Wednesday, January 31, 2007

More Driver Supported in The Future

Greg KH, one of the Kernel developers and also the author of Linux Device Driver Development Kit Project has invited a Free Linux Driver Development for everybody who has problem of making a driver available on Linux operating system. His offer is not only for specific devices, but all kind of devices. The company only needs to provide a specification of how the device should work and then the Linux Device Driver community will try to develop that driver based on the spec given. The company may also give an email address of a technical engineer that will give support in the development process. Every working driver is being promised to be included in the main kernel tree, so it will likely be available on the next kernel release and since Linux kernel supports a lot of CPU type, it will be likely be available to those kind of CPU as well.

I think this project will have a good future and if it's successful, then almost every devices available on store can be used in every platform (Windows, Macintosh, and also GNU/Linux), thanks to good cooperation of the company who gave the specs and community who works on that driver.

Driver for printer will also be supported as well, so i think there's no reason for not using Open Source in the future.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Totally Overloaded

Today, i was totally overloaded. When i have to catch up my current project, there was a report from my previous client (OWG) that it has some problems when they tried to test the trial version, so i had to fix that ASAP, since they want to start distributing it. So, i have to work on two project in the same time today and also overtime. Perhaps this week is the most busiest week in my life :(

Monday, January 29, 2007

Feature Can Be Disaster

In Firefox, there's an accessibility option which is quite useful, which is "Search for text when I start typing". This feature is very effective if you want to search strings in a long file, for example you would like to find word related to alsa in Linux's kernel changelog. All you have to do is turn this feature on and wait until the changelog is fully downloaded and start typing for alsa. A search box will appear in the bottom of the application.

A problem can occurred when this feature is turned on. When the page has a form and it hasn't been finished rendering and we type something in the text box to fill our user name for example, sometimes Firefox thinks that we're searching for text and not filling in the forms. Even after the page has been finished rendering, we couldn't fill in the form also. The solution is to turn the feature off again or you will have to refresh the page and wait until it's finished rendering and downloading.

Sunday, January 28, 2007

Another Education Product

Few days ago, i was invited to see a demonstration of another education product from Pintar Learning who developed a product for MATH and SCIENCE. The product were great and i even got the trial version of it. It has been used in several schools in Malaysia (Since the company who made this product is based on Malaysia) and the students were very excited because it became an interactive session, since they use another product which has a function like a white board, so the students can use the pen to do some drawings or dragging an object to the work area and do some task on it.

I also showed my finished project, OWG Project, which is also an educational application, but intended for visually impaired children in Netherlands. It still uses Dutch language as the basis.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Slow Access on Main Site

In the last few days, i had some trouble accessing the main site of Linux Kernel. Luckily there has been a mirror which is quite fast. If you have been facing the same thing, have a look on the news of the site:
Dec 12: It appears that a large number of users preferentially hit server 1, despite DNS round-robin. Some reports indicate that this may be caused when there is a Microsoft DNS server in between us and the end user (e.g. at the ISP.) Therefore, if you use rsync against our servers, you may want to hit server 2 explicitly (rsync2.kernel.org or mirrors2.kernel.org). Similarly, you might find that you get better performance from www2.kernel.org, ftp2.kernel.org or git2.kernel.org.

I never looked at this news before as it is very rarely being updated. Well, at least there has been some mirrors who provide faster access to the latest kernel version.

Friday, January 26, 2007

Speedy but Not Steady

Today i seldom browse the Internet since my work is overloaded with tight schedule, but when i tried to browse the Internet (i even make my YM status invisible), it's quite faster then in the last 2 weeks after the earthquake. I wish everything goes like this (or even faster), but just in a few minutes, it turned 180 degrees. It is very very slow and i can't even open my blog. I guess Speedy is Speedy, but not Steady. I wish they can be Speedy and Steady in the future.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Busy Day and Week

Starting today, i will be very busy with my new sudden project and it will last until the end of this month. Maybe i have to do lots of overtime also with my colleagues, since the deadline of the project is very tight and lots to be done. Well... That's life and work...

BACK TO LAPTOP!!!....

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

MySQL Community Edition 5.0.33

MySQL has announced that they will not provide any binary build again, thus there aren't anymore in the Download Page. It was also noted in the release note of MySQL Community Edition, 5.0.33:
This version of MySQL Community Server has been released as a source tarball only; there are no binaries built by MySQL.

Lots of thing have been updated/fixed in this version, so if you would like to have state-of-the-art MySQL version, grab this version and compile it with your development tools and you will have the latest version of MySQL.

It's their first time to release a release on their public page since 5.0.27 and some people thought they were hiding it. The conclusion is clear: MySQL keep releasing the MySQL community edition, BUT only in tarball and source code version, no more binary version again.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Look For Vista Preview?

If you want to have a preview for Windows Vista, but you don't have the required spec to run the beta version, then try it on web by visiting Windows Vista Test Drive site, provided by Microsoft. In order to use this test drive, you will have to have IE 6 at minimum, and you will have to install an ActiveX component from Microsoft.

You will have a display of the next Windows Vista release, but there's nothing you can do much with it, except for watching demo videos, looking at their features, gives feedback, recommend it to your friend, and buy the product. If you are living in a certain areas, then you will have a chance to see the real test drive of some feature of it, but it's limited to certain areas and Indonesia is definitely not included on the area.

Here are some screenshots of the services:








It's Not Over Yet

Finally i have surpassed 100 articles that has been published on PCPlus. It's 101 articles right now and most of them were talking about Linux and Open Source application. I thought this week i could get into 100, but when i looked at my publication page again, it turned out to be 101, so the 100th article was about 1 month ago, since PCPlus is a bi-weekly magazine.

I start writing articles since i was in the first semester at college. At first, i didn't have any intention at all, but when my lecture, Budi Sutedjo asked us to write something and publish it on a magazine/newspaper or any other media, i started to write something and that's my first experience writing an article which continue up to now. I got a lot of benefits by writing besides i earned some cash from it, for example i can skip the mid test in several subject whose lecture was Budi Sutedjo, because my article was published and i got 100% for the test itself (i wasn't sure that i will get those points if i had to do the test).

Well, i'm still writing articles for PCPlus and now i'm also blogging using Blogger and i have around 900 post up to know. It's like a new hobby for me to write something on my blog. Getting 1000 post is my next target and i think i can achieve that this year. Surpassing 100 and 1000 is not a fixed target as i will always add more targets later on.

Monday, January 22, 2007

Merger Between OSDL and FSG

OSDL (Open Source Development Labs) and FSG (Free Standards Group) will merge and form The Linux Foundation. The new organization accelerates the growth of Linux by providing a comprehensive set of services to compete effectively with closed platforms. Here's the press release:
Highlights:

* Includes more than 70 members from around the world
* Unified organization promotes, protects and standardizes Linux
* Continues to sponsor Linux creator Linus Torvalds

SAN FRANCISCO, January 22, 2007 — The two leading consortia dedicated to the advancement of Linux® – the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) and the Free Standards Group (FSG) – today announced that they have signed an agreement to merge and form The Linux Foundation. The new organization accelerates the growth of Linux by providing a comprehensive set of services to compete effectively with closed platforms.

