Yearly Archives: 2005

Accident

On the 15th November 2005, I was involved in a motorcycle accident.

I have finished my work and asked one of my staff to drive me home on the office’s motorcycle. I didn’t expect anything since he’s quite polite and well-mannered.

It started when a bus stopped on our lane. Clearly, this means that there’s another vehicle in front of that bus, most likely will be entering the opposite lane. The bus was giving way to this vehicle.
However, instead of stopping, my driver was pulling the throttle to the max, and he tried to overtook the bus. My heart stopped pounding for a while, and I thought that this would be my last moments on earth.

Thankfully, the vehicle was entering the other lane slowly, and we passed by unharmed. If only that car was going a bit faster, we’d have been dead, or at least severely wounded.

I was just about to shout at this idiot when I saw something else – there’s a girl riding motorbike in front of us, and she’s going to do a right turn.
Unfortunately, my idiot driver, probably still feeling victorious for being able to overtake so many vehicles in one go, again accelerated the bike, and tried to overtake her motorcycle from the RIGHT.

Truly, there’s no limit to human’s stupidity.

I was only able to shout “awas!!” (watch out), and the next thing I know, we were thrown pretty far away from the collision spot.

I was injured on my left arm, left leg, and minor injuries on my right leg.
There are bruises in several places. Also I was unable to use my left leg without feeling sharp pain in it.

Actually, I should suffer worse injuries on my left leg, but I was saved by the PDAir casing that was being used to enclose my Nokia 9500.
The case was badly damaged, many deep scratches and it won’t close anymore. However, my Nokia 9500 escaped the incident with no damage at all. And if it’s not there, then my upper leg would have been torn apart. Thank God.

The girl that he hit was a bit injured. When he was more concerned about my condition, despite me already saying I’m alright, I shouted to him to escort her straight away to the nearest hospital.
Thankfully, she was diagnosed only with minor injuries, and discharged from the hospital before us.

A bit more about this incident later, must rest now.
If you find it hard to contact me this past few days, here’s why. Apologies, hopefully you can understand my current situation.

A few photos:

My injuries : warning, some may find these pictures depressing. Don’t click if you can’t see rather gory images.

Wound on my left arm
Injuries on my left foot
Minor injuries on my right foot

My PDAir case:

The scratches, actually it’s pretty deep. Makes me shudder, when I remember how strong the metal is.
The whole picture
Now it can’t be closed anymore

My left leg took most of the weight when I fell, the trouser was ripped apart. Thankfully, there was the PDAir case behind it, acting like an armor for my leg.

Here’s for PDAir case : Highly recommended !

Ulil mencaci maki MUI dan para Ulama ?

Saya baru sadar bahwa Ulil telah mencaci maki para ulama.
Di artikel ini, Ulil membantah telah mengatakan KH. Sahal Mahfudz dengan ucapan tolol.
Tapi, kalau kita baca disini, ternyata yang dicaci bukan hanya beliau, namun juga Prof. Din Syamsudin, dan para ulama (MUI) lainnya.

Bantahan Ulil diatas tersebut sebetulnya juga belum clear betul, karena belum ada klarifikasi dari pihak detik.com
(apakah menurut mereka memang detik.com yang khilaf, atau sebaliknya)

Oh well..

Berita 10/Nov/05

Symfony Project:

Bagi mereka yang menginginkan framework ala Rails, namun di PHP, kini dapat mencoba Symfony Project

Rails dan Symfony Project memungkinkan web developer untuk menghasilkan aplikasi web yang lebih bagus, mudah di update — dan dalam waktu yang singkat.

Symfony project punya satu kelebihan lagi, yaitu fasilitas AJAX sudah built-in.
Demonya cukup mengesankan, bisa dilihat disini. Dan Anda akan semakin terkesima ketika melihat bagaimana mudahnya membuat demo tersebut.

Symfony project membutuhkan PHP5.
Selamat mencoba.

Baterai laptop tahan 15 jam:

Samsung berencana untuk mulai memproduksi baterai laptop yang tahan digunakan selama 15 jam pada tahun 2007.
Baterai tersebut bisa bertahan sedemikian lama karena menggunakan butane.

Jika smartphone & PDA bisa memanfaatkan ini juga, maka tidak lama lagi kita akan bisa menikmati smartphone yang berperforma tinggi, dengan fitur-fitur yang tidak kalah dari laptop, dan bisa digunakan dalam jangka waktu yang lama.

