මොනවද HVD - Holographic Versatile Disc කියන්නේ?

HVD නැත්නම් Holographic Versatile Disc කියන්නේ CD, DVD, සහ Blu-ray වගේ optical digital data storing device එකක්. මේකත් holography තාක්ශණයට අනුකූලව read/write කියන දෙක මත පදනම් වෙලා තමයි තියෙන්නේ. අනිත් optical digital data storing device වර්ග වගේම දශකයකට දෙකකට කලින් හොයාගෙන තියෙන්නේ. ඒත් නිශ්පාදනයට යන වියදම වැඩි නිසා සහ ලිවීම/කියවීම යන ක්‍රියාවලියන් සංකීර්න වීම යන හේතු නිසා වැඩිය ජනප්‍රිය වෙලා නැහැ.
holographic memory එකකට පුලුවන් යම් වස්තුවක් තුළ ත්‍රිමාන විදිහට දත්ත ගබඩා කරන්න. අනිත් optical devices වල කරන්නේ bumps සහ pits රාශියකින් සමන්විත spiral track එකක තොරතුරු ගබඩා කිරීමයි. ඒ නිසා සාමාන්‍යයෙන් එතාමත් දිගු binary code string අපිට ඒවා වල දකින්න පුලුවන්. ඒත් HVD වල තොරතුරු ගබඩා වෙන්නේ මතුපිටක් මත නෙමෙයි. HVD වලට පුලුවන් දත්ත යම්කිසි තිමාන පරිමාවක් තුල ගබඩා කරන්න. ඒ නිසා HVD එකක Bluray එකක වගේ 20 ගුණයක් දත්ත ගබඩා කරන්න පුලුවන් වගේම සාමාන්‍ය DVD එකක් වගේ 40 ගුණයක් වේගයෙන් දත්ත හුවමාරු කරන්නත් පුලුවන්.
දැනට ප්‍රකාශයට පත්වෙලා තියෙන සඔඛ්‍යාත්මක දත්ත වලට අනුව පූර්ව ප්‍රමාණික HVD එකක ධාරිතාවය ටෙරා බයිට් 3.9 (3.9TB = 39,000GB) ක් පමණ සහ දත්ත හුවමාරු වේගය ගිගා බයිට් 1(1GB) ක් පමණ වෙනවා. දැනට HVD drives සහ HVD තැටි ටිකක් මිල වැඩි උනත් අනාගතයේදී මිල අඩු වේවි කියල බලාපොරොත්තු වෙන්න පුලුවන්. විශේෂයෙන්ම චීනය වගේ රටවල් වැඩේට බැස්සම. ඒ කෙසේ වෙතත් අනිවාර්යයෙන්ම HVD, disk storage කර්මාන්තයේ විශාල වෙනසක් ඉදිරියේදී නිසා බලාපොරොත්තු වෙන්න පුලුවන්.

ICT Applications in the Agriculture Industry

Information and communication technology is covering up most of human interactive areas and makes the life mush easier. We can see ICT applications from getting news to social networking.
But we can see that ICT applications are not mush into agriculture as much as it is bonded with other areas. Most of countries of the world are mainly depended on agriculture. And we can recognize Sri Lanka, our country as a country which has an agricultural economical system. But we don’t have much ICT interaction with our main economical factor.
When we consider ICT with agriculture we can see some main areas that we can mainly focus on. We can create a website where farmers and buyers can meet and discuss prices of their products. Farmers can put the price and amount they have and then buyers can bid on products and buy. These will really faster than the methods that we have now. And again this web site can be extended not only as an ebay but also where information about buyers and farmers can be added. And hosting a web site which contains all agricultural information in it will be also really helpful. And again we can develop a mobile back end application for farmers to inform via SMS about weather, right times to cultivate etc. And if we go more far we can use embedded systems to automate several parts of the cultivation process such as watering, fertilizing…etc.
So we can see that there are so many ways to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of agricultural industry by using information and communication technology. But there are obstacles. We can easily find software engineers to create ICT application regarding to agriculture. But lot farmers do not have ICT knowledge. In most countries we can see this as a common fact. In Sri Lanka we have this lack of knowledge and also the lack of infrastructure for ICT. For remote cities like Horowpathana there maybe not even internet available for people. And attitudes of people also matters in such big change. People may get afraid to interact with new technology.
Creating an ICT application is not a really big deal but the problem comes out when they try to distribute that application among farmers and other related personals. So the infrastructure for information and communication technology should be increased and the ICT literacy in the country also should be increased. So there should be special campaigns for targeted group of people.
If above requirements fulfilled and can establish a good ICT background for agricultural industry, it can be very easily developed. And it will make all processes faster and accurate than present scenario. In other hand more youngsters will be interested in agriculture than this context when agriculture is mixed up with new technology. So ICT application can be really benefitted for agricultural industry if they establish well and implement well.

