In celebration of the 65th Independence day of Sri Lanka, Google has rolled out a Doodle for Google.lk . The Doodle contains the Sri Lankan lion holding the kastane sword with the Google letters in the colours of the Sri Lankan flag. To our knowledge this is the first Doodle relating to Sri Lanka. The Doodle is only visible in Google.lk and for Google.com viewed through a Sri Lankan IP.
Author - TechWire
Spark IT is competition organised by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce(CCC) with aims to jump start businesses of local ICT entrepreneurs. Through this competition CCC will create a platform for these entrepreneurs to create better business plans as well as giving access to lucrative investors. CCC are also planning to increase the amount of investment by chamber members to the ICT industry with a target of creating over 100 ICT startups by 2016.
This competition is open for owners of ICT start ups or entrepreneurs with a plan of starting their ICT business. Candidates must first submit the Spark IT application form before 16th February. From all applications 25 will be shortlisted for presentations and interviews. Then the candidates form the top 10-15 presentations will be invited for a workshop where they will work closely with the investment panel to fine tune their business plan.The Finale will be on the 11th of March 2013, from which 5-10 candidates will be chosen as winners.
The top 3 business plans will be awarded prizes while all the winners will be getting a chance to go through the venture engine program which would be kicking off in May 2013. This is a great chance for all ICT entrepreneurs to get guidance from the investor panel, to build connections and also to get media coverage on their start up.
So if you own a start up or have a plan for one, make sure you apply for Spark IT and grab this opportunity.
Click here for more information on Spark IT
In early January Fujifilm announced its groundbreaking SL1000 SLR type Bridge Camera. It has everything to look for in a camera and more. Might just be your dream camera.
It is a lightweight super zoom which zooms from 24mm to 1200 mm in 35mm jargon. It is 50x and is the longest on offer to the best of our knowledge. It is suitable for group photography like weddings, portraits as well as nature photography where a long lens is needed.
Priced at an affordable $399 one should be able to purchase one in Sri Lanka for under Rs 60,000. It comes in metallic red as well as the more sober black. It has a 920.000 dot electronic view finder which is bright. Its 3 inches in size and has the ability to tilt.
For a dedicated RAW photographers, it offers RAW, JPEG as well as RAW+JPEG. The CMOS sensor is a respectable 16 megapixels. It also offers superb HD videos up to 1080/60fps
The camera has a built in pop of flash as well as a hot shoe for an external flash. It boasts battery life of 350 shots per charge. The ISO range is super : 64 to 12,800 with auto.
For more info visit the Fujifilm site here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=82MG_cEoXcc#!
A simple but powerful infographic on the web trends that will become mainstream in 2013. Some of these trends you can already see surfacing through the more recently launched sites. Any other web trends that you think will be important to note down for 2013?
This week Google rolled out a neat feature for its image search, making it more convenient and less time consuming on image searches. Earlier when you clicked on a image from a Google image search it redirects you to a different page showing the picture while loading its source web page in the background.
With the new version its a lot more easier. Clicking on a search result image pops up a grey bar in the same page with a larger version of the image, its resolution, source webpage, and option to view the image only. Although these options existed in the earlier version it was another page load away. What more, with the new feature you can scroll through the image results using the arrow keys. For people who do a lot of image searches this is a small but valuable feature. Click here and try it out.
Refresh Colombo, the monthly meetup of technology experts and professionals will be happening on the 24th of January 5.30pm onwards. You can check out below the interesting topics that are going to be presented at this months event. This is the first meetup for 2013 and we are looking forward to the many informative Refresh Colombo meetups throughout this year.
Spark iT – Empowering ICT entrepreneurship across Sri Lanka
– by The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce
How to formulate a content strategy for your website.
– by Shaad Hamid
Great content is at the heart of every marketing campaign. How do you make sure your website’s content is relevant and how to leverage your content for your “brand awareness” and “direct response campaigns”.
The game of juggling balls (Balancing work & life)
– by Ms. Bernadine Jayasinghe
Bernadine is the CEO of Natural Reminders and also the Key to Success Academy and also currently working as an Executive in the corporate division at Union Assurance. She is a committee member of Reacreation Club of UA, Green Champion & the UA toastmaters secretary 2012/2013.
With over 500 million activated devices, 1 billion dollars in 4th quarter revenue, and finally matching the number of apps available in the apple App store, 2012 was a year to remember for Android. Find out more of Androids achievements in 2012 down below.
1. Using your phone while driving – It maybe to take a call, even worse type or read a SMS but using your phone while driving is far worse than a bad habit, it is a deadly habit. Why take the risk? Pull over, take the call and then resume your journey. You can also use a Bluetooth headset which auto connects the calls.
2. Not putting your phone on silent – how many times has a sudden ringing phone completely distracted everyone during a meeting, a religious sermon, at the movie theatre or hospital. It only takes a couple of seconds, make sure you do it.
3. Having weak passwords – With the numerous online services used these days, we tend either to have the same password or simple passwords. Don’t wait till someone hacks into your account, use complex, different passwords for your critical accounts. For non vital services you can have one complex password. Or you can always try a password manager software such as Lastpass or Dashlane but make sure you dont forget the primary password.
