Jogja Linux User Group

After a few months the webserver that handles Jogja Linux User Group has been down because there were a clash in the hosting provider between managed.com and angelnetworkz, finally the website has been up again and you can view it from http://jogja.linux.or.id. It's not a great website, but rather a Wiki-based system, build with Word Press. It was built using WP since we don't have time to build a new system. Maybe in the future, we will add the real homepage for the website.

If you want to find out about KPLI's activity, please visit this site and you will found a lot of information about our activity. You can also sign in to give a comments on our posting. You can't post a message until we grant you the privileges, but you can mail me or Jaya to promote yourself. We can't guarantee that we will give you those privileges, but we will try to convince ourself to give those to them who asked for it.

3rd OpenSource Project From Microsoft

After releasing the first two program into Open Source, which was Windows Installer XML (WiX) and Windows Template Model (WTL), these days Microsoft launched their third OpenSource project, called FlexWiki in SourceForge. FlexWiki is one of the most used software to build Wiki. Wiki is web pages that was desaigned to include many topics, where its users can create or edit the contents. Wiki comes from Hawaian languange, that has similar meaning with fast.

It is uncommon to look at Microsoft's behaviour, since they keep saying that OpenSource is a bad idea (at least that was said by it's CEO, Bill Gates in his tour). Eventhough the code that was released is not their major application, such as Microsoft Windows or Microsoft Office, this is a big step from Microsoft to try learning how OpenSource community gain powerfull application and support from their users around the world.

The first two application was recorded as big five in Sourceforge most favorite projects and has been downloaded for more than 20000 times (WTL) and 100000 times (WiX). For the third apps, it will soon appears in Sourceforge's website. Just wait and see for yourself in the next 1-2 weeks.

GIMP is closing to Adobe Photoshop

As you can see, Adobe Photoshop has become the standard application being used in Windows and Mac Platform to create or edit sophisticated images with an extraordinary filters and tools that was built to help users get what they intended to. Yes.. it was a great applications. I have used it since it was 5.5 and right now, it has released CS (stands for Creative Suite, a replacement for 8, i presume).

One thing that Adobe Photoshop users have to face is the price. It will cost you more than US$500 to get only 1 copy of the Adobe Photoshop and it doesn't include cost which have to be paid if you want to download third party filter or plugin to enhance your Photoshop apps.

Although they give you a great features in every release, i think that Photoshop has reached it's maximum capabilities, since it already has included all tool and facility on their latest CS version. I doubt if there will be an upgraded version in short time, since Adobe Photoshop always release new version with some new tool and filter. I'm just hoping that in the newer version, it will include a better PNG filter.

This fenomena is contrary with GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) which has just released their latest stable version 2.0.5. GIMP is full of updates and bug fix in their release version and always include more filter or plugin in their release. You can also make your own filter if you want to, but it requires you to read some manuals and scripting languange.

One thing that i hate about GIMP is the floating toolbar. It doesn't stick at one playce, just like the Adobe Photoshop, but in the other hand, GIMP has included some script to create an instant banner or button images with a single or double click and there you go... your instant products :)

GIMP is also available in two version, Windows and GNU/Linux, so you can try it before you migrate to GNU/Linux. It is an extraordinady application build by the OpenSource Project.

Go Go GIMP.....

new blogger

I have two new friends that is starting to write their own blog. They are Deddy and Afnindar. Welcome aboard and have fun with the Blogger :)
it's a good habit to have your own blog, since it helps you to express your feeling and you writing ability so that you can write much better in the future. Keep writing your blog and please customize your site :)

Jogja Linux User Group

After a few weaks i can't join the Jogja Linux User Group meeting, finally i can meet my friends in the last meeting that was held this morning. It was a quick meeting (maybe about one and half hour, but our usuall meeting was more than two until three hour). Today's meeting discussed about our events that will be held in 9th of October. It's a demo and a seminar about Wireless Technology (2,4 GHz) that will present Dr. Onno W. Purbo, an IT expert that really support Wireless regulation should be freed and released to public, rather than controlled by the government.

