Hakin9 Magazine

For those who likes to read about security-related news and tutorials, you would love this IT Security Magazine: Hackin9. This magazine has been around for few years, but i just found about it recently and i think it's a very good resources (at least for me).

They offered free download for some issues and all you have to do is to join their newsletter. What are you waiting for? Go grab them now and start reading

Gembira Loka Zoo

It's been a while since my last visit to the Gembira Loka Zoo (They now have an official website too). I believe my last visit was more than 10 years ago. It must have changed a lot compared to my last visit. Probably someday i will go there to have a look what changes they have made in the last 10 years.

Lately, they are doing what people known as image branding. They have joint cooperation with other vendors to paint their promotion pictures in other's cars, for example taxis, buses, and many public transportation. These transportation vehicles runs across the city for about 8-12 hours a day, so people will eventually sees them and makes them wonders and then decided to go to the zoo. I think this is a brilliant concept to (re) introduce something to public. Let them be curious about something and they will come after you.

One note about their website is that they lack of consistency and updates. For such public services, you must update your websites frequently to let other people know what happened inside.

openSUSE 11.4 Edu Li-f-e

OpenSUSE has just released OpenSUSE 11.4 two weeks ago and now they are releasing an education version of OpenSUSE called OpenSUSE 11.4 Edu L-i-f-e which brings around 150 educational applications into the build and remove unneccesary packages. It can be used for any level of education, starting from elementary school until senior high school. It can also be used for lab class, where students can try to simulate or doing some demos on something.

Basically it can be used on any educational environment as it's bundled with KIWI-LTSP server that can be enabled even by non-technical user, bundled with tons of useful applications from openSUSE Education, Build Service and Packman repositories. With the KIWI-LTSP server you can PXE(network) boot other PCs to use this live DVD without installing or modifying anything on them.

You can download the ISO from OpenSUSE or at SourceForge. If you want to make a live USB, please refer to this page

No iPhone 5 at WWDC 2011

Usually, Apple unveils new version of iPhone on June at WWDC, but this year, they are focusing at OS level. That means, they are giving updates for iOS 5 and the long waited next OS for Macintosh, OS X Tiger. Reports has stated this news came out from a well source of Apple blogger Jim Dalrymple and also Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing.

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, will be held on June 6 in San Francisco.

Google's New Service: Disco

Google has silently release a new social networking site called Disco. It's not related to music, even though the background for the site is people are dancing.

This site offers Group Texting on Any Phone, so it's similar to RIM's BBM (BlackBerry Messenger), but it's offered by Google. There are several other providers such as GroupMe, Fast Society, KiK, and Beluga (now owned by Facebook), so they are having such good competition.

Unfortunately, this service is limited to US numbers only for now, so i don't have a chance to try this features yet.

This service is also available on Apple App Store

IE 9 vs Firefox 4

If you need some comparison between the latest IE 9 and Firefox 4.0, please check this page : IE9 vs Firefox 4. It gives you an overall what's the difference and achievement on both browser product when it's compared to each other.

Unfortunately it doesn't put other browsers there, such as Opera, Safari, and Google Chrome. It would be an interesting article if it includes it

New Widget: Follow By Email

Since Google/Blogger has introduced a new widget called Follow By Email, i will include this widget on both of my blog, My Personal Blog and SlackBlogs so that readers can follow any updates on these blogs (they are separated, so if you like both of them, you must follow them twice on each blog).

Any post that is posted on this blog will be sent to your email, thus it will make it easier for you to see any updates on this blog. I hope you can get the benefit of this widget

Moving Target

Lately, Google Chrome is like a monster who keeps running like it was chased by a ghost. They are releasing Google Chrome in a fast pace and sometimes it's too fast for users to follow as new version will came up every few days to weeks. I must say that they are doing a great job for creating such fast, stable browser, but a major upgrade on one or two months is beyond most people's expectation.

Google Chrome is also a hot topic on Slackware's mailing list, since Pat has introduced the SlackBuild for building it by repackaging from Google's Debian package. It's running fine as of now, but there are some information that the next Google Chrome (11.x) which now resides on Beta will have PAM as one of it's requirements. As you probably know, Slackware hasn't been using PAM for some time and most users are fine with these conditions. If Google Chrome doesn't give any options to disable PAM at building time, it's probably the right time to rethink whether we should include PAM or remove Google Chrome from /extra just because of PAM thing.

