Challenges of Social Networking in Sri Lanka

This paper described the challenges of Social Networking(SN) in Sri Lanka. SN is a web-based community of people who share interests and activities in the new version of the World Wide Web, Web2.0. These websites often feature user-friendly interface allow users to do more than just retrieve information. Social networking has revolutionized the way we communicate and share information with one another in today’s society. Various social networking websites are being used by millions of people everyday on a regular basis and it now seems that social networking is a part of everyday life. Youtube, Blogs, WiKi, Hi5 and Facebook being the most widely used social-networking sites in Sri Lanka and others are Myspace, Flickr, Friendster, Bebo,LinkedIn, Twitter and Orkut.

Several of the issues around the use of social networking sites are important from a computer literacy standpoint, attitudes to this form of communication and political & economical backwards. One challenge is getting users to join new social networks when there are few other members. Universities, Schools, and Companies are concerned about the time wasted in managing social network profiles and less bandwidth of Internet connection in Sri Lanka, they have banned SN sites.

Almost four in 10 internet users in Sri Lanka who are members of social networking sites would change the personal information they have put online, according to research. The research also showed that almost half of internet users aged 14 to 35 who were members of social networking sites and 61% of all internet users were members of social networking sites such as Facebook, Hi5, WiKi and Blogs.

A preliminary measure of this research is that no-limitation of SN sites is needed. The bandwidth of the system is not enough for the amount of requests of using the Internet, a kind of Internet usage is needed. The broadband Internet facilities in Sri Lanka are sufficiently developing. The Universities in Sri Lanka currently have over 10Mbps Internet connectivity and about 60% high schools in Sri Lanka have the Internet facility. People’s engagement with SN, understand people’s use of sites and exploring the more technical aspects of SN sites is needed. We must give students the chance to process learning and as a result better understand the content and educating the community about SN.

 

GOM Player

GOM player is a freeware media player for Microsoft Windows. No need to install audio & video codecs. It supports most of the codecs like DivX, XviD, AVI, DAT, MPEG, WMV, OGG & many more.GOM player can also play .flv files. GOM enables users to view files with broken index, incomplete or that are still being downloaded.

We can customize player by creating our own skin, setting toggle keys, VMR modes, detailed resolution among others and we can specify margin, location, size, resolution, font of Subtitles.

We can take a screenshot of our video directly from GOM Player using the Screen capture & Burst Capture feature.

Advanced features

• Customize brightness, contrast and saturation
• Sharpen and add noise to our video
• Audio equalizer
• Repeat a section of video with A-B Repeat feature
• Fast forward/rewind a few seconds using left/right keys
• Zoom In/Out the video
• supports streaming Windows media format
• DVD-quality videos with 5.1 channel audio output
• Convenient Playlist

This is the link how you can get that player:

http://www.gomplayer.com

 

Download clips from YouTube like sites

The easy way to download Web videos from hundreds of YouTube-like sites. This works also for audio and picture galleries.

Download clips from YOUTUBE, DAILYMOTION, REDTUBE, YOUPORN & many more

Install Firefox & go to the website once again, and click Addons.

Look for the search text put on “youtube” then click Search.

We can choose many youtube addons on your mozilla, but i recommended you to use “DownloadHelper” because it can be used from many Website that contain any multimedia.

Just install the addons on your mozilla. Than restart the mozilla, just simply closed the mozilla and run it back again. Now you’re ready to download a video from a Youtube. Go to the website http://www.youtube.com then search and select your favorite movie clip.

Click on the 3 balloon icon (blue, yellow, red) beside the address navigation select the Youtube Icon than save it.

Remember the extension of the file is “flv“, you need a Adobe Flash Player, and FLV Player such as FLV Player 1.3.3 or Gom Player, or you can use Kazza Lite Video Codecs.

This is the link how you can get that player: http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/

Reference http://frozenade.wordpress.com/

 

Konnichiwa – My Japan Visit for ITHET July2007

Travelling to Japan was an amazing experience that I will always cherish. Ever since I was a youngster, I had always aspired to travel to Japan. I finally did it. The plane trip to Narita
Airport was so exhausting.

During our stay in Japan, we visited many places. Our first stop was Hitachi, and it is a stunning city that I will always remember. Flashing billboards, massive buildings nearly touching the sky and swarms of young people frantically hurrying through the streets.

Travelling to Kyushu via Hiroshima by Car was absolutely wonderful. over 1600 Km from Ibaraki to Kumamoto. It just went too hideously fast. Visiting Hiroshima was a monumental highlight for me. We went to the Hiroshima Dorm and that brought tears to my eyes. It was sad to see how such a horrific tragedy could cause so many deaths.

Kumamoto is the traditional city of Japan. During our time there, we viewed Kumamoto Castle, Suizenji Park and many old places. We took loads of photos and you can see it from my Flickr site.

Shopping was a major feature of Japan. We went crazy and did masses of shopping at Hitachi, Mito and Akihabara. I purchases i-pod at a very cheap price. Akihabara is a great place, & had awesome times.

A Japanese home is a wooden building that is raised slightly above the ground. Most Japanese homes are small, and the rooms are usually separated by moveable paper partitions called fusama that can be rearranged to change the size or shape of the room. When the outside screens are open, the gardens can be seen from every room in the house. Customs and traditions are very important in Japan. Upon entering a house or apartment it is customary to take off your shoes. At dinner families often kneel on cushions surrounding a low table. Most Japanese food is cooked on a small grill called a hibachi. The food is usually broiled, steamed, or fried. The basic Japanese menu consists of soup and three dishes, each cooked by a different method. Dessert is usually artistically cut fresh fruit. Chopsticks are used for picking up all food.

The homestay families and Youth hostels treated us well. We experienced exotic Japanese food. I ate the Raw Fish, Raw Horse,Wasabi and the mountains of White Rice offered to me. Singing ballads at the Karaoke was utterly bliss. I was so surprised at the singing talent within our group.
Japan is a truly special country. The people are affectionate, it is particularly clean and the transport system is efficient.

Thank you to Sri Lankan Airline for delaying flight, then we shifted to Hotel Nikko Narita for 12 hours, they provide Lunch & Dinner with classical music.