Founding platinum members of the Linux Foundation include Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, IBM, Intel, NEC, Novell, and Oracle. Jim Zemlin, former executive director of the Free Standards Group, leads The Linux Foundation. Other members of the new organization include every major company in the Linux industry, including Red Hat, as well as numerous community groups, universities and industry end users.

“Computing is entering a world dominated by two platforms: Linux and Windows. While being managed under one roof has given Windows some consistency, Linux offers freedom of choice, customization and flexibility without forcing customers into vendor lock-in,” said Zemlin. “The Linux Foundation helps in the next stage of Linux growth by organizing the diverse companies and constituencies of the Linux ecosystem to promote, protect, and standardize Linux.”

The Linux Foundation, which continues to sponsor the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds, employs a shared resources strategy – much like open source development itself – to collaborate on platform development while enhancing the Linux market for end users, the community, developers and industry.

Why The Linux Foundation Now

Since OSDL and the FSG were each formed more than six years ago, Linux has grown significantly in server, desktop, and embedded usage around the world. Moreover, the open source model has transformed development by providing faster demand-side learning, higher quality, better security, shorter development cycles, and lower prices than closed platform development models. OSDL and the FSG were important forces behind open source adoption and played key roles in preventing fragmentation of the Linux market.

For Linux to remain open and attain the greatest ubiquity possible, important services must be provided, including legal protection, standardization, promotion and collaboration. Successful proprietary software companies, for instance, do several important things well: backwards compatibility, promotion, interoperability, developer support, and more. In the voluntary and distributed world of Linux development, the industry continues to successfully use the consortia model to rapidly improve these value attributes for Linux. The Linux Foundation has been founded to help close the gap between open source and proprietary platforms, while sustaining the openness, freedom of choice and technical superiority inherent in open source software.

The Linux Foundation’s Activities

The Linux Foundation does not build Linux, nor does it compete with existing Linux companies. Rather it fosters the growth of Linux by focusing on the following areas:

* Protecting Linux by sponsoring key Linux developers and providing legal services

It’s vitally important that Linux creator Linus Torvalds and other key kernel developers remain independent. The Linux Foundation sponsors them so they can work full time on improving Linux. The Linux Foundation also manages the Linux trademark (www.linuxmark.org) and offers developers legal intellectual property protection through such initiatives as the Open Source as Prior Art project (www.osapa.org), the Patent Commons www.patent-commons.org), and sponsorship of the Linux Legal Defense Fund.
* Standardizing Linux and improving it as a platform for software development

A platform is only as strong as the applications that support it. The Linux Foundation offers application developers standardization services and support that make Linux an attractive target for their development efforts. These include the Linux Standard Base (LSB) and the Linux Developer Network. All major Linux distributions comply with the LSB.
* Providing a neutral forum for Collaboration and Promotion

The Linux Foundation serves as a neutral spokesperson to advance the interests of Linux and respond with authority to competitors’ attacks. It also fosters innovation by hosting collaboration events among the Linux technical community, application developers, industry and end users to solve pressing issues facing the Linux ecosystem in such areas as desktop interfaces, accessibility, printing, application packaging, and many others.

The merger is pending ratification by the two organizations’ respective memberships and is expected to be completed in early February.

Support for The Linux Foundation

Fujitsu

“As partner organizations, OSDL and FSG helped Linux achieve its current success,” said Masatoshi Yoshida, general manager, Linux Software Development Division, Fujitsu Limited. “Since Fujitsu is promoting Linux for enterprise computing systems and has been a member of both OSDL and FSG, we look forward to working together with the unified Linux Foundation along with the Linux Community in order to build and cultivate an even more stable ecosystem for the thriving operating system.”

Hitachi

“The new Linux Foundation will integrate and advance the activities that have been the most important to OSDL and FSG members. We expect The Linux Foundation will advance the Linux/OSS ecosystem and we look forward to working on key activities including standardization,” said Kazuhiro Fujisaki, general manager, Platform Software, Hitachi, Ltd., Software Division.

HP

“HP has been a long-time member of both OSDL and FSG, and is proud to continue supporting the advancement of Linux and open source as a founding Board member of the Linux Foundation,” said Christine Martino, vice president, Open Source and Linux Organization, HP. “Vendors, developers and customers alike will stand to benefit from the efforts of the Linux Foundation as it works to address the most pressing legal, technical and marketing issues within the community.”

IBM

“The open movement is entering a new era with Linux and Open Source technologies having become a pervasive presence in the IT market,” said Daniel Frye, vice president, Open Systems Development, IBM. “Today’s merger represents a milestone in the maturity of Linux and Open Source. Linux has evolved from an emerging technology to an unstoppable force for customer innovation in worldwide markets.”

Intel

“The formation of the Linux Foundation is a natural evolution of OSDL and the FSG and reflects the maturity of Linux,” said Doug Fisher, Intel vice president and general manager of the company’s System Software Division. “Bringing together the expertise and best practices from each organization will further raise the level on which Linux will serve customer needs moving forward.”

NEC

“NEC expects the Linux Foundation will lead important activities for ensuring Linux interoperability among distributions and for bridging vendors to the open source development community,” said Yoshikazu Maruyama, senior vice president, NEC Corporation. “NEC has been an active Linux community member and will continue by working closely with the Linux Foundation and our colleagues from other organizations.”

Novell

“Interoperability and standardization are critical to the success of Linux. The Linux Foundation’s efforts on standards and certification, its legal and community activities, and its advisory councils will provide important benefits to our customers and the Open Source community,” said Markus Rex, vice president, Services Strategy for Novell and a board member of both the FSG and ODSL. “The fact that Novell was a founding member of the FSG and the sole major commercial Linux distributor in OSDL, combined with our historical record in early adoption and certification of the LSB, demonstrate the commitment we place on standardization to prevent fragmentation. This makes it easier for our customers to adopt Linux with confidence.”

Oracle

“The Linux Foundation has successfully prioritized the most important work for collaboration among industry participants in this new stage of growth for Linux,” said Wim Coekaerts, vice president, Linux engineering, Oracle. “We are excited to work with the Foundation and other colleagues to be a part of this new day for Linux and open source software.”

Red Hat

“We expect the Linux Foundation will provide a business infrastructure that delivers high value to industry and community,” said Paul Cormier, executive vice president of engineering, Red Hat. “We look forward to being involved in the Linux Foundation.”

About the Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2007 by the merger of the Open Source Development Labs and the Free Standards Group, it sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and is supported by leading Linux and open source companies and developers from around the world. The Linux Foundation promotes, protects and standardizes Linux by providing unified resources and services needed for open source to successfully compete with closed platforms. For more information, please visit www.linux-foundation.org.

###

Trademarks: The Linux Foundation, OSDL, Free Standards Group, and Linux Standard Base are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. Third party marks and brands are the property of their respective holders.

