Christmas 2006

Merry Christmas everyone.. Here's how things were going on @ Binjai Methodist Church


Look at these cute little Santas ^_^


And the dearest teacher with the tambourine girls. ^_^


Have a very merry Christmas.. May the blessing of God be upon u all. ^_^

Licensing the Republic of Indonesia

Have u all heard of the government have signed an MoU with Microsoft regarding licensing legal software in (all) government institution?

This means the government will be paying Microsoft lots of money just for the license. In conjunction, Microsoft will also give away 35,496 MS Windows 177,480 MS Office license worth 676 billion Rupiah (US$ 1=Rp 9,065)

However the lisences are valid ONLY if the software is installed in a Intel Pentium III class processors. That means if they upgrade the hardware, the lisence is not valid anymore. At present time, how long would u think a P3 computer can last? Running Windows XP?

And still the gift from Microsoft will not cover all PCs in the government. It is estimated that the government will spend another Rp 400 billion for the lisence of the rest of the PCs for the next 2 years.

I personally find this ridiculous...
If I am allowed to ask the question "What are the primary functions of computer in (most) government agencies?" I would say office use.. And I bet that almost all users have no idea how to make use most of the great features of MS Office or Windows for all it matters.

They are just typing reports, making calculations in word processor and spreadsheet; some (and little if I may say) use it for presentations (in a bad design). In which all of it can be found in OpenOffice.org. I'm not against Microsoft as I say they make good products, but considering that the people (who work their asses to live AND pay tax) are still suffering in this country. That tons of money can be diverted to other aspects. It makes more sense buying a nuclear warhead to protect this country than spending on lisence... (It's just a joke.. haha..)

Almost all (or should I say "all") features in MS Office that the government officials are using are in OpenOffice.org. They don't know macro or .NET integration for all that matter; they're just using it to type letters.

Get half of the lisencing fund to train all the users is enough I suppose. Or perhaps throw a US$ 3 million dollars to a professional developers to make a much better Linux operating system in Indonesian?

Can it be that even Microsoft has learned how to bribe in this country? That it has been in the blood of the government to be bribed to get something? Who knows.. ^_^

1-week remote site trip

1 week of remote sites trip.. This time, we're going to 3 units: Blok Songo, Duri, and Dumai.

Took train to Rantau Prapat, got picked up until Blok Songo; 2 days there and continued to Duri by company car.

On 11.44 AM December 13, 2006 I was officially in the Riau province (I've never been this province)

Had a lunch stop at Arowana, a malay food restaurant (damn good)

Took pictures on top of the oil tank at Dumai..


With the IT manager...

Discussions with Erdy...


One whole weekend not being in Medan office.. Yay... ^_^
Happy weekend...

Online remotely

I feel like I'm in Medan office despite of the hundreds of kilometers from Medan. The network is up here. I can remotely use my PC at office using my laptop. And the best part is.. getting connected to the internet at high speed even in a remote place where I didn't even imagine of doing it at the first time I came here.

Going to another 2 remote sites for the next half week. Don't know if I can get online there or not. I should though.

As long as I have music

I was surprised when some of the old choir friends asked for a gathering, and ended up deciding we're going to sing the favorite song during the choir: As long as I have music

So we had 3 sessions of practice and we're up to the show on the 10th Dec for one of the Christmas service.

When the world seems far beyond me
And I have no place to go
When my life seems cold and empty
And I feel I'm all alone

Then a song that I remember
Helps to ease my troubled mind
And I find the strength within me
To reach out just one more time

For as long as I have music
As long as there's a song for me to sing
I can find my way, I can see a brighter day
The music in my life will set my spirit free

When the road is dark and lonely
And I feel I want to cry
When the dreams I keep inside me
Seem to fade and almost die

Then I call upon my music
And it helps to dry my tears
And I know that I can make it
I'll go on despite my fears

This song does calm my heart when shit happens. ^_^
Plus, it has a good old memories in it.

The opening of Bro Computer

First day of business... The launching...

Don't forget the foods... ^_^

Bro Computer

Something I really forgot to post in blog..
Tomorrow, on 1st Dec 2006 we (the 3 cousins) are opening a computer shop in Binjai.

This was the second night we've been hanging around late preparing things.

Even all the older generations were there to help.