Testing Hackintosh

After taking an early rest last night, i woke up this morning at 3:30 AM. Yeah, i know. 3:30 in the morning is so bad, but i have plenty of time to work on something, so i fired up my laptop, upgrade to the latest Slackware-Current packages and syncing my portable hard drive with -Current packages.

Also, i wanted to try installing Hackintosh on top of VirtualBox. I have done it on my desktop and also on my workstation and it worked. On my workstation, there are some unresolved issues, such as resolution not maximized and sound card is not detected, but that's only a small issues for me. My desktop at home has a better situation where all of the above problems are solved after doing some tricky steps.

After making sure that my laptop has the minimum requirements to install Hackintosh, i tried to launch VirtualBox and see if it works. Right now it's installing phase and it should be done in the next 10 minutes or so. Let's see about that later

Busy Week

I am so busy this week because i was appointed as a vice head for 25th anniversary of my department and also i have to take care so many things lately. My classes starts this week too, so i received a lot of new assignments and slides to do on my weekend.

I think i need to manage my time better so that i won't get overwhelmed.

Now off to bed and get some rest

PayPal Account Restored

After waiting for about a week, finally an email confirmation from PayPal arrived on my inbox and i was so happy to see the title since it's said Your PayPal Account Access Has Been Restored

As you may know, i have been busy last week restoring my PayPal account after the incidents that happened on my account (See my previous post here and here). I had to make an international call to PayPal headquarter in Singapore to clarify this problem and solve it directly since i had some problem fulfilling PayPal's request for documents. At last they agreed to accept my documents and start the review process which took about a week.

And here i am with my PayPal account restored. Let's hope there will be no more fraud attacking my account again

TeamViewer

I must say, i'm so impressed with TeamViewer application. It's not an open source application, but it's available to Windows, Linux, and Macintosh platform. It's even available for Mobile platform, such as Android and iPad.

So, what does it do? Basically TeamViewer is an application that connects your computer anytime anywhere as long as you have Internet connection. Even if you are behind a proxy or firewalls, this application works out of the box without having it's user to configure anything. All you need is an account which can be registered instantly and it's free. You can then use this application to help other people (remote support), online presentation, and to control your computer remotely.

I have tried to use this application on Windows, Linux, and iPad and they all works perfectly just like what i need. It's really an impressive application.

Try it and prove it. I believe you will like this application as much as i do.

Firefox 4: Not as Fast as i Hoped For

I have been expecting Firefox 4.0 since it's a major update from my primary browser. I tried to keep updated by reading as much news as possible about Firefox 4.0 release and the media seems to talked about it so much. What i really need from Firefox 4.0 is stability and faster browser.

Today, Firefox 4.0 final is officially released and i have been using RC 2 since few days ago. I noticed that even though Firefox 4 is much more stable, it's speed is not as speedy as it's claimed or talked by media. Some of web sites i visit even have performance penalty after upgrading to Firefox 4 (i suspect a buggy extension after several testing though).

Well, the speed performance is probably due to hardware acceleration. Since i don't have GPU that can be used, it's performance is not as fast as it claimed. Anyway, i think Firefox 4.0 is a nice and must-have upgrade

Starts Again

My classes starts again starting today after almost two weeks of vacuum due to mid test. Another project assignment has been announced for Internet Application Engineering class. This time, it's a whole different concept. I never thought it would be like this, but i guess it's more challenging and should be more fun. I hope the students like my new idea for the second project

They can get more than just marks, but also more interesting rewards. Let's see their efforts for this week

Testing Firefox 4.0 RC 2

Mozilla has released Firefox 4.0 RC 2 in March 18. This RC doesn't bring major updates, only localizations updates and one addition of localization. RC 2 also blacklist several invalid HTTPS certificates according to the Release Notes. The final version is expected to be released on March 23, so only few days left.

Since i'm running Linux, all of the preferences are stored in .mozilla, so i only need to copy that directory to other directory, for example .mozilla.old and start the firefox binary from Mozilla. There are three extensions that aren't compatible (yet) with Firefox 4.0, but it will be updated as soon as Firefox 4.0 final version is released in March 23.

The UI has been revamped so that it now has smaller area in above tabs, so more space on the view-screen. The menus are also being simplified.

