Portable Application Using LINA

One of the reason why some people still won't migrate to GNU/Linux is the availability of an application which can do the same things as their previous application in Windows platform. Some popular Open Source application is now available for Windows platform as well, such as Firefox, OpenOffice.org, GIMP, Inkscape, Pidgin, and many more. However, there are a lot of Open Source application which works great just like the application in Windows platform, but they cannot be executed in Windows, since it's not been ported yet.

In June, LINA Project will release their product which enables a single executable written and compiled for Linux can be run with native look and feel on Windows, Mac OS X, and UNIX operating systems. We still don't know anything about this project (but you can download the White Paper), but it's quite promising. For now, you can look at their website or watch the video provided by them.

Working Offline with Google Gears

Today, Google released Google Gears, their new service which enables web applications to provide offline functionality. It's still in BETA phase, so it might be buggy or unstable, but if you are interested, give it a try. By using JavaScript, this application can :
- Store and serve application resources locally
- Store data locally in a fully-searchable relational database
- Run asynchronous Javascript to improve application responsiveness

Please note that Google requires Windows XP as the minimum requirements for Windows platform as this is the Windows version that has Internet Explorer 6.0 as the default (which of course the minimum requirements for browser category besides Firefox). This new service is not only for Windows only, since it's also available for Linux and Macintosh platform.

Meanwhile browser supports still needed in order to maximize the functionality of working offline. Mozilla will add this feature on their next 3.0 release, but i don't know about other browsers.

Soon, most web application can be cached and we can work offline.

SO on SQ

In this post, SO refers to StarOffice and SQ refers to Singapore Airlines. Yes, StarOffice is being offered free of charge to passengers on its new Boeing 777-300ER aircraft. It was installed on the server inside the aircraft and can be accessed via a seat-back terminal at each passenger's seat. The passenger have an access to a USB ports to work with their documents which is saved on the flash drives or portable HD. It's a nice solution for those who don't want to use their laptop during a flight (some flight requires that no laptop access during flight for security reason). See the full article on DesktopLinux.

Don't try to imagine when will this kind of service arrived in local airways. Most of the planes from local airways have very narrow seat and free space, thus it's impossible to rest very comfortable, more over working with computers.

Which One?

Sometimes, i was confused with the name of my home town. It was originally called Yogyakarta, but in 2005 (i guess, i forgot it, sorry), there was a new name for this city, called Jogja with it's new slogan, Never Ending Jogja, so some people start changing this name into Jogja, and since many people didn't want to leave the old name, they start a new name as a result of a combination of both names, and come out as Jogjakarta. If you look on Jogja's government site, they have different name (URL is using Jogja, the title bar said Jogjakarta, and the flash site says Yogyakarta). So which one is correct? On my ID card, it's said Yogyakarta and i think most of ID said that also, since i have never seen an ID card which said Jogja or Jogjakarta up to now.

New Printer

Today, i bought a new printer to replace my old printer that already helped me during my college and it's time to replace it, since the cartridge is already broken and i don't think that the spare parts do exists. It was bought about ten years ago, so it's quite obsolete. Thus, i need a new printer for my college and also my parent's business. So i went to Els computer today and i bought a new Pixma iP1880 series. Why would i choose this model? One of the reason is that Canon provides a Linux driver from their site (other vendors probably do, but as far as i know, Canon does a good job on supporting Linux, like the other Canon driver i uploaded to Jogja Linux), but i only find it in Singapore's site, and not in other countries. It's provided in RPM format (sigh.. Slackware don't use RPM format, but i will try to convert them using rpm2tgz and see if it works). The problem is that the site is somehow doesn't respond to my download request. It just stopped there without giving me the files i needed. Does anybody managed to download the driver? It will be very helpful if i can grab them from someone's site directly rather than via Canon's website.

Update (29 May 2007 : 00:11 AM): I tried to download using IE and it worked. Strange. Is it only optimized for IE? I don't know.

Indonesian Sesame Street

This morning, i watched a TV show and it was reported that Sesame Street will be available on Indonesian version, called Jalan Sesama (i know it's quite awkward, but i guess that's the name being used to translate Sesame Street). Since it's Indonesian version, it will use the Indonesian culture, not the original culture which is from US.

This TV show was broad casted few years ago, when i was a child. I used to watch this show also. It educates children with basic skills, such as reading, simple calculation, singing, dancing, and also simple conversation between the characters (Elmo, Big Bird, Grover, Count Dracula, Zoe, Baby Bear, Ernie, and many more). It's one of the most successful educational TV shows around the world since it's debut on November 10, 1969.

