Wednesday, January 01, 2020
Swarna Swara 2019 Adelaide Australia (ස්චර්ණ ස්චර 2019 ඇඩිලේඩ් ඔස්ටේලියාව)
Tuesday, December 17, 2019
Denuwara Manike Train - Sri Lanka (දෙනුවර මැණිකේ දුම්රිය - ශ්රී ලංකාව)
Train consists of 2 Air Conditioned first class compartments with adjustable seats, adjustable arm rests, individual tables, television screens, audio jack ports, foot rests, cup holders, seat back pockets, 240 volts power outlets for some seats. 2 second class compartments with adjustable seats, adjustable arm rests, individual tables, foot rests, cup holders, seat back pockets, openable windows, 3 third class compartments, a restaurant car with disabled toilet facilities and 2 identical engines in the front and back with fully air conditioned driver and guard rooms. All compartments are having train information display screens, music, fans, luggage holders and toilets with sinks.
Denuwara Manike has a spacious disabled toilet in the restaurant compartment. Normally the door of this is locked and the restaurant staff got a key for this. It is having automatic door and hand rails for easy access. Good size sink and a mirror is also available. There is a small cubicle with a mirror and a sink near the disabled toilet for public use.
These types of trains are called DMUs which stands for Diesel Multiple Units. This S14 type powerset was manufactured by China Railway Rollingstock Corporation and was purchased for 1845 million rupees. Each of the two 11-cylinder engines can supply 1500 kilowatts to the train through AC – DC power transmission system and they are connected using the train’s electricity system. They are numbered as engine 971 and engine 972 by Sri Lanka railways department. In an engine failure, the train can reach its destination with one operating engine.
For the first time in Sri Lanka this train has a camera system and a Blackbox similar to aircraft Blackbox and records and stores all the operational data with the front camera view. The train information display screen, on this train is made out of LED panel which will display train running information in all 3 languages Sinhala, Tamil and English. It will display information such as train name, number, start and end station names, speed, next stopping station. Engines also got fuel tanks capable of storing 3500 litres of Diesel. Maximum possible speed of the train is 120 kilometres per hour. In the daily run between Colombo and Badulla it reaches 90 kilometres per hour in some sections of the route. To make the ride extra smooth, these carriages are fitted with air suspension system rather than the conventional suspension systems.
Train’s braking system is made by a German company named Knorr-Bremse, who are renowned for manufacturing reliable braking systems especially suited for hill country trains.
Since the train got 2 engines in the front and back, it doesn’t have an observation compartment.
Full route fair for first class is 1700 Sri Lankan rupees, second class is 1000 rupees and 700 rupees for third class. This train will only accept passengers who have booked tickets prior, so you cannot just buy a ticket from a railway station and get in. Tickets can be booked from most of the major railway stations like Colombo Fort, Maradhana, Badulla, Ella, Kandy, Hatton, Mathara, Galle, Anuradhapura, Jaffna. For more information visit Sri Lanka Railways website www.railway.gov.lk.
In the video you can see,
- Denuwara Manike train passing Uduwara reservoir.
- Train parked at Badulla station.
- Denuwara Manike going to Badulla yard to rest for the night.
- Train passing the famous nine arches bridge.
- Denuwara Manike passing the highest point in Sri Lanka railway line. This place is about 1898 metres or 6227 feet above mean sea level.
- Train passing iron bridges and tunnels.
Saturday, September 07, 2019
Kids Ride on Toy Car
Friday, July 19, 2019
Little Crystal Creek Falls, Crystal Creek, Queensland, Australia
Score out of 5 | |||
1 | Parking Availability | Adequate |
5
|
2 | Wheelchair Access | Main Viewpoint – No Secondary Viewpoint – No Picnic Areas – Yes |
1
|
3 | Accessibility | Easy walk till the bridge and then stairs, total walk for about 15 minutes from car park. |
3
|
4 | Facilities | Covered Sitting Areas – No Toilets – Yes Barbecue – Yes Garbage Bins – Yes |
4
|
5 | Scenery | Waterfall Stream Bridge |
3
|
Hope you will enjoy the video.
Map
Friday, July 12, 2019
CRM Exception message: Principal user (Id=GUID, type=8) is missing prvReadComplexControl privilege (Id=GUID)
Sunday, February 03, 2019
Unable to Enlist in the Transaction
I recently received an error while trying to run a SSIS package in Visual Studio. The full error is seen as below.
