Technology

CSSL National IT conference 2009

The National IT Conference organised by the Computer Society of Sri Lanka (CSSL) will be held on September 08 at Galadari Hotel Colombo. The theme of the conference is "Integration, Innovation and Impact of an e-enabled society".

This is the 27th National IT conference organised by the CSSL and is the main annual event of the CSSL said president CSSL Chrisantha Silva .

Keynote speakers of the conference are; Prof. K. K. Aggarwala, Vice chancellor of the Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi, India, Prof. Sead Muftic of the Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden and the research professor at the George Washington University, USA, Chris Levanes, Platform Strategy Lead, Microsoft Asia Pacific region, Sanjaya Karunasena, Chief Software Architect of the ICT Agency and Suren J. Amarasekara, CEO of Mobitel.

CSSL the main national organisation of the IT professionals in Sri Lanka plays a leading role in the promotion of IT across the country and improves professionalism among those in the IT field. setup in 1976 CSSL today has over 500 professional members, around 1000 associate members and a large number of student members.

NIIT partners Virtusa to introduce Enterprise Java program

NIIT a leading global talent development corporation, together with Virtusa Corporation (NASDAQ: VRTU), a global information technology (IT) services company, announced the launch of an enterprise Java specialist program, 'Head Start to Virtusa through NIIT', in order to enhance the quality of Java educational experience in Sri Lanka on par with industry standards.

The MoU was signed by Madu Ratnayake, General Manager Virtusa Corporation, Sri Lanka, and Subramaniam Muralidharen, COO, MMBL CyberSkills (Pvt) Ltd., NIIT's business partner in Sri Lanka. This partnership will provide state-of-the-industry education and expertise to the students. Madu Ratnayake, said.

The partnership will build industry-academia relationship and provide students a platform for gearing up to the challenges of the corporate world. Virtusa provides opportunities for graduates to work at the organization and enjoy the benefits of working in a professional and growth-oriented environment.

The objective of the program is to build capacity by creating an industry ready Java talent pool that will be ready for the enterprises which would help the industry to reward with the Java education system. 'Head Start to Virtusa with NIIT' will provide a foundation to IT graduates for their career as Java professionals. The program is industry application oriented and consists of the technologies used by enterprises coupled with an internship. The course duration will be three months followed by a three months internship at Virtusa Corporation. This is a great opportunity for students as they obtain the theory and the practical aspects in one program.

Subramaniam Muralidharen, COO MMBL CyberSkills (Pvt) Ltd., said, "NIIT, based on its deep understanding and expertise in IT training is pleased to be associated with Virtusa a global IT company enriched by its unique delivery methodology. We will continue to be involved in developing the curriculum to build talented Java professionals keeping with global trends and innovation facilitating the needs of the industry."

Students who have completed a B.Sc. in Computer Science, Computer Software Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Information Systems or any other degree related to IT, or a complimentary qualification such as BCS, DNIIT, Higher Diploma, BIT leading to a degree can enter this program.

'Exploding' iPhones investigated

An 80-year-old from the Paris suburbs was among eight people who said their phones' screens were affected, according to the AFP news agency.

Consumers in the UK, Holland and Sweden have reported similar problems, prompting an earlier EU investigation.

Apple said it was aware of the reports and was waiting to receive the handsets from the affected customers. The firm has been accused of trying to hush-up cases of iPhones and iPods heating up or bursting into flames in the US and the UK.

Ken Stanborough and his daughter, from Liverpool, have accused the firm of trying to silence them with a gagging order after the child's iPod exploded and the family sought a refund.

Apple reportedly offered to pay the money to Mr Stanborough, but only if he kept the terms of the settlement confidential.

It has been reported that the device's lithium ion batteries could be the source of the problem.

In the latest case, Rolland Caufman, a pensioner from a Paris suburb, said his iPhone screen had broken up without explanation in July, the week after he bought it.

