August’s Digest

Trip To Mount Bromo (And Surabaya)

As you might know from my public calendar, early this month I went to Mt. Bromo (with transit in Surabaya first). I was very delighted to have holiday out of town, especially for having a trip back to nature. And indeed it was a very pleasant trip. I met 5 new friends, well actually, from those 7 persons who went there together with me, I only knew 2 persons before. Those guys really know how to make a trip enjoyable. Can’t wait for the next trip! Lombok maybe? Haha..

Anyway, some of the images below were already posted at my moblog directly from the scene, or so. I was quite amazed at how good the HSDPA signal from my provider there, although you really have to find the right spot to be connected. But being a big city though, it wasn’t as easy as I thought to find HSDPA signal in Surabaya when compared to Jakarta or Bandung. Moreover in Mt. Bromo, it WAS difficult. Well maybe that’s the fun from being mobile in Indonesia, you really have to make good use of your feet and hands when searching for signal. Giddy Up! :p

Ow, a reader inspired me to explain this: the 1st four thumbnails on the second picture is NOT a view of an ocean or a lake. It’s a carpet of clouds. We can see that view since we’re at a higher elevation than clouds. Very, beautiful!

SOEDOE Exhibition @ Jakarta

Not much to say about this. It was an exhibition in Balai Kartini, Jakarta, held by the Indonesian Government for five days from 6th to 10th of August. It’s free, both for the exhibitors and the visitors. But you know, being a *FREE* government agenda, most of the times we have to get a good grip and high measures of patience when dealing with the people.

Also, there’s nothing special with the selling revenue. But that’s not the point from the first place. We really hope to get a good publication and a higher public awareness from the exhibition. I hope I can see the results soon.

We welcome you, Ramadhan

And last but not least, *eww, the language*, Mohon maaf lahir dan batin. Bener2 minta maaf seandainya ada salah2 kata ato perbuatan ato menjatuhkan harapan dan sebagainya, mohon dimaafin. I truly am. Mudah2an kita bisa belajar lebih baik lagi dalam Ramadhan besok.

Anyway, I was also delighted when I read the news that says this year, most likely there will be no difference among muslim organizations in Indonesia regarding the decision for the starting date of Ramadhan and Shawal. 1st of Ramadhan will be on the 1st of September, and the 1st of Shawal will be on the 1st of October. It’s just great.

Peace. Out.

A Counter Post

After finally I have the time to re-read what I’ve written in this blog, especially several latest posts, I came to a conclusion that this blog (literally or not) has become too much a junk with all those sad-and-melancholic-posts-which-drive-me-nuts™. Too much mellow-type posts here, doesn’t mean I have no other life than what you’ve read here for sure. It’s just because maybe I don’t have the time (/energy) to dump it here. Even if I finally manage to write, it won’t change the nature of this blog, a rarely updated junkyard and playground. Hehe.. :p Ow well, we’d better start. Stop mumbling. Opening is so not important. Okay. Get ready. Here goes. Ta-da. *Would you stop it?!*

Okay, now where should I start? Maybe the last two weekends. Oh boy I love weekends on summer so much. It began with a beautiful morning, I decided to wake up early and went jogging. It took me less than 10 minutes by foot to sabuga (ITB’s sport center). And less than 30 minutes later to have the nice quiet track as you can see in the image to become the world’s most populated jogging track. Okay, maybe that’s a lie. But I swear it was so dense I hardly breathed. Or is it because I was so exhausted?

After I took some rest, I was tinkering a bit with my lappie when I remembered that I have a debt to this friend of mine. I owned her a treat for a simple reason yet funny. I passed my expectation at my iBT toefl test. Ow well, apapun-bisa-diproyekin™ kan ntan? Hehe.. To make the long story short, here’s her post.

We went to Wendy’s at Braga together with Bama and Andien. It’s my favorite place to have my favorite menu(s): spaghetti and big-classic-combo! I eat like crazy as always haha.. The sun was great, It was a hilarious day, lots of laughter and some bashing of course heheh.. My saturday ends with a nice novel reading at night.

