First Problem on Jakarta

Today was like a nightmare on the first experience. First, i have to accompany my mother and sister to shop. It was so boring and finally it was finished after about two hours of shopping (or maybe more). Next, i went to my future living place and they said they only got 1 room left, but i need 2 two rooms for me and my friends. So i postponed the room until i got another one or i should find another place. So, my nightmare continued with my sister and mother were shopping again in Taman Anggrek. It was quite short, since i went to my office and talked with my friends about the previous problems. I got the solutions in about 45 minutes later by getting a new place to stay, but it wasn't empty yet, so i have to call them yesterday morning to confirm it.

After finishing my problem, i went back to Taman Anggrek and ... (yes you know the rest). I went back at 8.45 and got home at 9.30 PM. Finally i got a change to write my blog (yes, this is my first good news for today). Thank God i made it.

Back to Jakarta

Today i will go to Jakarta at 3 PM and i will be there until next month, when i should come back to Jogja and attend my graduation day at 19 November at UKDW. Well.. that means i will be offline for a few days, until i get an Internet connection. Meanwhile, all email messages sent to be will be saved in my ISP. I will reply them as soon as possible.

First Slackware Updates

Slackware has released their first updates after the final release of 10.2. It contains 3 packages, Xorg, Mozilla, and Mozilla Firefox. You can view them in the official changelog. Patrick told me that the Firefox updates were built for 10.0, but i don't know whether it has been modified for 10.2 or not. As an alternative, you can download the Firefox packages available from Linuxpackages, which is build by Jim Simmons.

Updating My Web

Before i left to Jakarta, i have updated my website on project, aboutme, cv, but mostly regarding to CSS, since it displayed a lot of warnings when i checked it yesterday. Right now, it has been reduced to 3 or less and it is the minimal warnings that i can solve, since it was about background color, and i used an alternate color for some pages for my pages, like the project and guestbook, so if i assign some value, it will make them quite strange.

Learning C#

For the last few days, i have started to learn C#, but because i have packed my book and it's on the way to Jakarta, it's quite difficult to learn it quickly. I didn't have the MSDN library CD also, so i depend on ebooks. Most ebook that i got only talked about C# for console apps, but i need C# to develop a window applications. I tried VB's syntax, but it's different also. It's quite an unique language, since it was a fusion of Java and C++, but can be used to develop a window apps also.

Indonesian Native Lang Project

Last Saturday (Indonesian time, +0700), i have been granted to be an observer at the OOo's Native Lang project and the Indonesian Native Lang project is being set up by the Native Lang Lead, Charles and Louis. We will start the translation project as soon as possible by coordinating our team, preparing the translation of the glossary, and the final task is to translate the POT files for the OOo. We will use OOo 2.0 final release as our base reference, so we still have time to translate the glossary first.

I shall make a new mailing list to provide a new communication media for our internal team. I haven't decided a name yet, but if you have suggestion, please send it to willysr (at) gmail (dot) com. Any help will also be thankfully accepted, including resources. People who wishes to see the Indonesian version of OOo can contribute to our project and we are looking forward to see you soon.

For more information about this project, please visit the official OpenOffice.org's Native Lang Project

Where is Forum Linux?

For the last two days, Indonesian Linux Forum has been down and can't be accessed. I don't know what happened, but i will look for the answer in the mailing list. Few months ago, all linux.or.id domain was vanished from Google and we can't list our website in Google public listing. We don't know why they removed our site. Weird....

Firefox on XML

Uche Ogbuji has written an intersting article about the future of Firefox on XML development. I'm looking forward to see the next major release of Firefox that will deal with XML. I hope they will fulfill their promises to be the best browser in the world. Most of the W3C recommendation has been supported by Firefox and this is a good news for web developers. Let's hope it will continues and getting better.

Trying Mono

Few days ago i attended the Microsoft .Net Roadshow to Campuss which discussed about .NET platform. I needed an information about .NET because this is the technology being used in my office, so i must learn the basic of .NET. Since i'm also a Linux users, yesterday i downloaded the latest version of Mono, which is an implementation of .NET platform on Linux users. Let's hope the development of Mono keep going and it can reach a stable version with high compatibility level with the real .NET platform.

Bouncing Email

In the last two days, i had my email gets bounced at Yahoogroups. I didn't know why, but when i looked at the messages, it was a hard bounce with a message related to Spamcop or something like that. It's kindda weird. Has someone spoofs my email and sending spam to other people so i got my email banned by the Spamcop? I'm not quite sure, but in case you have a difficult time sending me an email, please send it to willysr (at) gmail (dot) com.