With more than 4,134 episodes have been produced in 37 seasons, which makes it one of the longest-running U.S. television shows in history. Not only that, Sesame Street has been televised in 120 countries, and more than 30 international versions have been produced, not including dubbed versions. The series has received 109 Emmy Awards, more than any other television series. (Source: Wikipedia)

Unfortunately, it will not be ready in short time, as they have to do some research and prepare the main concepts. I hope more and more educational program will be available in this country.

MU For SALE?

One of the biggest football club in the World, Manchester United has been rumored to be sold by the Glazer's family, who owns the majority of the club. This is the hottest issue in the England premiership right now, since MU is one of the biggest club in the premiership (besides Chelsea, Arsenal, and Liverpool) and everything related to this big clubs will bring sensational news from the media.

It's said that the Glazer's would sold them if someone agreed to buy over 800 million euro, but in Soccernet, the Glazer's spokesman denies that MU is going to be sold.

The Glazer family have a long-term commitment to Manchester United and that is not going to change.

Quite simply, they are not interested in selling the club. Why would they?

They are determined to make United more successful, both on and off the pitch

In sports, mostly on football, rumors are very prone to changes (one of the example is the resignation of Didier Deschamps. Within a few hours, a decision is made and it brings tremendous changes within the club which had to look for another coach for next season) and they will be rumors until it happened. Remember the old case of Roy Keane, David Beckham, and Ruud Van Nistelrooy? The spokesman said that they were not going to be sold, but in reality, they left MU and the fans were very shocked, as the three of them were stars in the Old Trafford and they brought so many trophy to the MU.

Time will tell the truth, whether MU will be sold or not, but IMHO, selling MU is not the best solution if the Glazers just want to cover up their expenses when they bought MU few years ago. Investing on sports may require a long term strategy and MU is on the right track currently. They have brought the Premiership title back to Old Trafford and heading for more title next season (possible for Treble again?)

Matriculation Class Starts Today

Today, the matriculation class for MMI program has been started. It will be held until August and they will have a final test on 4 and 5 of August to decide whether they can continue to the MMI class which will be started on next September. I was quite lucky, since i passed the test, which means i don't have to attend the matriculation class (but i'm allowed to go to that class also, but i don't have to worry about the final test) and i'm free until next September. Well, i'm planning to attend some of the class, since i'm interested on the materials. Too bad that the schedule is not fixed every week. They changed it every week (even though they already publish the full schedule on the website), so in order to attend one of the class, you should spare your time in Saturday and Sunday between 10 AM and 5.30 PM.

Out of Tickets

Today, i went to Plaza Ambarukmo again to watch the last series of The Pirates of Carribean with my girlfriend, but we were out of tickets when we got there. I went from my girlfriend's house at 4 PM, and reached there around 4.30 PM and we were hoping to get the ticket for 6.10 PM or perhaps 7 PM, but all of them were sold out. Other option was at 9 PM, but there was only one seat left, so we decided to postpone it. I'm not surprised, since i already predicted this one. This movie has just been released 3 days ago, so people are still eager and curious to watch this movie, so most of them will fight for the tickets, even though they have to wait for a long time for queue. I think i could get the tickets if i went there at the morning, but i had to go the campus at that time. Well, i didn't make it today, but there's still tomorrow and next week. I do have to watch the last episode.

24 Season 6 Completed

24 Season 6 has finally over after the 24th episode has been released. I've been watching this TV series since season 4 (i know it's kinda late, but since each session has it's own story, i don't mind at all). For the episode 1 - 19, i watched it on Jakarta, but since i went back to Jogja, the story keeps rolling, but i didn't have the fast Internet connection to watch this movie, so when i have the better connection now, i continue to watch the movie at Fanpop. The bad thing is that the source has deleted the 21st and 22nd episode, so i had to skip those two and continue with 23 and 24, the last episode and finally i saw it (even though for the last episode, it stopped 10 minutes before it should be).

I'm looking forward for the next season which should be available next year (January 2008, according to Wikipedia). It's written that this episode will bring major changes. I wonder what kind of tension that Jack will give on the next episode. There's still a lot of possibility, so let's just wait until next year.

Fixing IPod's Earphone

Few days ago, when i helped my cousin to fix his computers, i was wearing my IPod and since i bowed, the right earphone got off my ears and went to the ground and bumped. I was surprised, since usually it never got off from my ears. Perhaps it was loose. So i picked it up and listen to the IPod again, but the right one produces less sound that it used to be (because of the bumping i guess). Perhaps i should start finding a computer shop in Jogja which sell IPod's spare parts. It's still functioning well, but the sound is not balanced again, as the left one is louder than the right one.

Any information about IPod's service center in Jogja will be very helpful.

Update (26 May 10:52 PM): Looks like ARTHA in Plaza Ambarukmo sells IPod and some of it's spare parts. I asked them the price for the earphone, and they told me about IDR 200.000 - 300.000. That's way too much for an earphone. I could get a nice earphone with less than that. Probably i will stick with the original earphone for a while.

