More Option on GMail

Since the early introduction by GMail, i have already liked the conversation view of GMail. It simplifies on how we manage our emails just like a conversations. But it seems that not everyone like the idea of that and today, GMail has introduced an option to remove this feature from GMail.

By disabling the conversations, you will get a normal threaded email based on the arrival date. IMHO, this will make email management becomes more complicated as you have to find the related email replies in your inbox. But hey... it's your inbox right?

VMWare Workstation Update

Minor update has been released by VMWare to their workstation product. This time, VMWare Workstation 7.1.2 brings several enhancement to the products:

• Added Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 support for Integrated Virtual Debugger´s live debugging mode.
• Addressed issues that occur when running Windows 7 SP1 Beta, RHEL 6.0 Beta, and Fedora 13 in a virtual machine. Each of these operating system versions are in the development phase. They have known issues and are not fully supported in this release.
• NAT networking includes several performance improvements.
• VMware Workstation 7.1.2 has been tested with the new free standalone VMware vCenter Converter 4.3. VMware vCenter Converter allows you to convert a single machine or an entire datacenter into virtual machines and supports Windows 7. To download VMware vCenter Converter, see https://www.vmware.com/tryvmware/?p=converter.
• Easy Install now supports older versions of the CentOS operating system.
• Added Windows 2008R2 and Apache Server 2.2.15 support for ACE Management Server.

Let's hope this update also become more compatible with the latest Linux Kernel, mainly 2.6.36 which should be released next week by Linus Torvalds if there's no more regression bugs lurking on the development cycle

Welcome LibreOffice

Sometime in the future, OpenOffice.org will turn into LibreOffice, the next evolution of the world's leading free office suite. All of this thanks to the creation of Document Foundation, self-governing meritocratic Foundation, created by leading members of the OpenOffice.org Community.

Right now, they are working on a Beta release and you can see some screenshots on their web site. They will continue to work towards a stable release, but don't expect that in short time as they are now focusing on gathering people to join this foundation in order to polish the LibreOffice in the future.

Why? You may ask about it and you will find the answer in the FAQ section.

Let's hope Oracle will not file a lawsuit against this just like what they did with Google

Finding Good Mood

This week, i have to make an exam questions, but until now, i still hadn't had any mood to do it. Creating questions is not as simple as you may thought, since the question must be able to force the students to think about it and not just answering it so easily. When i'm in a good mood, i'm sure the idea just came in instantly and all of it will be completed in less than 30 minutes.

Idea oh idea... where are you when i need you?

Re-Reading Novel

I have bought so many novels in the past, and everytime i finished reading it, i usually never re-read it again, except for some novels. Percy Jacksons are definitely those qualified to be re-read again. I have finished re-reading up to the third novel and i will continue to read the forth novel tonight: The Battle of the Labyrinth.

I'm also waiting for Rick Riordan's newest novel which has been published, but no Indonesian translations yet: Red Pyramid. Also i'm expecting another one from Michael Scott, his forth book of the The Secret of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series: The Necromancer.

Tornado

There was a quite big tornado at the evening while i was in a barber. It seems that it wasn't the only area affected since there are so many places which are screwed up after taking the blast of it. Near the train station there was a broken pole which suppossed to be used for advertisements. The officials are fixing it at the moment.

I believe this is going to be a trending topic in Twitter for today as Jogja never had this big tornado previously.

Last Day Before Database Cleanup

Today will be the last day before i will perform a database cleanup on inactive members in Indonesian Linux Forum. I have given a warning since last month and i think one month period is more than enough to extend your account for another year just by logging it at least once.

I will perform the maintenance operation by tomorrow and users who haven't logged in again since 31-12-2005 will be deleted from the database, including their posts. Even though i would like to see a growing number of users, inactive users can't be counted anymore as they didn't participate in the forum lately.

Inyong

It's been a while since i can go out with my girlfriend since i was sick for the last few days, so i had to stat at home and resting. Since i'm feeling much better after taking the medicine and having enough rest, i finally had a chance to go to Amplaz with my girlfriend today. We had dinner together and buy things that we need for our trip to China next month.

I also bought Inyong chocolate. My friend told me it was delicious, so i decided to try it. I still prefer the vanilla instead of the dark chocolate one. Perhaps because i prefer to have some sweet rather than pure bitter. It's also cheaper compared to other products, such as Monggo Chocolate (Both are Indonesian brands).

Visit their website for more information about the products.