We split task to deliver and put the announcement in our college so other people will notice the events and hopefully they will join in the events, because it's a great events. This events will use Windows and GNU/Linux as the main platform. I hope that this events will be successfull and there should be an advanced progress about Wireless Technology implementation around Jogja :)

I'm looking forward to see you guys in the next meeting :)

World Viewer From NASA

If you are using GNU/Linux, you probably noticed that the most sophisticated world viewer is Xrmap. It is a great application, since it was made by a single person i think and included a detailed information. You can update the database, by downloading from FBI's website and it's legal, don't worry :)

NASA has released some great tool as world viewer in their website. It has 11 applications, which is 3D engine, Blue Marble, Land Sat 7, SRTM, Animated Earth, MODIS, GLOBE, Country & State Borders, Place Names, Visual Tools, and Landmark set. You might have to download them all to see what features are in it, but here is the summary of each application:

3D Engine
World Wind allows any user to zoom from satellite altitude into any place on Earth, leveraging high resolution LandSat imagery and SRTM elevation data to experience Earth in visually rich 3D, just as if they were really there.

Particular focus was put into the ease of usability so people of all ages can enjoy World Wind. All one needs to control World Wind is a two button mouse. Additional guides and features can be accessed though a simplified menu. Navigation is automated with single clicks of a mouse as well as the ability to type in any location and automatically zoom into it.

World Wind was designed to run on recent PC hardware with 3D accleration. Please refer to the download section for more information on system requirements.

Sample of Blue Marble (mostly Asia)Blue Marble
World Wind has a full copy of the Blue Marble, a spetacular true-color image of the entire Earth as seen on NASA's Earth Observatory: the Blue Marble.

Put together from data of a variety of satellites such as MODIS and Terra, the Blue Marble can be seen in all it's glory at 1 km per pixel resolution.

Land Sat 7
Using World Wind, you can continue to zoom past Blue Marble and reveal the extremely detailed seamless mosaic of LandSat 7 data.

LandSat 7 is a collection of images from 1999-2003 at an impressive 15 m per pixel resolution. It includes other color bands such as the infrared spectrum. Users will be able browse these different sets as they become available. Any changes and updates are automatically inherited by World Wind.

LandSat 7's resolution makes it possible to see your own city, neighborhood, or landmarks in your vicinity. Seeing the whole globe like this puts the world in context with scientifically accurate data.

The complete LandSat 7 data set is too large to fit on a single machine so World Wind only downloads what you see and stores a compressed copy on your computer for later viewing.

SRTM
Combining LandSat 7 imagry with Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) Data, World Wind can display a dramatic view of the Earth at eye level. Users will litterally be able to fly across the world in any direction.

In addition, World Wind can exaggerate these views so a user can easily pick out the details.

Animated Earth
Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) has produced a set of visually intense animations that demonstrate a variety of subjects such as hurricane dynamics and seasonal changes across the globe.

World Wind can take these animations and play them directly on the world. Anyone can immediately grasp where the event is taking place as World Wind rotates automatically into view.

MODIS
Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS produces a set of time relevant data that's updated every day. MODIS catalogs fires, floods, dust, smoke, storms and even volcanic activity.

World Wind produces an easily customized view of this information and marks them directly on the globe. When one of these color coded markers are clicked, it downloads the full image and displays them.

MODIS images can download publication quality material at a resolution of 250 m per pixel. Anew fresh set of images can be downloaded every day.

World Wind also has a "tour mode" to automatically skim through any number of samples.

GLOBE

World Wind is capable of browsing through and displaying GLOBE data based on any time the user wants. For example, a user can download today's (or any previous day's) temperature across the world.

You can view rainfall, barometric pressure, cloud cover, or even the student GLOBE samples themselves. Each sample comes with a temperature scale

Country & State Borders
World Wind has a complete set of borders that traces every country and state. As you zoom into the world, the boundaries become more precise

You can observe where mountain ridges and rivers have formed the political boundaries of today.

World Wind has a full catalog of countries, capitals, counties, cities, towns, and even historical references. The names update dynamically, by increasing in number as the user zooms in. This prevents too many names from cluttering up the screen.

