A better life

I was talking to a friend of mine about our typical day activities. I typically spend my day with tasks like, software programming, reading, swimming and watching TV. Daily activities differs from person to person. Anxiety, stress or depression are mainly associated with our activities. How we spend our day shapes our future and helpful for a healthier and better lifestyle. Following are few things I would like you to consider in your daily activities.

• Wake up early - 5am is the ideal time for me (at least take 6hrs of sleep)
• Spend at least 10-20 minutes alone. You could pray, meditate or simply spend some time with nature.
• At least for 30 minutes do some physical exercise - Walking, Jogging or swimming
• Work on a personal project which interests you - Writing a book, developing an software app, drawing or photography.
• Read something relevant to your profession or motivational. Reduce the time you spend on reading or listening to news sources unless it is really important. 
• Have fun throughout the day, hoping everything is going to be alright. After all everything is as it should be.

I hope these activities will give you an idea to improve your daily lifestyle. It is really important how you mange your time. Listed below are some of my old post which might guide you to a better life.

http://www.ludmal.net/search/label/Life

Google Buzz

After months of inactivity, I finally decided to disable buzz. Sorry but I’m no longer on Buzz.

Reducing number of news streams helps me to focus on things which are relevant and important. By disabling buzz I reduced my social focus to Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and Facebook. I also reduced people I follow in Twitter. Last few months I was overloaded with few things and could not read as much I used to.

I’m not a big fan of Facebook, so I will be mainly using my twitter account for updates. And those updates will be automatically added to my Google+, LinkedIn and Facebook accounts. So if you’re interested, Twitter will be my main source for updates. Follow me @ludmal

Is Silverlight really dead?

When Silverlight initially released I was skeptical about it. It was meant to replace Adobe Flash back then. There were quite a few arguments I had with my colleagues about Silverlight and its future. But today, after 4 years of Silverlight’s initial release how many web sites do we see in Silverlight?

The future of the web depends on HTML 5 and Javascript. Open standards and 3rd party libraries are the main reasons for this adaption. I clearly don’t see a potential for another technology. However I’m really impressed with Windows 7 Mobile and MVC from Microsoft. I see a potential in terms of web and mobile. I also heard that Microsoft is working on a new UI application model --“Jupiter” which is simlier to Windows 7 Mobile.

Visual Studio LightSwitch

New product in Visual Studio family to create rapid data-centric applications for both desktop and cloud.

Resources:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/lightswitch
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/hh335065.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/hh335061.aspx

Hope this helps!

Follow me at twitter @ludmal for quick updates

Moving your business into the Cloud

Cloud computing is ideal for medium and small scale business. Most of the large scale businesses however, are reluctant to move into the cloud. Mostly because they have already invested on their IT infrastructure or fear of exposing their corporate data. Entrepreneurs are finding cloud computing is more beneficial to their businesses. Mainly because to start their businesses with minimum cost on IT infrastructure.

In Cloud Computing--computing power is used like water or electricity, pay only for usage. This has gained significant benefits for businesses. Scalability is vital for any business and cloud computing allows them to grow computing power with minimum cost. Business can run the IT infrastructure without support of internal tech staff hence save money on payroll.

Drawbacks of using cloud computing are very low compare to its benefits. However, service outages are a major drawback on cloud computing. But those outages are significantly low with major service providers like Google, Salesforce and Amazon.

It is vital for businesses to keep their operation costs to minimum. By moving to cloud computing businesses can gain significant benefits like low operation cost, scalability and availability. For example Google Apps for Business is ideal cloud solution for an small and medium scale business.

Most of my personal projects will be retired soon

Finally, I decided to retire most of my personal projects. It was too long ago I developed those software projects and it is time now to put them aside and move on with new ideas. Some of the projects however never actually completed. Following are the projects which are going to retire end of this month and domains are already on sale. Please let me know if anybody interested in purchase.

boilcode.com / codeswave.com – Online code snippet management library for developers.

facebook-stats.com – Facebook statistics such as frequency of updates, user base, top users etc.

twitter-stats.com – Twitter statistics such as frequency of updates, user base, top users etc.

groupon.lk – Groupon.com like site for Sri Lanka, i.e. to get best deals in town.

newsflippers.com – This project is actually similar to http://fastflip.googlelabs.com/. Currently the concept still remains but with a different presentation in my new project www.channells.com

prodznet.com – An effort to categories the cheap and best products by price and user reviews on the internet.

qnote.us – Online notepad with offline writing ability.

webexten.com – Replacement for extensible-web.com but decided to keep the name as it is—extensible-web.com

However my XWT Framework project , Extensible-web and Channells.com site still in active development, also some of my new ideas yet to be released.

All the above domains are for sale, but if anybody requires source code please email me and I would be more than happy to send them.

SOA

Most of the IT guys must have heard the term “SOA”, but there are very few who understand the concepts of it. There are many aspects to SOA in various standpoints. For example a view on SOA can be different from a Business owner to a Technical architect. SOA is not simply a “Web Service”. It is a design paradigm—to develop software as a service.

In technical perspective, it is to expose application functions as services so that the various applications can communicate each other regardless of the various platforms and boundaries. It is an architectural approach which matured from component oriented development and object oriented development.

In business perspective, it is an application design paradigm which will eventually increase the business ROI and reduce the TTM (Time to Market). Business process changes can be easily reflected on the application functions with minimal time & effort. It can also reduce the cost of application maintenance and integration.

SOA is not just a technical artifact—it is a design paradigm which embraces separation of concern and reuse.

Let's make the web faster

This is very useful for web developers, Tips and Tricks to improve web application performance. (obviously from Google) http://code.google.com/speed/articles/

Ludmal.net in Chrome store

I just submitted ludmal.net to chrome web store. You can install it from here and please don't forget to leave a comment. :-)

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/clcenpmkmbdaglnanmdcginkhmhphdog

Why moving to Cloud?

Internet is everywhere and literally it is impossible to survive without internet. Moving to cloud is a smart decision I've made. I have all my documents, photos & projects on Dropbox and I have access to those with my Mac, Office PC and iPhone whenever, wherever required. But while I encourage my friends to move in to the cloud, there are some frequently asked questions. Have a look at them and my answers.


Question: What is the guarantee that my data wont be lost?
Answer: Well, what is the guarantee that your hard disk wont break or your laptop wont get stolen?


Question: Is my data secure? 
Answer: Is your data secure today anyway? what happens if somebody steal your laptop or  hack to your computer. The best practice is not to save any of the confidential data on laptops or personal computers. (Credit Card, Bank account or Passwords)


Question: But I need internet to access to cloud?
Answer: You don't have to connect to internet 24/7 to access your data. For example www.dropbox.com provide an easy way to sync your local folders with their cloud service. So online or offline you will have access to your data.


Question: Why should I move to cloud?
Answer:

• how many times you wanted to send your resume or a document but had to wait until you go home and access your home PC? 
• how many times do you take backups or photos or docs?
• what happens if your hard disk burnt or someone steal your laptop?
• what if you want to share a document with your friend and work with him/her collaboratively?
• how much hassle to go through if you want to re-install your PC?
• how hard is to find a photo of your last vacation?
• how many times do you send emails just to access a file on the go?

By answering to the above questions, if you already feel unsecured or unorganized then move in to The Cloud. 

Email me if you need any assistance or consultation on how to setup your working environment. 

Read my other relevant posts;

http://www.ludmal.net/2010/11/anywhere-anytime-on-any-device.html

http://www.ludmal.net/2010/12/how-to-manage-your-code.html

http://www.ludmal.net/2010/12/transformation.html

Install drop box - http://db.tt/2fpKw7n