IT Times (6.01)

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W HEN E VERY S ECOND C OUNTS During a disaster, instant communications can be the difference between life and death. That’s why WorldSpace Satellite Radio and Raytheon have teamed up to develop a Disaster Warning, Response, and Recovery (DWRR) broadcast system that can save lives and minimize disaster impact.

AREA can operate independently from local power and telecommunication systems.

This revolutionary new system—which combines proven WorldSpace satellite technology, 24/7/365 network operations, and advanced eventnotification— can send warning and relief support information in the form of audio and high-speed digital data to virtually anywhere within the WorldSpace Satellite coverage area. The system was pre-tested during the 2004 Tsunami relief effort. The DWRR broadcast system uses Addressable Radio for Emergency Alerts (AREA), and features low-cost, portable receivers that can operate independently from local power and telecommunication systems. When every second counts, WorldSpace Global Data Solutions lets you go above and beyond to meet your most vital communication needs.

For more information, visit http://www.worldspace.com/GDS

Global Data Solutions

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» the $100 laptop debate » mahangu vs indi » newsfeed » chamil thanthrimudalige » local scene » chamil » banga lore » shemal fernando » apple’s switch » indranil dasgupta » google on the rise » chintana seneviratne » googleNET » n. de silva » code4bill » shemal » oracle interview » indi » local leaders » rehan fernando

leaders

» cyber law » daham binduhewa » tsunami rememberance » morquendi interview » satellite radio alerts » indi » early warning » rohan samarajiva

» motherboard review » raveen wijayatilake » need for speed » raveen

» doom ba boom boom » king.pakse » the fall of kazaa » raveen » throwing light on the subject » zafar issadeen » BASH » mahangu » grid view expose » APIIT

» taking back the web 4 » prabhath sirisena

» firefox tips and tweaks » grimoire

» visual studio » wellington perera

it times 6.01 Happy New Year, and welcome to IT 6.01. This issue is a bit more news and general interest heavy, tell us how you likes. We have one interesting debate on the $100 Laptop and the controversial comments the Intel CEO gave while in Sri Lanka, see page 6. We also have a rare critique of Google on page 18. Both of these topics should hopefully stir some debate. Is a $100 laptop a ‘gadget’, or could it really benefit Sri Lanka? Is Google becoming too powerful for its own good? This month’s cover story comes after the recent tsunami anniversary. We have an interview with the blogger Morquendi, who was extremely active on the ground, getting the word out and using SMS to help with a scattered coordination effort. The focus, however, is on how Sri Lanka can move forward. One real way that IT can help is through a warning system, which Sri Lanka still lacks. In the case of a tsunami, 5 minutes warning means the difference between life and death. This infrastructure is sorely neglected, but in this issue we explore a working satellite radio implementation, and the general theory and problems of an effective alert system. We’ve also reintroduced the software CD, this time with Microsoft’s support. We’re proud to offer a distribution of Visual Studio Express, a powerful development environment, along with our past issues and some goodies. Check page 64 for tips on how to get started on some really quick projects, like playing audio or making a web browser. Special thanks to Doctor John for the use of his ‘Wave’ photo for the cover (flickr.com/photos/14171306@N00/sets/472718). He was recently in Sri Lanka and you can check out some of his work online at tsunamianimal.org. All the best till next time,

Indi Samarajiva Editor [email protected] it times Editor Manager Advertising Subscriptions

hotlines (077) 301-1266 (077) 228-8199 (077) 321-9733 / (077) 329-3511 (077) 350-2183 / [email protected]

editor Indi Samarajiva [email protected] associate editor Mahangu Weerasinghe [email protected] manager Pragathi Mahilal business development Dunstan Wijegunaratne design consultant Aruna Wickramarachchi proofs David Ranabahu printing Primal Fernando circulation Rohan Fonseka subscriptions Nimal Weerakkody advertising Saranga Wijeyarathne promotions Nalin Wickramasinghe branding Sujith Pathirannehe systems Naveen Guneratne

published by Wijeya Newspapers Ltd. No 8, Hunupitiya Cross Rd, Colombo 2 printed by Lake House Printers & Publishers ( [email protected])

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the hundred dollar question by Mahangu Weerasinghe

O

ne hot issue this month was the comments made by Intel CEO Craig Barrett in Colombo recently. The rant started on Nidahas (nidahas.com) and eventually found it’s way on to ZDNet. Kudos to Prabhath Sirisena for providing the bait for this piece.

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project is an initiative by the MIT Media Lab to create a cost effective, robust and portable computer solution for the third world. More information about the project can be found via the MIT Media Lab website (laptop.media.mit.edu).

Speaking about the $100 Laptop proposed by the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) programme, Mr. Barrett was quoted saying: “It turns out what people are looking for is something that has the full functionality of a PC, reprogrammable to run all the applications of a grown up PC… not dependent on servers in the sky to deliver content and capability to them, not dependent for hand cranks for power.”

It’s obvious that one of the key counter-development factors in third world countries, especially in the sphere of education, is the lack of IT penetration. What the $100 Laptop programme is trying to do should be applauded, and supported. Mr. Barret’s comment is not only discouraging, but also theoretically detrimental to an effort that could use all the support it can get.

The Intel CEO’s remark shows that he has little or no understanding of rural life, and how the whole point of having a hand crank is to enable people to use the machine without electricity. Yes Mr. Barret, there are places in the world where power pylons do not travel. Shocking, I know. “In one Cambodian village where we have been working, there is no electricity, thus the laptop is, among other things, the brightest light source in the home” ($100 Laptop FAQ Page). On the other hand, it’s unfair to expect the CEO of a multinational money machine to actually identify with the third world poor. He’s probably just a little disappointed since the project has apparently opted to go with Intel’s main competitor. The programme’s CTO Mary Lou Jepsen declared in a recent interview that the project would most probably be using a “special 500MHz CPU by AMD.” Thus, although his frustration is somewhat justified, in future Mr. Barrett might avoid embarrassment by researching a little before he speaks. We do after all, live in post-Google times. For those of you who have been living under a rock, the

The OLPC programme, which is spearheaded by MIT Media Lab founding chairman Nicholas Negroponte, is trying to give third world users a Linux-based, dual display mode (both colour and monochrome) notebook computer with a 500MHz processor, 128MB of DRAM and 500MB of Flash memory. The machines will come equipped with wireless connectivity, allowing them to connect to each other and form an ad hoc mesh network. For a hundred US dollars. And yet, the chairman of the world’s largest microchip maker goes and dismisses it, calling it “the $100 gadget.” I, however, salute Mr. Negroponte, his team, and their worthwhile effort. If something is going to change the way the third world looks at IT in the next five years, chances are it’ll be this project. Although still very much on the drawing board, we’re sure that once in production, the machines will be one of the most popular choices for donation by NGOs and Foreign Governments. Here’s to an early 2007 product release that’s supported by more countries, organizations and individuals than ever before. Let’s not give the child a fish. Let’s not even teach the child to fish. Let’s give him the tools he needs to find out how.

by Indi Samarajiva

I

’m writing partly for the sake of counterpoint, and partly because the $100 laptop - while interesting - leaves me largely non-plussed. It is a noble movement but not half as exciting as the market forces that have brought computing to millions of people so far. That movement, driven by companies like Intel and the ever grinding churn of competition has driven down the cost of computing power dramatically every single year. In fact, you can already buy new PCs for $400, and full-featured laptops for $600 (from Walmart, for example). Couple that with cell-phones that have more computing power than your average 1990s PC and a viable, profitable $100 laptop is not far from market. I think that the MIT project is a commendable ‘gadget’ which will make a great difference in quite a few young lives across the globe. However, in the larger scope of things, I think it’s just a blip on the radar screen. It can bridge the gap for a transitional generation, but the price of computing is dropping exponentially on its own. It’s only a matter of time before cheap computing reaches the third world through natural market forces.

the charity of the market The first computers cost tens of thousands of dollars and were weaker than your average cell phone. Apple Macintoshes were a dramatic improvement, but still expensive. What changed everything was, yes, Microsoft Windows. Whereas Apple manufactured hardware and software, Microsoft was a purely software company. You could run it on any old beige box. What this led to was a boom in component manufacturers, from motherboards to RAM. Unlike Apple’s hegemony, Windows opened up a world of competition in hardware and prices plummeted. They also began a software hegemony, but that’s another story. Apple kept turning out polished works of art, but Windows enabled a diverse world of cheap and dirty computing. Today you can find fully functional laptops for $600,

just run a search on Froogle. PCs are even cheaper, and the prices are only dropping. MIT anticipates releasing the $100 laptop in early 2007, which is a full year away. By that time normal laptop prices will have dropped, and the computing power of cell-phones will have risen. Within five years time (2011) there will certainly be a full-featured laptop/cell available for less than $100, and the MIT project will likely be outdated. That gives it a shelf-life of less than 5 years. Furthermore, cell-phones already have significant rural penetration, and they seem to be a much more likely vector for computing power. I find it easier to imagine a kid checking Wikipedia over a Dialog connection than through a WiFi network. That model is also profitable and self-sufficient. People don’t have to rely on their government to dole out computers, and the goverment doesn’t have to rely on international funds. Government funded charity can push the future up a couple years, but the market is the only thing that can bring real sustainable computing power to the rural masses. That said, Mr. Negroponte’s project is a very good thing. For one, he will deliver the wonder of computing to a few children in Brazil and Thailand, at least. The market may catch up and reach those kids by 2011, but he will get to them first. More importantly, this project has stirred up a whole debate about cheap computing. This is the first time that someone has addressed this end of the digitial divide, and others will surely follow. Intel, for example, has the opportunity to help create full-featured laptops that reach this market at this price. Microsoft, as well, can design a Windows device that slots in cheap and sweet. In the long run, the $100 Laptop may well turn out to be a ‘gadget’, as Mr. Barrett has said. For all its innovations, it’s not market tested. What is more important, however, is that Mr. Negroponte has opened the door to the full-featured, cheap computers to come. MIT is leading the way, and the market will follow through. In the end, everyone wins.

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newsfeed Yahoo Buys Delicious Yahoo bought the social bookmarking service del.icio.us for an unspecified amount. The sale price is speculated to be between $10 and $15 million. “Together we’ll continue to improve how people discover, remember and share on the Internet, with a big emphasis on the power of community” said Joshua Schachter the founder of del.icio.us. del.icio.us along with photo sharing service Flickr were considered to be components of the interconnected web that is called “Web 2.0”. This latest take over how ever might shift the emphasis, to making money from redefining the web as we know it. Del.icio. us will likely be integrated with existing Yahoo! Search property My Web.

Googling for Music? Google has added a music listing feature to Google search. Now when you search for a popular artist name using Google. com, some information about that artist like reviews, and links to stores where you can download the track or buy a CD are displayed along with the search results. This only works for a few popular US artists only but Google said that it is planning to expand the selection of music to classical, world-wide artists, and lesser-known performers. Online sources for this new addition include Apple, and retailers like Amazon and Wal-Mart.

Labels Sue More File-Sharers The Recording Industry Association of America has filed a new set of lawsuits against people who share unauthorized copies of music over P2P[Peer to peer] services. The 751 new lawsuits

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by Chamil Thanthrimudalige

bring the total number of RIAA copyright infringement lawsuits to about 17,100 since September 2003. Students at Drexel University, Harvard University, and the University of Southern California were among those sued. The RIAA has settled lawsuits with about 3800 people. According to a survey the number of US households downloading at least one unauthorized song using P2P software dropped 11 percent between June and October.

Microsoft and MTV to Partner Microsoft said it would partner with MTV to release a new online music service known as Urge. Urge scheduled to be officially unveiled in January at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and will be integrated into upcoming versions of Microsoft’s Media Player This will start off with about 2 million songs. It is expected to offer both pay-per-song downloads and subscription services. Observers see the Microsoft partnership with MTV and RealNetworks as less threatening to Apple than to the rest of the digital music industry targeting non-iPod people.

Big Dogs Unite to Start a Research Lab Microsoft, Google, and Sun are to team-up to start an academic lab on Internet services. They have set aside their diffrences for the time being to help create an Internet services lab along with researchers at the University of California, Berkeley which is named Reliable, Adaptive and Distributed systems lab(RAD lab). The three companies along with smaller contributions from other companies will provide $7.5 million in funding over five years which amounts to about 80 percent

of the funding. Other funding will come from the U.S. National Science Foundation and from the University of California’s grant programs. The lab will explore alternatives to the traditional software development model. Any software emerging from the RAD Lab will be made freely and openly available under the Berkeley Software Distribution license.

growing market are said to be the motivation behind this invesment. The fund would be spent in making India a major hub of Microsoft’s research, product and application development, services and technical support for both global and domestic companies. Microsoft plans to hire 3000 more people in India, taking it’s head-count in India to 7000.

GMail on Your Cell

Macedonia Deploys Ubuntu in Schools

Our favorite tech company Google has created a new version of its Gmail e-mail service that can be accessed through the mobile phone giving GMail account holders quick access to their email on the go. The downside is that the service is still only available to US cellphone users at http://m.gmail.com.

Macedonia is a small country in Southern Europe with a population of around 2 million. The government in Macedonia does not play any major role in the development of the ICT and the private sector is dominated by Microsoft. A small volunteer organization by the name Free Software Macedonia is making a big difference in this small country. About 5000 PCs in all of the public schools in Macedonia, both primary and secondary, got Ubuntu and GNOME deployed on them as a part of a joined project called ‘E-School.MK’, US Agency for International Development (USAID), Education Development Center (EDC) and the Macedonian Ministry of Education and Science (MoES) decided to install Ubuntu Linux in all the 468 schools and some 182 computer labs all over the country.

The new service provides the user with a subset of the normal GMail and can be accessed from advanced mobile phones that offer an Internet browser. Some of the interesting features available with GMail mobile include an interface that is automatically optimized for the phone you’re using, ability access attachments, including photos, Microsoft Word documents, and .pdf files and the ability to reply to messages by call provided you have entered the cell number in the GMail contact details for that person.

