Lost My Luggage

Today, i was travelling to Singapore for holidays. It supposed to be my first experience and i was expecting a great experience, but that's not what i got from the start. My first unlucky case was when i wanted to copy my NPWP and my passport. The store was out of paper, so i had to use whatever paper they have to copy it. Luckily, it was OK for the imigration.

The biggest problem ever happened today was when my baggage wasn't found when i wanted to claim it. It was lost and i had a feeling that it was missing since we boarded in Jogja. The officer in Jogja probably missed my luggage and i don't know where is it right now. I have filled a complaint, but i can't do anything but wait for it. The bag consists of my clothes, so i don't have any clothes besides what i'm wearing right now. I will be five days in Singapore, so that means i have to buy enough clothes here.

Let's just hope that there will be no more problems in the rest of my holidays. It supposed to be a fun holiday, but unfortunately, it wasn't. Just because of a missing luggage, everything screwed up and i have lost my mood to enjoy this holiday.

Offline Temporary

I will be offline starting from tomorrow until Saturday, since i will not be here. Yes, i'm leaving to Singapore early in the morning and i don't bring my laptop around, so it's impossible to write a blog from a mobile phone (i know it's possible on my E71, but still it's more complicated).

So, cao for the moment, and i will be back online when i return to Indonesia

Moving Becomes Easier

When people started to find a new job, it's common thing to move from one place to another or sometime called relocation. It's a daunting task, as he/she might need to do lots of things before the event takes place on the day they moved to a new place. In most cases, they might not know about the new environment until they arrive in the new place. Even if they know, they still lots to work on, such as new phone line, water, Internet broadband connection, and so on.

I have seen a service which helps people to move their stuffs to their new environment, but in most cases, the only thing they care is about transporting items. They don't really care about the others. It's up to yesterday, until i stumbled into this site (http://www.moveme.com). This site will guide their clients from preparation until finally the showdown. They also provide consultation service about list of suppliers to help their client to get the best options which suited them. What's best from this site is that most services listed on their page are completely free of use. They are also vendor neutral, so they don't pick a single vendor for all of their clients. Give the best for the clients.

They also have a simple guide which can be used to ease your process of moving to new environments. They are Conveyancing Solicitor, House Conveyancing, and Property Conveyancing. Again, this service can be obtained by free in most cases.

No wonder they have won some awards, such as NMA's Best New Business 2007, Yahoo's People Choice Award 2007, and Yahoo's Innovative Find Of The Year 2007. It's a proof that they are doing their business seriously and people believed on their work.

In my opinion, the site only works at certain country, where most information can be obtained via Internet. I wish that someday, company like this will be available on Indonesia. I think many people will like this idea, especially for those who have just graduated and start looking for new job in other cities, such as Jakarta, Bandung, Surabaya, or any major cities in Indonesia.

Happy Valentine Day

I made it back to Jogja safely, after a nice flight with Lion Air, except for some problem during take off. Without those problem, everything was considered perfect. No delays, which is something rare if we are talking about flights in Indonesia, mostly Lion Air. I had to say that i'm impressed on how they manage the flights today. Let's hope it also happened on other flight as well.

But, as usual, we fix something here, a new problem over there. Today's problem is about the seat management. At my flight today, some people had to be moved from their original seat due to some regulations and this takes time and some people do not want to separate from their family. This was what happened at my plane this morning. There were two foreigners who didn't want to get separated from the rest of his family, but it's also impossible to fulfill his wishes, because they had four people on it and the seat was build as three seats at maximum. One person sat next to me and the other one had a little talk with the flight attendance. This conversations took quite a long time (about 10-15 minutes), which eventually delays the flight in overall.

Ok, one problem solved. We all flew together on a nice weather. Both in Jakarta and in Jogja, so we had no problem with weather at all. Some bumps on the cloud was considered normal, so let's skip that part. I did have small rough landing at Jogja, because the plane (IMHO) was not yet stable to land, so there was small bump, but finally it stopped nicely.

I had to take the taxi at the airport to drove me home, because no one was able to pick me up. I was surprised about the taxi services. Actually it's my first time riding a taxi from the airport in Jogja, as i never used taxi before at my own home town. I went to the taxi service boot and asked them to get me a taxi to ride me back to my house. I'm very surprised that they didn't use the machine to count how much should the passenger pay. They declare a price which you should follow and this should be payed before you get your ticket. This happened in the airport itself. Next was that you get your taxi in front of the airport, waiting for you.

I will not complaint if the rate was normal, but it was HIGHER than Jakarta's rate. I couldn't believe it at that moment.

Ah well, it's past already. The great news was that i'm able to celebrate valentine's day with my girlfriend today.

I wish you all had a good valentine day also with your boy/girlfriend, family, friends, and relatives.

Final Exam on ECSP

Tomorrow i will have a final exam on ECSP (EC-Council Certified Secure Programmer). It's the last step i should take before i can get a new title, CSP (Certified Secure Programmer). There are 29 modules i should read tonight. It's really heavy material.