This post is written using Firefox 4.0 RC 2.

3 Points Secured

It wasn't the best performance of Manchester United, but at the end, they secured three points at Old Trafford after wining 1-0 from Bolton W. to stay away from Arsenal which was held draw 2-2 by WBA. They are now at the top of EPL table and five points away from runner up position. Arsenal has 1 extra match though, so the competition is still running on.

Berbatov scored a late goal and he proved that he's still one of the goal getter for Manchester United for this season alongside with Javier Hernandez.

Even though they had a crisis in a defender line and their coach can't accompany them, they are still being dominant in the EPL. Let's hope this trends goes on until the end of this season and they can get another title (hopefully treble again)

Smashing Book 2 Arrived

I have been waiting for my order of Smashing Book 2 package and finally it arrived here safely at my house as of today. Let me write some story behind this package.

I pre-ordered Smashing Book in January early this year once it was announced that the pre-order was ready. They charged my credit card and shipped it on January 27. They said it would take 4-6 weeks to reach Indonesia and from my previous experience on buying Smashing Book, it would only take 2 weeks to reach my place.

Unfortunately, the package didn't arrive until mid February, so i asked the support from Smashing Magazine and they asked for me to wait until the end of February. I waited and the package never arrived at the end of February. I sent an email again to the support and ask them what should i do with it.

Somehow, their answer was so relieving. They agreed to send me another book of Smashing Book 2 without no extra charge. This time, they upgrade their shipping method so that it can be tracked (registered air mail delivery). They sent me the tracking numbers and i can see it on a website in Germany and also in Indonesia when it has reached Indonesia.

Today, the package arrived. I was surprised to see it because according to the site, it was still in Jakarta since two days ago. I guess they didn't update the shipment yet.

Anyways, thanks to the support department of Smashing Magazine and to all Smashing Magazine authors. You did it again with another great book of Smashing Magazine 2

PHP 5.3.6 Released

PHP team has just released PHP 5.3.6, their latest stable version of PHP 5.3.x series. This version fixed quite a lot of security-related vulnerabilities and the rest are bug fixes (over 60 bug fixes), but no major new features on this release.

Unlike the previous version, a legacy stable version, 5.2.x is no longer synced with 5.3.x. People still using PHP 5.2.x are urged to upgrade to 5.3.x as it's no longer supported by PHP team.

Another news is that PHP will discontinue to provide PHP binaries for Windows user that is compiled using Visual Studio C++ 6 as it's no longer maintained by Microsoft.

Windows users: please mind that we do no longer provide builds created with Visual Studio C++ 6. It is impossible to maintain a high quality and safe build of PHP for Windows using this unmaintained compiler. You can download Windows binaries from Windows.php.net, while the source can be downloaded from Download page

For Apache SAPIs (php5_apache2_2.dll), be sure that you use a Visual Studio C++ 9 version of Apache. We recommend the PHP builds as provided by ApacheLounge. For any other SAPI (CLI, FastCGI via mod_fcgi, FastCGI with IIS or other FastCGI capable server), everything works as before. Third party extension providers must rebuild their extensions to make them compatible and loadable with the Visual Studio C++9 builds that we now provide.

Linux Journal Call for Authors

Linux Journal is preparing a new "Community" edition which will be published this summer. As you can see from the statement, it's from the Open Source community from around the world. It can be a spesific Linux distribution community like Ubuntu, Slackware, Fedora, or probably an open source applications community such as MySQL, PHP, Apache, etc. It can also be a local LUG in your area, for example Jogja Linux in my area.

If you are interested in writing an article for this issue, please send a brief proposal explaining what you'd like to cover to ljeditor@linuxjournal.com.

Twitter now Allows HTTPS by Default

Twitter now allows it's user to use HTTPS by default by enabling it on the Setting page. This new features is announced on Twitter Blog. To turn on HTTPS, go to your settings and check the box next to “Always use HTTPS,” which is at the bottom of the page. That's it. No more tricky thing or third party addon required to make sure your data is sent encrypted to Twitter's server.

If you need HTTPS for mobile, you should update your bookmark to https://mobile.twitter.com as Twitter currently don't share Always use HTTPS option to mobile users. Perhaps they are still working on it, but just to be sure, please update your bookmark first.

