LakTEK A Sri Lankan, A Rubyist and A Web Dude

Real-time Collaborative Editing with Web Sockets, Node.js & Redis

Few months ago, I mentioned I’m developing a real-time collaborative code editor (codenamed as Realie) for my individual research project in the university. Since then I did couple of posts on the design decisions and on technologies I experimented for the project. After some excessive hacking, today I’ve got something tangible to share with you.

Currently, […]


I’m with OpenNebula this Summer!

I had the opportunity to get selected for Google Summer of Code on the freshman year itself in my academic life. The experience I gained in that summer working with SilverStripe project boosted my self confidence and helped me immensely to shape up my career.
This year, which happens to be my final year as […]


Realie Project: Data Structure & Storage

Last couple of days, I found some time to work on my individual research project for the degree course. The topic area I selected for my project was on “Real-time Web”. Real-time Web is just the opposite of the current way we use the web. Rather than we checking (polling) content providers for updates, content […]


First Meetup of LK Ruby User Group

Last Wednesday (30th September 2009), the first-ever meatspace gathering of Sri Lankan Ruby Users was held at Ridgecrest Asia (Pvt) Ltd. There were more than 20 passionate, enthusiastic Rubyists filling the room and I would call it a promising start.
For several years, myself personally knew only handful of Rubyists in the country. Though, we had […]


Six virtues of being an IT undergrad…

If you were one of the early readers of my blog, you would know that I was selected to do my Bachelors in IT at Faculty of Information Technology in University of Moratuwa. It’s hard to believe 3 years have gone pass in a flash, but reminiscing what I gathered during this period it feels […]


If Rails is a Ghetto, Merb is a Whorehouse

Don’t get confused over the title, I’m not trying to punch the Merb community as Zed did to Rails. A grasshopper like me don’t even qualify to do such a rant. I’m actually trying to pimp Merb!
Merb is the newest addition to Ruby town. First, it was started just to satisfy the unfulfilled desires of […]


Extended-Bort: My base Rails app

Bort is an awesome base Rails app, which allows you to get into real action without wasting your time on setting up the most common and boring stuff. It comes with RESTful Authentication, OpenID support, Capistrano Mutli-stage deployments and many other essential plugins, thus lifting good work load. I first got to use Bort when […]


Really Simple Color Picker in jQuery

Recently, I needed to use a color picker with predefined color palette for my work. Thanks to many enthusiastic developers, there are several popular, sophisticated color pickers already exist for jQuery. However, most of these plugins looks complex as if they are made to be used in a online image editor. They are overwhelming […]


Simple command line todo list

They say pen and paper is the best way to manage a todo list. Following the popular norm, I also started tracking my todos with pen and paper. But after several unsuccessful attempts of finding a pen or deciphering tasks from torn or soaked paper, I felt keyboard and the pixel-screen would be more accessible […]


RMS in Sri Lanka

The week ended was a great week for Sri Lankan FOSS community, as the father of Free Software Movement, Richard M. Stallman (RMS) paid a visit to the country. Yesterday, I got the opportunity not only to listen to a live speech of the legend, but also to grab a picture with him. It was […]


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