Press Contact:
Page One PR
Jennifer Cloer
Jennifer@pageonepr.com
503-547-9451


Another proof that Linux is supported by major vendors. It's not only for Geeks, but for all kind of people who are willing to learn the new excitement of using new operating system.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Journey Recap

I'm back here in Jakarta this morning and since i didn't bring my laptop during my journey to Semarang, i just want to write some details i remembered so here it goes:

18 January
I went to my sister's place at night so we could go together to the airport and help her with some luggage that she had to bring to Semarang. I usually go to my sister's place around 8 - 8.30 PM at night, but since it's thursday, so i went there around 7 PM and the street was not as crowded as in Friday (in Jakarta, people often use Friday as the end of the week, so they usually go somewhere in town. This what makes Jakarta so crowded at Friday).

19 January
Our plane was scheduled to departed at 12:30 PM, and we left at 11 AM to go to Blok M and we planned to use Airport Bus to reach the airport, but since we were quite late, the taxi driver offered a non-argo ride to the airport which costs us Rp. 70.000 (without further charges). I know it's quite expensive, but we had no choice at that time, since airport bus usually waits for passengers also before leaving to the airport, and we're chasing for our plane, so we took that offer. We arrived about 15 minutes before the plane was scheduled to depart.

After check-in, we went to the waiting room and we got an announcement that the plane was postponed for about 45 minutes. Argghh... if we knew it will be like this, we would have taken the bus rather than taxi. Ok.. so we wait for about 45 minutes, but there was no sign of the plane was going to be departed, so we waited for about 1 hour and then finally an announcement that we should wait for a plane from Surabaya (so another delay). After the plane arrived, there were still no announcement of when will the plane leave, so some people asked them and they said that the plane couldn't be used since the auto pilot was broken and the mechanics were still fixing them. Ohhh My GOD!!!! After some tough discussion and some were angry too, finally we (the passengers) asked for a plane change and they agreed with it, so we had to go to Gate 1 from Gate 5 to reach the new plane and then we left to Semarang using the new plane.

I was picked up by my cousin, Andrew in Ahmad Yani airport. Just for information, this was my first time to go to Semarang using plane. Usually i go to Semarang via JogloSemar shuttle bus or by car, since i usually go there when i was a child and my last visit to Semarang was few years back (i guess it's around 5 years). There has been a lot of changes in Semarang and i already forgotten some of the street name/areas in Semarang. I got into my uncle's house in Gombel and have some rest before a family dinner at night in Holiday restaurant.

At night, we went to Holiday restaurant to have a family feast. The event was scheduled to start at 6:30 PM, but it actually started at 7:30 PM and it ended around 9 PM. After this, we were planning to eat Nasi Pindang, but the place was not open, so we go to Gang Pinggir. It's a small china town in Semarang that were quite famous up to now. Usually it's very crowded, but since it's 9:30 PM, we had some room to walk in and have a look on the night view of Gang Pinggir. Too bad i left my digital camera at the car, so i couldn't take a picture on it.

20 January
I wake up a little bit late today because last night i was very tired. At about 11 PM, i met my girlfriend at Metro Hotel, where she stayed there with her mother. We had chats until around 2PM when i had to go back and picked up my father at Joglo Semar's head office in Gombel. Next, we went back to my uncle's house and take some rest before we went to PRPP, the place where the marriage takes place. It's located in Puri Anjasmoro and near my cousin's house who were married. It's only 5 minutes from his house.

We had some family events first at 4:30 PM and around 6 PM, i picked up my girlfriend at her hotel to go the event with me. The event was great and i liked it. The party itself ended at about 10 PM and during that party, i received good news that Liverpool beats Chelsea 2-0 and tonight, MU will face it's rival, Arsenal.

21 January
Today i had to wake up early in the morning since my plane was scheduled to leave at 8.30 AM. I woke up at about 6.30 AM and then preparing all my stuffs and left to the airport at about 7.30 AM. We arrived at the airport, checking in and the officer said that the plane was already in place and ready to go, so there was no delays again. We used Batavia Air this time and the flight was so smooth. It even flew few minutes before it was scheduled to leave, so it's earlier than in the schedule. At 9:15 AM, i already landed in Soekarno-Hatta airport and went back to my house and then start posting this blog.

One note about Ahmad Yani airport is that they have provide a free hot spot on it (too bad i didn't bring my laptop, so i couldn't use it). I just hope that Adisutjipto and Soekarno-Hatta will also provide this services in the future.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Out of Town

Starting tomorrow, i will be out of Jakarta for 3 days. I will be in Semarang for my cousin's marital party that will be held at Saturday. A night before the party, we shall have a feast to celebrate it with the rest of the relatives, including me and my sister. I will be coming back to Jakarta at Sunday and at Monday i will go back to work normally.

Luckily that my project is now finished, so i can leave it for one day and i'll come back again at Monday.

What surprises me is that my girlfriend will also be in Semarang during that day, because she has to accompany his mother in Semarang for singing contest. I wish i could see her, since i will have busy schedule in Semarang.

It's been a while since my last visit to Semarang and meet my relatives there. I think it will be a great time to meet them.

I don't think i will have Internet connection there, so perhaps no post at my blog for about 3 days and also i won't be able to read my e-mails, so please be patient if you sent me a message.

Translating to English

Since my project is now considered finished, i'm starting to translating my project into English version (originally in Dutch). Usually, i'm translating to Indonesian language, but now, i have to translate into English from Dutch. In some cases, i used Babel Fish Translation from Altavista, but sometimes the translations becomes fuzzy, so i had to ask for my colleague's help to translate it (he's from Belgium, so he knows about Dutch language).

There are about 1000 strings to be translated, but luckily not all of them are filled in, so it's less than 1000 strings. The problem is to find the best words to reflect the original string so it won't change the meaning.

Happy Translating....

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

OpenOffice.org Plan-B

Kaj Kandler, the founder of Conficio has introduced me to a Plan-B for OpenOffice.org which gives online help for OpenOffice.org in the form of Plan-B animated software manuals. It's very interesting manuals and it's growing every day. Cited from the site (per 17 January 3:29 PM):
The website contains currently 82 help topics with 51 screencasts for OpenOffice.org Writer, 3 screencast for OpenOffice.org Impress, one screencast for OpenOffice.org Draw, one screencast for OpenOffice.org Math, 24 screencast for OpenOffice.org Calc, one screencast for OpenOffice.org Base, and 96 glossary terms.
The only thing you need to access this website besides browsers are Java Plugin.

Short description about Plan-B from the original site:
Plan-B™ is a new technology that documents software with short videos (screencasts) and offers smart search technology for improved indexing. This service allows anyone, especially non technical users, to find answers to their questions quickly and to understand the documentation effortless.

Here's one of the example which shows you about Find Using Wildcards in Regular Expression.

Upgrading Indonesian Linux Forum

Indonesian Linux Forum has been upgraded to the latest phpBB version, 2.0.22 today. This version fixes:

# [Fix] Check for user's existence prior to showing email form
# [Fix] New members of moderator groups should always become moderators
# [Fix] Proper message when replying to non-existant topics
# [Fix] Changed column type of search_array to store more ids
# [Fix] Fixed annoyance with font-size selector
# [Fix] Fix optimize line in database updater
# [Sec] Check for the avatar upload directory reinforced
# [Sec] Changes to the criteria for "bad" redirection targets - kellanved
# [Sec] Fixed a non-persistent XSS issue in private messaging
# [Sec] Fixing possible negative start parameter - SpiderZ.
# [Sec] Added session checks to various forms - kellanved

I hope no major problems happened after the upgrades. If there's any problems regarding the avatar, smilies, please let me know, since i unintentionally deleted some of the files in the images directory when i wanted to delete the install directory, but since Ronny Haryanto has made a backup, i can easily restore it.