New Blogger Error

Today, i saw a posting on Blogger Buzz about adding an image to the header which has just been added to Blogger, so no further hacking is required. We only need to add img tag and it will do it for us. So, i'm trying to look for it on my SlackBlogs, since in this account, i still use the old design (because i had some problem after migrating to the new design) and here is what i got: a 404 error message. Probably Blogger team should resolve this problem ASAP

Update (11:31 PM): The error has been fixed by the Blogger team.

KDE Goes to 3.5.7

KDE has released a maintenance release for their 3.5.x series. Even though they said it would be a maintenance release, they also add some new features. In this release, they are focusing on KDEPIM and also in the development tools, such as KDevelop and Umbrello. Please refer to the changelog to see what has been changed since KDE 3.5.6. As i have said before, it's focusing on some components, so the other package didn't have bug fixes as much as the focused components, but it's still worthed to upgrade as it may have fixed your problem.

Private Internet Connection

It's not actually a private Internet connection, as i have to share it with my cousins. But at least i now have a faster Internet connection at my room, so i can access Internet everyday like the old days. The technicians came to my house today and change the settings for the modems since it's now unlimited, so we don't need to use the old settings, which requires us to dial the Speedy, but instead, we just turned on the modems and we'll be connected in a few seconds.

Today, my computer is already back at my house, and i'm busy reinstalling all of my application again, but it's almost finished, so in a few days, i'll back on finishing my projects again.

Keep Growing

Jogja LUG has been available for years and it's member are growing each day. We didn't officially count how many members that have registered, since most of the members are students, so it's very fluctuating. Every year, people came in and came out. As the result, we often use the mailing list statistics to get an overview on how many members who have joined the community, since most of our activities are being posted into the mailing list and the mailing list is one of the most busy one among the other LUG. It's a virtual place where most people can talk, discuss, share about GNU/Linux and Open Source. The latest statistics shows that our mailing list member already reached 1447 members. This is a great news, since the mailing list has just been founded at 2002. I do hope that many new members will come and join us and enjoy GNU/Linux.

Busy Day Tomorrow

Tomorrow, i will have quite a busy day. As usual, Monday is a great way to start a new day with bunch of tasks. I had to go to the computer shop to pick up my PC (i hope it's already finished or i will have to wait for a few days again and use my laptop to browse the Internet). Even if it's finished, i had to install the programs from scratch again, as it's using a new HD. Besides picking up my PC, i should find more information about LAN cable because i need it for my Internet connection. The modem is located on my cousin's house, so i had to buy LAN cable to get an access to it. The distance is about 30-35 meters, so i will buy about 40 meters, which should be sufficient. On Saturday, i have submitted a complaints about my Speedy connection which is very poor. My dial up sometimes can do better than Speedy (using TelkomNet Instan), can you imagine that? I was suspecting that the phone line was the main problem, so i asked Telkom to check the infrastructure at my house. I wish they will investigate this ASAP, as i need it badly.

I also need an access to my college's library, because i had to find some books which i need as a reference for my material for the next Software Engineering 2 class which is assigned to me. I will ask that access tomorrow also as i have asked for that last week. I will start teaching in June until Juli (it's a two week class, because it's not a regular class). I already had a brief summary of the core materials, but i'm still open for opinions and suggestions. If you have some suggestions about what i should teach (or included) in this class (Software Engineering 2), please drop me an email and i will be happy to consider it. So far, i'm focusing on Software Testing, QA (Quality Assurance) and a little bit of Metrics. Last weekend, i went to Gramedia book store in Plaza Ambarukmo and i found an interesting imported book about People CMM (i didn't buy this book, but instead i bought another novel). It's another variant of CMM (Capability Maturity Model) and also CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration). Probably if i had enough time to do some information gathering on this, i will include it also on my materials.

Another task i should do is helping my parents with their job. I had to take care several tasks (but not critical) to ease their work. Tomorrow is also the announcement day for those who took the MMI test last week (including me)whether us have to take the matriculation class or not. If we pass the test, we can skip the matriculation test and starts the class on September. If not, then we should re-register again and follow the matriculation class which will starts at the end of this month.

Ohh.. what a busy day tomorrow....

Not Syncronized

This morning, i went to Plasa Telkom to upgrade my cousin's Speedy account into unlimited version and we will use it together. I got queue number 73 and i had to wait for about 30 minutes before i was processed. The process took longer than i thought since (i think) Telkom was training new employees at Saturday. The girl that works on my report was asking her friend all the time, so i thought that she was new and so did the others. After she processed it, the old employee said that my account has been upgraded to the unlimited version automatically since at the time she confirmed my request. I wished that the upgrade can be started next month, to reduce a possibility of double billing (the old personal and the new unlimited usage). She said that next month's billing will already use the new unlimited bill.

