Gerakan Bawah Tanah - Mr. GBT

I still don't know what to do with all of these used CDs. Blank CDs are cheap around here (around 20c a piece). Burning CDs is common, just like copying to diskettes. Pirate CDs, VCDs and DVDs are popular here. To make the point short, CDs and DVDs are everywhere. Now, what should we do when these CDs (and DVDs) are not being used anymore? Should we just toss them away? What kind of environmental damage would these CDs cause? Recycle? How? In a science competition, there were 3 high-school students who arranged these used CDs to generate (very small) electricity. Other interesting usage out there?

I am already up for 21 hours for no apparent reasons. Will I stay up for 24 hours? I don't know. It started this morning at 3 AM. This is the month of Ramadhan, where Muslims fast during the day. So I did my breakfast at around 3-ish. After that, I checked my emails and did some writing, preparing for my presentation tomorrow (or today, since it has passed midnight). Morning came and I took my daughter to her school. Back from the school, I worked on my presentation again and checked on reports that my company must submit. By the time I was finished, it was already close to afternoon. I had to pick up my daughter. So I did. Then, I went straight to Bandung High Tech Valley (BHTV) workshop. [ BHTV web . BHTV blog .] At the workshop I listened to presentations and tried to get some insights. Armein Langi's presentation was good. The discussion was lively. I am excited with the possibility of actually realizing our BHTV's dream. Although, it wasn't what I expected since I ...

In my previous post, I lamented about Content Management System (CMS). I am still search for the most suited CMS for me. While doing that, I decided to learn CSS. Currently, the design of my web sites are based on table. It is considered out of date and difficult to maintain. Perhaps CSS is the solution? So, I searched the web for CSS tutorials. Lo and behold. I found a very good tutorial. I found Selectutorial CSS selector to be the best CSS tutorial . It explains CSS step by step without watering it down. One of the things I like about this is that the author took the time to give a step by step example with a sample output of each step. I could progress from one step to another by reading the description and viewing the result. This is an example of good e-learning! I spent a couple of hours playing with the examples. I hope it's a good investment. After that, I looked around for CSS examples or templates. I kinda like 3-column layout. All of my web sites are done with 3-colum...

I am still search for a Content Management System (CMS) that produces static (HTML) files. The reasons I want static files are: Security. I was bitten many times by CMS / CGI-based / other tools that produce dynamic HTML files. Sometimes the problem is due to the scripting language being used (PHP, perl), and other times it is due to the backend database (eg. MySQL). Performance. My server's resources are usually limitted. For example, one of our servers is still using (GNU/Debian) Linux on a Pentium III. It was upgraded from Pentium II, though. Yes, I know that this is 2005. Although my current web server is Pentium 4. Generating dynamic pages on the fly may tax my server. I don't really need dynamic pages. The contents of my pages are mostly articles, presentation files, PDF files, and the like. (Examples of my sites are: my main web site , web at campus , BHTV , ID-CERT , my Indonesia , and many more. Don't laugh at the designs - or lack of.) I just have to build a nice ...

I was reading Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat," book and found an interesting paragraph (and quote): One problem we have today, though, is that so many Amarican politicians don't seem to have a clue about the flat world. As venture capitalist John Doerr once remarked to me, "You talk to the leadership in China, and they are all engineers, and they get what is going on immediately. The Americans don't, because they're all lawyers." I love if when they talk dirty :-). Not all lawyers are clueless, though. Lawrence Lessig seems to be an anomaly. What do you think about leadership in Indonesia? Are they clueless?

[Catatan: backup dari posting di rahard.modblog.com ] Dalam posting terdahulu saya mempermasalahkan kurang responsifnya mahasiswa di kelas saya. Ternyata ini tidak terjadi di kelas saya atau departemen saya saja, akan tetapi sudah mewabah ke seluruh kampus. Ada seorang dosen di Departemen Planologi yang mengatakan sebagai berikut: Saya tanya "ada yang tidak mengerti?", tidak ada yang menjawab atau mengacungkan tangan. Kemudian saya tanya "ada yang mengerti?", juga tidak ada yang mengacungkan tangan. Jadi sebetulnya mengerti atau tidak? Ada dosen lain yang mengatakan bahwa ketika dia masuk ke kelas, dia dihadapkan dengan pandangan mata yang kosong. Menerawang. Dia berpendapat bahwa sekarang mahasiswa inginnya serba instan. Lepas dari itu semua, ternyata masalahnya lebih dalam lagi karena tidak sekedar di kelas saya saja. Berarti ini masalah yang lebih besar! Aduh! Mengenai soal slides power point, sebetulnya saya tidak menyukainya karena slides tersebut seringkali ga...

