Pushpaka's Blog

Spring Bluff Railway Station

noreply@blogger.com (Pushpaka Rambukkanage) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 05:26:00 +0000

Spring Bluff is located in Queensland. It's about 130km from Brisbane and 14km from Toowoomba.

We went to Toowoomba carnival of flowers last September. We went to see Spring Bluff railway station on the way to Toowoomba.

The railway station is old and reminds me of railway stations in central hills in Sri Lanka. As we heard, Spring Bluff railway station is a heritage site and now mostly a visitor attraction. But they operate trains from Toowoomba railway station to Spring Buff railway station during the Toowoomba flower festival.

The railway station has a beautiful garden, picnic area and a cafe. If you are travelling through Toowoomba, this is a good place to visit and have a break.

Maryborough: Our first stop in Australia

noreply@blogger.com (Pushpaka Rambukkanage) — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 03:44:00 +0000

A scene from Ullula lagoon

Lenthall Dam Area

A close encounter with a whale

Maryborough Court House

Pub Fest 2010 - a group of participants

Fraser Coast Show 2010

Fraser Coast Show 2010 - Wood chipping contest

Fraser Coast Show 2010 - Waiting for the rodeo

Maryborough City Hall

Maryborough is the city we are living currently. So I thought to write a blog post about the city and its surroundings.

Maryborough is in Queensland and it is located about 250km north of Brisbane, off the Bruce highway. It’s only 30km to Hervey Bay. Anyone visiting to Maryborough or Hervey Bay has several trasporation options:

By Car – Best option in this part of country.
TravelTrain – Maryborough has a railway station, anyone visiting Maryborough city or Hervey bay should get the coach connection from Maryborough station.
Coach/Bus - Tory’s tour coach – This runs twice a day from Hervey Bay to Brisbane and return. In my opinion this is the second best option to travel because it takes only 4 hours from Hervey Bay to Brisbane and 3.5 Hours from Maryborough to Brisbane.
Coach/Bus - Greyhound – They have many buses going through Maryborough both from Brisbane and to Brisbane. Greyhound’s travelling time is bit higher since it goes through all the cities on the route.
Plane – Hervey Bay has a airport which has connections to Brisbane, Sydney and Lady Elliot island.
Car Rentals/Taxi – After coming here, you can find many car rentals and taxis operating. So getting around is not difficult.

Maryborough is a self-styled heritage city in Queensland. According to the records, it started in 1847 and it had a port with ships coming from all over the world. Once it was suggested as the capital of the state (should be long ago).

After all it’s busy days, now it is a clam and peaceful city with traces of history everywhere. Mary River is an important icon of the city with flowing through the city and making a scenic display. People here are very helpful and friendly, noticeably different than other places I have been.

The city has an information centre. Anyone visiting city should visit them, the staff is really friendly and helpful. They will give you a good insight to the city and surroundings, but I thought to list few things you can here:

See Maryborough city – see the old buildings, museums and the sleepy city. When you walk on the wharf street you might think you are walking in past.
Queens Park (at the edge of the river and next to the CBD) and Anzac Park/Ululah Lagoon – These make a relax feeling with it’s lush green. Also you can feed the ducks in Ullulah lagoon.
Thursday’s heritage markets – every Thursday Maryborough turns busy with it’s heritage market. It has a variety of stalls. Also the steam train and river cruise are operating on Thursdays.
Lake Lenthall– a popular recreational park just 20km north of Maryborough. It is in the Wongi forest and it is popular for fishing and camping.
Teddignton weir – This is a good picnic area next to the weir. I have seen people fishing on the dam, but the sign says not to. So, I am not sure about fishing in here. But it is a good picnic area with a small swimming pool for children and a patch of rainforest type trees.