Java - 4 - Ever

I saw this video on Facebook one of my friend has added it. It is really funny and gives something to think about.

Usage of Static in Java in SIMPLE

class A {
static int x = 100;
int y = 200;

void m1(){
//int Z; //this is wrong; a method local variable cannot be kept uninitialized.
int z = 300;
System.out.println(z);
}

static void m2(){
System.out.println("A");
}
public static void main(String[] args) {

A a = new A();

A b = null;//default value of object reference

System.out.println(a.x); //prints 100

System.out.println(a.y); //prints 200

a.m1();//prints 300

a.m2();//prints A

System.out.println(A.x);//prints 100 because int x is a static int

/*System.out.println(A.y);// compile error cannot referenced by the class name because its not static*/

/*A.m1();// compile error because it can not be referenced by the class name because its not static*/

A.m2(); //prints A

System.out.println(b.x);//prints 100

System.out.println(b.y);/*compies well but gives a run time error called nullObjectPointerException

* it also happens because y and m1() are not static. the reference of b is A*/

b.m1();//same as previous line

b.m2();//prints A

System.out.println(x);

// System.out.println(y);//compilation error

//m1();//compilation error

m2();//prints A

}

}


/*to understand this I recommend you to compile it and run then compare results with the code.:)*/

Creating Objects in Java

Here I'm going to show how to create objects in Java and how to use those objects with a simple Java code. The use of each line is described end of each line with comment(//).

class Family {

static String surname = "Mathiwes"; /* static variable so variable declarations(features) similar variable*/

double height; // instance variable

static void breathe() { // static method and methosds can be known as behaviors

System.out.println("Breathing");

}

void goToWork() { //instance method

double tempHeight = height + 0.1; // method local variable

}

public static void main(String[] args) {

Family father = new Family(); //Initialization of an Object

System.out.println(father.surname); //prints Silva

System.out.println(Family.surname); //prints Silva

System.out.println(father.height); //prints 0.0

father.height = 6.0; // variable initialization

System.out.println(father.height); //prints 6.0

father.breathe(); //method call and prints breathing

Family.breathe(); //method call and prints breathing

father.goToWork();//prints going to work

}

}

If you call a static variable or static method you can call it by the class name. But if you want to call a instance variable or method you have to create a an instance(means an object) of the class.

A simple Java code to understand Multy Dimensional Arrays

Here we create a three dimensional array and see how it stores values. Once you copy the code and compile it as a java code and run it you will have so many printed outputs on your command prompt. Then you can compare the printed lines with System.out.println(); lines of the code.


class TestArrays{

public static void main(String[] args){


int[][][] x = new int[3][][];
x[0] = new int[2][];
x[0][0] = new int[3];
x[0][0][0] = 10;
x[0][0][1] = 20;
x[0][0][2] = 30;
x[0][1] = new int[]{40, 50, 60, 70};
x[1] = new int[][]{{80}, {90, 100}};
x[2] = new int[1][];
int[] y = {110, 120, 130, 140, 150};
x[2][0] = y;
System.out.println(x[0].length);
System.out.println(x[1].length);
System.out.println(x[2].length);


System.out.println("");


System.out.println(x[0][0].length);
System.out.println(x[0][1].length);


System.out.println("");


System.out.println(x[0][0][0]);
System.out.println(x[0][0][1]);
System.out.println(x[0][0][2]);


System.out.println("");




System.out.println(x[0][1][0]);
System.out.println(x[0][1][1]);
System.out.println(x[0][1][2]);
System.out.println(x[0][1][3]);