Yeah.. My picture is not there obviously.. I was holding the camera. ^_^

Big day tomorrow. Everyone's invited. ^_^

Unqualified Bond...

What would u imagine out of Bond? Definetely not the Daniel Craig. Even my dad knew and complained of how not suitable Craig was in Bond. Not to mention the bad storyline in Casino Royale.

Took the chance with the family to watch it yesterday and it turned out that it wasn't worth the time and money. I miss the tense situation and hi-tech gadget in Golden Eye or those by Pierce Brosnan; I miss seeing Bond messing around with Q's lunch and inventions..



Got home at 10.50 and found out that SWAT was showing on TV; so my dad said: "If I knew 007 was that bad, I would have been staying home and watch SWAT on TV." Haha..

What a dissapointing Bond...

Fire!!!

Fire at the opposite side of the road of the office...
I know nothing.. I just went out to see what's going on..

Here are some pictures by Ronny.

Reviving dead HDD

Got a 200 ways to revive harddisk (PDF) and tried a simple one: shaking it hard, plugged it back in and wallah.. it's spinning again.. I'm backing them up again now..

The HardBox blew up

Bloody hell, my harddisk just blew up before my eyes.. I was doing some work and suddenly a tiny boom just shook me.

I'm screwed up.. Everything I've been working on, movie collections, e-books, junks, and the worst: the Youth Camp 2006 video recording, in which I have no copies of it. 160 GB is gone..

Protests on Bush's visit

The US President George W Bush is coming to Bogor to meet the Indonesian President SBY on this coming 20th November. However, as many of the Indonesians have noticed, that protests and demonstrations have been going on rejecting Bush's visit. Despite of the only 10 hours being in Bogor, there has been relatively big budget projected for his visit.

What I'm trying to point out is that the number of protests going on across the country; that I have no idea what on earth they are thinking of condemning Bush for coming to Indonesia. I've seen on the news people using the name of Islam to say inappropriate words towards the guest, even some are trying to use spiritual powers to deal with Bush upon his visit. This is ridiculous.

Haven't we been taught to respect our guests? President SBY visit the US last May and September and he was greeted very well, and with not a small budget from the US government if I may say. But why would these Indonesians trouble about it? I could even see the leaders of some Islamic political party, the members of the House of Representative are condemning. I wonder how this country would ruin should they lead the government.

How many productive hours these people have wasted by just going to the streets protesting such useless thing? They could have done more important things than telling what the president should do while they are not doing their part themselves.

Boikot of US products
And here is a more ridiculous part of the demonstration; some people wants to boikot all US products. These guys obviously can't think and should they lead a country, it would be off the map in no time. Let's take a simple example of our living products; what can be done without anything made or initiated by the US scientists? Say computers? U don't want to use DELL, let's use computers made in Taiwan then, OK.. Fair enough, what operating system? Windows is obviously a US product and I say it's bullshit if the government wants to erase Microsoft from Indonesia..

Personal or Religion
I don't understand why most (all if I may say, because that is what I have been seeing all this while) of the wild and nonsense protests are from people who take Islam. I believe Islam is a peaceful religion; I have wonderful Muslim friends who I think are much better than my Christian friends. I suppose it's just people misinterpret things a lot.

btw, hope Bush is coming to bring a better situation for both countries.

Flu and fever

I'm terribly sick now.. Damn fever.. Can't enjoy myself.. :-(

Project Antara update

Time for a little sneak-peak of the new house..
All credit for my bro for the designs ^_^

Front view...


Rear window of our room...


View from our room...


Level 4...

The upset stomach

I could hardly sleep well last night, or this morning for that matter. I had this strange dream of the SAP system; that I was trying to do a goods issue process order, but the system kept showing errors that I didn't even remember. Consulted with the MM guy and we ended up trying and trying. So there went my good night sleep; such a discomfort of sleep last night.

However, the dream was not the point. I have learned that it happens often when I'm at my limit, that I'm going sick or physically/mentally unhealthy soon enough. But life went on and I had my shower.. getting prepared for another day of work.

When I got into the bus, suddenly this weird pain started stabbing my stomach and getting worse in minutes. For almost an hour in the bus I was fighting the pain and ended up loosing my energy that I could hardly walk straight.

