Introducing Open Path IT

I finally setup a company for myself. Yay for me! Don’t believe the hype just yet. Then again there isn’t much hype about it right now. I’ve been trying to drum up some interest over the holidays but it was harder than I thought.

I might be a bit late to the website-company party but I’m packing a whole lot of punch behind it. I have a pretty good team around me that lets me do this.

We are starting with Sri Lankan small business websites so we can give a more localized and personal service. We believe we have something unique to offer. Ya I’ll be using ‘we’ a lot but its mostly just me. ;)

A few people asked me. Why do websites? Isn’t everyone else doing it? Well ya but that’s something I know I can do well and its a simple enough business to start when you know a bunch of good designers, and they do all the work for you.

My general instinct is to stick to something unique and untouchable but in this case I’ve seen many cases where we can do a better job.

We don’t have a killer solution (not yet at least), to be honest we can only handle a handful of clients at a time. But I think our clients like that we are small and spend some 1 on 1 time with them and get things right.

I’ve been building websites off and on since 1996, it was Mosaic times back then and we were exited about getting HTML tables!

Its a whole new ball game now. We are come very far in Internet time. So bring it on! We are here to play.

Satellite TV Shootout

I got Dialog TV a few weeks ago. The sign up process was a breeze, maybe because I was already a mobile customer. They just asked for my contact details and took a copy of my id, and that was it.

I’m happy with the clarity and program information that comes with the digital signal. The only issue is when it starts to rain the signal goes away for a while.

I had a bad signal for Star World with Comet Cable but they never bothered to follow up my complaints or fix it. I was a comet subscriber for many years and I got tired of them dropping channels unannounced etc.

I’m hearing that Comet Cable will upgrade to digital, but I feel I will get a better service and more competitive prices from Dialog TV. So I’ve moved on.

Here are a few related sites worth watching about cable TV in Sri Lanka.

TV & Radio Sri Lanka
Comet Cable Forum
Dialog TV Forum
LBN Cable TV Forum

It’s In The Bag

I bought this environmentally friendly bad a few weeks ago at Arpico. It was like 75 bucks and I thought it was a good idea at the time. They happily put my stuff in the new eco bag and I was on my way.

The thing about an eco bag is your supposed to reuse it. So I took it back today. To my surprise I was told I can’t take the bag in. Their “leave your bags at the counter outside” policy contradicted with my quest to save the earth.

I explained to the security guy that they sold me the bad to spare the use of polythene and I was going to take it in. I even showed that it was empty and I was going to put the stuff I buy in it.

After 15 seconds of explaining and the other security guy at the exit telling this guy to let me go, he got off my case.

Arpico please brief your employees so I don’t have to.

I’m still pissed at the whole thing. I’m going to keep taking my bag back, that is if I feel like shopping there again. Because unlike your social responsibility show that you put on I care about where I live.

Chinese Delivery

There have been Chinese take out shops in my town for as long as I can remember. But none of them deliver. Few of the bigger joints like Chinese Dragon and Flower drum deliver but since they are a bit out of town it takes longer to deliver and they have some minimal amounts they will send.

So why don’t the little shops deliver? All it takes is a guy on a motorbike or 3 wheeler. If you can’t keep your own delivery guy just talk to a few guys in the local 3 wheeler stand and get it going.

In this age of copy paste business models you have to stay ahead of the other guy. Besides I really don’t want to drive up to the take out place today. :)

Update: Jade Maharagama delivers! 2839839