Playing With Chrome

Even though i have Google Chrome installed on my desktop and laptops, i never used it as my primary browser, simply because i still like the way Firefox does (besides it's lack of speed compared to Chrome). In the past, one of my biggest obstacle to move to Chrome is the lack of extensions, but right now, Chrome has so many extensions in which we can download and install it instantly without having to restart the browser (one point here for Chrome).

Then i found an interesting extension called Graph Your Inbox. This extension will try to visualize your GMail account so that you can see some patterns, for example your communications to your colleague, friends, or perhaps if you bought something on Amazon, etc. It was developed by PhD Candidate, Bill Zeller. This extension also works under Google Apps, but you will have to migrate to the new infrastructure first.

Check the examples here:

Added One New Hidden Emoticon

I have just updated my Blogger/Plurk Emoticons script on my Box.net account to add one new hidden emoticon from Plurk. It will be added at the end of the emoticon lines. The new emoticon will look like this . It's like a pirate's captain.

Please note that this script will only work for older version of Blogger editor and it will not work in the current version as it has numerous of changes implemented by Blogger on the new version. So it's your decision to use the old one (which i think is still good enough) or switch to the new one, but you will not be able to use the script i made

Another Two Week

Another two weeks and mid test exam will come. Time passes so fast even i never imagined it would be this fast. During mid test, i will be away for about two weeks and after i came back, i will only have three days and then i will have to go somewhere else again, so i guess the marking will have to wait until i returned.

Time to prepare the questions

Good Nap

I finally had a good nap today as i couldn't sleep since last night due to sick. Even though it's only for one hour, but it still relieves me since last night, i didn't get enough sleep. Every one hour, i woke up and at the end, i got a terrible headache. This is my common problems when i gets cold.

I just came back from a doctor today and i got some medicine from him. Let's hope it will work and my sickness will be cured as soon as possible

Plurk

I must say i'm very impressed with Plurk, my favourite social-networking site. The concept is very simple: describing our daily actions based on actual timeline. There are two advantages that Plurk has compared to Twitter:

1. Emoticons. Twitter doesn't support native emoticons, unless your Twitter application adds it. In Plurk, you gained emoticons through Karma which should grow if you plurk regularly (it can drop too if you post too much or if you leave your Plurk account more than one day).
2. Real time updates and timeline-based. Plurk has integrated real time updates by using Comet infrastructure and you will other's comment on your account popping up as soon as they press enter on their screen.

Of course, there are some disadvantages of Plurk also, for example the Karma concept. In order to maintain or to gain your Karma, you must update your Plurk regularly. For some people, this would be daunting task, but for those who enjoyed Plurk, it will not be a problem. The other problem is to find your friends at the beginning. It doesn't have any friend-suggestion feature like Facebook or Twitter. For some people, it's normal to find it hard to find their friends at the initial.

Plurk may not be as popular as in Twitter, but for me, i think it's still the best social site.

Week of Fork

This week, there are a lot of fork on Open Source projects. The first one is OpenIndiana which tries to fork the OpenSolaris which has been killed by Oracle. The second one is Diaspora, a privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all, open source social network. This project was built by four students of New York University who t ries to build a new social site after Facebook failed to provide better privacy protection for their end users. What's unique is that CEO of Facebook support Diaspora by funding the project.

The last fork of this week is Mandriva fork called Mageia. This project is due to unclear future of Mandriva because of the financial issues. Instead of having the project stopped, some developers, users, cookers gathered and create a community-based project which will ensure that the project will continue as it is, even though it will have different name.

Asterisk and Obelisk

When i was a child, i used to read Asterisk and Obelisk comic. It was still very cheap at that moment. Today, i went to Gramedia book store and i was surprised to see that the price has risen up to IDR 36500. I'm sure it was under IDR 10000 when i was a child. Luckily i have read all of the series when i was a child, so i don't have to buy it again.

Asterisk and Obelisk comic book is one of most popular cartoon at my time, besides Tintin. It has been re-published again and the price is so expensive too

Another Weekend

Time passes so fast. It's already September and in the next three months, we will face a new year again. Working on campus feels like time flows twice as fast as usual flow. It's very contrast with what i had while i was in high school. It seems that time were so slow so that i always thought when will i graduate

Even so, we still have to keep working hard to make our future is better than our current condition

IE 9 Beta Released

According to several site, Microsoft has released a public Beta version of the upcoming IE 9. This is their first public release after their preview release few months ago. While IE has been dubbed as one of the biggest browser on the market, it has been slowly abandoned by their users due to security problems that attacked them ever since earlier version and most of it due to it's tight relation to Windows components, mostly ActiveX.

