Dreamsmademe Blog

Wow! I've been waiting for this thing to come. It should reach my doorstep as US Parcel Mail parcel though, Sri Lankan postal service as usual had kept it at customs and asked me to come and collect it. I had to pay an additional Rs.170 for clearence.

Anyway no fuss. My beauty came safe and sound.

My initial impressions about this Kodak EasyShare DX7440 Digital Camera came positive.

If I talk about the cons at first. The camera's finish is not on far with say any of SONYs' or Nikons', Jog dial lock is cumbersome to operate, unlock. Connector lid was horrible to lift and connect the cables. I am sure it will be the first thing to break if any. The LCD was protruding out and it could easy hit with something and get cracked. Zoom buttons are beside the shutter you can't zoom and shoot. Should have been somewhere near the thumb wheel instead. Grip is not so good even though they've provided a rubber finish for the hold. Pictures were darker than what they appear on the LCD in low light conditions.

Pro are little but very notable. Whoa! The 2.2" LCD is owesome. Bright and crispy. Overall responsiveness is very good to compromise all the cons. Videos are good and can shoot in VGA resolution with sound. Focusing is very good even on night scenes. Flash reaches an extra mile. 4x optical zoom also a plus thing but will result blury pictures if not use with caution. (tripod)

Meanwhile, It is worth mentioning about the seller at eBay who sent this to me. Named Sonchai, Prompt response and excellent communication I really valued in this guy. He even sent me, a casing, LCD protector which wasn't even mentioned in the original auction for a nominal fee. He is also one of the very few guys who ships eBay items directly to Sri Lanka. It is a good buy for me. Thanks Sonchai.

Meanwhile I am crazy to play with my new cam, gotta go...

This is absurd. We've got 4 GSM operators in the country. They make all the hype in the world. We were playing with SMSs years before the US counterparts send their first SMS. Okay true enough but our networks are still sluggish. None covers island in one phase. Batteries won't last when you go out stations (okay that is the technology). No signal when you are about to die in some Bintenna place.

I switched to Mobitel GSM after having enough issues with Dialog GSM during the 1998 to 2003 period.

Now Mobitel calls are too keep dropping even when you are stationary in Colombo for no reason. It's hard to hang on for more than two three minutes sometimes. Sigh!

Dialog had this issue of network congestion due to over subscription and they got their switches updated lately. Anyway I switched and they lost me.

Now Mobitel, are they too trying to allocate more users in the network? But it does not seem to be a congestion issue. It is a problem of switching the cells we are in it seems. The phone keep changing its cell even when you are stationary and calls drop during the transfer, we noticed. OK you gave us the choice of knowing the cell we are in. I checked everybody around me experience the same. We even switched the phones to see with no success. So it's gotta be a network problem. Anyone ?

So you guys at Mobitel, I know you work hard to keep up your cutting EDGE, but would you please improve your network so we can make uninterrupted calls, the phone's basic function first.

I do still have another two operators if I really want to try. Anyway I was happy with you and I had slightly better customer experience with you guys. So I guess we'd better keep it that way, Aren't we?

There was a nice article by someone called Amarasiri Ganewatte in today's Sinhala newspaper, Divaina.

What he says is very true. I also felt English was very difficult when I try to learn it, because of the methods used. But as a matter of fact Enlglish is much simpler than learning Sinhala from scratch.

Here's a nice example from the artcle. The words sounds exactly the same. Different meanings though.

Go figure. It's nice.

The way our schools teach it is horrible. The young ones only get a bad taste about English. That's why it's been called "Kaduwa or the Sword" Yeah. English is cutting edge. No question. In this net generation you can't live without it. The government should initiate an islandwide awarness over English in Schools, away from Colombo specially in the rural areas.

Anyone?

We, Interblocks Ltd, won the Gold for the Financial Category and the Best Overall Product Category in this year's National Best Quality Software Award Ceremony. It's was a wonderful night we all felt.

Last year we have submitted the iSwitch and this year it was for the iPay, the Internet Payment Gateway system for online card verification. (VISA/Mastercard and soon AMEX too)

Meanwhile this is the last year's event.

Wow! My long time favorite band is in town.

MLTR guys have come over for a brief concert in Colombo.

I love their ballades, all the songs, and I have collected
nearly all of their songs. I had long since separately
hosted all of those lyrics from my collection in my website.

Here enjoy them!
Micheal Learns to Rock Lyrics

The play was brief and only limited to 90 minutes.
Some of my favorites were not played. Hay, that's bad of you guys.
Anyway I enjoyed everybit of it.