It's likely that you'll find your own town no matter how big or small it is in World Wind.

Visual Tools
World Wind comes with a variety of visual guides that help the user's experience such as latitude and longitude lines, as well as extremely precise coordinate data.

These helpers can be toggled on or off any time and are viewable with any of World Wind's other features turned on.

Landmark Set
World Wind has the capability to display actual 3d models of landmarks on the earth. This helps to see the world in context to places a user may have been to. Those landmarks that do not have 3D models for it yet have place markers similar to how MODIS displays places of interest.

Windows is Better Than GNU/Linux?

One of the popular monthly computer magazine reviews about the security between three operating system on his articles with a result that Microsoft XP has the best security after the installation Service Pack 2 and a bunch of patch for approximately 50 MB. The three operating system that was compared were Windows XP, SuSe 9.1 Professional, and Mac OS.

They conducted two test. The first test was done after the installation out-of-the-box, so it means that they never applied a single patch or updates. In this test, Windows XP was the worst operating system, leaving a lot of critical and dangerous security vulnerability far behind the SuSE and Mac OS. The best operating system out-of-the-box was Mac OS with only 6 low-impact security problems.

The second test was held after they applied all patch and updates from the vendor. They said that Microsoft has fixed all of their security problems while the other still missed some undangerous security problems. Do you think this comparison is true for all user? In order to get a full secure system using Windows XP, you have to download all the patch dan updates from Microsoft via WindowsUpdate or by downloading the patch manually and install them in your computer. Is it easy to be done when you don't have a good Internet connection? Don't try it or you will suffer :)

If you subscribe to BugTraq mailing list and security-related mailing list, you will see that there are some glitch just after SP2 released and still the problem is not fixed until today. For example, IE, themost dominant web browser around the world is not perfectly free from security problems since many developers have discovered a lot of vulnerability in IE, even though SP 2 is installed.

So... do you still believe that Windows is better than GNU/Linux in security measurement? Think again :)

Multimedia on GNU/Linux?

You probably know about Winamp, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, Swish, Macromedia Flash, and other multimedia application for Windows. They are great products, but they weren't free. You have to buy a licence for each product (except for Winamp if you don't want to switch to professional edition) and it will cost you so much money. Each license only valid for 1 PC or 1 user, so if you're planning to install it on 5 different PCs, you should buy 5 license. That's the deal.

Suppose you want to install all of above products. It may cost you more than the cost you will spend for buying your computer. Is there another way to use multimedia application without having to pay for license? Yes... you can use Freeware application which can be found in the Download.com for Windows platform and Sourceforge if you're using GNU/Linux.

GNU/Linux was originally designed to be a server operating system, but in fact... they evolves so that it can be used as a desktop operating system, just like Windows. The consequencies that comes with this fenomena is it lacks of applications for desktop user, mostly multimedia. Luckily, right now, there are a lot of multimedia packages for GNU/Linux user which can be used to produce high quality project. If you have seen Shrek 2, than you have see GNU/Linux's power to make a great products.

You can use XMMS as replacement for Winamp, Audacity or Ardour for Audio section, Kino, MJPEG Tool, VirtualDub, and Cinelerra for Video section. And lot of multimedia is coming around the Internet from developers that can be found in the Sourceforge and Freshmeat. Just find it and install it. You may need some adjustment before you can use it smootly, but it's only a matter of time :)

Robotical Experimental

I'm taking a new subject, robotical experimental and it is a great class, since i learn a lot about robot and it's component, such as actuator, transistor, and a lot of things related to robotics. In the next semester, there will be a new subject that continues this subjects. I don't know what will the name be, but for one thing, is will be related to embedded system and also assembly language. Geezz... it is a cool subjects.

The lecturer has gave us a task to find an article about robot application and all of us has to give a short presentation about the article was talking about. I presented UVIS (Under-Vehicle Investigation System) which can be used to detect dangerous items, such as bomb from below the car. It is a commercial product made by AutonomousSolution Inc. You can also see the UVIS page.