At the office I had arrived at 07:50 and it went much better; but in 10 minutes it went wild again and I couldn't work this way. I asked for permission to see doctor at 10. He said it was something I ate wrong.

So here I am.. back in the office where everyone in the department thought I was not coming back. ^_^

Feeling better now.

IT discussion to off-topic

Had some discussions with the IT Manager; initiated from the need of a proper backup procedure for some servers. I stated the need of another PC-turned-into-server machine for backup purposes, where scheduled backup will be executed on every server with the target path pointing to the backup server.

The discussion continued to some IT related conversations and ended up talking about something else from the company's procedure to how to manage your financial planning. However, I have enjoyed the chat since the closest friend for the past half day was the PC.

It's raining

Seems that it has come to the time of the year where it rains a lot. I can see ponds all over the road; and in many places (especially on my way back home) the the water covers the entire road up to 20 cm. I could imagine that I'm actually in a boat instead of a bus.

Who wants to be a Bible lover?

During the Youth Camp just now, I popped out an idea of some Bible quiz with some real questions just like the game Who wants to be a millionaire.

The problem was how do we display the questions, select, identify it as true or false. Moreover, features like 50:50 won't go away from it.

So I made a small program out of VB.NET with MS SQL Server Express for the game. A simple program that just grab questions and the options randomly in each level it is.

Lack of the interface to input the question though; that I did it in only 1 night. So I have to put the questions and options and answer directly to the database table using the IDE.

There was a bug in the application and it popped out during the quiz. After the 50:50 (where I hide the visibility of random options that are not the answers), I forgot to enable the visibility upon next question.

Yes.. It was a dumb bug I admit, but it was a 1 night programming and I didn't even have the time to thoroughly test it out. However, eventually the game had a positive response from most people.

In fact, we at the youth fellowship (P3MI) are gonna take this quiz up again on next Saturday, 11th Nov 2006. Anybody insterested to join? See how good u know the Bible.

Here's the screenshot of the game.

The 50:50 hides two options that are not the answer.

And the setup screen for the questions. The system randomly chooses any question with the same level that has not been displayed before.


We found this game very educating since this would promote interesting facts about the Bible that many of us do not know of.

Clear roads

Still in holiday and I'm going to work already. I can see many of my friends are still enjoying their holiday and I'm confronted with work already.

The roads are clear though, at least I have the pleasure of driving for these 2 days (the bus is not running since it's still in holiday.

Happy Ramadhan for those who celebrate it.

Youth Camp 2006

4 days Camp at Parapat, North Sumatra; what a great week. Despite of the smokey atmosphere, everything was very much enjoyable.

I departed on Sunday morning for lots of prep from the comitee and had only 5-6 hours of sleep in between tons of work; but everything turned out to be cool. ^_^

The theme was "Make Things Happen" with the theme song "Nothing is impossible" (GMB)




Great blessings were passed on, and almost all correspondents responded positively for the project.



And some muddy games.. U can see the custom-made BodyGlove we've had. ^_^

And group photos of virtually everyone who's there.

The PDF softcopy of the book can be downloaded here.

Leave granted :-)

With the prayers and workaround, I manage to get leave for 2 days (23rd and 26th Oct) for the Youth Camp.

Never... ever.. underestimate the power of prayer and fasting. In fact, I just read in the news that based on research, those whom are prayed more by the loved ones are proved to be healthier. I can't recall where I read it, but I'm pretty sure that I have seen the article.

Have a nice day.. ^_^

Projects...

I got some programming projects going on here. Both with VB.NET. One windows application and one web application. The interesting part is the web application; it is an online text-based game based on DarkThrone.com. I can say that the concept is pretty good; having people to play RPG online and text based some more.

No heavy 3-D graphics, only texts. Build, train, attack, defend...

Aside from the excitement, it's gonna be hell of two weeks.

Leave not granted :-(

I submitted my leave application form for Youth Camp yesterday I got the reply today. It was a negative. The sky seems like falling down all over me.

Ouch.. the activity that we have been planning for the past half year.. and I won't be there to see it. I'm so dissapointed.. Though my IT manager approved the form, but the form has to be signed by one of the directors.