And few more things you can do around here:

Fraser Island – most popular tourist destination in the region. We are yet to go there, but this is in the top of priority list.
Whale watching in Hervey Bay - Hervery Bay is a very good location to watch whales. We went on 'Spirit of Hervey Bay' ship and it was amazing to whales playing and swimming around.
Lady Elliot Island – Tourists can get flights from Hervey Bay airport to Lady Ellito Island.
Childers – Just 50 km north of Maryborough. There are few wineries near the city. Also Childers is popular for it’s multicultural festival held on last week of July each year.
Rainbow beach – it’s about 70km to Rainbow beach from Maryborough. Rainborw

Important events in Maryborough:

Sunday in the Park – on last Sunday of each month, Queens park turns in to a busy place with brass bands, stream trains (both mini train and historical stream engine) and lot of crowd. River cruise is also operates on Sundays.
Pub Fest – thousands of participants crawl from one pub to another to complete all the pubs in the pub trail. All of them wear decorated costumes and with music around, it’s a party day for Maryborough
Mary Popins Festival – Maryborough is the birth place of P.L.Travers, author of Mary Poppins children’s books. So, city has a one day celebration with various type of events which will take you to the time of Mary Popins.
Fraser Coast Show - this is an annual event with lot of activities, events, races and rodeos (last time they had different types of rodeos).
There are many more events in the regions. You can find everything in http://www.frasercoastevents.com.au/

There are many more places and things to do in Maryborough and Hervery Bay area. It is very easy to find details from an information center. Also I tried to add many informative links as possible. Feel free to comment/email your ideas and corrections. All are wellcome.

Grand Ella Motel

noreply@blogger.com (Pushpaka Rambukkanage) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 12:31:00 +0000

I have heard about Ella area many times, mostly about the beauty of the place. Last time when we were travelling from Badulla to Galle through Ella, we thought to stay in Grand Ella Motel and see the place.
Ceylon Hotel Corporation owns the Grand Ella Motel. Ceylon Hotel Corporation has many rest houses/hotels in scenic locations around the country. Grand Ella Motel is located on the road connecting Wellawaya – Ella - Kumbalwela (Kumbalwela is on the Bandarawela-Badulla road). It’s around 1-2 km from Ella railway station. The place is great as a stopover when you travel, because it connects Bandarawela/Badulla to Wellawaya (then the whole south of the country).

From Grand Ella Motel you can easily reach many beautiful attractions around: Rawana falls, Bogoda wooden bridge, Dunhinda falls etc. From Ella to Wellawaya, it is a steep decent which is also the border between central hills and almost flat Southern part of the country. So, you can view the panoramic view of Ella gap from there.

The Grand Ella Motel is a nice place to stay. The view was great, staff was friendly, food was also reasonable. Unfortunately we couldn’t get a room with the view of Ella Gap, if you are staying ask for a room with the view. That will complete your stay.

Bogoda Wooden Bridge

noreply@blogger.com (Pushpaka Rambukkanage) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 10:55:00 +0000

Bogoda wooden bridge is over 400 years old, but still it is surviving from all the disasters. It's a nice place you can easily visit from Badulla town.

The bridge is located around 8-10 Kms from Hali Ela junction (Hali ela junction is on Bandarawela-Badulla road, just 6km to Badulla).

The road from Hali Ela to the bridge is a narrow one, but you can easily go there by a car.

Nuwara Eliya Travelodge

noreply@blogger.com (Pushpaka Rambukkanage) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 14:29:00 +0000

Nuwara Eliya is different from other Sri Lankan cities in many ways. Out of many reasons, cool climate comes as the number one. Nuwara Eliya usually is the coldest city in Sri Lanka. This has a great value when Colombo is in burning temperatures, while Nuwara Eliya is still cold as a city in winter.

Last time when we were in Nuwara Eliya, we stayed at the “Travelodge”. It is a colonial type of bungalow located on the Badulla road, in front of race course ground. With 10 minutes walk you can get to Nuwara Eliya town center easily.

If you cannot find the contact details for the place, feel free to mail me.

"Changeling" and Sri Lanka today

noreply@blogger.com (Pushpaka Rambukkanage) — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 11:36:00 +0000

I watched Clint Eastwood’s movie: Changeling. It was a good story to watch after a while. Angelina Jolie’s contribution was so superb; I didn’t feel the movie’s runtime of 141 minutes at all.

