Connection Problem Again

I had another connection problem again. It just happened when i tried to open an international site. First i checked the site by sending a ping command and it replied, so the host is not dead, but i couldn't reach their website. I confirmed this by opening other site also, but apparently, it only affects international site. I checked some local site that were hosted in IIX networks and it's fine. It seems that Speedy has problems with international sites again. Strange thing is that i can ran Pidgin just fine. AFAIK, Pidgin tried to connect to Yahoo servers. Also, i can post this blog, which is located in the US

Announcing Planet Slackware

I'm proud to announce that we have an official planet Slackware for Indonesian bloggers. It's being placed on a new domain, called Slackware-ID.org. The choice of domain name was made via a vote on my blog and in the id-slackware mailing list. The vote is not finished yet, but Budi has bought the domain silently, and now the Planet has been up and running. Thanks also to Klunxer and Ozzie who had setup the trial Planet application on Slackware community site. For now, only Planet will be available, but, we will add more features, such as Wiki. Stay tune for news updates.

If you want your blog to be listed on the Planet, please send your blog's feed to info_AT_slackware-id_DOT_org. For now, we can accept any blog posts that belongs to Slackers (Slackware users), but in the future, we will only receive posts that are related to Slackware.

New Features From Blogger

Blogger has two new features (if you haven't know). The first one is enclosure links. It has been added in the Creation page (where you can write your posts). I don't know what's the use of this features, but i guess it's for linking to something which is not HTML/XHTML type. You can add a link to other MIME types as well. There's no information about this feature on Blogger's help also (for now).

The second one is inline ads in the layout/template section. Now you add inline ads (from Google AdSense) on every post you made. Just choose template, and when you see the layout, you will find a new link in the Blog Post area. Click that link and you will see a new window which can be used to set up the ads that will be displayed to your blog.

There are one more thing, but i guess you already find out about this. Blogger now able to upload a video, not just images. It has been available for some time, so i guess you have figured it out (or probably have been using it to bring more interactivity into your blog).

One More

So far, the current member of Indonesian Linux Forum has reached 5999, meaning one more member and it will be 6000 (well, it's a simple calculations, you may have know it). On July 1, i posted about over 5000 members and in the end of August (it's not the end, but near), we have reached 6000 members (because there will be new members in the morning, i'm very sure about that). So just from this simple information, we can get a conclusion that to get 1000 new members, it will only take about two months and the time scale keeps dropping, since we have a bigger rate of users per day (it has reached 5,24 for now, compared to 4,61 two months ago).

FYI, the forum's database has reached almost 90 MB (89,87 for more precise), that's almost 10 MB difference since two months ago. I only wished that it can be scalable to maximum use before it will get loaded.

Update (6:49 AM): It has surpassed 6000 members. Currently 6004 and counting....

Watching Lunar Eclipse

Some friends told me that there will be a lunar eclipse today, around 6 PM. So at 6 PM, i went outside of my house and look around, but since there was a high building next to my house, i couldn't see anything. So i went to the back of my house and from some place higher, i could see the lunar eclipse quite clearly. I was wondering why does people don't write about it at 7 PM, but then when i looked up again in Planet Terasi, some people have written about it and probably more to go.

At Last

Finally MU won their EPL match after beating Tottenham 1-0 at their home, Old Trafford. It's not an easy game, since MU got their goal in the second half, minute 68. The goal was made by Nani, the new players that was bought this season (and he's famous with his acrobatic style for celebrating a goal). If you look at the statistics, MU gained 63% of the ball possessions, which means MU is dominating the play (you can also see the shots made, 19 shots, with 5 on goals), but the result is not very convincing, with only one goal lead. It will be a hard season, but i'm pretty sure that MU will slowly gain their performance back and win this season again and break the Community Shield curse

Social Music

You like listening to music online? Well, check this site out. It's a new beta service for social music project. You can create your own playlist for free and share it to your friend or put it on your blog or website and play it anywhere and anytime (as long as you have Internet connection and browser). Curious about the project? Have a look on their site and you'll get the idea behind this project. The point is that they are trying to build an index of legal music and share it to you (you don't have to download to hear the song, since you can do it after you entered a search and click on the play button).

