A Voice from the Silent Majority

How do people work without vacations (I mean long ones)? That I've always wondered since I was a small child. During school days we are always waiting for the holidays to come, so no matter how hard the work became we always managed to draw some comfort by reminding ourselves that the holidays are coming nearer. And when they came it was 2months of playing, going on trips and just pure idling. But I've never seen an employed person enjoy such freedom (unless they get fired, in which case they become unemployed). So how do employed people manage to go on and on everyday from 9am – 6pm without feeling miserable?

What might be my last long holiday (2 ½ months) ends on the 14^th of September as uni starts on that day. And I find myself dreading the end of the vacation, wondering whether it's the last, and asking myself whether I managed to enjoy every moment of it. How will I survive once I'm employed?

Long gone are the days when 1.44mb floppies ruled the standards of portability. Nowadays its even hard to find a PC or a Laptop with a floppy drive. But the thing about usb drives (or pendrives or thumb drives or whatever you wish to call them) is that they are soooo easy to lose. I'm currently going on my 5^th because of this matter.

The first one I got had a capacity of 64mb that was in 2004 (and the damn thing cost rs.3500, that was for getting through O/Ls). In school this device was a blessing. It was so easy to conceal so the prefects couldn't find them. So I managed to increase my collection of mp3s considerably using this (those were the days of the dial-up so downloading a mp3 was a costly business). But then my father also started to see the uses of this device. Now he could work at home and take all those stuff back to office in this magical device (initially he was totally opposed to spending rs. 3500 on this small device). So he decided why buy a new one when there is already one at home. So he started "borrowing" it, and after a couple of days forgot it in office, and the pen drive was never seen again.

So no pen drive till I got to campus. When I first got in to campus I thought this was downloading heaven (boy was I wrong, during day time I rarely see speeds above 20kBps) so I decided to buy a larger capacity pen drive preferably 1GB(by this time pen drive prices had come down) . But I made the mistake of going with my father so after listening to the prices and figuring out that that 512mb one was cheaper he said, ඔච්චර එකක් ඕනෙද? (which means I think the 512mb one is more than enough). So I had to settle on the 512mb (Thank God the shop didn't have 256mb pens). Then couple of months later I heard my mother complaining that a piece of the washing machine had come off (මෙන්න washing machine එකේ කෑල්ලක් කැඩිලා!!). True enough she was holding few fragments of a circuit. However one piece showed a remarkable resemblance to a usb connector, then it dawned on me that I probably must had left the pendrive in the pocket of my denim. I quickly looked inside the washing machine and found other pieces of incriminating evidence which I quickly disposed of before my father saw them (also managed to get that usb connector thingy from my mother). Then I joined her in blaming the washing machine.(However a friend of mine managed to salvage a pen drive after it was put in the washing machine, he was lucky twice.)

Again no pen drive. But now the pendrive had become a crucial part in my life. So after saving for a couple of weeks I managed to finance a new one and this time 2GB. By that time I had managed to persuade my father to get ADSL, so had a healthy collection of movies. So my boarding mate and I used to swap pen drives when we were going home (since the capacities were same we couldn't be bothered to transfer movies from mine to his and vice versa). By now I was a bit more responsible and from experience (see above) I knew put the pen drive in my pocket was not a good idea. So I used to put it in my bag. One day (this was after about a year) when I got home no pen drive (I had swapped pen drives as well, so the lost pen drive belonged to my boarding mate, more serious). Upon further inspection of the bag I discovered a small hole at the bottom just enough for a pen to fit through (talk about being a victim of circumstances, ආයේ ඉතින් කොහෙ කියල හොයන්නද?). So what to do, I told him to keep mine.

Then I went and bought a very cheap Chinese pendrive (2GB again). However this too didn't last long (and mind you the cheap technology didn't play a part). Thanks to the huge number of assignments and course works that needs to be submitted I have to visit communication shops a lot to get printouts while in campus (although I have a printer at home it's much more cheaper to print from outside, hp cartridges are more expensive then the printer). There I left the pen drive on the computer (and needless to say when I got back it wasn't there).