In summary, the story tells about a mother who challenges political corrupted and lawless authority to find her missing son. After all troubles, with the help of civil society leaders, she was able to find a reasonable justice for her and others’ cases.

When I watched the movie, I felt that the problem in the story depicts the situation in Sri Lanka nowadays. “Uchitha’s blog” has a good post about the way things are going today. With the current situation in country people are feared of authorities going politically corrupted and lawless. But the problem is civil society is getting afraid to lead the socity, so end to the problem is unlike. As I feel, this transition period for Sri Lanka should be over soon to see a better country for all of us. Otherwise, the transition period will be longer than we think.

Thanks Vagi for the movie.

Kite Runner : The book and the movie

noreply@blogger.com (Pushpaka Rambukkanage) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:48:00 +0000

I usually watch movies, also read novels (occasionally). But, it’s really rare to read a novel and watch the movies based on that novel. Last time it was Da Vinchi code, like everyone who did that, I like the book over movie.

Uchitha mentioned about “Kit Runner” in his blog few months ago. He has watched the Kit Runner movie and mentioned about it with full credit.

With his introduction to the movie, I bought the Novel. It took a long time to start the reading. But that was a real good novel to read. The novel was based on Afganistan, but some parts of it were related to the Pakistan I knew. So, I found it’s bit familiar to me. Also, the story for so good to keep the readers addicted to the novel.

After the book, I found the movie. I watched it. As I feel, the director has done justice to the book. But the book is far ahead without any doubt.

Trip to Doovili Ella

noreply@blogger.com (Pushpaka Rambukkanage) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 14:09:00 +0000

On April 14th, we went to see the “Doovili Ella”, which is located near Neluwa (Close to Sinharaja forest). The route from Galle is Galle->Udugama Town->Thawalama Town->Neluwa Town->Turn to Pelawatta road, around 3-4kms-> turn to the Doovili ella access road.

Doovili Ella consists of 3 falls. It’s really a nice view to see. But the main attraction according to my thinking is the natural water pool located at the bottom of the pool. Water from the fall is directed to a man-made water pool. So, it’s really a secure bath there.

Only problem I faced is the time it took us to travel. From Galle town, it took around 2.5 hours to get there. But, it’s really worth trip to go.

View sunset from Galle Fort

noreply@blogger.com (Pushpaka Rambukkanage) — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 12:57:00 +0000

My home town is Galle. I did my studies there. When we were in Galle, we had a habit of going to Fort in the evening. With higher studies and job, I was out of this for a long time.

Last weekend I had time to visit the Galle Fort in the evening and see the sunset.

It's really a wonderful view to see. My recommendation is to plan your trips or visits (if you are going on that way) to be on the Galle Fort in the evening, to watch the sunset.

Demotivating a (Good) Programmer

noreply@blogger.com (Pushpaka Rambukkanage) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 05:26:00 +0000

Found an interesting article on programmer's life, Demotivating a (Good) Programmer.

When I compare my experience and thinking, I feel majority of this article is true.

We oya river, a place to go in the weekend

noreply@blogger.com (Pushpaka Rambukkanage) — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 04:26:00 +0000

Last Sunday morning, we were wandering what to do. Suddenly my friend Chamindu came with an idea of going out of Colombo. Janaka took the lead by agreeing to it without any hesitation.
Initially we thought to go to Kithulgala. If we go to Kithulgala, bath in the river and white water rafting is possible. But when we were on the way to there, we heard about a nice place to have a swim.

We Oya, when you travel on Colombo-Hatton road, turn right just before the Yatiyanthota town. The road goes parallel to the We oya river. You have to go around 8 Kms. Then turn right to the road leading to the school there. Less than one kilometer on that road, you will find the place. Best thing to do is, ask from someone there. I can’t remember the exact name of the place, but if anyone of you interested, please mail me.
[Thanks Janaka for the photos.]

Life in Oslo

noreply@blogger.com (Pushpaka Rambukkanage) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 10:28:00 +0000

I am getting in to the last week in the Oslo visit. In this visit, we have a team from Exilesoft for a set of discussion with one of our client. The discussions going on for requirement identification for their new system. The work is interesting, some times it's kind of too much Microsoft Word these days. But, that's the nature of a requirement gathering phase.

