Awurudu time and me :)

Awurudu (Sinhala & Tamil New Year) falls on April every year and it is a joyful season indeed!

Little bit about AWURUDU :)

This is celebrated by both Sinhala Buddhists and the Tamil Hindus of Sri Lanka. According to the astrology, Awurudu begins when the sun moves from "Meena rashiya" (Pisces) to "Mesha rashiya" (Aries). It also marks the end of the harvest and spring. Before Awurudu day people clean their houses, buy new equipment (e.g. new cooking pots to prepare milk rice) and clothes. People believe awurudu bring joy to everyone and it is a good time to forget about any hardships they had and move on.

Things we do.....

Preparation of sweetmeats such as kavum, kokis, munguli, aluwa, aggala, atirasa, aasmi..etc... takes place at least three days prior to the Awurudu day.

In my home too we make a lot of food items. Apart from what my mother makes I normally prepare Kokis, Milk toffee, Date cake and Butter cake.

Rituals associated with Awurudu begin with having a bath on the last day of the old year and looking at the moon on the same night. (watching the moon might differ according to the auspicious times given by the astrologers)

There is a period referred to as the "Nonagathe" (Neutral period or "Punya kalaya"). During this time according to the traditions and religion, people stay away from work and engage in religious activities.

Cultural rituals begin shortly after the dawn of Awurudu. 
To start off cooking we light the fire (lighting the hearth) to make "kiribath" (milk rice). Also milk is boiled in a new earthen pot and allowed to boil over, symbolizing prosperity.

Then comes the time to enter into the first business transaction and eating the first meals. Also the elders of the family are been worshiped offering a sheaf of betel.

Awrudu customs end with "hisathel gaama" (applying oil on head). Some people do this at home and some go to the village temple to get it done by the monks. After we have a bath for the first time of the dawned new year.

Visiting relatives and friends is also an important features of this season.

The aroma of sweetmeat, the sound of raban and the koha's (Cuckoo bird) cry, symbolize that the entire country is ready to celebrate this joyous festival.

Rani ❤

She is a blonde water-talent fairy and one of Tinker Bell's best friends. She gave up her wings to save Mother Dove's egg, making her the only fairy who cannot fly, but also the only one who can swim.

Like all water talents, she is very emotional. She is a passionate dreamer who is enthusiastic and impulsive. She is the most ardent of the water fairies. A bird called Brother Dove helps her when she wants to fly.

She wears clothing with lots of pockets to hold her many leaf-kerchiefs, since she cries easily, sweats easily, and tends to get a runny nose, she really needs them!

She's enthusiastic and impulsive, she even jumps in to finish other fairies' sentences for them...

How to add Navigation Tabs to your blog and seperate posts with labels? :)

When you create a blog it is easy for the readers if the posts are categorized into sections. The easy way to do it is to include separate navigation tabs to your blog. It will give easy access to the reader as well as you can properly manage your content.

1) Go to your blog and click Design from the top corner.

2) Click Layout from the side pane.

3) You will be directed to the Layout page.
From that select any place where you need to have your navigation tabs and click on one of the 'Add a Gadget' options. (Normally the navigation tabs are added to the 'Cross-Column area)
This will open the Add a Gadget pop-up window.

4) Select HTML/ Java Script option.

5) You can follow the below example code to add your tabs accordingly.
Add your code to the Content section and click the Save button.

e.g. : If you are thinking of adding the navigation tabs displayed in the first image of this post, the code will be as below.. Also you will be able to sort them out through labels.

<div id='navibar'>
<a href="http://castakai.blogspot.com/" class="navitabs" title="Home">HOME</a>

<a href="http://castakai.blogspot.com/search/label/Me" class="navitabs" title="Me:)">#Me</a>

<a href="http://castakai.blogspot.com/search/label/Technical!" class="navitabs" title="Technical!">Technical!</a>

<a href="http://castakai.blogspot.com/search/label/InterestingFacts" class="navitabs" title="Interesting Facts ;)">Interesting Facts ;)</a>

<a href="http://castakai.blogspot.com/search/label/Fancy" class="navitabs" title="Fancy">Fancy :D</a>

<a href="http://castakai.blogspot.com/search/label/Sports" class="navitabs" title="Sports">Sports!</a>

<div></div></div>


6) Before saving the whole layout you can see a preview by clicking the Preview button.
If you think the design is good to go, click Save Arrangement button.