Google to Buy a Slice of AOL Google may be on the verge of purchasing a 5% stake in AOL worth $1 Billion . A tie-up with AOL will get google access to to AOL’s e-mail and instant messaging service. It would strengthen Google’s hand against rivals Yahoo and Microsoft, who have well-established webmail and instant messaging services. Google is a relative newcomer to this area with Gmail and Googletalk.

Microsoft Investing $1.7 billion in India Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft Corp, has announced that Microsoft will invest $1.7 billion in India over the next four years. Indias low-cost operations, economy, good telecommunications links along with a rapidly

Alleged Xbox Defects A Chicago man has filed suit against Microsoft claiming that the new Xbox 360 has a design flaw that causes it to overheat and freeze up. The same problems have been experienced by many other gamers. Analysts believe that more suits or a class-action is probably on the way. Some of the forums like teamxbox.com have posts from people who have spoken to MS tech support, and xbox support said the incidents are much higher than expected and replacements won’t be available until at least January. They also confirmed that most problems are due to overheating. An expert commenting on the phenomena said that “Even if it’s a thousand people, it’s a very small minority of people who actually bought these boxes. If you go back and look at the archives, the Playstation 2 had problems when it was released as well.” Microsoft had this to say regarding the matter “You can do lots of beta testing, but it’s only once you have it out there in front of hundreds of thousands of people, that you’re going to find out these little problems that are very hard to discover.”

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local Intel Chief Calls $100 Laptop a Gadget Mr. Craig Barrett chairman of worlds largest chipmaker Intel stirred up some interesting conversations during the past week by saying what was in his mind at a press conference that was held in Colombo. He told a press conference that “Mr. Negroponte has called it a $100 laptop -- I think a more realistic title should be ‘the $100 gadget’, The problem is that gadgets have not been successful.”, talking about the $100 laptop that is being designed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) media lab run by Nicholas Negroponte. Mr. Barrett when on to say that Intel was expanding an IT teacher training scheme to Sri Lanka, and praised local projects aimed at producing computer literacy.

Patuna The Sri Lankan Search Engine Patuna.com is a search engine dedicated to local sites. Asian Destinations (Pvt) Ltd, is the company behind this ambitious effort to index all the information that is relevant to us Sri Lankans. It is nice to see more people taking our approach of catering to the local audience. It will be interesting to keep an eye on. Mr D.M. Jayarathne (Minister of Postal, Telecomunication and Grameeya Arthika Sanwardana) was the chief guest at the launch that was held in Kandy. Mr Sarath Ekanayake (Chief Minister Central Province), Ubenanda Perera (Assistant Secratory Department of Pesha

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Karmantha), M.P. Jayasinghe (Attorney at Law and a Member in Kandy Municipality), H.M.D.R Herath (Senior Lecture Sociology University of Peradeniya), Mr. M.B.B. Kirindigoda (founder and creator of Patuna search engine) and Mr. U.C. Kirindigoda(of Asian Destinations) were among the guests that were present during the launch ceremony.

SLIIT Technologies 2005 Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology (SLIIT) Malabe facility will play host to “SLIIT Technologies 2005” - an exhibition of student projects and a trade-fair. This event will be held from the 25th of November till the 26th November 2005. SLIIT was established in 1999 and is recognized by the University Grants Commission under the Universities Act.

IITC 2005 The International Information Technology Conference (IITC) was held on November 9th and 10th at King’s Court, Trans Asia Hotel. The Post conference workshops were held on 11th and 12th of November at University of Colombo School of Computing. Below are some more info from the official IITC 2005 site. The IITC was launched in 1998, declared the Year of IT by the Government of Sri Lanka. It has been successfully held every year since.

scene by Chamil Thanthrimudalige

IITC2005 seeks to bring together international researchers to present papers and generate discussions on current research and development in all aspects of IT. Special emphasis will be made on aspects of IT relating to national development through several keynote addresses. The post conference workshops will focus on important problems and possible solutions relating to the use of IT.

ASIA OSS Training Program in Sri Lanka “Training the trainers”, was the tag line behind the ambitious program that was launched in March 2005 by the Center for the International Cooperation for Computerization (CICC). CICC is a consortium of mainly Japanese industry leaders. The 5 day training program from, December 5th to 9th 2005 has been initiated by the CICC Singapore office with the aim of creating a large number of OSS professionals to teach OSS in South and South-east Asia. The emphasis is on distributing the knowledge gained from the training program in there own communities. The training program in Sri Lanka is the third one of its kind - one more is scheduled to be held in January 2006 in Bangkok. The organizers believe that the trainers who are attending this workshop will go to their own communities and spread the word about opensource and how it can be used to the benefit of the respective communities. In total, 21 Asian countries are represented at the Asia Open-source Symposium. 42 participants from 11 countries are participating in the 3rd training program being held in Colombo. Teachers, Trainers, NGO staff and government staff are among those present.

WiMAX in Sri Lanka Sri Lanka telecom will partner with chipmaker Intel to launch WiMAX in Sri Lanka. WiMAX is a broadband wireless network that is based on the IEEE 802.16 standard which can give greater coverage than Wi-Fi technology. SLT is planning to deploy the WiMAX network across the island within a year once it gets regulatory approval. The WiMAX network will be launched in phases and the first phase will cover metropolitan areas including Colombo, Galle and Kandy and is estimated to cost about US $1 million.

WS02 Joins Internet Illuminati WSO2, a start up technology company creating uncompromising middleware platforms for Web services, announced that the company has joined two leading standard organizations, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and OASIS. W3C is an international standards body where member organizations and the public work together to develop web standards that ensure long term growth of the web. OASIS is a similar standards body that drives development, convergence and adoption of e-business. Leading the way in open source middleware based on the Apache Web services projects, WSO2 will be playing an active roll defining Web services middleware standards through working groups of both W3C and OASIS. Web services are a standard way of communicating between different software applications, running on different platforms over different networks.

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Fortune telling robot on the sidewalk opposite Russel Market in Bangalore. Passers by can have their fortune told by the robot in four different languages: Tamil, Hindi, Maharati and Kannada. Photo by Paul Keller (flickr.com/photos/ paulk). Creative Commons Attribution License.

Banga Lore

good business and bad governance

by Shemal Fernando

Bangalore has indisputably evolved into an Information Technology hub. This column highlights the main reasons this has come to be and also the other side of the coin - the steep decline in the quality of infrastructure, which has been an issue long unaddressed. I’m sure all of you are aware of how exactly Bangalore became a force to reckon with since of late – the IT boom. Let me give you the raison d’être to this IT boom in one simple word – ‘outsourcing’, also known as ‘off-shoring’. Outsourcing is the concept of taking internal company functions and paying an outside firm to handle them. Outsourcing is done to save money, improve quality, or free company resources for other activities. India, with it’s cheap labour and large concentration of people with high quality IT skills, has become the most sought after location in the world in this regard. When it comes to the IT sector – Bangalore accounts for over a staggering 40% of India’s revenues – all thanks to outsourcing.

The Bigfoots of this Silicon Valley are concentrated in high tech zones called ‘tech parks’ better known as STPIs (Software Technology Parks of India). The Software Technology Parks of Bangalore are a society under the Ministry of Information Technology, Government of India. Recognizing the immense potential of the Indian Software Industry, a policy document on “Computer Software Export, Software Development and Training” was brought out by the Ministry in 1986. Subsequently, in 1990, the Software Technology Park scheme was formulated to promote and facilitate software exports from India. Offering new fiscal incentives and an investor friendly environment, the scheme has contributed to a steep growth in Software Exports. The

When it comes to the IT sector – Bangalore accounts for over a staggering 40% of India’s revenues – all thanks to outsourcing.

According to an article published on the ITPAA (IT Professionals Association of America) website, Bangalore experienced a 20 percent growth to 90 billion INR ($2.05 billion) in its software and back-office outsourcing exports in the April-September half-year period in 2005. Not just the IT sector – but Bangalore’s reputation as an outsourcing hub has also attracted accounting jobs – especially from the U.S. According to Thomas Friedman - author of the best seller ‘The World Is Flat’ - some 25,000 U.S. tax returns were done in India in 2003, which rose to 100,000 in 2004 & the final figure is expected to have hit the 400,000 mark in 2005. Now that’s growth for you.

services rendered by STPI for the software exporting community include statutory services, data communications services and incubation facilities. It plays a developmental role in the promotion of software exports with a special focus on SME’s and start-up units. STPIs also provide project management and consultancy services to various Government agencies both at the State level and Central level as well as to private parties. On another note, the IT boom has engendered a steep rise in Bangalore’s restaurant and fast food business. In the last five years Bangalore has witnessed a tremendous explosion in fine dining, ethnic eateries, fast-foods and nightclubs. These places have served more then

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just a place to wine and dine. They are also a constant choices for relaxing, partying and meetings with clients. The gastronome can always find his choice of food – be it traditional, Continental, Chinese, Pizzas or the spicy Masala Puris and the Cool Cafés. Bangalore Restaurants offer varied varieties of dishes at all budgets and most of the best are open all night and all week, with free home delivery. This is one example of the IT boom spreading to other sectors of the economy and enriching Bangalore as a whole.

Traces of an infrastructure tragedy here in Bangalore have shown its initial signs, which has frustrated wouldbe economic reformers and sent tech giants running for cover to neighboring Hyderabad. This is a typical example of the lame and woefully insufficient policies of the state governing body. Many of the world’s largest technology companies including Microsoft, Intel, Oracle and Google have their offices in Bangalore. But all complain that the city’s potholed roads, congested traffic, frequent power shortage, inadequate public transport and a cramped airport (a classic example of neglected governance) threaten their growth. When it comes to grappling with the city’s rapid urbanization, driven by the offshoring boom- CEO of Philips Innovation Campus Bob Hoekstra was quoted recently as saying “The vast majority of the people who elect the state government are from the rural areas, so we in the city don’t really have much of a voice when it comes to prioritization of development”. The IT industry is hoping for a revival of a partnership between the government and industry that existed in the previous chief minister’s regime. Analysts claim however that in its bid to improve the city’s infrastructure, the IT industry will also have to keep in check some of its own errant members. What keeps a techie’s chin up in this part of India is the hope of a brighter tomorrow. Despite the infrastructure, this is justified. One day, the news is of Intel’s newest microchip being designed in Bangalore. The next, Silicon Valley’s Cisco says it is setting up a 20hectare electronic campus in south India. Later, Vodafone announces a $1.5bn investment in India’s biggest mobile operator AirTel. If perception is reality, India appears to be a sure thing – but for how long is anyone’s guess. It’s time the central and state governments adopt policies that rekindle the excitement of the early 1990s – when the fairytale gold rush began. And that depends on India’s leaders at last getting the message that reform is good for India, and ultimately good for them. In my opinion it’s about time Bangalore took a leaf out of the book of Shanghai’s dynamism. But then again – China is a different world altogether.

Saying that – let me comment on the cover story of a certain edition of the Economist a couple of month’s back - which read: “What’s to stop India and China?”. The answer lay in the strapline “How Politics is Blocking Economic Reform”. Although the articles underscored the difficulties ahead, the subtext was clear: while China appears to exist solely to achieve, India’s government stumbles along unable to persuade its people to support policies over the heads of obstructive opponents.

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Overall – Bangalore still remains what I described in the previous edition as ‘a technological oasis’ which has even been the cause of protest by Labor groups in the U.S. and Europe who claimed that outsourcing has lead to job losses. The immense potential this city is bubbling with is yet to be explored, and with the growing amount IT related outsourcing in countries like China, Russia, etc. one wonders if Bangalore can sustain what it has achieved thus far; this - only time can tell.

Apple’s Switch by Indranil Dasgupta

Everyone has heard the news that Apple is shifting base. And no, not out of Cupertino, CA. Apple is going to move from IBM’s PowerPC processors to Intel. Changing the most vital component may have serious ramifications, but Apple - fresh off the sweeping success of the iPod - is taking a leap. So, you’re probably thinking, What’ll happen to Apple? What’ll happen to my new iMac? Should I buy a Mac now? Is this the beginning of the end for Windows as we know it? Why is there a strand of hair on my coffee? Well, I’ll try to answer all (but one) of these questions. Apple is no stranger to change. They’ve already gone down the road twice. The first change came way back in the early 90’s, when Apple moved from the 68k processors using a CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computers) to the PowerPC processors, bringing in the newer and faster RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing) architecture. All of Apple’s existing software was incompatible with the new PowerPC processors, and Apple had to simulate a 68k environment in order for OS 7 to run. The second, more recent change came in 2001, when Apple launched OS X. Moving away from a 16 year old architecture to a modern UNIX based OS also provided its fair share of compatibility problems. For this reason, Apple simulated the Classic/OS 9 environment under a Classic shell. Now, just as the world was starting to recover from the OS X move, Apple decides to shift to Intel based processors. The first question, obviously, is why? In 2003, with Motorola continuing to disappoint Apple’s expectation of a faster G4 processor, Apple turned to IBM’s PowerPC 970 chip, which became the G5. During this switch rumors started flying about the Markler Project. This was supposed to be a secret project to make Apple’s OS X compatible with Intel processor chips. In 2005, displeased with the IBM PowerPC chip’s lack of speed and inability to provide a chip for the PowerBook, Apple decided to jump ship and move to Intel. Thus, at WWDC this year, Steve Jobs proved the rumors true and announced the move to Intel.

what does this mean for you? Well, almost nothing. And yet, quite a lot of things, actually. If you’re thinking about your recently bought Mac, you needn’t worry. Looking at it, even if Apple would have stayed on with PowerPC, G5 was bound to go out by the end of 2006. So, Intel chips probably will take the place of the supposed G6 processors. If you’re thinking of whether to put off buying a new Mac now, the same logic follows. Plus, if you put it off now, you might as well put it off when Intel chips do come out, as there will surely be rapid upgrades during the beginning. So, there’s absolutely no need to worry. Again, as we look at it from another angle, there will be a substantial amount of change. Intel chips are surely to make stuff a lot faster in the Mac world. And who knows, maybe Intel may start to focus completely on the Mac market, creating two formidable groups. One containing Intel and Apple, while the other sporting Microsoft and AMD. The prospects are great.

is it that easy? Of course not. First and foremost, there’ll be a significant amount of time when PowerPC processors and Intel based processors will coexist. Apple has devised a simulated architecture called Rosetta, which allows PowerPC apps to run on Intel based Macs, almost at the same speed. Plus, Apple is asking developers to start using what it calls the Universal binary. A Universal binary is an application which has been compiled to run natively both on the Intel and PowerPC Macs. As days progress, we can’t help but wait for the arrival of Intel based macs. Windows loyalists, however, need not worry as of yet. Apple is unlikely to sell its OS like Microsoft does, and will probably prefer to sell the whole computer, as they’ve done for almost three decades. ‘Tis a great time to be a Mac zealot.

