Opera 10.0

I have just tested Opera 10.0 on my Slackware 13.0 machine and when it launched, it goes directly to Opera Startup Portal which has a nice background image . Opera 10.0 has an Opera Turbo features which will make your page loads faster, but it happened when you are accessing outside domain. I think it has no use when you are accessing local site

More Active in Plurk

Lately, i become more active in Plurk rather in FB or Twitter. Even though Plurk is able to integrate with both services, i only activate the service for Twitter. The reason for that is Twitter is kinda unstable for me. Sometimes, it failed to post something after some period of time. Maybe it was just a side effect after being DDoS-ed some time ago.

In the last few days, my Plurk timeline was full of Slackware-related posts since Slackware was released few days ago, so it became one of the hottest topic on Plurk. One of my friend "complained" (he was joking) that i filled his time line with Slackware news

Updated IT Project Failures Perspective

Taken from Project Cartoon:

Great Job Speedy

Lately, my Speedy connection is very good. I always get above 100 KB/s (sometimes it goes beyond 125 KB/s) when i'm downloading something. It's a good news, since Slackware 13.0 has just been released and i have done downloading the CD ISOs (i downloaded 4 out of 6 ISOs) and now i'm downloading the DVD ISO.

Keep the speed up and running all the time

More Improvement on Next Skype

Skype has rolled out their Skype 2.1 beta release which incorporates many new features. This is good news, as some people said that Linux version of Skype was lacking compared to Windows version.

Here are some new feature in the latest Skype 2.1 beta release:

• High Quality Video support
• Skype's SILK audio codec
• PulseAudio support
• SMS sending support
• Chat messages editing/removing support
• Contact groups support
• Typing notification in chat
• Chat picture support (add/change/remove) for group conversations
• Mood messages are visible in contact list and tooltip
• Video/Mobile icons are visible in contact list
• Bookmarked Chats are visible in contact list
• Contact labels/tags

There are still many improvements which are listed on the Developer's Release Notes, so if you are interested, go get it and test it

Remember that this is still in BETA version and many known bugs have been spotted and also listed on the Release Notes, so if you are looking for a stable version, stick with 2.0.x for now.

Slackware 13.0 Released

Finally, Slackware 13.0 has been released by Patrick Volkerding. Thanks also to the crew who have helped him so much testing and giving suggestion for better Slackware release. Now, Slackware has x86_64 edition, so people who have used 64-bit system will be very happy to hear this news.

So, what do you waiting for? Start downloading, but please considering to donate or buy the CD/DVDs from Slackware Store as it will help Pat directly and also the development of Slackware Linux in the future.

Thank you Patrick and to the Slackware Crews

OpenOffice.org 3.1.1 Final Released

The final version of OpenOffice.org 3.1.1 has been released by the OpenOffice.org team. It's now being distributed to mirror sites, so please wait for few days before the final announcement is published by the Marketing team.

I'm downloading it right now and i will test it in a while

Update (22:24 PM): It's working nicely and i don't have to manually fix the truncation problem after rpm2tgz in Slackware-Current has been updated by Pat.

Restoring Files From Damaged Hard Drive With ZAR

Bill Detwiler has posted a video about Restoring Files From a Damaged Hard Drive With ZAR. I think it's a good video for people who had the same problem as the video showed, a damaged hard drive.

Hard drive is one of the most error prone in computer components, because it keeps on spinning all the time (except when you have used SSD-based hard drive). Heat, dirt, and many other factors may decrease it's lifetime, so it's advisable to buy a new hard drive at least once every 4-5 years (at least in my case, but if you have the budget, go for it once a year ).

Wine 1.1.28 Released

Two weeks has passed and new Wine release (1.1.28) has been released to the public. It's available now from the Sourceforge and ibiblio site.

What's new in this release :
- Support for IRDA protocol.
- Faster initial wineprefix creation.
- Axis remapping with evdev joysticks.
- More image formats in WindowsCodecs.
- Various bug fixes.

I would like to thank Kyle for building the Wine packages using SBo and send it to me to get tested. He's very happy that CS bug has finally been fixed, so he doesn't need to manually patch the package

SMS Limitation on Pidgin

You probably have known that Pidgin is now able to send text messages to cell phones using a global carrier. I have posted this before on this blog, but what i haven't mentioned on that post is the limitation for this service (since i am not aware of such things at that moment).