Soon, there will be many blogs that will have the author's playlist on it by using this service

Hacked IPhone For Sale

a seventeen years old students has succeeded unlocking IPhone and he provide his steps on his blog. Right now, he's trying to sell the IPhone via EBay, but he's stuck with some problems, so he wanted to sell it to the highest bidder. Interested? I wonder what will the price be after it has been unlocked

It's quite interesting, since he even post a photo of soft drink cans that were spent while he was unlocking the IPhone. Right now, he can finish the process within two hours, but he's not going to open unlocking services

Computer Fair

I just came back from Jogja Digicom, a computer fair that was held few days ago and will ended next Monday. It's located in front of my school (De Britto), near Saphire Square. I went there after i went back from my friend's wedding ceremony at the Church in the morning. It's been for a while since my last visit to the computer fair in Jogja (i once visited the computer fair while i was in Jakarta). There i met some people from Jogja Linux User Group and we had a chat for a little while. There were so many people who came to the Linux area and since we sold Linux CDs for RP. 5000 (and RP. 10000 for DVDs), many of visitors bought the CD/DVDs (it's one of the easy way to promote or introduce Linux). There was one people who asked if we had a manual for IPCop. Interesting. Unfortunately, we don't have any Internet access there (even though there was a hotspot in that building, provided by CitraNet), so we couldn't help the man.

Next, i went to the next building and look around, before i went outside to have lunch before proceeding to the final building (There were three building used for this fair). Actually, i was looking for information about a portable hard drive from Western Digital. It has 500 GB of capacity and running at 5400 RPM. I saw the advertisement on PCMedia and it was US$ 185. Quite cheap for that big of capacity (i know that there are already 1 TB of hard drive, but it's too expensive for me).

I looked at the Apple booth for some time and after that, we went home.

It Happened Again

Arrghh!!! , It happened again. I deleted one of my student's email that was sent to me regarding the paper work that i gave at the first class. GMail marked the message as SPAM and i didn't saw it when i clicked the link that will delete all SPAM messages forever. I saw it in a flick and then it disappeared forever. I guess i should be more careful again when deleting SPAM messages forever. Usually, GMail always give the correct marking, but lately, some emails can bypass GMail spam protection and reach my inbox.

Most of the emails that went to SPAM directory came from Yahoo domain. Is it a form of rival? I don't know, but they should not do that just to win business.

I have given an announcements and i will tell the students to re-send the email to me and gave CC to other email address, just to be sure that it won't be deleted in both email.

Know Your IP

Some people don't know their IP Address. Well, if they use dynamic IP, such as dial up communication, that's normal. But if they use a dedicated IP for their servers, it's best to know your own IP Address. There are several ways to do this, but one of the most easiest one is by going to some site and have them told you. I found this URL is working just fine, but only a simple statistic is revealed. If you want to have more detailed information, try to go to this URL. Your IP address will be revealed by a girl's voice (Be careful, her sound is quite loud, so you might want to lower your volume level).

PS: Don't try this on public speaker!!

One Class Canceled

One of my class has been canceled, since the student was only 1. I was quite surprised when i saw the students list. I confirmed with the officials and they decided to cancel the class and i asked my students to move to other class (luckily, he can switch other class). So in total, i teach 5 class a week. Not too much i hope. 95% of the materials has been finished, so a little tweak will make it better in the next following day.

Last Release

PHPMyAdmin has released the last series of PHPMyAdmin which supports PHP4, 2.11.0. The next series will drop PHP 4 support and will only works with PHP 5 and newer. It's one of their decision, since they are one of the many application developers who supported Go PHP5 campaign, which promotes the use of PHP 5 instead of PHP 4. Btw the way, the life cycle of PHP 4 will end this year, so start migrating your code to PHP 5 since you still have about 3 months to do so.

It's also expected that web hosting provider will upgrade their PHP version to PHP 5, so start noticing your client now and give them time to switch to PHP 5 compatible before running the upgrade. I still saw a lot of Indonesian web hosting provider that used older version of PHP 4 series. Perhaps they don't want to disrupt the operation of the sites that were hosted on their servers, but it's quite important to do so.

Unexpected Outage

Blogger and all of the Blogspot bloggers were inaccessible for about one hour due to an unexpected outage that happened just now. It has been fixed now (i can post this) and it has been posted in Blogger's status site. Happy Blogging again

Looking For Artistic Pictures?