System.out.println("");


System.out.println(x[1].length);
System.out.println(x[1][0].length);
System.out.println(x[1][1].length);


System.out.println("");


System.out.println(x[1][0][0]);
System.out.println(x[1][1][0]);
System.out.println(x[1][1][1]);


System.out.println("");


System.out.println(x[2].length);


System.out.println("");


System.out.println(x[2][0].length);


System.out.println("");


System.out.println(x[2][0][0]);
System.out.println(x[2][0][1]);
System.out.println(x[2][0][2]);
System.out.println(x[2][0][3]);
System.out.println(x[2][0][4]);


}
}

ඇයි Java Slow ?

සාමාන්‍යයෙන් කට්ටිය කියන දෙයක් තමයි ජාවා ටිකක් slow කියන එක. මම හිරු පිලිගත් ජාවා පොරක් වෙන්න ජාවා ඉගෙන ගත්ත රජිත සර් දවසක් කිව්වා "Java is a bullock cart against C or C++". එයා කියන විදිහට දැනට තියෙන programing languages අතරින් C වේගවත්ම programing language එකක් විදිහට සලකන්න පුලුවන් කියන එක. ඉතින් ඇයි ජාවා slow ? ඇත්තටම ජාවා slow ද? මටත් ඔය වගේ ප්‍රශ්ණ ගොඩක් ආවා. ඉතින් ටිකක් හොයල බලපුහාම කතාව ඇත්ත. ජාවා, C එක්ක බලනකොට slow තමයි. ඇයි? ඒකට හේතු ගොඩක් තියෙනවා.

ජාවා වලින් ලියපු program එකක් පාවිච්චි කරපු කෙනෙක්ට හරි ජවා වලින් programing කරපු කෙනෙක්ට හරි ලේසියෙන් තේරුම් යන දෙයක් තමයි ජාවා slow කියන එක. හැබැයි ජාවා විතරක් දන්න කෙනෙක් කියයි වෙන දෙයක්.

හැබැයි ජාවා C හා සමානව speed එකක් ගන්න එක විශේෂිත අවස්තාවක් තියෙනවා. ඒ තමයි ඔක්කොම compilations එකම class එකක විතරක් තියෙන සහ පාවිච්චි කරල තියෙන ඔක්කොම data types ටික primitive data types වෙනවනම්. එ කියන්නෙ int වගේ data types.

ඒ කියන්නේ අපි ලියන ජාවා program එකේ objects පාවිච්ච් කරන්න ගත්ත ගමන් අපි ලියන program එක slow වෙනවා කියන එක. අපි බලමු ඒ ඇයි කියලා?

• හැම object එකක් වෙනුවෙන්ම ඉඩ heap එකේ වෙන් කිරීම. ජාවා වල int වගේ primitive data types සහ object references වලට ඉඩ වෙන් කරන්නේ stack එකේ. හැම object එකක් සදහාම ඉඩ වෙන් කරන්නේ heap එකේ. C++ වගේ languages වල විශාල objects වලට heap එකේ ඉඩ වෙන් කලත් ජාවා වල ලොකු කුඩා හැම object එකක්ම හැදෙන්නේ heap එකේ.
• casts ගොඩක් පාවිච්චි වීම.
• ජාවා වල තියෙන garbage collector එකට memory use වීම.
• ජාවා වල objects විශාල වීම.

මේ වගේ හේතු ගණනාවක්ම තියෙනවා ජාවා ටිකක් slow වෙන්න. Java අනිත් programing languages වලින් හොද වෙන්න හේතු වෙන post එකක ලියන්නම්.

Ubuntu 9.10 and HP Pavilion Sound Problem

If you search my old posts you will find that I have added a post describing how to fix sound on HP Pavilion Laptop because there was a sound problem in Ubuntu 9.04 and older versions. But when they come to the 9.10 they have prevented that problem ane when you install Ubuntu 9.10 your Pavlion Laptop is ready with sound.