So I decided no more pendrives for me. I started working on google docs to prevent carrying stuff with me, no more movies , no more music or any other cool things, and most importantly no more worries. Plus there was also the added advantage of less virus attacks to my pc. But recently a friend presented me a pen drive (4GB, he had no idea about my history with pen drives). Until now it's NOT lost (oh I did manage to lose it's cover/clip) :) .

මෙවන් දර්ශන e-mail වල you-tube එකේ දැක ඇත්තෙමි, නමුත් සියැසින් දුටු මුල්ම අවස්ථාවයි. මෙම වාහනය මෙම රූපය ගන්නා මොහොතේදී අසල සිටි ත්‍රී රෝද රථ රියදුරන්ගේ හා parking ticket කඩන කාන්තාවගේ උපහාසයට ලක්වි තිබුණි (මෙමගින් අනිත් වාහන නැවැත්වීමට ඉඩ අඩු වන නිසා ඇයට මදක් තරහ ඇවිස්සීද තිබුණි). නමුත් වැඩි දුර සිතා බැලීමේදී මෙය හේතු දෙකක් නිසා සිදුවිය හැකි බව වැටහිණි.

හේතුව මින් කුමක් විය හැකිද?

ස්ථානය : ආසිරි රෝහල ඉදිරිපිට රථ ගාල

වේලාව: පෙ.ව 7.30ට පමණ

For years I considered time travel as one of the most farfetched fantasies in science-fiction. But a recent documentary I watched called "Discovery Science – The World's First Time Machine" altered my thinking forever. This documentary explained how time travel can be done theoretically, with the help of Einstein's Theory of Relativity (I had heard that this theory contained explanations about black holes, teleportation, time travel, but before this I never understood most of it). Also most amazingly work is going on even at this point to make time travel a reality. Here I have included the part of the documentary which I found in youtube, which explains the whole thing.

Most interestingly Einstein's theory never showed how to travel back in time, but the scientists have managed to come up with a way as to how to make this happen. Even other extreme things such as parallel universes, traveling at the speed of light are also explained.

If you want to watch the whole thing too, download it from here. (however it did take some time to download)

What's the damn point of owning a high end mobile phone if you only use it for calling, messaging and the occasional photograph. Although you certainly can live without the damn thing (that's how our ancestors got by till the 21^st century) some apps really make life more enjoyable and easy. Mind you all these apps are free as well.

No. 5: Fring

If you really want to keep in contact with your online friends this is a must have. This app allows you to connect to all social networks + most popular chat sites. Yup that's right chat on Facebook, yahoo, google, skype, msn using only one application. It gets even better you can take calls through Skype, GTalk & Yahoo. What's more the data transfers via GPRS is very small. You don't have to worry about the phone bill much (from my experience usually 7min call on skype for 700KB, chat transfers only a few KBs), and if your phone has Wi-Fi (sadly mine doesn't) the cost won't matter at all in a Wi-Fi enabled area.

Mobile platforms req: Works fine in any java based phone, Symbian S60 v3/v5, Symbian S40, Windows Mobile, Iphone

Get It @ : http://www.fring.com/default.asp

Similar Apps : Nimbuzz

No. 4: SMS Preview

Do you feel an itch until you read that message that you just received (no matter what you are doing, like taking notes down in a class)? Do you stop whatever you were doing and turn your attention to your mobile to read that message (only to find it's another one of those news alerts). Well this app may just suit you. The app can be adjusted to display a preview of that message was a specific amount of time, upon receiving a message. Therefore only a glance at your handset would suffice to decide whether the text message needs further consideration.

Mobile Platform req: Symbian devices only (yup that's the sad part)

Get It @: http://www.getjar.com/products/25386/SMSPreview

Similar Apps : Hmm couldn't find any other similar apps for this one

No. 3: Conversations

This app really allows you to organize your inbox. All messages received and sent are placed under the contact you communicated with. This makes it much more easy to find a text message within your inbox. Also deleting unwanted text messages is also much easier. Just select the person who sent you all the unwanted text messages and delete them all together. No more going through the inbox marking, and unmarking messages. (Some mobiles such as SE Xperia provide this with the handset itself).