This is what I don't understand. For such (relatively) big company, such simple things (and many more silly simple things) are being handled directly under the directors. Since the managers have approved it, doesn't it mean that the managers have the responsibility?

Well.. Don't wanna say much of it.. I lost the mood for a few moments there. But I still think that perhaps it's God's way for the best. ^_^ U'll never know..

Anoter half-way SAP implementation

I'm assigned to another trip to the same remote site for SAP implementation. And this time I'm bringing my laptop with me (I found out that it would take at least a week). So it happened to be a whole week (2-6 Oct 2006)

The same story this time as previously; as expected, my module couldn't run smoothly coz MM didn't run smoothly.

Had a heavy flu on Thursday.. couldn't work properly.. I was supposed to supervise the production operative to key in data into SAP system; so I ended up in bed. Took some medicines and another happy good morning the next day. ^_^

Came back on Saturday early morning (5 am) and reached office before 1 pm. I drove half way (3 and half hours, bout almost 200 km). Still half ill.

A week has gone without being in the main office. ^_^

Mad policeman

Another day is in progress..

This morning when I was in the bus (felt asleep), suddenly the car was stopped by a man with motorbike shouting rudely to the driver telling him to pull over. When the driver asked him gently if anything had happened, but what he got was another impolite answer.

The guy with the bike happened to be a policeman claiming that the driver gave him a splash of water when he drove (it has been raining recently, and the road is wet; in case that u guys don't know, the physical conditions of some (many if I may say) of the roads would allow ducks to swim due to the holes. (please don't take the words literally)

It really ruined my day.. Such a bad attitude of a police officer; as a matter of fact, he wasn't even in duty but still demanding the license and registration in a very rude way.

If he doesn't want to get splashes, then don't ride near the watery road. And what good is a car if one just drive it 5 km/hour? This is totally ridiculous..

I really hope that people like that would get the lesson.. For it matters, I just recall that people are vasting; so regardless if u r a Muslim or not, u should respect them (at least try not to yell at them especially when they're not guilty).

1 year ago today

It was 1 year ago today that I worked at Sigma @ Serpong, it was 1 year ago today I met Rama and the rest of the Core Banking Team 3 with their RPG.

It has been a good memory that I worked there; the knowledge, experience (though not much), and obviously friends. ^_^

A small birthday celeb @ office

Happy birthday for Wihendry, the Audit Manager @ PHG. He was one of those who first accepted me when I joined in. Such a dicipline I can see out of him, but at the same time the funny soul that causes laughter for his environment. And I can feel that it feels so safe being with him.


A lunch the next day..

Apacer HA202

Got myself a new 2 GB flash disk of Apacer Handy Steno HA202 today.

It has a really cool design with a blue light when reading data. However, the cap is pretty annoying though. Fortunately, it can be removed easily and it looks much cooler without the cap.

No need of the cap because it has a slider that pops out and in the USB.

Transporting myself to work

Aq Awi is now staying in Medan, which caused me to turn to other alternatives of getting myself to work everyday. Fortunately, Hui's transport has an empty seat... so I decided to go with her.

Human knowledge belongs to the world

I've got some cool sites here about FREE e-books.

The last time I downloaded e-books were during my college times using P2P network client, but this time it can be downloaded using http access.

Most of the books are uploaded to RapidShare; so u all have to wait for about a minute to download it for free.

Most of the books are all new.. so enjoy the knowledge.

Get it here:



Human knowledge belongs to the world, share it...

P3MI.com

Out of the millions of pages in the Internet, I came across www.P3MI.com that joins the whole youth in the country in the bond of Methodist together virtually.

I myself and Ishak have been planning to do the same, but it has been concepts and it wasn't even finished. It seems that someone else has started it out.

With lots of processes, I managed to know the person who maintains the site and I'm officially in the service of this information handling to bless people.

He made me an administrator in the forum and had me manage the forum, so I guess I've got another thing to add to my everyday-to-do list. ^_^

God bless u all..

Bazaar

Fund-Raising activity @ school yard for the Youth Camp 2006 with various of foods and drinks.
Top-scorer food: Spagetti, drink: Pop-Ice


Met Erwin there, good to see him safe and sound.

And after everything settled, we took the chance of taking pictures, although many were not still around.




It finished at around 3-4 pm and we packed up until 5. Another day has passed... What a day. ^_^

Hope u all have had a nice weekend.