7) The added navigation tabs will now be visible in your blog.

Simple as that you can add navigation tabs as much as you want to organize your blog :)

Having second thoughts of reading Harry Potter and the Cursed Child?

*no spoilers*

Yes it was not fully written by Rowling so it was totally different from the previous books.. No wonder..
And yes it's not a novel it is the rehearsal script for the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
All these facts were told throughout the internet before the book was released.
Then why do people complain about it? I don't understand!

I bought it cause it is all about going back to the Wizarding world of Harry Potter after all these years! I just love going back!
It is true that I could not feel the effect that I had when I was reading the previous seven books, yet I really enjoyed it.
It brought me tears while reading and Ron made me laugh.. (as usual he was there with his personality!)

I felt the story was fast forwarded and wish it was written as separate books as novels. Though the plot holes are very visible and spread throughout the story, they make heartfelt conversations between characters, so I did not mind them all that much.

Simply I did not want the book to end.. The kid inside me still loves to read Harry Potter stories and probably that's why after reading this I kept staring at it reminding all the incidents from the very first book!

What ever people say I loved it, I loved it simply to go back to that world of magic... ❤
If you are a die-hard Harry Potter fan you will not miss out reading this :)

 

Michael Phelps - Olympics Rio 2016

Waking up to see this in the morning (Sri Lankan time 10th August 2016) ^_^

 

21 Olympic Gold Medals and counting... ^_^ He is no wonder the most decorated Olympian of all time!!
I personally love the Butterfly stroke and because of him I love it more!

* About the above picture.. When someone see this while being in the race they realize already the race is over ;) He might have thought "I must watch how beautiful he swims" :D

It is indeed a nice sight to see Michael Phelps swimming! He has not lost often in the Olympics.

 

 “I was pretty fired up after that race,” Phelps said, adding, “I didn’t say anything to anybody else, but there wasn’t a shot in hell I was losing that tonight.”

 I feel that Michael Phelps was actually created for swimming by the gods of water O:)

And on the podium during the awarding ceremony he stood up with little teary eyes. 

 Wish to see Phelps’s legacy continues throughout in the beautiful world of swimming...

I saw this comment somewhere in the internet and thought it's interesting :D

"How to become stupid? : Challenge Michael Phelps!"

Olympics 2016 Rio - Swimming - Mathew Abeysinghe - Sri Lanka

I know it's not a final, yet to see the Sri Lankan flag like this in an Olympic event... :) In Rio 2016 Olympics swimming event Mathew Abeysinghe represented Sri Lanka ❤ He is the 1st swimmer ever qualify under the Olympic Standard (B) to represent Sri Lanka in the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.

Swimming is my favorite event in Olympics!  That was an amazing effort! Cheers!

• Men's 100m freestyle - Heats
• Rank: 50 with a timing of 50.96s

Hope someday I could see the Sri Lankan flag like this in a swimming final too!

Terence ❤

He is a dust-talent Disney fairy, who hands out pixie dust to other fairies each day so they may do their magic, and is calm and kind.  So he is a dust-keeper sparrow man. He has blonde hair and blue eyes and wears an acorn cap on his head.

Terence is Tinker Bell's best friend. He has a strong crush on her, which she is unaware of. (As a male fairy, he is sometimes referred to as a "sparrow man", a term Disney invented in an attempt to avoid calling them "fairies"). He is generally calm and logical, who thinks things through carefully, unlike Tinkerbell.

 He seems to have an eye for detail and appreciates beautiful things...

Ariel ❤ The Little Mermaid

Ariel is a true teenager as she is always trying to evade her father's rules.

