With the arrival of the magic tool computer to our society, we could accelerate our day today events in an unexplainable way and a speed. We slowly but surely discarded our long standing hard working type writer from the type write table , gave a temporary halt for writing letters and kept away papers from our desk. The computer started to dominate the life in every avenue. Every father and every mother , specially the teacher parents wanted to have their sons and daughters to arm with personal computers. So the hunt began for the magic home partner the computer.
When we order a home computer from a vendor we have to name the configurations or else the vendor does give his. After the agreed price and conditions like guarantee or after sales service, he packs the company made genuine machine within a half an hours time. If not, if my request is for an assembled low cost machine , he might take a day sometimes to install the software and most probably the next day the buyer takes the machine home. How the machine works, its is immaterial for the user as his machine is fully armed with an operating system and other software which the user asked.
As the time passed by the user, the schoolboy gets more and more software from his peer groups in different versions and different trade names . He gets copies of expensive software or games copied at a very cheaper price from a communication centre or from his own machine, or from a friend cheaper than a short eat or a bun !
Not only he uses these software but he exchanges and share and passes copies of that software among his friends irrespective of its value or validity. A single copy of such is enough for the whole community. Without knowing he violates the copyrights of the knowledge of the creator of such soft ware. As the piracy is common, specially in the world of information Technology, we do not understand the gravity of the crime we commit. Since the software is very very cheap and the cheapest commodity in the market when we compare the other day today commodities, we tend to buy them at any place or any vendor. Most of us are not aware of what the process or what crime we commit when buying an illegal knowledge of somebody. Of course if we do not have such copies how can we buy a computer hardware for around 50,000 of rupees and another 50,000 of rupees for a licensed copies of software ( Operating System and the Office package) ?
We slowly are looking for a permanent solution for this unanswered problem. Now gradually the users have understood that those so called high prices software is not available in the market free like in the past decade or two. The laws have come into full operation to stop piracy in software selling and copying. Yet, still the schoolboy is clever enough to sneak into such activities. But it is time to have some alternatives for this process and to find an answer. There are open source software around the market yet the young user thinks the are not attractive and they can not match the taste of those so called pirate software. Listen to my story with the experience of teaching IT for around 15 years
How I had an affair with Hanthana
First when I received 10, very big number of computers to my computer unit in the school way back 2001, I got the complete unit with the Genuine Windows 2000 installed and the genuine windows and the office Cds. We did not mind how they came as the process was organized by the ministry GEP 2 Project. For another 10 years our school IT unit did not get any machine and with the SEMP Projects we were isolated and totally neglected.
Yet with the requests and the total identification of the problem Mr Upali Chandrarathne the subject coordination AD has allocated a sum of almost 1.1 million of rupees for us the buy our own machines. But we are bound with the problem- we have to buy software if we are going with windows. I personally decided neither to buy windows nor to use pirate copies and to go with Open source. Luckily I got an accident unexpected call from the IT Hardware Unit of the Ministry of Education, Isurupaya for a special workshop for our new machines. It was a blessing in disguise, a Two Day workshop with Danishka changed our philosophy , love and worship we had from the world famous rich software to our local made Hanthana Linux.
This is how we welcome the new software HANTHANA LINUX into our machines. With Hanthana “you ask for anything it has already got”. We started the teaching sessions with the new baby. Attractive and easy no hassle and trouble . With no time we made the software and the OS popular with the students and the teachers. They wanted to have their personal machines to be converted into Hanthana and the workshop began copying Hantahana LiveDVDs free for all. For the first time we started to copy true and genuine DVDs in our machines.
The content available in that DVD is immeasurable in value. It has years of knowledge to day diverted into the students. Lessons for the science teacher, maths teacher, social studies teacher and the teacher of aesthetic subjects are plenty and attractive. The most special feature of Hanthana it is totally immunized for Virus.
I lost my data in my Pen drive one day with an attack of a virus,I madly wanted to get my pen healed
But I failed and with some pains I formatted it and lost my data. The same has happened to my student and he said Sir I got my data saved because of Hanthana Linux. It is immunized for Virus !!!
Some visuals of Rupavahini “Jathika Pasala” (http://www.rupavahini.lk/jathika_pasala/) program can not be watched by the Windows but the visuals of the lessons are rightly working with our Lovely Hanthana. An additional qualification , isn’t it ?
Thanks Danishka and his team for the genuine effort he trying to save our computers from the virus and saving our money which we have to spend for high priced software.
Triple gem bless you and your effort.
Mr. Sunil Chandraman
Wickramabahu Central College, Gampola, Sri Lanka.
sunilchandraman AT gmail DOT com