Slackware ISO

Even though i have used Slackware 10.2 by using the current packages, i still download the ISO for the 10.2 in case i have to install a new system. I asked my system administrator on my campuss to download the ISOs and now they have been burned into CDs. I will bring the CD to Jakarta. Let's wait for the next Mandriva 2006 which should be released in a few days :)

Mandriva 2006 Beta RC2

The second release candidate version of the next Mandriva release has been shipped in the public mirrors and they contains a lot of bug fixes which can be seen in their changelog. In their release schedule, Mandriva 2006 final should have been released in 15 September, but due to a long delay in the second beta release (it supposed to be released at 30 July but actually was released at 10 August), every schedule was affected by the delay, including the final release, which is now scheduled for 20 August.

It is still using 2.6.12.x kernel version and i don't think Mandriva's developer will upgrade their kernel version to 2.6.13, because the time is very short and they must fix many things before they releases the final version. But, as usual, Mandriva's developer has backported some fix from the 2.6.13-git8:

# check hardware checksum in ECN, queue, TCPMSS
# fix tcp checksum in ipt_REJECT
# ipt_CLUSTERING: deletion, ct_related, mangling arp, memcpy_typo
# ip6table_raw: missing owner
# race condition in Decnet
# optimize expected timeout
# delete reference conntrack in ipmr
# fix ECN tcp marking, byteorder in icmp NAT, ip6t_LOG sit tunnel logging, masquerading index for slave connection , fix sysctl_tcp_low_latency
# IFWLOG : fix bad kfree and close bug #18276 (DN33_netfilter_IFWLOG.patch)

I hope this version will be better than 2005 release, which dissapointed me badly. It has many simple bugs that shouldn't be there. With Connectiva's technology being merged in this release, i hope Mandriva 2006 will be a good leap for the next 2007 version.

WinXP Service Pack 3

Few days ago, i saw a preview release of Windows XP Service Pack 3 on Majorgeeks and it contains more than 180 hotfix for Windows XP. But beware.... It's not an official Service Pack, released by Microsoft Corporation, but it's from thehotfix. If you trust them and you want to make sure that your system is up to date and secure, you might want to try install the patch, but if don't want to take a risk by installing third party patch, you will have to wait for the next SP release, which is unpredictable.

Short Personal Review For OOo

I have just installed OOo 1.1.5, the latest version of OpenOffice.org Office Suite, developped by Sun Microsystem with contribution by the developers around the world. I was looking for a facility to save the document to OpenOasis format, which is being used as the default for the next upcoming OOo 2.0 version, but i can't find it on the Save As Dialog. When i read the release note, i found the answers:

The import of the OpenDocument Format is covered by this issue, it is not planned to support also the export in OpenOffice.org 1.1.x. The OpenDocument Format is used as default file format in beta quality builds Openoffice.org 1.9.x..

Except for that filters, this version also fixes most bugs and also port some OOo 2.0 bug fix to this version. For most users, this version doesn't seems to change at all, but it is recommended to upgrade to the latest version, as your application will be more stable, robust, and bug free than your previous version.

Slackware 10.2 Released

After a long wait, finally the final version of Slackware 10.2 is out. I will download the ISO images as soon as possible, but my desktop and laptop has been using binaries from slackware-current release, so i don't think i should conduct a major upgrade again. I only need to install the latest package version that was released yesterday, such as xorg and gxine.

This version will be using 2.4.31 with 2.6.13 provided in the testing directory along with all latest packages available for now. You should try this version if you are looking for a stable, robust, simple GNU/Linux distribution.

OpenOffice.org 1.1.5 Released

OpenOffice.org 1.1.5 has been released as a leap for OOo 1.x users to 2.0 users by providing support for OpenOasis Document format. Here is the official announcement that i received via mail:

OPENOFFICE.ORG ANNOUNCES VERSION 1.1.5

14 September, 2005 - 16H00 UTC

OpenOffice.org is proud to announce the immediate availability of the new 1.1.5 version of the award-winning open source office suite.

This new version is initially available on the Windows (98/ME/NT/2000/XP), GNU/Linux (X86 and PowerPC) and Solaris (SPARC and X86) platforms.

In addition to English, builds for Czech, Danish, French, German, Japanese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Turkish are immediately available with other localisations following shortly.

