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.

Internet search on Omni International Hospital

It has been quite some time since the case of Prita and Omni International Hospital and I wonder how the hospital has been viewed from the Internet.

A Google Search of "Omni International Hospital" returns only 3 links (2 official website and 1 from Wikipedia) of information about the hospital, while 9 others are simply news and blogs of what has happened between the hospital and Prita. 9 out of 11 means 81.81% information are simply not in favour of the hospital. All search results return pages from Indonesia (perhaps Google is smart enough to identify my location)

A Bing Search of "Omni International Hospital" returns 2 links of the official website, 2 not-relevant information about the hospital, and 6 news and blogs talking about the case; which makes it 60% information from the first page of the search engine not in favour of the hospital.

A Yahoo Search of "Omni International Hospital" returns 3 official websites, 2 job-related information in the hospital, and 5 news and blogs about the case; which makes it 50% information from the first page of the search not in favour of the hospital.

All Google search returns pages from Indonesia, Bing and Yahoo searches return some entries of the news from international.

For those who don't know what's going on in Indonesia, please do a search on any search engine (Google, Yahoo, Bing) for Omni International Hospital Prita.

Whatever the outcome of the case, it is obviously not good for the hospital.

Clean toilet @ Indonesian airport

Detik.com gave out a rather interesting news about given to 19 cleanest Indonesian airports.

1.	Juanda, Surabaya	78,54 points
2.	Soekarno-Hatta, Jakarta	76,62 points
3.	Hussein Sastranegara, Bandung	75,26 points
4.	Ngurah Rai, Denpasar	74,52 points
5.	Adi Sumarmo, Solo	74,30 points
6.	Adi Sutjipto, Yogyakarta	73,88 points
7.	Bumi Minangkabau, Padang	72,58 points
8.	Mahmud Badaruddin, Palembang	72,17 points
9.	Sultan Hasanuddin, Makassar	70,89 points
10.	Selaparang, Lombok	69,93 points
11.	Sam Ratulangi, Manado	69,35 points
12.	Sultan Syarif Kasim, Pekanbaru	69,25 points
13.	Hang Nadim, Batam	68,32 points
14.	Ahmad Yani, Semarang	67,73 points
15.	Eltari, Kupang	64,71 points
16.	Polonia, Medan	64,42 points
17.	Sepinggan, Balikpapan	63,10 points
18.	Supadio, Pontianak	61,73 points
19.	Halim Perdana Kusuma, Jakarta, (special award)	73,37 points

I haven't been much to most of the airports mentioned apart from Polonia, Medan and Soekarno Hatta, Jakarta (and perhaps Ngurah Rai, Denpasar once in 2001).

Rather disappointed not seeing the standards set for the awards, but I wonder how Polonia could have got that point; knowing that it wasn't even clean (at least not when I was there last month sending my friends to the airport). Is it clean now? or the is it the standard being set by government? -_-

Sorry for the absence, I'm back for now ^_^

Picasa on Facebook

I've been using Picasa for years and since I've been in Facebook for the last few weeks, I've been wondering if I can simply upload my photos using Picasa. A simple google gave a direct answer. ^_^

Try it out here.

True Worshippers CD

Remember the Ruth Sahayana CD? It turns out that it wasn’t the only CD my cousin gave me. There were two others.. ^_^

I’ve been listening to the All For You the whole day at office.. Not a bad Monday at all.. ^_^

Updating blog

Okay.. I know it has been months since I've not updated this blog. I'll try to keep it up.

Linux Mint

I've been struggling to find an easy way to install audio and video codecs in Ubuntu so that it can play mp3 and avi files. I've been craving for some out of the box linux distribution that supports those codecs out of the box.

I kept searching.. until I found Linux Mint this morning; it's a ubuntu based linux distribution.

It simply plays mp3 and divx files out of the box. That saves a lot of hassle for those linux machines that are not connected to the Internet.

Current stable release is still Linux Mint 6 (based on Ubuntu 8.10) and I'm looking forward to the next release (based on Ubuntu 9.04)

GMB Ruth Sahanaya

Got a CD Giving My Best Ruth Sahanaya  with original signature of Ruth Sahayana herself.

I’ve had this CD for a couple of weeks and just opened it. Totally forgot bout it.. –_-

QVGA Pocket e-Sword

Okay.. new problem comes after installing the new ROM update of HTC Touch Diamond. The display of Pocket e-Sword seems to get wrong.

I posted a thread at XDA-Developers forum and found out that it's the .NET Compact Framework 3.5

I hope there will be some sort of fix for this.

Anniversary of Metro

It has been exactly 12 years since my parents started their business. Mom & Dad are at Jakarta for family wedding and anniversary, so I'm taking initiative to get a cake for everyone there.

Ubuntu in 22 days

I haven't checked the website for months it says that a new release is coming in 22 days. ^_^

Halo @ Medan

I had a lunch appointment with an old friend and waiting for his pick-up at the office gate and saw something remarkable optical phenomenon. At first I thought it was a rainbow, but a halo would fit it better.

So I took the chance of taking the picture of it with the phone.




This one was taken by another colleage.

Free development tools for Windows platform

This might be too late to post this, but anyway...

If you are working on Microsoft Windows platform and wanting a free development tools to develop system, this would be one of the list.

1. Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition for IDE
2. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express Edition for database engine
3. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express Management Studio for database management
4. Paint.NET for image processing (additional plugin for icons)

These are the tools/technology that I have been using to develop applications and I pretty much enjoy it.

Google Map with GPS

Downloaded Google Maps for mobile devices yesterday but forgot to test it out until this morning.

With the 3G network, it's even faster than my internet connection when it loads the images. I was evern more thrilled when I turned on the GPS, it just works. ^_^

This was my last location before I lost the GPS signal as I entered the office building. quite accurate. The only problem is that Google does not give enough detailed view of maps in Indonesia (as in not updated and not enough resolution). But.. good enough for now.

Screen Capture Utility for Windows Mobile

Ever feel like capturing the screen in your Windows Mobile device?

I found out this little tool that will just do the job; it's free of course. ^_^

And listening to local radio at Mix FM (90.8 FM) screen capture; I like the colour mixing in the interface. ^_^