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Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Co-Founders

Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, VP Asia Pacific and Latin America

Omid Kordestani, VP Global Sales

Google On The Rise Need some information? Perhaps an address, a review, looking to buy a new smart-phone, looking for some photos, checking prices or just want to read the news or check mail? Where does everyone go? Google! Most netizens key in Google.com, if it’s not already bookmarked. How did Google end up with all the answers? It all started when Larry Page and Sergey Brin met as Stanford University Graduate students in 1995. Word is that they argued about almost everything but came to an understanding on finding a solution to one major problem; retrieving relevant information from huge amounts of stored data. They devised a new search engine called BackRub which analyzed ‘back-links’ to estimate a website’s importance in terms of search. Way back then they used the Stanford domain to host their site on university servers at google.stanford.edu. With their data center located in Page’s dorm room and Brin setting up a business office, they began their search for partners. They even spoke to Yahoo! Founder David Filo. Although he encouraged them to start their own search engine company, he wasn’t of much help. After not having much luck, the pair decided to put their PhDs on hold and start up on their own search empire. They approached Andy Bechtolsheim, one of the founders of Sun Microsystems, who had a look at their demo and knew the search engine had potential. He made out a check for $100,000 to Google Inc. There was a problem though, the check was made out to Google Inc., but there was no such legal entity. What they had was Googol, which was used as a reference for a very large number; 1 followed by a 100 zeros. The check resided in Page’s desk for a few days while they incorporated a company by the name of Google. It was in September 1998 that Google Inc. was for-

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mally incorporated in a friend’s garage in Menlo Park, California. Google gained popularity quickly and they moved into another building and then another before they settled down at their current home, 1600 Amphitheater Parkway, Mountain View, California. Today, Google has expanded into a global tech leader. With over 4000 employees and more than 30 offices around the world, Google has come a long way in seven years.

what’s so great about Google? It’s a search engine. It doesn’t have fancy graphics or display other information, like weather, movies etc. What sets Google apart from the rest is that it delivers the most relevant search results, really fast, all the time. Whether you are at work, on the street, at home or in the shower you can access Google. It’s got a user interface that’s plain, clear and simple so that everyone understands what it’s all about. There’s no clutter, unnecessary advertisements or information. The results page doesn’t take forever to download and best of all, the results you get are based purely on what you searched for. Today Google is not just about search, it has a whole array of user friendly services that make life much easier. At right you can see a sample of the services Google now offers. Just visit google.com/intl/ en/options/ to find out more, or visit labs.google.com to see what’s brewing. Is Google taking over the internet? No. It’s just making things far easier for all of us who use the internet as a great source for information, entertainment, education and interaction. The online user is at the forefront of every innovation brought forth by Google, therefore we can be sure we won’t end up with tools and services that are of no use to anyone. As Google says it, “Focus on the user and all else will follow”. Their focus on the user, along with their technical expertise, continuous innovation and uncompromising quality has made Google the number one search engine on the web.

George Reyes,CFO

Salar Kamangar, VP Product Management

Alan Eustace, VP Engineering

by Chintana Seneviratne

This controversial Google Book Search displays full text of books relevant to your search. You cannot, copy or reproduce the content that is displayed as it is purely for research purposes (books.google.com).

are grouped together as a conversation. A powerful search option provides almost instant results. With 2.5GB of storage, you’ll never have to delete another message again (gmail.google.com).

Blogger is one of the most popular blogging tools that helps you setup, maintain and write your own blog. It has an easy to use GUI and you need little or no knowledge of creating web pages (blogger.com).

Google Talk: If you have a Google account, you can experience a whole new world of IM. You can email, IM or talk (google.com/talk).

Blog Search restricts search to blogs, which are like online diaries, updated frequently. The search is not limited to Blogger, but covers all blogs on the web (blogsearch.google.com).

Google University Search searches universities, colleges and schools (google.com/universities.html). Google Scholar lets you search through academic quality publications (scholar.google.com).

Image Search, as its name suggests, lets you search for images on the web (images.google.com).

Google Reader lets you browse, organize and read your favorite newsfeeds from thousands of websites (reader.google.com).

Google Maps, lets you search for a place, a building or an address. This service also lets you view satellite imagery from all over the world, with different levels of detail. This has raised ire with various governments, including India. It is also awful fun (maps.google.com).

Google Web Accelerator is a nifty little plug-in works with your web browser to make web-pages load faster. It even lets you know how much time you saved (webaccelerator.google.com).

Google News lets you search thousands of news sites for the latest stories (news.google.com). Google Desktop Search is a downloadable tool that lets you search your computer with the relevance and accuracy of Google (desktop.google.com). Google Earth is a downloadable application that lets you explore the world, with aerial view satellite images of places (earth.google.com). Gmail is a whole new approach to email - simple and easy to use. Addresses of people you reply to are automatically added to your address book and addresses are automatically completed when you type the first few letters of a name. All messages with the same subject

Google Compute is a tool that allows you to donate your computers idle time to help scientific research. This allows you to be part of some of the greatest discoveries in this century. (toolbar.google.com/dc/ offerdc.html) Google Analytics is a tool for webmasters and marketers to track, analyze and make decisions on their website’s performance. All you have to do is paste a little piece of code into your section and Google Analytics will do the rest. Reports are specifically generated for webmasters, marketers and content optimization. Marketers can assign goals and measure their Google AdWords performance, conversion rates etc. The interface is great and graphs and pie charts are excellent and load in a jiffy (google.com/analytics).

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GoogleNET Google is a good company. Their policy is literally “Do No Evil”. But suppose Google does become evil. Say for example they are purchased by another company. Or their shareholders decide to ‘join the dark side’ (remember, they are a publicly traded company now). Given Google’s latest investments, what could they do? Almost since its birth, the search engine has been the gateway to the Internet - starting in the early 90s with Yahoo, then with Excite, Altavista and other search engines. However, this drastically changed in 1998, with the introduction of Google. Within a space of a few years, Google virtually came to define Internet search. So much so that “Google” is now a verb: referring to the process of searching on the Internet. Historically, however, the Internet was designed as a decentralized platform. Data (in the form of websites, and other content) was stored on servers in diverse geographic locations. The key to the Internet was that no single individual, organization or entity ‘owned’ it - or could control it in any way. This is what made the Internet so great. Anybody in any country with access to a web server could publish content on line. People were free to express their unique opinions, ideas, theories, and beliefs. Thanks to this we have the Internet today: a vast collection of diverse views, theories, belief, knowledge and much more. Today, more and more online content is being stored on the servers of one company. Google is taking over the Internet as we know it - they are either developing (e.g. Google search, Google email) or buying (e.g. blogger) the technology used to define and distribute content on line. Let us now examine Google’s impact on the Internet, over the last few years (1998 - 2005), by discussing their various services: Google started as a search engine. To understand how they became so successful, let us take a look at how

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by N. De Silva

Google search works. Google search works mainly on the basis of a technology called page rank. Basically this means that any site is ranked on the basis of how many other web sites link to it. This is not the only criteria used to rank pages, but it is the most significant. To understand this, let me give you a simple example. Say you were to search for the term BMW. Realistically speaking, other net users who link to BMW are MOST LIKELY to link to the main web site of Bayerische Motor Werken (BMW) which is www.bmw.com. This is good. A person searching for BMW is most likely searching for the auto maker. But what happens if your search is a more complex, generic or disputed term? For example, let us say that you are searching for PIZZA. A simple Google search for pizza currently turns Pizza hut as the first result, followed by Domino’s. What’s worrying is, at this point, Google appears to be making a decision as to which pizza maker is the best. By listing Pizza Hut as number one, they are making a qualitative decision which they are not qualified to make. In Google’s defense, they are merely listing the pizza makers in order of links to each site. What they would tell you if you asked is, more people link to Pizza Hut, than Domino’s. Now this is a simple case, what would happen if you were searching for a more controversial topic, for example, a medical condition. Can you really depend on link popularity for the result? This brings us to the most basic question - is the most popular voice right? Another unfortunate feature of link popularity is commercial sites have the ability to buy link popularity, by getting other sites to link to them, sometimes for a fee, as well as interlinking amongst themselves, their results appear higher than non commercial results. Google has even overtly censored articles or web sites - merely because they are either controversial and/or because they have been ordered to do by court orders/governments. People can also manipulate the results - using

a variety of methods including spamdexing, and even Google bombs (a method of creating many false/inaccurate links to a page to increase its ranking). There are also real privacy concerns since Google tracks all your search results via a cookie placed on your PC (A small file which tracks you). They have a list of everything you ever searched for. The privacy concerns are further compounded by Gmail. Finally everyone has almost limitless storage, but Google now reads our email as well. Google now knows what you say, and who you say it to - they can (and do) scan every email you ever sent or received. For the moment, Google servers read email for the purposed of placing adverts. Or so they say! Combined with statistical analysis they can research what the world is thinking, or talking about. The possibilities are endless and frightening. Google has also moved into hosting a variety of content through Blogger, video, Google base etc. I guess they figure that the next evolution in search is to store the content on Google owned servers. Instead of trawling the Internet for content, they just can look at their own servers. What’s potentially bad about Google hosting content is that Google could encourage people to use Google to store content by giving a higher ranking in search results to content stored on Google servers. This would mean more and more people move their content to Google servers, thereby giving Google control over the content.

Google could track what our searches, email, blogs, content and interlink the data to form individual profiles on everyone. Simply, they can know you as an individual, and know your every move online - who your friends are, who you communicate with, and what you think, what you tell them. Using your IP and Google Maps, Google could literally locate your physical location, at least, of your PC. Google now has your data, your email, and all your online searches - they can tie this in with the cookie they place on your PC, and in short have a total individual profile of virtually everyone who uses the Internet.

the future of Google In the future Google may move into the last few areas of Internet they have not covered. For example Web design. Perhaps Google will make a tool that enables people to design and manage web sites on line, (sites thus designed will be hosted on Google servers!). Or how about on line auctions by Google? What about news? Groups? Maps? Oh wait, they already have those! Beyond that... how many other areas of the Internet exist that they have not covered?

what you can do If you are concerned about your privacy, there are still a number of things you can do:

Google is also moving into chat and voice data (Google Talk, shopping (Froogle), News, Maps and more. They have even experimented with providing wireless Internet access in some areas. What all of this could mean is that Google will be watching wherever we go. Your Internet is no longer an Internet experience but a GoogleNet experience. What could GoogleNet do?

 Delete the Google cookie on your PC  Block Google from placing cookies on your

Once Google attains a certain market share, they could define the result of any search using any method they choose. They could even explicitly censor content. Currently Google does not normally censor results unless a government (e.g. Govt of China) asks them to, or unless they are required by court.

 Use an alternative email address as your pri-

PC (note: you won’t be able to access gmail)

 If you must use Google, consider using a web

site called scroogle (scroogle.org/cgi-bin/scraper.htm). They do is enable you to search Google without the cookies, tracking, or ads mary email address (not gmail)

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Code4Bill

by Premal Fernando On December 7th, Christmas dawned early here with the arrival of Bill Gates. Following four to five years without any breathtaking innovations, analysts claimed that Gates’ four day visit had the ulterior motive of digging into the vast pool of innovative and bubbling young Indian minds. In fact, the motive may not be so ulterior after all. Microsoft is officially investing large amounts in India, and in up-and-coming Indian talent. The ‘Code 4 Bill’ contest – which is scheduled to kick off sometime this month, will provide the best pre-final and final year student technologists an opportunity to showcase their talent and join Gates’ technical assistant team for a year. ‘Code 4 Bill’ is expected to span through the next eight months and will include several phases. Approximately 20 students with the best technical, creative and analytical minds will be selected following various challenges - which include in-depth faceto-face interviews and several other selection techniques. Those who are eventually selected will then intern with Microsoft India and subsequently join Gates’ team in the U.S. Being the very first country to be given such an opportunity India has no doubt become the envy of several other nations which I’m certain includes many of us in Sri Lanka!

