In 2003 there were over 40 million websites on the Internet and this site is just one of them created by Sanuja Senanayake as a hobby project. Since the launch, sanuja.com has evolved from a basic HTML web project to a CMS (web Content Management System) driven database powerhouse. Currently, the site is used for several purposes to serve visitors from a diverse range of backgrounds.
Purpose
Like anything in nature, the purpose of this site is always evolving into new targets. Currently the site is used as a public platform for articles and support resources written by Sanuja Senanayake. There are two main goals; improve writing my skills by publishing my written materials to a wider audience through the blog section and to help others succeed in the Science program at University of Calgary.
You will find blog articles on almost every topic on this site. While I may post materials on some social issues, I will limit political and religious materials as much as I can because I think they are better suited for special interest websites. If you find any language errors, please send me a message, so I can learn from my mistakes.
Under Resources category, I have posted several practice exams and quizzes. As my degree in Geology progress, this will get developed as a database for references and study materials. The site also has a math and science documents repository for authorized users which includes valuable course materials.
On the back-end of this website is used for web-based applications and custom Java, PHP, MySQL, SQL, Python and CMS scripts. I guess I could say “this is where my hobby of developing websites and helping others meet”.
You can read the history of my network and server system on here. If you would like to keep in touch with any new development of my projects, you are welcome to read the blog.
Acknowledgement
I am not the only one who is behind the information posted on this site. While I am the primary caregiver, there are many people who helped raise this child. During the development of educational tools, I have used the wisdom, knowledge and experience of several professors and support staff at the University of Calgary. Additionally, I have received the support of my friends and classmates whom in numerous occasions voluntarily offered materials to this site.
Contributors
Names are in alphabetical order. Some individuals may be missing either due to a mistake or due to a request to not to publish.
Professors and Instructors
Thank you for providing excellent class notes and other support materials. Even though these instructors did not directly contributed materials, the classes taught by them helped build several areas of this website. My sincere gratitude goes to all the instructors and support staff at the University of Calgary.
Students
Alex Meleshko, Luis Alfonsi, Cassie Vocke, Dylan Riley, Felicia MacMurchy, Garang Riak, Gurpreet Multani, Jenna Sie, Justin Woo, Kamil Sameer, Kathleen Nester, Michelle Baumgartner, Nadia Shaikh, Pulkit Sabharwal, Shawn Sun and numerous others.
A Brief History
-Sanuja Senanayake started programing in 2000 at Gateway International School of Computing.
-Sanuja moved to Calgary, Alberta in 2003 and wrote his first programming code in Java and DHTML for his Junior High School Computer Science project.
-In 2003, the “prototype” of sanuja.com was launched using a free hosting service, geocities provided by Yahoo Inc.
-In late 2003-early 2004 the site was moved to Shaw Cablesystems Calgary customer webspace.
-On 11-June-2006 sanuja.com domain was registered and the hosting files were moved to a privately owned home-based web server (provided by a personal friend, LADA).
-From 2011 to 21st 2012 the site was hosted on a home-based small business server in the basement of Sanuja’s house.
-On 22nd May 2012 the site was moved to a professional hosting provider for greater reliability, up-time and faster loading speeds. (sad day)
Due to the complexity of home-based severs the site was launched in 2003 has often jumped back and forth between being online and offline. With the new hosting provider, I am hoping to keep the site online 27/7 and 365 per year.
Why ?
This is the most common question I get from some of my friends. Why do I need a high-end server? Why do I need all of these equipments at the first place? The answer to that question is no, I don’t need them, but I want them. Like some people like to collect stamps, my hobby is to collect servers and develop them with skills I acquire from self-learning. This is my hobby and I intend to have a server cluster for as long as I can afford. I DO NOT earn money off of any of my servers nor will I ever. Those of you who roll your eyes and say this is stupid, look at your collection of power tools, or your nice car or how much money you wasted on alcohol. How come that’s not stupid?
Future expansion
I have plans for future expansion. Currently I do not have Unix or Linux servers and I am planning to load them on two different computers and load VM Ware on another one in near future. I will also spend more time writing my own scripts and testing them out on all systems.