She is a bright, spirited mermaid who is also adventurous and stubborn. Her curiosity and love for adventure sometimes gets her into trouble. Usually, however, she overcomes any obstacle she faces like she uses magic to change things. Her best friend is a fish named Flounder, and she develops a close relationship with a crab named Sebastian, the court composer.

She is determined to grow up and wants to live her own life. She is adventurous and always curious about the world of humans - something she longs to be part of. She is considered the Princess of Curiosity.

Ariel falls in love with Prince Eric, but they are star-crossed lovers as he is a human and she is a mermaid.
She sacrifices everything, even her voice, for a chance to meet her prince...

Ariel is free-spirited, confident, curious, kind, adventurous, bright, artistic, idealistic, rebellious, intrigued, headstrong, smart, mischievous, charismatic, witty, bubbly, romantic, impulsive, perceptive, sensitive, brave, selfless, sassy, feisty, irritable, protective, caring, loyal, pacifist, fun-loving, childlike, innocent, polite, sweet, lovable, perky, determined, peaceful and heroic!

"I think everybody is somebody already."

How to keep a GitHub fork repository up to date?

You might come across many instances where you will have to fork a github repository and commit your changes as pull requests to the original master repository.

If you are to commit changes every now and then you need to make sure that your local repository is up to date with the master repository. Else if there are other commits made by users and you do not have the recent changes you might get commit conflicts once you make a pull request.

So to avoid this, you need to follow two steps.

1. Configure a remote pointing to the original repository.
2. Sync your local repository with original repo.

Configure a remote pointing to the original repository
You can configure a remote  like below.

1. Open the terminal and go to your local repository location.
Next type below command.
You can replace content with the url of your original repository.

git remote add upstream https://github.com/yourRepository.git

2. Next you can verify that a remote upstream repository got added, by giving following command.

git remote -v

  This command should list down the remote you added in previous step.

Sync your local repository with original repo
After you completed creating a remote upstream, now you can update your local repository by giving following commands.

1. Below command will fetch all the changes/updates of your original repository.

  git fetch upstream

2. Next checkout your local master branch.

 git checkout master

3. Next merge the changes of your upstream repo to your local repo.
This will sync your forked local repository without giving up your local changes.

git merge upstream/master

Cauliflower snack :)

Ingredients : 

• Cauliflower
• Wheat Flour
• Water
• Corn Flour
• Eggs
• Salt
• Turmeric Powder

Method :

Mixture

Put Wheat Flour and water to a blender and blend it well.

Add some Corn Flour to it.

Then add an egg or two.

Salt and Turmeric Powder as the amount you want to get the taste you wish.

Blend it all and make the mixture a bit thick as shown.

Frying

Now you have the mixture with you.

Dip the Cauliflower in the mixture.

Put some oil to a pan and make it boil.

Now you have to fry the Cauliflower which is dip in the mixture one by one.


When you are done with frying you will get a delicious Cauliflower snack to serve :)

Don't make it burn :) serve it with a nice color ;)

Try it and Enjoy!!!

(You can make this vegetarian if you don't add eggs)

Quick Vegetarian Snack - Vegetable Pakora :)

Now a days people kinda face a problem of finding vegetarian snacks :) So I think his will help for those who need it ;)

Ingredients :

• 200g Gram Flour
• Wheat Flour
• Corn Flour
• Carrot
• Leeks
• Cabbage
• Potato
• Beans
• Curry leaves
• Garlic
• Salt
• Water
• Turmeric Powder
• Green chilly
• Chilly pieces

Method :

Mixture

Put the 200g Gram flour to a bowl and add a little Wheat flour and Corn flour to it.
Mix all together and add water to make a paste.
Put them in to a blender and blend it well.

Cut Carrot, Leeks, Cabbage, Potato, Beans, Green chilly in to small pieces.
Put them together and mix.
(You can add more vegetables if you want)

Now add the flour mixture and the vegetables together.

Also cut Curry leaves and add it to the mixture.