Best SATA hard disk ?

It seems that it’d be Western Digital WD4000YR. Check this out : 400 GB capacity, 16MB buffer, uses WD’s Raptor technology heavily, beats pretty much all other SATA hard disk in various benchmark, and so on.

A bit of history; I bought 2 WD Caviar SE 120 GB, the ones with the (then) phenomenal 8 MB buffer, making it the (then) fastest ATA hard disk. Unfortunately, they seems to be not very reliable, with both already dead.
Reading the review above, it seems that WD has fixed this issue.

It seems to be THE hard disk to buy if you’re a power user.
Do you agree ? Let me know.

Twelve Monkeys

Just watched this 1995 movie, and it’s great. Lots of interesting ideas and thought-provoking.
Advice: watch it with the subtitle turned on, otherwise you may miss clues and ended up confused.

A few quotes from it:

Dr. Kathryn Railly:
…the truth is what everybody accepts. …psychiatry: it’s the latest religion. We decide what’s right and wrong. …I’m losing my faith.

Jeffrey Goines:
There’s no right, there’s no wrong, there’s only popular opinion.
(in this case, the fruitcake is actually wiser than most people)

Ikan beracun

Kemarin adik saya bercerita. Katanya, dia kini cuma berani membeli ikan dari satu pedagang di pasar dekat rumahnya.
Pedagang ini agak mojok sendiri lokasinya, ikan yang dijualnya dikerumuni lalat, dan harganya hampir 2 kali lipat pedagang lainnya. Namun, adik saya bisa yakin bahwa ikannya tidak diberi formalin (bahan untuk pengawet mayat).

Para pedagang ikan lainnya bersumpah bahwa ikan jualan mereka tidak diberi “obat” (istilah untuk formalin). Namun, ikan mereka tetap utuh dan tidak membusuk, padahal hanya direndam di dalam air (berformalin?). Dan tidak ada lalat yang mendekati ikan-ikan tersebut.

Alangkah sulitnya untuk hidup sehat di negara ini 🙁

idsoftware.com

I was browsing around and decided to visit idsoftware.com after missing it for years.
My, looks like they’ve been very busy this October !

They just announced the new Wolfenstein (will be developed by Raven software). Return To Castle Wolfenstein (RTCW) had the best co-operative multiplayer game. You actually had to work together, or you will lose the game. It’s MUCH better (IMHO) than the usual deatchmatch-style games.
I was lucky enough to be in UK at that time (big Internet bandwidth), and therefore was able to enjoy many excellent multiplayer sessions online. It was an awesome experience; if you think deathmatch is great, wait until you tried co-op.
But now in Indonesia, I hope this new Wolfenstein will include a bot 🙂 so we can enjoy it without needing to connect to the Internet. It’s not as if I’d be able to play it freely though, since I’ve got way more responsibilities now….. Anyway, next:

Quake 4 !
I was looking rather warmly at it – but soon I got very interested, since it’s made by Raven software. This company has good record of creating games with excellent gameplay.
Fight with the support of an elite squad” – so they’ve finally figured out an AI algorithm good enough for this? Good for them, RTCW:ET was released as free game because they failed to get this working on time.
So I guess this means I can also expect the new Wolfenstein to have bots in its co-op mode (hurray)

And of course DOOM: The Movie. If you ever played the game (especially DOOM 3), or just want to watch an excellent action/horror movie, you don’t want to miss this.

Well done id software.

DOOM

Apa sama sekali belum ada yang menonton film ini ? 🙂 Anyway, berhubung saya sudah menunggu selama… 10 tahun? 12 tahun? Too long, basically 🙂 jadi begitu saya lihat poster film Doom di Plaza Senayan, saya langsung menyatakan bahwa saya akan menjadi salah satu penonton pertamanya di Jakarta. Apalagi ketika menyadari bahwa di Inggris film ini baru akan diputar pada tanggal 2 Desember; wow… my condolences, he he.

Di luar dugaan, ternyata partner saya tersenyum mendengarnya, dan mengatakan bahwa dia akan ikut menonton juga. Well, the more the merrier 🙂

Jadi, minggu lalu (24 Oktober 2005), kita mampir ke bioskop PIM2. Bioskop terisi sekitar 2/3-nya, not bad.

SPOILER ALERT: meneruskan membaca posting ini **mungkin** akan menyebabkan Anda membaca beberapa spoiler film ini.

Continue reading DOOM

OpenOffice 2 !!

