Big Concern

When i came back from my vacation few days ago and got online to check my emails, i received some message from the OOo project people, Scott Carr (Documentation Co-Lead), Charles-H. Schulz (Lead of the Native-Lang Confederation), and Diane (who helped fixing the Indonesian OOo Project problems and bugs). They asked me whether i am OK after the biggest ever tsunami tragedy that swapped most of Asian countries, including my countries, Indonesia. They was kind of worried if i was affected with the tragedy and they waited for my reply for two days.

I have replied them and they were relieved to find me safe. They also send out few email to many OOo volunteers around Asia, including India which was totally broken after the tsunami waves. Unfortunately, i can't make any contact with Utomo, which is another Indonesia Volunteer who works as QA in the OOo project. I hope he is OK.

Here is the email that i received from Charles-H., Scott Carr, and Diane :

Charles-H. Schulz

Sunil, Khairil, Javier, Utomo, Willy, Raman, Viswath, Mugunth,

We all learned about that awful earthquake that shook the entire ASIAPAC
region. We also learned that there are countless deaths, and on behalf
of the Native-Lang Confederation and OpenOffice.org, I would like to
express the deepest condolences to all the countries and people who are
affected by this tragedy.
I also hope, in the first place, that you are all safe and that you
didn't lose anybody you know in the earthquake.
Please feel free to reply if you are able to. We would love to know you
are here and healthy.

Best Regards,

Charles-H. Schulz,
Lead of the Native-Lang Confederation,
OpenOffice.org

Diane

been watching for you, Willy, since the earthquake... it will be nice to see
your name pop up in the mailbox again... I hope you and your family are all ok.

Diane

Scott
but I hope you and your family are ok, after the waves hit, man.

--
Scott Carr
OpenOffice.org
Documentation Co-Lead
http://documentation.openoffice.org

Thanks to all of the OOo guys to their big concerns.

New Critical Flaws Discovered in Windows

Microsoft is investigating three new unpatched Windows flaws that security researchers have described as highly critical. The flaws, which were revealed publicly on the Bugtraq security mailing lists over the holiday weekend, were first reported by a group of security researchers from China called Xfocus.

The three flaws exist in the LoadImage API (application programming interface), the Windows animated cursor (*.ani) file type, and in the Windows Help parser, respectively. All three are present in all modern Windows versions, including Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, Windows NT 4.0, and Windows 2000. However, Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), which is widely acknowledged as the most secure client version of Windows Microsoft has yet made, is only susceptible to two of the three flaws.

Like previous image format-based vulnerabilities, the LoadImage-based flaw could be exploited by a malicious Web page or HTML email that displays a specially-made image file, icon, or cursor. Victims could find their machines remotely controlled by hackers.

The animated cursor flaw can be used to crash or freeze a victim's machine, security researchers say. This particular flaw does not affect XP SP2. The final flaw, involving the way Windows parses help files, triggers a buffer overflow error that could help hackers remotely control a PC. However, you would have to open a malicious help file via the Internet or email for the flaw to be exploited.

Security researchers at Secunia have described the flaws as "highly critical" and are advising users not to visit untrusted Web sites. For its part, Microsoft says it is investigating the flaws, but the software giant also voiced its concern that Xfocus publicly revealed the flaws before alerting them. "Microsoft is disappointed that Xfocus took actions that could put computer users at risk by not following the commonly accepted industry practice of privately reporting security vulnerabilities to software vendors," a Microsoft spokesperson said. The company says that no know exploits for these vulnerabilities currently exist, but that it will release fixes for these flaws as soon as possible.

Not a Perfect Vacation

I just came back from my vacation to Tawangmangu and Sarangan for two days with my relatives. It was fun until the second day when we went to Sarangan to enjoy the lake there. The road was awful and so slippery since it was raining. We had to stopped for a few times because our brake was overheatted and it was shocking. Finally we had our change to enjoy the boat in the lake and riding horse in our last day (today). We played card and also walked around the place, since it was a good place to have a walk to enjoy the nature and also the fresh air.

I read the news that a Tsunami waves has killed many people in some Asia countries. I hope that they who were left can accept this tragedy and it will be fixed as soon as possible.

Santy Worm is Boosting

Perl.Santy is a worm written in Perl script that attempts to spread to Web servers running versions of the phpBB 2.x bulletin board software prior to 2.0.11, which are vulnerable to the PHPBB Remote URLDecode Input Validation Vulnerability. Though it was first originally discovered only affecting phpBB 2.0.11 below, for some reasons, it has been updated to affect 2.0.11 also. It also uses Google search engine to find it's next target for the first version and now, it has been enhanced to support the use of AOL and Yahoo also. Now, it has 3 variants, Santy, Santy.b and Santy.C. You may also find the Santy.b SourceCode.

For those who runs a phpBB discussion board, it is recommended to upgrade to phpBB 2.0.11 and newer (if there are any) and also upgrade to PH 4.3.10 or 5.0.3 which also fix many vulnerability found on PHP 4.3.9 and 5.0.2. You can get them at PHP's Official Website

Last Post Before Vacation

Today is my last posting before i have my vacation for two days in Sarangan. Today i will go with my girlfriend and my cousins to Galeria Mall to have fun (probably eating as well) at night, and in the morning, i will held a small snooker competition at my house with my uncle, cousins, and other relatives. It not very often that we can held such competition like this, because we rarely meet each other. Only once a year, so it's a perfect time to do some activities together.

My GMail account has 2 bugs that has not been solved by the GMail Development team, although i have submitted a request. Maybe because it's holiday so nobody is working on this bug. Perhaps next week it will be solved. The bugs are i cannot see my trash folder, thus i can't empty all messages on the trash folder so my quota is increasing wild. I received a lot of emails everyday, so it is a big problem for me. The second bug is my Inbox link always display 5 new messages, although i have read all messages on my Inbox folder. It didn't effect on the GMail functionality, but it is a little bit annoying to me. I hope they will fix it soon as possible.

The great news is that my GMail invitation has increased again up to 7 invitations. Before the increasement, my invitation remaining were three, but now it's up by four. I thought the maximum invitation quota was 6, but i was quite suprised that i got 7. My friend once got 11 invitations.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all of you that reads my blog (and for those who haven't read my blog site yet). It's a good day and sun shines not too brightly. It's a cool day with a lot of joy that many people have waited for a long time. Many people will go to church with their sons/daughters, wife/husband, relatives, or even their friends to celebrate Christmas Day. Well, i wish you all had a great christmas day.

The day after tommorrow i will be off for two days, since i have to go to Sarangan, and it is a vacation place, so it doesn't have an Internet connection (i assume so), so my next posting will be 29 of December (unless i have a lot of idea, thus i will write it as 27 and 28's postings). Enjoy your holiday :)

Christmas Night

Today is 24 of December, and for Christian people, it is one of the days that has been expected that would come, since it was time to celebrate a christmas party at the church. I will go to my church at 4 PM today and celebrate Christmas Night with all of the Christian people at Santo Antonius Kotabaru Church. There will be three schedule, but i will come to the first one, which will be held at 5 PM because i want to have a date also with my girlfriend after the party.

Last night, i played card game with my cousins and we played and laughed until 11.30 PM. It was fun and we shall do that tonight :)
One of my cousin came from Jakarta, but unfortunately, his brother can't came along, since he has to stay at Australia. My sister can't joined our joy together because she didn't go back this month (she has come back last month).

Harder and Bigger

I got a new bed today accidentally. It was supposed to replace my old bed that was located on my sister's bed room (we used to share our room, but after junior high school i got my own room). When the new bed arrived, it won't suit into my old bed since it was bigger, so it was switched with my bed and as exchange, i got the new bed. The bad news, it still doesn't fit perfectly, so my mother asked a bigger bed size and they were sent about an hour later.

Since it is a new bed, it has bad smell and still has a harder pump then my previous bed. Well, that's for today's blog. I have to pick my cousin and his family right after writing this blog :)

Heavy Duty

For the last five days, i have made my self bussier than ever with OpenOffice.org Documentation Project. I have to change the status file, sending an issues and attachment to OOo's Issue Tracker, and also uploading the translation files into the Project's Website. I also have to do the same to it's mirror site, so this is a energy consuming task, but i enjoyed it. It is fun to be able to contribute to the OpenOffice.org community, since they are so frienly, even though we never met before, just via emails.

Also i am waiting for an approval for my access to the CVS site on the OOo's developer since i need that access to modify Indonesian page as soon as possible after i submit an issue to the Documentation Project. This is my first experience dealing with CVS and also SSH access, but i will learn it as soon as possible.

Silence Updates

I recently browsing to Opera's Download Page and discovered that Opera has silencely launched an update for their product, called Opera 7.54u1 (i presume this is update 1) but has not been officially announced at their website, so i went to Planet Mirror and download the latest version of Opera and install it at home.