So when i went home at noon, i checked via their website and saw that my cousin's account was still in personal account. I contacted Telkom's customer service and they confirmed that my account was still in personal account and hasn't been upgraded to unlimited. I was suspecting that the process will need some time to complete, so i was thinking that it will be processed next Monday.

IMHO, they shouldn't say that my account has been upgraded to unlimited meanwhile the process is not yet finished, because when they said that, i might think that it's already being transfered and i could download lots of things without worrying that i will surpassed the quota (1 GB for personal account). The only thing that i worried is the double billing. Well, they said that next month's billing will already use the unlimited one, so let's see it whether it's true. I wished that they will get synchronized

Update (20 May 2007 15:15) : The update process is being done at midnight, as today my account has been upgraded to unlimited.

Auto Save Feature

Even though Firefox (my preferred browser) has a built-in session recovery (which can be enhanced by using TabMixPlus extension), i still had to re-write again all of my post material when i'm writing a post and suddenly my Firefox crashed. Blogger teams realized that problems and they added a new feature which will help bloggers to reduce that kind of problem by adding an Auto Save feature.

Now, in periodic time, Blogger will save our post to their servers, and it will be tagged as Draft posts and it will be available for you for future investment (just in case your browser crashed or any other worse tragedy). They set the interval to be once in a minute (in my case, it's lest than a minute, but that's fine), but it depends on how fast you type. One of the most visible indication is the SAVE NOW button which will turn into gray when it tried to save your post (It will turned ito SAVED when your post has been saved successfully).

Way to go Blogger teams. Thanks for the great feature you added and we're looking for more in the future

More news about Blogger can be seen at Blogger's Buzz

Opera 9.20

While Firefox team is busy finalizing the 2.0.0.4 and 1.5.0.12 (this might be the last 1.5.x version as Mozilla has said that it would not continue to support 1.5.x after the next release of 1.5.x which have a tool to help people upgrade to the 2.x version), Opera has released Opera 9.20. This version includes a new toolbar tools, Speed Dial, and of course some security fixes as well. All the changes can be seen for each platform (Windows and Linux). One thing i like in Opera is their CSS implementation which has passed the ACID 2 test along with Safari and Konqueror which proves that they really worked hard to fully implement CSS 2.1 specifications.

New Development Tools

This morning i opened up my RSS Reader and i saw an entry about a new release of GCC and also SubVersion. Both of them are well known development tools that are widely used, both in Windows or Linux platform (but mainly are in Linux). GCC is a GNU C Compiler (but it has a wide variants which can handle other language than C) which is being used as a default C/C++ compiler on most GNU/Linux platform, including Windows or other Unix-like platform). GCC team has released GCC 4.2 as the latest version. See the Release Note for more information about this release.

Meanwhile CollabNet has released SubVersion 1.4. SubVersion is a code management tool which can help you track the development of a source code. By using this application, you can see the actual development process because you can see who's the author of the code, who commit the changes, what changes has been made, and you can see the difference between revisions. It's another alternative for CVS which has served us a little bit longer.

Changed My HD

Yesterday i got a phone call from the technician that handles my PC and he wanted to ask my permission to format my partition and i said, OK. First he wanted to format only the first partition (C:), but later on he asked again and wanted to format all of them. Well, it's very problematic, but it's ok, since i have all my data backed up on my laptop and on my portable hard disk. Today, he contacted me again and saying that my HD is probably the main problem. Well, it's six years old and i think it's time to change the HD, so i asked him to change it into 80 GB of a new HD and also change my old ASUS CDROM into a brand new DVDROM drive. Both of them were six years old and i have never changed that before (i have upgraded my processor, RAM, and Motherboard before).

Having bigger hard disk means i can save more data/files into my hard disk without having to worry about lack of space (even though 80 GB is considered relatively small for nowadays hard disk which can have up to 300 GB or probably more). But for a PC, i think it's enough. Because of the bigger space, i can allocate more space for my system partition and also for Linux. Previously, i only allocated 10 GB for Linux and now, i will probably allocate 15 GB, so i can play a lot with my Slackware. For the version, i think i will wait until 11.1 is released, because the transition from 11.0 to -Current is quite big and i had to do a lot of configurations again, so let's just wait for the 11.1. I hope it won't take too long to be released, but as The Man said, there's no official schedule on when will the next Slackware be released. It will be released when it's ready. I agree on this one as 11.1 will bring a big change compared to the previous version. It will support only 2.6.x kernels, having modular XOrg packages (7.2), GCC 4.1.x, GLIBC 2.5.x, supports for 3D desktops (via Compiz) and many more. I have been using -Current and it's working well on my laptop so far.