You can add Garlic, Salt, Turmeric Powder, Chilly Pieces the amount you want to get the taste you wish.

When you add all these together and mix it with water you will get a mixture as shown in the pic.
This should be not too thick and not too watery.

Frying

Now you have the mixture with you.

Put some oil to a pan and make it boil.

Take a full table spoon from the mixture and put to the oil.
You can add 3 or 4 together depending on the size of the pan.

When you are done with making you will get a delicious Vegetable Pakora to serve :)

If you are ok with having eggs.. you can add 2 eggs to the mixture to make it more tasty.

Don't make it burn :) serve it with a nice color ;)

Try it and Enjoy!!!

Rapunzel ❤ Tangled

Rapunzel is your true modern-day princess with many talents and interests - beyond housekeeping and baking.
But she is not a typical Disney Princess.. she carries her blonde hair, which is 70-feet-long, and has the magical ability to both heal and reverse aging when she sings a special Healing Incantation song.

She has been trapped in a tower most of her life, but proves she is smart, having mastered subjects like astronomy and music. She also loves reading and her greatest passion is art. She even turns her tower into a giant painting.

She is daring and independent, tackling most of the obstacle she encounters on her journey herself, without a man's help...

Rapunzel is a spirited, smart, clever, kind, playful, and a very adventurous girl in her late teens, though a bit naive. However, she is not afraid to stand up for herself or others when the situation calls for bravery.

She is also very feisty, defiant, kind, sweet, shy, energetic, adventurous, confident, courageous, curious, innocent, rightful, funny, child-like, creative, clever, determined, jumpy, warm, lovable, romantic character. Most of all she is a dreamer..

Pudding recipe I tried recently! :)

Making puddings and experimenting them is a thing that I used to like and do :) So thought of giving it a try again recently! Hope you will like it too ;)
 

Ingredients :

• 1 Jelly packet
• 30g Gelatin
• 1(large) Milkmaid Tin
• 200g Sugar
• Water
• Coloring
• Fruits

Method :

 

Jelly

Take the bowl you want to make the pudding in to.
Prepare the jelly packet or packets as you wish. (You can check the method behind the jelly packet)
Set the jelly by keeping inside the fridge.

Milkmaid mixture

Put the Milkmaid tin to a bowl and keep aside.

Put water to the empty tin with 200g sugar, mix it.
Cook this in a cooker.

Put water to the empty tin again and add the 30g gelatin to it and mix.
Add this to the water and sugar mixture in the cooker.
Stir it.
Make sure this is cooked till boiling bubbles.

Add the milkmaid which you first kept aside in a bowl.
Quickly turn off the cooker.
Stir it well without letting it to froze.
You need to make it as a thick liquid but not very thick.
Keep it aside to cool.

You can separate the mixture and add coloring in different colors.

Pineapple & Apple stew

Cut the pineapple and apple in to small pieces.
Add sugar to get the sweetness you want.
Cook it till its' water dries.

Final preparation 

Now take out the jelly from the fridge.
Add the stew on top of it.
Also you can add fruits, cut in to small pieces. (In this I have put plums, cashews. cherries, dates)
Now add the previously prepared mixture with a one color of coloring.
Keep it in the fridge to set.

After it is set take it out and add another layer with a different color of the mixture.
Add a fruits layer.
Again keep it in the fridge to set.
You can add another color again and add a fruit layer too after this is set.

You can add as much as layers you want :)

Keep the pudding in the fridge to set!
When it is done you can decorate the top by adding sprinkles of fruits or chocolate drops, simply anything you like!

This will look good on the table as well as tasty ;)

Try this and Enjoy!!!

Silvermist ♥

She is a water-talent fairy. She looks on the positive side of life and acts as an influence between Tinker Bell and Iridessa. She has a delightfully offbeat and upbeat way of looking at everything.
Very much a free spirit, she often listens to her heart more than her head.

She’s an easygoing soul who is eager to please and makes friends easily. Her sense of loyalty is unmatched, and rubs off on Tink.