Sien's Birthday Dinner

Happy birthday for dear cousin, Sien on 29th Aug.

Had dinner at Cemara; another good time chilin with cousins.

I'm tired...

For the past week, I've been very tired of life; as if I've got nothing to live for (in which I know I'm not supposed to be like that). I have no idea what happened or what have triggered this feeling; perhaps I've gone through lots of things lately. I don't feel like doing things, I started to talk in a rude way, being sensitive, and lazy. Haven't really got a good time since last week.

Work, SAP, nStation, church, friends... [Arggh...]
I feel like leaving all of this for a while and refresh myself. But I can't seem to find the time for it coz I've got too many scheduled time for the next 2 weeks; no public holidays some more.

It's definitely not easy being human, or for it matter "someone".

Happy Birthday Linux

Linux is now 15 years old since Linus Torvalds first announced it in August 15, 1991.

"Hello everybody out there using minix -

I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing since April, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among other things).

I've currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things seem to work. This implies that I'll get something practical within a few months, and I'd like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them :-)

Linus (torva...@kruuna.helsinki.fi)

PS. Yes - it's free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs. It is NOT portable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's all I have :-(. "

I've not been forced to use linux yet, but I really look forward to the time that I can fully use linux. ^_^ I'm too busy with other things and it is very unlikely to explore on linux unless I'm told to.. ^_^

OpenOffice.org

I know OpenOffice has been around for long enough.. and I have actually resired to try it on (however it never really worked coz the environment I've been working in depends too much on Microsoft Office).

But now I've got a chance to use it in a more independently from Microsoft Office.

I'm so glad that my boss wanted me to try some alternatives for office applications beside Microsoft, I've finally had my eyes again towards OpenOffice.org.

Considering the complexity of the utilization of office application (word processing, spreadsheets, presentations) in my company, I do not see the compulsion of Microsoft Office. Instead, OpenOffice.org is good enough.

The main use of th office apps are:

• typing letters, simple WYSIWYG documents, and reports
• spreadsheet documents with simple calculations (SUM, AVG, etc)
• viewing presentation files

in which all of the functions can be found in both OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office.

Now the difficult part is the users.. it has always been the users.. that they're used to Microsoft Office and (at some point) not willing to update their knowledge to other options. So... for now, I and some of the IT guys i've managed to persuade are trying it out; making it default office apps; get the hang of it; and eventually write a report (conclusion) of the research (comparison between OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office).

As of now, I can only point out that there are two products from Microsoft that are not available in OpenOffice.org:

• Microsoft Visio
• Microsoft Project

especially considering the compatibilities of both OOo and Microsoft Office products.

I'm still looking for other alternatives for it.

Firefox & Thunderbird

My direct supervisor had me researched for alternatives in using free office software for corporate use.

In this case, we're trying to minimize (and if possible to zero) the use of Microsoft Office products. Thus, I've got into Thunderbird, a powerful email client that is most importantly free and robust.

Installed it, and took me bout less than an hour to get a hang of it and finally decided to make it my default email client against Microsoft Outlook 2003.

After a day using it, I found some fresh the look (themes), and fast loading speed (despite of the huge size of the mails after I imported from Outlook).

I feel like checking emails every half a minute with Thunderbird.

After seeing the fresh skins of Thunderbird, I just remember how not-so-fresh my Firefox's theme.. So I decided to have another browsing session for some Firefox themes.. and it turned out to be fun.

I've been using Firefox since college though.. So not much of excitement anymore..

Suicide updated

I've got 3 new scary pictures of the suicide incident that would blow some of ur mind uploaded (coz I know some of u r used to it, especially those in medical studies. ;-p).

the D-day

The big day is coming..
Time for a big prep.. ^_^




And the D-Day...


Final rehearsal...


The ushers were getting ready for the mass...


It's me shaking hand with one of the council who supports us the most in this event.


Backstage...


Even those from the elder people were coming to give a hand...


The songleaders...


The duet out of these 2 young girls are so excellent; what a talent... few of the most beautiful voices I've ever heard.


And the main time-frame... Ps Jose Carol... It has been a great evening; many were touched. We all can make a difference!!!


The celebration... We've done it.. and it was a success...