OpenOffice.org 1.1.5 introduces import support for documents, spreadsheets and presentations in OpenDocument format. The OpenDocument format is an XML based international office document standard approved by OASIS, the Organisation for the Advancement of Structured Information
Standards. XML based, the OpenDocument format enables the free exchange of data between compliant software packages.

OASIS is the industry body for e-business standards and is sponsored by the leading names in IT such as Computer Associates, EDS, IBM, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle, PeopleSoft and Sun Microsystems. The OASIS OpenDocument Technical Committee, which is responsible for the
development and maintenance of the OpenDocument standard, currently comprises Adobe, IBM, Sun Microsystems and numerous other interested parties. The technical committee is open for membership to anyone interested in participating.

The OASIS OpenDocument standard has also been specifically endorsed by a number of organisations including the European Commission; Singapore's Ministry of Defense; France's Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industry; Brazil's Ministry of Health; the City of Munich; the Bristol City Council; the City of Vienna; IBM; Israel's Ministry of Finance; Novell; Red Hat as well as Sun Microsystems.

The suite, according to the terms of its open source licenses (LGPL & SISSL), is free for all to use, improve, modify, and to redistribute to anyone.


OpenOffice.org Availability

The suite and its source code can be downloaded from http://download.openoffice.org/1.1.5/index.html or obtained from one of the CD-ROM distributors listed at http://distribution.openoffice.org/cdrom/.


OpenOffice.org Support Services

Free end user support for OpenOffice.org is provided by the community through mailing lists, forums and Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channels. Commercial support is also provided by Sun Microsystems and other organisations. For more information on support services, please visit
http://support.openoffice.org/.


About OpenOffice.org

OpenOffice.org is a fully featured open-source productivity suite available as a free download for major computing platforms in over 45 languages. Data is stored in an XML file format standardized for office documents by the international body OASIS. OpenOffice.org is developed,
supported, and promoted by an international community of volunteers with its main sponsor and primary contributor being Sun Microsystems. OpenOffice.org operates from .


OpenOffice.org Conference - 2005

The release of OpenOffice.org 2.0 Beta 2 comes one month before the annual OpenOffice.org Conference, to be held in Koper - Capodistria, Slovenia, from 28 to 30 September. The conference, organised by the Slovenian and Italian OpenOffice.org project teams, follows the
successes of the last two years, OOoCon 2003 in Hamburg and OOoCon 2004 in Berlin, and is intended to bring together all people who are interested in the development, deployment and use of the software suite. For further information regarding the conference, please visit
http://marketing.openoffice.org/conference/index.html.


Further Information

For release notes regarding version 1.1.5, please visit
http://download.openoffice.org/1.1.5/release_notes_1.1.5.html.

For further details on the features of OpenOffice.org, please visit
http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/features/1.1/index.html.

For previous press release information, please visit
http://www.openoffice.org/press/1.1/index.html.

For details regarding the 2005 OpenOffice.org Conference, please see
http://marketing.openoffice.org/conference/.

For additional details regarding the OASIS OpenDocument format, a
datasheet can be downloaded from
http://www.oasis-open.org/who/data_sheets/OASIS-opendocument-datasht-a4-05-06-20.pdf


GLOBAL CONTACTS

Jacqueline McNally (UTC +08h00)
OpenOffice.org Marketing Project Lead

jacqueline@openoffice.org
+61 (8) 9474-3021

John McCreesh (UTC +01h00)
OpenOffice.org Marketing Project Co-Lead

jpmcc@openoffice.org
+44 (0)131 523 9218

Louis Suarez-Potts
OpenOffice.org Community Manager
louis@openoffice.org
+1 (416) 625 3843

© 2005 OpenOffice.org

Major Upgrades

Today i conducted a major upgrades on my Slackware. I upgraded the kernels, glibc, and all the updated packages available from Slackware's Changelog. Upgrading glibc was one process that scared me because i had a bad experience when i was still using Mandrake 9.0. I upgrade the glibc using Mandrake 9.1's glibc version and after that, everything was messed up, so i had to reinstall all the system back.

Unfortunately, the upgrade process on Slackware is simpler than Mandriva and i didn't break the system at all. Just type upgradepkg and everything works perfectly, expect for the kernels which need some modifications, mostly on initrd and lilo configurations.

