February 23, 2012
Welcome to the Blog of Sanuja Senanayake
Thank you so much for visiting my blog. This will be used to publish whatever the subject that I feel like I should write about. Naturally the most common topic composed of Computer Science. You may find the Tag Cloud on the right side a useful tool to narrow down areas of interest. If not, yes the search will always come to the rescue.
I am always looking for good suggestions to improve this blog so feel free to drop a comment. Hope you find my website and blog interesting.
Core of Geoscience
As a second year Geology Undergraduate I am in the middle of my journey towards becoming a professional in the field of Geoscience. One of the things a student in geology compared to a student in another scientific field would notice is that after elementary geology classes, the Geoscience spread in to a wide range of different academic disciplines. Geology program covers, material science, engineering/physics, chemistry, actuarial science and even art. Other than engineering, the geological applications of these subjects are the most practical use of these fields. For example, geochemistry has more practical real world applications than general chemistry or there are more jobs for geophysics majors than physics majors.
Unless a student is planing to do graduate work or planing to join the government organizations like statistics or military services, most companies will look for employees who are specialized in practical applications of science. The reason behind this is that in a capitalistic economy, companies benefits by hiring Read More
What was your new year resolution?
Just curious… it is already the 06-January and if someone ask me what is my goal for the new year, I would say spend less time on the net. Of course it would be impossible with my love for computers and technology.
A lot of people make resolutions for the new year. What is yours? Let me know by either commenting or emailing.
Having said that, this may be my last post for a long period of time. I am going back to school this Monday and once the school stuff get rolling, I will have hand full of work in order to be successfully earn good GPA for all the courses. Wish me good luck!
Why choose applied science & engineering?
It is in our popular cultures to encourage people to follow their dreams and life’s goals. What if those dreams leads to troublesome future? What if the dreams are unrealistic or impossible to achieve? In my opinion, when it comes to education, it is important for the students to make decisions that makes sense for the future rather than just chase dreams because in Canada, the higher education is not free and even if it is free you will abuse the free educational system by jumping from one to another.
What makes your choice of education viable to yourself and the community? Well, whatever the program you take, it should have a piratical value to the social and economic development of the world. Unless you are one of the exceptionally smart individual with enough patience to get through hard set backs and difficult times, the choice of your educational route should be a good one. The point is if a person choose to follow a program in applied science & engineering or related area, even with a low GPA it is quite easy to find a job and maintain the position for a long run. Compare this with arts programs and research programs where if you fail on one simple step could lead to nowhere, in applapplied science & engineering even with some set backs it will be easy to get back on your feet.
With the world economy is now mostly driven by advancement in Read More
Thank you Google for all the free stuff
When I first started working with HTML, one problem I run in to was in order to create a great user experience I had to import scripts from several different third party service providers. For example, the site visitor data was kept by a one company and the contact form from another. The problem is that these companies that provide such services are asking too much in return from web developers. Not only they forcefully post pop-up ads and other useless materials, but also referral URLs to back to their sites are often open in the same window causing the visitor to exit the site itself. I managed to avoid some of these issues by loading PHP, SQL and Java databases to the server and facilitating packages such as WordPress. For items such as Contact forms now I use my own PHP script that save data on my own server. For visitor logging I created the ip log file code, but it is time consuming to go over millions of IP addresses to analyzing treads and traffic flow to this site.
Then here comes to Google Inc from California, USA. A company that provide great web management tools with far less issues compared to others. I use several services from Google that includes, the Google Analytics, Google Custom Search, Google Ads and Google hosted email services(aka Google Apps).
The Google Analytics service is a visitor data collection system. The Read More
PHP based password protected access point
I found a PHP based script that will protect data from the general public. This is done using a simple PHP script that will terminate the page data from processing in HTTP request if a correct credential is not entered. The key part of this script is that it can be saved in any folder on the server regardless of the folder access is public or private. The script can be used to protect any web page using the PHP’s native data loading mechanism. I have no idea how secure the PHP script now protecting the secure science area. That’s where detailed user records comes in handy because in an event of a hack or a flooding, I can monitor the situation and close down all lose ends of the system.
Anyway, I just decided to share with the blog fans that the Science site has been updated with a secure area where some very “special” science stuff are posted. If you want access to it, you have to contact me to get it. I will write the usage policy for that area during this Christmas(Winter) break and for now the area is govern by the current policies posted on the main site.
