KaraokeSys 1.1

Based on the previous version, I’ve made some changes that hopefully could ease the use while adding more features in it.

Highlighted features:

1. Never worry of damaged disk
2. Multiple monitor support to view live video at secondary screen while still doing anything else in the primary screen (including searching and selecting songs)
3. Manage songs (add, edit, delete, and multiple edits of song properties)
4. Drag & drop files to upload songs
5. Search anything (any displayable text within title, artist, genre, and even tag)
6. Manage playlist (add and delete songs for future use)
7. Play, pause, stop, next song, previous song (this is very obvious)
8. Switch to left, right, or stereo audio channel for vocal + music or music only
9. Pitch control (transpose –12 to +12) [NEW]
10. Tempo control [NEW]
11. Volume control
12. Preview song in mute volume

Screenshots:

Indian workers in Batam

I suppose most of Indonesian knows what happened in Batam. For those who got left out, here’s an English article.

A thread in Detik Forum got my attention that there are lots of comments agreeing that the Indians deserve those attacks and injuring four of them.

I can’t see through what they were thinking.. and on top of that, many (educated and Internet literate) people seems to be supporting the riot. In every conflict, it is rare that only one side makes mistake. Most of them are basically accumulation of mistakes from both sides, discarding who started in the first place.

One thing I just knew that there are such thing as War Risk Zone and several places in Indonesia are included in it. This attitude will surely bring no good to the public. This article is outdated, but it seems that the call was not granted.

I have been insulted no less than people around, and I haven’t got the grudge that I’ve been insulted and never got the intention of bringing harm to those insulted me.

[well to be frank I’ve got this wild imagination that I’d scare the guy off me with some cool moves or words, but that was simply to relief my mind]

Violence does not bring more good than harm, especially in larger scope like what had been going on in Batam. I do hope and pray that people would realize, aware of their surroundings; or at least think out of the box that every action bears consequences.

Linux User

I just counted myself into Linux Counter and registered as #509002 ^_^

How to use Google

Google is very well known for the search engine (duh.. obviously) to the extent that there were actually a verb for it to express the use of Google to search for anything. My colleagues and I have had the term: “ask uncle Google”. For those who don’t know how to use Google Search, check out Google Guide.

As the primary business of Google is the search engine, Google also has lots of products with their own innovation that I would say that they are very interesting.

Here’s what I’ve been using out of Google.

1. Search Engine to search the Internet
2. Google Mail for my email
3. Google Calendar to maintain schedules of my life
4. Google Contacts to maintain my contact list including contacts’ birthdays with integration of Google Calendar
5. Google Sync to synchronize my contacts and calendar entries with my mobile phone
6. Google Maps to learn new ways of how to get myself from one place to another place that I know very little about
7. Google Talk to communicate (chat or voice or video call) which can also be used in GMail
8. Google Chrome as my Internet browser, which is fast and lightweight but powerful

And quite a lot more that I might be too lazy to mention that I haven’t used extensively like Blogger, Latitude, Google Sites, Google Docs, and Google Wave.

New member of family

Gen 1:28
And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

Well at one point, I seem to have completed that particular order that God commanded. My wife gave birth to a healthy and beautiful baby girl that (they said) looked just like me last week on 12.04.2010 10:20 GMT +7.

I would say that it was definitely one of the best moments of my life. I wonder when those feelings would come again next time.

I get the joy of kissing her (and I didn’t forget the wife too ^_^) when I get to work in the morning and before sleep.

My Karaoke Program

After being deserted for months, I finally made a working program for my dad to get his new hobby a lot easier for him and his friends at home. I called it KaraokeSys for no specific reason ^_^

The program uses simple SQLite database to store the song details and VLC media player to play the video. I’ve seen quite a lot of free and open source karaoke programs, but somehow I feel that the requirements here is quite unique, that they usually prefer to use the karaoke VCD rather than custom made videos.

For now, it has features to:

1. Manage songs (add, edit, delete, and multiple edits of song properties)
2. Drag & drop files to upload songs
3. Multiple monitor support to view live video at secondary screen while still doing anything else in the primary screen (including searching and selecting songs)
4. Search anything (any displayable text within title, artist, genre, and even tag)
5. Manage playlist (add and delete songs for future use)
6. Play, pause, stop, next song, previous song (this is very obvious)
7. Switch to left, right, or stereo audio channel for vocal + music or music only
8. Volume control
9. 3 seconds fast forward and rewind with speed control without chipmunk effect (thanks to VLC)
10. Preview song in mute volume

What it doesn’t have for now is pitch control, which can be easily controlled with hardware; at least the only missing feature I’ve thought of.

And this is how the real thing looks like. It simply needs a Windows based computer with dual monitor and sound enabled.