In my laptop, the latest kernel, 2.6.13 didn't break with the WLAN modules, so i only need to make a new build for the current kernel and everything was back to normal. I didn't experience any major nor minor problem after upgrading the kernels, but for safety, i keep the previous kernel, 2.6.12.5 on my system, in case something bad happened.

Mirrors Are Freezing Slackware

This morning i looked at Slackware's Official Changelog and it has a lot of updates, but when i searched the mirrors, they haven't update their repository, even though the changelog has lasted for about 2-3 days long. Just now, it has been updated with the new one. That's a good news. The final release of 10.2 is getting closer.

Come Back to Jogja

Today i went back to Jogja and i have safely arrived at my home and get online to download all emails, reading all news and also blogging :)
I missed a lot of information while i was in Jakarta, mostly on Saturday and Sunday, because i couldn't get any Internet connection. So i have to be online as soon as possible as i arrove at home and here i am.

Activities in Jakarta

What a boring day without Internet connection. No forums, no YM, no emails, etc. What i did was writing a list of things that i should prepare when i work in Jakarta. Some of them can be brought from Jogja, while the other must be bought from Jakarta. Maybe i will have a new mobile number to be used in daily activities while i'm in Jakarta, but you may contact me via my old number, because i will keep using it to receive from my old friends. I will let everybody know about my new number via mailing list.

Besides that, i also updates my websites locally to fix some bugs and also wrote a new article "Configuring Services on Slackware". I will upload the article and the bug fix on the net as soon as possible when i reached Jogja on Monday. I also update my presentation material about OpenOffice.org Calc. I didn't do a major changes on Writer because i think it's enough for now, so i add a new material on the Calc.

Second Day in QnAP

Yesterday, i joined the trainning session in my company and everything was fun. We played a puzzle game in a limited time. This game was a simulation to a real project. We had to plan everything, just as we handle the real project. The game was harder than the first game that i played in my first day. In the project, we had to estimate the time, defining milestones, predicting a change plan and redefining resource allocation and task, risks management, and many more. Everytime had to be well prepared, since it involves many factors. I learned a lot of things in 2 days and everything was made just like the real project, so it's like a real work. Too bad i underestimate the project management subject when i was in university. It is an important subject that you can't ignore when you work on a real project. Everything had to be well prepared and that subject will teach you the basic.

I went back at 7 PM and i took a taxi to ride my home. After that, i packed my luggage and i had to wait for my sister who picked me up about 2 hours later. I went to my aunt's house and stayed there until next Monday. I'm heading for Jogja in Monday, because i have to finish some unfinished job at Jogja and also preparing many things. I still had to be a speaker at 29 September, where i should bring an OpenOffice.org's material. At 17 and 18 September, it will be my last JEMUAH before i went to Jakarta for my new job. I will be heading back to Jakarta at 2 October and i will start working at 3 October.

A New Job

Finally i got a new job as a new software engineering at QnAP Asia, Jakarta. I will start my new job next October and i will live in Jakarta for the next six months. I have started my first training yesterday and today and it was fun. Can't wait until next October :)

One Day in Jakarta

Yesterday was like a nightmare to me. My plane was delayed for about 45 minutes and it started to take of at 6 PM, where it should be 5.15 PM. After 45 mninutes on the air, i landed in Jakarta and we have to wait about 20 minutes for the airport bus to arrive. It was full, so i didn't get chair to sit and so i sat on the rail that supposed to be a place to place luggages. It's took 1 hour to reach Blok M. Next, we have to wait for our friend who picked us up.

Next, we walked to bought a busway tickets. It's my first time to ride a busway in Jakarta. It has air conditioner and i was happy about it, since Jakarta was so hot and my shirt was almost fully wet, because i carried some quite heavy luggage. It also had a nice seat, so it was quite comfortable.

After we stepped out of the busway, we walked again to reach our friend's home and i rent 1 room for 2 people. It's quite expensive (nothing is cheap in Jakarta) and we finally can take a rest at 11 PM. What a day ......

Tommorrow, our journey continues ....
Until then, let me rest for today

Still Have Time

Well, i still have time to write my last blog before i go to Jakarta this evening, so i think it will be my last blog post (for temporary only). My friend has an "always on" Internet connection in his place, and maybe i can use his connection to get in touch with everyone around, but still... i can't give you a promise that i can't reply all the email sent to me. Let's hope i get a better place to stay and there's an Internet connection on it.