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That’s the part where computer geeks start pulling their hair out with envy, but here’s where a whole country goes berserk – Gates also announced at a forum of Indian business leaders that Microsoft would invest 1.7 billion USD in India over the next four years. This means that the number of professionals working for the company will increase from 4,000 to around 7,000 over the next three to four years. He further revealed that the amount is to be deployed across select focus areas in line with Microsoft’s strategic vision for India. The amount would also be spent in making India a major hub of Microsoft’s research, product and application development, services and technical support for both global and domestic companies. With investments of this nature it isn’t very surprising that India is the second fastest growing economy in the world. In addition to this, Microsoft has also revealed plans of setting up an innovation centre in Bangalore, indisputably a massive boost to local vendors. The objective behind establishing the centre is to facilitate developers, independent software vendors, students, entrepreneurs and governments to develop and deploy innovative software solutions. At the launch of SQL Server, Visual Studio 2005 and BizTalk Server 2006, Gates reiterated his interest in India’s young talent and potentially huge market despite the present infrastructure problems. Commenting on India’s technical prowess, Gates said talent was what powers the success of the global IT economy today and added that he was pleased that Indian students are setting high standards in the industry. Gates’ next stop was the inauguration of Digital Lifestyle 2005, a three-day trade fair organized by the Manufacturing Association of Information Technology (MAIT) - the apex body representing the hardware, training and research and development services sectors of the IT industry in India. Digital Lifestyle 2005 showcased the latest technologies and products by various Indian and multinational companies. Before heading out of Bangalore, Gates also inaugurated Microsoft India’s global support center and then visited the Microsoft R&D facility, which was set up in October. And that was the end of Santa Bill’s visit to India with his bag full of gifts. This goes to show that our giant neighbor still remains a huge force to reckon with even through challenges like poverty and AIDS. Yes, India moves by giant steps indeed. However, it is yet to be seen if India can rise to the challenge of sustaining its performance in the face of stiff competition, especially from a dynamic and focused China. One thing is for sure, however. Microsoft will be there.

Frank Koo is the Managing Director for South Asia Growth Economies for Oracle Corporation. He is responsible all of Oracle’s business in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam. Mr. Koo was recently in Sri Lanka for a regional Executive Partner Forum.

how does Oracle make life easier for a business? Our solutions help reduce cost by streamlining and automating their business processes, and grow their business by providing accurate and timely information about their customers, suppliers and partners what work opportunities does Oracle offer? By ourselves, we do not have a very large team in Sri Lanka. However, through our partners and customers, we provide immense job opportunities for experts with Oracle technology and applications knowledge. Of course, through our engagement with businesses and schools we will be able to help upgrade the IT and business skills of the IT job aspirants and make them more employable in the cutting edge global IT industry. By helping companies to effectively use IT in their business, we enable them to reinvest their earnings in growing their businesses - thereby indirectly helping them hire more employees who can then add value to the business. Through the IT training we provide to our customers and partners, we are able to enhance their skills and hence create opportunities for them to undertake more sophisticated and interesting responsibilities. We are also embarking on a program called Think.com, which enables school children to use IT to collaborate with their classmates and other students in other parts of the world. This will contribute to the growing awareness of IT in schools. how does a company become an Oracle partner? Easy... visit oraclepartnernetwork.oracle.com to sign up. There are some criteria with respect to higher levels of partnership but any IT company can be enrolled as a member of the Oracle PartnerNetwork.

is Oracle in direct competition with Open Source? Oracle is an active supporter of the Open Source movement, as seen by our proactive support for the Linux operating system. Oracle is an advocate of open source and open standards, and will continue to develop initiatives that speed time to market, support the developer community with a commitment to open standards and interfaces and lower the cost of computing for customers. In fact, Oracle was the first commercial database to be made available on Linux. Today all Oracle products are available on Linux and our commitment to open source continues. Customers have the choice to choose their databases and we believe Oracle offers the most robust and scalable database options to customers. on a personal note, what kind of cell do you use? I use the Sony-Ericsson P900. This is useful for me as I can download my calendar, contacts, tasks and email on the go. The camera feature is not an attraction to me as I am a lousy photographer :-) how often do you check your email? Twice a day on average and usually in the morning and evening. The rest of the day is better spent meeting with people, planning and making decisions.

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Lakshman J K Hettiaratchi

What is Bill Gates for Microsoft? Ellison for Oracle? Steve Jobs for Apple? Whitman for E-Bay? Craig Barrett for Intel? Well... they are all individuals who lead a team of enthusiastic professionals, satisfied customer needs or wants, made good returns for their investors, acted in a socially responsible manner, created innovation and most importantly made their contribution towards the ICT industry. They are success stories running the large multinationals which are setting forward trends today. While the achievements and accomplishments of International ICT personalities should be appreciated and commended, we should also look at the Sri Lankan ICT industry. Sri Lanka too has its share of ICT practitioners whose handwork and efforts have made an immense contribution to both the Sri Lankan and International ICT industry. Rehan Fernando has secured exclusive interviews with some of Sri Lanka’s leading ICT practitioners, highlighting the achievements and contributions made to the Sri Lankan ICT industry. Await more great success stories in the next issue of IT Times.

Organization & Designation: Presently serves as the Chairman of the Walkers Group of Companies. Former Country Manager – Sri Lanka, IBM World Trade Organization. Qualifications: MBCS, CITP, FCMA, LLB, Member SLIM, Attorney at Law School: Royal College Role Model: My father Prof. D. E. Hettiaratchi Greatest Achievement: Building a very professional, motivated, ethical team of 50 empowered IBMers to strive to further the business ahead of competition. Previous Experience: Carpentry, and managing furniture production with formal training in the UK. Accounting and auditing with a London firm. Served in Zambia as an accountant and subsequently managed the finance and administration function at a state owned conglomerate. Joined Mackwoods Ltd upon returning to Sri Lanka. Head hunted through a Hong Kong based recruitment firm to join IBM in 1979. Served on the boards of the State Pharmaceuticals Corporation, Sampath Bank Ceynor Foundation; University of Sri Jayawardenepura Council, NIBM, University of Moratuwa Council, PIM, Ingrin Institute of Printing and Graphics, Walkers group of Companies, UGC Steering Committee. Professional Involvement: Past President of Sri Lanka Division of CIMA, President of Organization of Professional Associations of Sri Lanka, Export Development Board advisory Committee on IT.

O

ur first personality for this issue is the former IBM Country Manager who grew the company to Sri Lankan revenues of US $10 million in 1994. His drive for speed and consistency led him to several board appointments in the private sector as well as in the academic field. He is a multidisciplinary professional with a background in IT Accountancy, Law, and Marketing and an undying passion for new challenges.

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Interests: Rugby, having represented Royal 1962 1964, Ceylon schools, KRFC Message: The key to success in IT is to learn the core business and integrate into the enterprise. Exposure to Project management is an added value. Keep abreast of technological changes as long as possible then move to IT management.

local leaders T

A glimpse of the lives and successes of the individuals who lead Sri Lanka’s IT industry

he second personality for this issue is a trendsetter and innovator in the ICT Education Industry. Being a medical doctor by profession he soon discovered a passion for the field of ICTs, which grew from an occasional pastime into one of Sri Lanka’s leading ICT educational establishments. What started off from an institute with just four students in a small rented out room now provides high quality ICT education which ranges from beginners courses to internationally acclaimed academic degrees and professional courses for a student base of over 1500. While building the brand of his establishment he was soon to discover that he transformed into a magnet lecturer who attracted hundreds of students for his lectures. With an amazing presentation style and a multidisciplinary exposure and a continuing drive to remain in the forefront of ICT he is undoubtedly a leader in his field.

Dr. Dayan Rajapakse Organization & Designation: ESOFT Computer Studies (Pvt) Limited & the ESOFT Business School. Qualifications: MBBS, MBCS, MACS School: Maliyadeva College - Kurunegala Role Model: My Father Greatest Achievement: Knowing when your efforts pay off when your students successfully pass their final examinations and secure better positions in their organizations. Watching my students prosper and helping them to strive for the future is undoubtedly one of my greatest achievements. Previous Experience: Instructor, Assistant Lecturer and subsequently appointed Lecturer in one of Sri Lanka’s leading ICT Educationalists. Started ESOFT Computer Studies (Pvt) Limited with a few colleagues in June 2000 and subsequently assumed office as its Managing Director. Outstanding Achievements: Dayan was able to successfully complete the British Computer Society Professional Examination in parallel to his training at the Medical College. He was also one of the youngest individuals to pass the BCS examination at the time completing all 3 stages at just 21 years of age. Professional Involvement: Member of the British Computer Society, Member of the Australian Computer Society. Interests: Swimming and Wildlife Photography Message: Always invest in people. Whether it be your students, lecturers, friends of family. Don’t expect returns but they will always come your way. You will be surprised how much people will do for you if you are nice to them.

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S

ay a girl tells a guy that she likes a particular song. What would that guy do? Would he take all the trouble of running to a CD store to find that song on a CD? Would he pay Rs. 200 for that? Why should he? All he has to do is search for the song on the Internet, download the mp3, convert it and write an audio CD, print out a nice cover page, and well – there it is. Usually when a producer releases a song he sells it to the listeners through CDs or he sells the rights to various media. That is his right because he owns that song. You have his permission to use that CD when you buy it. But you do not have the permission to download it without his consent. This is called copying intellectual property. It’s wrong, but it happens all the time. Lawyers are waiting to pounce on this branch of law now being developed as Cyber Law. Although Cyber Law is not new, it is rapidly changing. The intersection of technology and law is controversial. Some think the Internet should not (or cannot) be regulated. Technologies like anonymity and cryptography make traditional regulation extremely difficult.

Technologically developed countries regulate copyright laws on the Internet more strongly than us. Sri Lanka is not even considered a major piece of market for such companies, for we are believed to have only a 10% computer literacy rate in our country. The copyright laws that stand today in Sri Lanka can be enforced only to locally produced intellectual property. You cannot download a song by a Sri Lankan artist through a local web site. That would be illegal. By Amendment No. 40 of 2000, the Code of Intellectual Property Act now accommodates the protection of computer programs/software under copyright (coming under ‘literary’ works) – thus software whether in the form of Source Code or Object Code can be protected in SL. The protection of Databases comes under copyright. Collections of literary, artistic and scientific works, such as encyclopedias and anthologies which, by reason of the selection and the arrangement of their contents constitute intellectual creations. So you see, Sri Lanka is on its way. The Sri Lankan Cyber Cop may cross from sci-fi to reality very soon.

Governments all over the world have started supporting regulation through interconnected databases. Even if these are well secured, most are still vulnerable to technology savvy Internet criminals. In the future, we may see governments deploy a Special Task Force of cyber cops to monitor, block and debug any threats to valuable data. This cyber police force would probably include FBI intelligence as well as spies from Microsoft and other established software companies. The cyber cops of today mainly concentrate on viruses, worms and spyware. However, with the development of e-commerce more people are eager to use the Internet to sell and buy their products and large companies don’t mind spending more than a few bucks on protecting their goods from entering the black market.

Sri Lankan Cyber Cops by Daham Binduhewa

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rememberance

Photos by Sarvodaya (flickr.com/photos/sarvodaya). Attribution License

IT Times begins its tsunami coverage with an interview from one of the netizens on the front lines. Morquendi, a blogger and local grassroots activist was one of the people instrumental in setting up and maintaining the low level SMS / weblog powered information network that helped spread vital data both locally and internationally. We caught up with Morquendi on IM to talk about his experiences from a year ago. ITT: So Morquendi, thanks for joining us. It’s been a little over an year since the December 2004 Tsunami. As a country, what do you think of the progress we have made? Morquendi: In terms of rebuilding what was destroyed I don’t think we have come very far. I went down to Galle about 2 weeks ago and there were still people living in tents. The UN folks say that the only people in the Galle district living in tents are those who choose to stay in tents. But why do these people chose to stay in tents? Because they don’t want to leave their land. Someone else, maybe the Government, is going to

come along and take it. So perhaps houses have been built for some people. But I don’t see that as a very good indication of a any progress. The basic question is what do we need to do to build back better? No one wants the entire country to go back to where it was on the 25th of December 2004. There is a really possibility here to build back better. There’s an opportunity to put some real infrastructure in the areas along the coast. And by infrastructure I don’t mean what the Ministry of Tourism has planned, I mean facilities that will help the people regain their lives, and live better. On the 26th during the Government Memorial in Peraliya the President did not even acknowledge the fact that there were problems in implementing their plans. The least he could have done was said ‘listen, we know there are problems, and we’re trying to work them out’. But this denial of the fact that there are problems is very scary. ITT: Tell us a little about your experience with the

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portant for the people affected, in a more immediate way. Again, traditional methods of communications just weren’t working, and SMS did. It took up very little bandwidth on the mobile networks and it worked, and it kept working when everything else failed. There was no structured way in which SMS communication was used, but everyone who used it helped. People who knew of a need (of a group of people, of a village) would send a message and it would be passed along till it got to someone who could fill that need. For instance, three days after the Tsunami I went to a camp just South of Colombo where people hadn’t eaten for 2 days. The SMS went out to a list of people who passed it around, and someone who was at a place where they were distributing goods got the message and sent a lorry load over to the camp. There were two or three incidents like this where we saw SMS communication working. Phone calls would just have taken too much time. Forwarding an SMS to a list is easy. Hardly takes any time. To be honest when we started messaging around I didn’t think it would really make a big impact. No one really takes SMS seriously as a form of communication. Most people use it to pass around jokes and for short notes. But then when we saw things happening because of the messages that were going around that felt good. Sometimes I feel guilty that I didn’t go out there and volunteer for those first few days after the Tsunami, but I know that whatever we were doing online, working on the blogs, or keeping the SMSs going around and trying to collect SMSs did also help. grassroots information network you were a part of during the immediate aftermath of the disaster. How did blogging and SMS reporting help during this period?

ITT : If you were given a second shot at covering the Tsunami aftermath, what changes would you make in the way you approach it?

And I think blogging did a lot to take information out. To get it out to people who were interested in helping. When people out there got to know how bad it was out here, they were interested in helping. That’s the job blogging did.

Morquendi: I’d get a better phone. :) Seriously, I could think of a million ways in which I could have done a better job, but when you’re actually covering it, and wondering whether you’re making a difference as a journalist, and if you just say to hell with it and get down on your hands and knees and start doing some real work like all those other people who helped, in those circumstances, I don’t think there’s much we can change. The mainstream media, as expected, did a shoddy job. But that’s their problem. For about a week they were just blabbering out of shock, and then they began to run sensational how-my-dog-saved-my-life kinda stories.

The SMS part of what we did was perhaps more im-

What would I change? Just the phone.