Toyota's Vehicle Order Management System

Toyota Motor Corporation

Toyota is a multinational company known as the world’s largest and best auto maker and Toyota employs approximately 320,808 people worldwide. Toyota is headquartered in Tokyo city of Japan. In addition manufacturing automobiles to, Toyota provides financial services through its division Toyota Financial Services and also builds robots. Toyota Motor Corporation (including Toyota Financial Services) and Toyota Industries form the bulk of the Toyota Group. Toyota owns and operates Lexus and Scion brands and has a majority of shareholdings in of Daihatsu and Hino Motors, and minority shareholdings in Fuji Heavy Industries, Isuzu Motors, Yamaha Motors, and Mitsubishi Aircraft Corporation. The company has all around 522 subsidiaries.

Toyota has selling over 9 million vehicles in year 2006. The quality and reliability of Toyota vehicles are very good and Toyota holds the gold standard of vehicle quality and reliability in the industry. Hence Toyota has made a very good image about the company and Toyota holds very high rate of customer loyalty. Toyota has become the leader of the auto maker of the industry because it has been so skillful at combining quality of the product with efficiency. One main reason for Toyota’s success is its famous Toyota Production System, which based on lean production- eliminating waste while optimizing value. Toyota always mainly aims some principles like just-in-time-delivery, quality, and continuous improvement on their business processes in information systems.

Toyota Motor Europe and other Toyota divisions around the world use information systems to help their business processes. When they product vehicles they use actual customer orders, so the company only products cars that customer demands.

Toyota considers IT as an important and compulsive tool. As Ludo Vandervelden, vice president of Finance and Accounting, Information Systems, and Vehicle Logistics for Toyota Motor Europe says, “You cannot deal with the complexity or the number of product models that we have on the European market—with so many different spec codes and different pricing levels without having an appropriate IT system”.

Vehicle Order Management System

Toyota Motor Europe uses this vehicle order management system which based on Oracle E-Business Suite software. Toyota Motor Europe uses this vehicle order management system to reduce the time that it takes between placing a customer order for a vehicle and delivering the vehicle to the customer. This software integrates with Toyota company’s existing systems so easily. And they also sought to reduce errors resulting from inaccurate creation of data in the planning or ordering processes by using this system.

Toyota Motor Europe's Oracle-based vehicle order management system encompasses several business processes. It all starts with the customer selecting a car and various options, such as tinted windows, air conditioning, and a navigation system. The dealer uses the system to configure a car with all of the selected options by customer in front of the customer, prices the car and options, and locates the best available car and options in the Toyota supply chain, including vehicle scheduled for future production. Then the dealer uses the system to place the order through the national distributors. The national distributor is who consolidate the order with those of their other retailers and, in turn, place an order through Toyota Motor Europe. Toyota Motor Europe consolidates orders from the national distributors and places an order with Toyota factories. The national distributors can also manage their supply chain against the orders of different dealers. For example, "swap” cars with their various retailers.

Then each car is shipped and invoiced from the factory to headquarters, headquarters to national distributors, and national distributors to retailers. And all accounting processes are automatically triggered at each step. This system also tracks the car and its history, throughout the entire lifecycle. And, it supports the monthly planning and forecasting cycle.

Advantages of using Vehicle Order Management System

Main advantages of using vehicle order management system reduce the time it took between placing a customer order and delivering the vehicle to that customer and Toyota was able to reduce production time and cost of maintaining materials and finished cars in inventory by using the vehicle order system. Through vehicle order management system Toyota was able to provide the customer actual product of what he demands. This increased the customer service and satisfaction (helped to have a high rate of customer loyalty). So dealers do not have to pay for making and storing vehicles that customer did not want. Information provided by the system helps management monitor trends and forecast demand and production requirements more accurately. And finally it helped to reduce errors resulting from inaccurate creation of data in the planning or ordering processes and overcome a big risk of ending up with a yard full of vehicles for which you have no customers with having an inaccurate planning or ordering process.

References:

1. Toyota from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota
2. “Ready to Roll” by Katheryn Potterf from http://www.oracle.com/oramag/profit/06-may/p26vander.html
3. Kenneth C. Laudon, Jane P. Laudon (2007). Management Information Systems: Managing the Digital Firm.10th ed, India: Dorling Kidersley Pvt.Ltd.
4. Oracle is the Information Company from http://www.oracle.com.au/ocom/groups/public/@ocompublic/documents/webcontent/018916.pdf

The Impact of Information Technology to the Social Solodarity of Modern Sri Lankan Society

We are living in 21^st century. In this era of Information technology every aspect of human life has some kind of connection to information technology. In 19^th century man wanted to go to the outer space of the earth but in 21^st century every man is seemed to be a prisoner in cyberspace.

