Gerakan Bawah Tanah - Mr. GBT

as date marked we have planned for the worst it's armageddon as time approached speculation arises it's the end but folks, we have assumed control it's the beginning of a new journye we have assumed control we have assumed control ... control ... control ... control [21-12-2012 - inspired by Kerry Yackoboski 's posting on his Facebook]

By accident I saw BlackBerry ads in Indonesia TV channels. I don't watch Indonesia TV channels that much, by the way. To me, these ads are way off the target. First, there is this ads about socialites using genuine BBs. The focus is on the genuine BBs. First of all, I don't think Indonesians buy BBs because of wanting to be the same as elite or socialites. It (maybe) used to be like that, but it is not like that. BBs are not the hottest things. Second, trying to convice us of genuine? Come on. You know us better than that :) Then, there's this ads about must using BB for accessing Facebook. Well, Facebook is still popular in Indonesia but many younger users are moving more towards twitter. (I've been saying this, but those decision makers at Facebook and RIM would not listen. Fine. It's their loss.) So, advertising more towards twitter as oppose to facebook is more logical. What should be done? Facebook was the only service to provide easy upload of photos, ...

This morning I was dusting off my old collections. I found this Sally Oldfield - Water Bearer album. Interesting. This was her 1978 album, I think. So I gave it a spin. Lovely. Listening to old progressive rock music is just like reading old English literature. Interesting in a strange manner.

I love modifying the look and feel of my screen, especially changing the fonts. Many applications (web sites) do not allow the user to change the fonts. They suck! Enter Stylish . It lets me trap the layout and change according to my taste. I can have different look and feel according to the address, URL, or even global. I love Stylish. Now, there are (new) applications under Google Chrome . For example, I've been using tweetdeck under Chrome. The problem is, tweetdeck does not allow me to change fonts. I want to user Stylish to change the fonts but don't know how to do it. For example, I don't know how to match the address or URL for this. I tried to use "tweetdeck" as part of URL / regex, but it doesn't work. Any hints? For now, let me play with it.

Last time I wrote about the demise of BlackBerry (BB) in Indonesia and no one believed me. As you can see, BB's share is getting smaller and smaller. Android is getting all the attention. This time, I'll write my take on Facebook vs. Twitter. Indonesians love to talk. We don't write, but talk. It's just our culture. That's why the number of written publication in Indonesia is very small. Our culture translates well into Facebook. We love to tell people about our family and stuff. We love to show our photos. We love (class) reunions. Have a reunion, take pictures, upload them right away. Tell the world. Let's not go into taking photos of our food. That's another "strange" behaviors. Privacy? Well, that's not an issue to us. We don't really care. Ha! Seriously. Originally, Facebook is only accessible through web or computers. Access to computers are still limitted in Indonesia compared to cellphone. Thus, only a small number of people j...

I love taking food photos. I keep most of them for my self. Uploaded, but mostly for archiving purposes. Sometimes I do post food photos just to tease you folks :)  Like this one, lamb kebab. I should post more food photos :)

Ok here's the deal. I wanted to install Firefox on my Debian machine. I downloaded Firefox directly from Mozilla.org. After tinkering around a bit, since there was an error message related to libstdc6++, I got it up and running for me. But I wanted to install for all users. I understood that there is iceweasel and that it "is" Firefox, but to me they are different. For starters, current version of Iceweasel in my Debian is version 3.5 but the Firefox that I installed manually is version 15. They are just way far apart. Why is this? Isn't there anybody porting / compiling the latest version of Firefox for Debian? The second thing, is that I use stylish (userstyles.org) a lot. It just wouldn't install on my Iceweasel. So, iceweasel is no good for me. My conclusion ... iceweasel is not Firefox!

Not long ago, whenever I meet somebody, I was asked for my BlackBerry (BB) pin. These days I rarely got this question. Mobile phone number was asked instead. Facebook notifications also mentioned that many of my friends are starting to use Facebook for Android application. It means that they are switching from BB to Android-based phone. Recent status from a friend also showed this trend. What does all of this mean? It means that Android is replacing BlackBerry in Indonesia. We used to be a big market for BB, but now it is declining. Long time ago I urged BB to open a research center in Indonesia. To investigate our behavior, why we loved BB. You cannot do this from remote. It has to be here, in Indonesia. BB was nice at one point. Its price packaging was great at that time. You can send as many messages as you like with BBM. At that time we have to pay for SMS. Very small amount of money, but still in our mind we have to pay while BBM is "free". We forgot that there i...