Morquendi: See, blogging didn’t really do much directly for the people here. It was mainly about getting the news out in a situation where the local news agencies were crippled by the shock initially, and then too focused on reporting sensational crap.

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satellite vs tsunami... The best tribute we can pay to all who perished or suffered in this disaster is to heed its powerful lessons. We need to address the long-term issues of better disaster preparedness, functional early warning systems and realistic arrangements to cope with not just tsunamis, but a multitude of other hazards - Arthur C. Clarke by indi The tsunami struck about 100 meters inland. That means that just five minutes warning could have saved thousands of lives. Granted, no one knew what a tsunami was a year ago, but now we certainly do. Unfortunately, there still isn’t an organized and coherent warning system in place. This isn’t an IT problem - the technology is cheap and already applied in places like Thailand. It is a purely political and bureaucratic problem, and the only solution the government could come up with was to ban rebuilding within 100 meters of the sea. A more mature (and effective) solution would be a simple all hazards warning system that could buy Sri Lankans the five minutes they need. In the absence of government initiative, Sarvodaya, LIRNEasia and Worldspace Satellite Radio have joined to provide an all-hazards warning system. The last-mile deployment is limited, but it’s a functional system, and very interesting from a technological stand-point. The fact is, the country had hours between the impact in Aceh and the strike on the East Coast. From there, it still took one hour for the wave to travel from Kalmunai to Galle. There was plenty of time for a warning, but no warning system. Even if there is a warning, it’s not clear how it travels that last mile to the people who need to run. Colombo received a quake alert at 7:05 AM, five minutes after the event near Indonesia. From there, however, the information wasn’t disseminated. Where Worldspace comes in is that they produce satellite content and manufacture affortable radio sets. The radios are deployed at the grass roots by Sarvodaya, and they’ve already been tested in some tsunami affected villages. The radio sets can be turned on remotely, so there’s no room for user error there.

In the case of a tsunami (or any hazard) the information is first relayed to the Early Warning Center. That part works in the system we have now. The information is then encoded in a simple XML message using the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP). This is a ‘a standard method that collects and relays instantaneously and automatically all types of hazard warnings and reports locally, regionally and nationally for input into a wide variety of dissemination systems’ (CAP Cookbook). From there, the message is beamed out all over the island. In this, case it is picked up by radio sets throughout the 226 villages Sarvodaya is working to make disaster ready. What people on the coast get is an authoritative alert that is wholly independent of electrical or telecommunications infrastructure - it simply comes over their radio sets. This system gives Sri Lanka a functioning, if limited alert system. Another model is Thailand, where the government has installed 76+ sirens along the cost. In the satellite solution, however, each receiving unit is much cheaper. This means that the alert system can be deployed beyond the initial villages without significant cost. It also means that next time any disaster hits, Sri Lankans will have the five minutes they need.

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by Rohan Samarajiva

O

n the morning of the 26th of December 2004, water came ashore from the clear blue sea. Within a few hours it killed over 280,931 people, caused around USD 4.45 billion in damage, and destroyed untold numbers of lives and livelihoods in twelve countries bordering the Indian Ocean. The total number of deaths worldwide caused by waves and tidal surges over the entire 20th century was less than 5 per cent of the number of deaths caused that day. It is too soon to assess the full significance of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami (2004 tsunami, hereafter), but part of its significance is likely to be its manifestation as the first global Internet-mediated natural disaster.

ICTs in disaster preparedness Electronic media including telecommunications and the Internet are critical to the linking of the physical and symbolic worlds. So, for example, the occurrence of the earthquake in the Sunda Trench on the 26th of December 2004 was known on the other side of the world in Hawai’i at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center almost as it ended 500 seconds after 0059 hrs Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) and was communicated to warning centers across the Pacific by 0110 hrs UTC. All this was made possible by the underlying infrastructure of fiber optic and copper cables, satellites and other telecom equipment. The occurrence of the earthquake was also known to the Geological Survey and Mines Bureau (GSMB) of Sri Lanka, because it housed a seismometer for the US Geological Survey. The GSMB was not tasked to issue warnings and did not have the capacity to interpret the seismic data. This may have been the case in the other tsunami affected

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countries as well. Therefore, the tsunami hazard was not represented in the symbolic worlds of the tourists in the Maldives and of Sri Lankan villagers in advance of the waves that caught them unaware. The tsunami that was generated by the earthquake and the destruction of coastal Aceh and ensuing deaths of over 100,000 people did not get mapped onto the symbolic worlds of the tsunami experts in Hawai’i or anyone else for several more hours. No one heard Aceh’s scream. That tragedy did not “exist” as far as the rest of world was concerned until the first reports were made. The first recorded reports of some form of sea-based hazard were recorded at 0257 hrs UTC or 0320 hrs UTC; according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the first news reports came at 0512 hrs UTC. It was only when the news reports were combined with the previously known earthquake data that the world’s foremost tsunami scientists were able to conclude that a massive, destructive teletsunami was ripping its way across the Indian Ocean. Unless new information comes to light, it appears that information of the destruction in coastal Sri Lanka reached the media and the users of media prior to news of the decimation of Banda Aceh. Telephone calls from informants in Trincomalee, Kalmunai, Matara and Galle reached AFP [Agence France Presse] and Lanka Business Online (LBO) journalists who broke the story at 0334 UTC in the form of an online news report (LBO) and at 0346 UTC in the form of a news agency dispatch (Agence France Presse). The Cease Fire Agreement between the Government and

early warning mobilizing information and communications technologies for effective disaster warning: lessons from the 2004 tsunami the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) appears to have been an enabling factor in the communication among government and non-government actors in the East Coast and Colombo allowing for greater access to telecom facilities, which contrasted with the lack of information flowing out of civil-war afflicted Aceh. But even in a civil-war environment, information can flow through military channels. Why this did not happen in Aceh, the Andaman Islands (no civil war, but sizable military presence) and the East Coast of Sri Lanka is a mystery. It is possible that the information reached the military headquarters, but that the secretive culture and/or ineptitude of the recipients resulted in the information not being disseminated further.

hazard detection and monitoring In the case of the 2004 tsunami, the hazard was not detected in time. The earthquake itself was detected in time, though its magnitude was not correctly estimated for a while. By 0204 UTC, one hour and five minutes after the commencement of the earthquake event, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) in Hawai’i issued a second, corrected bulletin upgrading the magnitude to 8.5 and indicating the possibility of “a tsunami near the epicenter.” In tsunami warning terminology this indicated a local tsunami that could affect Aceh, not necessarily a teletsunami that would kill people in faraway Tanzania. The Bulletin reached all the participating centers, including those in Indonesia and Thailand, and was posted on the web. However, no one capable of raising a warning in the Indian Ocean countries, including the media, was watching or paying attention at that moment. It was only at 0525 UTC, more than four

hours after the event that the magnitude of the earthquake was determined to be 8.9; the final magnitude of 9.3 was calculated only about a month later. People themselves are additional sources of hazard information. For example, evidence of a tsunami hitting or not hitting Nias Island or the Sumatra shores was critically important in estimating the likelihood of a tsunami generated by the great Nias earthquake of March 28th, 2005. For people to perform hazard-detection functions, they require access to telecommunications. Short numbers such as 112 or 911 are critical to this. Ideally, the public would be given one number to call regarding all emergencies, with the receiving entity (an advanced IT based 24/7, 365/year day call center) channeling the information to the appropriate agencies for evaluation. Additional modes such as SMS and e-mail should also be made available. The centers receiving such communications must be properly dimensioned and staffed to handle peaks in calls likely to be generated by hazards. The very patterns of calls (increased volumes, areas of origin, etc.) can be a source of supplementary hazard detection information. The generation of hazard information from people is hindered by the low connectivity that exists in developing Asia, especially in rural areas. For example, the paucity of telecommunications access in the East Coast of Sri Lanka, where the tsunami made first contact, contributed to the lack of information that could have been used to generate a warning for those on the Southern, Northern and Western coasts. The use of the dedicated communication systems of the Sri Lankan Police and Navy camps, which are manned by trained

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personnel and are equipped to communicate hazard information and alerts countrywide, were not exploited on December 26th 2004. Here, it appears that the fault lay not in the technology but in failures of the Police and Navy command structures. In an ideal system, ordinary people as well as government entities such as police stations and private entities such as hotels would serve as a decentralized system of hazard detection. Analysis of the flows of such information as well as its content could, along with data from sensing equipment, be used by an early warning center to generate effective early warnings.

dissemination of alerts and warnings Assuming that the capacity to receive hazard information and convert it into alerts and warnings exists, the next question is how those alerts and warnings will be disseminated to first responders, the media, and the public. The electronic media industries play a crucial role in the dissemination of warnings. Because it is important to place this discussion in the context of developing country reality, Sri Lankan data will be referred to for illustrative purposes. According to 2004 survey data 74.9 per cent of Sri Lankan households have electricity; 78.3 per cent have a radio; 70.8 per cent have a TV set and 24.5 per cent have access to telecommunications in the home (Central Bank of Sri Lanka). During the two cyclones of 1978, effective use was made of radio (electricity was available to less than 15 per cent of households at that time. Less than 60 per cent had radios; there was no television in the country; and telephones per 100 population was less than 1). Casualties from the cyclone that actually hit the East Coast (the other was a near miss, veering off to hit the east coast of India) amounted to only 915 despite 250,000 families being displaced by the wind and massive tidal surges, a number not very different from that of 2004. A key difference between 1978 and 2005 is the proliferation of media outlets. The only electronic medium that was available in Sri Lanka in 1978 was radio broadcasting. The government monopolized it, operating a total of six channels in three languages, all of which received their news from a single news room. The situation is more complex now, with a plethora of radio and TV channels available to viewers and listeners. Ef-

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fective use of electronic broadcasting for disaster management purposes will require a significant amount of prior coordination and preparation, ranging from the establishment of reliable communication channels between the disaster warning center and the broadcast stations, to the education of media personnel in proper emergency communication practices, to the clear demarcation of emergency broadcast responsibilities in broadcasting licenses. Multiple means of communication are required for the dissemination of public warnings. This includes mobile operators who could make wider use of cell broadcasts to reach subsets of their customers, totaling over two million. Unlike cascade-type phone trees and SMS dissemination, cell broadcasts are not vulnerable to congestion and can be targeted to display messages only to phones connected to a particular base station or stations immediately and reliably. This technology is currently not capable of alerting the intended recipient through a device such as a ringer, but it appears that this problem may be on the verge of a solution. In an environment of low telecom penetration, it is also necessary to communicate alert and warning messages through intermediaries, for example, religious establishments that serve as community centers in most rural areas. The Sri Lanka concept paper, NEWS:SL [available at lirneasia. net] recommends creation of a virtual network capable of disseminating emergency messages to temples, mosques and churches. It is even possible for the bells and similar devices in these locations to be activated remotely through CAP [Common Alerting Protocol]. NEWS:SL also recommends the use of non-public and nationwide communication networks such as those operated by the public utilities in conjunction with WiFi based local access systems to activate sirens and otherwise disseminate public warnings. An addressable satellite-based radio system for dissemination of warnings, that is currently being trialed (Brewin, 2005), appears to hold considerable promise, especially because of the low costs of its receivers - USD 130.

effective provision of warnings Despite all the possibilities, the final question is - Why did the millions who suffered and the hundreds of thousands who died on the 26th of December 2004

There is much that ICTs can contribute to the alleviation of human suffering caused by disasters. ICTs are what enable the linking of the physical world within which hazards occur and the symbolic worlds of the humans likely to be harmed by the hazards not receive one minute of official advance warning, despite the completion of the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction in 1999 (Secretary General of the UN, 1999), and numerous conferences, workshops and training courses in the affected countries? Why did their symbolic worlds connect to the physical world in which the hazard occurred only too late, through the waves that were dragging them out to sea? The answer to this question is vital to the design of effective warning systems for the future. With the singular exception of Thailand, the countries that were affected by the tsunami have shown little signs of a proactive approach to institutionalizing effective disaster warning systems beyond attendance at conferences and the utterance of platitudes. Two factors appear to be responsible for Thailand’s exception: the recalling of Smith Dharmasaroja from the enforced retirement he had been sent on for demanding a tsunami warning system and the massive losses of tourists to the tsunami. The necessity of providing credible safety assurances to potential tourists when combined with the passion and authority of a man recognized as being wrongfully punished for his foresight (Associated Press, 2005b) resulted in Thailand actually implementing a national warning system, including the conduct of high-profile evacuation drills. Perhaps this is because the benefits of disaster warning do not mesh well with the calculus of politicians (Downs, 1957). The pay-offs are not assured within the electoral cycle: the benefits of a warning system established by one politician will most probably be enjoyed by future politicians, not by her. This factor is exacerbated in the pathological form of the state, described by Evans (1995) as the predatory state, which is found to a greater or lesser extent in the countries affected by the 2004 tsunami. Here, the driving force of state action is rent seeking (partly to get re-elected, consonant with the Downs model; but partly by sheer venality). Dissemination of disaster warnings and alerts at the national or local levels offers little attraction for decision makers driven by these considerations (hardware installations necessary for hazard detection and monitoring appear to be perceived differently as evidenced

by the enthusiasm displayed by various politicians in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami). By contrast, the emphasis on relief and recovery that is evident in relation to all disasters in all countries meshes well with political and venal logics. The benefits fit within the political cycle and there are many opportunities for skimming the aid flows. The predatory tenor of many developing country states also explains the phenomenon of “install but do not maintain” so common with complex technical systems found in these countries. The opportunity for rent seeking exists at the moment of procurement, therefore the installation happens. Maintaining the equipment in good working order delays the next procurement and is in fact contrary to the governing logic. There is much that ICTs can contribute to the alleviation of human suffering caused by disasters. ICTs are what enable the linking of the physical world within which hazards occur and the symbolic worlds of the humans likely to be harmed by the hazards, so that they may take life saving action. But effective linking of these worlds requires not only the use of ICTs, but also the existence of institutions that allow for the effective mobilization of their potential. One clear lesson is that effective disaster warning requires greater access to ICTs in general as a necessary condition. Absent proper institutional structures, it is unlikely that a significant number of lives could have been saved; however, all the institutional structures in the world cannot help unless the basic instruments for linking the physical world in which the hazards occur and the symbolic worlds where action originates does not exist. The seismometers and the observation satellites existed, but the lack of basic telecom infrastructure in the critical areas of first impact in Aceh and Sri Lanka did not allow for an early understanding of the hazard and for the prompt dissemination of the warning. Much of developed country based disaster research assumes the existence of this basic infrastructure (e.g., Kasperson et al., 2003). Developing country research must begin from a different starting point and a different perspective.