At sunday, together with soedoe team we went to do some experiments at one of our team-mate’s house. At where I met this two cute little girl, Asha and Aya. I spent some great time with them to pick Kirschen (Bhs. Indonesia: Kersen, I found the word at my German dictionary as Kirsche: Cherry in English, but Kirschen is not cherry we all usually refer to) and play horse, I was the horse of course, boy they were heavy! Too bad I didn’t take any photos of them. Have I told you guys that I want a daughter so bad, more than I want a wife? I’ve had the wish since I was in high-school a very long time ago.. Crazy huh? Ow well, I have never been accused of being normal anyway :p

Last weekend, I spent a night at my parent’s with some friends, soedoe team that is, minus Widy and Ilma. It was meant as a ‘company-outing’, sort of. And for sure, we had fun. Anyway, the swimming pool you see, is not my parent’s :p The little guy there, is my brother, I taught him how to swim, no success yet. Oh brother..

So, I got to go. Will go to Jakarta, Pras’ place, gonna come to ICT Expo there tomorrow. Maybe more on this later.

Peace. Out.

A Dream

It was almost dark, and cold. But I felt happy, maybe because true happiness never depends on time or weather..
I looked at her and waved my hand from the side road. She was standing and giving her beautiful smile at me through the window just inside the balcony as I walked away.
I could see the plants she kept near the window, green leaves and red flowers with dim-lighted room as the background..

The scene repeated over and over inside my mind, day and night.. Sleep and awake.. Is it a dream? Or just a memory that will never go away..

Peace. Out.

Women And Linux (part 2/end)

So, I felt a bit guilty because I couldn’t fulfill the promise (sort of) to write the second and the last part of my previous mumblings. Well, what can I say but please read the disclaimer again, what do you expect from a mad man? :p

Anyway, I won’t continue the mumblings or rather to keep it for my personal consumption than to publish it here. I choose not to publish the early part of this second mumblings. Yet to ease the guilty-feeling away and to persuade me in writing another mumblings in this space in the future, here’s how the second mumblings end:

But in women case, choosing the right one to be the one you give all your loyalty, dedication, commitment, is so not the same with choosing the “right” linux distro. Its not like you can just re-format your harddisk to install your new distro then forget the old one. Women indeed have feelings. And it might last until the time you’ll never know.

Then you might ask, can you dual-boot or even triple-boot women just the way I triple-boot different operating systems in my laptop? The answer is definitely not an absolute answer for every person. Unlike linux who can live altogether in the same harddisk with no problem, women, mostly today, have no such characteristics to be able to live with other woman in the same harddisk, no, I mean under the same roof. Or to deal with the fact that the man might have someone else in mind. One worthy lesson for myself is that, indeed, too much love will kill you if you don’t make up your mind. And the credit goes to …

Face this reality, will I tinker with Slackware, Install SuSE, boot-up xubuntu, or get myself the latest beautiful MacBook Air instead? ALL HAIL TO THE MIGHTY BLUE APPLE! :p

Peace. Out.

Women And Linux

Disclaimer: This article is a mumbling written by a man who is claimed by several persons to be mad, strange, geek, unusual etc. The article were meant as a method of expression when the author find it difficult to have asleep at three in the morning. With all due respects, the author honor the privacy and dignity owned by every women and/or every linux communities that might be mentioned in the article. All trademark/copyright/license belong to their respective owners. Erroneous english or typos weren’t intended, believe me. The author as referred in the first sentence, takes no responsibilities from any damage, losses, nausea, brain disorder, physiological malfunction, civil war, earthquake, or any effects caused by reading the material follows. I’ve warned you.. :p

