Cricket in Srilanka: Study on preparation of faster and bouncy pitches.

A report on a study carried out by the Department of Civil Engineering , University of Moratuwa on “Preparation of Faster & Bouncier Pitches using Local Soils” was handed over to Mr. D.S. de Silva, Chairman, Interim Committee for Sri Lanka Cricket at SLC headquarters on 21st July 2009. Sri Lanka as well as the Indian Sub-continent in general is home to slow and low pitches which tend to deteriorate quite quickly. As a result, our players often find it difficult to cope with faster and bouncier pitches found elsewhere in the world. The University of Moratuwa together with SLC undertook this ambitious project to modify local cricket pitches so that they could be made to be faster and bouncier in the hope of adding some variety to Sri Lankan pitches.

From L to R: Mr. Nishantha Ranatunga (Secretary, Interim Committee SLC), Dr. (Eng) Udeni P. Nawagamuwa, Mr. D.S. De Silva (Chairman, Interim Committee SLC), Mr. Anurudda Polonnowita (National Curator), Eng. Asitha Senanayake and Eng. Amila Silva

A report on a study carried out by the Department of Civil Engineering , University of Moratuwa on “Preparation of Faster & Bouncier Pitches using Local Soils” was handed over to Mr. D.S. de Silva, Chairman, Interim Committee for Sri Lanka Cricket at SLC headquarters on 21 st July 2009 .

Sri Lanka as well as the Indian Sub-continent in general is home to slow and low pitches which tend to deteriorate quite quickly. As a result, our players often find it difficult to cope with faster and bouncier pitches found elsewhere in the world. The University of Moratuwa together with SLC undertook this ambitious project to modify local cricket pitches so that they could be made to be faster and bouncier in the hope of adding some variety to Sri Lankan pitches. Soil data from Australia and England were obtained and compared to soils currently being used for the preparation pitches at the Test venues in the island. Soil samples were obtained from the grounds and cores were extracted from the main playing areas. These sample were then tested extensively and several key drawbacks were identified in the soils currently in use. This soil was then modified in labs at the University of Moratuwa and tested for performance using small scale models. The preliminary findings have been very encouraging and confirmed that local soils can be used to prepare such pitches. Further testing and research is scheduled to be carried out by the University of Moratuwa in order to produce a prototype.

he project team comprised of Eng. Asitha Senanayake, Eng. Amila Silva and Eng. Sanjeewa Dissanayake. The work was carried out under the supervision of Dr(Eng). Udeni P. Nawagamuwa of the Geotechnical Division. From the SLC, Mr. Anurudda Polonnowita (National Curator) and Mr. Janaka Sampath (Curator) liaised with the project team to provide access to grounds and provide expertise on pitch preparation.

Technorati Tags: sports,cricket,pitch,research

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IE8 tabs not working/sluggish/slow : Solution from Microsoft: KB 926449

I already wrote an article in my blog, about slow performance of IE8 tabs and mainly the slowness in opening a new tab, saying “Connecting” and then opening after a few seconds when you click on a new tab.

Internet Explorer 8 (IE8)! Open tabs faster

Well, that was a half a solution I found to be, as my tabs were still opening a little bit slower , but better than before. So I googled the net for a better solution and hola! I found a better solution , which is from Microsoft and it works really!

The credit goes to www.winmatrix.com

On a article about fixing the slowness of the tabs, there was a comment which suggested a solution which was from Microsoft themselves.

Procedure to Fix the problem:

ACTION PLAN:
Step 1:
Create a restore point.
* Click Start> All Programs> Accessories>System Tools> System Restore.
* In the "System Restore" box, click on "Create a restore point" and then click on "Next".
And then follow the on screen instructions.

Step 2:
Delete the temporary files.
* Click on start >Click on Run > type “prefetch” without quotes. Hit enter to open the prefect folder. Select all the files and delete them.
* Click on start >Click on Run > type “%temp%” without quotes. Hit enter to open the %temp% folder. Select all the files and delete them.

Well this step is important .

Step 3:
Reset the internet explorer settings.
* Open Internet Explorer > click Tools > Click Internet Options > under browsing click delete > Delete Cookies, Temporary Files, history and click close.
* Go to Internet option> Security>custom level>disable the smart scan filter.
* Open Content tab > Under Certificates > Click Clear SSL State > Click ok.
* Open connection tab and click on LAN settings. On the LAN properties window please make sure the options mentioned below are unchecked:
• automatically detect settings
• Use automatic configuration script
• Use a proxy server for your LAN.
* Open Advanced tab > under Browsing section > Uncheck Third Party Browser Extensions.
* Also under Advanced tab > under Security section > Uncheck option Enable memory protection to help mitigate online attacks.
* Under the advance tab go to the multimedia section and check all the boxes under it.
* Click Reset button at the bottom > click reset again and then close the small pop up box.
* Click on apply button and then click OK.
* Close internet explorer and reopen it and check for the issue.
You can also find these steps on our support website http://support.micro....com/kb/926449/ and the article is KB 926449.

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Technorati Tags: browser,ie8 tabs,slow,sluggish,microsoft

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Insert Image/Greeting/GIF/JPEG in Gmail

Many people might have faced the problem of inserting an image in gmail. There is no option by default, to insert an image. There is an option for attaching a file as attachment, but it will either show at the bottom of the mail or unless the receiver downloads the attachment.