Offline For Several Days

Tomorrow, i will leave to Jakarta and at Thursday, i will have an interview with QnAP's manager. I don't know how long will i stay at Jakarta and until i went back, maybe i'll be offline. (i'll try to find an internet cafe or any internet connection, but i can't guarantee that i can reply all email directed to me, but i'll do my best). My blog will also be stopped for several days. Let's hope i can get Internet connection there.

Another Bypass to Break XP SP2

Although Microsoft really put security on their primary focus, flaws keeps comming and now, a new bypass description has been released to break Windows XP SP 2 and Windows 2003. It was first published by Nicolas Falliere in SecurityFocus with a title "A new way to bypass Windows heap protections". He also gives a proof of concept which can be downloaded.

I think, Microsoft has to response quickly about this, since there is still time to make a new patch and include it in this months's release, or customers had to wait for another month to get the patch, which is a bad idea.

Sun Removes SISSL

Next OpenOffice.org version will be released only in LGPL licences, because Sun was retiring the SISSL (Sun Industry Standards Source License). Here are the official announcement that i receive :

All,

On 2 September 2005 Sun Microsystems announced that it was retiring
the Sun Industry Standards Source License (SISSL), an Open Source
Initiative (OSI)-approved software license. In recent weeks, the
OSI, which authorises open-source licenses, has been discussing
limiting license proliferation, so as to make the process of choosing
a license easier for developers and companies. Sun's move is in
support of that objective.

How does this move affect OpenOffice.org? As most know,
OpenOffice.org code was launched under the dual banner of the SISSL
and LGPL; licensees could choose which one they wanted to use, and
nearly all have chosen the LGPL. Effective with the announcement
that Sun is retiring the SISSL, however, OpenOffice.org will in the
future only be licensed under the LGPL.

For users, the simplification means: no change. OpenOffice.org
remains free to use, distribute, even sell. One can freely use it in
commercial as well as government environments; nothing has changed.

For vendors, distributors, add-on and plug-in writers of
OpenOffice.org: The LGPL allows for commercial distribution without
affecting derived products in the same way as the GPL.

For developers and other contributors: As the code will be licensed
only under the LGPL, modifications to the source must be published.
(The SISSL did not require all changes to the source to be
published.) As most OpenOffice.org contributors are already openly
contributing to the community, we anticipate no problems. And for
those who have been using the SISSL exclusively, we invite you to
join us.

The OpenOffice.org Community Council

http://council.openoffice.org
http://www.openoffice.org/FAQs/license-change.html

Learning Language Automatically

In the future, perhaps we can write a code by using our own language, thanks to Cornell University and Tel Aviv University researchers who have developed a method for enabling a computer program to scan text in any of a number of languages, including English and Chinese, and autonomously and without previous information infer the underlying rules of grammar. The rules can then be used to generate new and meaningful sentences. The method also works for such data as sheet music or protein sequences.

This new algorithm called Automatic Distillation of Structure (ADIOS) and it was successfully identifies complex patterns in raw texts. The algorithm discovers the patterns by repeatedly aligning sentences and looking for overlapping parts.

Read the full story

Kernel 2.6.12.5

New kernel has arrived for Slackware, 2.6.12.5. It's not the latest kernel version available, because the 2.6.13 has been released officially, but it's the stable one, since 2.6.13 includes many new features and it's considered not a stable one. Maybe after a few minor release, Slackware distro will try to use this version.

Most of the functionality in 2.6.12.5 doesn't change from 2.6.12.3, so all my devices are detected and working perfectly. I have swept away the 2.6.12.3 kernel and now i'm using this version along with 2.4.31, although i never boot to my 2.4.x kernel, since most of functionality i needed wasn't available via 2.4.x, like ACPI, Wireless Device, and Touchpad.

Mplayer 1.0.7try2

Last night, i tried to upgrade my Mplayer to the latest version, 1.0.7try2, because there is a bug that can cause to a heap overflow. Here is the official annoucement from the Mplayer team :

There is a bug which, depending on configuration, can lead to a heap overflow. If and under which circumstances this is exploitable is unclear to us as of now. We are aware that at least one person was able to write a working exploit on his system using an AVI file with uncompressed PCM audio. We have found a file that is supposed to exploit it but could not make it work, still we do not want to put you at risk by waiting longer to publish this.

They have worked a patch on CVS and it can be downloaded. I downloaded the new package from Linuxpackages and it requires a lot of new library, such as divx4linux, libsndfile, libsamplerate, and polyaudio, but i finally managed to install all of them and now it's upgraded to 1.0.7try2.