On a side note to my progress in finishing off the finals, today I just wrote my Chem 203 exam. The written was hard as we expected, but most of us found that the multiple choice to be easy. There are a lot of concept questions Read More
Why I love Blackberry over others
A lot of my friends asked me why the hell I love my Berry while most people are going for the iPhone and Android based phones with much better hardware and software integration. The reason is simple; I love the RIM’s iconic physical keyboard where I can type at a faster rate than on a virtual keyboard. But, the fact my very first cell phone happen to be a Blackberry have played a major role in how I choose my cell phones now days. With the faster and better integration of social media and web browsing by other companies have pushed the RIM against a wall. However, there are features that Blackberries offer that no other smartphone can.
The one of the best things Blackberry offer is the full physical QWERTY keyboard. I feel when I press a button because it gives an instant mechanical feed back rather than software generated one. The simple fact that I can type much faster on this type of keyboard itself is enough for me to stay with Blackberry. When it comes to typing a text or an email, this is like typing on my laptop. Speaking of emails, RIM has the best email client in the market with fast push notifications and data pull from any email system you use. The email experience on a Blackberry is nothing compare to other phones. The technical back-end of the email system is far superior to both iPhone and Android in my opinion. The other feature that most Blackberry fans Read More
The philosophical side of me
I was depressed on my performance in Faculty of Science courses required for my degree program and then it hit me. What is exactly happiness? First I thought happiness has to do with how much “stuff” I have in my position such as my servers, my computers, the network I have, the brand Blackberry Bold 9900 I got. Then I changed my mind and thought that may be education is the key to my happiness, where I can be very successful in life with financial and social stability that comes with a degree.
I think it has more to do with friendships, personal relationships and family more than anything. However, education still play a major role in how happy I am in life because it gives me something that I earned and proud of compared to just buying something like a new server or a new phone. The education has two main benefits; one would be it will provide socio-economic stability and other would be it generates a lot of friends and make create strong bonds with relatives. It seems like that most people like to have family members and friends who are educated and well to do than other way around.
On the other hand, all of these conditions are just only skin deep. At the Read More
Science section of the main site was updated
Today I add my geology lab final exam cheat sheet information in the Science section of the main site. Feel free to read it at the Science site. It takes time to update all the area of the website, but I do my best to keep up with it.
Anyway, let’s talk about some interesting things I learned in Mineralogy class…
Did you know that there are minerals that you cannot have together no matter what? For example, it is impossible to have Olivine with Quart together because they are formed in two different opposite conditions, where it is scientifically impossible to form both minerals at same temperature and pressure.
Did you know that no one knows why lava/magma forms? There is not a single scientific explanation to how and why these hot molten rocks forms. In fact, there are many new research projects are underway looking in to reasons for this as we speak.
Did you know that a well trained Geologist should be able to identify all minerals in a rock close to at least 90% or better? This is super awesome from my point of view because I found it is hard to separate even a single mineral from another.
Did you know that opaque itself can be many different types of minerals? I learned that it can be coal, graphite, volcanic glass and several other types of minerals.
Well the reason why most of us are in any university or college program is to get a good job. In Geology, the most economically important minerals are Read More
How to delete a Remote Desktop Connection entry
I found that most people have no idea how to delete a cached entries from Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) on a Windows OS based computer. In fact, I had no clue how to do this up until recently I had to log in to my server from a public school computer to modify some files. Even after you log out and select delete profile from the RDC, it will still show up in the Connections drop down next time someone open it. This is a problem because if a user with wrong intent to attack your computer or server open the RDC, it will provide them with half of the solution to hack your system, the IP or domain name!
If you try Google search to find an answer to this issue, you will quickly come across Microsoft KB article here, which is more complicated than useful to most users. I have no idea why a great user friendly software company like Microsoft doesn’t explain well on their help sites on registry editing for intermediate to advance users. May be because they don’t want novice users to pick up that information from their site and damage the OS in the process of regedit. Yes, it include the path and how to edit it, but there are no clear cut step by step instructions on how to properly do it.
The following method is the easiestway to delete an entry from Remote Read More
Beware of good friends, where no one speaks!
There is a huge scam going on where victims are often middle class to upper class individuals or families, where that one good, if not, the perfect friend ruin your family’s finances. This is a well known scam for years, but it become a very popular tool for many in this hard economic times. What gets me is that most of these criminals are well educated!
Let’s get to the point so that you are aware of the scam before its too late. There are a lots of ways to become a victim of fraud by your close friends. The following example is just one of them:
- their educational background, specially if you are in South Asian or Chinese community
- by spending money on items to impress you or your family
- by building good friendships with other family members of you
- your personal assets will be a target