By the way, i having a small reunion with my ex colleagues while i was working on QnAp Asia. We met after work and the place was decided at Grand Indonesia. I have never been here before, so it's a good choice. There i met another ex QnAp Asia worker who has worked on other place now. He was also from Jogja, but from different university from where i came. We had a talk until about 9 PM and after that, we separated to go back to our house.

One Week Training

I had an opportunity to attend one week training from my campus. My colleague had also got this opportunity in the past, with different subject. What i got is a secure programmer training (and certification) by EC-COUNCIL.

I'll be leaving tomorrow and i'm not sure whether i can be online and check my emails during training or not, but let's just hope so. Please forgive me if there will be delays replying your messages, approving Indonesian Linux Forum new members, and so on. I'll try my best to do that when i have Internet connection.

I'm scheduled to come back here in Jogja at Saturday, so by that time, all pending activities should be done

Not Enough Parking Space?

Today i went to Solo with my mother and my girlfriend. I was acting as a driver . She (my mother) was looking for a dress which she will use in my cousin's marriage next week in Semarang. We searched for several places in Solo and when i got into Solo Square, i found something which is strange for me.

So it started when i entered the building. As usual, the first place i was looking for was the parking space. I took the ticket from the machine and i went to the back of the building and decided to take the parking space on top of the building. The space was full, so the parking boy asked me to park somewhere near the exit area. I asked him if it was a parking area because people will use that road to get out of the parking area and he said it was OK. I thought it was a bad idea, because people's car may get scratched if another driver is not good enough to make a turn on that area.

If the parking area is full, then i suggest there are some notifications and don't use simple (and dangerous) way to get people's car parking not in the correct place.

Back From Raker

Finally, i'm back. It's been a busy two days since all of my daily activities were filled with meetings and lots of debate and discussion, but it has ended now . We stayed at YEU boutique hotel. It's not yet officially launched, but they have done soft launching. Since it's not yet finished, some part of the hotels were not yet available. Apart from that, this place is good for relaxing and getting out of boring activities in town.

There's no TV set in this hotel. The only you get when you entered the room was only two bed rooms and one window . But, don't worry, since they have Internet connection ready (unfortunately, they didn't activate it yet for now, as the renovation process is still ongoing). The strength signal was quite good and i didn't have any problem getting the IP address. The problem is that they didn't activate it yet and i didn't get the user/password to access the Internet.

You can view some pictures i took when i was in Kaliurang on my Picasa Web Album

Trip Day 4

On day 4, i was planning to see UEFA Champion League because MU was playing against their rival, Chelsea. I slept earlier and was hoping that i could get up at 2 AM because it's when the match started. Well, i didn't set any alarm, because it would woke up the other (who didn't like watching football).

Lucky me, i could woke up at 2 AM sharp and turned on the TV. It was broadcasted by RCTI, but i can also see it in star sport, since the hotel subscribed to TV Cable. One problem solved, another one come up. I watched the match silently (mute) because i would woke the other people if i don't do that (you know how football fans behave when there's a goal).

Well, 90 minutes of official match plus 2x15 extra time and shoot-out penalty, finally MU won the match and i went to bed around 4.30 AM.

In the morning, we were packing our stuffs because we would leave Surabaya at 3 PM. We put our luggage at the hotel because the checkout time was 12 PM. We went to Delta because it's too far to go to other places and finally we went to Jogja by train around 3.10 PM.

Well, that's my 4-day journey to Surabaya...

Trip Day 3

Not much i wanted to talk about in my third day of my vacation in Surabaya. I was pretty sure that my inbox would be filled with lots of email messages from my friends and also from mailing list that i subscribed to. While i didn't bring my laptop with me, i need to find an easy way to monitor my inbox. The only media i had was my cellphone that already accompanied me since 2002 (it's been six years).

In the past, i have tried GMail Mobile Access, but it refused my cellphone since it didn't support HTTPS protocol (it didn't have mobile browser like most modern cellphone, so it's very limited). When i was waiting for the other to shop, i tried to connect to my GMail account again with a little hope that they would have changed their system to permit non-secure connection.

Guess what? They did!!! GMail now permits you to connect via insecure connection with a warning after you input your username and password. By using GPRS connection (i used Telkomsel), i can monitor my inbox everywhere, thanks to new policy of GMail. I can also reply, delete, or trash any messages on my inbox just when i accessed it via web browser, but with a limited features. The rate was very cheap. Since GMail displayed 10 messages per screen, i need to load the page 15 times and it only charged me around 1000 IDR (note that i only look into my inbox, not looking at each messages).

Actually, you can also use GMail Mobile Access on your browser, mostly if you are using slower connection. It will display all your email messages just like it was displayed in cellphones, so it uses very simple interface.