Other than security problems, IE had so much problem with web standards and it's confusing web developers to ensure that their web design works in various version of IE, thanks to so many hacks on the CSS part.

Based on several article i read, IE 9 has changed that assumption. It's running faster, supporting more standands, and it integrates new features that will enrich your browsing experience.

Although i don't use it, since i'm running Linux in most of my time, i'm sure IE will heat up the browser war again and we will see a class of the titans again when Firefox 4.0 released later on this year.

First Working Day

Today is my first working day after long holiday since last week. I started by teaching Operating System class today at 10.30 AM. It was a good class and i enjoyed it since the students were able to understand the material today. It's about CPU scheduling and i guess they understand about all the algorithms discussed today. It's not that complicated anyways.

iTunes Instant

So everybody is very excited about instant on their products after Google released Google Instant last week. Suddenly, there are YouTube Instant and Google Maps Instant, even though they are not officially from Google itself, but user-contributed application that uses Google API.

Today, i read about other instant-based application, called iTunes Instant, created by Stephen Ou, 15-years enterpreneur kid who loves to play with CodeIgniter and currently the co-founder of Pitch.ly. You can check his website or follow his Twitter account. He own a mini Labs to play with and iTunes is one of his labs products

Compiz is Rocking

I read the blog post about future Compiz release (dubbed 0.9.2) and i think it will be a great release. So many bug fixes and annoying bugs has been resolved and new animations has been integrated on this release makes it the best release ever.

Check the animations on the below videos

Jammed

I experienced an awful traffic jam tonight when i was buying dinner with my sister. Luckily i used a motorcycle or else i would be stucked for hours. The same thing i saw when i was coming back from Kaliurang this afternoon. The road was full of cars going to Kaliurang, just like what i saw while i was in Jakarta.

Luckily it will only last until tomorrow or the day after tomorrow as the long holidays will end soon and people are leaving Jogja soon to come back to work again

Off to Kaliurang

I will be leaving to Kaliurang in a moment and i will be back tomorrow, so i will not be able to reply your messages until tomorrow. This is part of my holiday on this long holidays

See you tomorrow

Relaxing a Bit

For some time, i don't really have a spare time for my own activities. During these days, when long holidays are available, i started to have a spare time to do what i like, for example watching movies, hacking on Slackware, and reading books. It seems that i'm relaxing a bit from my daily activities.

I will be doing the same tomorrow by spending a night at Kaliurang. Let's just hope it will take me away from computer for at least one night

Search Has Become Faster

Google has officially announced the roll out of Google Instant, a new ideas of how search process can be tweaked in order to get faster and better. Check out Google's announcement on YouTube and of course on Google Blog

Google has changed how people sees about search process. In the past (just before the Google Instant launched), the process is considered as search-as-you-type, but after the announcements, it became search-before-you-type. That's a significant improvements to the idea on how our user experience has been increased once again by Google research team. Here are some facts about ordinary search process by Google team:

• 9 seconds to type a query
• 1 second of network time and processing
• 15 seconds on displaying the results

They tried to optimize the 1 second daily and by Google Instant, they will try to reduce the other 24 seconds into less than 3-5 seconds. That's huge improvements and it's really amazing.

The three main components of Google Instants are:

• Instants results
• Predictions
• Scroll to Search
  

I just can't imagine what other improvements can they present in the next few months since they are always evolving daily.

Kudos to Google Search Team

Firefox 4.0 Beta 5

A new beta release for Firefox 4.0 has arrived. I'm actually not interested on testing beta version, but since it has been added in testing/ by Pat, i think there must be something interesting with this beta release, since usually Pat never put beta version even on testing.

By looking at the Release Notes, i can see a lot of work has been integrated on this beta. I'm sure when the final version has been released later this year, browser share will change again as more and more people will go back to use Firefox. I think the most problematic matter for Firefox is about their performance. So far, Safari and Google Chrome has done a great job of working on their performance, but not to Firefox. When they are able to solve this problem, i think their market share will increase significantly.

Copper to FO

Telkom Indonesia has announced that by 2015, all copper wire will be replaced by FO (Fiber Optic) which has better speed. They have started this project since 2007 and it will take some time to replace all of them. For some cities, it might be faster, since they are prioritizing it.

Although it's a good idea to upgrade the infrastructure, it will be better if they can cut the price of the Internet connection so that more and more people can access Internet. Nowadays, only less than 20% of Indonesian population has access to Internet. Compare those number to South Korea which has almost 90% of their citizens enjoy broadband connection (it's a real broadband, not just a marketing promotions).