If you don’t even know what linux is, simply stated it’s an operating system. Computer codes that allows you to have access to the underlying hardware of your computer, the electronic components. With an extended definition, an operating system provides you with some working environment and some programs to support your work on a computer. And if you don’t know what woman is, umm.. uhh.. I think there are no simple explanation for this.. Even Einstein once said that he understands the universe with the laws beneath, but he still doesn’t understand women.. Sorry dude.. :p

And why would I compare women with linux? Because to my opinion, somehow they share many similarities. I’ll start with elaborating linux in a non technical way I hope, and you, readers, may compare, interpret, make jokes or take whatever conclusion you feel is right for the women side. I’ll just show you some hints. I don’t ask you to have a philosophical way of thinking, just a little imagination will do.. :p Here we go..

At the time of writing, there are about 500 different linux distributions or the so called “distro(s)”. I forget where I got this statement, but let’s just follow it. If you don’t like it, stop reading and write your own blog :p This favorite site of mine btw, distrowatch.com shows a hundred distros referred as the most popular ones. Why on earth there are so many different flavour of linux? Because of different environments, different needs, different habits, different tastes from the people who crafted it or from the people the developer targeted to. Well, you name it. There should be about 500 different reasons to answer such question. Every distro usually claimed to be better from each other, but in my opinion, they just simply work best for their intended purpose or target users.

As to myself, I have always been a huge fan and quite a long time user of SuSE linux (openSUSE now). A well-polished distro originated from Germany. I have been using this distro ever since I’m still in high school, back in early year of 2000. But living in the world of open source, to have so many options is very natural. SuSE is not the only distro I ever use though. As a matter of fact, the first linux distro I installed was Slackware. Known as a highly reputable, very stable and the oldest distro ever survived until today, but maybe not the easiest distro to deal with. SuSE on the other hand, in my opinion, has always comes up with the latest stable kernel, well maintained software repositories, modern desktop environment/window manager, easy installation with a wide range of hardware recognition and not to mention the eye-candy and bling-bling stuffs. In contrast, never expect everything will work out of the box when you first install Slackware. Those features are the least expected when you install Slackware. There’re always some extra efforts needed to make everything runs smoothly in Slackware.

SuSE is considered as a modern operating system, a bleeding edge system like other well-polished operating systems. Several names included are Mandriva, Debian, PCLinuxOS, and the emerging Ubuntu and their derivatives. Mandriva is also powerful yet beautiful, pretty much like SuSE, but I don’t like it, maybe because it’s just too “French” to me.. :p On the other hand, I also like Ubuntu and its derivatives especially xubuntu because its simplicity and the work-out-of-the-box sensation, and of course because of the great support from the community.

As the case with my two favourite distros, SuSE and Slackware, I like both distros so much but however Slackware has a special place in my heart. Despite its difficulties and its old-skool techniques, it has become a distro I always come back to. No pain no gain is a perfect proverb to be applied to this distro. I learned so many things about linux and how things in linux work together, because I travel so many adventurous journey with Slackware. The feeling to have something finally runs by yourself like you wanted to, beats the glory of work-out-of-the-box and bling-bling distros.

[to be continued]

Peace. Out.

Untitled (again)

The night before, I wept all night until I was so tired and fell asleep. The next night, I didn’t want it to happen again. 21.30 I met my buddy, a parallel brother of mine. Break into the lab, plug into the network and raved. We browse, leech, talk about *nix and such, all the geeky stuff like we usually did in our good ‘ol time. It was three in the morning when we decided to leave. Haha.. Just like we did in our high school time, but with the late noodle to fulfill the hunger.. :p

That night, I can basically ran away temporarily from the burden I had.. After what happened a few hours earlier.. I really became someone else in the night, a nocturnal creature which is quite different from what it is in the day.. To make myself happier, I brought the geeky side out of me and went wild..

God, give me your strength to move on.. To make the right decision.. To give everything in me to the right one..

Peace. Out.