Save Power With PowerTOP

Nowadays, many people already started to use laptops rather than desktops (mostly for mobile workers and also college students who wanted to access Internet via free hotspots area provided in several places). One of the biggest challenge for hardware vendors is about Power Saving on laptops, because laptops used a battery for their source of power (which is rechargeable). They wanted to have longer battery power by adding new features and technology that will help to increase the efficiency of the battery usage. Most of the modern laptops can survive for about 3-5 hours (probably more) without being plugged in on AC power (my laptop can hold out up to 3 hours if i used it for browsing with WiFI and probably more if i turned off the WiFI). In some occasion, you can't plug it on AC power, so you have to make sure that your batter is fully charged when you want to go out with your laptops. It's bad thing to have your laptop shutdown in the middle of presentations with the clients

For this reason, Intel Corporation has released a new tool for GNU/Linux operating system, called PowerTop, a tool that helps you find what software is using the most power. By fixing (or closing) these applications or processes, you can immediately see the power savings in the tool. You'll also see the estimated time left for battery power. Here's the opening paragraph from Intel's website:

Power usage is a hot topic for computer users everywhere. For some, it's a matter of how long a laptop lasts without being plugged in. For others, it's controlling the temperature of hundreds of systems within a datacenter. For all of us, it's about keeping the electricity bill under control and being kind to the environment.

As of release of Linux kernel 2.6.21, Linus has integrated a tickless idle feature which means that the kernel will no longer used a fixed 1000Hz timer tick (currently only for 32-bit architecture. 64-bit users will have to wait for future kernel release). It will use a dynamic timer tick and adjust it according to the requirements at that time. This will boost a lot when the CPU is in idle condition, giving longer battery life. This application will also try to give suggestions to improve your configuration if it found that your system is not yet configured for optimized configuration. Combining this feature and also PowerTOP, you can diagnose your system better and (hopefully) solves your power problem and reduce your bill at the end of the month

Happy Diagnosing...

My Ubuntu CD Arrived

Just know, i received a package from Netherlands containing Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Edubuntu CDs (Feisty Fawn). I ordered this CDs on April 12 (i knew this service from one of member's posting in Linux Forum and i ordered it in the same day). The only fees that i had to pay is only IDR 7.000 (for taxes and repackaging). In each release, Ubuntu shipment goes faster and faster. I remember when i first ordered Ubuntu few years ago, the shipping process took months to arrived until i thought it was rejected or loss on the way

Well, i hope that people who ordered this CDs won't have to pay much just like in the old time where some people claimed that they were forced to pay more than IDR 100.000 just to get the package from the post office station.

Good Bye Gerry

This morning i got a shocking news. One of the OpenOffice.org's Documentation Project Co-Lead, Gerry Singleton has passed away due of heart attack on May 12th in a Toronto hospital. We never expected this kind of news, but it's a fact. Gerry Singleton was an active developers who are mainly working with Documentation projects, mostly maintaining Setup Guides 2.x along with Marko and currently planning to update the User Guide. He became the co-lead on Documentation project since May of 2004 along with Scott Carr and both of them have done a great efforts on this project. His absence will be a great loss to the project.

He's one of the developers who helped me when i started the OOo's Documentation project to learn new things (CVS, Issue Tracker, etc). Without him, i wouldn't be able to contribute to the OOo projects. I really thanked you for that and i will never forget what you have done in the past.

My condolences to his family. Good bye Gerry and Thank You.....

Attending JEMUAH-NG Again

At last, i had a chance to attend JEMUAH-NG again. I didn't get there on time, since i had a preliminary test first at MIPA for my MMI program. I started the test at 8 AM and finished about 12.30 PM and that's when i when i went to KPTU to join the meeting. KPTU was being used by several students to post their posters about design exhibition (i don't know that event), so the meeting took place on parking slot of FastNet, near the UGM's library. We discussed about the next ILC conference that (hopefully) will be conducted in Jogja. There were a lot of new people that i have never met before (surely, because the organization committee has been rescheduled few months ago since it was already two years) and that's a good news. Lots of new people are joining Jogja's LUG community. I also got a Ubuntu stickers from one of the members (i was hoping a Slackware stickers since i don't use Ubuntu currently, but it's OK) hehehe

Too bad i don't know whether i will be able to join that meeting again in the future, since my class will be held on Saturday/Sunday, so it really depends on the schedule of my class. But if it's possible, i will try to be there, as the place is very near with my building.