We, developers, tends to avoid Microsft Word/Visio and like to use their development IDEs as soon as possible. But everyone understand that lesser you put time for Word/Visio, more effort you have to put the development to cover the missing requirements. Mostly that ends as a failure or closer. That's a real pain. By reminding that consequence to myself, I am using Word/Visio these days.

Apart from the work, we all enjoy our weekends a lot. We tried to spend our weekend outside as much as possible. We traveled a lot.

	The Tusenfryd amazement park was great. We enjoyed roller coasters and the sky monster a lot.
	The boats in the sea (Båter i sjøen) was a display of large number of boats. There was different boats from small speed boats to large luxury boats.
	We went to Holmenkollen ski jump. Went there by walk, but returned by train.
	We took the boat from Oslo to islands nearby. It was a nice view in the evening watching sun down from a boat.
	On a Sunday we bought tickets for Oslo Bysykkel (City bikes). With the tickets we can ride bikes for one full day. Everyone enjoyed the bike ride. Especially, we had to depend a lot on maps to find places.
	We went to see the Viking Museum. The museum was a good collection of viking ships.

Came to Oslo

noreply@blogger.com (Pushpaka Rambukkanage) — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 07:21:00 +0000

It's almost a week, after we came to Oslo. We came here on Sunday (31/09/2008). We took express train from airport to Oslo central station.

That Sunday was cold for us. In Sri Lanka we were used to temperature range from 25 to 30. So, even 20 C is cold for us. We had a little rest and went out to see the city.

We went to Oslo harbor. It's a great place to see. Large number of boats and yachts were there. Our company CEO, Finn, took us around the harbor. His explanations helped me a lot to understand the nature of the harbor and it's current status. It's always nice to have a walk around the place.

Oslo weather is changing day by day. Worse is the rain. If it is not raining, we can more or less manage the temperature. But, during the weekend, people expect warmer (still cold for us) weather.

Thanks Shameera for photos. I tried to cover visits with my HTC 3452 Touch, but the photos are not that much good at the end. So, most of the photos in this blog in Oslo visit will be from Shameera.

Shameera

Last day @ Kandysoft and first day @ Exilesoft

noreply@blogger.com (Pushpaka Rambukkanage) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:00:00 +0000

I have spent the last day at Kandysoft. I was in Kandysoft for more than 2 years. I really enjoyed friendly and nice atmosphere there. Every colleague was a friend for me. So, the last day was bit difficult than I thought. Thank you all Kandysoft for friendship and cooperation during the period. Especially I really thank for the gift I got, Dianome mug. That’s worth a lot, really.

This week, I spent the first day at Exilesoft. Exilesoft offered a different challenge for me. I thought it’s good to have a change and rethink about way we live from time to time.

Speaker for the Dead....Restarted scienece fiction reading

noreply@blogger.com (Pushpaka Rambukkanage) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 12:40:00 +0000

Previously I read novels and science fictions a lot. But for the recent past I was more interested on non-fictions and autobiographies.

My friend Chamindu always reads science fictions and my habit of reading non-fictions and autobiographies was a topic to talk for him. Last week I thought to read a science fiction and see whether my mind is ready to accept science fictions again.

I borrowed "Speaker for the Dead" from Chamindu last week. Spend part of last week and whole weekend to finish it. I must say that it's addictive. It was so addictive that for the whole weekend I had the book in my hand.

"Speaker for the Dead" is a good collection of fictions blended together. The author, Orson Scott Card is building the rule set for the future universe and unfold the story nicely. I have already borrowed "Ender's Game"(previous one in the sequel) from Chamindu.

Enabling mobiles for enterprise applications

noreply@blogger.com (Pushpaka Rambukkanage) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 13:38:00 +0000

For the last period our team was doing a supply chain management product. It contains a synchronization process to update data between stakeholders. The system has rich clients and mobile clients who occasionally connect to the main server to send/receive data updates.