It's still long way to go, but i still believe they are doing the best thing which can be done right now.

Search Engines

In an era where information is now being considered overwhelmed, i think search engine has played a very significant roles nowadays. Without search engines, we might be lost to find information that we need for our daily activities. I just can't imagine how the Internet can help us if there are no search engines available to help us.

This will be my material for tomorrow's class actually. I'm going to talk about Searching the Web and also Information Resources on the Web for Internet Concept & Infrastructure subject. It's all about searching and there are many techniques that can help us to get the best results from search engines who have worked so hard to increase their index databases and refine their algorithms to provide us with the most relevant answer that we would like to see when we typed our queries.

Alpine Stopped Again?

In the past, i admired how Pine was developed by the University of Washington. It became my favorite text-based email client. In 2009, they changed it's name into Alpine and released 2.00 not long after the announcement. Slackware has switched to Alpine since then, but one year has passed since the last release and they didn't came up with any release up to now.

Can that be the development has stopped once again?

Future Technology

I was asked to give a small presentation about future technology for a student activity in Kaliurang tonight. It was a sudden request, so i didn't have time to prepare the slides or the materials (besides it's not a regular class), so i remembered that my colleague has shown me a very cool video about Augmented Reality from last year show of TED by Pranav Mistry that demonstrated about a wearable devices to bring digital world into our real world.

I showed the video and the students were very enthusiast and impressed on how the technology has advanced so fast beyond their imaginations. I also played several other videos about the implementation of augmented reality in many industries. Since i didn't have so many time on the preparations, i only bring about three videos with me and share with them.

I wish i had another time to do more preparations and give a better performance about future technology that can drive us towards better life.

New Stats Tab on Blogger

Google has added a new tab on Blogger, which is Stats tab. This tab will work just like a mini Google Analytics, where we can see our blog's pageview, an origin map where all of our visitor came from, and which pages who got the most pageviews. We can also track by Operating Systems and also Browsers.

Based on my stats, this blog is visited mostly by people from US rather than Indonesian. The same goes for my SlackBlogs.

Even though it's a simple addition, i think it will a great tool for bloggers to get an insight of what post are usefull to other people.

Google Chrome 6 Stable Release

After introducing Google Chrome two years ago, Google has increased their development on creating the fastest browser on earth and they are doing it pretty well on Chrome. Their product is widely and quickly accepted by many people around the world as it's slim and it's fast enough to compete with others such as Firefox, Safari, and Opera.

Today, they celebrate two years of Google Chrome by releasing Google Chrome 6 as a stable version. Last week, Google Chrome 5 is dubbed as stable, but starting on September, it will be replaced by Google Chrome 6 and the development version will be on Google Chrome 7. The official announcement can be read here.

It has simpler user interface (one of the many features i like in Google's products: simplicity), faster javascript engine, better treatment to the URL address bar (no http:// anymore), and of course offer better protection with it's sandbox model.

Go to google.com/chrome and you will be prompted to install/update to the latest stable release of Google Chrome

Legend of The Condor Heroes Finished

I have finally completed re-downloading Legend of the Condor Heroes. I have downloaded this Chinese drama in the past, but since i didn't have any storage to save it, i deleted all of them It was 35 GB in total, so i took some time to re-download it again.

What's worst is that it's in MU (Mega Upload) and since my FlashGet running on Wine is only capable of downloading 8 files concurrently, i had to wait until all of them are finished before i can add more links to it. It's because MU doesn't give a permanent link just like RapidShare. The link will be valid for few hours if there's an activity of downloading it.

Anyways, it's over now, and i'm downloading the next movie: Heavenly Sword and Dragon Sabre which has been remaked in 2009. It consists of 40 episodes

Moving to OAuth

Twitter has announced few months ago to developers who used Twitter API to integrate their applications to Twitter that they will shut down the Basic Auth method for authenticating user's credentials and moving on to OAuth.

Today, they officially announced that they have completely shut down all Basic Auth support, meaning that if your Twitter account still uses Basic Auth, it will not work anymore. You must upgrade your clients in order to be able to connect to Twitter again.

Some clients that i have known has updated their code in order to work with OAuth. Unfortunately, Echofon for Firefox has dropped Linux support. It's a shame. I really like Echofon. Right now, i'm using QTwitter and Choqok for my Twitter/Identi.ca accounts. Both works great, so i'm quite happy with it.