Finally, OpenOffice version 2 has been officially released !
Even less reason to pay Microsoft for their Office software, and Access (now that OO includes a database software)

For those in Indonesia, click here to get the best download speed possible.

Note: if you’re having problems with Office documents becoming weird when opened in OpenOffice — they’d LOVE to hear about it from you. You are welcome to send that troublesome file to them, so they can analyze it, and enable OpenOffice to open it with no problem.
Detailed instructions for that is available here

Enjoy !

Assorted links

Some interesting links I found in the past few days :

GIMPShop for Windows (finally !!) No more excuses to pirate Photoshop now :
http://plasticbugs.com/?p=300

Awesome list of Windows freeware utilities. Now, who’d be so kind enough as to create a CD of it and put it on the Internet ?
http://www.dirk-loss.de/win-tools.htm

Water as the fuel for the future – I hope Indonesian Government read this interesting article :
http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051016/COLUMNISTS04/510160404/1008/NEWS01

Inside Indonesia’s War on Terror

I was alerted by a friend of mine about a special documentary made by SBS titled “Inside Indonesia’s War on Terror”. He said that this documentary has exposed the terror-network which involves USA government, Indonesian Police & Army, Interpol, and so on.

Unfortunately, SBS has pulled down the show’s transcript from its website. “The transcript is currently unavailable”, that’s all to it there.

However, copies of it has spread all over the Internet. A copy of it can be read here: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20051014&articleId=1085

Indonesia is no stranger to this kind of set ups. Many of us still remember the “Komando Jihad” (translation: Jihad Commando) – it was created by General Ali Moertopo.

Today is truly the time of “fitnah” / lies.
I hope God will continue to help us to expose these, and brings peace soon to our world. Amen.

Below is a copy of the show’s transcript for your convenience.

Continue reading Inside Indonesia’s War on Terror

100 blog Indonesia: versi Google

Priyadi membuat posting baru-baru ini mengenai 100 blog Indonesia. Daftar ranking tersebut adalah menurut Technorati.

Saya pikir, bagaimana kalau menurut Google ?

Ini yang kemudian saya lakukan:

  1. Meng-copy daftar situs 100 blog tersebut dari posting Priyadi
  2. Membuat script PHP yang :
    • Mengambil satu situs dari daftar
    • Mengakses Google
    • Memeriksa rankingnya di Google, dengan melihat total inbound links untuk situs ybs
    • Menampilkan hasilnya dalam format HTML
    • Ulang lagi, sampai seluruh 100 situs tersebut selesai diperiksa.

Hasilnya ternyata agak berbeda, yaitu sebagai berikut:
Continue reading 100 blog Indonesia: versi Google

Windows Genuine Advantage

Chance is, you’ve encountered this when you’re trying to download certain files from Microsoft’s website. Personally, I’ve been avoiding files which requires me to go through it. However, today I was no longer able to evade it.

I was having problems with MDAC and need to find out its exact version. A tool called Component Checker will do this for me.
When I clicked on its download link, it asked me to go through “Windows Genuine Advantage” to verify that I’m using legit version of Windows, not some pirated copy. *Sigh* so I loaded up Internet Explorer (hi! long time no see) and clicked on the continue button.

It demanded that I downloaded a 400KB tool and run it. It may seem nothing to you with 1 Mbps pipe at your home, but here I am in Indonesia, where Internet access can be more expensive than gold – and it still sucks. So downloading 400KB is pretty painful, especially at PEAK hours.

After very long wait, it gave me a code to put back in the browser. So I put it in, and clicked on VALIDATE button.
After long wait – oops, it seems that Internet Explorer in my laptop is too old and can’t run the required ActiveX control. (guess why? because I’ve no longer use it ! so didn’t feel the need to update it)

So it now asked me to download yet another tool, to verify that I’m not pirating their precious copy of Windows. I’m starting to get angry (hey, I paid loads of money for this copy of Windows), but do I have a choice ?
So I clicked on the link.

After a very long wait (again!), “Genuine WIndows Hypertext Application” (whatever that means) showed up. Hurray ?
Not yet, it’s now scanning my laptop for God knows what. Here’s me (honest Microsoft customer) waiting again, while the pirates probably are laughing all over the world.

After waiting, and waiting……. finally it’s done its job. It says “Please click Continue to complete the validation process”.
So I clicked on that button.

What’s happen now? Yep, another delay, while it loads *tadaaa* Firefox.
Argh… thought Microsoft wants IE to dominate the world? Must be wrong.