It seems that sender have a limitation around 5 text messages for a same number. Can you send more? Yes, you can, but the receiver must reply one of your text message and using the global carrier (which probably means international rate will be charged) and not replying to your cell phone number directly. This only applies to same number, so you can get another 5 messages to different number.

I hope this clarifies the SMS feature on Pidgin.

More Languages on Secunia 1.5.0.1

Secunia Personal Inspector 1.5.0.1 has been released by Secunia team. Unlike previous major update, this is only a language update, meaning no new features added or bug fixes implemented on this release.

With this release, there are 26 new languages supported by Secunia PSI. Congratulations

Attending Live Webinar

I'm attending a live webinar today (or should i say tomorrow as it will be started at 1 AM). I got the invitation via email and i'm quite interested on the topic, which is building and testing secure application.

Let's just hope i won't get slept before i attend the webinar

Class Canceled

My UNIX class has been canceled due to unsatisfied requirement to open a class. Actually i have predicted this, since last semester, there was two classes and usually there was only one class. So, actually the students had taken the class last semester and the result is that this semester, there's no one interested (or lack of people who interested in).

Let's hope there will be more students in the next semester

As the result, i get more time on Tuesday

New Semester Begin

Today is the first day of a new semester. I hope new students will enjoy their first year as a college students and for the old students, get a grip and enjoy this whole new semester until the end of this year

As for me, today is going to be a busy day. I only had two classes today and it's only 2 credit per class, but besides teaching, i still have lots of other activities and probably it will be finished at night, so it will be a very busy Monday

One Problem Solved

Since few days ago, the phone in my room doesn't work. Strange because the other phone on other room works and it uses the same number. So today i called 147 to report the problem (i had to report twice since the other report was about Speedy and they have different division). In about one hour, the technician came (unfortunately, without any prior notice) and fixed the problem.

It's not a big problem actually. The wire got crossed and that's may conduct a short circuit. They separate them and make sure it won't get crossed again.

So now one problem of mine is fixed. Speedy problem is still uncertain. While i don't have to use any more tunneling and i can browse normally, some of my friend who used Speedy still can't access international sites.

What Happened to Speedy?

I don't know whether i should praise or complaint. It's all about Speedy. Lately, i often got a full speed (around 1 Mbps), but sometimes, when it's very slow, i can't even open a local site, which is very annoying. Lately, i also experienced too many drop connection (it disconnected and then reconnecting again, even though in some cases, it took so many time to reconnect again).

To be able to browse tonight, i had to use tunneling to other server first.

What happened to Speedy lately? I just don't get it

Send SMS via Pidgin

Good news everybody. Now, Pidgin 2.6.0 and above will be able to send SMS messages and it's working in Indonesia also. At first, i thought it will only work in some countries (excluding Indonesia), but in fact, i just tried to send it to my own number (i'm using Telkomsel's Simpati card) and it's working.

I received a text message from 4246002 and i think it's the global carrier. It will have the format nickname: text message.

If you want to send text message via Pidgin, use Buddies > New Instant Message. Enter your buddie's phone number in form of
+<country code><phone number>
For example: +62123456789

Thanks to Sulabh Mahajan who implemented this feature on Pidgin 2.6.

We are looking for more features in Pidgin

PS: i only test it on Telkomsel. You might try to test it on other operators.

Update (8:44 AM): It works on XL and Three (3). Thanks to Regina
Update (8:47 AM): It works on IM3. Thanks to Bobby
Update (8:54 AM): It works on Mobile-8 (Fren). Thanks to my Mom
Update (9:24 AM): It works on Indosat. Thanks to my Feha

District 9

I have just seen District 9, one of the movies played in Jogja with my girlfriend. I was kinda late entering the theater due to some problems, so i didn't watch the beginning part.

This movie has so many sadistic scene, so i'm not suggesting this to parents who wanted to bring their children to watch this movie. Even for some adults, it's still considered too brutal. There were a lot of people who didn't watch some scene because there was flesh scattered around the camera and so on. It might loose your appetite after watching this movie

Introduction to Linux

Today i gave a small introduction about Linux to new students. There were about more than 80 students who went into my session (actually there were two sessions and the other one is about Flash and animation) and some of them were not from computer-related faculty.

At first, i was kinda worried that new students won't get too attracted, but after looking at the first ten minutes, they were kinda interested so i was relieved and quite happy with it. Some students asks for questions and i think some of them are willing to try Linux on their new laptop/PC.

