Gerakan Bawah Tanah - Mr. GBT

The world fall in love with selfie. Even selfie has become a word in English dictionary recently. What you don't know is that we, Indonesians, "invented" selfie. For years young Indonesians - especially girls - take mug shot of themselves and post them in their facebook profiles. They even have certain style that I cannot explain. I just cannot describe it. (Later, when I know how I will update this.) But, trust me, we know our stuff. Selfie is our thing :) I saw an interesting article this morning, a comparison between selfie styles in different cities. Oddly, Jakarta or Bandung is not even in the list. They got it wrong!

Here's the deal, I have (too) many email accounts. Each mail for different purposes; teaching, business, (community) public services, personals, and testing. Aside from my gmail / yahoo accounts, these email accounts reside on many mail servers, some of which my own. On one machine I have multiple outgoing email addresses and one (or two) incoming emails. The different email addresses are mainly aliases. I use all kinds of email clients. Currently, I use mutt and Thunderbird. In the old days, I used elm, mutt, Pegasus, and Eudora. In the old email clients I can set the outgoing email address to whatever I want. Currently, this is not working with Thunderbird. It is limited to ONE username per server. (Maybe it is a way to protect users from creating fake email addresses?) How do I force it to use multiple user one one server? (Update: this is solved by "Manage Identities" configuration in the Account Settings.) Anyway, should I roll my own Mail User Agent (MUA)? or ...

I guess I congratulate WhatsApp too soon. Not long after WhatsApp is bought by Facebook, the system went down. (At least a couple times here in Indonesia.) As I mentioned in previous post, many Indonesians are using WhatsApp for many things (as a backup of SMS/text msg). When you depend on a system and the system is down, you're angry. And in this particular case, looking for another solution. Fortunately, there's Telegram . I am pretty sure that MANY Indonesians are installing Telegram right now. I do. This is the moment for Telegram to seize the day . I am pretty sure that their traffic will increase significantly. (And perhaps for Twitter or Google to buy Telegram!) One of the features Telegram puts forward is secret chat. With the new Snowden-era I am sure that many would like this feature. Although, Indonesians are not so into privacy. Cost - in this particular case, Free - is the main feature. Second is small footprint (so it can run on inexpensive devices). Way to g...

Facebook surprised many people by buying WhatsApp. Some people questioned the move, but I think it is a good move. Here's why. In Indonesia, BlackBerry and its BBM used to be the number one messaging platform for mobil users. Since there are more than 100 million mobile users in Indonesia, the market for mobile messaging is significant. BB captured the first market. At that time, it is the only available solution. Then came WhatsApp. We embraced it right away. The reason is that we do not have to use BB devices to run the application. Remember that BB devices used to be expensive (but, people bought them for social status and lifestyles) and you have to use BB services. Not nice. That makes non-BB users addopted WhatsApp quickly. Personally, I don't like messaging on my phones since I tend to get quite a number of messages. I leave that to my emails. (I receive 500 emails/day.) But, people are organizing many things with WhatsApp. I have no choice but to use WhatsApp. It...

Tomorrow, Monday, I am giving a presentation about (my) failed startups in an entrepreneurship class (EE, ITB). I started many tech companies since early 90s. These days I do mentoring for startups (and thinking of starting up); on and off campus. Thinking of what I am going to talk. Hmm... I just tell them stories how I started my first ones in Canada and why they failed; the (inventions) ideas are to early. Then, I will talk about my startups in Indonesia; what works and what doesn't work. Let's see if we can have a good discussion. I hope I can inspire them to become entrepreneurs and at the same time they can avoid mistakes that I made. See you in class.

Here's a short news from Indonesia. Kelud (or Kelut) erupted. This is a volcano in East Java. The eruption is big. Here, in Bandung - West Java, the sky is cloudy and a tiny layer of ashes are covering the city I hope the people in the are safe and can get through this. Our prayers are with you. Before this, recently, Sinabung in North Sumatra also erupted. We're living dangerously in Indonesia. Related post: Kelud and Sinabung (from the Atlantic)

It's still rainy season in Indonesia. Well, in most parts of Indonesia. Everyday is cloudy. Gloomy. Rain pours everyday. And the result is flood. Arrrggghh. The feeling is similar to having too many snow during long winter season. Depressing, isn't it? Now it is time to listen to Carpenter's "Rainy Days dan Mondays."

The term "selfie" has becoming more popular these days after head of states took portraits of themselves (selfie) and was captured by news media. But, in Asia countries - like Indonesia - this is nothing new. Sic selfie photos have become part of Indonesian cyber culture since day one. Few years ago I often take pictures of my self and post them on various social media. I wasn't thinking. Then, there were problems (of people abusing the photos, stalkers, etc.). Now, it is my policy of not to post selfie. In fact, I don't take pictures of myself anymore. What's new? Selfie stick - also known as Zuckerberg selfie stick - is becoming popular. What is it? It's a stick where you can mount your digital camera at the end of the stick. You can take pictures of yourself (or with friends) without the help of other poeple. Go search the internet for it. You know what I mean. No, I won't buy one!

Just found the following slides in slideshare, " Indonesia - the social media capital of the world " by On Device Research. Interesting ... The data are correct. Although, at the end of the slide, the address is not in Indonesia. Yeah, I know. I keep on hammering this issue. You have to be in Indonesia to understand Indonesia (Indonesians). Where else would you be?