I wish to see more and more websites offering HTTPS protocol by default instead of staying with the old, insecure HTTP protocol that has been used for ages.

Linux Kernel 2.6.38

Linus has just released Linux Kernel 2.6.38 in time (it was predicted by many people due to his comment on RC8 release which should have been a final release, but he wanted to make sure nothing breaks) and it's out there but mirrors are still working to get the new release. Please wait for few hours before your mirror site start serving you with this just-released, fresh-from-the-git release.

Information about the new Kernel can be seen on KernelNewbies if you prefer human-readable format or more detailed and complex Changelog from Kernel.org.

What's so interesting with this new release is the new Automatic process grouping (a.k.a. "the patch that does wonders") that is reported will increase your performance significantly, mostly for multi CPUs. Other things that is also interesting is VFS scalability by Nick Piggin. There are still others, such as Btrfs LZO compression, read-only snapshots, Transparent Huge Pages, B.A.T.M.A.N. Mesh protocol, Support for AMD Fusion Graphics, and Dirty memory limits in the memory controller.

I'm downloading it now, but i won't install it until next NVidia and VMWare release is ready and support this kernel

Dealing With PayPal

Since early March, my PayPal account received a lot of money from someone that i don't know. They send me so much money, but i suspected that those were fraud or probably their account was hijacked by other people and send the money to me.

At first, i was happy to receive the money, but when i got USD 10000, i wondered . Who on earth would send me that much money for free? I don't reject if it's truly donations though

I sent an email to the sender and asked for their confirmation and after getting their answer that it wasn't them who sent it, i cancelled and refunded the money to the original owner. The stories goes on with more transactions involving my PayPal account. The nominal were so good. USD 10000, USD 9000, GBP 5000

The worst part was last night where i got an email from PayPal saying that my account was suspended due to being suspected to illegal activitiy. I had thought that this would happened since it's so unusuall to receive lots of money suddenly. They asked me to give them more information about myself and also my business documents. I tried to provide them as much as i can, but there were some documents that i couldn't give to them as i don't really sell items to anyone else. I sell services to other people, so when PayPal asked me to send them tracking numbers, invoices, and supplier contacts, i told them i don't have any. I have sent a complain twice since yesterday via their contact us page.

I can't wait too long, so i took a decision to call the headquarter in Singapore and they asked for my problem. At first i had problems communicating with the customer service. She understands my English, but i can't understand hers . She transfered it to other department and luckily the second customer service speaks English more fluent than the first one. I told the customer service about my situations and the reason why i can't provide them with the information. We had some time discussing my issues and luckily i can make the customer service understand my position. She agreed that i don't have to supply any other documents due to my situations and the rest of the documents were confirmed by phone.

I also asked her to refund or cancels all the transactions that are being held by PayPal for me and she told me that my problem should be solved and i should only wait for email confirmation from PayPal. Let's hope they will reinstante my account as soon as possible.

Thank you for the customer support who have helped me resolving this problem and i hope i won't get into this kind of problem anymore in the future

Wesnoth Progress

It's been two months since the last development version of Wesnoth, a free, turn-based tactical strategy game with a high fantasy theme, featuring both single-player, and online/hotseat multiplayer combat. Usually they release a new development release each month, but until today, i still haven't seen any public progress on their website.

I have been waiting for the next 2.0 release as i'm also the current maintainer for Wesnoth for SlackBuilds. If it's possible, i want to make sure Wesnoth 2.0 is buildable on Slackware 13.1 and also in the next Slackware 13.37 release. Meanwhile, please grab the 1.8.5 version on SlackBuilds. You can also try to use the same SlackBuild to compile 1.9.4, the latest development version, but you need to comment one line that is the patch required for 1.8.4 for libpng. It's no longer used for 1.9.4 as the patch has been included in the codebase.

patch -p1 < $CWD/wesnoth-libpng-1.4.0.patch

Google Circles?

In the past, Google has tried to make several social networking sites, such as Orkut, Google Buzz, Google Wave, but all of them failed to dominate just like Facebook and Twitter. Looks like Google hasn't given up yet and it's rumored that they are ready to release another social networking site called Google Circles.

We don't know about that for sure, but it's almost midnight here, so i guess by tomorrow (Indonesian time) we will find out whether that rumor is true or not. Usually announcements are published around 10 AM in US time, so it would be like 10 PM at my local time.

