Story time. A few weeks back I was sitting in AMW’s garage waiting for an invoice for a repair on my car.
While I was sitting there, there was an old guy there in pant straps sitting next to me. I hadn’t seen pant straps in a while. That is probably the reason I even remember this story.
So this guy was also trying to pay for a repair as well but he hadn’t brought enough money. So he was saying he could give them a personal cheque but the cashier wouldn’t take those. Only cash or credit card she said. Then the old guy says “I was the governor of the central bank you know …” smiled and sat down.
In his day a personal cheque would have been good as gold.
Times have changed. I don’t think anyone in Sri Lanka now accepts personal cheques as payment for immediate goods. I mean you could pay a bill or something but you can’t take your goods until it becomes cash.
There is zero trust because people bounce cheques all the time. When one bank kicks you out there are a half a dozen more to take you in. When one company fails you just shut down and make another. There is no credibility, trust or honor in business or individuals.
When I’m looking to buy a long term product or service I wonder if that company will be there in 5 or 10 years to honor my guarantee.
Fix this if you want to move ahead and do ‘good business’.
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The state of Java and MySql are changing. In case you missed it. Sun bought MySql and Oracle bought Sun. I’ve been working on Java for over 10 years and MySql for over 5 now. I’m not happy with what is happening.
The Java and MySql websites have changed. On the mysql.com site there is no prominent link to get to the community edition. If you go to mysql.org to redirects to dev.mysql.com where you can find it.
This is not good for me or a country like Sri Lanka. Most of the solutions I’ve been involved over the years have used open source foundations. So we were able to deliver solutions to clients at a very reasonable cost. If things get too commercial I’m a afraid the licensing costs will far overtake the implementation costs.
I’m sure there will always be open source or free to use versions of Java and MySql, but with a large commercial entity backing them profit comes first then community. I don’t know I think its time to look at some alternatives.
Update: They got to VirtualBox too.
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Hope you enjoyed my moving to Australia posts, cause just after posting those I moved back to Sri Lanka. I won’t get into “moving back to Sri Lanka” cause its pretty painful and I’m sure no one will want to read it.
Why move back? Well although its a bit crappy here most of the time its home, and with the end of the war one can hope again. Here are a few first impressions of Sri Lanka for someone returning after a few years.
Driving has got worse and kind of easier. Before there were only a few idiots who drive bad, now everyone does, so you go with the flow and try not to hit anything.
Everything is more expensive. The quality of products are lower. A bar of soap has been carved in so many creative ways now its about half the weight at the old price.
There seems to be a few new local products trying to fill in the gaps of more expensive imports so that’s kicked off a bit of business.
Everyone seems to be doing more business than going to a 9 to 5 job.
2009 has been a decent year. I’m still working so I survived the recession. I thought coming down in time for the holidays would be a great idea, but this season was a bit damp and low-key. Not my kind of Christmas.
Most of the time I feel very few reads this. Since I got down I’ve spoken to a few people and it seems a few more do. So I’ll try to post a bit more often even if its not too technical.
By the way if anyone is hiring Java people drop me a line I know a decent J2ME developer looking for work.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Catch up and read part 1 of this guide where I’m documenting my experience of moving to Gold Coast Australia from Sri Lanka.
Now that you are settling in you need stuff for your place. eBay and IKEA are your friends. Also keep an eye out for weekend garage sales.
The Gold Coast City Council website has a ton of information about parks, markets, events etc.
When you get tired of popping burgers those markets come in handy to find curry leaves etc 
Also its much cheaper than supermarkets for fruits and veggies.
Daily needs is a great online shop for buying Sri Lankan food.
One critical thing I should have mentioned in the first post was getting a mobile phone. I recommend Virgin Mobile pre-paid. If you bought a GSM mobile from Sri Lanka just buy a SIM from almost any phone or news stand and top-up on the site.
Virgin Mobile is the only operator that will let you use all your bonus minutes to talk to Sri Lanka. Everyone else has a limit before the full cap amount.
If you are looking to buy a phone try All Phones. There are cheap pre-paid phones you can unlock later or just buy one outright.
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I moved to Aussie just over an year ago from Sri Lanka. Since then I’ve had quite a few Sri Lankans ask me about the move and other information about this place. I’ve tried to help them out where I can. I thought of sharing this information here so it might help out some newly migrating folks.
There was a very real-world blog post on Kottu sometime back about moving here and how it really was as opposed to what migration seems like from a Sri Lankan perspective. If you know about it please comment with the link and I’ll add it as a related post.
Here goes nothing, as with any advice take it with a pinch of salt. Some things are more relevant to the Gold Coast where I live.
Australia is definitely a good place to move to if you are planning to move somewhere. I’ve considered Canada and New Zealand and I think this was the better bet.
Continue reading ‘Moving to Australia – Part 1′
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