Electricity Problem Again

Yesterday, our office had an electricity problem again. The electricity was down for about 2 hours and that happened during office hours in 1 block area. Luckily i'm using laptops, so i could still continue working, but those who used PC wasn't that lucky so that their unsaved work will screwed up. The electricity goes up again at 4.30 PM.

Yesterday, i should have uploaded the updated modules to our FTP site, but since the laptop's battery is running low, i postponed the upload process and today, i got to the office early in the morning to upload it before other colleagues start using the bandwidth :D

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

FSM Newsletter 15th of January 2007

Here's the content of the FSM Newsletter 15th of January 2007:

* Hibernate feature in Linux: Reduce TUX’s metabolic activity!*—Bandan Das talks about hibernation techniques available in Linux. Read more...

* Finding GNU/Linux replacements for Windows software*—Jon Peck critiques the Linux Equivalent Project. Read more...

* Ten ways to take over the world*—Ken Leyba gives us ten ways to promote GNU/Linux this year. Read more...

* The OpenOEM (free as in freedom)*— Forget free software! That’s only half the battle. Dale O’Gorman talks free hardware. Read more...

* Can FOSS save your privacy?*—Jabari Zakiya talks about protecting your privacy... FOSS style! Read more...

* Stitching seamless panoramas with Hugin*—Nathan Sanders talks about adding new tools to your free software graphics toolkit. Read more...

* Not everyone is a geek. So why do we act like they are?*—Chris Mostek gives some advice to people in forums: be nice! Read more...

* Free software may kill some software firms. So what?*—Wouter Verhelst talks about free software advocacy—and combats claims that free software is bad for our economy. Read more...

* Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994*—Steve Goodwin talks about preserving the history of computers—and how the fact that it was all proprietary makes that difficult. Read more...

* Software ain’t patentable, damn it!*—Jabari Zakiya talks about why the patenting of software is fundamentally wrong. Read more...

* Bzflags: Kill or be killed*—Alan and Nelson Berg help us get into Bzflags: a free software multiplayer 3D tank game. Read more...

* You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink*—Chris Mostek talks about the difficulties of converting small business to free software. Read more...

Books Reviewed:

* Linux Server Hacks, Volume Two /by Bill von Hagen, Brian K Jones/* Need to know about Linux servers? Brian Turner investigates this book. Read more...

* Ubuntu Hacks /by Jonathan Oxer, Kyle Rankin and Bill Childers/* Brian Turner reviews the book that covers everything you ever wanted Ubuntu to do for you! Read more...

Monday, January 15, 2007

Not Ready To Use Open Source?

I was planning to go home when i read this a news from DetikInet saying that the Indonesian government will not be running if they migrate to Open Source right now and decided to write something about it first. It was said by Minister of Communication and Information Technology, Mr. Sofyan Djalil. He noted that there were three reason why :
1. The government's computer needs to be upgraded.
2. Incapable of human resources
3. Driver support for printer

I was laughing when i read this ridiculous reason, because actually we are ready to do that. It's not about technical issues, but about the mentality of the human resources itself. Since the government has also IGOS project and Minister of Research and Technology has said that IGOS is ready to be used, why don't we start using it? It has been developed very well and i don't think all GNU/Linux distribution/application requires high specification for computers (well, some does, but only a few of it) and upgrades can be done partially with the workstation that uses the most critical application comes first. Does an office workstation needs to be upgraded to the state-of-the-art specification just to use GNU/Linux? I don't think so. If they want to use Windows Vista, then it may be correct. Vista does requires high resources. In GNU/Linux, we have plenty of choices about Window Manager. If you don't have too high specification, don't use KDE/GNOME. Use IceWM, Blackbox, FluxBox, XFCE, etc. The same case applies to applications.

Talking about human resources, i think it's about habits. They gets strange feeling when they use Open Source because they never tried that before. When they have started to get a grip on it, everything will come back to normal as before. Let's take an example of the most common application being used in the governments which is office application suite. OpenOffice.org has been proven stable and it's being recommended by many big vendors as it supports for OpenDocument Format (ODF), which has been approved as ISO and IEC International Standard. Munich and Malaysian government has dare to migrate their documents to ODF format, why can't we? How long do we have to wait for standardized national format?

About lack of printer driver in OpenSource, i don't know too much about it, since i never tried to probe printers in my Slackware system, but as far as i know, CUPS project has maintain a lot of drivers for various printers. Buying TurboPrint license is cheaper than having to pay for Windows' license.

If we never start doing things, when do we learn something new? Remember, experience is the best teacher :D

I'm sure there will be a lot of post about this also in the next few days.
Let's just wait and see...

Update (15 January 2007 10:20 AM): Tim Anderson, Information Services Director at the NSW Department of Education and Training (DET) highlighted user retraining as a significant cost. Jonathan Oxer, president of Linux Australia, rather ask to move to Linux platform instead of having re-training for new version of Windows. Cited from ZDNet:
"One of the big costs the DET always faces when changing platform is retraining -- because we have 1.2 million users. Traditionally we try to make the new platform look like the old platform as much as possible.

"Clearly some of the changes to the user interface may well be things that users find attractive. In that case we will have to include the cost of implementation and training as part of the [Vista] rollout".

So, what will happen next when Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 comes out? The prices that we should spend on re-training is very very expensive, because it came out with new features, new interfaces, and new complexity. And when people are being accustomed with that, a new big bang version has been released and another re-training should be conducted. Never ending stories...

Installing New Dictionary in OOo

Someone post a question in oooindo mailing list on how to install the Indonesian dictionary in OpenOffice.org application. I used to do this also, but since i have forgot, i tried to find the answer in the Internet and after i found the answer, i decided to post it also in this blog, just in case i forgot it in the future or perhaps it could be usefull for someone who needs this information also.

As you know, in the old version of OOo, we had to install the dictionary in OOo manually if we used a non-default language in OOo (for example we used Indonesian language in English Build of OOo), but in the current (and future) release of OOo, it has been changed into a built in dictionary installer called DictOOo which has been developed by Laurent Godard and which has many more features, and is more compatible, than the latest version of DictInstall.

To access DictOOo, choose the File > Wizards > Install new dictionaries.... It will open up a document (first picture) and from this document, you can choose which language dictionaries do you want to install. (Remember, you must be connected to the Internet to do this as it will download the files directly from Internet).

After the installation is completed, you must restart your OOo application (including QuickStarter if you installed it also) and then, you must choose the language you want to use in Tools > Options > Languages Settings > Writing Aids. Click on Edit button on Available Language Modules and choose the language that you have chosen to install previously (second picture). After that, you are ready to use the Indonesian dictionary which unfortunately is not updated anymore (anybody wants to contribute on this LinguiComponent project?)