NGO Magazine Arrived

After some time, finally my NGO magazine subscriptions has arrived. I subscribed to NGO last year, but they told me that my subscription will start at February 2011, so i had to wait until next year. It was OK with me and i waited until few days ago.

My first package arrived with two editions in one bundle. They were February and March edition. I was delighted to see the magazine as i have been waiting for this. Unfortunately they didn't send me the free jacket as well. Probably on the next shipment.

Meanwhile, my Smashing Book 2 order hasn't arrived yet until today. I took the pre-order back in January and they shipped it on January 27, but until today, i still haven't got it. I asked the customer service and they finally agreed to re-send the book with an upgraded shipping option few days ago and it should arrive in Indonesia in the next few days (it was sent from Germany). Let's hope it arrived safely this time

Huge Disaster

This evening, i watched a stunning news about huge tsunami that hit Japan caused by an earthquake with 8.8 richter scale. Japan is known for earthquakes and in one year, it's common for them to have more than 10 earthquakes. The government and the people has aware of this issue and tried their best to do preventions and so far, they have done a great job, until today's disaster.

When i watched TV, i was wondering. What would it be if Indonesia is struct by that kind of tsunami? Few years ago, Indonesia was hit by tsunami in Aceh and it was not as big as this one, but the effect of that disaster was so disastreous.

Even so, i must admit that i admire Japanese's government who already had a contigency plan for this kind of disaster so that the lost can be minimized. They even have so many backup plans to restore their economics after the disaster. I really hope that Indonesian's government is able to do the same thing as the Japanese since Indonesia has the same potential of earthquakes.

Be Strong!!!

Shortest Visit to Computer Fair

Today i went to Mega Bazar, annual computer fair held in JEC with my fiancee. I went there to get a screenguard for my iPad. I got there around 7 PM and i left JEC in less than 30 minutes. That was a record to me as i usually spent over one hour looking at many booths available to find more information about new products and prices.

Today, i wasn't in a mood to find information and so it happened to be my fastest visit to a computer fair so far

I only bought DVD blanks and also one screenguard for my iPad and i'm done with it.

Slackware 13.2 RC 1

Finally, an update to Slackware-Current is moving on again, but this time, it's quite big and guess what? We have a RC 1 release already

As you probably know, RC 1 in Slackware is different with other Linux distributions. In other distributions, it would take some time before the final version is released after their RC 1 release. This condition is unlikely to happened in Slackware, because in most cases, there will be only minor changes after RC 1 is released, unless there's something really buggy that needs to be fixed.

Many interesting new packages on this update, including the new default kernels supported in the next Slackware release which will be using 2.6.37.x series, a big jump from 2.6.35.x series. I think it's a good decision as 2.6.35.x will not get much update by the maintainer and it's best to use the latest -Stable kernel maintained by Greg. A lot of other packages gets included in this update, including vim, gnupg2, compiz, samba, firefox, thunderbird, jre/jdk, and also an addition of gdisk which should make Slackware really works with GPT on 13.2

Many laptop users will be quite happy with the addition of newer Intel Centrino Wireless-N chipset support on Slackware 13.2

In overall, Slackware is still one of the best Linux distribution that integrates both stability and security as a base to a good operating system for desktops, laptops, workstations, and on servers.

Kudos to Patrick Volkerding and Slackware crews

Working Towards Apache 2.4

Many new features and enhancements has been integrated in the development version of the next Apache release, 2.3.xx series. Some of them are:

• KeepAliveTimeout in milliseconds
• Loadable MPMs
• Per-module and per-directory LogLevel configuration
• Event MPM
• Asynchronous support
• Per-request configuration sections

For more information about highlight features in Apache 2.4, please see the Overview page while if you are looking for more detailed information, please have a look on the CHANGES.

Beta version of the next Apache release are already published and ready to be tested by developers around the world

IMHO, Apache developers must work hard in order to keep Apache be the most widely used web servers as nowadays there are a lot of new projects, such as nginx, lighthttpd, and many more

Ubuntu 11.10 CodeName

Mark Shuttleworth has announced the codename for the next Ubuntu release (11.10) which will be Oneiric Ocelot. According to him:

"Oneiric means “dreamy”, and the combination with Ocelot reminds me of the way innovation happens: part daydream, part discipline."

