In Memorial of Daymin Eden (莊達明)

Couldn't sleep yesterday, my mom was ill; and I know it's the burden of loosing the loved one. My dad blacked-out in the hospital. I was so confused when I reached the hospital yesterday morning; shocked by the view of my uncle on the bed, and my dad next to him barely conscious.

Slept late yesterday and woke up early, I decided to browse my photo collection (more than 40 thousand of pictures) and manage to find 43 of my uncle's picture. I just noticed that he's quite low profile that in most family occasion, he stood at the back or at the corner.

Compiled to photos into a short video, and I couldn't watch it myself as it made me cry. Still hope that this is a dream; just that it would be least likely to be a dream. -_-



Higher resolution available here.
I'll see you later, uncle; we'll meet again.

Sad day of the Edens

Today, the Eden family lost one of the best Eden, my uncle, a decent man, faithful, kind, and loves God.

Literally everyone cannot believe that this is really happening. I couldn't hold myself the first time I saw him lying on bed in the hospital.

I bet almost everyone pops the question: "God, how can this be happening? Why? Doesn't he loves you more than anything? Doesn't he still have so many things to do for you?"

I'm going to miss his beautiful voice in the church, his smile in every Sundays and every family gathering.

I came to know that he just had his 29th wedding anniversary yesterday.

I can say that today is the worst day of my life so far; still hope that this is a dream.

Excel 2007 math calculation bug

Microsoft Office Excel 2007 contains a serious bug in its calculation. Try multiplying 850 and 77.1 and Excel 2007 produces 100000 instead of 65535.

OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office Excel 2003 seems to produce the correct result.

You'll never know if there are other calculation bugs in it; imagine having the wrong numbers of your profit and loss sheet in excel. ^_^

They'll be back

"The truth of the matter is, we don't want this to happen. And one easy way to stop that from happening, is to continue our work on AutoPatcher. Maybe not in its current shape and form, but still, we will be back soon (that much I guarantee)."

Taken from the post: The next day (What's in store) by Antonis Kaladis

AutoPatcher vs Microsoft

I just went to AutoPatcher after a month to get my monthly patches and guess what, they said that Microsoft is trying to stop them.

I have not been so DISAPPOINTED in Microsoft in my whole life. I was so sure to leave Microsoft's Vista for it's bug and now I'm even more committed.

I've used AutoPatcher before and I can't think of any bad out of it; saves my time and bandwidth. Imagine an administrator has to install the patches (hundreds of them) manually won't do any other administration work.

In fact, AutoPatcher has given me the hope to use Windows in a more secure and patched way. Now that the hope is gone, my desire of Microsoft's product is at the lowest level.

I'm now committed to promote Linux more than Windows.

It has been an excellent tools you have been and I thank the developers for helping countless people with your useful patching tool.

In case you wonder what Microsoft wrote, get it here.
More comments from AutoPatcher users.

Too much of HOAX

Got this message a few times in my hotmail inbox:

[
Hey, people
Sorry to break the news, but looks like all of those warnings were real!
The use of MSN and e-mail will cost money from Summer 2007 onwards. If you send this message to 18 different people from your list, your little MSN Icon will turn blue and that will make it free for you. If you don't believe Me, go on to (www.msn.com) and see it yourself. Don't forward this message, But copy and paste it so that people will actually read it. It is Andy and John - the directors of MSN - sorry for the interruption, but MSN is really closing down. This is because too many inconsiderate people are taking up all the names (e.g.. Making up lots of different accounts for just one person), and we are only left with 578 names. If you would like to close your account, DO NOT SEND THIS MESSAGE ON. But, If you would like to keep your account, then SEND THIS MESSAGE TO EVERYONE ON YOUR CONTACT LIST.
This is no joke, as we Will be shutting down the Servers. Send it on, thanks. WHOEVER DOES NOT SEND THIS MESSEAGE, YOUR ACCOUNT WILL BE CLOSED AND IT WILL COST YOU 100.00 (pending) A MONTH TO USE. SEND THIS TO EVERYONE
ON YOUR CONTACT LIST. NOW YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO. PLEASE DO NOT FORWARD THIS OR REPLAY. COPY THE WHOLE E-MAIL. RETURN TO YOUR INBOX AND CLICK ON NEW. THEN PASTE 'THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION'. Hey everyone, I don't normally send this sort of stuff out, but I had a Look on the Internet and its actually true that by the 30th November, we Will have to pay for the use of our MSN and e-mail account(s), unless we Send this message to at least 18 contacts on our contact list. It's no joke, but if you don't believe me, then you can see for yourself -Go to the site
(http://news.BBC.co.UK/1/hi/business/1189119.stm) - and See For yourself.
Anyway, once you've sent this message to at least 18 contacts, your MSN icon Will turn blue. Please copy and paste, but don't forward it, as people won't Take notice of it
]