Introducing Linux as early as possible is an important step for students, since they must realize that operating system is not just limited to Windows. There are other operating systems which are better than Windows and Linux is one of them. What's good about it is that Linux is free (not in the context of price, but freedom). I have also expressed this to my students, so they don't get a wrong perception about "free".

We will have more event in the future related to Linux and Open Source, so stay tuned guys

Taxi Driver Holds a Ph.D

This is a story about Dr. Mingjie Cai who have been working 16 years as a PI (principal investigator) in Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) of ASTAR, Singapore and got dumped out of his job (without any compensation) and now he's working as a taxi driver to earn something for living. What a pity right? That's for real.

He holds a Ph.D honor from Stanford and he's probably the only taxi driver in the world who owns a Ph.D degree.

Read the first entry of this blog here

It also appears in Straits Times

PS3 Slim

Nowadays, people who loves gaming console would be very curious about Sony's plan to reveal it's PS3 Slim version. This would be an example of PS3 Slim (courtesy to Engadget).

It'll be out in the first week of September (September 1 in North America and Europe, September 3 for Japan), and will retail for $300 (or 300 Euro, or 29,980 Yen).

It will be available on 120 GB version but rumors said there will be 250 GB version too. It's smaller and lighter, has a 120GB HDD, and packs "all the same features" of the regular PS3 while consuming 34 percent less power and taking up 32 percent less space.

The new 3.0 firmware will be released concurrently with the PS3 slim, which should provide a breath of fresh air for existing machines. Other new features of the PS3 slim include BRAVIA Sync, which allows you to control the PS3 XMB over HDMI through your BRAVIA TV remote, and System Standby to shut off the PS3 when the BRAVIA TV is off. Sony also claims this new machine will run more quietly than existing PS3 systems, which is good news for people who like to watch movies or have conversations in the general vicinity of their game console.

Check also the photo comparison between PS3 Original and PS3 Slim

Building and Testing Secure Application Webcast

For those who wanted to attend a webcast about Building and Testing Secure Application, you might want to register to the event here. The presenter will be Chris Eng, Senior Director of Security Research, Veracode, Inc. and Contributing Author to the SANS-CWE Top 25.

This webcast will provide details and best practices describing how software providers can build and test their applications to avoid the SANS-CWE Top 25 Most Dangerous Programming Errors including:

• Prevalence data of attacks using vulnerabilities listed in the SANS-CWE Top 25
• An overview of the SANS-CWE Top 25
• Impact of attacks on your application and your customers
• Testing methods to identify, track and remediate these vulnerabilities
• How to market software security as a feature and competitive differentiator

It will be held on Tuesday, August 25, 2009 11:00 AM PT / 2:00 PM ET. It will be Wednesday, August 26 2009, 1 AM WIB (yes, in the morning) in Indonesian time

Busy Week

After quite a long weekend, today is the start of new week and today, i already got an assignment to evaluate three students for their final project. All of them were under my supervisions.

This week will be quite a busy week for me, as new students events has started since yesterday, and there will be lots of introduction, both to the lecturers, new students activities, and many more and i'm somewhat related to some students activities. My schedule is quite full this week.

Next week, our first lecture class will begin. In some course, i have finished the material, but not all of them. We will also have a introduction meeting for the EC-Council Academia program on Monday and Tuesday.

What a busy week it is

Happy Independence Day

Happy Independence Day to Indonesia

It also means ends for long weekends

First Victory

MU has just claimed their first victory of this season by beating Birmingham City at Old Trafford. Even though it's not as great as Arsenal who crushed up Everton with six goals, it's still a good sign.

Three of the big fours has finished their first match with victory. Only one remaining and they will play in a moment. Will they claimed their first victory just like the others? Only time can tell

Indonesian Map

My father's friend at Singapore gave my father a GPS device today (Tibo B1000). Unfortunately, it is pre-loaded with Malaysia and Singapore maps only. I checked the website and i found out that they use TeleAtlas as the map provider, but when i checked the website, they don't have product information for my device.

So basically the device is available, but with no Indonesian map available. I'm not sure whether the map from Navigasi can be used or not, but it has different format as well.

Any help on this issue?

Acme Files

If you are looking for a website which contains application list, but with a good categorization, i would suggest that you visit Acme Files. This site has a well-defined categories, thus helping users to get what they are looking for.