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mother of all boards

If you’re going to game, you’ll need a solid board. Graphics intensive games like Need For Speed: Most Wanter (next page) really consume computing resources and generate one pesky biproduct. Heat. Especially in Sri Lanka, heat is the enemy. The secret to rewarding gaming is to squeeze the most power out of your rig, without melting it. To that end, you need a solid motherboard as a base for all your other components. Today we’ll be taking a look at the high-end P5WD2 Premium Motherboard by Asus. The P5WD2 Premium is based on the Intel 955x chipset features the Socket 775 CPU interface, supporting Pentium D (Dual Core) and Prescott processors. It also features two PCI-E slots for semi-SLI and CrossFire support. It is available in Sri Lanka (at EPSI) and offers an affordable entry into the newest Intel processors and overclocking.

the packaging The P5WD2 Premium is packaged in a sleek looking

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white and grey box, which bears the AiLife logo. Pull out the containing cardboard box and you’ll find a big bundle, ranging from SATA cables to Game CD’s. Included in the bundle is a flexible SLI connector which will be needed, for when Nvidia supports SLI on the 955x chipset, to connect two Geforce cards in SLI mode. That means twice the graphical goodness.

the board Pull out the board from its wrapping and you’re faced with a black PCB on top and blue at the bottom. You’ll notice the 955x is passively cooled, which means no noisy fan to kill the quiet. This is where the blue bottom comes in - it is a cooling technology called Stack Cool 2, which transfers the heat from the components to the bottom of the board, thus effectively reducing the need for active cooling. Even the MOSFETS have a heatsink for better cooling. The PCI-E slots are spaced out nicely with two PCI slots in between to allow de-

Intel LGA775 Pentium 4 CPU, Incl. Dual Core

Chipset cent airflow between two graphics cards that might be installed. The board is designed to fight heat, quietly.

Intel 955X Intel ICH7R

Floppy, PATA and SATA connectors lie on the outer right hand side of the board for easy connection. It also features ‘SATA on the Go’ which allows quick plugging in of SATA drives without having to open the case. You’ll find 4 colour coded RAM slots, supporting Dual Channel and a maximum of 8GB. One PCI Express x16 slot and a PCI Express x4 universal slot is available for plugging in two video cards. Also, there is one PCI Express x1 slot and three standard PCI slots.

Memory

The board contains all the I/O’s you would want with 2 PS/2 ports, 1 Optical and Coaxial S/PDIF Outputs, 1 External SATA port we mentioned earlier, 1 parallel port, 6 audio connections, 4 USB 2.0 ports, 2 Gigabit Ethernet ports and 1 FireWire port.

1 x PCI Express x16 slot for discrete graphics card 1 x Universal PCI-E Slot ( x4 mode) 1 x PCI Express x1 3 x PCI

benchmarks (top right) We put the P5DW2 against an Abit board with an older chipset - the AA8XE. Our benchmarks were Call of Duty, Doom 3, Half Life 2, Unreal Tournament 2004.

conclusion The ASUS P2WD2 is a solid, well laid out motherboard which shows some very respectable performance and The I/O capabilities offered should satisfy about any user need. Overall, the board meets the high standards required to break away from the competition and is easily recommended for any power user.

specs

CPU

Native DDR2 800 Support 4 x 240-pin DIMM sockets support max. 8GB DDR2 800/ 667/ 533 ECC and non-ECC memory Dual Channel Memory Architecture Intel MPT (Intel Memory Pipeline Technology)

Expansion Slots

LAN Dual Gigabit LAN controllers: *1 x Intel PCIe Gigabit LAN Controller *1 x Marvell 88E8001 Gigabit LAN Controller, featuring AI NET2

Audio Realtek ALC882D High Definition Audio 8-channel CODEC Support Multi-streaming, Jack-sensing and Jack-retasking functions Coaxial, Optical S/PDIF out on back I/O port Features Dolby Digital Live technology

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NFS Underground brought street racing and performance tuning to the NFS franchise. Then came NFSU2, which took this concept and added some open endedness to the mix – a NFS + GTA hybrid… without the killing. We now have something new to get addicted to – NFS Most Wanted. by Raveen Wijayatilake

Your goal is to get to the #1 spot on the Blacklist, and in your way are 15 racers you’ll have to race and win against. Being on the Blacklist is a big deal, and to race a Blacklist member you’ll have to prove yourself worthy. Before being able to race a Blicklist member, a set number of goals have to be accomplished. These goals are separated into 3 types – Races, Milestones and Bounty.

the races Most Wanted has 6 types of races, three of which should be familiar to anyone who’s played old versions. circuit – the age old set path which you’ll have to repeat three to four times as laps. knockout – Circuit, with a penalty for being a bad

driver. At the end of each lap, the last to cross the mark is disqualified. So thinking “Ah it’s still the 2nd lap, I have enough time to catch up” will give you a nasty surprise at the end. sprint – Getting from point A to B and crossing the finish line first. It’s pretty much a one lap circuit race. A percentage counter on your screen shows you how much of the course you have completed, and will be your alert to get ahead of the opponent if you find yourself lagging behind. drag – Probably the most fun race type from U and U2, it has been totally ruined in Most Wanted. The focus has been transferred from good gear shifting (getting 100% perfect shifts was a satisfying experience) to more of a memory game. A typical drag race will consist of something similar to this: Start race, won-

der why your opponent is so slow, crash into a yellow taxi, watch the taxi cab fly, restart race. This is what will happen the first 25 times you try a drag race… and that’s not exaggeration. The drag strip will be littered with loads of traffic ranging from heavy SUV’s to small but fatal cars. To make matters worse, the track will be full of turns – take a turn and *bam* you have a close encounter with a SUV. No amount of skill and reflexes on your part will get you through a race the first time. Until you’ve memorized the traffic patterns that you encounter, and swerve around vehicles accordingly, you’ll be watching a lot of spectacular crashes. speedtrap – Sprint with a twist. Speedtrap cameras are set throughout the track, all you have to do is get caught on tape at the highest speeds possible. The highest cumulative speed at the end wins the race – you

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g in

Most Wanted has a storyline to it which, unlike its predecessors, doesn’t feel like it’s been thrown in just for the sake of it being there. You are put in the shoes of a racer new to Rockport city. Who’s hot or not in the underground racing scene is governed by a list of the most wanted racers – the Blacklist. As you reach Rockport you encounter Razor, who will be taking the role of bad guy. Ironically, he will be the first rival you’ll get in a race with. But of course, you lose. Not due to your sucky handling, but thanks to a little tampering done to your car courtesy of Razor. In the end, Razor wins your car and you are sent to that dark place enclosed by bars, called jail. To add insult to injury, Razor grabs the most prestigious spot in the underground scene, the top spot on the Blacklist… using none other than your very own car – a sexy white and blue modified BMW M3. You get out of jail with revenge at the top of your ‘things to do when I get out of jail’ list. This is where the sexy female comes in – a game isn’t complete without one right? Mia, a total stranger, comes to your aid by offering a safe house and a choice of cars to get started from – sound familiar? Anyway, this is where you start building up your car and your notoriety to get on the Blacklist, and get to Razor. Of course that’s not all there is to the story - it has its share of plot twists, not to mention a really awesome final showdown which you will have to finish the game to experience.

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emember the awesome fun had while playing NFS3: Hot Pursuit? Racing cops and avoiding roadblocks and spike-strips was amazing. Take Hot pursuit, mix in Underground 2, put the end result on steroids and there we have NFS Most Wanted. Easily the best game of the franchise, it is a huge leap forwards from U2 in almost every possible way. Fasten your seatbelts folks… it’s gonna be a long ride.

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don’t even have to cross the finish line first. tollbooth – this track simply consists of getting to the end of the track before the timer runs out. Described as the way your ‘true timing is tested, it’s basically getting to the checkpoints on the track before the timer runs out. If you get to a checkpoint early, the extra time is added on so you have more time to reach the next checkpoint. NFSU had similar races, but they were a sort of special race which rewarded you with unique upgrades. In NFSMW, however, there are no special rewards for winning these.

er controlled robots… most of the time. You will find that they get into most situations you yourself happen to experience – hitting oncoming traffic, getting stuck on sharp corners etc. This keeps a balance since, unlike you, your opponents drive like they’ve memorized the track… they are computer controlled after all. The ‘rubber band’ effect, called catch-up, is on by default. Imagine wrapping a rubber band around two cars. When one car takes a big lead, the rubber band tightens and pulls the two cars together with a greater force, thus making the car behind reach the lead car faster. So, you take a well earned break to see what the scenery looks like at 200MPH and the next thing you know he’s bumping into your rear end. This is optional, as you can turn it off from the settings menu. In the later levels of the game, you’ll rely heavily on NOS to either get you further away from or to catch up to your opponent. It’ll be the saving grace when you are racing neck to neck in a Fast ‘n Furious style encounter, driving head on into the rear end of an 18 wheeler. In such an instance, catching up to your opponent will be a simple matter of tapping your NOS. To mix things up a little, some races will have cops on your tail. They don’t usually prove to be a very big hindrance, but it makes things a tad more interesting. Overall, you will find very few races that require more attempts than your frustration level can handle. There is no difficulty setting to adjust, so it should be one experience for everyone who plays the game.

The only gripe about races is the way tracks are outlined. Similar to the NFSU series, the player is kept within the set path by slightly transparent barriers with big arrows directing you in the path you should take. These barriers can be quite elusive, especially when you’re racing at around 250MPH. On many an occasion you will find yourself mistaking a cordoned off road as a part of the racing track, and drive headfirst into the barrier. This will leave you cursing the developer, especially if it lost you a rather time consuming race. The opponent AI is decent. They don’t act like comput-

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If you’re the tuning type, or just want a car that will perform well on a certain track, an easy to use tuning menu is available. In U2 tuning your car was an annoying, but Most Wanted’s tuning screen is easily accessible with the press of the ESC key. This will present you with options like Aerodynamics, Braking Bias, Ride Height, Handling, NOS bursts etc to mess with. Tuning here is a matter of pushing the appropriate slider either to the left or right. Each option is explained so you know how exactly the tweaking will affect the actual performance of your car. For example, the NOS bursts can be less powerful, but last for a long time, or be extremely potent but last a shorter time.

As you piss the cops off, your heat level will rise. It is directly proportional to how hard the cops will work to take you off the road . . . the cops As much fun as the racing events are, the highlight of the game are the chases. Your trip to the top of the Blacklist doesn’t depend on just mad dashes from the cops – that would be slightly boring right? There are some kinks. Along with completing the normal races, you’ll need to accomplish Milestones and reach a certain level of Bounty to move up the Blacklist. bounty – This represents how much the cops dislike you. You rack up bounty for each minute you run from the cops, with target amounts to progress through the campaign. Killing cop cars for example, is a fun way of increasing your bounty. milestones – These are always based on cop chases. Crashing into a given number of cop cars, evading the cops or having them on your tail for a set time, getting through a certain number of spike strips or road blocks are all Milestones you’ll have to complete. As you piss the cops off, your heat level will rise. It is directly proportional to how hard the cops will work to take you off the road – ranging from one to six for the campaign, six putting some seriously hard cops on your tail. You start your campaign with a heat level of one – you’ve probably been forgotten while you were in jail. Start speeding through the neighborhood park and you’re bound to get some attention from the law., and a corresponding rise in heat. Once a police cruiser spots you, time will pause for a moment, the screen turns a shade of blue and the camera focuses on the cop. This is a pretty effect which you’ll never get tired of seeing. A bar on the bottom of your screen will let you know whether you’re about to get busted or close to evading the cops, by turning red or green. In early heat levels, evading the cops is not a big deal since only a few flimsy cruisers will be after you. As your heat level rises, however, tactics employed by the police increase in severity. They will set up road blocks, send SUV’s called Rhinos to take you out by smashing into you and set up deadly spike strips to put

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an end to a getaway in seconds. As your heat level rises, you will find new types of police cars after you, starting with the usual police cruiser to corvettes driven by the Feds. Disabling a cop car can be easy as smashing into its side, or as hard as having to flip a car over onto its roof. If you’re not a fan of trading paint with cop cars, there is a fun feature called Pursuit Breakers. These are objects on the map that can cause some destruction to your pursuers. A Donut shop with a big donut on its roof can be a Pursuit Breaker – just drive into the pillars holding it up and down comes rolling the giant donut, crushing any cop cars in its path. Death by donuts, how ironic. You can also improvise and use the traffic on the road as Pursuit Breakers. You will encounter 18 wheeler trucks carrying cargo like logs and other small cars. Crashing into these will let drop their cargo on to the road, effectively putting an end to the chasing cops. These will have to be used wisely and often. Cops in Most Wanted are smart and will work in teams to slow you down to a stop. When enough cop cars get together, they will surround you and apply their brakes – an effective way of slowing you down and keeping you in one place. Various other maneuvers - which can be quite impressive - are also put into use. Words don’t do justice to the fast paced action you experience during a pursuit – your adrenaline really gets pumping when you’re traveling at breakneck speeds and a cop car to your left is trying to sideswipe you. Forget extreme sports! Sit down and play a few minutes of Most