Update (15 January 2007 09:49 AM): It's possible to do this installation manually, but you must download the packages directly from the Internet first. In Windows, you must put your extracted files into C:\Program Files\OpenOffice.org 2.1\share\dict\ooo (in case you install OOo 2.1.0 and put it in the default directory) or in ~/.openoffice.org2/share/dict/ooo (~ means your home directory) if you are using GNU/Linux (Thanks to Justin Waruwu for his information).



My Present Has Arrived

Thanks to Wikimu, i have received a present of the latest book of The World Is Flat [Updated and Expanded]: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century (Hardcover) by Thomas L. Friedman. The front cover is not the same as i seen in Wikipedia (maybe because the image uploaded in Wikipedia is the original 1st cover and what i got is the latest version). The book was sent last Friday, but i just received it today.

Here's some history of this book from Wikipedia:
The book was first published with a jacket that bore a painting, called "I Told You So", depicting a sailing vessel falling off the edge of the world. The week the book came out it was learned that the publisher had not obtained the artist's permission to use the painting. Farrar, Straus and Giroux printed a new cover using an image of the earth literally flattened like a coin from the Corbis stock photography library. In an interesting twist, because the book had rocketed to the top of the nonfiction New York Times Best Seller list, the new cover also includes the text "National Bestseller", something common for paperbacks but highly unusual for first edition hardbound covers.

Here's the overview of the book from Wikipedia:
Friedman believes the world is flat in the sense that the competitive playing fields between industrial and emerging market countries are leveling. Friedman recounts many examples in which companies in India and China are becoming part of large global complex supply chains that extend across oceans, providing everything from service representatives and X-ray interpretation to component manufacturing. He also describes how these changes are made possible through intersecting technologies, particularly the Internet.

Another book to read besides Deception Point from Dan Brown (i have read it and now i'm re-reading it again) and also The Golden Compass (originally called Northern Light) which my girlfriend bought me when i was in Jogja last year. I do like reading books, including comics and novel and sometimes i buy them for my own private collection. My sister also collects a lot of novel, mostly Agatha Christie's novel.

Here's the screenshot of the book:

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Another Three Weeks

As you can see in this week post, most of my posts were about complaints about the ISP being used in my office. It's very slow during office hour and even in morning/night, it still couldn't access some site (mostly site that was being hosted outside Indonesia). I (like the other) had contacted the customer service several times until finally we get bored of it.

Last friday, i called the customer service again and the operator said that she would make a report on this one and yesterday, i got a call from the ISP operator (luckily that i was in the office that day) saying that the impact of the earthquake is still effective, since the cable is not yet fixed 100% and since the ISP has re-route their connection to Europe (i guess), it will cause some delays and RTO (Request Time Out), mostly during office hour. She also said that it will come to normal again (just like before the earthquake) in about 3 weeks (now, that's a bad news). So, if you encounter what i had (even though you are using different ISP that i used), don't be surprised to experience it in another 2-3 weeks (perhaps it will be quicker, since the cables are being repaired as fast as they can). Things will come back to normal next month.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Another Case File Closed

After batling for 3 days, finally i managed to finished another Mystery Case File, this time is MCF Ravenhearst. In this game, you will have to find clues via diary entry of a person called Emma Ravenhearst which haunted Ravenhearst manor for years. As usual, you will have to find hidden things and after that, you will have to rebuild a small jigsaw, which describe the condition of Emma when she wrote her diary. The hardest puzzle was the last one. I had to retry several time before i can passed that one. A little careless will force you to restart the level again and since there's no time reset, you will have to keep on clicking to make the time to 0.

This game has also a simple bonus which if you can find it, you can send an email to BigFishGames to include your picture in the next release of Mystery Case Files. Well, i have found it anyway, but i'm not sure that my picture will be included in the next MCF :D

Actually, i have downloaded this game last December, but i forgot to bring it home while i was having my holiday, so i can play it after i get back to Jakarta. Even more lucky, i managed to copy this game before my laptop's HD was dead that leads me to change to another laptop.

Here's the screenshot after i completed the game:

Relaxing Weekend

Today, i finally finish solving Copy Minder issue which bothering me in the last few days (it started this week actually). With better Internet connection at Saturday, i can do better testing and as the result, the Copy Minder protection is ready to be validated by my client.

At first, i thought that there were bugs in Copy Minder, but today i realize that it's not a bug, but it's my fault. This is my first time using Copy Minder, so i'm quite confused on how to work with it. The included CHM file is only giving a little explanation on the implementation of the protection itself. So, i have to browse their web page for more clues, but it's impossible if i do that in office hour when most people were accessing Internet for their works also, so i choose Saturday, when most people don't come to the office. And finally i found the solution for my problem. I did a little experiments and it worked fine. Good news.

I will have further testing next monday and hope to send the updated modules to my client and when it's done, my project can be considered finished and start on other project which is already waiting for me.

At last, i can relax at weekend ....

Friday, January 12, 2007

Speedy of Speedy

Today, the Internet connection at my office is horrible. Few minutes online, and then offline for few hours. That happened not only today, but for this whole week. I have called Speedy's customer service (via 147), but it's not getting better, even after office hour which usually gets better. They said that the connection has no problem at all, but in reality, it does have problems.

Unfortunately, my work currently does need Internet access badly, like as i said in my previous post. Without Internet access, i couldn't do anything with it. I tried to put some documents on my account at my campus, but it's also slow, even though we both using the same service from Telkom (my campus is using Astinet).

Maybe Speedy should consider to make their network stable first rather than looking for more client which in the end only making more trouble and slower for the other clients. Even if they keep reducing their price, but if the service is very unstable like nowadays, i don't think people will ever use them in the future. What do we pay for? Timeouts? (like in Romi's blog)

Firefox 3 Plan

Mozilla has released an update to their Firefox3 wiki page which listed features/requirements that are planned to be implemented in the next release of Firefox 3 as it has been stated in the document itself:
This document sets out the feature set, product requirements and prioritization for the development and release of Firefox 3, code-named "Gran Paradiso", presently under development with an expected release in Q3 2007.

When i looked at the audience section, i was laughing at some entries, most of them are related to Microsoft, like what we had here:
End Users
* For the general consumer
* Who accesses the web
* Firefox is a web browser
* That provides the best user experience
* Unlike Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera and Apple Safari
* Our product is open, secure, intuitive, customizable, privacy-sensitive and innovative

Developers
* For content producers, software companies and web application developers
* Who want to deliver services and innovate on the web
* Firefox is a web browser with a highly extensible platform
* That provides the most flexible, easy-to-try, standards-compliant? architecture
* Unlike Microsoft Internet Explorer (and associated Windows technologies)
* Our product offers the most open, secure, standards compliant and easy-to-implement environment

Distributors
* For potential distributors such as search engines, portals, ISPs, ISVs, web sites, PC OEMs and companies, member organizations or affinity groups
* Who wish to expand the reach of their services or engage their community
* Firefox is a web browser with flexible customization and distribution capabilities
* That provides the most straightforward, easy-to-use toolkit and business terms
* Unlike Microsoft Internet Explorer/IEAK
* Our product is {TBD}

Enterprise Users
* For the enterprise user
* Who accesses the web
* Firefox is a web browser
* That provides the best user experience from a corporate environment
* Unlike Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera and Apple Safari
* Our product is the most open, secure, standards compliant, intuitive and innovative browser

This page also listed some big feature list, but unfortunately, making firefox faster and fixing memory leaks (Firefox sometimes reported to consumes too much resources) are not listed there.