I was hoping that Opera has fixed a CSS bug and compatibility in this version, but i was wrong. I use my field work project to check it, but it still displays the same bug i received when i use 7.54. I don't see any improvement on CSS compatibility. I was a little bit dissapointed, since Mozilla (including Firefox) and IE renders the page well enough (maybe there is a small bug on IE, but as global, it's quite good and usable). I hope that they will update it soon and released their next version of Opera which includes a big updates to CSS compatibility, since Opera lacks this functionality.

Back to Home Town

Today is 20 of December, that means, five days to Christmas and also 12 days to New Years, a moment that has been long waited by many people, including my friends and my relatives, since we had a change to meet up together and have our reunion at the end of year. Some friends of mine will be back to their home town (Jogja) at 23, and some of them will come at 26.

Unfortunately, i have to go to Sarangan at 26 until 28 December with all my relatives and we will have our holidays in a cool place. We are planning to have some barbeque party which is suitable for a cool place. There will be an annual year meeting in DeBritto, my senior high school, but i will not make it, since i will arrive at 28, but the event will be held at 8.00 AM. Sorry guys....

Mozilla 1.7.5 Released

Mozilla 1.7.5 has been released. This latest update from the long-lived 1.7 branch contains a version of Gecko virtually identical to the one in Mozilla Firefox 1.0. New features not found in Mozilla 1.7.3 include the NPRuntime extensions to the Netscape Plugin API and undetectable document.all support. This release is called 1.7.5 as that's the underlying Mozilla version that Firefox 1.0 reports itself as being (1.7.4 was skipped in case that number was needed for a security update).

More information can be found in the Mozilla 1.7.5 Release Notes. Builds can be obtained from the Mozilla Releases page or the mozilla1.7.5 directory of ftp.mozilla.org :

Windows : Windows Installer (11 MB)
Linux : Linux Installer (12 MB)
MacOs X : MacOS Package (15 MB)

For a list of updates made to Mozilla 1.7.5, please refer to What's New

GTK 2.6.0 Released

GTK+ 2.6.0 is now available for download at:
ftp://ftp.gtk.org/pub/gtk/v2.6/

gtk+-2.6.0.tar.bz2 md5sum: ca717c728264fa0b3302ca00da2bcfe4
gtk+-2.6.0.tar.gz md5sum: 79727f992114c0d04b542d8027a318f7

along with new versions of the 3 base libraries, GLib, Pango and ATK.

Release notes are available at:
http://www.gtk.org/gtk-2.6.0-notes.html

What is GTK+
============

GTK+ is a multi-platform toolkit for creating graphical user
interfaces. Offering a complete set of widgets, GTK+ is
suitable for projects ranging from small one-off tools to
complete application suites.

GTK+ has been designed from the ground up to support a range
of languages, not only C/C++. Using GTK+ from languages such
as Perl and Python (especially in combination with the Glade
GUI builder) provides an effective method of rapid application
development.

GTK+ is free software and part of the GNU Project. However,
the licensing terms for GTK+, the GNU LGPL, allow it to be
used by all developers, including those developing proprietary
software, without any license fees or royalties. GTK+ is the
only 100% free-of-cost open source industrial-strength GUI
toolkit available today.

Since its origins as the toolkit for the GNU Image
Manipulation Program (GIMP), GTK+ has been used in a wide
range of software. Notably, GTK+ is the foundation of the
GNOME desktop; GTK+ 2.6 will be incorporated into version
2.10 of the GNOME desktop.

What's new in GTK+ 2.6
======================

GTK+ 2.6 adds significant new functionality while maintaining
source and binary compatibility with GTK+ 2.4. Highlights of
new features and improvements in GTK+ 2.6 are:

New icon view widget

The GtkIconView widget displays a tree model as a grid of
labeled icons. Items can be selected by clicking or rubber-banding.
GtkIconView uses the same GtkTreeModel data storage interface
as GtkTreeView.

New about dialog widget

The GtkAboutDialog widget is a replacement for the GnomeAbout
dialog in the libgnomeui library. In addition to the features
found in the GnomeAbout dialog, it supports displaying of
license information and http: and mailto: links.

New file chooser button

The GtkFileChooserButton widget can be embedded in a dialog to
allow the user to select a file or folder. It replaces the
GnomeFileEntry widget in the libgnomeui library

New menu tool button

The GtkMenuToolButton widget is a toolbar button which
displays a dropdown menu, like 'Back' and 'Forward' buttons
commonly found in web browsers.

New cell renderers

The GtkCellRendererCombo cell renderer displays a string in a
cell, and allows to edit it using a combo box. The
GtkCellRendererProgress cell renderer displays a numeric value
in the form of a progress bar.

Changes in the file chooser widget

The new GtkFileChooser widget which was introduced in 2.4 has
been improved in many ways. It is possible to enter paths in
the location dialog now, the file list has typeahead search
and loading large directories has been made faster.

Changes in GtkComboBox

The combo box can now display trees, insensitive rows and
separators. In themes where the combobox is displayed as a list,
scrolling is now supported, and selection follows the mouse.

Changes in the tree view widget

GtkTreeView has acquired the necessary features to support the
improvements in the file chooser and combo box: typeahead,
hover selection, hover expand, separators and insensitive
rows.

Changes in GtkEntry, GtkLabel and GtkTextView

GtkLabel now supports rotated and ellipsized text. GtkEntry and
GtkTreeView respect the backspace-deletes-character Pango attribute.
Selectable labels are in the focus chain and the selection can be
copied using drag and drop.

Changes in Clipboard/Selection/Drag and drop handling

GTK+ provides notification about selection ownership changes
and supports clipboard persistency. There is a convenience API
for handling text, image and file targets.

Icon Themes

GTK+ follows the icon theme specification for directory
locations. Window icons and images can be themed. There are
various new stock icons, e.g. media player icons.

Performance improvements

The chunk size for incremental transfers of big selections
has been increased, reducing the number of necessary
roundtrips. GTK+ uses sync counters to speed up window
resizing. The efficiency of GtkListStore and GtkUIManager
has been improved by changing the used algorithms and data
structures. Icon themes are cached in an mmap()able cache file
to reduce memory consumption and disk seek overhead. The cost
of intra-library function calls has been reduced by avoiding
PLT redirections.

Win32-specific changes

The ms-windows (Wimp) theme engine and the IME input method
module have been integrated into the GTK+ sources.

Other changes

- gdk-pixbuf loaders can be disabled at runtime
- gdk-pixbuf supports simple rotation
- GTK+ provides an API to create HIG-conform
message dialogs
- GTK+ provides an API for stock-like buttons
- gtk_init() has been reimplemented on top of
the new GLib GOption API
- Applications can provide an alternative button
order, and there is a setting to activate it
- Modules to be loaded can be specified by a
setting
- The pixbuf theme engine has been integrated into
the GTK+ sources
- The scroll wheel can be used to switch notebook
tabs and to scroll menus
- Ellipsization is supported in treeview cells,
progress bars and status bars
- The ABI has been cleaned up and the list of exported
symbols is enforced

Indonesian OOo Documentation Project

I have started Indonesian OOo Documentation Project for a while and it has released some documentation, howto, manuals, and also SETUP GUIDE in Indonesian language for OpenOffice.org, the most wide used office application in OpenSource environment. Firstly, i was only translating Setup Guide for Indonesian Language, but as time flows, i wanted to translate some of the documentation for my language and i will never be able to do this all by my self, so i put this into Jogja's LUG (Linux User Group) and they were optimistic that this project will be a successfull project and there we started this project until now.

Right now, we already have 11 contributors, including me and we have 17 finished documents, 5 on revision phase, 11 on translation phase, and still 19 new documents that has not been translated yet. We are looking forward to look another contributor to help us to find another documentation and also translating them.

We are planning to joined the Native Lang project on OpenOffice.org community to make our project getting bigger and focused on our local promotion and also we will have our own website that can be used to upload materials about howtos, manuals, setup guide, and any other files related to OpenOffice.org. Right now, we are making our proposal and we hope that next year, it will be done.

I want to thanks Derek Dregger, Scott Carr, and also Gerry Singleton that has helped me much about this project and responding my email, comments, issues, etc.

PHP 4 and 5

Today (or i should say yesterday), PHP has released another stable version for their PHP version 4 (4.3.10) and 5 (5.0.3). I have downloaded it today at my lab and successfully installed it at my computer (both Windows and Linux). In Windows, i have to uninstall the previous version and install the newer one, but in Linux, i don't have to do that, since i only have to compile and build a new version that will automatically overwrite the previous version.

Unfortunately, i can't install XSLT module just like the previous version. I have found the perfect parameters to install a XSLT modules, but when it comes to compile time, it stucks with an unreferenced variables or so. So i reconfigure it and delete the line with '--enable-xslt' '--with-iconv-dir' and '--with-sablot-dir'. I don't know what's wrong with this. If i use the older RPM version, the XSLT modules can be activated perfectly, since i only have to install php-xslt packes. I am hoping that there are somebody out there can help solve this problem for me :)

New Updates Again

Here goes another updates for Windows and it's application. This time, Windows XP Service Pack 2 has also infected in some categories (three categories). They are Vulnerability in WordPad Could Allow Code Execution (885836), Vulnerability in HyperTerminal Could Allow Code Execution (873339), and Vulnerabilities in Windows Kernel and LSASS Could Allow Elevation of Privilege (885835). You can view the detailed information in Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for December 2004. Two of them are called critical and the other is moderate, but as many people said before, it's better to update and apply every patch that is available to protect yourself.