"I took it out of my pocket and held it to my ear and saw the screen crack up like a car windscreen," he told AFP. Caufman has since been issued a replacement phone. However, there have been other, similar reports.

On Tuesday, a 26-year-old security guard claimed he was hit in the eye with a glass shard when his Iphone screen cracked up.

He has said he would seek a full refund and file suit for damages. The incidents have prompted investigations by French consumer affairs groups. "An investigation is under way. We have been alerted to the problem and we are looking into it closely," said a spokesman from watchdog DGCCRF.

The European Commission has also asked the 27 EU nations to keep it informed of any problems, under its Rapex scheme.

Rapex is the EU rapid alert system for dangerous consumer products.

The system issue alerts for multiple products every week, sometimes leading to mass product recalls, but often with no consequence.

Apple, which has sold 26 million iPhones and 200 million iPods to date, said it was aware of the reports.

"We are waiting to receive the iPhones from the customers," said Alan Hely, head of European Communications for Apple.

"Until we have the full details, we don't have anything further to add."

(Courtesy BBC)

Free Webinar demonstration on WSO2 ESB 2.1

Developers who are looking for ways to solve the application integration challenges within their Service-Oriented Architectures (SOAs) are invited to attend the WSO2 webinar, Enterprise Integration Made Easy with the WSO2 ESB. The free webinar will be held on Tuesday, September 1, from 9 a.m. - 10 a.m. (Pacific) (9.30 p.m.) Sri Lanka time It is an online event and to sign up, visit http://wso2.com.

SOA technology has freed IT developers from the headaches of hard-coding integration between individual applications. However, setting up the enterprise service bus (ESB) that connects and mediates SOA services still requires too much work. In a typical ESB deployment, it may take days or weeks and a lot of frustration to configure and integrate with other applications or SOA middleware products. Now componentized ESBs that comply with the OSGi specification are removing this last mile of enterprise integration complexity.

The WSO2 webinar will provide an overview of how the WSO2 Enterprise Service Bus (WSO2 ESB) through its OSGi-compliant architecture and its provisioning model enable IT professionals to seamlessly add or remove components and custom features to an ESB deployment.

Attendees also will learn how the WSO2 ESBs business rules support, powered by Drools, enhances mediation and routing, as well as how the WSO2 ESB automatically protects enterprise integration development efforts by storing a configuration in the built-in registry. Other WSO2 ESB functionality to be covered includes streaming and non-blocking HTTP transport and other supported transports, interfaces and protocols, eventing support, scheduled tasks, and REST support.

Presenting will be Ruwan Linton, project manager and lead developer of the WSO2 ESB. Ruwan also is a contributor to the Apache Software Foundation Synapse open source ESB project.

The lightweight, 100-percent open source WSO2 ESB has become a popular choice for enterprise integration. Designed for the demands of high-volume SOAs, it can route messages with millisecond overhead and scale to manage thousands of simultaneous error-free connections on standard server hardware.

Versions 2.0 and higher of the WSO2 ESB are based on WSO2 Carbon, the first fully componentized SOA platform.

The ability to easily customize the WSO2 ESBs behaviour by plugging in extra components without disrupting existing flows and configuration eliminates the typical cost and complexity of enterprise integration.

Microsoft completes sales academy

Microsoft Sri Lanka completed its 2nd OEM Sales Academy recently, a program designed to enhance the skills of the sales personnel of Microsoft resellers. Sales personnel can achieve several levels of qualifications in the OEM Sales Academy program which recognizes their product knowledge and sales skills.

The Academy trains the participating sales personnel to reach the first level of the program `Sales Specialist' based on the skills they demonstrate and perform during the program. They then proceed to acquire qualifications to become 'Sales Professionals' and then `Sales Champions'. A total of 45 sales personnel have undergone the OEM Sales Academy training this year. Mohommed Sarooj is a participant of the 1st Microsoft OEM Sales Academy who was upgraded to `Sales Professional' level, recognising his achievements.