I spent Avurudu weekend away from tech as much as possible. It’s not very possible. At my Achchi’s house there’s only phone reception in one corner of the verandah, but now there’s satellite TV. I carry an analog looking camera, but it’s still digital, and cousins still want to look. I took the iPad to perhaps write or draw, but they want to play Angry Birds. Meanwhile the aunts and uncles want to know how to setup Bluetooth on their phones. Not that it’s just my relatives, I was damn sure in that corner of the verandah, checking my Facebook messages. It’s not easy to get away, least of all from myself.

This mobile office thing is working out fine, except for Imaad, who’s sitting here in a cordurouy jacket with his damn gypsy bag and long hair, making us look like homosexuals. Seriously, he looks like the cordurouy cowboy. We both have tabs which looks odd but efficient enough. He’s just got to take it that extra level.

Apparently Ashton Kutcher (of That 70s Show and marrying Demi Moore fame) is going to be playing Steve Jobs in an upcoming biopic. While Kutcher generally portrays duncey characters, he is a king on Twitter and a savvy tech investor himself. I still find it a bit odd to see the airhead from That 70s Show portraying a genius.

Thameera has a good post on the new Bookhub.lk. It’s a pretty functional solution for local eBook sales, but I’m more excited about its potential than anything else. You can get more books from sarasavi.lk and you can order books from Amazon just fine, including instant on the Kindle. Bookhub is notable because it’s linked up with mobile credit, mobile readers, and potentially offers another way for average Sri Lankans to innovate and earn.

Apple products use a Micro SIM, which is a smaller than usual phone chip. Most places you buy such a card. In Sri Lanka, this is not how we do. Dudes at some communication kades just take a normal SIM and chomp it through the cutter. Then they trim it down with a box cutter. Like a baas.

This is pretty cool. You can now get SMS alerts from, er, me. If you want. Just send ‘ reg indica ‘ to 77000. And that’s pretty much it. It costs like Rs. 2.50 per SMS, of which I earn 70%. I’ll try to keep the SMS’s interesting and infrequent. Damn cool though. Getting an SMS service used to require hook-ups and meetings and cash, but now you can just go to ideamart.dialog.lk and register. Alternately, wunderkind Arunoda has built kodeincloud.com a far more sophisticated and easy to use solution for Etisalat.

A year ago there was no startup scene in Sri Lanka to think of. Now it seems that everybody wants a piece. Personally, I think Sri Lanka is the, ideal testing ground for the Indian market, and Indian investors. A good product can make decent money here, and things are easier to setup and run here. Plus less public urination. Then, if the business model is solid, you can port it to India, and make millions. Of dollars.

I shared a beanbag pillow with three dudes and the radio was playing all night. Sounded like the Bangles. Hence, I’m not going to write much. Here’s some photos. This is from the Colombo Hackathon. People get together and try to design (and sometimes code) startups, while Indians hover in the corners, stealing ideas and – god forbid – possibly funding them.

I’m at the Colombo Hackathon. It’s pretty great, I can barely get a blog out. The amount and quality of startup ideas is impressive, and now people are working on realifying those ideas in teams. It’s quite inspiring really. There’s also an exit, ie, you can cash out, theoretically. Venture Engine is looking for business proposals which get polished and put in front of actual investors, including the Indian Angel Network.

In two words, the Central Bank. Out of fear of money laundering or whatever, they aren’t taking the simple steps to enable Sri Lankan businesses to compete online. Seriously, there is no efficient or simple payment gateway. The ones the banks do are all closed, ugly and actually insecure. Other international suppliers like 2Checkout or MoneyBookers are not nearly as simple. I’m not saying PayPal is great, but it’s good. The Central Bank really needs to get it together.