Medici Dagger

Last night i finished a novel which was given by my ex-colleagues as my birthday and farewell gift from them. It's called The Medici Dagger, written by Cameron West. In the first page, they wrote lots of things for me (Thanks for that. I really appreciate it). Usually it took me about 1-2 days to finish a 300-400 pages novel, but since i had lots to do after i moved back to Jogja, i had to postpone reading this novel until last night i had some spare time and finally i read it to the end.

This novel is like the Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code who brought Leonardo Da Vinci's creation as the main idea, but it's not as controversial as the previous one. It's about a dagger which is very light, very sharp and contain a material which can be used for good/evil purposes (depends on who has the dagger).

Since it's finished, i can start reading my next novel, The Amber Spyglass, third trilogy of Dark Materials from Philip Pullman. I have bought this novel long time ago, but i have to wait until i finished the first two book before i can start reading this one and now it's time. This novel is awarded as Withbread Book of the Year.

Wrong Shipment Address

PermataBank usually sends their offering and also account transaction history via a monthly newsletter. Usually it was sent to my office, since my friend also used my office as the shipping address, so they could send it in one drop, but since i have moved back to Jogja, this become a problem. My ex-colleague sent me an offline YM message saying that the newsletter came into the office today and what should she do with it. Yesterday i have issued a complaint (it supposed to be a request) to Permata to change the shipment address to my current address in Jogja, but i still hadn't got any response up to know, so i send an email address to the email address shown on their site. I hope they will respond it on Monday and process it ASAP, so my next newsletter will come to the right place

Freedom to Install Wine

As you probably know that Dell is planning to use Ubuntu Linux operating system for their Linux product in the future after hearing from many customers in their website. The option of using Ubuntu is correct (though i never used Ubuntu on my system. I only tried the LiveCD version), since Ubuntu is one of the most popular Linux distribution nowadays ever since their debuts few years ago. Ubuntu has changed their image from an unknown Linux distribution into one of the most well-known operating system in the world. It's amazing to see their roadmap and also their efforts to make things like this. But one important reason (IMHO) is that Ubuntu has a wide range of community who are willing to help each other to solve problems. They provide lots of online documentations, tutorials, discussion room, forums, etc. This kind of support is needed by many people who will use Linux, mostly for people who just migrate from Windows platform.

Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu and Canonical gave a statement that Ubuntu that will come with Dell will not include Wine application because he do not want to position Ubuntu and Linux as a cheap alternative to Windows. Quoted from his speech:

"While Linux is an alternative to Windows, it is not cheap Windows. Linux has its own strengths, and users should want it because of those strengths and not because it's a cheap copy of Windows"

I totally agree with this. Linux has it's own strengths (and also fun) to work with, so it should not be considered lower than Windows. Linux developers and vendors is taking a step forward to become the future desktop operating system.

The decision to left out Wine is acceptable, but hey... It's Linux and you have freedom to install Wine manually (via apt-get or compiling it manually). So even if Dell won't install Wine on their product, people who uses Dell's Linux product still can download and install Wine application to run Windows application. They have the freedom to do this. Perhaps Dell should consider some kind of modifications to the default Ubuntu installation so that it can be a great operating system out-of-the-box, like what Axioo did with Mandriva. They customized it heavily and it was very nice and you get a DVD with all required packages included. Normal Ubuntu installation doesn't provide GCC and other development tools, so they had to download it from the Internet (which may be a problem for those with no Internet connection).

Reference:
Slashdot
EWeek

Strange Problem

Today, i started my laptop and something wrong is going on. After logging in, i can see my desktop normally, but every time i launch an application, it won't execute it. Everything became very slow like a snail. So i tried to run my Linux system and i didn't have this problem, so i guess, it's only specific to Windows. Next, i tried to go to safe mode and do some checking, and run the check disk with all options ticked, so next time i started my Windows, it will start checking my disk and it did. It took some time to finish, but the good news is that it didn't find any problem, so the problem is not in the hard drive. It's in the software or probably operating system. So i boot again to normal Windows and it occurred again. The system stops responding all of my commands. This time, i took different approach. Instead of restarting it, i waited for some time and finally all of my application is starting up. I finally knew that the problem lies in the LiveUpdate service which wouldn't start up after the long timeout (30000 milliseconds). Probably i should upgrade to the latest LiveUpdate service or reduce the timeouts in order to have shorter delays.

This problem has made me worried so much, since my PC is still being repaired and i must do lots of things using computers. Thank goodness it's OK now. I'll run some test again later on and hopefully it is completely fixed.

Update (22:23): Finally it's already been fixed. There were some configuration changes after my laptop was being used to test my cousin's speedy connection. Now i also have an updated of LiveUpdate application.