New console games

Next year, there will be a gamers year, since many console games will be published, such as PSP, Nintendo DS, and some which are mysterious and we don't know for sure when it will be launched, such as XBox2, PlayStation 3, PSTwo, and a lot of great games. Yet another factors are the online facility that slowly became a standard in a big game, such as Halo, Counter Strike, etc. With it, we can play with another people around the world using Internet connection.

One of the game that i'm waiting for is Final Fantasy XII, which should be available this month in Japan, but i prefer to wait until the US version is released (usually it took a year) since it's hard to understand the storyline if we play the original version, since it was in Japannese language. Final Fantasy is an extraordinary game which is developed by Squaresoft, which in turn to be Squarenix. It has an excellent graphics, storyline, and also a bunch of side quest that never makes you borred with the original quest. Can't wait to play it.

End of This Semester

I have received my last signature to finish this semester and all i have to do is sending it to my lecturer tommorrow. If i have do that, it means that it will be the end of this semester, since i have nothing to do again and i will have a long vacation until next January. I don't know where will we be going next vacation, but i'm pretty sure that it will be a great holiday since there will be new year celebration also.

Meanwhile i have started my final project even though it's not officially started yet, since i have to do a registration first next January to get an official lecturer and also noticed by my faculty. I started to make a home page for the system, but it's not online right now. I will put it online when it close to final release and can be used as testing purposes.

Dilbert Comic Strips

For the last few months i have been using RSS Aggregator application (FeedReader for Windows platform and Liferea for Linux platform) and i'm quite satisfied with it's performance. With this application, i can grab and download any news updates everytime i got online and it will be saved on the application itself, so i can get read it anytime i want without having to be online everytime.

I grab as many RSS feed as possible so i can get a list of updated news since i need new information everyday about what has happened in the world when i'm not online. One of my collection is Dilbert comics strips, which can be found at http://dwlt.net/tapestry/dilbert.rdf. It's a good feed from Scott Adams and it reveals some of the management theory or social interactions that happened in the office or your daily work environments.

Two days ago i borrowed an Indonesian version of Dilbert Principles that was launched at 1997. I am reading right now and i found some information added by Scott to reveals the truly management concepts inside the corporation. Unfortunately, it wasn't translated perfectly, as it missed some of the real meaning of the text, but it's ok for me. For you that likes comics strips, you might download and install PHPGrabComics from Sourceforge. It has a complete list of comic strips, including Dilbert and it runs on web pages, so it can be viewed by many people around your office.

Grade Marks

Up until now, i have know some of my marks, even though it is not officially published, but i can guess some of them (and some of them has been published by the lecturer). I got an A on Compiler and CCNA (this two subjects has published their score updates) and the rest hasn't, but i can predict that i have a possibility to get a perfect score this semester (4,0).

The fastest grade comes from CCNA, which is A, and the second one is compiler, that was published few hours after our final test and i got 92 out of 100. For the robotics, i got 91 on the mid test, and 85 on the final test, and i can take a conclusion that i can get an A, but we will find out in a few weeks. For my field work, i'm pretty sure that i can get an A, and either does my music and ethics class. If it come true, then my wish after seven semester is fulfilled. I wanted to get a perfect score for a semester since i need it badly to raise my IPK. Right now, i have 3,24 out of 4,00 and if all my score gets an A, my IPK will be raised to 3,30. Well.. let's wait for a few weeks, and we will get an updated grades of all subjects

Second Exam: Sucess

Three hours ago, i started my second exam, compiler and now, it's finished with a big sucess. Now, i should wait for my grades that will come out in few days (maybe next monday, since it is Friday after all). It was quite complicated, even though it was open book, but it was very applicative, so i only use the theory on the book to do the implementation.

In the next two hours, i will face my third and last exam this semester, ethics. We didn't get any material, so i don't know what to study. It worth 60% of our total points so i have to get good mark if i want to get an A mark on this subject.

I also in a rush to get my signature for my reports, since maybe i will be off to Semarang tommorrow with my mother to meet my uncle who has come back from United States for vacation and business purposes. I'm not sure whether i will go to Semarang or not, but it will be decided tonight.

Very Exhausted

I'm very exhausted last night, since in the morning, i have to do a presentation and there were eight students who also had their presentation in the same day, so it would take 4 hours to get it finished, since we didn't allowed to leave the place before all students have finished their presentation. We only had thirty minutes to present our work, but one of my friend spent one hour for her presentation, so we should wait for 4,5 hour, sitting and waiting for our turn and then come sitting back again waiting for the rest. Luckily, my presentation was a big success and i'm pretty sure that i got a good mark for it. Now, i have to finish the administrative and submit the reports, getting a signature, etc, and my field work will be done. Hooraayyy...

When i got home, i started to plug all my computer and got online. I checked my email, writing my blog, and doing some translations about eGroupWare HOWTO v0.5 since i have joined with the contributor team for the translation of eGroupWare install and security HOWTO into Indonesian language. It's on progress and it should be finished this week, but i can't guarantee that. Information about this HOWTO will published on my personal page in project page.

This mourning at 3 AM, i saw Real Madrid crushing on AS ROMA to advance to the next level of the Champion League, but unfortunately Manchester United lost 2-0 against Fennerbache, but that doesn't affect the table, since Manchester United has advanced to the next level from the earlier match.

New Windows Server 2003 SP1 RC

After delivering Windows XP Service Pack 2 which leads to some controversial (in my case, i didn't experience the bad impact after installing SP 2, even though many people seems to have the same effect that i had, much secure and better system) that caused some company delayed their deployment to SP 2 until they are ready to install it, Microsoft Corporation has launched another Service Pack. This time, it is for their latest operating system, Windows Server 2003. This is not a final Service Pack, but rather a Service Pack 1 Release Candidate. You can try this Service Pack by downloading it via Download Page. Here is the product overview of the Service Pack 1 from Microsoft:

Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) delivers on the promise of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing initiative and illustrates Microsoft’s commitment to creating software products with enhanced security, increased reliability, and simplified administration. SP1 builds upon the impressive track record of the award winning Windows Server 2003 operating system by providing refinements and supplying cumulative system patches.

If you want to see what will be changed in Service Pack 1, download this file. You can also see the FAQ before you install it. And here is 10 reason to install Service Pack 1 for Windows 2003 (you don't have to believe it) :

Reduce your servers attack surface.

Security Configuration Wizard (SCW), one of the new features added to Windows Server 2003 in Service Pack 1 (SP1), uses an intuitive, role-based process to guide administrators through reducing the attack surface. With SCW you can disable unused services easily and quickly, block unnecessary ports, modify registry values, and configure audit settings.

Help protect newly installed servers.

In today's security environment there is a continual search for new and potentially exploitable system vulnerabilities. Post-Setup Security Updates (PSSU), another new feature of Windows Server 2003 SP1, blocks all incoming traffic to newly installed servers until the latest patches to Windows Server 2003 are downloaded and applied. PSSU also guides configuration of Automatic Updates when you first log on.

Get firewall protection from startup to shutdown.

Windows Firewall, the same core firewall technology in Windows XP Service Pack 2, is built into Windows Server 2003 SP1. Windows Firewall in Windows Server 2003 SP1 allows granular control over server and client computers through the use of Group Policy. Moreover, Windows Firewall provides boot-time protection, lowering the risk of attack just after a server is started up and while it is shutting down.

Bolster your defenses with "no execute" hardware support and software.

Data execution prevention (DEP) is a set of hardware and software technologies that performs additional checks on memory to help protect against exploitation of your system by malicious code. Windows Server 2003 SP1 fully utilizes the DEP capabilities built into servers by many manufacturers and further augments those capabilities with DEP software of its own.

Help protect your system services with stronger default settings and reducing privileges.

Services such as remote procedure call (RPC) and DCOM are integral to Windows Server 2003 and make an attractive target for hackers. By requiring greater authentication for calls of these services, Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 helps establishe a minimum threshold of security for all applications that use these services, even if they possess little or no inherent security.

Isolate out-of-date virtual private network (VPN) assets.

VPN Quarantine automatically provides the means for limiting network access for machines on virtual private networks that are not current with regards to security updates. This prevents you from having to write your own ad hoc scripts to affect this facet of sound network security.

Monitor and audit your Internet Information Services (IIS) configuration settings.

The metabase is the XML-based, hierarchical store of configuration information for Internet Information Services 6.0. The ability to audit this store allows network administrators to see which user accessed the metabase in case it becomes corrupted.

Windows Firewall Policy Management

Windows Server 2003 SP1 includes new Group Policies that help IT Pros centralize client and server firewall management, including application rules, port rules, and firewall logging at the client and server to help improve security in the enterprise while maintaining centralized configuration and deployment.