Last week, I had a break to review our mobile design the refactor the code base. We used Microsoft synchronization services with SQL Server CE database. Used WCF based web services as the conveyor for the synchronization. Windows mobile 5 platform provided the base for the application. After doing all, I was looking for best practices for mobile application development for enterprises.

Found Kulathumani Hariharan’s “Best Practices: Extending Enterprise Applications to Mobile Devices” in The Architecture Journal. It is generally covering a vast scope in the mobile application integration for enterprise solutions. It was a great opportunity for us to review the system with a blueprint. That’s an article each mobile developer should read.

An Inconvenient Truth

noreply@blogger.com (Pushpaka Rambukkanage) — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 04:49:00 +0000

Watched 'An Inconvenient Truth' yesterday.

My initial thought was, it's Al Gore's work and it may contain political aspects. But, when I watched that few minutes, I felt some thing unusual about the documentary.

It's telling about a catastrophe coming tomorrow. It's real and it's coming. 'Global Warming' is leading all of us to the catastrophe. The documentary unfold a bunch of touching evidences to convey the idea.

These days we really experience the weird difference in weather. We know the culprit and unfortunately everyone is feeding the culprit. The documentary ends with a pragmatic road map to avoid the catastrophe.

The documentary is a must for all global citizens to watch. Watch and learn how to save the globe.

Microsoft Sync Services for Occasionally Connected Applications

noreply@blogger.com (Pushpaka Rambukkanage) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 05:10:00 +0000

Occasionally connected system (OCS) is not a new word for technical jargon. But with the availability of new technologies and tools, it's becoming easier to rollout OCSs than earlier.

These days I am working on a field force automation solution with Windows Mobile 6 based devices for my company, Kandysoft. When I saw Microsoft Synchronization Services introduction in a web site for the first time, I thought to dig in to it. The technology was promising, but there were lot of dead ends for me at that time.

Recently, I had another look at Microsoft Synchronization Services and found Adam Salvo(z) blog, which had a good overview about how to dig in to the technology.

To summarize my finding about the technology, I will list the sequence of articles, a beginner should follow (as I feel):

Introduction to Microsoft Synchronization Service:
Synchronization Runtime, OCS with sync services

Synchronization Services for ADO.NET - documentation
Architecture and classes, How to do common tasks for sync

Database changes to facilitate synchronization
Changes tracking, How to track changes, Setup script

Coding required for synchronization
Getting started, Design and deployment considerations

I was trying to use Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) to expose server side synchronization data provider. "An Introduction to WCF for Device Developers" article helped me to get rid of several unclear areas in mobile WCF.

Trip to River Song Cottage – Knuckles

noreply@blogger.com (Pushpaka Rambukkanage) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 08:24:00 +0000

Sri Lanka is a country with wide variety in nature from the sea level to top of central mountains. There are beautiful places all around and majority of us yet to visit most of the places.

It’s nearly 10 months after our last Kandysoft office trip, to Wasgamuwa national park. Last few weeks we had several opinions for a trip. But finally with the help of Hemantha, we finally settled for one place, River Song Cottage – Knuckles. At the time of cottage reservation, we had only little clue about the place, because there were virtually no information about the place in internet. So, we all had doubts about the place and the location.

After all hard work to get people to the trip, we had 10 colleagues onboard. Plan was to go to Kandy by train and hire a van to get to the cottage. Last Friday (23rd May), early in the morning at 6.30 (yep, it’s early in the morning for me) we all came to Colombo Fort railway station and the trip got going. After getting down from Kandy we found a van and did shopping for food and beverages. It’s still good to remember the shopping we did in Kandy Cargills outlet.

The path from Kandy to the Cottage is Kandy - Wattegama - Panwila Town - Bambaralla Road - Turn right from the Water board junction (24Km post) - Arattana Road 2Km - Turn left to the gravel road - River song cottage

Wow!!! We were standing in front of a very nice cottage; river is flowing in little distance from the cottage; the view is splendid.

We all had a very good time there. Next day we went for a hiking too, to Knuckles range. But a single day is not enough to climb Knuckles. We thought to climb to the top to Knuckles range, not this time, some another day.