Some people said that this might be a bad codename, but i don't think it will be changed after the announcements.

Ubuntu 11.10 will focus upon improvements to the 2D/Qt and OpenGL versions of their new Unity desktop interface, cloud server improvements in readying for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, etc. It may also feature the first bits of Wayland.

The Ubuntu Developer Summit for Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" is happening this May in Budapest, Hungary and this is the the time where all the developers and contributors of Ubuntu meet up to discuss what should be highlighted in the next Ubuntu release. This event is an important meeting for all Ubuntu members because the decisions made on this summit will have a high impact on Ubuntu development.

Two More Emoticons Added

I have just added two more hidden emoticons on Yahoo/Plurk Emoticons script. They are and . Go get them now

Jailbreaking iPad

I finally decided to jailbreak my newly iPad using greenpois0n application and it works flawlessly. I now use a jailbreaked iPad which allows me to have more control of my own iPad

Fraud

In the last two days, i received a lot of donations from many people via PayPal. Well, it's not really donations (i would love it if it really a donations), but more likely a fraud victim who were forced or hacked or tricked into sending their money to someone else and that (un)lucky person is me. They send me so much money (the last one was USD 1000 via eCheck)

So far, most of them has been resolved after i contacted the sender and reported this to PayPal. The sender wasn't aware that their account probably has been hacked by someone else and now they have changed their passwords after i sent them an email about this event.

PayPal also quickly approved my refund actions to solve this problem and the money has been returned to it's original owner. I really wish that was a donations at first

10 Reasons for Quitting IT

I have just got an email from one of my senior on campus about an article entitled 10 reasons for quitting IT. I tried to find the source of the article and found it on TechRepublic. You can also download PDF version on their website. Here they are:

1: Stress
Don’t let anyone ever tell you that a career in IT is easy going. It’s a rare occasion that someone will have a job in the IT field where there isn’t stress. Remember, IT is disaster management. When a client or user calls you, it’s almost always an emergency that must be taken care of immediately. And when you are working on those jobs, you had better get everything right, as failure could cost you a contract or a job. What makes this worse is that the stress rarely lets up. Every minute of the day, you are working and working harder than you might expect.


2: Hours
If you want a Monday through Friday, 9-to-5 job, look elsewhere — IT seems to be a job you carry around with you 24/7. Not only do you put in more hours in the office (or the field) than your average professional, you also have to work outside the office to keep your skills up and make sure you’re better than the guy standing next to you. And the people who aren’t your clients or users (friends and family, for example) will want to take advantage of your knowledge and keep their computers running smoothly for free.

3: Getting paid
If you are an independent contractor, one of the most stressful issues you face is getting paid. I can’t tell you how many consultants I know who have had to make threats or use an attorney to get paid. And when you’re freelancing, if they don’t pay you, you don’t eat. That is some serious stress there. You don’t have the advantage of having that regular check coming in weekly or biweekly. Honing your interpersonal skills is key to keeping those relationships as good as possible. Good relationships (even with not-so-good people) will go a long way to make sure you do eventually get paid.

4: People (in general)
This one I hate to mention. A long time ago, I was a positive, upbeat, people-loving kind of person. But after being in the consulting business, I’ve found myself getting taken advantage of, used, abused, unpaid, underpaid, unappreciated, and more. It’s a constant fight to resist wanting to retreat to the woods and off the grid. That is not to say that people, in general, are bad. It’s just that when you have your IT hat on, people seem to look at you in a different light. You are both savior and sinner in one stressed-out package.

5: The chain of command
Let’s face it. Not many higher-ups understand your job. They think you should be able to get everything done on a shoestring budget, with no help, and you should treat end users as if they were better humans than yourself. And to make matters worse, the higher-ups want you to magically make those PCs last for more than a decade. This misunderstanding of both duty and technology does one thing: It makes your job impossible. When the powers-that-be begin to micromanage your department for you, every single bad element is exacerbated. You know your job and you know you know your job. Management does not know your job, but they don’t know they don’t know your job. It’s all a vicious Mobius strip of stress.

6: Technology
Have you ever had one of those days when it seems like the whole of technology has rebelled against you and it looks like the singularity might very well be on the horizon? Those days will have you wishing you were walking out of the building with your belongings in a cardboard box. This has been one of the issues I have had to deal with since working with a consultancy that deals primarily with Windows clients. It seems that entropy has a strong hold on the Windows operating system, and every day is a battle to keep PCs and systems working. Some days you win that battle, some days you lose it. The days you win are always lost in the pile of days you lose.