Error: The SSIS Runtime has failed to enlist the OLE DB connection in a distributed transaction with error 0x8004D024 "The transaction manager has disabled its support for remote/network transactions.".
This error is happening when a component with transactions try to connect and manipulate data on a remote server.
To avoid this error, two things can be done.
* Remove the transaction handling from the component. – This should be done only if the transactions are not required or as a temporary measure.
You can do this by selecting the properties of the component, also check the package properties to make sure transactions are not enabled at the package level.
For an explanation of the options please visit the URL.
* Configure the Distributed Transaction Coordinator (DTC).
For a component to work correctly with transactions, below two things are required.
1. Running Distributed Transaction Coordinator (DTC) Service
This service should be running on the database server the component connects to and on the machine where the package is running. This will coordinate the work between two machines / servers.
This can be checked and started by going to Windows Services.
2. Properly configuring the security of DTC.
To make the DTC service work properly, it should be given permission as required. This can be done by opening the Component Services window. In the component services window, navigate to Component Services –> Computers –> My Computer –> Distributed Transaction Coordinator. Right click Local DTC and click on Properties to open properties window.
If you are intending to run any workloads with transactions via any external servers you should enable “Network DTC Access”.
Depending on the situation you should allow Inbound, Outbound or both transaction manager communication options.
For complete list of explanations on each property please refer the following URL.
Tuesday, August 14, 2018
Enable Disk Clean-up
It seems in Windows Server latest versions the good old disk clean up tool is not enabled by default. If you just want it back you can run the below commands in a command prompt to copy the required files.
Copy C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_none_c9392808773cd7da\cleanmgr.exe C:\Windows\System32\
Copy C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-cleanmgr.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_en-us_b9cb6194b257cc63\cleanmgr.exe.mui C:\Windows\System32\en-US\
Then create a shortcut pointing to the Disk Clean up tool found in the following path.
C:\Windows\System32\CleanMgr.exe
I did try this on Windows Server 2008 R2 and hope it works as it is or with slight changes on other versions of Windows as well.
Thursday, February 15, 2018
Filtering Results of a Stored Procedure
Recently I needed to filter the results of a Stored Procedure, After some searching I found 2 options for this as below.
1. Using OpenRowSet Command
SELECT * FROM OPENROWSET ('SQLOLEDB', 'Server=ServerName;TRUSTED_CONNECTION=YES;', 'EXEC sp_Who2')
Remember in this method this feature should be enabled in the server.
2. Using Temporary Tables.
-- Creating a temporary table.
CREATE TABLE #tblSPWho2
(SPId INT, Status NVARCHAR(200), LoginName NVARCHAR(200), HostName NVARCHAR(200), BlockedBy NVARCHAR(200), DBName NVARCHAR(200),
Command NVARCHAR(200), CPUTime BIGINT, DiskIO BIGINT, LastBatch NVARCHAR(200), ProgramName NVARCHAR(200), SPId2 INT, RequestId NVARCHAR(200))
-- Inserting the results of the Stored Procedure into the temporary table.
INSERT INTO #tblSPWho2
EXEC sp_Who2
-- Doing the required filtering using the temporary table.
SELECT * FROM #tblSPWho2 WHERE LoginName = 'Domain\UserName'
-- Removing the temporary table.
DROP TABLE #tblSPWho2
SP_Who2 Stored Procedure will bring all the processes that is currently active in SQL server with the relevant information, the above query will filter the results and will only display the processes that are initiated by the given username (Domain\UserName).
Tuesday, December 05, 2017
It is an error to use a section registered as allowDefinition='MachineToApplication' beyond application level. This error can be caused by a virtual directory not being configured as an application in IIS.
Today a friend of mine started getting this error while he tried to deploy his solution to a server. This only started when ‘Precompile during publishing’ option is selected.
“Error 20 It is an error to use a section registered as allowDefinition='MachineToApplication' beyond application level. This error can be caused by a virtual directory not being configured as an application in IIS.”
After having a look, I identified this was caused by a temporary copy of a Web.Config file. Earlier developer created a copy of the Web.Config and placed it inside a folder named Backup within the solution. This backup config file had authentication tag (<authentication>), which is a tag that can be only used in global Web.Config file or the Web.Config file in applications root. Due to the presence of authentication tag, compiler started complaining that there is a virtual directory not configured as a application in IIS.
The solution for my friend’s issue was to simply exclude the copy of the Web.Config file from project by right clicking the file. Then the project started deploying happily.