Help Secure Internet Explorer.

Internet Explorer now contains many enhancements to help secure Windows Server 2003. Among them, Internet Explorer more effectively stops downloads of spurious files and prevents Web pages from accessing cached objects.

Avoid potentially unsafe e-mail.

Windows Server 2003 SP1 includes additional refinements to protect the network. With Outlook Express you can now open mail in plain-text mode, preventing HTML messages from running malicious code. Outlook Express prevents e-mail from downloading external content, stopping a means by which spam senders can validate your e-mail address. Outlook Express also checks e-mail attachments with Attachment Manager, eliminating the need for your own custom code to do so.

First Exam: Sucess

Few hours ago, i have just finished my first exam, robotics experimental. It was quite success and my next exam will be held in Thursday. Tommorrow, i will have to some presentation about my field work and i'm so nervous, since there will be two lecturers and six other students who also have to present their work for about four months.

After posting this blog, i will unplug all of my computer's cable and prepare it for tommorrow's presentation, since it will begin at 10 AM and i have to prepare all of them carefully, such as reports, grade form, and my computer as well (such as lowering the refresh rate, so it won't display out of frequency error messages). After that, i will have to go to my girlfriends's house and then refill her printer, since it was empty. Well... can't write a long blog today :)

New Sound From Warehouse

My uncle bought a new drum for his son (my cousin) and it was placed on the warehouse (it already cleaned, repainted, and covered to reduce the sound, but i can still hear the sound, since my bedroom is about 2 meters just in front of the warehouse it's on the back of my house). The room has also a great place to sleep, since it has been equipped with air conditioner, but i haven't tried that yet :)

From now on, there will be a new sound from the warehouse and it's not a ghost. It's just a sound from a drum that was bought by my uncle. Maybe i will play it too, but i'm not too sure, since i have never experienced with music instruments before and i prefer to listen rather than playing it.

They Did It Again

For an OpenSource application, there are no exact date when to release a newer version, but for some developers, they have set their own, such as Gaim who set three weeks for their development time and they will release their new version after three weeks. For bigger project, such as KDE, the development time will be much longer, about six months.

This time, Gaim project has fulfilled their promises again. They release another version of Gaim, 1.1.0 (another big jump from 1.0.3) yesterday, even though it was published today (i have already downloaded them yesterday since it was posted at Majorgeeks, a site who publishes a 'state of the art' application, even though it's not officialy published yet by their developers). I also downloaded Winamp 5.07 one day before they are published to public. They truly provides an updates for application maniacs. If you want to get their latest update, please use their RSS to get informed. They updated their RSS very quickly, so make sure you don't miss your news.

PS : They only publishes Windows application, but because Gaim is also available on Windows platform, it can be used also :)

Start Updating

Today is my first day updating my FTP server. I got to my campuss at 7.30 AM and start searching for any new tools that usually used by any staff at my campuss. As my previous post, we are looking for a GPL-licensed or Freeware application. The first application that we can get is image viewer. Our choice comes to Irvan View which has a great feature and also a complete plugins in a separate application. It can be compared with ACDSee, a professional image viewer which includes a package for image editing also.

We don't have much change to find and download many files, since more and more people came to the lab and start consuming the bandwidth. So we will have to use Vixie Cron to do our jobs. We collect the URL to the application and we will schedule our download time when there are no students are using any bandwidth at all, which will be at night. Tommorrow, we will have some of our packages updated with a fresher package. Happy downloading with wget :)

Updating FTP Servers

In the next few weeks, i will help my university system administrator to update files in our FTP servers. The old files will be removed since it is out-dated and they may be not supported anymore or contains bugs that should be fixed in the newer version. This process will take a few days maybe week, since there are a lot of application that should be replaced with the latest one. We are looking an application which is GPL-licensed, but in an Alpha/Beta phase, instead in stable or mature phase. It's kindda hard to ensure students to use OpenSource application, since they tends to believe that commercial application is better.

My university is planning to upgrade it's Internet connection from 512 Kbps to 2 Mbps, but i don't know when will it be happen, but i'm sure it's not this year. I hope that it can be realized as soon as possible, since Internet connection is one of the primary need for computer science students who have to look for materials over the Internet. I was hoping that in the next two years, our university will adapt the WLAN technology, because Wireless technology has become very active technology and it's a common technology now. Let's hope that it will implement the next generation of Wireless technology from Intel, called WiMAX that can give wider bandwidth at longer distance compared to the original Wireless technology (802.11a, 802.11b, or 802.11g). This technology will be called 802.16 and 802.16a for the client that supports it. It is published it Intel Developer Forum few weeks ago. For more information about this event, please refer to IDF event.

My Last Change

Today is the last day before i will face the final exam that will start tommorrow. But my test will be started at Saturday and i only have to submit my paper and that's all for one day. My next test will be on Tuesday and it will be robotics. The last two exams will be held in the same day, which will be ethics and compiler. Can't wait to get this semester finished in just a few days.

As the end of the semester, my faculty will open a change for assistant recruitment for the next semester. I don't know whether i will take this job again or not. I have been an assistant for five semester up to now and next semester i will take my final project. This is going to be a major consideration, since i have to finish the project in one semester so that i can be graduated in April or October (it i can't make it to April). Next semester will be my last change to become an assistant, since after that, i won't be an assistant again, but maybe a lecturer. Pretty hard decision, but i will make it before next semester begins.

Modems and WinModems in Linux

GNU/Linux is far from a title "Perfect Operating System", just like the other Operating System, including Windows and Mac OS, especially when it's related to hardware detection, such as Modems. In Linux's platform, there are two type of modems. The first is the real modems and the second one if a winmodems and sometimes referred to as software or controllerless modems, they tend to be less expensive than controller-based modems. The real modem (it will be named modem for now on) is often an external modem which has a capability to run it's own process without utilizing processors, while winmodem will use computer's processors to do some processing, such as converting analog/digital signals. Winmodems works perfectly in Windows, but in Linux, this type of modem is rarely supported by default. You might have to look for the perfect driver on the Internet, install, and configure it manually.

However, if your system came with a Winmodem, all is not lost. The Linux community is nothing if not resourceful. Even when manufacturers are slow to notice Linux users, the same isn't true the other way around. As more and more people run Linux, this becomes less and less of a problem. In time, hardware manufacturers may be building for Linux first and Windows second. In the meantime, there are a couple of things you can and should do. The first place to look is your Linux distribution. Commercial Linux distributions sometimes provide drivers (SUSE and Mandrake come to mind). This usually involves purchasing the boxed sets as opposed to just downloading an image and burning your free distribution. If that doesn't bring you any satisfaction, check out the Linmodems.Org Web site at http://www.linmodems.org and you should be up and running shortly. Another great companion site is the "Winmodems are not modems" site at http://start.at/modem. Tons of information here including a fantastic list of what modems work, don't work, and everything in between.

You can find more information about configuring a winmodem in Marcel Gagné's article in Tux Magazine.

Hopefully this article will help you.

Playing Old Game

I usually never play a game on my computer during my study unless when holidays or there is a game which attracts me, such as The Sims 2 that i want to try. But, right now, i'm a little bit bored, since i have done all my task and i only have to wait for the final exam and a presentation on my field work. So i just fill my daily activities with reading ebook or blogging as usuall.

When War Craft III came, i bought the CD and i have played it until i finished the campaign. After that, i uninstalled the game, so it won't fill up my disk space. Yesterday, i decided to install it again so i can play it at my spare time such as now. I'm looking for the expansion pack: The Frozen Throne. I used to have it installed on my computer, but i forgot who lend me the CD.

War Craft III is a splendid game, evolve from War Craft II which i have played before. It was a great game and the best Strategy game i ever played for. It has great graphical environment with lots of goodies that can be found at their websites, such as WallPapers, Trailers, etc.

Browsing and Reading E-mail Safely

Are you browsing the Internet or reading email by using your administrator or root account? If you do, please take a good precaution, since this is not a good idea, since administrator or root account has super privileges, such as installing backdoors, changing system behaviour, and controlling access or service on the computer. It can be exploitted by another user if you don't have enough protection on your computer and your computer will be a zombie and can be used to launch a DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack.

Your first task is always creating a non-root account and use it as your daily activity. Second, you must use a better application that provides a better security parameter. Obviously, i would recommend using OpenSource application that is popular, such as Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird. If you come from Windows's user, you might want to read an article from Michael Howard, Microsoft Security Engineering that discuss about you can run as an administrator and access Internet data safely by dropping unnecessary administrative privileges when using any tool to access the Internet.

He also writes a program that apply his teory. DropMyRights is a very simple application to help users who must run as an administrator run applications in a much-safer context—that of a non-administrator. It does this by taking the current user's token, removing various privileges and SIDs from the token, and then using that token to start another process, such as Internet Explorer or Outlook. This tool works just as well with Mozilla's Firefox, Eudora, or Lotus Notes e-mail. If you are interested in his full article, please visit MSDN website and download DropMyRights.