Mobile Platform req: Again for Symbian s60 devices only

Get It @: http://betalabs.nokia.com/betas/view/conversation

Similar Apps : SMS Threader (Windows Mobile Only)

No 2: Google Maps Mobile

With this it's so easy to find a place, and also to find your position. (Even in Sri Lanka works great in Colombo district, however routing doesn't work). With the new 3.0 version you can even use My Maps on Google Maps, just mark a place in Google Maps and you can view it on your mobile. And what's amazing is that you don't need gps to find your position on the map (although availability of gps on your handset makes positioning accurate, yeah yeah gps works fine in SL and, NO the government hasn't banned it) Google Maps Mobile uses the signal towers to find your location (I mean how cool is that?).

Mobile platforms req: Works fine in any java based phone, Symbian S60 v3/v5, Symbian S40, Windows Mobile, Iphone

Get It @ : http://www.google.com/mobile/products/maps.html#p=default

Similar Apps : Nothing even comes close to this. But Nokia Maps 2.0, Ovi Maps can be classified as similar apps. But they don't have complete SL maps.

No 1: ShazamID

You are on the street and hear a catchy tune, want to know the name of the song? ShazamID makes this a reality for FREE (Or you can use Dialog Song catcher that is if you have money to waste) . It records a small part of the track and compares the recording with it's global database. Within seconds you not only know the name of the song, but the artist, album and release date as well. Comparison is done using GPRS and never takes more than 5KBs.

Mobile Platform req: works on all symbian devices and most SE devices

Get It @: this is the tricky part. This app is for UK Citizens only. However a Google search displays many alternate download sources in forums J. A listing in www.4shared.com worked just fine for me

Similar Apps : TrackID (for Sony Ericsson, all the features)

Honorable Mentions: Opera Mini, Nokia Photo Browser, Gmail Mobile, Nokia Search (lets you search through all content in your phone, even through text messages http://dailymobile.se/2007/10/30/nokia-search-40-available-for-download/)

If anyone knows better apps I'd like to know too.

Note : apps were numbered from 1 to 5 depending on the frequency that I use them. (1 being most used while 5 being least used)

Has anybody watched Spellbinders – The Land of The Dragon Lord? There in that series I can remember the existence of an oracle which governed the way of life of those people. It was the oracle that chose what crops to be farmed, the places to live in and most importantly the professions that each person should pursue. That way every person was guaranteed a job and there was no unemployment, people may not have been happy for what was chosen for them but however they had some job. I think we Sri Lankans also need an oracle, coz time and again we have proven that we are unable to make decisions about our lives.

Today I saw a news story of some unfortunate people. A temporary shelter housing unemployed graduates, in Aesthetic studies who were protesting for teaching positions was removed from in front of the Fort Railway station in compliance to a court order. Those poor souls portrayed a sorry sight. Some females had attended that protest with their small kids (Although I'm no child psychologist I don't think that this is a place where a child should be brought to.) These days such protests by unemployed graduates have become a common site, and most people don't give a shit to such protests as well. These guys are not the first set of protestors and most certainly won't be the last as well. These things get shown on several channels, and the convener (කැඳවුම්කරු) gets to address the public (probably the highest point in his entire life) and everybody just forgets about it. These are the best minds in the country who have got through the local A/Ls, the universities and now should be working on the development of the country.

But how did these people get there in the first place, do we ever worry about that? When it comes to choosing a profession or a career path there are two basic things to consider (in my opinion). Firstly whether you like doing it and secondly (sometimes most importantly) whether there are employment opportunities in that field of study (for example I highly doubt whether anybody would be able to earn a decent living these days if they majored in Pali considering the fact that Pali is a dead language). This certainly is not child's play you need to find out how current professionals in that field are doing, new developments in that field, and the overall direction of that field (With the boom in communication technology, World Wide Web, if you can't find that information then it's a shame). This is a decision you have to make for yourself. Ultimately it's you who have to find employment.