Leadership is one of my fav subject. I want to know and write about this topic, but time is so limited right now. Let me throw this issue. Why is now difficult to find a leader? We've seen this in all part of the world. Lack of leader(s) what got us in this situation. When we read history that there are many leaders in the past. Be that they're cruel, but still leaders. But now, in many elections we are faced with no good candidate. What happened to us? Do we eat the wrong food? Wrong climate? Education? Or what?

I use(d) seesmic to do my tweeting. It has a nice web interface, which I customized so that it uses different fonts and the like. I love it. But, now seesmic is pushing users to use its "seesmic ping". There are things that I don't like. First of all, seesmic ping only allows you to post tweet. I don't know how to read tweets that I follow. For that I have to use another application / web site. Then, what's the purpose of using seemic ping? Second, the plan that I choose is the free plan. It only gives 10 posts / day. What? Even for me, who on average only tweet 14 times a day, it is too low. Right now it even won't allow me to post, saying that I have exceeded the account limit even though I have not posted at all. So I guess, now, I am looking for alternatives ...

I used to be an avid tumblr user, but these days I use pinterest more often. Pinterest, in my opinion, is tumblr on steroids. The reason I am leaving tumblr is that there is no innovation. Nothing new. And it is becoming ... boring. This is an example case of innovate or die. What do you think?

I was trying to upload photos through my Google+ but couldn't do it. I have a slow bandwidth and the g+ animation (and downloading of the photos) is just too much. For example, if I want to upload a photo into an existing album (which already has 50 photos) then it would load and show those 50 photos before it let me upload into the album. My way of avoiding this is to use picasaweb.google.com directly instead of using g+. Animation is nice, but too much animation is boring and annoying. No need to do that. Keep it simple, will you Google.

Few days ago I was watching Castle on TV. There was an advertising saying that if I captured Castle and Beckett in interogation room and send it to foxasia@fox.com I would get a chance to get a copy of Castle graphic diary (which is a comic). So, while watching the series I took snapshots on my camera. Hoping that it would show the TV screen. Mailed it to the email address. No response. Not even an acknowledgement. I felt cheated. Oh well. I guess next time I wouldn't participate in any of that (from Fox). There ...

I looked around in my neck of the wood. It seems that youngsters want to become artists, singers, and the like. Basically they want to be in the entertainment industries. Nobody seems to be interested in engineering anymore. That's scary. Being an engineer, I love the idea of building stuff. Creating things. Building the world. Sometimes it is man againsts nature. It is not easy, but it is fun. Let me emphasize it again, it is not easy. Period. There is an illusion that being popular is fun. In reality, it is not always. It's a grand illusion. On the other hand, youngsters don't know what it's like being an engineer. Maybe we should write more about this. Tell stories. Heck, even make a great movie about it. No, not Inspector Gadget-kind of movie, but a cool movie. Any takers?

this is what I have in front of me

Long time ago I asked a friend, what is missing living in a country without four seasons. She said that the sense of progress is what's missing. I guess the same feeling is missing when I am reading an e-book. Reading an e-book I don't have a sense of how many pages left to read. I know that there is an indicator of the number pages in most e-books reader. There's even a percentage indicator. But, I don't get the sensation. When reading a conventional, physical book, I put a bookmark. Looking at the bookmark I get the sense of how much more I have to read. Sometimes I flip the pages just to get the sense. I know I can calculate based on current page and the number of pages in the book, but it just don't work. Maybe this is because I came from an analog world? Anyway, it would be interesting if somebody can create that kind of progress sensation when reading e-books. That would be neat.