[Image taken from http://www.librarysupportstaff.com/forwardemail.gif]

Now.. I've seen too many hoaxes going around in e-mails until today, so I feel that posting the real issue won't make any harm.

In this case, if you check the link up there, it was dated Sunday, 25 February, 2001, 11:00 GMT, which is long.. long.. time ago, but then it says that we have to pay for improved services of the MSN portal.

My suggestion, check out the article you want to forward in the Internet for it's truth. There are a few sites that list out hoaxes or truth; Truth Or Fiction and Museum of Hoaxes are two of my favorites while you can obtain more of them here.

So don't simply take for granted everything you read in the email forwards!

Have you ever wonder why your email is filled with spam and unwanted advertisement? Forwarding emails is one of them. Say.. if one forwards one message to all of your contact list in your email, one usually use the [Forward] button and put the recipients in the [To:] field. Now.. try search into your forwarded emails that you receive and tell me how many email addresses that you have (friends and foreigns). What would happen if a spammer receive your email with those active email addresses in it? Use your imagination. ^_^ Here is another article about forwarding and spam.

So if you have done that before, or your friends have sent you such message, congratulations you have been subscribed to a mailing list of spam. ^_^

If you can't live without forwarding, at least use the [Bcc:] field, which will not expose other recipients' email addresses.

Audio in Ubuntu

Spent 2 hours in having my Ubuntu upgraded to the power to do audio as in UbuntuStudio. Managed to install the ubuntustudio-audio from apt and running Ardour.

Had me half an hour to deal with the sounds so that I can record, mix, and play especially in mp3 files. Took me few minutes to realize that I have got the LAME encoder in my ubuntu, but still have to run aptitude install liblame-dev on the shell.

Home sweet home, new favorite spot

Since the desk arrived last week, I've been so comfortable working on my desk. Enjoying (still) programming on the bigger screen on my PC (I've got 15" in the office only) for longer code view and bigger design view in the IDE.


Got an extra laptop of my brother (the one that broke, and repaired); not so powerful, but at least I can try out UbuntuStudio on that machine.

Ubuntu vs Vista

I came across this blog that briefly compares the prices in Ubuntu and Vista, a nice way to slice up your budget if you've blown it up on hardware.

Another objective comparison from InformationWeek is also a good article to check out.

Google Earth Flight Simulator

Have you played Microsoft Flight Simulator yet? Feel like playing it for free? Try the new version Google Earth (4.2) with it's new hidden feature of flying around the planet.

Watch this video from the Google Earth Blog.

You can find more of these videos at You Tube.
This is too cool to be happening for free!!!

"We assure you.. no more blackout!" is not an assurance

Heard from the radio this morning saying that the electricity company (PT. PLN) (which is monopolized by the government) is almost assured to not able to keep their promise to keep the light on as power outage is still going on in the area.

Previously, they had stated publicly their apologize and promised to ensure that electricity will be fulfilled before and during this Ramadan.

And now they're saying that they won't keep that promise.. again..

Mayor?

On the transport this morning, I was awakened by the siren sound of the mayor candidate of Medan Ali Umri's convoy.

The traffic was fairly ok, not jammed, but still vehicles are running slow. And out of nowhere these convoy simply rushing over the crowds like he owns the road or something.

One point I feel the officials should notice is that they should live their life as normal citizens so that they would know what's wrong with their area. If they simply put a loud siren on their car and have police escorting their way, they'd not know if that road is actually so bad, or at least the traffic.