Silvermist’s guilty pleasure is listening to rumors and gossip from the babbling brook. She is Rani's best friend and she loves light rain...

How to uninstall Applications from Mac?!

I had a problem when it comes to uninstalling an installed application in Mac. When I delete it from the application location this always left behind remainders. This was a huge headache when reinstalling some applications.

Then I found  CleanMyMac 2 as a solution!
This is a Mac Uninstaller which helps to keep your Mac clean and has tons of awesome features which you definitely want to use :)

Download the awesome Mac uninstaller

• Click on the downloaded dmg.
• You will get a pop up window as shown bellow.

• Drag the CleanMyMac2 icon to the Application folder. Now you have installed CleanMyMac2.
• Open the CleanMyMac 2

• Go to Uninstaller section
• Select the Application you want to uninstall

• Then all the folders, files which got installed with the Application every where in your Mac will get selected.
• Now what you have to do is simply click the Uninstall button.
  This will uninstall your application removing all the possible installed files and folders!
  

• And if you have remaining items which were left out from your previously deleted Applications, you can check them too.
• All you have to do is go to Uninstaller section and click on the Leftovers from the top pane.

 

• If any files or folders are shown in the window, you just have to select them and click Remove button.

Hope those who had the same problem like me will get a solution now! Happy Uninstalling!!! ;)

 

Cinderella ❤ Cinderella

Cinderella is a headstrong and independent young woman who is truly beautiful because she doesn't let her anger and sorrow get the better of her.

She is forced to be a servant in her own home after her father dies and her stepmother takes over. Even through her hardships, she is kind and loving to all those around her. She is sweet, kind, hard-working, intelligent, diligent, good-hearted and strong-willed.

She is waiting for her prince to come, singing longingly for this day. She is a princess truly based on her time as she needs a man to get her out of her awful situation such as mistreatment from her step family, being locked in her room by her own stepmother..

This story has been told and retold so many times in Hollywood, it's hard to keep up!

Cinderella is a dreamer, independent, hopeful, determined, optimistic, skillful, tactical, compassionate and carefree.
She likes her fairy godmother's magic, going to balls, dancing, animals, wearing beautiful gowns, romance and singing.

Nevertheless, she is the most beloved and well-known princess of all tie…
  
Cinderella never gave up on her dreams, and now she and Prince Charming live happily ever after!

How to use Selenium IDE?!

To start with you need to install the needed IDE.
You can refer to How to install Selenium IDE for more information.

This is very useful to automate user actions on a website, automate certain web administration actions, to automate bug reports, create automated test scripts that shows the bug report and attach that script i your bug report so that the developer can view it and see the flow

• Open Firefox
• Click Tools and click Selenium IDE
• Selenium IDE will open

Now I will show you some simple steps how to work with Selenium.

How to Record a test flow?

• When you open the IDE move the corser to the Red button. There you will see 'Now Recording. Click to Stop Recording'
  This means you are ready record.
• Now you can load the web page you want to test and start recording the steps of the flow you want to execute.
  
  What I'll be doing is search Kala's World :) in Google and view How to install Selenium IDE?! post! For that I am doing the following steps.

• Go to Google search
• Type castakai blog
• Click on Kala's World :) link
•  When the blog is loaded click on How to install Selenium IDE?! title
• The post will get displayed

• When you do each of the above steps it will get recorded automatically in the Selenium IDE, one step at a time.

• Click the Red button to stop recording

• Save the Test Case (File > Save As > Give a file name > Click Save)

• In the Table section you can see the saved steps

• The Reference tab gives you the information what those commands in each step do

• The Command column basically shows what action needs to be performed when testing

• Target column shows where exactly that action has to be perform in the web site 

• The Value column shows the value needs to be given to execute the command or some additional information. 

• Selenium IDE saves the test cases as HTML. You can view it by clicking the Source section
  
  
  How to Run a recorded test case/suit?
  