Update (13 May 2007 17:59): Perhaps my problems is due to the same problem many people had which was described in PCWorld. The solution is to download and install new WSUS 3.0 client and also KB927891 which will be publicly available next May 22. For now, if your computer is running 100% all the time, try to disable the Automatic Updates. I hope it will fix the problem i encountered for several days which makes me waited for about 20 minutes before any application i launched gets executed and started.

Study Again

After i saw a confirmation at UGM's website that i had to take a preliminary test next Sunday, i started to prepare myself again for that test. The test will be conducted from 8 AM to 3 PM and there will be three subject that will be tested: Introduction to Information System, Database, and Algorithm and Programming. If i pass this test, then i will start my study at September and i don't have to take the matriculation class which will be held on May to August.

I asked my friend who took the ILKOM program whether he had the test which he took when he applied the program and he did save it, so i borrowed it and read it (just curious about the question's type). Most of the questions are still using Pascal. I haven't used Pascal again since few years back. It was taught when i entered my first year in College and the last time i used Pascal was at Data Structure on my third semester. I also have deleted my Turbo Pascal application, but luckily, some guy on the Internet still provide the application on his website, so i downloaded it (2,5 MB) and installed it. I still have some old books about Turbo Pascal and i will read it, just in case i had to make a program again in Pascal. I'm very lucky since i didn't throw away that book and still keep it on my shelter. I also had a nice book about Information System by James O' Brien which was given by my girlfriend two years ago. This book is a translation edition and it was quite interesting. I once read this book, but i haven't finished it completely, so perhaps it's time to re-read it again for my test.

No Weekend Class Again

Dikti and Depdiknas has forbid any universities to hold weekend and distance learning class (taken from Wikimu, which was taken from Suara Pembaruan, May 8 2007) because they saw a violation about this program which is considered to help the students to graduate easily. Any certification from this two class will be considered invalid. I don't know whether this only applies to bachelor degree (S1) or also for master degree (S2), since i'm taking MMI program in UGM where all of my classes will be held at weekend (Saturday and Sunday)

Actually weekend class is not a bad idea in my opinion, since it helps many people who had to work on regular day, so they still can study while keep earning money by working. And nowadays lots of universities open a weekend class, mostly for master degree, since most of their students are an employee, so they can't leave their job.

So, what's your opinion about this?

MU Is The Champion Again

Finally MU fans can sleep well, since the title race is over (at least for Premiership). After won 2-4 from Everton, MU waited the result from Chelsea which eventually having a 1-1 draw with Arsenal which is sufficient to make MU won their premiership title again after two seasons away from them (Chelsea won it the last two season) because they won't be able to beat MU's score with 2 matches left (the difference is still 7). They will still compete next Thursday, but it won't change the title ownership. It's just a celebration in Chelsea's home base, just like what happened when Chelsea celebrates their title at Old Trafford. But still the match will be very 'hot' since it's not about the title race again, but more about pride. Both teams have locked one title and they are aiming for double title this season.

They will meet at FA's final match again and this time it will be a real final match again (i was hoping that MU could reach the Champion's league final and beat Chelsea, so they could won three times against Chelsea, but unfortunately, they lost to AC Milan and Chelsea lost to Liverpool). We will see the results and i'm looking forward to have happy results for MU :D

Spiderman 3

I was planning to watch Spiderman 3 today with my girlfriend, but i never thought it would be this crowded. My uncle has bought the tickets since 10 AM and he got for 3 PM. I went to PA at 2.30 PM and start queuing and i got for 17.20 PM at Studio 3 (21 in Jogja has 5 studios and 4 of them are playing Spiderman 3). I was very lucky, since most of the theater has been fully booked (even for Monday's schedule, since the price is cheaper than in weekend, except when you use BCA's credit card). When i saw Studio 1, the only seat left was the front-left most position. It's very uncomfortable place, so i decided to try another Studio. It happened again in Studio 2, until finally i can get better seat at Studio 3, so i took it. Since we still had 2,5 hours to spend, we had lunch at the food court first, waiting until the movie starts.

Finally after 2 hours of waiting, we got into the Studio and watched the movie. The movie was fantastic, no wonder many people willing to stand to get the tickets. Peter had to fought three enemies (it will turn into two at the end). For those who haven't seen this movie, then hurry up and go get your tickets. It's one of the must-seen movies which will be played this year besides some other movies, such as Fantastic Four, Pirates of Carribean, and Harry Potter (and there are lots more. i know you know more than me about movies list).

After the movie ended, we walk downstairs and saw a big sale from Spyderbilt (hm... was it coincidence? Spyderbilt and Spiderman has the same basic logo, spider). Some of the counters at PA showing Spiderman 3 at their front doors. It's a true phenomena for Indonesian (and probably some other country as well).