4. Not backing up your data – Everyone has their precious data that they would hate losing. It could be your child’s photos, or your business financial data or even maybe your degree assignments. Even knowing the importance of the documents we still fail to backup to a portable or virtual drive. Take 10 minutes to backup your files to dropbox or google drive today. Dont wait till it’s too late
5. Using your laptop on the bed – When you keep the laptop on the bed, the air ventilators get blocked and will lead to the laptop overheating. This could be damaging to your laptop, even worse it could start a fire on your bed.
6. Getting hooked to too many TV series – There are so many interesting and addictive TV series, that you find it hard to choose which one to watch. However following too many of them will eat up a lot of your time. Better keep yourself limited to one or two TV series at the most. Also avoid watching multiple episodes at a stretch. Remember life is short, don’t waste it on loads of TV series.
7. Not properly shutting down your laptop Many a time when we are in a hurry we just snap the lid on the laptop and takeoff. Sometimes closing the lid will not result in your laptop going to Sleep mode. Moving around with an operational hard disk is obviously not good. Take a few seconds to manually initiate the sleep mode. Also remember to properly shutdown your PC from time to time as I am sure it would like to have a regular break.
8. Ignoring privacy settings – It is reported that 25% of facebook users still ignore the privacy setting. If you don’t lock your door intruders will come and steal your data. Keep your personal data private by properly configuring those privacy settings.
9. Using your phone/tablet at inappropriate times – we all know that we love to use the smartphone all the time, but there are instances when u flat out shouldn’t. You might be having meals with the family, having a meetup with friends, or on a date. In these instances please keep your phone aside, it is there to connect with people not to disconnect with them.
10. Keeping your tech gadgets unclean – In a recent study, researchers found over 500 types of bacteria on mobile phones, keyboards, mouse and desktops. Take a wet wipe and clean those dirty gadgets once a week. If once a week is not possible try starting to do it atleast once a month.
Found this very informative infographic on Social Media in 2013 covering Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, and Pinterest. Surprised that 25% of users still neglect privacy settings, while 5 million images per day from instagram is an insane amount of images. Check out the rest of the facts down below.
On the 23rd of January get ready to learn on agile techniques with two international scrum masters at the Colombo Agile Conference 2013. This event which is organized by the Colombo agile community is the follow up to successful Agile Camp. The main aim of this event is to spreading knowledge, and improving skills related to agile methodologies within the Sri Lankan ICT industry.
The keynote speaker Ilan Goldstein is globally recognized Certified Scrum Trainer (SCT) and is highly experienced in the Agile landscape. He will be joined by Colin Tan, Director of Scrum Australia who has worked in many companies and startups on project management and user experience. These two experts will be presenting on a mix of valuable topics covering the basics as well as advanced areas related to agile management.
For more information on the speakers and the event, visit http://www.colomboagileconference.com/
If you are interested in agile management, this is an event you should not miss!
To mark a year of successful PHP meetups, Webgurus have organized CodeFest 2013. This event will allow the meetup members the opportunity to team up and showcase their design and development skills. Tourism will be the theme of CodeFest 2013 and teams need to come up with a relevant innovative idea, implement it and finally present it.
CodeFest will be held for two days, on the 19th and 20th of January. The event will kickoff from a presentation on Tourism, then to idea brainstorming and implementation which will surely run through the night till the following morning. The final products and services would be presented on the 20th to judges who will pick a winner. The winning team stands a chance to obtain funding to bring their project to the next level.
Expecting to see a lot of creative and innovative ideas at CodeFest.
For more information visit : http://www.webgurus.lk/codefest2013/
In a nutshell: Strategic puzzle game with an Alien Invasion story line
Category: Games
Platform: Android
The Good: Addictive Gameplay, Cool graphics and sound, Nice story line, Free
The Bad: Not clear on star strategy
Description :
Photonfission presents Eat em all, a strategy puzzle game where you take the role of Troopie the hero and genius of Troop land. Troopland has been invaded by aliens and have laid alien eggs everywhere in the village, and it is up to Troopie to Eat all the eggs and save the village.
This is a level based game, (such as Angry birds and Cut the rope) where in each level you have a puzzle which needs to be completed to move on to the next level. In each puzzle you will get alien eggs laid in lines connected by red stop points. It is up to you to navigate troopie through the lines of eggs from one stop point to another. However once you have eaten a line of eggs you cannot move through that line again. Your final goal is to eat all the eggs without being stranded on a stop point with nowhere to go.
The first few levels are quite straightforward, and can be finished easily. However as you go on you will encounter challenging levels where you need a lot of thinking. You will also encounter features such as strong eggs and powers like Thunder, Grenade, Timer Explosives, Flame, and Bridge. These features make sure there is something new to keep you interested and addicted throughout the 72 levels. The 72 levels are broken down to 8 areas. Three of the areas are free, while the rest of the areas you need to purchase. The only thing we did not understand was obtaining stars which are obtained when troopie eats them. Generally the number of stars are given on how well you complete the level, but in the levels we played you get all stars if you complete the level in any manner.
Overall the game is very impressive and addictive, and by far the best Sri Lankan developed game that we have come across
The graphics and sounds are very good and have a very polished look. Overall the game is very impressive and addictive, and by far the best Sri Lankan developed game that we have come across. We recommended that you download and play the game right now. Don’t forget to rate the app and spread the word to support these talented Sri Lankan developers.
Click Here for Eat em all on Google Play store. Go ahead and eat em all!!