GNU/Linux can be used to build embedded system, just like the one created by Eko Bono and was published in InfoLinux, a monthly GNU/Linux magazine. It is interesting, because up to now, people always think that GNU/Linux just can be operated in the PC (Personal Computer), but the reality shows us that GNU/Linux has more ability than just a stable, secure, robush server or desktop operating system. It can planted as an embedded system as well.

Will it be GBrowser?

Just as i thought before, Google will try to develop more and more sophisticated technologies, and will not stop. After releasing GMail, that eventually became a new era of webmail services, according to New York Post, Google will launch a new browser to compete with Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Bot it will not browser alone, but with some other products.

This moment is worth to wait, since IE has been dominating browser's market, but ironically, they are the most vulnerable browser around the world. People already know that. This fenomena that makes Mozilla's product, such as Mozilla and Mozilla Firefox became safer alternative rather than sticking with IE to be our default browser in our computers.

They have hired four people who worked on Microsoft's Web browser, Internet Explorer, and later founded their own company. One of them, Adam Bosworth, is credited with being a driving force not only behind IE, but Microsoft's database-management program, Access. Most recently, Google grabbed Joe Beda, the lead developer on Avalon, Microsoft's code name for the user interface that will part of the next version of Windows, called Longhorn.

What will it be? I can't wait to see the final result. Will it be GBrowser? or any other names? Let's find out in the next 1 year :)

Microsoft going OpenSource?

As you can see up to this point, Microsoft is dominating the software market with it's proprietary technology and products, such as Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office. We also know that Microsoft is annoyed by the existence of OpenSource project, especially GNU/Linux that in the future they will overlap Microsoft dominance on the operating system and applications market.

Microsoft Office is one of the software that became main goal of Microsoft to dominate in the software market. It is used by many people around the world because of it is easy to learn and to use, a good looking style, and also comes with many new features on every updates. No wonder why Microsoft is trying to make this product is one of their main income. It is sell in more than US$500 each (for single licence i think).

But, do you believe that Microsoft is going to share Microsoft Office Software Code? Is that true? Yes.. It's true, but not for public, but rather to government as part of its efforts to make governments more confident in the security and compatibility of the world's largest software maker's products. The new initiative is an extension of Microsoft's Government Security Program, which allows the governments of more than 30 countries to examine most of Microsoft's underlying source code, or software blueprint for its flagship Windows operating system.

Microsoft launched an initiative a few years ago (January 2003) to share more of its software code (access to Windows and Windows CE source code) with other technology companies, and later expanded that to include governments. The license will cover the Office 2003 code for PowerPoint, Word, Outlook, Excel and the shared application code that creates a consistent user experience across the products and similar functionality—features such as draw, search, print and save. The source code for Office 2003 will be made available so that governments can conduct in-depth testing and examination to make sure that the document, spreadsheet, presentation and scheduling program works with other information technology systems.

These latest moves will now give governments and international organizations access to Office source code, the opportunity to collaborate with Microsoft experts, and access to any technical information they need for greater data interoperability, interchange, portability, ease of communication and archiving. They will also be able to visit the Redmond campus and talk directly with the office engineers, who would also do on-site visits in their home country.

Britain has already agreed to participate in the source-sharing program for Office, Microsoft said. The Government Shared Source License for Office will be available to more than 60 global governments and international organizations currently eligible to participate in the GSP.

National Election

Today one of the most important events in Indonesia is held, which is National Election for the next president (2004-2009). The election is held today (Monday, 20th of September 2004) and the result can be seen in the Internet at KPU's Website. While the counting process will be done manually, but we can still see the result online from that site.

The use of IT technology was debatted because there were some errors and also vulnerable to SQL Injections when it was used to display the first election. Luckily, the IT team has changed it's infrasctructure and it's more secure than before (even though i had a little bit unsure about the real conditions). I hope that the budget that was used to make the IT system available will not be wasted, but it can be a valuable lesson for all of us.