If you come from Linux platform, there are another approach that can be taken to prevent this situation. You must upgrade the software to their newest version to fix a vulnerable hole. Just get used to it and join some security mailing list or your distribution's mailing list to get updated information about new packages that fixes some glitches.

Database Comparison

Are you looking for a new database products? If you are, then you should see this article first. It discuss about database comparison, based on their feature. This article was published by MySQL AB, a company who made MySQL, an OpenSource, powerfull, robust, and most popular database application in the world.

crash-me is a program that automatically detects the limits and capabilities of an SQL DBMS. It is also our input reference for the MySQL benchmark program. At MySQL, we have worked very hard to make crash-me as fair and accurate as possible, but there is always a possibility that a particular test will fail for a DBMS -- even when that DBMS has the capability it appears to lack. We are always willing to correct this as soon as it is brought to our attention. Note that some tests may fail because the DBMS in question does not comply with the SQL Standard (SQL:2003) or ODBC 3.0 requirements. In such cases, we regard this as a failure in the DBMS.

We plan to add as many tests as possible to the crash-me program. But you may find that we do not test for some DBMS-specific function or capability in which you are particularly interested. If this is the case, please let us know, and either try to patch the crash-me program yourself or provide us with an example so that we can add the necessary test.

Note: The crash-me table is normally generated from DBMSs started with default parameters. If this is not the case, the fact is noted in the comment row. Some detected limits may also be configurable, OS dependent, depend on the Perl DBI driver, or depend on the license of the DBMS version used.

-- Read the Full Article + Comparison Table

AntiVirus on GNU/Linux?

There has been a fact that GNU/Linux is not vulnerable to Virus, Worms, or their variants, but in reality, GNU/Linux is being used as the main web server, proxy server, mail server, firewall, file server that it's client is Windows-based and therefore, it should hold up as many virus, worms, or other threats that will penetrate to the internal networks. Here is a good article about consideration using Antivirus on GNU/Linux :

Should I get anti-virus software for my Linux box?

The problem with answering this question is that those asking it know only OSes where viruses, trojan-horse programs, worms, nasty Javascripts, ActiveX controls with destructive payloads, and ordinary misbehaved applications are a constant threat to their computing. Therefore, they refuse to believe Linux could be different, no matter what they hear.

And yet it is.

Here's the short version of the answer: No. If you simply never run untrusted executables while logged in as the root user (or equivalent), all the "virus checkers" in the world will be at best superfluous; at worst, downright harmful. "Hostile" executables (including viruses) are almost unfindable in the Linux world — and no real threat to it — because they lack root-user authority, and because Linux admins are seldom stupid enough to run untrusted executables as root, and because Linux users' sources for privileged executables enjoy paranoid-grade scrutiny (such that any unauthorised changes would be detected and remedied).

Here's the long version: Still no. Any program on a Linux box, viruses included, can only do what the user who ran it can do. Real users aren't allowed to hurt the system (only the root user can), so neither can programs they run.

Because of the distinction between privileged (root-run) processes and user-owned processes, a "hostile" executable that a non-root user receives (or creates) and then executes (runs) cannot "infect" or otherwise manipulate the system as a whole. Just as you can delete only your own files (i.e., those you have "write" permission to), executables you run cannot affect other users' (or root's) files. Therefore, although you can create (or retrieve), and then run, a virus, worm, trojan horse, etc., it can't do much. Unless you do so as "root". Which it's simple to avoid doing.

The first "virus" (arguably, actually a trojan or worm) for Linux was named "Bliss", created in September 1996 as a proof of concept. If a user executes an infected executable, the viral code appends itself to all executables for which the user has write permission. But thereafter, it can't go anywhere else or do anything else — and cannot take over (infect) the local machine (or any other): It lacks permission to do so. Nor can the other Linux/Unix viruses / worms / trojan horses thus far known. And claims of "Bliss" infections outside deliberate lab-only deployment by virus researchers are, in point of fact, considered suspect. New Linux viruses (such as Simile.D) emerge continually, too. But guess what? They don't go anywhere, either.

Most people asking this question have no experience with true multi-user systems built around a pervasive, ground-up security model. On their systems, any process the user executes, directly or indirectly, can modify, destroy, or manipulate anything on the system. This is true to a degree even on MS-Windows NT/XP, which tries to be fully multiuser as Unixes are, but has numerous fundamental security flaws.

By contrast, on Linux (or any other Unix), your processes cannot harm the machine (or damage other users' files) — because you yourself cannot.

Thus, even a Linux user who deliberately wants to activate a Linux virus (trojan horse, worm, or other program designed to do mischief) will have extreme difficulty getting it to circulate. If you're a programmer, try and see. Viruses aren't difficult to write on Linux: Write one, run it (as a non-root user), and watch it bollix your files. But nobody else's.

-- read the full article --

CCNA Exams

Yesterday i have finished one of my subject that i took on this semester, which is CCNA. I had my final exam yesterday and it was difficult, since the Internet connection was pretty bad at the beginning and it has a lot of material to be covered. It had eleven modules and there were 55 questions that should be answered. We only got about two hours to finish the exam, but i made it before the remaining times reached 0. In the grade exam, i missed 19 questions, so i made 74.4 and it was enough for me to get A grade since i passed over 85 which was the minimum requirement to get an A.

My final test will be held next week and there will be three test that i should take, robotics, compiler, and ethics plus one presentation about my project. I hope everything goes well and i can finish this semester with higher grade. Tomorrow i will do a presentation about ethics for my ethics subject. This is my last change to do the presentation, since there will be no other change.

My ISP is down for the last two days, so i couldn't send any email from my ISP account, so i have to use another ISP to get connected with my other friends. I hope this will only last for today and tomorrow, it will come back to normal again, since the other ISP cost much much more expensive than my original ISP.

New Mozilla and Firefox Updated Roadmap

Mozilla Foundation have updated their roadmap for their two mainstream products, which are Mozilla and Mozilla Firefox. The Mozilla Foundation is planning a Mozilla 1.7.5 release for mid-December. This update will include all the checkins to the 1.7 branch since Mozilla 1.7.3 was released in September. It's intended to provide a Mozilla Application Suite milestone that features a virtually identical Gecko version to Mozilla Firefox 1.0. You can join the Mozilla's talkback if you like or if you prefer to read the full article, please refer to Mozillazine.

For Mozilla Firefox's roadmap, there are several version of roadmap. Here are the roadmap press release by Ben Goodger:

We are planning for a Firefox 2.0, but will divide the planned work over (at this point) three major Milestones, 1.1 (March 2005), 1.5 (unscheduled) and 2.0 (unscheduled). All development work will be done on the Mozilla trunk, and these releases will coincide with Gecko version revs.

For full information about the Mozilla Firefox's release, please refer to Mozilla's Firefox Roadmap. You will find additional information, such as Mozilla's goals, localization, marketting, and branding issues regarding to Mozilla Firefox 2 roadmap.

One good news related to Mozilla and Firefox is Mozilla's browsers global usage share is 7.35 percent, which is a good score for now and i think that this score will keep flying until Microsoft launches their new browser, which will be in Longhorn's release (probably 2006 if there aren't any delays). You may find this information from OneStat

New Technology From Opera

After a long freeze, finally Opera launched a new technology, called Extensible Rendering Architecture technology that is implemented on their latest version Opera 7.60 Technical Preview 3. Here is the news from Opera :

Oslo, Norway -- Nov. 23, 2004 -- Opera Software today announced that they have solved the problem of rendering Web pages effectively regardless of screen size. Opera's new Extensible Rendering Architecture (ERA) means no more horizontal scrolling and improved ability to print entire Web pages. In combination with Opera's Zoom function, ERA also presents a compelling accessibility feature with which users can magnify Web pages dramatically and still view them without having to scroll sideways.

Opera's rendering technologies have previously included Small- and Medium-Screen Rendering (SSR/MSR) to render Web pages on mobile devices, as well as TV-rendering (TVR) for effectively displaying Web pages on regular television sets. ERA is the architecture that incorporates all of Opera's rendering technologies in one dynamic framework, and thus concludes Opera's effort to solve the rendering problem regardless of screen size.

The rendering challenge has been that most Web pages are designed with desktop or laptop users in mind, and are usually set to a fixed width of 800 pixels or more. Consequently, if your screen or window size is smaller than the minimum width of the Web page, you have to resort to horizontal scrolling. Opera's ERA technology enables dynamic resizing to adapt Web page content to fit any width – from projectors to mobile phones, and everything in between. Furthermore, printing Web pages will often leave out parts because the Web page is wider than the paper, and ERA can make the Web page fit the width of the paper for complete printouts.

"Opera's vision is to enable people to access their favorite Web sites on any device, and ERA means that users can have a great Internet experience on any screen regardless of a Web page's width, tables, or frames," says Jon S. von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software. "With its unlimited applicability, ERA technology is truly a milestone in Web page rendering."