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Wanted and any adrenaline junkie will be satisfied. If the cops manage to muscle you off road or smash you into a railing, chances are you’ll get busted. Getting busted is probably the biggest party pooper you’ve ever encountered in a game – it’s annoying, to say the least. Especially when you need to last 10 minutes during a chase and you get busted 2 seconds short. The only answer to this is… well… don’t to get busted. But if, like me, you find yourself in cuffs more often than you’d like, there’s a good chance your car will get impounded. Your car will receive an impound strike each time you get busted… 3 times and you’re out. This is where having multiple cars in your garage helps.

the blacklist So you’ve won a few races, racked up a decent amount of bounty and accomplished some Milestones – you’ve satisfied the requirements to challenge a Blacklist member. Following a creative animation introducing the member you’re up against, you will be faced with a number of races you’ll have to win in order to beat the member and take his/her position on the Blacklist. These races can be any of the types explained earlier. These aren’t very hard, and most of the time are slightly easier than the races you have to go through to get to them. Once you’ve beaten a Blacklist member, you are given 6 tokens of which you can choose 2. These tokens will get you a range of winnings – things like unique performance upgrades, visual upgrades, cash,

An effect that will simply blow you away is the sunset that’s sometimes visible – like any real sunset, it has to be seen to be appreciated. get out of jail free cards and even the pink slip that will get you the opponent’s car. In addition to parts for funkying up your car, progress through the Blacklist will unlock boroughs, sections of the map you couldn’t get to at the start. It’s pretty much the same concept that GTA uses, by unlocking new areas of the map. Once the new areas are unlocked, you will be able to race on tracks set out on these roads, and access shops located within the borough.

the shops and the cars NFSU2 had a rather annoying shop system, where you’d have to drive around looking for the shops you wanted. This little annoyance has been fixed in Most Wanted. Shops can be easily found via the in game map and each shop is stocked with everything you need. Only two types of shops will have to be accessed for all your needs – car shops and performance shops. Performance shops will allow you to upgrade your engine, transmission, suspension etc as well as add body kits and other visual upgrades. The whole process of modifying the visual appearance of your car has been toned down and is much less complicated now. Car shops are where you will go to buy new cars with money earned from races. Since upgrades from one car won’t be transferred to a new car you buy, a load of cash will have to be spent again. This makes the cash system a little more meaningful. Cars range from the usual mainstream vehicles to the more exotic. You won’t find Honda’s though, it’s possible that licensing was a problem since cars will be involved in police chases etc.

the visuals NFSU and U2 were both set during the nighttime Most Wanted brings the series into the daylight with everything taking place while the sun is high in the sky. The visuals in Most Wanted, overall, are outstanding. The cars are nicely detailed, and have an even more realistic look than the Underground series. The cartoon’ish look that U2 adopted is gone, and the screen is much more crisp and clear. Environments are nicely done and almost everything has a shadow now – even the trees on the sidewalk. Looking back and seeing cops through the motion blur when you’re speeding is a nice

sight, and is executed as expected. Weather effects are dynamic and always changing – the droplets dribbling on your screen when it rains is a pretty sight. Leaving a tunnel will realistically blind you with the glare – another wow’er of a moment. The roads look amazing as well, with the slightly reflective surface everyone’s used to. You will feel a slight sense of time when the shadows grow longer as the sun sets on the city. An effect that will simply blow you away is the sunset that’s sometimes visible – like any real sunset, it has to be seen to be appreciated. Since modeling damage on licensed cars is a tricky task, you won’t be able to wrap your Porsche around a lamppost. They have added a slight element of realism by making the windscreen shatter, and scratches appear when you decide to play pinball with your car. On the whole, Most Wanted looks amazing, and the developers have to be given a big pat on the back for taking U2 – a big disappointment graphics wise, and turning it into this awesome looking beast.

the sound Most Wanted lives up to the high quality sound effects set by the Underground series. Car engine sounds vary from the throaty muscle cars to the high pitched supercharged ones – all sounding excellent. The action packed chases sound great too, and you will hear the engines of cops on your tail when they’re about to rear end you, or the squeal of tires and metal when you manage to sideswipe a cop. Bassy grumbles of thunder leave you looking out the window expecting to see rain. The soundtrack has its usual set of rock music for the action on the road and hip hop for the menu screens – all enjoyable for a broad range of players. If you bought a 5.1 sound system solely for experiencing Most Wanted, you won’t be disappointed. Need For Speed Most Wanted puts together everything that was good and loved in prior NFS games into one thrilling, fast paced and beautiful compilation that should give everyone long hours of break neck game play. Here’s hoping Most Wanted 2 will build on this concept and allow us to get behind the wheel of one of those police corvettes.

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O

n December 10th 1993, id Software launched Doom, a FPS (First Person Shooter) that instantly became the hallmark of computer gaming. With over 15 million copies downloaded and shared, it became the catalyst that changed the face of 3D gaming. Doom was the brainchild of John Carmack, a founding member of id Software. Carmack together with John Romero and his team were also responsible for the 1992 classic Wolfenstein 3-D; another id creation that set the standard of gaming at the time. Since ‘93, fans have blazed through Doom II – Hell on Earth, Quake, Quake II and most recently Quake III; games that have taken the standard of 3D gaming by the scruff of its neck and blown a rocket sized hole right through it. Whilst id sold the movie rights to Doom as far back as 1994-95, it was only in 2004 that Universal Studios got wise and moved Doom into production. Following the successful screen rendition of Resident Evil, Doom was heralded as a sure cash-cow, with more followers than any other game in existence. As with most adaptations, the pressures of creating a movie that satisfied both hard-core fan and regular movie-goer were evident. Fans, the more expressive of the two parties took their voice online; speculating, criticising and following

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the production of the film with rabid intent. A simple question remains. How good is Doom? First, let us clarify one important fact. This reviewer is not an over zealous Doom fanatic who has lived, breathed and gamed through every single episode of Doom and Quake. Sure, I’ve chain-sawed through some messy piles of un-dead in most Doom installments, but so has every other kid with a computer and a warped sense of humour. I’m not the pro who turned the boss monster in to road kill without breaking a sweat. I’m the guy who got stuck on the basement level of Quake and got tired of navigating the laser tripped floor. This is not such a bad thing. Too many reviews are penned by fans who, whilst possessing an admirable attention to detail, are provoked in to scathing criticism when the screen adaptation so much as sneezes in another direction. That said, I watched Hollywood’s rendition of Doom without the shackles of expertise weighing me down like a depleted BFG. The story follows the Rapid Response Tactical Squad - battle hardy Space Marines who answer the call of distress on the Union Aerospace Corporation’s remote research facility on Mars. With six scientists missing,

doom ba boom boom the movie

by king.pakse

our intrepid team of gun-ho specialists are assigned the dubious task of search and rescue. Needless to say, traditional mayhem and death follow as one by one, each member of the team (bar the really important characters of course) meets their grisly end at the claws of ghastly adversaries.

are highly predictable. There is no love story and the dog gets eaten; both excellent features by themselves. The Bad: Doom does not offer much by way of storyline. Sub-stories like Reaper’s violent past at the facility are left hanging in the air and no engaging relationships exist between any of the characters. This is disappointing, especially as the chemistry between Urban and Pike as estranged brother and sister could have provided some much needed material. There is also no background on any of the Marines; a pity as characters like the oddly religious ‘Goat’ are interesting and personal history would have injected them with a lot more appeal. Members of the girls-with-guns-rock family will also be disappointed; the only female lead here busies herself between the tasks of running and screaming.

Cast: Marine leader ‘Sarge’ is played by The Rock (The Scorpion King) who displays a grand total of two facial expressions throughout the entire movie. One: I’m a bad-ass and two: I’m a ticked off bad-ass. Karl Urban (Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Riddick) does a far better job as Marine Reaper and carries the single noteworthy performance of the film. The female lead is played by Rosamund Pike (Die Another Day, Pride & Prejudice) who is shamefully wasted in her role as Reaper’s sister and researcher at the facility. Pike is given very little to work with in the weak role of Samantha Grimm who, whilst continuously wearing a starry-eyed expression is constant- The Rock displays a grand total of two facial exly bossed around by the Alpha Males. pressions throughout the entire movie. One:

I’m a bad-ass and two: I’m a ticked off bad-ass

The Good: Doom is at its core a great action flick. With the usual opposition of flesheating uglies to mutilate, it is easy to shout ‘Hoo-ha!’ and get behind the rump-battering Marines. The visuals are excellent and though somewhat lacking in the blood and gore department (for hardcore fans at least) the action scenes flip effortlessly between suspenseful and fast-paced. The first person shooter view that pops up in the latter stages of the movie is simply beautiful; guaranteed to tug at the heart strings of any gamer that has ever played a FPS. The five minutes of carnage I witnessed through the battle-raged eyes of Reaper made me smile like a little girl. References to the game are mild throughout the movie but definitive scenes (like when Sarge picks up his first BFG) make the wait worthwhile. Twists in the loosely strung plot are unexpected and refreshing; considering that, as in the case of most offerings of this genre, most events

The Ugly: The biggest let-down by far is the soundtrack. While the suspense and action sequences are great, a tame soundtrack fails to add that vital element of ambience. A shame considering that most action sequences are excellent. Stranger still, as id has constantly collaborated with bands like The Nine Inch Nails to provide some killer tunes for their games. Verdict: Go watch Doom. Just don’t watch it for a compelling story or as a faithful ode to the game. Doom delivers old-school action, warmly coated with testosterone and blood. Mindlessly violent but with the right attitude, thoroughly enjoyable. Sounds a bit like the game doesn’t it? Just don’t tell the fans I said that.

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the fall of

by Raveen Wijayatilake

the drama

This system was not accepted by the ARIA or the presiding Judge, Justice Murray Wilcox even though it was believed to be the best solution. “Audible Magic sounds fantastic, but magic is often illusory” said Wilcox. Instead, a keyword filter is to be built into the Kazaa client with up to 3000 words being filtered, words pertaining to songs by Eminem, Madonna and Kylie Minogue being just a few. This neutering was to take place by the 5th of December 2005.

On September 5th 2005 an Australian court ruled in favor of the ARIA and against Sharman Networks, who acquired Kazaa in 2002. Sharman Networks was ordered to pay 90% of ARIA’s legal bills. This, however, proved to be the least of their troubles – the Kazaa software was ordered to be modified so as to prevent users from engaging in copyright infringement. To abide by this, Sharman Networks proposed Audible Magic, a system which compared characteristics of an audio file available on the Fast Track network against a database of known files. If a file was recognized as copyrighted, the client would disable the download.

Then the ARIA messed up. A meeting between Sharman Networks and the ARIA’s technical people regarding the technology to be used in filtering out copyrighted content, which was ordered by Judge Wilcox was boycotted by the ARIA team. This gave Sharman a stay till February 2006 to implement the new filtering system. Come the 5th, Kazaa wasn’t touched, but the Kazaa homepage was adorned with some new decoration. No it wasn’t mistletoe, but big red letters informing Australian users that they are not allowed to download or use the Kazaa Media Desktop. Anyone with an Australian IP address, i.e. anyone accessing the website

Kazaa, once the one word answer to the question ‘machang, how do I download music?’ has started its slow transition to legitimacy. Caught in the legal net of the ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association) and ruled as a facilitator of online copyright infringement on a massive scale, Kazaa is the latest victim of the battle against online piracy.

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Pirate Legos by kafka4prez (flickr.com/photos/kafka4prez). Attribution-ShareAlike License

from Australia, was served a special page with just the warning message and nothing else. However, the Fast Track network is still freely accessible to Australian users. What this means is, if you want Kazaa bad enough, you can find an old version of the software, install it and connect. Those big red letters on their homepage can’t effectively stop users from downloading what they want off the network.

the future Sharman Networks has till February of 2006 to effectively put an end to copyright infringement by users of Kazaa. By this they mean, a new updated Kazaa client, filtered words included, should be made available on the Kazaa.com website and existing users strongly urged to update their Kazaa client. What effect will this have on file sharing? Considering Kazaa was dethroned from P2P client kingship sometime ago, and is avoided like the plague by most veteran filesharers, the takedown, or rather ‘neutering’ of Kazaa will be nothing but a small ripple in the wide ocean that file sharing has now be-

come. People will move on to better and faster clients and technology like LimeWire or BitTorrent. People, and, more importantly, technology will evolve.

what this really means This section will sting slightly for Kazaa fanboys (and girls), but please read and be enlightened. Most Kazaa users (big generalization here) have no idea what’s going on in the world of file sharing. And by this I mean, for them… p2p = Kazaa. This may have been somewhat true in the past, when Kazaa was immensely popular and you could actually download what you wanted without fear of having your speakers blown up by a fake audio file. Kazaa peaked in May 2003 with over 4.5 million simultaneous users on the Fast Track network. But with the spyware/adware and other garbage that eventually came bundled with Kazaa, and with over 50% of the files on the Fast Track network being fake or unusable, Kazaa soon found its way on to the p2p community’s blacklist. There were better clients to

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from downloading illegally. The idea was to frustrate p2p users to the extent that a paid (and legal) p2p system will seem like a good alternative.

use and Kazaa was soon forgotten. This was evident when the news of lawsuits against Sharman Networks reached the general p2p community – you could witness a lot of confusion with questions like “What? Kazaa is still alive?” In September 2005, the ARIA’s victory in court against Kazaa may seem like a huge blow to p2p file sharing… but is it? All they have managed to do is, take down an already weak and dying beast. People have moved on and are watching the scene from the safety of their newly adopted file sharing methods. This won’t stop file sharing – this can only be seen as a cleanup of a mess called Kazaa.