Too bad my cellphone doesn't support Java application, so i can't install IM application on my cellphone

Trip Day 2

My trip continued and second day's target was Pasar Atom. We got a ride from a friend (a couple) of my girlfriend's mother so we don't need to spent money to use taxi (even though it's not too far from our hotel). While i was on my way to Pasar Atom, i talked with the guy who took us a ride and he was talking about IT (he was working in Finance section though). He asked whether i knew about Navision or not. I said no, and he explained what it is. At that time, i didn't have any idea what that is, but when i went back to Jogja, i tried to get an information about the application and it was called Navision before Microsoft bought it and rename it to Microsoft Dynamics NAV.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV is a business management solution for small and mid-sized organizations that helps you simplify and streamline your highly specialized business processes, rapidly adapting to the unique way you do business. Microsoft Dynamics NAV provides you and your people with industry specific functionality that’s relevant to the local needs of your regions of operation, even for the most highly specialized industries and organizations

When i last visited Pasar Atom, there was only one Pasar Atom, which didn't have AC (air conditioner) yet. Now, it has two version of Pasar Atom (the new one has AC) but both of them are interconnected, so it's located in one big area. I met two of my students here, which went there together. We traveled along all the shops there and we also bought lots of foods for people in Jogja. We were in Pasar Atom until 4 PM, because it's closed at 5 PM (i don't know why it closed so early). We went back to the hotel and take some rest before we went to Delta Plaza which was adjacent with the hotel. It would take less than 5 minutes of walking to go to Delta on foot.

As usual, i tried to find a book store on Pasar Atom and i found Gramedia. I bought one book on this book store, which was History of China. On this book store, i also found an interesting education tools which can read book content and equipped with speech devices to say the pointed text using some kind of pen. It was said that the device can read all kind of book published by several publisher which has a contract with the developer of the device. It's very handy to teach small kids how to spell English or Chinese language. The price was about 1.5 million IDR.

At Delta, i also bought new sandals, because mine was about to broke. I went to Sports Station and buy a black Reebok sandals which fit on my feet. Lucky me, there was a promotion on that store, so i got 20% off and that day was the last day.

Well, that's all for second day. It's quite busy day, but i enjoyed it

Trip Day 1

So my first story began when i left Jogja to Surabaya last Monday using Sancaka at 7.30 AM. We were leaving from Tugu train station because it's near my house. We arrived there at 7.15 AM, so we still have plenty of time before the train departed. We get on the train and we were a little bit surprised when we saw Amien Rais was on the train. It appears that he's not leaving Jogja, but his relatives did (his daughter i guess).

At 7.30 AM (no delay), the train departed and we were having five and half hours trip. We arrived at Surabaya around 12.30 PM and we went to the hotel to checked in. The hotel that we picked was Surabaya Plaza Hotel, which is close with the train station and also with any other malls in Surabaya. In front of the hotel is Surabaya's WTC building and in the left side is Delta Plaza (one of the oldest mall in town). If you want to go to Tunjungan Plaza, then it would only take about 10 minutes using a taxi from the hotel. It has a strategic location for those who likes shopping

After unpacking our stuffs at the hotel, we went down and ordered a blue bird to go to Supermall Pakuwon Indah SPI. It was big and quite far from our hotel. It took us about 20 minutes (my rough estimation) to reached Pakuwon which was a big mall, just like TP. In this mall (actually it's not only in this mall), i saw an interesting thing about their book store (Tri Megah Book Store, but also in Gramedia in other malls). They dare to uncover one book as a sample book (not all books though) so people could see what's inside the book before they buy it. Sometimes, people wanted to buy books, but they wanted to see what's inside the book first to know exactly the content of the book (mostly for references and imported books because it's expensive).

They also provide some seats for people to sit down and have some time reading books without having to stand up for hours. I also saw a higher reading habit in Surabaya rather than in Jogja, mostly for books that requires more concentration. Maybe it's the effect of the sample book i mentioned above. Perhaps Gramedia in Jogja should try this out for several of their books. Give people a chance to take a peek on the book and if they like the book, they will buy the book, since it's inefficient to go to the book store just to read per chapter every day and people usually won't have much time to read the whole book in one day.

Pakuwon was a great mall, but i guess they lack of E-Directory services. New people (like me) who haven't been there will be confused and find it harder to shop if we don't know what's in the mall. Also if we get separated, we don't know a good meeting point. By providing a E-Directory services, we will know what floor are we now, how to get to area 1, or any other direction that would help us.

We spent our day in Pakuwon and went back around 8.30 PM. After arriving at the hotel again, we rested and watching TV and went to bed earlier since tomorrow, we will have one day shopping

I'm Back

Finally, after four days without Internet connection (i didn't bring my laptop too) in Surabaya, i'm back here in Jogja at 8.20 PM using Sancaka (train). I feel so strange for being out of Internet, even though it's only for four days.

It's a great vacation and good for me too, since i never had quite a long vacation before, so it's my chance while i'm not too busy. It's also a great chance to see Surabaya after my last visit many years ago. I have seen lots of things here and i have recorded some interesting points on my mobile phone to be posted on my blog in the following days (it will be like a short summary of what i saw in this city).

By the way, congratulations for Manchester United for their double title this year (EPL and Champion League). Even though you didn't repeat the treble title this year, it's been an outstanding performance you have shown us from the beginning of this season until the end of the title race. You deserved the title.