Shaakunthala's Portal

Eleven years back, I started blogging at Blogger.com as a hobby, using our slow dial-up Internet connection. Facebook was so young at that time, and the latest emerging trend was called "Blogging". The new unfamiliar English word 'blogging' created so much desire to experiment with the new thing. My little write-ups didn't attract much, so I closed the blog in a couple of months. In 2008, I started over, but in my native language, Sinhalese. And in both cases, it wasn't THIS blog. :)


At that time, there was a significant lack of proper representation of Sinhalese language in the Internet. Unicode text standards had just emerged and there was a need of more and more content to signify the presence of our language. Sinhala Bloggers' Union, an alliance of enthusiast bloggers undertook part of promoting Sinhalese content with the fun and excitement of blogging, and soon became a top Internet trend in Sri Lanka. I restarted blogging with the support of SBU members in 2008, to keep up with this trend, share my self-learning experience and contribute to the good cause.

Today, if I look back, Sinhala Bloggers' mission is well accomplished. Our language is everywhere on the Internet, including many social media sites, instant messaging platforms, etc. At that time I dedicated my blog 100% to Sinhalese content because the trend and cause felt important. Soon I started this blog to write in English. And another to try out the concept of 'blog marathons' and microblogging (now taken over by Twitter). It was all experiment.

However, now, it has come to the point that I find no use of maintaining multiple websites. Keeping one site for 100% Sinhalese content is no longer needed because it's not the same today. So, I'm closing this blog today.

My writeups will continue in my Sinhala blog, which will become a bilingual blog thereafter. It was all fun and exciting experiment. Even closing a website and taking visitors to the new home gradually could also be an experiment. Occasionally, some of the old posts in this blog will be re-posted in the new location.

So, here's the home of all future write ups: http://blog.shaakunthala.com

I'm still just a hobbyist blogger with not that much time for blogging.

Adios! :)

This is going to be quite a short blog post. I bought an Android device. Well this is no big thing because it's been almost five years since the first release of Android. But I'm new to it. Still grabbing bits and pieces on how to use it.

I've been using several mobile devices time to time over the past few years. My first phone was a NEC-e1108 which was not good at all. Then used a Sony Ericsson K770i which was really a good phone. That phone made me a photogrpher. In 2011 I got a Nokia 5230 as a gift from a friend. Good thing with it was it had GPS. But when when my needs become more I wanted something that capable of much more things. That's why I bought my Galaxy Note II. Few years back it was the dream of mine to use a Linux capable phone. And now it's here.

As I said I'm still trying to grab bits and pieces on how to use Android. I've been able to experience several cool stuff. I'm writing this post using the S-Pen and using the Google's Blogger app. Handwriting recognition is pretty awesome.

A while ago I managed to setup Tor to work with Google Chrome browser. Most probably within next few months I'm planning to learn Android application development as well. No plans to root the device until The warranty expires, however I would love to hack this device.

And much more to try out such as USB OTG (On The Go). I'm going to try out mounting my one terabyte portable hard disk into the phone. And I hope it's going to open the door for much more cool and interesting stuff. :)

Cheers!
(This is just a blog post I wrote to try out Blogger app on Android)

Hello, again... after a long time this is not gonna be a junk post. As mentioned in the title, I'm giving you a pice of code that is very simple and you can modify it. Just copy-paste to your Google Blogger powered blog. If you are a geek, then you already know this. Others read read and read!

Just go to www.blogger.com/home and sign in. Then, under your blog's title, click on the Layout link. Then you'll get a visual page elements editor. Click on an Add a Gadget link, and then add a HTML/Javascript. Copy-paste the following code (you can modify it later) and then save.

<form action="/search" method="get">
<table>
<tr><td><input name="q" type="text"/></td></tr>
<tr><td><input value="Search" type="submit"/></td></tr>
</table>
</form>

Thank you for reading.