Check this site and you will find bunch of high quality artistic images, created by artistic around the world. It was very awesome. What do you think?

PS: It's quite heavy site

Technology Beyond Internet?

Japan is trying to conduct a long term research that seek for a technology beyond Internet and probably (or hopefully) will replace Internet. They will allocate 7,8 trillion Yen for that research and they hope it will be ready for commercialization at 2020. It's a big challenge, as all of us have known the big power of Internet which has dominated almost every events in this world. Internet has changed this world (it's a fact) and what possibly out there that is beyond Internet? Is it just a dream or someday, it will come true? Let's find out in the next thirteen years

MU : What's Wrong With You?

After claiming Community Shield title, MU's performance has dropped till the lowest point. They only got two draws and one loss from their first three matches. What a bad start (even more, with several peoples are still injuries, Wayne Rooney got injured also, plus Ronaldo got red card). I still don't get it. They have prepared well from the pre-season tour and they have showed that they can beat Chelsea, but facing non big team, they can't give it a big win for their fans. Is it a burden from the result of the new players transactions? I don't think so, but i'm hoping that Sir Alex will come out with an answer on the next matches.

Living with a fact that no EPL matches in the next three years (without subscribing to Astro) is already a pain, plus watching news that MU is losing. It's like a nightmare

New Start Again

Tomorrow, the regular class will start and i will start teaching again until the end of this year. Meanwhile, my master program will also start next months, meaning i have less than 3 weeks to prepare my self as it's going to be very busy for me. I almost finished all of my course materials, but i have it covered until mid test, so i think that's fine for me. I'll try to finish it up ASAP, since i don't like to work something in a rush (one day before deadline for example). I prefer to plan everything and do all the hard work from the beginning and i can enjoy the rest of the semester.

FYI, i will teach 3 subjects this semester and about 6 classes (in total) plus becoming a students again at weekend (for my master). Also a deadline for writing Linux article on PCPlus every two weeks. Whoo.. it's going to be a busy year for me.

Ok, back to my desktop for now and working on the materials again

Parade

At 3 PM this noon, there was a parade that makes the street very crowded. I saw it when i was in my girlfriend's house. We saw it from third floor and we could see it very clearly. It blocked the main road for about one hour and causing a crowd street afterwards (i got trapped also when i wanted to go home, but lucky me, i didn't took Malioboro, but through the other way, so i didn't have to suffer from the traffic jam). My girlfriend took some pictures on her mobile phones, but she forgot to transfer it to my flash drive, so i couldn't upload it at this blog (too bad).

404 Error Pages

We often got 404 error code, which means the pages you are looking for is not available (missing, deleted, broken link, etc). Usually it displays an ugly or standard page, depending on the web server being used. Sometimes, it's better to show a nicer page to the customer and tell them what has just happened.

Looking for ideas? Well, check out Smashing Magazine who had just picked 40 out of more than 100 entries they got on 404 error pages. It's very nice and cool.

Blogging Can Boost Your Career

You don't believe the title above? Fine, no problem for me, but have a look on this article before you move to the next post. It also gives you some tips for how to write a good post.

Independence Day

Happy Independence day for all of you. I didn't see any fireworks last night, but i don't think that's very important. Most of the shops will be closed or they will open half day and most people will have a trip to other cities or perhaps going abroad because it's considered a long weekend. I am planning to watch Ratatouille today (i hope i can get the tickets, since it's public holiday, so it will be crowded). Enjoy the weekend and the holiday...

Nice Reunion

I just came back from a reunion with my friends at elementary school. We usually had this kind of party when most of the people are in Jogja and finally i had an opportunity to go (there was a reunion also yesterday, but i couldn't make it, since i came back from Ungaran and i was too tired to go again). We had dinner together, take some photos (i will upload it on my PicasaWeb account) and then we went to O La La cafe at Saphir Square. We enjoyed our time, but unfortunately we went a bit late. If we left earlier, we might spent more times talking and sharing each other.

Too bad that not all of us can gather together (i know it's quite hard to do so, since most of us have worked outside Jogja), but today, we could gather 9 peoples, so i think it's far better than yesterday (5 peoples only).

I think we can do that again on October, when most people came back to Jogja again. Until next time....