Tuesday, June 27, 2017
Cheap Direct Flights From Australia to Sri Lanka
Have you heard the good news that SriLankan Airlines is going to restart their direct flights to Australia. Yes it is true, SriLankan is going to start direct services between Sri Lanka and Australia from November 2017. They have decided to do this after acquiring brand new aircrafts from Airbus Industries. So when compared to other airlines, you will fly in more recently built modern aircraft with SriLankan.
With this new competition I think we will see better fairs to more Asian destinations. Introductory prices for the month of November 2017 from SriLankan seems very good as you see from some of the screenshots I have taken from the web site. Reserve your seats quickly by visiting SriLankan web site.
Tuesday, June 20, 2017
Enabling .NET 3.x on Windows 8 and Up
As you may be knowing, now you do not need to separately download and install .Net framework as we used to do with the older .Net frameworks. Since it is coming with Windows, you can just go to “Turn Windows Features On or Off” screen and enable framework you are after. It is simple right?
But in one of the machines it was not that simple for me. The installation tried to download files from Windows Update and was failing mentioning that it cannot get connected to Windows Update when the machine is connected to the internet without any issues.
The solution is to use DISM (Deployment Image Servicing and Management) tool to get it installed.
First you need to find a Windows setup media, a setup DVD or an ISO downloaded will work.
Then use the below command to enable the feature using a local source. Remember to open the Command Window as an Administrator of the machine.
DISM /Online /Enable-Feature /FeatureName:NetFx3 /All /LimitAccess /Source:E:\Sources\sxs
/Online – Targets the currently active and running OS.
/LimitAccess – If some installation files are missing, this will check Windows Update for the missing files. For not to check use /LimitAccess:True.
/Source – Is the location to find the source files, E: is my virtual drive which I mounted the previously downloaded Windows ISO.
If typed correctly, there will be a progress bar showing the installation progress.
Wednesday, May 03, 2017
Genoa Falls, Genoa, Victoria, Australia
If you are interested in waterfalls and not too fussed about the height, I think you will like Genoa falls in Genoa in the state of Victoria, Australia. Belonging to the Croajingolong National Park, Genoa falls is a set of small cascades of water each with a height of no more than 3 meters, located near the Victorian and New South Wales border.
Genoa falls is located in about 488 kilometers East from the city of Melbourne and can be reached in about 5 and half hours’ drive. Access to the falls is via an unsigned dirt road which can be easily missed. I am sure there are many who are passing in Princess highway daily without knowing there is a small waterfall in this location. After turning to the dirt road, you just need to drive about 200 meters to reach the place to park the car. There is space to park 3 or 4 cars comfortably. This will not be a problem since this is not much of a famous attraction, so you will find space to park your car at any time of the year.
At the car park, there will be a small sign mentioning that you are in the Genoa falls in Croajinolong national park. Camping, open fires and pets are not allowed to make you and others safe at the location. You have to walk about 500 meters to reach Genoa waterfall from the car park, I would say the walk is moderately difficult because the last part descending to the Genoa creek is having one or two steep steps and path is narrow. Better look for reptiles such as snakes and lizards on your way. Keep a good eye at your children if you got them on your trip since the area is hazardous specially with uncovered waterholes.
Once you go down the final set of steps, turn left to reach the main attraction. It is a Basalt floor all the way to the waterfall with random water holes. In dry weather, you will be able to reach the waterfall without getting your feet wet.
After the waterfall the stream will divide into two parts, one will be going behind the boulders and hidden, the other smaller stream will be visible, follow it downstream. In about 30 meters, to your left you will see the other stream joining back with two small waterfalls.
Another good thing is that you can walk the breadth and length of the stream in dry weather without getting wet. When wet, be mindful, the area will be slippery with the algae build-up. I feel the water is bit Ionic from the slight Brown colour seen.
Apart from space to park the car, there are no facilities available on site. So, if you plan to have a barbecue or a picnic, this is not the place. Also, be prepared to carry your garbage out, since there are no garbage bins available.
Score out of 5 | |||
1 | Parking Availability | Adequate | 3 |
2 | Wheelchair Access | Main Viewpoint – No Secondary Viewpoint – No Picnic Areas – No | 0 |
3 | Accessibility | Moderately difficult walk of about 15 minutes from car park. | 2 |
4 | Facilities | Covered Sitting Areas – No Toilets – No Barbecue – No Garbage Bins – No | 1 |
5 | Scenery | Waterfall Stream Mountains | 3 |
Hope you will enjoy the video.
Map
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