An integrated feature of the next version of the Opera desktop browser, Opera 7.60, a preview of ERA is available by downloading the Opera 7.60 Technical Preview 3 at under "Beta Testing."

About Opera Software ASA

Opera Software ASA is an industry leader in the development of Web browser technology, targeting the desktop, smartphone, PDA, home media and vertical markets. Partners include companies such as IBM, Nokia, Sony, Motorola, Adobe, Macromedia, Symbian, Canal+ Technologies, Sony Ericsson, Kyocera, Sharp, Motorola Metroworks, MontaVista Software, BenQ, Sendo and AMD. The Opera browser has received international recognition from users, industry experts and media for being faster, smaller and more standards-compliant than other browsers.

Opera's browser technology is cross-platform and modular, and currently available on the following platforms: Windows, Linux, Mac OS, Symbian OS, Windows Mobile, BREW, QNX, TRON, FreeBSD, Solaris and Mediahighway.

Opera Software ASA is headquartered in Oslo, Norway, with development centers in Linkoping and Gothenburg, Sweden. The company is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol OPERA. Learn more about Opera at www.opera.com.

Demonstration

In the next few hours (two and a half for exactly), i will demonstrate my project to my lecturer in my faculty. At first, i'm planning to discuss my reports with my lecturer, but it seems that i haven't demonstrate my works up until now, so i guess it's the perfect time to do that. I also need his signature to fullfill the minimum requirement to perform a final presentation which requires six signatures (and i only got three so far).

One thing that i hate is that i have to bring my own computer and that means i have to unplug all the cables and replug it again when i got home later. I also have to adjust my monitor settings since i'm using 1024x768 resolution with 32 bits in depths, and also 85 hertz for my refresh rate which should be out-of-range in my faculty monitors. I'm planning to bring my own keyboard and mouse, so that it won't load any additional driver and that would cause a longer operational time.

Just wish me luck and i get my demonstration goes well today.

UPDATE:
I made the presentation session goes well and nothing bad happened. I finally fulfill my signature requirement, since i got three signature today because yesterday i supposed to meet up with my lecturer, but he was busy and i still get the signature. It's time to update my reports since there are still minor revision. I also have to prepare for the final presentation at 8 December 2004.

Not Enough Information

As i wrote in my blog few days ago, i have bought a book about GNU/Linux GUI programming using GLADE. Later that night i read the book and find it suprisingly that it didn't contain enough information about the materials it self. I was quite dissapointed by how the authors wrote that book. It didn't give details information and only explains some steps and shows a picture about the results. Luckily i have downloaded GTK tutorial from the original site, but i haven't read them yet, since i was quite busy with my task right now.

In the future, i will be more selective when i want to buy a book, mainly for computer or programming books, since some author just write or translate from the manuals without a real implementation or any suggestion about the materials. I prefer to buy foreign books, even though they are more expensive than the local books. My favourite books are Eric Meyer on CSS and More Eric Meyer on CSS. It contains a detail information and also a practical materials with some tips from the CSS guru. It also has a full color page, so i can see the result in the real color, not just black and white. If you are looking for a book that discuss about CSS, i suggest you with this books as the first try. You will not regret it.

Happy Birthday Dad

Today is my father's 50th birthday and we were celebrating it Pizza Hut along with every people on my house, 10 in totals, plus my girlfriend. We left to Pizza Hut at 12.50, since i watched Total Football in my girlfriend's house and didn't noticed that my sister was calling me (i watched the tv shows at the third floor and my phonecell was left at second floor). My sister was a little bit upset when i got home :)

This night, i attended at a engagement party in Vidi with my fater, my mother, and my grandmother. I met some friends there and tried to enjoy the party as much as possible. The foods was quite good, but i'm still full so i didn't eat too much at the party. We came back at 20.15 and i went to the book rental, but it was closed. I got home at 21.20 and started to get online to reply any incoming message that i can reply. I checked my old email and i still forgot to change my preferences on some sites, so i update my preferences quickly so that any incoming email will be sent to my new email instead of my old email. I found that there was one person that sent me an email and ask for something. I replied him back and told him that i have moved my email to my new email address. My new email address is willysr@jogja.citra.net.id.

Hanging Out

Today i hanged out with my girlfriend again, but this time i went with my sister and my three cousins to eat and having fun together. We ate at 'Cak Koting', in front of Mataram Theatre and ordered a lot of food. Yes, it was yummy and i was satisfied with the food. We got there at 18.40 PM and finished eating at 19.30 PM (i'm not quite so sure about this).

After eating, we traveled to Gramedia book store to look for books. My cousins bought two comics books, while my sister bought a novel book. I bought a GNU/Linux's programming book, called "Pemrograman GUI di GNU/Linux Menggunakan Glade" or "GUI Programming on GNU/Linux Using Glade" in English. I started to get interested in GUI programming on GNU/Linux, since i have seen many great GUI application, such as Gaim, Liferea, and many other that uses GTK library and the result was excellent.

I will try to learn this new modules in my spare time. For now, i have downloaded GTK's documentation from GTK, but it seems that it hasn't been updated for a long time. The GTK 2.0 documentation was last updated at 2003 and GTK 1.0 was even worse. They were last updated at 2000. I hope i can get even better documentation out there in the Net.

After i came back, i watched the remaining MU-Charlton football match that has reached 73 minutes and finally it was won by Manchester United by 2-0. I'm happy to hear that fact, since i love Manchester United so much.

Having Fun

After finishing my class at 12.30 PM i drop my girlfriend back to her house and i went back to campuss to do some consultation with my lecturer about my reports, but unfortunately i have to wait for him until 13.10 and he would have a meeting with Mr Phillip, so i just send him my files and i went home to take a rest, because i will play basketball at 4.00 PM.

I wake up at 15.35 and when i was on my way picking up my girlfriend, suddenly it was raining heavily and i got wet and i decided to got back to my house. I called my friend and we had some talk. While we were talking, the rains stopped so i decided to continue playing basketball. I got to the court at 16.40 PM and we started to play basketball as usual.

After playing basketball, we went to Galeria Mall with our friends. We supposed to met at 19.00, but as usual the party started at 20.00. We played at Timezone and Fantasia for relaxing. When we played at Timezone we unaccidentaly broke one of the games by holding the crocodile and hitting them hardly. The machine was tilting and they didn't update the score and we finally only got 1 ticket for the result.

We continued our journey by travelling down to see around because some of us have never been to Galeria for a long time. Finally we ate at the basement and we got back at 21.29 PM. What a nice hangout. We were having fun for about one hour, but i was satisfied. Can't wait for the next party :)

Indonesian Setup Guide Updated

Few days ago Scott Carr, the curent maintainer of OpenOffice.org Documentation Project released an update for the master document for the OpenOffice.org Setup Guide in documentation-developers mailing list. I joined this mailing list since i joined the Documentation Project and right now i'm the current maintainer of Indonesian Documentation Translastion Project.

I haven't update the Indonesian Setup Guide for a while (a year maybe) and i have the responsibility to update this documents. So i downloaded the latest version of the master documents and started to update the Indonesian version. It seems that the documents have changed a lot since my last updates. Some screenshots have been replaced with Linux's version of OpenOffice.org and the StarOffice's screenshots were removed for clarity since this is OpenOffice.org's documentation, not StarOffice. Few commands have also been replace to reflect the OpenOffice.org's method of installation.

One of the biggest changes in the Setup Guide project is the current maintainer. When i joined this project, the current maintainer was Derek Dreger and now he didn't maintain this project anymore and was replaced by the Scott Carr. I don't know why but i must say to Derek that gave me a lot of information so i could joined this project as my first experience joining an OpenSource project.

I have submitted the updated documentation to Scott, but it seems that it uses some screenshots from the previous master document so i have to update them along with the screenshots as well. As you read this, the Indonesian Setup Guide has been updated and it will be posted on OpenOffice.org's Documentation site on Setup Guide section. If you are looking for an updates, here is your change. Go get the files and have fun with OpenOffice.org.

Microsoft Releases Windows Update Beta

Microsoft Corp.'s oft-delayed WUS (Windows Update Services) is finally ready for public testing. A public beta of WUS was released at the Microsoft IT Forum show in Copenhagen to give system administrators their first look at the tool that handles the download, installation and management of software updates. Microsoft has been privately beta testing WUS, formerly Software Update Services 2.0, since the summer. It is seen as a crucial part of the company's enterprise patch-management strategy makeover. The product is due to ship by mid-2005, a full year off the original schedule.

It falls under the company's new Microsoft Update Service, which is styled as a new patching system designed to provide fixes to not only Windows, but also Office, SQL Server, Exchange Server and other core Microsoft products. Microsoft has been heavily criticized over the years for its hodge-podge approach to helping customers download, test and apply software products. With WUS, Microsoft is promising a complete architecture makeover with new technology to minimize reboots, save bandwidth and distribute updates in a streamlined way.

It provides a free mechanism for IT administrators to apply updates to Windows 2000-based servers and Windows Server 2003-based servers, as well as to desktop computers running Windows 2000 Pro or Windows XP Pro. Microsoft Update is the evolution of Windows Update. The client component of WUS is Auto Update.