I've been using last.fm to keep track my music (listening) habbit . It has a great statistics. Love it soo much. But things have been like that for ages. There's no new thing. Recently, there are several applications that can keep track of your life by asking you to "check in" manually or automatically. The interesting thing is that they reward you for checking in. For example, in getglue you'll get stickers after several checkins. In other places you get points, rewards, or ranks. This is missing in last.fm. Last.fm could update their site by providing ranks (people who use last.fm frequently) or group people with the same interest(s) - say if they have more than 90% match - in a special group. They can even rename their group to a cooler name. This way we can find people with the same interest and perhaps learn new artists or bands from the rest of the group. Lots of ideas are still available if last.fm is interested. Or, maybe last.fm is a dying service?...

a fool who was lost and thought was saved but was bleeding maybe even deserves the scars looking for a hiding place to lick wounds or to die in loneliness

Does meeting equal food? To use, the answer is yes! Like right now. I am in the middle of a training session (it's a network security training) and am surrounded by food. Here's an example ... That's just an example. I've got more photos here. Seriously. The problem is not the photos, but I actually ate them! Three words: Oh my God!

semut (ants)

It has been a while since I updated the look and feel of this blog. The reasons is that I need to set a side a time to do it, which I don't have. I have manual tweaks into this blog. For example, the stuffs on the right side (it may change in the future) are coded by hand. Today, I decided to update. Squeezing this task on my busy schedule. So here it is ... I still need to do some configuration; changing the background image, fonts, and the like. But, that has to wait. In the mean time I have to frequently update this blog and that's the hardest part.

Here is my wish list: Phillip sings Sting song(s). He has that kind of "attitude" in his voice that fits Sting's song. Elise sings Carpenters song(s). She has that clean (actually rasp) voice. It would be interesting when she sings a Carpenter song (Karen's clean voice is just unbelievable). Joshua sings James Brown's songs(s). I love that gospel in his voice. That's all for now. I'll update it again. I know. My wish list is kinda crazy, but that's how I picture them singing.

I am in Bali right now. I should enjoy the weather, beaches, and the like. Basically, taking a holiday. But, nooo ... I have to work! So, two days here and I haven't had a chance to relaxing. Tomorrow I am going back. So what's the point going to Bali?

It is scary to see incompetent people making decision. I am not talking about decision that is affecting themselves, but ones that affecting many people. The reason I know about this is I know them personally. Ouch ... I just hope that they are surrounded by capable people so that the effect is not so severe. They might learn something. Just might ... The question is, will they become incompetent forever?

I have a hypothesis: if you tweet a lot, you get more followers . Granted there has to be some kind of guidelines on what you tweet to attract followers. You would tweet something that you would think it's useful, at least to you. You wouldn't tweet something that you don't even want to read. Having that, I think quantity will attract more followers. I have tested this in my blog. I have a blog that is considered popular, meaning it is in top 10 of Indonesian blogs. (Not this blog, but my other blog . The one you are currently reading is in top 100, though.) When I write more articles, I got a lot of visitors. I know this from the statistic page of wordpress. When I write less article, less visitors. I thought if I write good articles, but less in number, I would attract more or the same number of visitors. It turned out, not. I got more visitors when I write lots of (so-so) articles. Thus, more attracts more. Maybe, it is not the quantity, but the update is the imp...

Arrived to early in my class. My students have not arrived yet. I know the class is too early, 7 AM! So I took a picture. Here it is. The class is actually a big one; 100 students! It's "Introduction to Information Security" class for 3rd year students.

I wish it has no MSG, but judging from the bowl (which has a specific brand) I don't think I will get my wish :)

I don't know wethere I should make a resolution or this is even a resolution, but I just want to write this down. This is what I want to do everyday: read a few pages from a conventional book; read a few pages from an ebook; write a few pages for book(s); write a blog post. This is not easy, but I want to push myself. There may be some missing dates or inclomplete tasks, but I have to try. How far can I go?

First day of 2012. I tried to post photos, status, etc. on my facebook. They don't show up in my timeline. It shows up in main page (facebook.com) though, but it will be pushed by new updates/status. Does anybody know what's going on? I don't like this timeline, but what can I do? There's no option for old facebook view. Too bad. (App designers, read this ... give users option to stay with old look and feel.)