Definitely not the type of guy I would choose to run the government, but who knows.. :-P

Another dinner party @ home

I kind of like it being at home now (as in living here, working here). Most of any celebrations in the family gather almost all members of near family in the town (which doesn't happen a lot since everyone is working already).

This time my aunt's birthday, so we had a BBQ at the rooftop. Had the usual family and family friends, not so crowded, but I like it where it cheers me up. ^_^





And not forgetting the cake ceremony. ^_^


And usual, the jokes were still available. ^_^

Converting MS Office Word 2007 to earlier versions

Received an email with .docx files and you don't have Microsoft Office 2007 installed?
Try downloading the Microsoft Office Converter to convert from new version of 2007 to earlier version.

While the converter above requires Microsoft Office to be installed, there are free online file conversion systems like Zamzar, docx2doc, and there may be others that I don't know of.

P3MI Binjai's Anniversary

Now that the fellowship has been around for generations (it started on the 3rd Saturday 1958) we're celebrating the anniversary by inviting children from orphanage with 38 children in total.



Most of them lost their parents during the 2005 tsunami. Make me realize of helping others while I can.

The first Indonesia Raya

Found this video on YouTube of the first Indonesian National Anthem released.
It's still in the old spelling of Indonesian.

This video has been quite some stories since it was discovered few weeks ago in some server located in Dutch.

My Indonesia

Happy independence day for my beloved country of Indonesia. 62 years after the proclamation of the independence.
Came across this song "Bendera" (Flag) by Cokelat on TV.

I can't seem to find the video clip that I saw on TV, but I found this on YouTube.

Here is the lyric:
{Biar saja ku tak sehebat matahari
Tapi ku slalu mencoba tuk menghangatkanmu
Biar saja ku tak setegar batu karang
Tapi ku slalu mencoba tuk melindungimu

Biar saja ku tak seharum bunga mawar
Tapi slalu kucoba tuk mengharumkanmu
Biar saja ku tak seelok langit sore
Tapi slalu kucoba tuk mengindahkanmu

Kupertahankan kau demi kehormatan bangsa
Kupertahankan kau demi tumpah darah
Semua pahlawan-pahlawanku

Merah putih teruslah kau berkibar
Di ujung tiang tertinggi di Indonesiaku ini
Merah putih teruslah kau berkibar
Di ujung tiang tertinggi di Indonesiaku ini
Merah putih teruslah kau berkibar
Ku kan selalu menjagamu}

Translation:
{
though I am not as great as the sun
but I always try to make you warm
though I am not as strong as rock
but I always try to protect you

though I am not as fragrant as rose
but I always try to [make you smell good]*
though I am not as beautiful as sunset sky
but I always try to [make you look good]*

I protect you for the honor of the country
I protect you for the blood of all my heroes

Red and White may you keep waving
in the top of the highest pole in my Indonesia
Red and White may you keep waving
in the top of the highest pole in my Indonesia
I will always take care of you
}
* some words might not be appropriate, but those are the best I can do for now

I'm not into Indonesian Idol, but they appeared to sing this song too and inspired many people in the country.

If u happen to have an account in fotografer.net, u might want to check out this picture.

May this country become greater and greater in God's way, so do the others.
Happy independence day.

Adios Vista

I have just uninstall Windows Vista at my home PC last night.

I'm back to Windows XP. If any of u guys wonder why, please check my previous posts about Windows Vista.

Here are some funny videos about Windows Vista. I like the Mac ad.

In fact, I feel more speed, reliability on XP. Couldn't the amount of money I spent for that powerful PC and still experiencing so buggy and slow computing experience.

Get's Youth Camp 2007 Bazaar

Fund-raising bazaar for the Youth Camp 2007.. Busy day...

Opening... 9:10AM




Almost everyone involved in the project..


Too tired today.. Can't even think of what to say today..

SAP Go Live (again)

Dejavu?
I do hope this time we're doing it right.. Cause most of us have been doing lots of preparations in this time.

However, despite of the so-called mature preparations, I still hanging around in remote site doing nothing because the other modules are still arguing bout lots of things.

I myself am in the remote site now, currently online on MSN using the remote desktop connection to my desktop computer in the HQ office.

Hope that I can get back in the weekend; it's so boring here...