Gentoo and Ubuntu

Yesterday, or i should say this morning (since i chat with my friend at 1 AM in the morning) i talked with my friends via YM and we talked about Linux distributions that can be installed on a low spec PC. He wanted a small, flexible, and robust Linux distributions and avoided big distributions like RedHat, Fedora Core, SuSE, and Mandrake since it was a big distros. He needed X since he want to use Firefox and some web editing tools. The computer will not be connected to the Internet, so there are no security updates service available but it's ok for him, since he only tried to utilize his old computer.

Our discussion comes to Ubuntu Linux and also Gentoo. Gentoo is rather hard to install but it is fully configurable and also optimized for all purpose. It can be used as desktops, servers, graphical operations, or any other purpose. Gentoo don't use versioning on their products, since Gentoo's users can update their package using emerge command which will update their portage tree and update all their package to the lastest version.

On the other hands, Ubuntu Linux is a new Linux distribution and based on Debian. "Ubuntu" is an ancient African word, meaning "humanity to others". Ubuntu also means "I am what I am because of who we all are". Some friends that have installed Ubuntu said that this distro is not intended for developers who don't have Internet connections since some development packages such as GCC is not installed by default and they have to download it from Internet manually.

I have downloaded all Gentoo documentation, starting from installation, portage, emerge, and kernel updates. It's very well documented and i'm happy with that. No other distro have such a great documentation (exception for those who sell commercial products, such as Mandrake, SuSE and Red Hat). In fact, Gentoo is a community based Linux distribution. This is what makes me happy when i realize this fact. I'm looking for the Gentoo's CD right now and hopefully i can try Gentoo as soon as possible (but maybe not in my computer since it is already full and it's too risky to sacrifise my Mandrake)

Mirror Site

Few days ago my OpenOffice.org Documentation project sites contains some errors on the database since there were some migration and i didn't notice that failure. I noticed that when i tried to update the files and i couldn't login to the site. I asked the hosting service and they tell me the problems and i finally knew it. I have fix this problem and the sites is up and operate again as normal again.

For backup solutions, i have made a new mirror for the site which is located on the Jogja's Linux User Group website. Here is the real URL: http://jogja.linux.or.id/project/Dokumentasi-OOo. There might some difference with both site regarding the path, since i have to change some settings so they fit with the new settings in different hosting services. There might be some gaps between this two sites when there are updates, since i have to manually updates them and i can't use rsync to do synchronizing on both sites.

Let's hope that there are no future crash on both servers :)

Liferea-0.6.2

In the last two days, i got unpredictable updates from OpenSource application. Yesterday it was Gaim who updates to 1.0.3 and now it's Liferea. After launching their first 0.6.x version, Liferea has a VFolder support and it's quite stable enough in 0.6.1. And now it's time to updates to 0.6.2 to get a stabler version of Liferea. This month, Lars is planning to do some code cleanup and also bug fixes to prepare the first final release that is scheduled by the end of this year, that means next year. In the final release, it will be equipped with documentation so you don't have to be online to read the Liferea manual or FAQ.

Unfortunately, until now Lars haven't updates his website, so you won't see any updates available right now. If you want to update your Liferea, you can directly go to Download Section and you will see this updates. Have a nice weekend with updates from Liferea and Gaim :)

Another Updates For Gaim

Three weeks have passed and now it's time to update your Gaim into the latest version of Gaim which was released in 11 November 2004, that means two days ago. In fact, i just read their RSS news today, so i missed two days since the release date. No big deal, since i haven't logged into my Mandrake. I'm using my Windows to do some activity, such as making reports and testing my personal website and also another website.

Here are the changelog for the latest Gaim 1.0.3:
Bug Fixes:
* Jabber authentication fixes (Michael Plump)
* Yahoo buddy idle reporting is more accurate (Evan Schoenberg)
* "Allow All" privacy setting works on Yahoo (Peter Lawler)
* Fix a crash when dragging a buddy to the conversation entry area
* Fix a crash removing chats from the buddy list
* Correctly display buddy pounces for aliases with &, < or > in them
* Correctly follow the per-conversation logging option
For details, you can view the full Changelog.

Gaim is a multi messaging client that can communicate with other protocols, such as YM, MSN, ICQ, Gadu-Gadu, Zephyr, Jabber, etc. You can get the latest version via their official website, http://gaim.sourceforge.net.

POP3 On Gmail

For you who loves downloading and reading emails using POP3 (Post Office Protocols), you might have disappointed since GMail, the free 1GB webmail from Google doesn't provide that protocols, so you will have to login to their website and read them online, just like Yahoo! (exception for Local Yahoo!, such as Singapore, Australia, Germany who still ofered their POP3 opened) and the other webmail services.

But time has proven that Google cares about their consumer's wish. One of the main wish is access to POP3 protocols and also Forwarding services. Google has just announced that they will add this facility, but i'm not sure when will it be realized. If you visit the About Gmail site, you will notice that they have released this facility, but if you log in into your GMail account, you can't find any setting about POP3 and SMTP.

If you visit the GMail Help Center, they have published a new help page, called POP > How do I enable POP? and they have also published a simple howto to enable your POP3 Access, but still i can't find it on my GMail account.

Finally i can get the answer. Look at the bottom of the page and you will see the answer. Well... here you are: We're rolling out POP access to all users in phases. Once it's available to you, a 'Forwarding and POP' tab appears on your 'Settings' page. You need to have this tab in your Gmail account before you can configure POP in your mail client.

That means, not every user can find this tab in their GMail account for now, since they give them in phases. Just wait and keep logging in to your GMail account and when you have your POP3 tab, start POPPING down your GMail account :)

Party is NOT Over Yet

Mozilla Firefox has been released, party has been celebrated, so what next?
Should this joy end like the previous fenomena (i mean Microsoft and Internet Explorer who reached their peak and finally stopped their development process to make a better browser application with less bugs and added functionality)? I don't want that to happen on the development process of Mozilla Firefox because i believe that Firefox has a longer roadmap than IE does and it does have. You can search in the Mozilla's website and they have published their roadmap for 2004 and 2005. Maybe you can find it also in my previous blog.

Right now, every electronic media is talking about Firefox. It is definetly a true big leap since IE dominates browser market for about five years (or maybe more). It's Firefox who cracked their domination in this year, even though the market share still dominated by Internet Explorer, but it already dropping down to 3-4% and Mozilla Foundation is hoping that they will get about 10% by the end of this year. You can view Firefox's articles in PCWorld, Extremetech, eWeek, CNET, The Guardian, CNN, Libération, BBC, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, and Aljazeera.

There are also some third party support for Mozilla Firefox, such as Vivisimo has released the Clusty Toolbar for Firefox, which lets Firefox users easily perform searches using Vivísimo's Clusty search engine. In addition, the extension's ClustyClips feature provides access to pop-up dictionary definitions or encyclopedia articles relating to any term on a page. There's also a Mini-Mode option, which allows users to collapse the toolbar into the standard Firefox Search bar, saving screen space.

Another third party support is the launch of the new Bloglines Firefox Central site, which offers two community-developed Firefox extensions. The first, Bloglines Toolkit, adds various Bloglines integration features to Firefox, such as a notifier that informs users when new information is posted to their Bloglines feed list. The second extension, LiveLines, changes the Firefox Live Bookmark icon (in the Status Bar) so that it adds feeds to a user's Bloglines feed list instead of creating a new Live Bookmark.

You can view some blog from the persons behind the Firefox development team, such as Blake, Mitchell, and also Ben. They showed their opinion about Firefox development process.

Some reports stated that Mozilla Firefox has been downloaded more than one million times in the first day it was released. That's an extraordinary fenomena that ever happen in the OpenSource environment, since Firefox is not only for Linux, but also for Windows and Mac OS platforms.

I believe that Firefox will not stop like this and enjoy their victory, but they will keep moving on making a better, safer, and faster browser that can be enjoyed by all people around the world. They still have a lot of tasks to be done for the next release for Firefox.

Updates:
Bradley has posted his Extension, called LookAhead and i think that's a great Extensions. Here are the summary :
"The Lookahead extension for the Firefox browser was created to provide for efficient usage of time while a user performs Google searches.

The extension adds functionality to the existing SearchBar in Firefox. See the screenshot page for an idea of how it will look after installation.

The Lookahead project was conceived as a result of an idea the project lead had for a year or so of making use of the ability of a machine to download multiple web pages while the user was viewing one page for the desired information. In utilizing the time the user is viewing a web page for relevant information to retrieve additional resources, the time normally spent waiting for the next resource to download is somewhat avoided.

The idea is fairly simple and little code is required. After the user chooses the LookAhead mode for Google searches in the toolbar, subsequent searches use the Google Web Service to query for URLs matching the search and these URLs are loaded into multiple tabs in the browser (the default is to open 5 tabs but is configurable). The user can then quickly scan the returned resources for the desired information and close those windows providing nothing of value."