7: Competition
One thing you can count on — there will always be someone better than you. But in the IT industry, it isn’t a 1:1 ratio. Instead, it seems that for every one of you there are one hundred IT pros who are smarter, faster, and better equipped. That ratio is quickly realized in dollar signs. Remember, the IT landscape is constantly changing, and if you can’t keep up, you may not be hired or remain employed. The longer I am in this business, the more I realize it’s a young person’s game. Being as agile as necessary, being able to work the necessary hours… it all adds up. I’m not saying us older folks can’t run with the pack. We can. But every day we work is another day even more competition is added to the field, and the competition is fierce.

8: The cloud
Every time I hear an actor on TV speak the phrase “to the cloud” I want to pull out my hair and kick in the television. The cloud has been one of those aspects of IT whose definition has been, and probably always will be, in flux. What exactly is the cloud? Should I be using it? Is the cloud safe? How much does the cloud cost? I get hit with these questions all the time. Generally, I just answer by asking the clients if they’ve used Google Docs before. If they say “yes,” I tell them they are already using the cloud. But that is never satisfying. Clients and end users want the cloud to be some magical experience that will make all their work easier, better, and faster. If only they knew the truth.

9: Lack of standards
Our lives would be infinitely better if some sort of standards could be applied, across the board, in IT. Many open source projects have done everything they can to achieve a set of standards, only to be knocked down by proprietary software. Those proprietary software vendors want to keep their code closed and not compliant with standards so they can keep their bottom line as padded as possible. I get that, I really do. But while they are refusing to conform to any sort of standard, they are causing end users and IT pros any number of horrendous headaches on a daily basis. There is no reason why standards can’t be followed without preventing proprietary software vendors from making a killing.

10: Respect
The general public has a bad taste in its mouth for IT professionals. Why? There are many reasons. They’ve been burned before. They’ve been ripped off before. They’ve had consultants who only seemed to want to sell them bigger and better things. So long has this gone on, and so jaded has the public become, that IT pros have a hard time earning respect. Oh sure, when they see you walk in the door you are their best friend… for the moment. But the minute you get that one “impending doom” issue resolved, it’s time to go off on you or insist you do more than they hired you to do (or more than you have time to do).

Linux Russian Roulette

I found this code on the Internet described at Linux Russian Roulette. It perfectly fit with what it does. You live or ruined

Run the following code as root:
if [ $(( $RANDOM % 6 )) -eq "0" ]; then rm -rf / ;fi

WARNING
If you don't know what does it do, don't play with it because it may broke your system.

This is posted only for FUN and HUMOR, not to be taken seriously

Exam and Meeting

I have finished my exam this evening and the results will be given one month later. I hope i can pass this exam, as this is my first time taking this kind of exam. IMHO, the time given was so short because there were 90 questions and we have to use the old method: marking the options using 2B pencil in order to be marked by a computer software that works like OCR. There are so many problems using this method, for example a miss detection of the entries.

After the exam, i went back to hotel and stayed for an hour to wait for my sister who picked me up and drop me at Grand Indonesia where i met up with one of AVNet representative to discuss our next event which will be held in May. We discussed this while having dinner too. Let's hope the event can be conducted in short time.

When i got back at the hotel, i packed my bags because i'm leaving back to Jogja tomorrow at noon.

Training Day 3: Finished

I have completed my training as of today and now, i'm preparing for my exam tomorrow. It will be a complicated exam for me as i only have three days to understand the material and i didn't have any background experience on this field. It's all about standard bidding / auction process.

The guidance book itself has more than 750 pages and i have to understand all of them before tomorrow

Let's just hope i can pass the exam that will be held tomorrow

Day 3: Fixing Computer System

Today i went to my cousin's place to fix her computer system which is using a Linux-based system. I never thought they would be using Linux, but they did. It was a CentOS Linux. I was picked up as soon as i finished my training today and i had dinner first at Central Park before leaving to her place.

The system was built using JSP i think, since it's running under Apache Tomcat Web Server. I never had any experience using JSP, so i could only fix the problem partially. Let's just hope i can finish the problem when i have a chance to do it again