  
• Now lets run the recorded steps.
• You can Click 'Play entire test suit' / 'Play current test case' button to run the whole flow.
• Or click each and every step to run one step at a time.
• There is a slider Fast Slow to adjust the speed of the execution if you want to look in to the steps more clearly. 

• When you run you will see how it is been executed from the Log tab

• Now let's see how this gives an error if there is a wrong step included.

I am going to edit the 3rd step click.

• Click on the step
• Go to the Target field change the name=btnG to name=btn  The step will be changed.

• Now execute the test case again.
• This test should get failed giving the bellow error in the Log tab.

How to stop the test from a particular step?

• Right click on the step you want to stop the test run.

• Select Toggle Breakpoint.

• Now the execution should stop above the step you put the break point.
• And if you want to move forward from that point onwards click Pause/Resume button. Then the remaining steps will be executed.
• If you want to run through the steps after the break point one by one you can click Step button and execute the steps.

How to add more steps to the test case?

• Go to the end of the test case.
• Click on the empty space. 
• Click the Record button.

• Now you can add more steps as you want and save.
• And if you want to add a step to the middle. Right click > Insert New Command

• You can manually write the command without recording.
• For that Right Click on the empty space and select 'Insert New Command'

•  Now you can enter the values you need in the Command, Target, Value fields and add a new step to the test case.

• And if you need help in adding the values to the Target field you can always go to the next step location from your browser.
  Right click and select 'Inspect Element'

• It will show you the information needed about the field, drop down list ..etc.
  You can always use the 'id=' to identify the place you want.

How to enhance the test case by adding documentation?
This helps a user to understand what we do in the test case or may be we can divide the test case in to sections for our benefit or future reference.

• Click on the place where you need to add a comment. Right Click > Insert New Comment

• Now you can add you comments to make it more simple.

• Save after doing the changes.

Hope you got the basic idea how you can use the Selenium IDE! Enjoy the work!

How to install Selenium IDE?!

What is Selenium IDE?

Selenium IDE is a fully featured Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that installs as a plugin for Mozilla Firefox. This enables developers to test their web applications through Selenium.
With the Selenium IDE, you can record user interactions with the web browser and play back to test for errors.
It is a good and powerful IDE where you can simply do the QA testing process and automate the testing flows.

* The Selenium IDE is currently available only on Firefox.

If you don't have it already go to the SeleniumHQ page.
You can refer this for more details and read about Selenium.

And to download the Selenium IDE to Firefox click the Download section. Or straight away click here. 
There you can see sections for different Selenium tools.

• Go to the Selenium IDE section.
• Click on 'Download latest released version' link
• Once it is clicked Firefox will display a message

• Click Allow button. Then the installation will start.
• Then you will be shown a window with the add-ons to install.

• Click Install Now button.
• After you will be asked to Restart the Firefox browser in order to install the add-ons.
• When you click the Restart button the browser will  close and reopen with the add-ons installed.
• Now when you go to the Tools > Selenium IDE option will be displayed there.

• Or else you can check the add-ons by navigating to the Firefox Add-ons.

 

• If the add-ons are installed it should be displayed as bellow

 

• Now to open the installed IDE, Click Tools and click Selenium IDE
• Selenium IDE will open as shown bellow

Now you are ready to use the Selenium IDE!

Queen Clarion ❤

She is the queen of Pixie Hollow and the overseer of the four seasons.  She has also lived longer than any other fairy or monarch of Pixie Hollow, wise and dignified. Her ultimate concern is the health and well-being of her subjects.

Sometimes, she is called Queen Ree or just Ree. She wears a flowing golden gown with a beautiful matching crown.

Despite her wisdom and power, Queen Clarion doesn't seem to take her station too seriously. She is a loving and approachable but can be firm when she has to be. It has also been said that she is mysterious. As ruler of Pixie Hollow, Queen Clarion sometimes mediates and helps to settle arguments.

She also has the task of making sure the preparations for the seasons are done in a timely manner. She also greets new arrivals at the Pixie Dust Tree, helps them find their talent, and gives them their names. She might possess every fairy talent..