Editorial – February 2010

Ayubowan, welcome to the first issue of the second volume of the online IT magazine diGIT. That’s right, it has been one year since we started our magazine and what a fabulous year it has been. We had our humble beginning in February 2009 with the help of 25 contributors. Overall, 74 contributors have helped us in one way or another to contribute towards this online magazine. We are grateful to each of them for the immense support given. A big thanks to all those who have given us constructive feedback on improving the magazine and some of the changes you see on the site today were a result of this.

In order to promote our magazine and acquire some funds for our IT labs projects, we have created some promotional stickers. Let us hope that we can collect a good amount to reach our target of setting up the first IT lab by end of March. Once you get hold of the sticker, do paste it in your vehicle or try to paste in public transport with permission from the owners.

January 27th was a special day for us Sri Lankans for 2 reasons. One was the announcement of the 6th executive president of Sri Lanka. Secondly, Apple introduced the latest device that will be a big hit among book lovers and internet users. A lot of rumours had been published about this device and I am sure most of it helped in Apple’s marketing campaign. Steve Jobs boldly named it the ‘iPad’. This device is available for consumers from Mid March starting from US$500 going up to US$829. Do check for a comprehensive review on the iPad in this issue of diGIT.

It has been 5 years since we had a Tech.ed event and things will unleash on the 8th of February with Tech.ed 2010 at Waters Edge. The theme behind this years event is ‘Challenge your world’. Do check the local IT buzz section for more information on this and how you can register for the event.

Onto this month’s issue, Chathra is back with another clear article on Artificial Intelligence and how problems are tackled by intelligent agents in determining which method or option is better over the other available options in fulfilling their tasks. Do check the article for more details.

Thameera continues his discussion on teaching C++ with Barney and goes into Arrays and shows how to define an array and its importance in programming. Do step into Barney’s class and enjoy learning C++.

Have you checked out the shatoons out weekly on the diGIT site? Now in its 10th installment, do check out the shatoons and give your comments about them. We would like to hear your views.

So I hope you will also celebrate our first year in publication by doing your bit to let others know about the magazine that is freely available. We have constantly being getting increases in page hits and hope to get many more in the very near future through your cooperation.

As always, you can get in touch with us by sending an email to comments@digit.lk. We would love to hear from our readers and fans. Also if you haven’t joined already, do check the Ambassador program (http://digit.lk/ambassador) and how you get your school involved in IT.

Let me end this month’s editorial with a quotation from none other than Steve Jobs himself who once said

‘I think we're having fun. I think our customers really like our products. And we're always trying to do better.’ Happy reading!

W.G.T.Fernando