Let's wait for the election result to find out who will be the next president for Indonesia. Will it be Megawati Soekarnoputri or will it be Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono? Lets find out in the KPU's website

Gaim 1.0 : Stable Enough

Gaim has fulfill it's promise once again. Three weaks of development time and new releases will be born at Gaim's official site. If you are true Gaim's users, you should notice that this time, Gaim developers do not use 0.8.3 as their latest version, but they picked up 1.0 version, which in some OpenSource common term, it represent first stable version ever released.

Yet until now, Gaim always use X.YY naming conventions, where X is the major version (0) and YY is the minor version (using two digits, like 82) for exception for version 82.1 that need some quick response without having user to wait for another three week cycle to get the updates.

Well... in my opinion, Gaim has reached it's stable version long before 1.0 comes out (maybe in 0.79 for exception when Yahoo! changed their protocols so Gaim users can't connect to YM users), so i think that 1.0 in Gaim doesn't represent stable version anymore, but actually a major updates. You might want to see it's Changelog.

For those who don't know what Gaim is, you could read the full answer on their site but for the lazy: 'Gaim is a multi-protocol instant messaging (IM) client for Linux, BSD, MacOS X, and Windows. It is compatible with AIM (Oscar and TOC protocols), ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, and Zephyr networks.' Gaim is also the 2nd (sometimes 1st) most active project on Sourceforge and the 4th most popular on Freshmeat and seemingly all round #1 Free IM client!"

Bravoo for GAIM Developers......
I salutee to all of you :)

Virus Author on War

You may notice that there are more than 60000 viruses around the world, but the most active virus right now is Netsky and MyDOOM which affected most Windows version. If you visit Symantec's securityresponse site, you will see that there are a lot of varians of this dangerous virus> Usually Symantec gives name like Netsky.A, Netsky.B,... but there has been an exception for MyDOOM. The latest varians of MyDOOM virus was named MyDoom.AA (using 2 digit to represent variants). These means this virus is having a lot of 'fans' which modify the original source code and release them as new variants.

A new variant of the MyDoom Internet worm contains some puzzling add-ins: a photo that bears a likeness of Sven Jaschan, whom police in Berlin last week charged with computer sabotage after he admitted to authoring the Sasser worm, and a high-level description of how it does what it does. The variant, which is being called MyDoom.AA by Computer Associates International Inc. and MyDoom.Y by F-Secure Corp. and McAfee Inc., among other names, packs in its payload a description from the author on how the virus was programmed, what it's supposed to do and how it retrieves e-mail addresses from, for example, Microsoft Corp.'s Outlook address book.

That's nothing new, though, since that's a typical characteristic of MyDoom variants. The one thing that's unique in the how-to file is the fact that it's a "high-level summary. MyDoom.AA contains a remote-controlled payload it installs along with the photo of Jaschan on infected systems. Anybody who knows the worm is there can remotely connect to the infected computer, thus allowing an intruder to effectively take control of the system as if he or she were logged in and sitting at the keyboard.

Jaschan in May told authorities he had created the Netsky virus in order to automatically remove two other viruses from infected systems: MyDoom and Bagle. After creating several Netsky variations, he went on to create Sasser.

So... war is not just happening between users and virus creator, but also among the virus creator itself ..

Lot of Updates From Mandrakesoft

After few weaks without any updates at all from the RSS news, finally Mandrakesoft have release some minor updates for their vulnerable application, such as XFree86, libxpm4, cups, apache2, gdk-pixbuf, printer-drivers, and squid. And also, the RSS works once again. Thank goodness :)

This release was quite a bit late, since many other distro have released their updates before Mandrakesoft did, but it's ok, as long as they released their updated packages to prevent some glitch happened in their user's computer, such as buffer overflow, rooting, or unstable conditions.

If you are interested with Mandrake's updates, please visit Mandrakesoft Security Advisories. This pages also contain link to kernel update instruction, End of Life Product Support, and also Advisory RSS Feed for those who don't have much time to visit their website often, but rather sit down and watch from the Liferea or any other RSS Feed Agregator like i do.

I'm still hoping that Mandrakesoft will release a new critical packages, such as kernel without waiting for a new release, because newer kernel usually contains an updates to some problems on the old kernel. Until now, usually Mandrakesoft only release packages when they release another version and stick with it until they publish another version.