Remove Windows Service

Just now, i unintentionally open Windows service list and i saw something unusual there. There was a service called Thffneacc, but it doesn't have any description at all. When i looked at the properties, it's also empty (meaning no further description and no file to look for) meaning it's a useless service (or it could be created by a virus, i don't know). So i tried to disable the services, but it won't work, since Windows couldn't find the file. So i browsed Internet and search using "remove windows service" and i found this blog. he wanted to delete Windows service as well. He pointed an entry in the registry. Then i saw a comment from Steward Johnson that gives a quicker solutions. He pointed about sc command which can be used to delete Windows service. The syntax is sc delete <service name>

I tried this method and it worked. The service was deleted once and forever. Just to be sure to stopped the service before you delete the services, or you might have some problems (i'm not sure, just my guess)

Pending Registration

It's quite early in the morning (5:58 AM) and i'm preparing all the stuff i need before i go to Ungaran. So far, everything is under control. Since i will be almost one day trip, new Forum member registration will be pending for a while (at least until i got back tonight). I'm very sorry for that, but the new scheme of registration (approved by admin) is one of the policy to prevent spammers getting into the forums just like before, so don't try to register it again and again, since it will only make your username redundant. Thank you for your patience and i will approve all new user registration process ASAP.

Update (20:21 PM): I have processed all 26 requests that i received after i left to Ungaran this morning and it has been finished all of them. Welcome to the forum and enjoy sharing of knowledge there

Unexpected Task

This noon, my friend called me via YM and he told me that i had to leave to Ungaran tomorrow to help him and my friends there, because my campus is going to hold a workshop there for high school students. It was very unexpected task, since i'm planning to have a reunion party with my friends tomorrow night. Gladly i don't have to stay, so it's one day trip, so i still have a chance to go to the party (but i'll be late, that's for sure). The workshop is scheduled to be two days, but i don't know if i can go at Thursday again or not. We'll see about it tomorrow. Well, i should start prepare myself for tomorrow's event.

ODF Shirt

Just now, i received a package from FedEx Express. I was surprised, since i never ordered anything via Internet. It was signed by Red Hat Inc, which means it must be something related with Open Source. I opened the box (it was very tight and quite hard to open, meaning they really care about the shipping's security and prevent tampering of the box) and i found a Shirt that has ODF Alliance text on the back.

I remember some times ago, i browsed Red Hat Magazine and i found out about this campaign: Spread the word, share this ODF artwork. Red Hat graphic designers made an ODF logo and they wanted people to spread it out by giving shirt to the first 100 senders (it's not available anymore) and (lucky me) i'm one of them, so i received the shirt today (i don't know when did they send it). Thanks for the shirt. Fits on me

Finally, A New Mouse

So today i decided to buy a new mouse as well as a new printer cartridge because mine is running out (i have to prepare it before it's empty). So i went to one of the computer store near UGM and bought them all. I had several choices there, but finally i decided to buy from Logitech, since it's proven great for me (this is personal experience though) and it has wrap capabilities, so if i don't use it, i can wrap the cable around the mouse and put the USB plug on the bottom of the mouse (and it will cover the optic as well), so it's very compact. Another thing is that i got an USB extension, which makes the cable even longer (effective for computer which is located in the bottom of a desk). Well, given that features, it's common if it's a little bit more expensive than the other products available (it's not the most expensive though).

So my desktop's mouse will be used for my laptop (it's big, which makes my bag will be heavier, but it's fine, since i'm very comfortable with that mouse. It's quite big, so it fit with my palm).

New Mouse

I think i need a new mouse for both my desktop. It's a cordless mouse from logitech (it's already more than five years old and it's still working great). It has infra-red capabilities, so i can move my mouse from distances and it's still working. The problem is that it requires a battery to operate. Sometimes, i left my computer turned on when i go somewhere else (mostly because i'm leaving my download window open, either directly from browser or from torrent) and it still consumes the battery power and every 3 weeks or so i had to change the battery.

My laptop uses a normal USB mouse. I bought it because i am not used to use touchpad when working with laptop (at first. Now i'm quite used to it). Because i used my desktop mostly now (since i have moved back to my hometown), i'm thinking to switch between my desktop and laptop's mouse, so i can have two benefits:
1. I don't have to buy new mouse
2. I don't have to buy lots of new batteries, since i can use the touchpad most of the time (when i'm teaching) and only use the mouse when i need something that need a precision (for my laptop)

But after thinking for a while, i think i do need new mouse for backup. I don't have any spare at my house, so it might be a good idea to buy one.