But being Sri Lankans we assume that we can study anything we want since it's the government duty to find us employment. I mean come on, the government does more than enough for us, we get free education from the primary until passing out as a graduate, clothing materials, free textbooks, free health care, so what more can we ask for? ( I personally think Sri Lankans are living example of the Pepsi slogan "Ask For More" coz that seems to be the only thing we are capable of doing).

However it must be also said that no professional guidance has been received by the students on this matter. Unfortunately most kids have never even heard of Career Guidance (this in no wonder when some schools don't even have teachers of regular subject, therefore those kids getting results to even enter universities should be really praised)

The government's responsibility lies here. Currently all students who wish to apply for local university courses must obtain a handbook/manual (or whatever you may prefer to call it) from the University Grants Commission. This book contains information about various courses. However no details of current employment statistics, improvements in the field are mentioned. I guess including that information in that manual would be beneficial (this book is not given away free so it won't hurt to add some extra details in to it, especially if it helps students.). Also addition of some knowledge about the future of areas of study in to the school curriculum would also help a lot.

To most children obtaining entrance to university is something that they have worked for in their entire life. They assume everything is going to be just fine after that. Therefore it's really sorry to see some graduates losing their way after reaching that dream.

Opening up a little shop with a few photocopy machines near an educational institute preferably a government campus paves the way to fast riches. There are no seasonal variances in sales since the academic calendar of different batches or departments are not uniform. Therefore when one department/batch is on vacation others may be having exams. (The examination eve brings students pouring to these little shops to make sure they have all the notes, past papers, some students in their desperation photocopy whole books at that last moment. Only god knows whether they can go through all those notes. But nevertheless it's a peace of mind atleast to have all the notes with you even though you don't go through most of them.)

So within an year the little shop which started with a several photocopy machines in a dark dirty space, has many computers, broadband services and air conditioning, with several personnel to run the machines. Such is the opportunity for expansion in the market. (Recently one shop relocated to a bigger place to facilitate the growing number of customers, and one of friends known as the king was invited to the opening as he is a very frequent visitor.)

When in school I rarely had the need to photocopy notes. Bulk of what was said in the class was comprehendible and notes were made with a general understanding. Since the period was only 40mins even if we didn't understand anything it was still bearable. Also cutting classes had to be done with care since getting caught by a teacher or a prefect could land you in trouble, therefore cutting the class was kind of a last resort thing.

With the entrance in to uni this whole system changed. Here I met a set of people called lecturers of who most had the incredible ability to bore your pants off. (I am referring to most here as there are a few very good lecturers). Some have the extra capability to teach something so that you won't understand a thing. The two hour lecture periods did nothing to help as well. Therefore even if I'm in class most of the time my note has no academic value. (Some of my friends take this time in the lecture hall to catch up on the countless hours of sleep they have missed.)

There are also others who feel that there calling is elsewhere than in the lecture room (I also feel this at times). This where the so-called great freedom at the university becomes a blessing. If you don't want to stay in class then there is nothing stopping you from leaving. A mix of boredom, dissatisfaction, depression motivates others to not to attend lectures. (In my department there is one guy who doesn't have time to come as he is always busy attending funerals)

But unfortunately we all need the notes sooner or later to sit for the exam. That is when all hell breaks lose. Sometimes it's really hard to find a complete set of notes as we find out that none have attended lectures or because even the few who went have no clue as to the subject matter. So you end up photocopying what ever you can find. Most of the time photocopies of photocopies are made. (I once had to photocopy from a photocopy of my own notes as I friend lost my book which I gave for him to photocopy.)

By now with experience most photocopy shop owners know what kind of notes have the highest demand. So they themselves make an extra copy of a note or a book which arrives at their shop frequently and put up a poster about it. (Man these guy know their customers, these are the homegrown marketing gurus)

Wow it really scares me to think that photocopier very nearly didn't make it to the market, as the inventor of the photocopier Chester Carlson was turned down by over 20 companies, including IBM and General Electric neither of which believed there was a significant market for copiers. What ever would have happened to us he gave up then.