Well, Firefox release is always phenomenal, so let's just wait for the release of Firefox 3 (aka Gran Paradiso).

Update (13 January 2007 08:25 AM): Firefox 3 will also be an independent information broker rather than a simple HTML renderer in its next version. Here's the idea illustrated in images (Reference):

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Playing With CopyMinder

Today i was busy with Copy Minder protection for my project. It's sophisticated, but currently doesn't support .NET completely, so i had to use some ways to import their library and functions in order to work with .NET environments. I wish they released newer version which supports .NET with Shell protection rather than having to play with API :D

Most of the cases, i have to be online to do the checking. While the Internet connection in Indonesia is not very stable currently, i sometimes had some problems on testing it, so sometimes, i had to come earlier in the morning or waiting for my colleagues to go back from the office first before i start testing it again.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

HTML on Outlook 2007

I received a newsletter from Sitepoint and was quite surprised (and then laughing) after looking at their headline (HTML on Outlook 2007). Here's the content of the news:
MICROSOFT BREAKS HTML EMAIL RENDERING IN OUTLOOK 2007

If support for web standards in browsers is improving slowly,
then support in email clients is moving at a glacial pace.
Attempts to document things like CSS support in the major email
clients [1] have revealed a depressing state of affairs, but
with recent desktop clients like Thunderbird [2] now sitting on
solid rendering engines, things have been looking up.

All that changed when Microsoft dropped a lump of coal into
every web developer's stocking with the end-of-year release to
business customers, and the upcoming consumer release, of
Outlook 2007 [3].

At the risk of turning this newsletter into a biweekly Microsoft
bash, Redmond has done it again. While the IE team was soothing
the tortured souls of web developers everywhere with the new,
more compliant Internet Explorer 7, the Office team pulled a
fast one, ripping out the IE-based rendering engine that Outlook
has always used for email, and replacing it with ... drum roll
please ... Microsoft Word.

That's right. Instead of taking advantage of Internet Explorer
7, Outlook 2007 uses the very limited support for HTML and CSS
that is built into Word 2007 to display HTML email messages.

Having tested the two public beta versions of Outlook 2007 late
last year, I knew there was something screwy going on. Many of
the newsletters I subscribed to had become unreadable, and
SitePoint's own publications (including the Tech Times) were
looking decidedly unhealthy. I dutifully reported these
rendering issues with the feedback mechanisms provided in the
beta, and wrote them off as Internet Explorer 7 integration
issues that would be resolved in the final release.

But late last month, a thread in the SitePoint Forums [4] caught
my eye. Microsoft had published a pair of articles [5] describing
the support for HTML and CSS in Outlook 2007, and the news wasn't
good:

"Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 uses the HTML parsing and
rendering engine from Microsoft Office Word 2007 to display HTML
message bodies. The same HTML and cascading style sheets (CSS)
support available in Word 2007 is available in Outlook 2007."

The limitations imposed by Word 2007 are described in detail in
the article, but here are a few highlights:

- no support for background images (HTML or CSS)

- no support for forms

- no support for Flash, or other plugins

- no support for CSS floats

- no support for replacing bullets with images in unordered
lists

- no support for CSS positioning

- no support for animated GIFs

In short, unless your HTML emails are very, very simple, you're
going to run into problems with Outlook 2007, and in most cases
the only solution to those problems will be to reduce the
complexity of your HTML email design to accommodate Outlook's
limited feature set.

With the release of Outlook 2007, Microsoft is effectively
adding an entirely new rendering engine to the mix--one
that designers producing HTML email will not be able to ignore.

Not only that, but this new rendering engine isn't any better
than that which Outlook previously used--indeed, it's far
worse. With this release, Outlook drops from being one of the
best clients for HTML email support to the level of Lotus Notes
and Eudora, which, in the words of Campaign Monitor's David
Grenier [6], "are serial killers making our email design lives
hell."

Why on earth would Microsoft do such a thing? Security?
Microsoft has been shouting from the rooftops about the new
security model in Internet Explorer 7 that prevents the nasty
security issues that have plagued Outlook in the past. It seems
Microsoft doesn't buy its own publicity, however, because this
move sends the message that Internet Explorer's security model
is not to be trusted.

Where to from here? Well, as a first step, you'll want to use
Microsoft's handy-dandy tool [7] to tell you which parts of your
lean, mean HTML emails need to be replaced with old-fashioned
HTML sludge. As a second step, you may want to consider giving
your Outlook-based readers an easy way to switch to text-only
email.

Bring on PDF email. I'm ready.


[1] <http://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/2006/03/a_guide_to_css_support_in_emai.html>
[2] <http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/>
[3] <http://office.microsoft.com/outlook/>
[4] <http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=446030>
[5] <http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa338201.aspx>
[6] <http://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/2006/03/a_guide_to_css_support_in_emai.html>
[7] <http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa338200.aspx>


It's a major drawbacks since IE7 has become better (NOT the best, but better) in HTML rendering than previous version and the IE team has worked to get most of CSS and HTML standards implemented in correct way in IE7 and finally Outlook team dump them.

CVS/SVN Access

After configuring my new laptop, i tried to checkout some project that i worked for using CVS/SVN via Cygwin, but unfortunately, the access is very slow. I don't know whether the source of the problems comes from the ISP or from the repository. I can checkout ooo-id and slackbook project successfully, but i'm having problem to checkout mdk-id project. For OpenOffice.org's project, i only checkout the index.html file, since there's so many files inside the OOo's repository so it take so much space and time to get them all checked out.

Update (11 January : 8:34 AM): Finally i managed to checkout all of my open source project again. Let's start working on it as there's has been some updates on it.

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Hard to Be Accessed?

In the last two days, i had some problems accessing Google's services, including GMail and Blogger. I don't know whether it's only in my office or any other people who had the same problem as i had? I'm using Speedy in my office (just for information) and i have heard so many complaints about this provider, but last year, i have never had this kind of problems, even at office hour, i still can access, but now i can't. When it's very slow, my dial up connection in Jogja is faster than Speedy's ADSL connection. Weird :D

This post is made after hundreds of time of pushing F5 button to refresh the page.

Monday, January 08, 2007

New Laptop

Today i start working at my office again, but already 1 bad news for me, which was my laptop's HD was broken, so i had to switch to other laptop and re-install everything again. It's not a perfect way to start new years, but there's no other way. Perhaps i will spend all this day and tomorrow installing applications needed for my daily activities. The good news is that the laptop's spec is higher than my previous laptop, so i can install most of them faster than before.

