Unboxing ASUS U-75HA 750W Power Supply Unit

by Sameera 26. December 2008 23:16

Here you have it, pics of my new PSU. PSUs are hardly stuff to get excited over but, this one's an exception. Check out the review.

IMG_0742 IMG_0745

IMG_0748

Warning to Students/Researchers: HighBeam.com is a scam

by Sameera 13. December 2008 15:24

I have always been very careful as to which sites I trust with my credit card. But unfortunately, working under stress to complete an assignment for my MBA, I gave out my CC number in order to signup for a 7 day trial account for the seemingly legit HighBeam.com. There was one article which was interested in and the site was preventing me from reading the rest without a membership. So I signed up, read the article, had the membership around for 2-3 days till I completed the assignment. Then I went ahead and canceled it. First time I tried, the site stopped responding. So, I refreshed the page went ahead and clicked on the Cancel Account button again. This time the site, logged me off and returned me to the general articles page. So, I assumed everything was fine.

Just yesterday, my Credit Card company called me up and informed me that HighBeam has billed me $199. I immediately informed them to block any other transactions from the card and went ahead and checked the account. And sure enough the account was active. They have not canceled the account, nor had they sent any emails informing the end of trial period was coming up. Worse yet, I have not received a mail informing me of the money they charged me. I have dealt with many companies over the Internet and it's standard practice of each to send out clear messages informing you before they proceed with routine billing.

A section of their help reads 'If you are not able to successfully use the online tool, please contact our 24-hour toll-free customer support line at 1-800-860-9227.' So they run this 'trial' acknowledging their online cancellation is failing at times?? Isn't that exactly why they should be sending emails before they bill trial users?

Little bit of Googling suggested that I'm not the only person who's been ripped off by this dodgy company.

http://www.ripoffreport.com/searchresults.asp?q5=highbeam

http://www.ripoffreport.com/searchresults.asp?q5=highbeam.com

Codoxide Library | Updates and New Home

by Sameera 15. November 2008 21:08

I have made several updates to the Codoxide.Common Library and moved the project over to SourceForge.net.

The project's new home is codoxidelib.sourceforge.net and the new SVN repository is https://codoxidelib.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/codoxidelib/trunk

Codoxide.Common Library Version 0.0.1 (Concept Phase): Database Wrapper, Basic Design Patterns, Configuration Handlers

by Sameera 20. October 2008 11:18

Today I'm so excited to announce the first release of the Codoxide.Common Library. High Five! I haven't been over ambitious about the version numbering as I want you to treat this library to still be in concept stage.   Codoxide.Common Library Released

Unfortunately, this release had taken longer than expected cos of my newly cramped up schedule. Worst part of that is I'm posting this code without proper documentation (yep, excuses!). Nevertheless, there's plenty of code in here to prove useful to many. So here goes!

Features/Components

Patterns

  • SharedInstance<T>
  • Singleton<T>
  • Factory e.g. Factory.Build<T>()

Configuration

  • ConfigurationManager<T>
  • ConfigurationSectionBase

Data

  • Database<CONNECTION_TYPE, COMMAND_TYPE, ADAPTER_TYPE>
  • Map<T>

 

SharedInstance<T>

SharedInstance is actually the most basic type of generic Singleton implementation that's been around in the C# community. This implementation was both simple and efficient. But, it violated the definition of a Singleton by depending on the presence of a public constructor and thereby allowing additional instances to be created. Therefore, I have refrained from calling this a Singleton resorted to the term SharedInstance.

E.g:


SharedInstance<User>.Instance.Login("admin", "password");

User employee1 = new User();
employee1.Username = "emp001";
employee1.Password = "pass001";
employee1.Save();

Singleton<T>

More advanced implementation of the generic Singleton implementation. Uses reflection, custom attributes and "lazy initialization" to provide a powerful way to create and initialize your singletons.

E.g:


public class UserPreferences : IXmlSerializable, ISupportLazyInitialization
{
    ..

    public virtual void Initialize()
    {
        try
        {
            string location = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData) + "\\Codoxide\\preference.xml";
            if (File.Exists(location))
                using (XmlReader reader = XmlReader.Create(location))
                {
                    reader.ReadToFollowing("Preferences");
                    this.ReadXml(reader);
                    reader.ReadEndElement();
                }
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            throw new InvalidConfigurationException("Exception occurred while loading the preferences from disk", ex);
        }
    }
    ..
}

...

Console.WriteLine(Singleton<UserPreferences>.Instance.BackgroundColor);

Factory.Build<T>

This one's another powerful and unique implementation. Coolest feature of this class is that you can do something like the following:


using (IDatabase db = Factory.Build<IDatabase>())
{
    ..
}

This allows developers of class libraries to write their code using interfaces or abstract classes, leaving the library users to specify the concrete classes via configuration files.

Grab the Code

There's of course, plenty more to be documented regarding the library. And you can expect the project space to be updated in coming (err..) weeks Wink.

Until then, you can:

Check out the code (using SVN): https://codoxidelib.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/codoxidelib/trunk

Browse the project space: http://codoxidelib.sourceforge.net/

Move over HP TX! Dell is taking over!

by Sameera 26. September 2008 17:42

Two months after the second death of my HP TX1000 Crapilion Tablet PC, I'm have moved over to a Dell Inspiron 1720.

Dell-to-HP--You-suck

About Me

Sameera Perera

Sameera Perera

  • Solutions Architect
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This is a personal blog. The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in anyway.

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