuaries. Check out the below link for the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-WfXSacm84

Randiv Affair and the pussies at SLC

noreply@blogger.com (Nishadha Silva) — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 07:39:00 +0000

As expected Indian media blew the whole Randiv affair out of proportions. In a country when media themselves organize burning of effigies to get publicity this is understandable but what wasn't understandable was the reaction by Sri Lanka Cricket. For a simple no ball they appointed a committee and did a full investigation and found Randiv and Dilshan guilty. This has nothing to do with upholding the spirit of Cricket it was all about protecting the goodwill between BCCI who happens to be just about only source of income SLC has.This will create a odd situation for Dilshan though because he is a member of Delhi Daredevils which Shewag plays for. Because the incident is much publicized I'm sure the media will do something to remind us of this unique situation in DD as well. I hope Dilshan will be in the opening line up whenever DD plays next because that is just another story waiting to be sensationalized by the media.

The Expendables pretty much as expected

noreply@blogger.com (Nishadha Silva) — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 07:31:00 +0000

The Expendables was an ok movie although I have no idea how it got an imdb rating of 7.5 when some great movies such as "The Notebook" only has an imdb rating of 8. This was a typical Stallone flick with lots of shooting, cutting and blowing up and nothing else. Although there is a big crew involved in the movie only Stallone and Statham and to some extent Jet-Li plays any significant role. I really couldn't understand the role played by Mickey Rourke although he does tell a long boring story to Stallone. As mentioned before there is not much substance in the story and you never really get attached with any character to give a damn about what happens to them. Anything that could be blown up is blown to pieces and as any Stallone flick there are lots of dead bodies. Only good thing I can think of in the movie is Jason Stathoms acting. The movie is watchable just don't expect a classic with this crew.

Ricky having a terrible time at the moment

noreply@blogger.com (Nishadha Silva) — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 07:18:00 +0000

Ricky our pet is having a terrible time these days,his smelly dog ears are getting a bit irritating and because of constant scratching there some wounds as well. All the symptoms point to yeast infection so hopefully some natural treatments will make this go away. With the prize of veterinarians these days it costs a small fortune to get your dog checked :-(