Launch of .ලංකා and .இலங்கை domains

28th of June 2010, the .ලංකා and .இலங்கை were formally opened for registration. Now any people who is having a .lk domain can request for .ලංකා and .இலங்கை domains for free.

This launch was held at Mount Lavinia hotel and many people around the world have participated in it including an ICANN board member.

This is an historic event. Because .lk domain was added to root servers on 15th June 1990. Till that date the Sri Lanka was identified the two words .lk. But from 28th June 2010 onwards the country can be indexed using .ලංකා and .இலங்கை.

The another notable point is, these are the two domains which are going to be added to the root servers in the South Asian region and .இலங்கை is the first Tamil domain which is going to be added.

Though the only people in Sri Lanka can access these Sinhala and Tamil domain now, from august onwards all the world should be able to type URL in Sinhala and Tamil and reach respective web sites.

currently there are few IDNs assigned to government sites.
eg
http://தளம்.பாராளுமன்றம்.இலங்கை
http://වෙබ්.පාර්ලිමේන්තුව.ලංකා

I am very happy that I also could take part in this developments and event.

visit www.nic.lk to register and also visit www.idns.lk to get more information about this.

Niue - A country - Population is 1000

I had a chance to attend APTLD (Asia Pacific Top Level Domain) meeting which was held at Mount Lavinia hotel on 27 - 28 June, 2010. Many people from Asia pacific region who maintain Domain registries also came for that meeting.
I met a person called Stafford Guest. His native country is Nieu!

Nieu! first time I hear that name. This is an island located near New Zealand. Though it got the Independence in 1974, still getting the symbotic support from New Zealand.

The interesting things to note are :
- Population of the country is 1000!
- The total intetnet bandwidth the country has is 4mbps :-) I have more than that in my PC
- Only one hotel is there
- Only flights can reach there and also those operates once in a week. Therefore if you would like to attend a meeting some there else you may need to leave atlease 8 days before.....
- No Cinema...
- No big shopping malls....

Cant Believe isnt it!

I was really supprised when he tells all these!

But you know it looks soooooo beautiful. Nice beaches (though it rough)... Full of cocunut treess (I saw some picture in Google images)

Also found that Nieu means "Behold! Coconut"