So far, they have 18 categories:

• Browsers and Plugins
• Anti-Spyware
• Audio and Video
• File Sharing
• Security and Firewalls
• CD and DVD Tools
• Instant Messaging and Chat
• Anti-Virus
• Cleaning and Tweaking
• Desktop
• File Transfer
• Compression and Backup
• Image Editing
• Office and Productivity
• Benchmarking
• Drivers and Frameworks
• Developer Tools
• Network and Administration

One good point about Acme is that they claimed to have tight policy about what's going to be placed on the site. This way, it reduces a problematic application being displayed and downloaded by their users. Check this page for more information.

By the way, this site only lists Windows application, so if you are using non-Windows OS, you might be a little bit dissappointed.

Gpg4Win 2.0 Released

After 15 months of developments and 15 beta releases (that's huge), finally Gpg4win 2.0 has been released by the developers. Unlike previous release, it's a major redesign and also it uses GnuPG 2.0.x series rather staying with 1.4.x series.

Here are what's included in this release:

GnuPG:         2.0.12
Kleopatra:     20090807
GPA:           0.9.0
GpgOL:         1.0.0
GpgEX:         0.9.3
Claws-Mail:    3.7.2
Kompendium:    3.0.0-beta3

OOo4Kids

OOo team is researching for a new product called OOo4Kids. Basically, it's OOo which is designed for kids, age 7-12 years. Several components may be removed because kids may not need it so much and others might have to be improved. Check this wiki entry for more information about what's being worked on. Some preparation has been started, for example:

• New Icon preparation
• New Start Center Interface

Unfortunately, no download version is available currently, but the development has already begun. Check the progress here

Leaving to Meeting

Today, i will be leaving to Salib Putih for university-level meeting. All the lecturers and most of the staffs will be unavailable for three days (starting today until Friday).

Like always, pending requests to join Indonesian Linux Forum will be delayed (you can always activate your account by confirming the confirmation email sent to your inbox) and email replies will be a little bit delayed as well (i do hope i can reply it via my cell phone).

Namoroka Problem: Download window

I just realized something after spending some time with Namoroka (Firefox 3.6 Alpha 1). Sometimes, the download window doesn't show the remaining time and also the download progress when i'm downloading something. It does give some notification when the download has finished just like the current version of Firefox, but that's it. If you are downloading big files, you won't notice it. Also when you download several files at once, it will not show every files on the dialog window.

Let's just hope it will get fixed in the next Alpha (or Beta)

Broken Links

Today, i checked my blog for any broken links, mostly in my friend's blogroll. It seems that some of them has been unavailable for some time and i didn't noticed it until today.

I'm sorry that i have to delete all the broken links on my blog.

Testing Namoroka

Today i'm testing Namoroka, code name for Firefox 3.6 which still in Alpha 1 state. I'm using a fresh profile by moving my .mozilla into another directory because i think many extensions will not be working or compatible with this version.

So far, i have no problem with this application and it's really faster as the developer claimed. I tried to load some heavy javascript-based site and it's relatively faster than 3.5.2.

If it's quite stable, i might think to use it for daily usage, even though it's really not recommended.

Longer Battery Life

I had a battery problem on my E71. At the beginning, it can live for two until three days, but lately, it only lasted for one until two days. So few days ago, i was searching for tips to make my battery has longer life time before being recharged.

I stumbled on this site and it seems that i have done most of the tips there on my phone. The only thing that i skipped is about the light time-out. I thought it wasn't critical, but it seems that i was wrong. I used to change the default settings to longer period so that it won't be too dark and it will dim longer, and that's the root cause why my battery gets drained so fast. Now, i changed it into lower values and my battery lasts longer than before. It can last for three days again.

Here's the tips from the site:

Also, set your light time-out to something lower like 30 seconds. You'd be surprised at how much an extra 20 seconds at a time can drain your battery. Say you touch your phone 200 times throughout the day. Thats an extra 40 minutes your backlight is on if you keep at 60 seconds, as apposed to 40 seconds.

If you re using Garmin Mobile XT, then i suggest to read this comment. It does drain your battery very fast. Either you kill the process or upgrade to the latest version (5.00.50 currently) which enables you to disable the background service.

Firefox Advanced With Namoroka

Even though Firefox 3.5 has just been shipped this year, they are planning to go forward with the release of Firefox 3.6 Alpha 1. With codename as Namoroka, it has quite big changes with Gecko 1.9.2 as the engine. The wiki entry marks November as the scheduled release month for Firefox 3.6, which will be considered a minor updates opposed to major updates like what Firefox 3.5 did to Firefox 3.0.