Information technology is not a stream of knowledge or technical process that can be point out and defined easily. It can be defined hardly as a combination of computer and communications technologies that helps produce, manipulate, store, communicate, and/or disseminate information.Sri Lanka is also heading towards to the era of information technology. Although Sri Lanka is a developing county which has not very good rate of computer literacy; the contribution of Sri Lankan’s in cyberspace is fascinating.

Social solidarity is synonymous with social cohesion or social integration. And social solidarity refers to “the integration and degree or type of integration, manifest by a society or group”. (Collins Dictionary of Sociology; Page - 621).From society to society the definition for the social solidarity can be changed. In simple societies social solidarity means kinship and shared values. In more complex societies it base on various theories.

Sri Lanka is a country which has a very good social structure from the ancient time. Sri Lankan people are well known as a set of people who has very good integration. Hence the Sri Lankan society has very good social solidarity.

But with this impact of Information Technology the beat of Sri Lankan society had was bit changed in past few years. Information technology has impacted on Sri Lankan society’s social solidarity in both good and bad ways.

The main fact of information technology that effects on every society in the world is Internet. Internet is a huge collection of networks that has linked with everything which man interacts with. It has made both good and bad effects on the social solidarity of Sri Lankan society.

The latest tendency of internet is social networking through online. There are so many social networks available in cyberspace such as Face book, Hi5, Friendster, MySpace…etc. Lot of Sri Lankans use these social networking web sites. As an example Face book has the 3^rd rank of Sri Lanka’s most visited website list (source: http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/LK). Through this kind of web sites, users can interact with his friends, relations and with many groups easily. This can effort to the strength of the social solidarity but at the same time this will make social ties online things rather than things that the person feels as real things.

Blogging is also a good concept of sharing ideas and making good conversations among people. These web services help people to find out people who match his/her ideas and make good conversations.

And using mailing functions users can spread their ideas and requests all around the world in seconds. So the person can interact with people around the world just sitting on a chair.

In contemporary Sri Lanka the Television is also a well known thing in Information Technology. Some television programs do a great service to by helping to buildup and maintain a good social solidarity in the society.

Not only in good ways but also in bad ways the Information Technology affect the social solidarity.

Although the internet has become a vast advantage to the mankind it makes so many bad impacts towards the social solidarity. As an Asian country Sri Lanka still maintain their values inside the social solidarity. In the internet we can find out so many bad websites and other stuffs. These things can lead the social solidarity to ruin.

Teenagers who have computers at home run to the home as soon as he gets rid of school or tusion class and turn on the computer. In this way he/she is losing time of playing and making good connections with friends. And E-mail chains that we receive several a day can also contain misleading information and give a bad picture about the society and people. If a child grows up with holding his fingers on a key board most of the time he is building his ideals through things he see in the screen. If he sees a man or a woman in a pornography movie somehow those scenes may affect his ideals. This can make a man isolated.

Although the social networks like Face Book, MySpace….etc create relationships in the society. This can lead someone to an unsuitable relationship. And in Sri Lanka a computer user can not interact with the majority of the country through computer. He gets to know only about computer using crowds’ attitudes, ideas and visions. Through that a good social solidarity does not build up.

And in contemporary Sri Lanka it seems to be that ……..People are getting addicted to the television and tele dramas. When a person get use to live with these things he/she buildup a world around them for themselves. When a mother of a family gets addicted to this we can see clearly how social solidarity gets affected by the Information technology. If mother get use to such things the communication in the family get stop. This can lead the social solidarity to a distraction.

By considering all above mentioned facts we could come to the conclusion that Information Technology brings benefits to the social solidarity as well as it harms it. As a country with a great reputation for its cultural and sociological values we should be able to maintain those values. As the members of this society it’s our responsibility to maintain the social solidarity at a higher level by working with Information Technology.

Sources:

1. Wikipeadia