FML

Have you ever feel so fed up with your life? that everything is so f***ed up? Will it make you feel better knowing that other people are experiencing worse that you? Check out F My Life, it compiles tons of funny life stories.
I’ve been reading the stories since last year and I can’t stop visiting it every day. :)

Bank or don’t bank (2)

Continuing yesterday's post, the funds just came yesterday evening and sent me an SMS notification. Quite satisfied with the service this time as they promised me to work this out for 14 days tops and turned out they sorted it out in half a day.

At least it’s a good start of Tuesday ^_^

Bank or don’t bank?

It’s so typical Monday.. except that I got a really bad start of day with Bank Mandiri. Here’s the story:

28.03.2010, I needed cash so badly and the ATM only allows me to withdraw 10 mill per day, so.. since Mandiri is a member of ATM Bersama, the transfer should be done within minutes. 2 hours later, the funds were not there.. and somehow I managed to get the cash from other means.

03.04.2010, Called 14000 to query the bank of how come that the funds did not reach the destination, but still has been debited from my account. The reply: “there was a network error and although the ATM said it was a success, eventually the transaction failed, and your money shall return to you in 4 days.”

Okaaayy… Now that is bad news.. What if that was the money I’ve got? They’re holding my money for unknown reason (at least to me). I thought I just gave it a chance.

05.04.2010, Check the online banking and did not find any trace of the return of my funds. Yesterday was certainly not the worst that could happen.

I called 14000 again to query my missing funds and somehow the other end of operator seemed to forgot about me and left me on the phone for almost 10 minutes with their song. I hung up and made another call this time response is quick, but not satisfying.. They wanted me to go the any branch and file a written report.

I am furious!!!! and yet cannot express it the the operator..

The only reason I’m using the ATM, and Internet banking was simple: I don’t want to go to the bank!!! Now I’ve got to find a way to get to the bank and file a written report.. for something that was not my fault (maybe it was my fault to transfer to another bank provider? –_-)

What a Monday!!!

Everybody’s Fine

I came across the movie: Everybody’s Fine and found familiar names in it (Robert De Niro, Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale, Sam Rockwell)

Left by a loving wife is definitely not easy, and that is what Frank Goode is going through. The movie starts with Frank preparing everything for a family reunion with a classic Catch a Falling Star background music. Having his children cancelling their attendance last minute made him travel across country to visit them; and this is the story of his road trip.

I was wrong thinking that it is a comedy and rather surprised by the pace of the movie. Despite of all ‘drama thingy’, it is not boring at all for me. De Niro really put his best again in this movie, expressing his calmness and yet we can see the depression in him. I can tell that he is perfect for the movie.

Of all the scenes, I love the music and how it fits the scenes in most part of the movies.

 

Karaoke

Karaoke, a word so familiar to myself but have not even had the thought to search what and where it came from. Wikipedia has an article about it and how it came from.

For me, I've known karaoke from my dad.. Yes it's one of his hobby. It came to me even more when He bought a (so called) computer that stores karaoke video files for him to call upon (using remote controlled numbering combined with a papered catalog to search songs from). It the stroke me to search more on how I can make such application.

It began more than 6 months ago that I saw the same program in Melody Family Karaoke in town and then shared the idea to my dad. He simply expressed: "Why don't you see what you can do, then come again and we'll talk seriously."

So.. since I've been in Visual Basic .NET for years I gave it a shot. Started looking for some video presentation technologies. Started with WMP but figured out that I couldn't switch the audio channel to mono left or right, I looked at VLC.

Using the SQLite database and .NET Connector for SQLite, it's almost done.

Finding your way with Google

A friend of mine asked me to pick him up to go home. At the other hand, I had no idea where his exact location were.
Then out of nowhere I decided to use Google Maps to find the way and trying to pinpoint his office. Turned out that it wasn't enough; I didn't know which turn to make (this one or the next U turn). So I thought of Google Wave and the Map gadget.
Invited him and it took 2 minutes for the invitation to get there and he's in the wave. Made a wave and put in the map gadget and... u guys figure it out in this video.

The ride came and I didn't have the time to collaborate on the location, so I was thinking of using Google Latitude to have his location. It all sounded perfectly until my friend's Blackberry couldn't connect to the Internet. -_- FML.

High level meeting

Sometimes.. it's rather embarrassing to see the so called best people of my country screwing around during plenary meeting.

I was somehow reminded of such uncivilized meetings in other countries (Taiwan if not mistaken) years ago.

Disagreements surely exist, but as representative of the people, they should at least be civilized. Welcome to Indonesia.

Australia

After a long 1 year break of not having any discussion of studying in Australia, I came across an education fair held by local school last Saturday; and somehow I found myself searching for some resources about Australia.

What a nice place to be.. Feeling like going there someday.. I wonder what had happened if I had gone there for college. ^_^

Well.. if you've got the chance, go there and taste the life and education there.