When A Man Lost A Woman

Words are no longer be sufficient..
It requires more than phrases to describe the feeling..
It needs more than a wise thought to understand the agony..
And phantasmagorical eyes to see the reasons..

You will shine in my every dark night..
Beautify the gradient of my early morning..
God only knows how much I miss you..
I love you..

Peace. Out.

Rainy Season Has Shown Its.. Water.

[edit: This post was written on October 31st but neatly stored on my local notes since I haven’t had the time to be in touch with the Internet until now, November 20th.]

It’s been a week or so in Bandung, this lovely city *yeah rite* always receive a dark and cold rain. A pouring one mostly. The rain usually comes down in the afternoon, long until the night ends. I just wish that this year there will be no flood in some parts of Bandung (and many other cities) like always in the previous years.

When I heard the word Bandung, I always remember a quote from a blog I read somewhere in the net as follows “Bandung, the city where the border of the road, the sidewalk and the sewer aren’t clear!” Hahaha.. :p Well, to some extent, that was mostly true. But notice that there are still a lot of places with a very clear border, and are nice to walk on especially in the morning or in the afternoon.

Anyway, regarding the rainy season, this year it has proven that indeed i like rainy season more than any other seasons. Well, in Indonesia there are only two seasons anyway, rainy season and the less-rainy season that is. Heheh.. :p Maybe it’s more because the situation that cause my feeling to be more peaceful when it’s raining. That’s not always true actually, especially when I’m around on my bike, I would definitely grumbling all the way heheh..

I like rain, especially when I’m in my room. Alone (well, I like to have companion more, but what can I say :p). I can prepare a very hot chocolate, unplugged musics or maybe the ubiquitous The Corrs. Hold a grip on the long-awaited-hasn’t-read-novels. Dimmed light. With a scene of a beautiful shiny-greeny-little-garden seen through my window, isn’t life so beautiful?

Peace. Out.

So, how’s life?

The very question my friends would ask me. And the identical answer would they get: “Pretty much the same”. Well, it’s not that I’m having my old dull life. But instead, I have a very nice and interesting life, at least since my one semester visit to Germany. And the life of me, hasn’t change so much ever since. Everything seems to be unexpected, a rollercoaster of life you may say. Nice? Sure it is, the quotation from Gump always cheer my always-turn-up-and-down-every-second-or-so life as his mother always said that life’s like a box of chocolate, never know what you gonna get. Not the case with a box of Kit-Kat though :p

So what’s with that “same” answer mentioned? Despite the always-change life I have, I still have pretty much the same pattern, but better lately I think. I still have the very same oat as breakfast. Still the same chococinno every morning. Watch movies every now and then. Listening to music whenever I have the chance. Read topics most interesting to me. Use the same operating system(s) in my work: Mac OS X, Windbloze and Linux. Add a little jogging two or three times a week with some light work out. Attend meetings. Do the research. Dreaming about the very same person every now and then etc. So that pattern hasn’t really change so much, except my sleep time. I finally could manage to fix the biological clock of mine, thanks to Ramadhan that is.

And the best out of it: I sure do believe that happiness is (also) a state of mind. All I need to do is just tune the right frequency to have that Happy Radio of ourselves. So, cheer up! Happy being happy! Good luck..

Peace. Out.

Neu Freunde

[New Friends]

Wow what a life! Yesterday Bama introduced his friends he knows from his primary school! Isn’t that cool, still having contacts with your buddies from that early days of your schooling period?

So, that’s us having dessert in the ice cream shop right in front of our (Me, Pandu & Bama) little shop. There, you can see (part of) our signage in the top-left of the picture. We previously went to break our fast in our favorite Japanese resto, still in the area of CiWalk. From fore-left to right: Intan, Me, Pandu, Dinda, Eva, Bama. And of course, one more person who took the picture: Euis. I know, “Sunda pisan..”
This time the picture was taken by Intan, and there’s Euis replacing Intan’s place. Not much of a picture variation indeed. Hehe.. :p

Peace. Out.