There's another solution also that in my head, which is buying a rechargeable batteries and also the charger, so i can have them recharged all the time. Hm... will think of it tonight and decide it for tomorrow's plan

OpenXML Rejected

Microsoft's effort to push OpenXML as the OSI standard have been rejected (for now). Taken from PCWorld:

The executive committee of the International Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) fell one vote shy of the nine required to approve Microsoft's Open XML standard. It voted 8 to 7 in favor of approval with one abstention, the group announced last week.

Committee representatives from Microsoft, Apple Inc., Intel Corp., Sony Corp., EMC Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the Electronic Industries Alliance supported Microsoft's standard. Against it were IBM, Oracle Corp., Lexmark International Inc., the U.S. Department of Defense, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, GS1 US Inc., and Farance Inc. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. (IEEE) abstained due to "the divergent viewpoints of key IEEE members."

Other link:
ComputerWorld

doPDF Converter

Those who needs a PDF converter (which converts your doc or xls files into PDF format), you can try this product: doPDF. It's a free application and it works well and well integrated with Microsoft Office products. You don't need this kind of application if you used OpenOffice.org, since it has built in features to produce PDF files. If you use Microsoft Office 2007, you will need to install third party plugin that let you have this feature. This product will install itself as virtual PDF printer driver and it will appear in your Printers and Faxes list, just like an ordinary printer. In the official site, they have a Youtube video showing how to make a PDF file from Microsoft Office 2003.

Here are the main features of the product (Taken from the website):
- No Ghostscript - doesn’t require 3rd party programs to do PDF files
- Customizable resolution - choose any resolution from 72 to 2400 dpi
- Predefined/custom page sizes - choose a default page size (Letter, Legal, A4, A5, A6, ...) or enter your own custom page size
- Searchable PDFs - you can search for text within the created PDF file (and search engines will also index the text from the PDF)
- Multi-language - 20 languages currently supported

Valid From Validome

Dani Iswara pointed out a new (it's new for me, but perhaps not for you) validator, called Validome. Basically it has the same purpose of W3's Validator, but i don't know if it share the same engine or not. He said that the result of his testing was different for the same site, so i'm quite curious about that and decided to have a look on my personal website, because it's stated valid as XHTML 1.0 Transitional based on W3's Validator. I checked my website there and it appears to be valid as well. That's a good sign. I made the website manually, so it's easier to get it valid, because you can change it whenever you need to and i'm the one who knows about the structure/layout of the code, so it's easy to do that. That's one of the advantages of building your own web site. But, nowadays, many CMS producs are valid as well by default, so it's getting easier to have a valid web page.

Validome doesn't offer CSS validator, but they offer some other validation tool, such as XML, DTD-Schema, RSS/Atom, and Google Sitemap validation. If your site is based on XML format, perhaps you can use this feature to test yours. It's a great site.

Credit to Dani

People Generosity

When people do something good, they will get the prices for that. It happened with one of the lead sysadmin of IsoHunt, Allen Parker. He wanted a new BMW M5 series and he posted it in IsoHunt main page and guess what? People donates to him and the donations have surpassed his target. What a nice supporters he had.

Current Donations: $22736.96 of $22,000USD or 103.35%

The donations starts at $5, $10, $20 and $100 (Google Checkout and PayPal)

Just for information, IsoHunt is one of the biggest BitTorrent source. Here's some statistics from the main site (it will keep counting):

Sites: 252 • Trackers: 21727 • Online Torrents: 759348 • Files: 17.35 mil • Size: 564.5 TB • Peers: 18.12 mil

It's one of people's generosity for the SAAD (SysAdmin Appreciation Day)

It's a proof that SysAdmin is highly respected (i don't know if this also applies in Indonesia).

Keep Counting

Indonesian Linux Forum shows good trend lately. User that registered per day has increased (taken from the admin control panel) and total users registered are keep counting everyday (spammers are not counted). Today (or at the time i write this post), it has reached almost 5600 users (5594 precisely). Last July, i wrote a post about 5000 members have registered to this forum and one month later, it has reached almost 600 new members. What a great acceleration. If we had this kind of acceleration all the time (or increasing), we don't need three years to reach 10000 users.