the beginning of the end - overpeer The new Good Charlotte single you put to download has just finished – you pop it into your media player. Wait, that isn’t Good Charlotte! Sounds a lot like death metal… no it isn’t that either. What you’ve downloaded is a fake audio file; something all of us have gone through at some point during our p2p lives. You’ve just been a victim of Overpeers’ content protection service. Overpeer is the anti-p2p arm of LoudEye, a company that makes music available online. Their job is corrupting music, video and games and flooding p2p networks in an effort to drive file sharers crazy. Their efforts started off in 2002, being hired by various music, video and game development companies to deter p2p users

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Let’s get a little technical here. To protect networks from corrupt files, p2p clients are adopting a hashing system where files are hashed and a hash code generated. Files on the network will have a unique hash code and thus will be identifiable. The Fast Track network implemented a hashing algorithm called UU Hash. UU Hash was able to quickly hash large files, but was not exactly the most difficult algorithm to spoof. The first 300 kilobytes of a file would be hashed using MD5 (Message-Digest algorithm 5) and a custom smallhash function would be applied to 300Kb chunks throughout the file and the last 300Kb’s of the file. Since the whole file is not hashed, it is relatively simple to cut out or edit large portions of the file without having the final unique hash altered. This was Fast Track’s weak point, and Overpeer’s chance to infiltrate and inject garbage files into the network. This effort to mess up the Fast Track network was outstandingly successful, as most of us have found out first hand. Two years on and the Fast Track network was a desolate place for the music hungry file sharer. However, other networks were thriving. UU Hash was used only by the Fast Track network, and other networks had adopted much stronger hashing systems where the whole file would be hashed, instead of just parts. This would be the main reason why Overpeer could not rear its ugly head in networks like Ares and Gnutella.

the death of overpeer With Overpeer’s success only being limited to the Fast Track network and the file sharing population evolving and growing steadily, the system became pretty much useless. Losing a client didn’t help either, and Overpeer started generating losses, becoming a burdensome limb in the LoudEye co-operation. On 9th December 2005, LoudEye announced the death of Overpeer. A collective cheer from Kazaa users (the few of them who still survive) could be heard throughout the p2p community – not because the network might be usable, but because p2p had won against the big boys, again.

throwing light on the subject

  by Zafar Issadeen

I

n this tutorial we will shed ‘light’ on the illuminating aspects of 3D studio max. Fire up Max (now how did you know I would say that) and open a new project. Go to the teapot button as shown in fig 01 and click on it. Then, create the teapot in the centre of the screen as shown in fig 02. Play around with the segments in the right box preferably making it about 22. (Segments increase the number of polygons in the image thus finally increasing the quality of the vector on screen)Open up the lights panel as for the figure shown below. Create a directional light in the top view port and adjust it so that it looks like the view port below (fig 03, fig 04). You may have noticed that the teapot now looks different. Render it to see what kind of effect it creates. Next create a panel underneath the teapot from the primitives menu (fig 05). Go to the materials editor now. We are going to create

3ds max

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 /it-times/learn/3D

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material to allow us to understand the full effect of the lighting we are about to do. Select the Standard button (fig 06) and select Raytrace on the list there. Change the diffuse color (fig 07) and the reflection to white or the counter to 80. This controls how much the object reflects of the environment. White being everything reflected and black meaning all light is absorbed. Select the next material and add a bitmap preferably some concrete mapping to add to the effect. Click on the teapot and assign the material and then assign the concrete material to the plane. Render the image and see what the whole thing looks like (fig 08). Now to go to work on the lights. If you have noticed the lights are broken into two segments. The target and the direct target. Select the emitter that should bring up the properties in the right window. Make the projector map gradient and render the image. It now is a lot darker and has a more realistic look to it (fig 09). Next click cast shadows and render again (fig 10). Fiddle around with the multiplier and change the di-

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rectional parameter of the light to rectangular (fig 11). Next change the light to a white-red with the following RGB values (fig 12). Finally reduce the hotspot value of the light to the following values. This softens the light around giving it a softer look (fig 13). Now render the image. It should look something like this. This should give you a primer into the working of lights (fig 14). Mail any comments to [email protected].

14

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 11

12

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13

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tu un ub

ux lin

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BASH

‘Typewriter’ by aprillynn77 (flickr.com/photos/aprillynn77). Attribution License

the man is your friend by Mahangu Weerasinghe

Hello, and welcome to our promised episode of Bash. What is Bash? It’s a Unix shell written by the GNU Project (http://www.gnu.org). It’s also a pun (who would have guessed!) on the Bourne shell, a popular early Unix shell environment. Bash stands for Bourne Again Shell. Har har, funny, I know. So what does all this mean in plain English? Bash is like MS-DOS for Linux. Except for that fact that it does far, far more. Whereas DOS is like a much smaller subset of Windows, the GUI in Ubuntu (and other Linux distributions) is merely a layer running on top of Bash. Try and imagine it as the very foundation of your Operating System. Bash is the meat and potatoes of your machine. Now, let’s learn to eat it. In your default 5.10 (Breezy) installation, go to Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal. You should end up with a little white box. Pretty plain huh? Not exciting? Pa-

tience young grasshopper, patience. Look a little closer now. You will see some text that resembles this: mahangu@arwen:~$ What does that mean? Well, the text before the @ symbol (mahangu) is my Ubuntu logon / username. What’s the part after it (arwen)? That’s my hostname, or the name of my computer. Yours can be anything, but on a network it will generally identify your location (like, kitchen-computer or lab101). You set a hostname for your machine during the installation remember? Well, this is where you see it. Yes, my hostname is named after a hot female elf, now shut up about it. OK, but what does the :~ mean? Well currently that shows that you are in your username’s home directory. We’ll watch how that changes as we move along. Now let’s get down to actual commands.

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lists, lists, lists

sudo cp irc.connect /var/www/

Remember the dir command in DOS? Well let’s meet his big brother. The ls command lists directory contents. It’s as simple as that. Try it in your shell, and you should the contents of your home (/home/username/) directory. See nothing? Well that’s because you haven’t saved anything there. :)

In this case, I’m copying the file irc.connect (which I use to run some scripts upon connecting to Internet Relay Chat), to my /var/www/ folder, which is what my web server shows when someone accesses my IP via HTTP. In other words, I want to share that file with a friend, and copied it to my webserver via one simple command. Cool huh? And oh, why do I use sudo before the cp command? Let’s get to that in a moment.

Note : The dir command does exist in Bash, and the system descriptions of both ls and dir seem to be identical. However, by nature of habit (originating from technical reasons) most *nix junkies seem to prefer ls, and thus this author sticks to the more popular choice.

moving around So now you’re in your home directory. Great. But ow do you move around in the shell? We use a command called cd, which is short for change directory. Those of you old enough to have used DOS will remember this instantly. Well, here’s how to use it. Do a cd .. and you will move down one directory in the tree. Do a cd /path/to/somewhere/ and you will move to /path/to/somewhere/. The neat thing about this is that, unlike the GUI environment, you can move to any directory on your filesystem by just typing out one line. On the other hand, simply do a cd (no flags or options) and it will take you back to your home directory. I find this feature handy when I’m knee deep in some other part of the drive and just want to quickly jump back to my personal files.

letting them files know where it’s at Files, files everywhere but can’t do a thing? Well, let’s learn how. The commands which you’ll probably use most are the cp and mv commands. That’s right – copy and move! :) The syntax goes something like this: The line cp filename.ext filename2.ext will copy filename.ext to filename2.ext in the same directory. In the same way, the command mv filename.ext filename2.ext will move filename.ext to filename2.ext. The difference in the move command is that the original file will not be kept, it will be moved. Pretty easy huh? Consider this example:

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However, there are times when files will really get on your nerves. What do you do then? Remove them of course! When you’re in such a mood, the rm command is your friend. Use rm filename.ext to remove a file and rm -r dir to remove a directory. Be warned though, files removed via rm do not go to the trashcan. They’re sent straight to that big filesystem in the sky.

sudo No, Sudo is not a detergent or window cleaner. It’s a cool new way of doing things which Ubuntu has adopted. Back in the old days of Command Line Interfaces, you would have to login as a superuser or root to do many tasks. For example, in copying my file in the instance above, I needed superuser privileges to access the /var/www/ directory. Usually, that would mean I would have to login as a su or superuser. Although this is kinda cool, and does give you a certain feeling of power, it’s also dangerous, since executing commands as a superuser can lead to changing system settings (often for worse). So Ubuntu, by default uses the sudo model (which is available on other distributions as well) to do things. As the man page (more on this later) for sudo describes it, sudo allows a permitted user to execute a command as the superuser or another user. Basically, you can run a command as a superuser or root while still being logged in under your own username. This is a feature which the Ubuntu community likes to call damage control – you’re less likely to cause permanent damage to your system because the use of sudo invariably makes you stop and think twice.

the man One of the coolest things about a Linux shell is the built in help for (almost) every command. Can’t remember how to use rm, or what options cp, allows? That’s alright, you can get help right there in the CLI. Do man command (for example, man cp) and you will be presented with more documentation that you will ever find good use for. Scroll up and down, find what you need, and then hit q to go back to the shell. There, that was really easy, wasn’t it? Does the Man know everything? Well, almost everything. I (and millions of geeks over the years) have tried man woman and sadly Bash just gives me no manual entry for woman. Damn, that would have made things a whole lot easier.

take the red pill

Hit CTRL+ALT+F1. Welcome to the real console. All this time you were in an emulation, an illusion. This is the real thing. Log in and you are good to go. You can hop back and forth between various screens by using the keys ALT+F2 through F6. That’s right, six terminals! Just think about the endless possibilities. So, I here you ask, am I stuck in here forever? Nope. ALT+F7 takes you straight back to the familiar world of your GUI. Be warned though, once you get used to the power and flexibility of the CLI, you may just find yourself using your window manager less and less. So there you go, grasshopper – you now have a basic understanding of the workings of the Bash shell. In a future issue we will discuss more advanced commands, and perhaps even a little Bash scripting. Sound like fun? Oh, you have no idea. Till then though, feel free to experiment, and remember – the Man is your friend. Till next time then, Happy Hacking!

‘Typograph’ by titanium22 (flickr.com/photos/nagarazoku). Attribution-ShareAlike License

Of course, I forgot to mention that what you were using until now was what they call a terminal emulator. That means, you were running a program that acted out a terminal session inside your Graphical User Interface. So, you ask, how do I get to the shell itself ? Well, remember I said that the GUI is just a layer that runs on top of the actual console? Right. So the console is basically underneath the hood. Come on, let’s pop it.

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‘Storage Facility 08’ and ‘37’ by sevensixfive (flickr.com/photos/sevensixfive). Attribution/Share-Alike License

T

he strength of ASP.NET 2.0 is its ability to utilize the data-binding architecture – the data source objects, which act as a dealer between data-bound controls and ADO.NET objects. These data source objects promote a slightly different programming model, providing new features. Back in the day, you would have used a DataGrid control for data-reporting purposes, which is still supported but has been succeeded by the GridView.

What we are going to do though, is show you the GridView event model. Now you might be wondering why you need to know this, when you have this glorious little component that does everything short of shining your shoes. Most people feel the same way when starting off, but what happens when your business logic becomes a little more complicated and the simplicity of the GridView just doesn’t cut it any more? We came across some such scenarios -

With ASP.NET 1.x’s DataGrid, editing data requires three event handlers and about a dozen lines of code. In order to make your life easier, the GridView in ASP. NET 2.0 allows you to create an editable GridView without having to write a single line of code. All the necessary functionality for editing, deleting, paging and sorting is encapsulated within the GridView.

○ When the GridView enters edit mode, certain buttons and panels need to be disabled. ○ Display only specific fields in the GridView so that on an edit click the user is directed to another page containing a DetailsView. ○ Before the GridView is updated, certain user input needs to be validated. This can of course be done using a combination of built-in .NET validation components and template fields in the case of simple null or range checks. However, more complex validation will require customised routines.

However, we’re not here to flaunt the merits of the GridView, or show you how to use it. There are already some very helpful MSDN articles to that effect available on the Internet.

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t do NE T

GridView Exposé This article was contributed by the Research and Innovation Center of APIIT Sri Lanka. APIIT is a tertiary education institution affiliated to Staffordshire University UK. It has over 500 enrolled students reading for Honors Degrees in Computing, Software Engineering, Internet Technologies, Multimedia, Business Information Technology and Business Administration. The Research and Innovation Center is committed to the fostering and sharing of computing research within Sri Lanka.

So how do you get the GridView to do what you want? Well, we poked and prodded it until it agreed to do our bidding. Basically, you can customize the functionality of the GridView control by handling events. The GridView provides several events, which you can program to run a customized routine. Table 1 lists some of the events supported by the GridView control. The full table can be found on MSDN. Event

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assign a method to an event

In order to make the GridView respond to certain events, your custom methods need to be specified in the .aspx portion of the form [Code Snippet 1, next page]. For example, OnRowEditing is the event and GridView2_OnRowEditing is the method, which is written in the code behind (.cs or .vb portion).

Occurence and Description

RowCancelingEdit

When a rows Cancel button is clicked, but before the GridView control exits edit mode. Often used to stop the canceling operation.

RowDeleted

When a row’s Delete button is clicked, but after the GridView control deletes the record from the data source. Often used to check the results of the delete operation.

RowDeleting

When a row’s Delete button is clicked, but before the GridView control deletes the record from the data source. Often used to cancel the deleting operation.

RowEditing

When a row’s Edit button is clicked, but before the GridView control enters edit mode. Often used to cancel the editing operation.

RowUpdated

When a row’s Update button is clicked, but after the GridView control updates the row. Often used to check the results of the update.

RowUpdating

When a row’s Update button is clicked, but before the GridView control updates the row. Often used to cancel the updating operation.

SelectedIndexChanged

When a row’s Select button is clicked, but after the GridView control handles the select operation. Often used to perform a task after a row is selected in the control.

SelectedIndexChanging

When a row’s Select button is clicked, but before the GridView control handles the select operation. Often used to cancel the selection.

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