But hey, Firefox loaded up the download page for Component Checker. Hurray !

So I clicked on the link, and after waiting for the 413KB download to finish, I finally got what I needed.

“Windows Genuine Advantage” eh?
Uh huh… when I bought my next laptop, I’ll make sure it came with Debian Sarge loaded. Do you hear me Dell ? HP ? Toshiba ?

Good Security Blogs

A few personal favorites:

Security for Everyone: http://securityawareness.blogspot.com/

Windows Security: http://sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/

Practical Corporate/Enterprise Security / Security News : http://taosecurity.blogspot.com/

btw – do you know that Internet Explorer has 25 security holes, that’s yet to be patched by Microsoft ?
It doesn’t affect me though since I’ve been using Opera/Firefox for quite a while now.

Komentar Aa Gym mengenai iklan layanan masyarakatnya (BBM)

Seperti yang kita telah ketahui, Aa Gym cukup menuai badai karena dianggap telah menjadi corong pemerintah dalam soal kenaikan BBM.

Ternyata menurut beliau, iklan tersebut telah kena editing yang cukup lumayan, sehingga menimbulkan kesan yang berbeda dari yang diinginkan beliau.
Berikut ini adalah pernyataan dari Humas Daarut Tauhid mengenai hal ini.

=====================

From: Mohammad Syarif Aribowo
Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2005 10:29:04 +0700
Subject: [NIT_ProClub] Pernyataan resmi dari Daarut Tauhid .

PERNYATAAN RESMI KH. ABDULLAH GYMNASTIAR
MENGENAI IKLAN KENAIKAN HARGA BBM
Melalui telepon dari Mekkah, 7 Oktober 2005 Pukul 05.30
WIB

1. Aa sangat berterima kasih kepada semua pihak yang
memberikan saran, informasi, kritik ataupun termasuk yang
memberikan somasi, karena yakin semua ini dilandasi niat
baik untuk kemaslahatan bersama.

2. Aa sebagai seorang rakyat yang sangat rindu melihat
bangsa ini akur, bersatu menghadapi masalah, ? perlu
digarisbawahi ? bahwa tidak ada niat dan kesepakatan untuk
menjadi corong pihak manapun berkaitan dengan kenaikan
BBM, baik untuk yang pro maupun yang kontra, posisi Aa
tidak dalam keadaan dukung-mendukung pro dan kontra,
melainkan posisinya mengajak seluruh lapisan masyarakat
dalam menghadapi krisis ini bersatu-padu mencari solusi
terbaik walaupun ada perbedaan. Kita hadapi persoalan ini
dengan penuh kesabaran dan ketawakalan serta keikhlasan
menjalani ujian, ? karena tidak hanya negeri kita saja ?,
sehingga kita mendapat pertolongan Allah. Jadi kalau
dikatakan Aa bagian corong dari Pemerintah untuk
mensosialisasikan kenaikan BBM, sama sekali tidak benar,
tidak ada niatan atau kesepakatan untuk melakukan hal itu.
Dari awal iklan layanan masyarakat itu semata-mata dibuat
untuk membantu masyarakat agar tetap terkendali dan
bersatu.

3. Aa sangat prihatin sesudah mendengar informasi serta
adanya persepsi yang tidak sesuai dengan harapan, yaitu
dianggap menjadi perpanjangan tangan dalam
mensosialisasikan kenaikan BBM. Hal ini membuat ? sejak
ada pertama informasi ini ? langsung kepada pihak
Production House (PH) untuk mengevaluasi keberadaan iklan
tersebut dan berulang kali meminta agar tayangan itu
dihentikan dan diganti sehingga tidak menimbulkan salah
persepsi.

4. Alhamdulillah, mudah-mudahan secepatnya tayangan yang
bisa menimbulkan persepsi yang berbeda itu dihentikan
karena akan kontra-produktif dan silahkan andai kata
pemerintah mau membuat tayangan lain yang sesuai dan tidak
menimbulkan pro-kontra.

5. Aa sangat berterimakasih kepada seluruh lapisan
masyarakat yang bersikap arif dan bijak, sehingga
persoalan ini menjadi pelajaran dan hikmah bagi kita
semua. Betapa niat baik saja tidak cukup, harus disertai
juga dengan upaya-upaya yang tepat sehingga niat bisa
sesuai sasaran.

Bandung, 7 Oktober 2005
Humas Daarut Tauhiid Bandung