Journey To Jakarta

I was sitting at the adisutjipto airport while i wrote this post, looking for a hotspot, but unfortunately, i didn't find one. I thought there are hot spot in this aiport, since there's something at the ceiling which is the same with the thing that i saw in Galeria few days ago. I thought this indicate that there are hot spots in this airport, but when i tried to browse for the available wireless networks, it couldn't find any, so i guess, it's not a hot spot antenna or probably they didn't activate it. Too bad, since really want to test the connection and also post this blog.

The renovation of the airport has been finished and it's bigger, more comfortable (thanks to new waiting seats, new TV screens, but also new ads around the building), and more clean then ever (even though it cannot be compared to other international airport in other countries). One thing that i like this airport compared to Soekarno-Hatta is that it only has 1 entry point, so it's not confusing at all, but the disadvantage of this is the maximum capacity is lower than in Soekarno-Hatta. But i think the seats are still adequate for most cases (except for special circumstances), because the traffic of this airport is quite crowded, so people came in and out so quick.

There are a lot of foreign people who traveled to Jogja as far as i seen in this airport. Sitting in front of me are people from Korea (i guess) with a small kids sleeping in his baby car.

Lucky me that i don't have to carry too much things at my bag, except for Bakpia for my colleagues. Well, i think i will enjoy the flight and hoping that there won't be any bad weather while i'm on the flight and i can arrive safely at Soekarno-Hatta airport. I will update this post when i reached at my place.

Update (21:55 PM): I finally reached my place. The plane was delayed and i took off at 6.30, 30 minutes behind the original schedule along with other airways too. I arrived at Soekarno-Hatta airport at about 7.25 and i took an airport bus (Blok M) to get me to around Slipi Jaya and then from there, i took a cab to drive me to my place. The bus rate was still the same, Rp. 15.000, but unfortunately, i didn't get the nice driver. The bus also took so long to pick up passengers, while we had to wait until the bus was almost full before he start driving to Blok M, the last destination.

When i got home, my room was so dusty (i left it for about 2 weeks or so), so i start cleaning it, including changing my bed cover. After all was done, i start updating this blog and here's the final result of my journey back to Jakarta.

Saturday, January 06, 2007

Blackout

There was a major blackout in Jogja for about 2 hours. I'm was in Plaza Ambarukmo when the blackout started. There was an electricity problem also in PA, but i didn't know that it was a blackout until i got out of PA. Finally the blackout was recovered at 10:15 PM (just at the time when i wanted to go to sleep) and i can get back to online again and write this post :D

After talking to Yahya Kurniawan in YM, he told me that the problem was due to a broken trafo in Ungaran (near Semarang) which has a capacity around 500 mVA that supplied electricity for Jogja and Central Java (he heard this from a radio). When that trafo is broken, most of areas in Jogja and Central Java will have blackout.

What confuses me is that the local governments has hold a campaign to save the electric in the TV, Newspaper, and many more, but they build a gigantic TV screen near Garuda Hotel fthat used a lot of resources and also bringing so many unused lamp (except for entertainment) under the campaign banner.

I once talked to one of my colleague who has just return to Netherlands last month and he said that in his country, there were almost no power failure or just say once in five years, because it would cost a devastating results in many places, so the government is trying to prevent power failure at any circumstances. I hope that the Indonesian governments also can do their best to give what's best to this country :D

Friday, January 05, 2007

No Core, No Extra

If you are Fedora Core's fans, get ready for surprises in FC7, since there won't be any Core and Extra version of Fedora, just Fedora. That's the surprise from Bill Nottingham in his email to Fedora Development Mailing list. Some snippet of his email about the schedule of this release:
The current schedule is:

23 January 2007 | F7 Test1 development freeze

30 January 2007 | F7 Test1 Release


20 February 2007 | F7 FEATURE Freeze
| F7 string freeze
| F7 Test2 development freeze

27 February 2007 | F7 Test2 release

19 March 2007 | F7 translation freeze
| F7 Test3 development freeze

26 March 2007 | F7 Test3 release

... Continual freeze. Only critical bugs fixed ...

5 April 2007 | Final devel freeze.

26 April 2007 | F7 General Availability

And, what would a release be without features. We've identified
28 features that we'd like to include in the release, available
at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/7/Features:

- Modify the build system to support this new paradigm
- Merge Core and Extras in source control
- Use the new pungi tool to spin all releases
- A Fedora Desktop spin
- A Fedora Server spin
- A Fedora KDE spin
- Make LiveCDs as a part of the distribution release process
- Ability to customize non-packaging distrubution parameters
- Switch to libata drivers for PATA support
- Speedup of bootup and shutdown
- Make wireless rock-solid
- Add wireless firmware for all the chipsets we can
- CodecBuddy
- Fixing the proliferation of dictionary packages
- Support encrypted filesystems
- Fast user switching in the desktop
- Fix the firewire stack
- Switch to a tickless kernel by default
- Fix unnecessary wakeups across the distribution
- Add KVM virtualization support to our tools
- Investigate (but probably don't switch to) new init technologies
- Add the nouveau drivers for nVidia cards
- Speed up Yum and RPM
- Add support for RandR 1.2
- Switch to syslog-ng
- Make the update system useable by all

FC7 release does bring major changes, but it still needs more help from YOU. Give your best to help Fedora 7 release if you are trully Fedora's Fans.

Need Firewall? Try NuFW

If you are looking for Linux distribution which has special purposes for being a firewall, perhaps NuFW is what you are looking for. Here's some description about NuFW from Mandriva Newsletter which i received just now:
NuFW is a next-generation firewall that includes exclusive features which offer new authentication and user-tracking possibilities.

For the first time, it becomes possible to define and use a filtering policy based on the user identity, not on the IP address. With conventional firewalls, filtering rules are, by design, limited to matching on concrete technical specifics: IP address, ports, etc.

NuFW brings new capabilities by bringing the notion of user identity to the security rules. This authentication is made a posteriori, so NuFW never associates an IP to a user.

The firewall sees not only computers (IP addresses), but also users as the source of network traffic. Filtering rules are not based on just computers, but truly on users or groups, so that the security policy can be strictly enforced, for wired or wireless networks.

Furthermore, NuFW provides an elegant and secure framework for building single sign-on solutions. The fit is natural because it is the gateway, which all traffic must cross, which centralizes and responds to authentication requests.

NuFW won the security category of 'les Trophées du Libre 2005'.

Mandriva Corporate Server 4 provides NuFW on server side including
NuFace (the ACL management tool) and NuLog (the log management tool).

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Double Pay

Today i went to the travel agent that sell me the ticket to go to Jakarta to re-issued my ticket again, since i had canceled my ticket since my father was ill and i still have 1 month to re-issued it again before it expired. When i canceled this flight, i was told that i can re-issued it again but i have to pay Rp. 50.000. Today, i had to pay more than that, since the there are no available seats that have the same class as mine, so i have to upgrade my tickets to higher class in order to get the available seats and that means i had to pay more.

The problem is not about the money, but about the services. Some airways use classes to differentiate the price between their tickets, but at the end, nothing is different. You get the same snack (only several airways give snack on the plane), drink, tight seats, and services. So, what's the advantage of paying higher classes if we (the customer) don't get any additional services?