BUT IF YOU WANT TO INSERT AN IMAGE LIKE A GREETING IN A GMAIL MAIL, IT IS VERY EASY.

All you have to do is ENABLE an option in Google Labs feature. Though its a Labs feature, it still worked fine. I sent a GIF animation greeting by this way and it worked good.

Procedure:

      Goto SETTINGS ---> Labs (OR) click the Labs icon as shown below.

      Next select INSERT IMAGES option in Google labs, which is almost at the bottom of the Labs.

      Next when you COMPOSE e-mail, you’ll see an icon for inserting images.

That’s it! Done. When you send the mail, the receipient will see the image in his mail.

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Technorati Tags: gmail,insert images

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Ownership and Google Adsense.

This post confirms my ownership of the site and that this site adheres to Google AdSense program policies and Terms and Conditions.

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Dual Boot WinXP SP3 and Ubuntu 9.04 (Linux )

The process of dual booting Windows OS like Vista, XP, 98 etc  is very easy, as the Windows bootloader itself takes care of the process. But if you want to dual boot any Linux and Windows, it’s a gruelling task. So, here is a how-to sheet for dual booting WinXP and Ubuntu 9.04 ( a flavour of Linux).

1. See how I installed WinXP and Ubuntu on different partitions.

2. First, partition your hard drive appropriately to suit the dual booting. There are many ways of partitioning, but the method I used has no problems. IMP: It’s always better to install XP first and then install Ubuntu later. If you’ve already created partitions after XP installation, just use Easeus Partition manager to create free space of 15gb for linux installation. Partitioning hard drive will help you , how to do it.

3.  I partitioned my 40 GB hard drive in  such a way  that, there is XP, XP – Programs, Linux-ext3, fat32, linux-swap partitions. I divided 40 GB as follows.

·         XP– 13 GB ( This is the primary partition, where I installed XP )

·         XP– Programs– 7 GB. ( This is where I install XP software)

·         Linux. ext3 – 10 gb.( ext3 is file journal system just like NTFS/FAT for Windows. This is also primary partition where I installed Ubuntu linux.)

·         fat32– 7 gb.( This is a common partition for both Windows and Linux to share. Linux can read from NTFS systems, but cannot write. So for to write, it has to be a fat32 system)

·         linux.swap– 2gb. (this is linux swap partition required for linux system usage– can be very small partition)

IMP: Once again, install WinXP first and then install Ubuntu. I hope you know how to install WinXP. So I’m assuming that you already installed WinXPsp3 on your system, according to the above configuration. Now get ready to install Ubuntu 9.04.

4. Download the Ubuntu latest version "Jaunty Jackelope", version 9.04 from here. http://www.ubuntu.com/

5. Go to this link and watch the video for partitioning and installing Ubuntu 9.04.

V.Imp: Remember to install the Grub bootloader to the linux partition itself ( not to the XP partition). DO NOT INSTALL GRUB in the Master Boot Record (MBR)!

6. After you finish installing Ubuntu and the Grub bootloader to the Linux partition itself, follow these steps to dual boot linux and xp. As a hint, the option for installing the Grub bootloader comes during Ubuntu installation somewhere in between, with the Advanced option.

7. Download SystemRescueCd. The latest stable version currently is 1.2.3 and is aprroximately 236 MB in size. You can directly download the latest stable version at this link. https://sourceforge.net/projects/systemrescuecd/files/sysresccd-x86/1.2.3/systemrescuecd-x86-1.2.3.iso/download. Also, you can go to the homepage Linux System Rescue CD and follow the download link on the sitemap. After downloading, burn the ISO to a CD using standard ISO conversion tools like Nero, gBurner etc. Make your BIOS to boot from CD and boot the System Rescue CD.

8. Use Linux system rescue CD, to mount the share partition i.e fat32 drive. You have to find the terminal for typing some commands, once you are in. The following commands will let you create the Ubuntu bootloader that can be used with XP.

---

# mkdir /mnt/share

# mount -t vfat /dev/sda7 /mnt/share

# dd if =/dev/sda6 of=/mnt/share/ubuntu.bin bs = 512 count=1

# ls -l /mnt/share

---

sda7 = fat32 partition name

sda6 = linux partition name.

You have to replace these names with your concerned device numberss. To know what are your drive names, use the QTParted to see the device number, or check any other tool which lets you see the drive numbers. Now, there should be a “ubuntu.bin” file on the fat32 or shared partition.

9. Now reboot to windows.

10. Copy the “ubuntu.bin” to the windows drive. For eg. If C:\ is where XP is installed, copy “ubuntu.bin” to C:\ drive. Edit the “boot.ini” file and add C:\ubuntu.bin = “Ubuntu 9.04” to allow the Bootloader to show Ubuntu in the boot options.

11. That’s it! Voila! You are now having WinXP and Ubuntu 9.04 options in your boot screen. If you still want a detailed explanation of the above and other solutions to your problems, check this article. Matthew J. Miller's Article

Technorati Tags: windows,xpsp3,ubuntu,dual boot,install,command

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