Pidgin 2.0.0 Finally Released

After months of developments and also several beta release (they launched beta-7 last week), finally Pidgin 2.0 has been released by the developer and it's ready to be consumed. This version is a major upgrade and it consist of lots of new features. There has been some reviews about this new application. One of them is Ars Technica which gave a complete review about Pidgin.

A lot of UI improvements, enhanced plugin system, D-BUS bindings, new status system, new icons, new default sound, and many more can be found on new Pidgin. PV has created this package for Slackware-Current and it's already available in the Slackware's repositories (per May 4) in xap/ directory. Great efforts by the Pidgin developers.

Congratulations To Vincent

Today, one of my friend, Vincent Bayu Tapa Brata celebrates his wedding party at Pacific. I was invited and i came there with my girlfriend. We arrived there at 7.30 PM and the feast has begun. We had to wait for about 15 minutes before we can congratulate both of them - the happy couple since there were some ceremonies when we arrived. I believe that both of them will be a happy couple forever. Congratulations to Vincent....

Security Updates For PHP

PHP Team has released a major security and stability update to PHP 4.4.x and 5.2.x which fixed most of the bugs revealed by Stefan Esser on his MOPB event and also other bug fixes, and not forgetting about improvements to several components of the PHP, such as GD library, Zend Memory Manager, SPL, SOAP, and lots of other. If you are interested, please see the PHP 5 Changelog or PHP 4 Changelog which list all of them in a human-readable format.

Since i'm still using dial up here in on my house (i haven't had time to apply for Speedy yet), i'm not able to download lots of things here (even though there has been a lot of updated application i wanted to download), so let's just be patient. In the meantime, i'm downloading PHP 5 package for Linux which still makes sense for me to download (7 MB) rather than the Windows Installer (22 MB).

Elimination Method

Sometimes, we had to solve something which has a lot of possibilities. In order to solve that kind of problems, i usually use Elimination method. This method will try to reduce as much possibilities until at the end, we can find the right answer. This method doesn't always works well, since you might have to combine several method to have the correct one. I use this method when i wanted to find the source of my PC problem. I have tried several testing and my conclusion so far is the VGA Card. The strange thing is that i can run my PC normally in Safe Mode, which means it can operate on smaller resolution and also with minimum services. When i saw the Event Viewer, i saw some services failed to load. I don't know whether it's because of the Safe Mode or not. My other prediction is the hard disk. This disk has been serving me for about 6 years (i bought this PC when i started to enter college at 2001) so i guess it's time to have it changed (lucky me that i have backed it everything on my portable hard disk).

Since i'm busy with lots of things, i may not be able to fix it myself in short time, so probably tomorrow i will bring it to the computer shop to get it fixed. Probably i will buy a new VGA or hard disk and install a new OS again (sigh... i had to configure it again from scratch).....

My PC Is Broken!!!

Today i had a long journey from Jakarta to Jogja, which unfortunately had some delays again (this time was 45 minutes, but the plane was departed 30 minutes later, so it was 15 minutes ahead the delay schedule). Meantime, the time needed to go to Jogja was cut to 40 minutes from 50 minutes (i didn't count it precisely, but i'm sure it was a quick flight). I feel this flight was one of the most nice flight i ever had. I could see the sky clearly since i got a seat in the side of the window and not in the back again (this time, i arrived at the airport at about 10 and my plane was scheduled to depart at 11.25 AM. The plane wasn't bumping too much at take off and also at landing. It's just too bad we didn't get a chance to ride the new plane from Lion Air.

After i arrived at my house, i unpack all of my luggage and start organizing my cupboard, since a lot of clothes must be moved away for the new one. Next, i picked up my girlfriend at her office and we had dinner together. I gave her my gift for her birthday which happened last month and finally we arrived at her house at 9 PM. We had some talks until 9:45 PM and finally i went back to my house to go online.

This was the start of the nightmare. First, i wanted to update my PC first before i go online, for example updating the application, installing patches and also updating anti virus definition for my Windows PC. Ok, everything is upgraded and i was ready to go Online with my computer. When i was browsing, suddenly my cursor stopped at some points and my PC restart by itself. I was surprised, since i didn't do anything stupid, so i tried to wait and see what happened next and finally i knew the problem. It's just my prediction, but i think the VGA was the source of the problem. It booted until Windows Splash Screen, and when it would go to Login Screen, it stopped and goes nothing while the harddisk LED was still on. I tried to boot to my Slackware and it had the same problem. It went fine when the system boot into text mode. I could login normally, but when i entered startx to start my new graphical mode, the nightmare started. I couldn't do anything on my screen, so i just turned it off for now and have it fixed tomorrow. The worst case is that i had to buy a new VGA card for my PC or i should use the onboard card if it's available. Urghh.... I still need the money to have Speedy installed and also buying modem for Speedy. I think i will spend more money than i predicted :(