The cool thing is that Firefox will have faster and better performance compared to previous version, new graphical tab-switching behavior, and many web standards addition (mainly CSS 3).

Please read some quick review here

Wine 1.1.27 Released

Two days after my post about Wine's delayed package, today they released another bi-weekly version, 1.1.27. It comes with a new gecko engine. I think this is the main reason why it's coming so late this time.

Anyways, it's time to test it and see if it broke something. Let's have 1.1.26 ready just in case it got a regression

Twitter Suffered From DDoS

No wonder i can't logged in to Twitter yesterday. It seems that Twitter and Facebook were attacked using DDoS. Even though the site has been brought back to operational, there are still some delays and failed requests. Check the Twitter Status for more updates on Twitter.

As for Facebook, i don't experience the problem. I still can access Facebook normally last night.

Out of Gas?

In their usual timeline, Wine developers release a new development version every two weeks, but since the last release (1.1.26), the two week periods are already surpassed. The two weeks limit should be reached at July 31 and it's almost three weeks.

Are they running out of gas or what? Nobody knows and i think it will be explained in the next development release of Wine.

Slackware packages for Wine was stopped updating since 1.1.24, but there is a new release for 1.1.26. On SlackBuilds project, it's even worse. The last update was for 1.1.17.

Working Towards Liferea 1.8

Liferea developers are not stopping their work at 1.6, but rather they started the development of 1.7 which is a development branch towards 1.8 which will become the next stable release, replacing 1.6. We don't know when will it be done, but if you see the changelog, it's getting better and better.

Indonesian Language at FireGPG

Indonesian version of FireGPG's website has been integrated, so you can enjoy Indonesian language on FireGPG's website starting from today. It has been twitted on Twitter

KDE 4.3 Released

KDE 4.3 (aka Caizen) has been released by KDE team today. KDE has been struggling to get a place on their user's heart after many critics given when they released 4.0 last year. Over time, KDE 4.x is getting better and better and on this version, it gives more stable release than ever. Here's some snippet from KDE's announcement:

KDE 4.3 continues to refine the unique features brought in previous releases while bringing new innovations. With the 4.2 release aimed at the majority of end users, KDE 4.3 offers a more stable and complete product for the home and small office.

The KDE community has fixed over 10,000 bugs and implemented almost 2,000 feature requests in the last 6 months. Close to 63,000 changes were checked in by a little under 700 contributors.

Too bad, it may not be included at the next Slackware 13.0 due to time frame and probably lack of testing time since it incorporates many new code and features.

Back From Kaliurang

Today, i came back from GHCC, kaliurang after spending a night there with some of my colleagues. We were invited by our office to gather there to learn more about our office and some sort of gathering.

I went to Teh Poci last night, drinking tea there. It's so nice as i haven't been there for some time

Next week, i will probably be at Salib Putih, Salatiga for three days meeting with my faculty. It should be great

QuickOffice Problem Solved

Since few days ago, i had problem upgrading QuickOffice on my E71. The version offered via Free Upgrades doesn't work and i got Update Error message instead of successful installation.

I submitted a ticket to the support team few days ago and finally today i fixed my problem. The solution that was given at the first attempt didn't work for me. Today, i got another solution which works like charm. They gave me a new installer and this time, it upgrades successfully without any problem. The phone had to restart after installation, but after that, i got a new QuickOffice which has new features.

Fourth Series of Percy Jackson

The fourth series of Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series (The Battle of the Labyrinth) have come out in Indonesian language. I saw it on the entry list when i searched the book in Gramedia at Amplaz yesterday. Too bad the stock was 0, meaning it was empty.

Today, i looked for the novel at Togamas, but they didn't have to novel yet. I think i will have to wait for few days before it will be available on every book store

Nero 9 Free

If you like to make a backup on the CD/DVD, one the most important thing is the burner application. While Windows XP have a built in burner application, the quality may not satisfy you. Also, not many people uses all the features on the professional edition of Nero. For this purpose, Nero offers Nero Free version which you can get from this site by entering your email address or via RS.

There is limitations on this version though. It contains only simply data burning and disc copying features for CDs and DVDs. Additional features and functionality are available with an upgrade to Nero 9 full version. Well, if your needs are only simple data burning and backup, i think this free edition is enough. It's also smaller in size (~55 MB), compared to the professional edition (~300 MB). Why installing the professional when all you need is just a simple burning features?

Thanks to Nero who provided this free version. It can help reducing piracy