	River Song Cottage
	All of us, from left to right - Sumudu, me, Janaka, Hemantha, Asela, Sanjaya, Sameera, Anuradha, Amila and Buddhima
	Hulu ganga (Hulu river)
	Anuradha busy with photos

Thanks Buddhima for the photos.

Vantage Point...Different way of story telling

noreply@blogger.com (Pushpaka Rambukkanage) — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 12:21:00 +0000

Repeating the time scale with incremental level of information can change the level of understanding. That is the basic theory used in Vantage Point.

Each point of view starts at 12.00pm. Pete Travis, the director first shows the incident from one point of view. Then increases the level of information by showing the next point of view and next. This enables director to show same set of screens without leaving the ‘have seen this’ feeling in viewers’ mind. That’s a brilliant method of story telling. I have seen this style in Red Violin also.

Overall, I like the movie. Especially Saurez (the mastermind behind the operation) is far more attractive than Thomas Barnes (the agent). I like the way Saurez is using a PDA to initiate incidents. That a innovative way of using new technology.

Missed post, while we were in Pakistan

noreply@blogger.com (Pushpaka Rambukkanage) — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 13:34:00 +0000

I should have included this post earlier. But I really felt this when I mailed to my friend Waqas yesterday. Then I realized that I haven't mentioned about friends we have in Pakistan in any post. So thought to do it here.

With Waqas we worked almost three and half months together, from the start to end. Travelled around the country. Worked long hours. Had issues, solved them all. It was really good to work with him.

Another friend to mention, Zohaeb. Zohaeb is such an interesting character, who was a very close friend for us while we were away from our home country.

I need to mention about Adil, who worked with us in Rawalpindi region and then several days in Islamabad. But I can't find a photo of him. When I get a photo, I will fill the gap.

Sicko....Terrified

noreply@blogger.com (Pushpaka Rambukkanage) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:41:00 +0000

I couldn't watch Sicko still this week. I have watched Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore previously. So, I was expecting a good movie.

But, the topic was too close for us, than any other Michael Moore's movie. His way of storytelling with the statistics make us more terrified than a horror movie. It's hard to believe but I found this CNN article. It proves the accuracy of movie statistics. I can say, he has done a great job again to show us the cruelty of political businessmen.

When we think about our own health care system in Sri Lanka, I understood we are also moving towards American way of health care. We believe Prof. Senaka Bibile is a patriot. But that’s true only for medical student, not to medical practitioners. Medical practitioners forget old ethics soon when they pass out from medical faculties.

Our products of free education make the life of society (who funded their studies) terrible with strikes and trade union actions. That’s true from Doctors to labors working in Sri Lankan health care. Doctors work according to pharmaceutical company advices. Political adds the missing corruption element. Private hospitals make the way to insurance companies. So the public, who can afford medical insurance, have to find a protection (?) from insurance companies. Others have to bear the all sort of difficulties to get medical attention.

Finally, I was thinking, are we leading to private hospitals - Insurance merchant oriented health care system?

How NOT to lead geeks

noreply@blogger.com (Pushpaka Rambukkanage) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 13:05:00 +0000

Some of these are true in some companies

I Am Legend.....The Assassination of Jesse James

noreply@blogger.com (Pushpaka Rambukkanage) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 01:42:00 +0000

This month is passing very fast. Not only this month, last month was also like that. May be the work is over killing us. So that we can't see what is happening to ourselves.

Last week I have realized that I couldn't watch a single movie for a long time. Tried to restart the habit with few movies.

Watched "I Am Legend". Lost one and half hours.

Then put two and half hours to watch "The Assassination of Jesse James".

One thing to say is the time it takes. Very long for a movie. Though it takes a long time, it flew seamlessly. Director is keeping his fan around the movie all the time. Story teller is changing the view point several times to make the story more attractive. Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck deliver superb acting. So, what else you can expect from a movie. Worth watching the movie.

My new phone : HTC Touch

noreply@blogger.com (Pushpaka Rambukkanage) — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 13:57:00 +0000

My new phone is HTC Touch with Windows Mobile 6.