The tickets had been confirmed and i will leave to Jakarta on Sunday at 6 PM. Hopefully there won't be any bad weather.

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

OLPC's New Interface: Sugar

Taken from YahooBiz:
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a non-profit organization with the goal of providing laptop computers to all children in developing nations, today announced a breakthrough user interface (UI), called Sugar, for OLPC's innovative XO laptop computer. The Sugar UI, jointly developed with Red Hat and Pentagram, is the first to have been purpose-built as an educational environment for children using laptops. It is designed to support the learning experiences of elementary- and secondary-school children in poor, often rural communities by providing them with opportunities to freely explore, experiment and express themselves.

The Sugar UI promotes collaborative learning through child-to-child and child-to-teacher sharing. The realities that OLPC's XO laptops will be used by children of varying ages, nationalities, and who have little or no prior computer experience, were critical considerations when designing the UI. As a result, OLPC created Sugar to be simple and intuitive without limiting the complexity of ideas that children may explore or express.

"The desktop metaphor familiar to most laptop users today may make sense in business settings, but it's not geared for children collaborating with each other and their teachers," said Walter Bender, OLPC's president of software and content. "With Sugar, we've created something wholly new and suited to the way children understand and describe their world and relationships. Most importantly, Sugar is easy for children to learn to use, yet it's also rich and capable of fostering unbounded discovery, learning, and exploration."

Here's the comparison:

Desktop Neighborhood
------------------------- ----------------------
Menu bar Frame
------------------------- ----------------------
Hierarchical file system Journal
------------------------- ----------------------
Applications Activities
------------------------- ----------------------
Files Objects


References:
YahooBiz
BusinessWire
OLPC Wiki

Here's the screenshot (credit goes to Business Wire):

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Connection Recovered

This morning, i still had very bad Internet connection at my house. Even though i'm using dial up, i used to access most site without any problems, but since the earthquake, everything seems to be broken until this night. When i tried to access new Blogger, finally it can display the correct login screen. That means, i can access my Blog also (which i couldn't in the last 2-3 days) and also post some things on my Blog.

So far, i don't have any problems opening some sites again and i do hope that this will last in the next days so i can assume that Internet connection at my ISP has been recovered (even though it cannot be considered 100% recovered).

It's a good sign to start new year with better Internet connection. I think most people will agree on this one as many people has suffered from the disrupted Internet connection after the broken underwater fiber optic cable.

Looking For Alternatives?

Is your company planning to migrate to Open Source like the other (like Nurul, Vavai, and many more....)? Perhaps the most difficult problem to be solved is to find the perfect alternatives in the new operating system (in this case it's GNU/Linux). Only a bit of application which can work without any difference in two platform (most of the case is build using Java). Using Wine is not the best way, since not every Windows program can be executed perfectly with Wine, but it's worth to try. When you do need help, this site might help you: OSALT (OpenSource as Alternatives). It lists a lot of Open Source alternatives which you can use after the migration process. It may not the best one, but so far, every application submitted is very popular and some of them are also available on Windows platform. You can also submit a new application if you find an application which hasn't been listed there.

No More MySQL Binary?

If you look in the MySQL download page, then you will see that the latest version displayed is 5.0.27. It's kindda weird, since MySQL development usually never took so much time to release another version which fixed bugs from previous version. But when you look at the MySQL's FTP Site, , you will see that there's an update for MySQL. So, our first guess is that MySQL hasn't update their Download Page, but it's not logical, since MySQL has released 2 updates, 5.0.28 and 5.0.30 (can be seen in the FTP site), so they should have update their download page. As you can see, this applies both to binaries (which is expected with new policies) but also to the source files which were promised to be available.

Why does MySQL hides their binary and source code? Kaj Arnö’s blog mentioned about the new version of MySQL and how it works:
If our changes succeed in their objective, both audiences will benefit from a more stable, feature-rich and high-quality database. The open source benefits for each of the audiences mutually reinforce each other:

* Community users get new features at no-cost to them — funded by paying customers

* Enterprise users get a more stable, reliable and predictably-released product — thanks to community participation

Each of these components of the virtuous circle of open source contributes to the development and spreading of a better MySQL for everyone.

But in reality nowadays, the community never get their result. MySQL didn't publish their FTP site at their download page, and most users that needs to have binary version of newer product will have to build it from the original source code.

Is it time to migrate to PostgreSQL?

References:
MySQL Performance Blog
MySQL Digg
Kaj Arnö’s blog

Nasty Virus

At the end of the 2006, my girlfriend's computer was infected with a new local virus which was very nasty. It displayed a prompt dialog before Windows opened, and then when loading the desktop, it disabled some features, for example, CTRL + ALT + DEL combination, Run button, Log Off button, and even worse, Turn Off Computer button. It also change some text on the start menu, for example My computer has been changed into Baboon's Computer, My Documents into Dokumen Baboon, and Recycle Bin into Baboon Suka Kebersihan. What a strange virus.

It also make your space disappear so fast, since it replace your files into EXE files and makes it hidden (the original file), so all your files were being replaced by EXE files, which has been infected by the virus itself. It also disable some anti virus application, so you won't be able to scan it. This virus also works in Safe Mode, so it makes even harder to remove this virus. Perhaps the fastest way is to re-format the harddrive and install a fresh operating system on it, but before that, i need to save some of her important data.

Luckily, my girlfriend had a Ubuntu CD which i gave here few months ago, so i used it to copy the files into other computer and yesterday, i reformat all of her harddrive and reinstall Windows again. This is when LiveCD Linux distribution like Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Knoppix can come as a hero and it did.

What a bad day to celebrate new year.

A Little Bit Longer

I was planning to go back to Jakarta tommorrow morning using a plane, but since my father was ill, i had to take care of him with my sister for a few days, so i will be a little bit longer in Jogja and perhaps i will come back to Jakarta next week. I may online at YM, but not as long as usuall, since i'm still using dial up in Jogja, so it's not possible to online all the time. Most of time, i will online at night and morning, but i will keep checking my email, so i think email is a lot better then YM for me while i'm in Jogja :D

Hotspot Everywhere

Right now, hotspots are being placed in some malls in Jogja. As far as i know, in Plaza Ambarukmo and Galeria, there's a free Internet access which can be used freely. In Plaza Ambarukmo, you can access it in the Food Court, while in Galeria, you can access it anywhere, since it's placed on the ceiling on each floor. It's provided by XL or Indosat as far as i can see, since there's a logo for their company.

So, when you visit Jogja, please bring your laptop and give it a try, but perhaps the connection is not as fast as usual for few days, since i think the Internet connection is still very bad these days, mostly after the earthquake that struck Taiwan last week. Most of ISP still having problem recovering their connection to the normal condition (including my ISP). Luckily my cousin had a Speedy connection, so i can use it and write this post. When the connection is fully recovered, then you can give it a try again :D

Happy New Year

Too bad, i couldn't write any post at new year (yesterday), since i couldn't access New Blogger again in the last few days. So, when i got a chance to say happy new year, i will say it now:

Happy New Year 2007

A lot of things had happened last year and still many more will come in the upcoming years, so let's prepare ourself to work harder in this new year and focus on our target.