If you want to install this extensions, you can visit MozDev and search for LookAhead or you can install it from here.

Thanks to Bradley who read my blog and gives this blog an updates :)

Extensions: Need Attention

Firefox has introduced a new alias for plugin that were used in Internet Explorer as Extensions. Extensions will improve Firefox's capability while keeping Firefox's base file as small as possible to reduce unwanted growth (it makes no different to Mozilla if every extensions are included in the installer packages). As new developers start their new project, they will add new extensions and publish them at Update Page. Here you can find extensions and also themes for Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird.

Unfortunately, as Firefox releases their new versions, some of the extensions aren't compatible with the newer version and they will be disabled or have to uninstalled when Firefox reopened for the first time after installation process. Some of the extensions are compatible until the latest version, such as ColorZilla and Web Developer Toolbar. This is the most important extensions for me at this moment since i need it in my daily work.

Things that need to have more attention for the developers are not just extensions, but also themes. Some of the themes available for Firefox 1.0 RC2 is not compatible with Firefox 1.0, so they also have to be uninstalled since they can't be used anymore unless the developers released newer version that suit with the latest version of Firefox.

Party Time: 1.0 Released

Today is the day where many MozParty2 is celebrated around the world. It is the day where Mozilla Firefox comes and filling the computer around the world with Firefox packages. Here is the press release from Mozilla Foundation:

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - November 9, 2004 - The Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving choice and promoting innovation on the Internet, today announced the worldwide availability of the Mozilla Firefox 1.0 web browser. Development of Firefox has been driven by a desire for a more robust, user-friendly and trustworthy web experience. Mozilla Firefox 1.0 arrives on the heels of last month's highly successful Preview Release that over eight million people downloaded, contributing significantly to the final phase of its open source development.

Today's announcement marks the worldwide launch of Mozilla Firefox-with immediate availability for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux-as a free download from mozilla.org and by CD from the Mozilla Store. Firefox is now available in over a dozen languages, with many more on the way.

"We are delighted to be announcing this major milestone for the Mozilla Foundation and for the Firefox browser, which has been made possible thanks to the tireless effort of hundreds of community volunteers and developers around the world," commented Mitchell Baker, president of the Mozilla Foundation. "Now millions more will be able to enjoy a better web experience."

Award-winning Web Experience
The Mozilla Firefox browser has already garnered rave reviews and awards for its stability, trustworthiness and innovative features.

* Pop-up Blocking - Firefox includes an integrated pop-up blocker that lets users-not websites-decide when they will view pop-ups. Mozilla continues to set the standard in assisting users avoid annoying pop-ups.
* Online Fraud Protection - Firefox helps users protect themselves against online fraud such as "phishing" (attempts to trick users into giving away their passwords) and "spoofing" (fraudulent sites masquerading as popular, trusted sites) by clearly displaying the true identity of secure sites.
* Faster, Easier, More Accessible Search - Firefox tightly integrates support for leading search services into the toolbar, including Google search, Yahoo!, eBay, Amazon, Dictionary.com, Creative Commons, and more. The new Firefox Start Page also provides access to Firefox information, resources and application tips, coupled with an integrated Google search box.
* More Efficient Browsing - Firefox's innovative Tabbed Browsing allows many web pages to load within the same window, improving the speed and utility of web browsing. Firefox also introduces Live Bookmarks, which allows users to easily glance through the latest news and blog headlines.
* Extensible with Hundreds of Add-ons - More than 100 extensions are available for Firefox today, including the A9.com, Google, and Yahoo! toolbars, which make Firefox even more customizable and convenient to use.
* Easy Migration - With Firefox it's easy to switch from Internet Explorer and other browsers. Firefox imports your existing bookmarks, passwords, cookies, and other data.

Firefox has received numerous endorsements and industry awards including Laptop Magazine's Editor's Choice Award, Best in Show at Linux World Fall 2004, Best Open Source Solution at Linux World Fall 2004, and first place in Maximum PC's Softy Awards for 2004.

Extensive Support Network
With thousands of technology contributors and advocates engaged in the development, documentation, testing and marketing of Mozilla Firefox, a rich ecosystem of support resources and tools is available. Online documentation, tutorials, FAQs and links to commercial support partners are available online at http://www.mozilla.org. Independent news, commentary and community support is available from mozillaZine at http://www.mozillazine.org/.

Getting Firefox
Mozilla Firefox 1.0 can be downloaded for free or purchased in a CD-ROM Edition with Firefox Guidebook from the Mozilla Foundation at http://www.mozilla.org.

About the Mozilla Foundation
Established in July 2003, the Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organization hosting a collection of leading innovators whose mission is to preserve choice and innovation on the Internet. The Foundation provides organizational, legal, and financial support for the Mozilla open source software project. The Foundation is based in Mountain View, California and is the heir to the legacy & tradition of the Internet's first widely used browser, Netscape. Learn more about the Mozilla Foundation at http://www.mozilla.org.

Press Contact:
Colin Crook
Sparkpr
colin@sparkpr.com
+1-415-321-1887

Expat, Sablotron, PHP and XSLT

Yesterday i compiled PHP from source code and it worked, but it left me with one problem that i haven't been able to solved yesterday, which was the XSLT module that couldn't be installed or activated. When i was using RPM version of PHP, it was just fine since i only have to install php-xslt packages, but since i'm using source code packages, i have to manually reconfigure the source code to give the module that i need.

In general, XSLT modules requires Expat and Sablotron for their backend XML parser. I have downloaded the latest version of Expat and Sablotron today and i will try the process maybe in the next few days since i have to do other task, which is finishing my reports before next thursday (it's not mandatory but sooner the better, since i will have more time playing with my Linux box).

Yesterday i tried to enable XSLT module by adding this parameter on the configure script: '--enable-xslt' '--expat-dir=/path/to/expat' but the configure script couldn't locate the path where i installed Expat. Maybe i should add another parameter: '--with-xslt-sablot'.

Anybody has an idea about this?
Any suggestion will do as long as it's related

Compile Time

I'm having a trouble testing my project's website since i encountered a bug in PHP 4.3.4 which leads to session errors. When i login with user A and i looked at members page which displays user B, the sessions thinks that i'm user B. This is obviously not a good security implementation. I encountered this problem if i'm using Linux because Mandrake doesn't release newer PHP version, except for PHP 4.3.8 which is designed for Mandrake 10.1. I have also tried to upgrade from those RPM packages, but it would need to upgrade pam-devel and glibc as well, so i decided to try compiling from source code.

I'm used to compile an application from source code, but not for big application, such as Apache, PHP, and MySQL so i stayed with the old version that was included with Mandrake 10.0. Recently i need to upgrade to the newer version to solve my problems. The first application that i update was MySQL. I found a RPM package for Mandrake 10.1 and it worked for Mandrake 10.0 as well, so i just use that RPM packages rather than installing from source.

I encountered a problem when i want to compile PHP. I'm using parameters that was used by the RPM version of PHP developed by Mandrake's developers and it won't worked, since it couldn't find libphp4.so. I asked my friend Jaya via YM (i'm using Gaim) and he told me to install Apache2-devel that includes APXS2 library that was required to build Dynamic Shared Objects (DSOs) for Apache2. I tried his suggestion but still it won't worked. When i view my website on my computer, the browser will display download prompt rather than displaying my websites. I decided to delay this process since i thought that i need to recompile Apache2 from source either, so i asked my admin in campuss to download source code for Apache2.

Today i have all the application needed and i started by writing down my PHP packages installed in case the installation doesn't go smoothly, i can restore it by installing it again from Mandrake's CD. Luckily, the process was so smooth and i'm able to see my website again from my local browser. Now my computer is equipped with the latest version of PHP and that would solved my problems :)

Here are the parameter that i used to compile my PHP

'./configure' '--prefix=/usr/local' '--enable-discard-path' '--disable-force-cgi-redirect' '--enable-shared' '--disable-static' '--disable-debug' '--disable-rpath' '--enable-pic' '--enable-inline-optimization' '--enable-memory-limit' '--with-config-file-path=/etc' '--with-config-file-scan-dir=/etc/php' '--with-pear=/usr/share/pear' '--enable-magic-quotes' '--enable-debugger' '--enable-track-vars' '--with-exec-dir=/usr/bin' '--with-versioning' '--with-mod_charset' '--with-regex=php' '--enable-track-vars' '--enable-trans-sid' '--enable-safe-mode' '--enable-ctype' '--enable-ftp' '--with-gettext=/usr' '--enable-posix' '--enable-session' '--enable-sysvsem' '--enable-sysvshm' '--enable-yp' '--with-openssl=/usr' '--without-kerberos' '--with-ttf' '--with-freetype-dir=/usr' '--with-zlib=/usr' '--with-zlib=/usr' '--with-zlib-dir=/usr' '--with-apxs2=/usr/sbin/apxs2' '--with-gd' '--with-png-dir' '--with-jpeg-dir' '--with-zlib-dir' '--with-tiff-dir'