In past post, I mentioned that Indonesians love Path . Sure enough, Path closes funding deal led by Indonesian's company; Bakrie Global Group. But, we have to realize that Indonesia's cyber space is a fast changing environment. That's why - as I said many many many times - you have to be here, physically in Indonesia to know this. People are not flocking to Path anymore. In fact, I have uninstalled Path. And many have done so, leaving Path. It's just a short infatuation. Unless, Path is doing something, it is dying. Go down here . Talk to the people here. They are your main users! Most people think that sharing things in a close user group is the main thing. Thus, Path. But, most Indonesians do not care about privacy. They want people to see their postings (text, photos, etc.). The more people see the postings, the better. And you cannot do that if you post to just your friends. Update . After this news, there are plenty of funny "news", jokes, etc. ...

Took photos this morning. Just around our house. The weather just perfect; bright, cool, breezy. I just love Bandung. Good morning folks. The view from our house is now blocked by this structure :(  Oh well. Perhaps it is a structure to search for ETI? Or maybe this is part of NSA's interception post? ha ha ha.

It has been a while since I posted photos to this blog. I think I should doing this again. I am a little rusty on this. (For example, should I upload the photos directly here, or just link to phots that I have on picasa. Let me play with this.) Siomay dim sum I have many photos, but most of them are not processed yet. It's time to share them here. Enjoy.

I love reading, but these days I find it more difficult for me to read. First, the materials that I have to read increases. I thought, by the time you're older, you'll get less and less books to read. Or, perhaps the pace of everything is so fast that there are more things to read. Second, and the most important one, is that I don't like reading sitting in a chair. I love reading lying down in my sofa or even on a carpet. I could not do that with documents that I have on my computer(s). Yes, I have a tablet that I can use to access these digital documents, but even with tablet I still have difficulties - mostly in going back and forth between pages. I still love paper-based books. It's just not practical to print my digital documents. Now, I am stuck and complaining here. And I have to type this in front of my desktop computer. Arrrggghhh.

I am a big believer of 10,000 hours-to-become-an-expert thing. I assume, I can trade hours with similar measurement. For example, to become an expert in photography, I have to take at least 10,000 photos. Or, if I want to be an expert in blogging, I should write at least 10,000 blog posts. So, here's my first post in 2014 to contribute to that counter. The statistics on this blog says that last year I only blogged 16 times! Whoa, that little??? This year I have to do more than that. At least twice. Should I say this is my resolution? Now, must take at least a photo today. ...

There are a lot of discussions on privacy these days. The internet and social media are getting most of the blame. Is this privacy issue for real? Yes, in the West, but no in Indonesia. I've been talking to some Indonesians about privacy. I give a lot of talks and in these talks usually I ask the audience what they think about privacy.  Many think that they have issues related to privacy, but from what they do it seems they don't have problems at all. For instance, Indonesians like to put their real identity - including birth date, schools they went, their child(ren), and more - on their social media! When I ask why they do that, the answers are simple; to get birthday greetings and to organize (alumni) reunions. That's why they have to put real birth dates and real schools. Same thing with photos. Indonesians like to share with families, friends, and even strangers. There was a survey - I lost the URL (if you know there URL, please let me know) - regarding privacy and ...

It has been a while, a couple of weeks I think, I cannot access Apple Store. What I mean by that is that I cannot update my applications on my iPhone, iPad, dan Macbook. It just stalled. I can access the main page, but updating applications doesn't work. Those applications that I tried to update are not accessible right now. Arrrggghhh... I have tried using different internet service providers, including my cell operators. All to no avail. Is this a specific case or a regional problem? I am in Indonesia.

One of the main reasons I subscribe to Indovision - satelite TV provider in Indonesia - is to watch English Barclays Premier League. I love soccer. But this season, for some reasons I don't know, this is not available in Indovision. I heard rumors about they could not get the license or something like that. In any case, this is bad for English soccer in general. People are now watching Spanish LA Liga soccer instead. I think somebody should take good care of this. Or, English soccer is losing fans in Indonesia.

Gone are the days of BlackBerry in Indonesia. It is replaced by ... Oppo ! When I go to stores or malls that sell cellphones, there used to be many counters with BlackBerry signs. Nowadays, the view is diffrent. It is Oppo sign. At first, I thought the trend is Samsung. But, it is Oppo. I didn't see it coming. Oppo phones are Android phones. They have great features similar to those of Samsung's (and some say are better) but are less expensive. Price is still the dominant factor in Indonesia. Although, lifestyle still dominates the buying factor. In this case, Oppo did the right thing; great lifestyle and less expensive. [I still miss my Samsung Galaxy S4 though. It was a loaner and had to go back to the owner. I really like it.]

Tried to open gplus. Few minutes passed by. Items were shown on the screen, but I couldn't type anything. Another minutes passed by. More items. Still couldn't type. Finally, I gave up. The above story is not an isolated event. I just happen to me almost all the time. Why would I post anything to gplus? I could do that on Facebook or Twitter. -- diary of a " fakirbandwidth "  (Indonesian: meaning, a person lack of bandwidth)