[Posting ini saya ambil dari blog saya yang lain di http://rahard.blogsome.com/2005/10/06/mahasiswa-kurang-responsif/ karena waktu itu situs modblog saya down. Saya tampilkan di sini sebagai backup. Mungkin saya akan banyak menulis di rahard.blogsome.com untuk membackup blog di modblog .] Saya tidak tahu apakah saya lebih tumpul dalam mengajar atau mahasiswa saya yang kurang berani dalam bertanya. Dalam kuliah yang saya ajar kali ini, mahasiswa saya terkesan lebih “loyo” daripada angkatan (kelas) sebelumnya. Kalau saya tanya, mereka terkesan tidak antusias dalam menjawab (atau bingung). Padahal pertanyaan yang mirip dalam kelas sebelumnya masih bisa dijawab. Saya tidak tahu apakah mereka tidak mengerti apa yang saya ajarkan atau hanya malas / malu menjawab saja. Hal-hal yang saya tanyakan adalah hal yang sederhana dalam pemrograman yang sepantasnya mudah mereka ketahui. Paling tidak, hal tersebut diketahui oleh mahasiswa universitas lain atau bahkan siswa SMK (STM) yang sedikit kurs...

Yesterday (Thu, Oct 13, 2005), I went to Cyber building to break fasting with friends. This is the month of Ramadhan in which we fast during the day and break the fast after it is dark (evening). Our friends at IDC organized the event. Lots of young people were there. I understood that these folks are from Opisboy mailing list , the guys who run the Internet engines and pipes in most ISPs. Unfortunately, I don't know most of them. Boy, I felt old. (I wonder if they know me?) I was late. It took me two hours from my apartment to the place! There was a BAD traffic jam. I mean, really bad! Without traffic, it would take only 10 minutes. Normally, I'd say it would take around 20 minutes. But, hey, there are good food and good friends. I enjoyed it very much. (I felt sorry for those who were not invited. Yup, those ISP owners / CEOs who know nothing about the fun stuff of running Indonesian Internet. Let's leave them worrying about their association . [wink]) Let's do it aga...

Here's the result: Which File Extension are You? Interesting ... I found it interesting.

You know that I am a sucker for history of computing (and business related to it). So here I am ... reading a very interesting site ( Folklore.org , mostly about history of Apple and the people behind it), reading an interesting book (Tom Friedman's "The world is flat'), and reading Fortune magazine 75th anniversary speacial issue. (Actully, I am reading a couple more books. But they are, kind of, getting a lower reading time.) Yes, I am doing a context switching between them. I am actually tired and need some sleep, but cannot resist reading them. I want to write my opinion(s) on things that I read, but I just didn't (and still don't) have enough time to do it. Everytime I read a bit ... or byte ... from the {site, book, magazine}, I stopped and thinking of things that I wanted to tell (the world). The reading is very slow ... and I get less sleep. I should just stop reading and write more.

This is the 4th year Warta Ekonomi magazine initiated its (Indonesian) "e-Government Award." As usual, I participated as one of the juries. The result is listed below. Kabupaten/ Kota Category Kota Yogyakarta (skor: 815) Kabupaten Bantul (765) Kabupaten Sleman (685) Province Category Jawa Timur (760) DI Yogyakara (720) Jawa Barat (705) Departemen Departemen Pekerjaan Umum (715) Departemen Pertanian (650) Departemen Koperasi dan UKM (610) Non-Departemen Badan Koordinasi Survei dan Pemetaan Nasional (730) Badan Pengawas Pasar Modal (705) Sorry, I have not had a chance to translate the names into English. Well, you get the idea by guessing the names. For the Indonesian version of this page, have a look at my other blog at http://rahard.blogsome.com/2005/10/07/warta-ekonomi-e-gov-award-2005/ One interesting thing is that the winning list is dominated by Yogyakarta and its surrounding area (Yogyakarta, Sleman, Bantul, and of course its own province). This is interesting. I don...