With more and more people are adopting Open Source application and using Linux or Unix operating system (for personal or business use), i hope that this forum will give benefits for it's member.

This forum is open for everybody, so what are you waiting for? Join us and share your experience/knowledge with the rest of the forum members

One Fixed, One Down

Since my Atom problem has been fixed, now one more problem arise. Indonesian Linux Forum is inaccessible and so does Indonesian Linux site. I don't think it affect others, since Jogja Linux User Group is still active and running. I hope it will be resolved soon.

Update (19:34 PM): It has been up and back to normal again (i already got a request to authorize new users)

Virus Resistance

This morning, my flash drive was infected by a virus. It happened when i plugged my flash drive on one of my colleague when i wanted to transfer some of my files to his computer. I found out when i tried to plug it on my other colleague's computer and his antivirus detected the virus as kespo. It will try to infect doc, xls, and dbf file format and make them unusable, unfortunately on my case it was prevented before it happened. I did put some doc and xls files on that flash drive, but mostly were odp (OpenOffice.org's presentation file) and odt (OpenOffice.org's text file), so it wasn't get infected at all. I'm very lucky that it didn't damaged my files, but i have it scanned after i went home.

The main point is that OOo's file format is more virus resistance then MS Office's format. This is only a matter of time before virus creator make a virus/trojan that will infect OOo's format (since it's basically a zip file). It's one of the advantage of using OpenOffice.org.

W3C Validator Updated

If you have seen W3C validator before, you will see a slight changes on the UI. It has blue theme by default (previously, it was plain) and also a new set of icons (blue icons) along with the old one (gold icons). Here's the statement from the main site:

W3C's most popular service just got better, prettier, faster, and smarter. The W3C Markup Validator has a new user interface and a validation engine with improved accuracy and performance. Among new features are an automatic cleanup option using HTML Tidy, and checking of HTML fragments

For complete detailed, please refer to the Changelog

It seems that the CSS Validator gets an update also, but not with the icons, just the UI (and probably the code)

ATOM Problem again

It seems that Blogger has a problem with their ATOM. It didn't get updated, even though i have post something or "touch" it by updating the post. I have had this problem before and i can solve it by updating the post, but not today. It has happened in the last two days. I noticed it because none of my posts were displayed in Planet Terasi. I hope they will solve this problem ASAP

Update (19:36 PM): I hope it's fixed now as i can see the updated atom file from my Slackware system.

Earthquake Again

I just had an earthquake again in Jogja!!!!!!
It's midnight (12:08 AM) and i thought i was sleepy, but i saw my monitor was shaking hard, so it was an earthquake. I don't know how big it is (we will see it soon in the newspaper, but i don't think it's equal with the same earthquake that struck last year). It lasted for about 40 seconds (i guess). Since it wasn't quite big, i continued to read Fairy Tail manga online and suddenly when i wanted to tell other people, it stopped. This is my first experience having an earthquake, since last year, i was in Jakarta.

Update (12:43 AM): It was 7,4 of Magnitude and it's located north east of Jakarta (Near Bandung). Full detail can be seen at USGS website

Update (08:25): It has been changed to 7,5 of Magnitude and the USGS has provide more detailed summary of the earthquake.

Slow Connection

In the past two days, my Internet connection has been unstable. Sometime it's very fast (as usual), but sometimes, it's very slow like a snail. Well, Maseko reported that he had faster in this days, but unfortunately, it didn't happened on mine

I wish it will be over soon and it's back to normal again tomorrow. By the way, i have managed to download the OST of Ratatoille 2007 from Rapidshare. I just want to test the connection by downloading something big using browser and it went successfully. The file size was about 81 MB.

Update (09 August 2007 08:26): It seems the connection is better now. Is it because of the quake that makes it faster again

Starting MicroBlogging

I have just registered to Kronologger to start Micro-blogging services. You can check my real time blog (Thanks for the update Kukuh), even though i don't think it will real 'real time'. In general, the service is working, but i guess there should be an improvements, mostly for the confirmation message or the text being used to notify the users when certain action has been finished or failed. The biography section should also be improved as well, as the layout may be ruined if you post lengthy text on it. Well, it's stated as Beta, so i won't complaint any more, but they should start making progress on it

No Premiership on Local TV

It has been confirmed that Premiership will only be broadcasted by Astro, not TV7 nor Lativi. It's the first time that people will have to subscribe to commercial TV cable just to watch soccer match, especially English premiership league. I myself don't subscribe to Astro and it was very pity that no local TV station dare to buy the license to broadcast it, even though they could gain a lot from that (EPL is one of the highest rating TV program, so the rate for advertising will be very high).

