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Civic 2017/18 (UK) Sri Lanka Navigation Map

Civic comes with Garmin European Map loaded with 5 years subscription. I searched a lot and could not find if official Garmin Map for Sri Lanka is available. There were few sources selling the map, but they were likely to be ones created from OSM (Open Street Map). Finally, I decided to try it myself.

Many thanks should go to Dhanajaya Tennakoon who had given clear instructions in AutoLanka Forum. Following his instructions I got it done.

civic-ex

I will share how to do it, but do it at your own risk.

Follow the instructions given in Honda Navigation Updates page only up to Step 2: I mean complete the Step 2, but don’t move to Step 3 yet.

Map update download was about 7GB when I did this in 2018, so better to leave it to download when you have free data. Use a USB stick at least 16GB. An 8GB worked for me, but was barely enough, if the newest update is larger, it wouldn’t fit in 8GB.

Find and download Sri Lanka map from here. Select “Generic Routable (new style)” from first section, and from the second, click on “Asia” drop-down and select “Sri Lanka”. Wait until it finds the download file (it might take a minute). Click on “Download map now!”. From the new page, download the file “osm_generic_gmapsupp.zip” and unzip it get the file “gmapsupp.img”.

Now, there is a file with the same name in “Garmin” folder in your USB stick. Get a copy of this to a safe place in your computer (for future use if need arise), and replace it with the one above (i.e. the renamed sri lankan map).

Once above is properly done, continue to step 3 in Honda Navigation Updates (see above).

Keep the USB stick safe for future use. You can replace “gmapsupp.img” file in it with newer one (download from above source) and update the navigator map by directly going into step 3.

“Do not connect it to any other car, or do not connect USB stick created from other cars in yours, as it may lock the system” – was an advice Dhananjaya had given.

You must know that the Sri Lankan map is exported from OSM project. It is a community based project, so the accuracy of some details may be an issue. But, it is generally good. But, for Colombo I prefer AndroidAuto Google Map since it comes with traffic update.

At the time of writing AndroidAuto is not available for Sri Lanka in Google Play. You can download its APK from APKMirror.

I in fact rarely use in built Garmin map to find the way (i.e. to navigate) in Colombo. But, the Garmin Map is really useful for long distance out-of-city travel. I’m glad that I could get it done.

Another advantage of having the built-in map is, it keeps a record of all your trips with date stamp in map so that you can locate the places you visited. It may of course not be so good if your spouse comes to know about this option. Well, this guide will not help in that. I remind you, do it at your own risk. =)

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T2T Flash Diffuser for Portraits

I got my first DSLR recently and started thinking of photography as an art. It was quite amusing to do experiments and to find shots I would say to myself “wow”. I got Yongnuo YN565EX speedlight nearly half the price of Nikon varients; and it was the very first speedlight I had ever handled. It is really a good one as per the reviews I’ve read.

First I used ceiling bounce for portraits since I did not like sharp shadows and rough skin tones the direct flash created. However, ceiling bounce created shadow near eyes, and it made eyes look dull. I tried several options and came up with this homemade flash diffuser, which gave great results. Then I thought of sharing it with you.

I searched through plastic items at home (such as empty bottles, boxes and kitchenware). I used my LED torch light to figure out what effects they give to white light. I found that the Johnsons Top-to-Toe (T2T) liquid soap bottle adds a golden glow to the sharp beam of light; but the bounce light remained white (I am not sure of the science behind it).

Making the diffuser was a bit of trial and error task to me. But you can now get it right at the first time. Get the perimeter of your flash head by making a crown for it using a paper strip. Push the paper crown onto the plastic bottle to mark the perimeter of flash on the bottle. Cut through this line. Soften the cut edge (find your own way, I used sandpaper). Diffuser will not yet fit onto your flash. Now heat the cut edge of the diffuser on kitchen stove while briskly rotating (be careful not to overheat), then push it onto a glass bottle (a wine bottle) so that the cut edge perimeter will expand a little to fit onto your flash. Your diffuser is ready.

I pasted a thick white paper to one side of the diffuser so that I get more light to the front. Note that this T2T bottle is a bit thick; you will have to increase the power of flash to compensate for that. The golden glow added nicely enhances the asian skin tones. Hope you’ll love the results.

STROBIST Blog was a great place to learn about using flash lights for photography. I’m greatful to the authors and contributors valuable knowledge it gave me. I recommend it to you all who looking for starting to use speedlights effectively. Start with lighting 101 Archive from right column drop down items in the blog.

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A little advice for reviewing literature

This little guide would help you in doing your dissertation thesis. This is not a comprehensive guide for literature reviewing, instead it address two interlinked important aspects. These ideas occurred to me while I was reviewing students’ write ups of their literature review. You may have already started your review or planning for it. At either stage, these views might help you to do a better review.

When writing your literature review, you have to be very clear about the facts you are presenting. It is important to indicate the reliability of the facts. In literature there are;

– Opinions
– Experiences
– Findings, and
– Conclusions

In your review these should be clearly identified. In terms of knowledge, above is in the increasing order of value. In general Findings through a research study are stronger than experience. Opinions can be merely assumptions in many cases, therefore not the proper knowledge. Conclusions are the strongest because it combines the findings to the current knowledge. However, the general situation may vary depending on the quality of the work. For example, if the findings are combined with poor literature review (current knowledge), the conclusions may become totally unreliable, but findings may be valuable.

This shows the requirement of you to be able to identify the quality of a study. Then you can use the knowledge effectively. That is why we say it is a critical review of literature. You just don’t buy in what is given.

Second point; we should indicate what type of knowledge is presented in our write-up. For example

The opinion of most researchers was that BIM should be implemented as a national policy (Abd, 2006; …) . However, Bimman (2012) suggests that organizations need not to wait for such policy. He has shown that XYZ Architects in Australia has successfully implemented BIM on their own. However, his description about the implementation indicates that XYZ Architects have not gained the full benefit of BIM implementation as their structural engineers and quantity surveyors were not BIM ready.

The above example starts with opinion, then another opinion by Bimman which becomes weak conclusion when combined with experience, then a critical review of the conclusion. You got to think of these things from the reader’s point of view.

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