Well, probably people will subscribe to Astro, but i doubt that it will be as much as expected. I hope there's another solution about this (probably looking for videos in YouTube or at Football's site?). We will see it when the EPL officially started next week.

Perfect Start

Well... Manchester United has just started this season with (almost) a perfect start. They beat Chelsea with a perfect penalty shootout, 3-0 after they finished 1-1 at the end of ninety minutes of high tension match. Edwin van der Sar has become the hero by blocking three of Chelsea kickers while MU's kicker done their job perfectly (finishing by Wayne Rooney). Great performance by MU's team tonight. I really enjoyed the game, even though i missed the first 50 minutes (including Ryan Giggs' goal at the first half).

I heard a rumor that the winner of Community Shield rarely won the Premiership league, but that has to be proven this season. I hope MU will win this season also and broke that rumor

MU's manager, Sir Alex once said that this match will be better than FA Cup Final and he fulfill his promises. It is better than FA Cup final.

Nice Artwork

Today, when i passed Parking area near Malioboro, i was stopped by the traffic light and when i looked at my left side, i saw a bus with Final Fantasy X characters painted on the side of the bus. It was very nice. There were Tidus, Yuna, Kimahri, Aron, Lulu, and Rikku. I have saw that pattern on the Internet, but i never thought that it would be painted on a bus. Unfortunately, it's the only bus with nice artwork. The other bus didn't have that kind of luxury of art. Too bad i didn't bring my digicam to take the screenshot of it.

Looking For Good Passwords?

If you are having problems with finding a good and strong passwords for some sites, then i recommend that you try this site. Try to put in your passwords, and it will measure how strong your passwords are based on the algorithm that they have made. They also provide some Do and Don't section where it's an advice on how to make good/bad passwords.

I tried to use long randoms alphabets only and it only produce about half of the bar, which means it's not good enough. But when i combine it with numbers, special characters, and capital number, it turns very strong. So good password doesn't mean have to be very long (it will make hard to remember), but also a good combination of alphanumeric, special characters, and combination of capitals/non capital characters.

Not Everybody Is Happy With Vista

Even though Microsoft has claimed that they have sold many copies of Windows Vista to the market (20 millions by March), it doesn't mean that everybody is happy. For many people, Windows Vista may bring something that they have never imagined before. A nice looking desktop with Aero technology, bringing a new look and feel and also experience that they have never had before. But, in order to get the best of it, they must be prepared with the monsterous hardware requirements. Some site claimed that it will be on it's best performance if you have 2 GB of RAM and high level of VGA Cards.

Acer president Gianfranco Lanci said that the PC Industry was very disappointed by Vista since the new operating system was riddled with problems and gave users and businesses no reason to buy a new PC. Many applications doesn't work at that time (and probably some are still up to now), and many drivers aren't compatible with Vista (it's getting better though), and many more. Will this happened again on the next release of Windows (dubbed as Windows Seven)? I hope they don't make another mistake

Those who wanted to have a nice looking and nice 3D effects, checkout Beryl and Compiz Project, where you can get better effect with lower hardware requirements.

The Famous Dilbert

I'm amazed by the creator of Dilbert comic strip, Scott Adams. He update the Dilbert daily since 1989 (that's 20 years in the next two years). What a great effort he had spent on it. Well, if you don't know, he was paid to do so by United Media, one of the biggest major cartoon syndicates. So, he's profession is a cartoonist. I read his cartoon daily, using RSS Reader and it is very interesting. Lots of topics have been presented in the comics strip. I once have a list of other cartoon RSS feed, but i threw them away. I prefer to watch just dilbert for now (and probably will do in the next few years).

I salute you for your big effort Scott

Third Block Finished

Finally third block is finished. My task is finished now, but i still have to prepare lots for next semester. I will teach about 6 class next semester, so it will be a tough one for me, since my master program will also start next September. I hope i don't get overwhelmed by my job Again, time management is very important. I couldn't stress that enough