Yearly Archives: 2001

22 March 2001 — 23.12

I’ve had enough – this morning I brought Sarah to Emergency section of Birmingham Children Hospital.
To my surprise, they didn’t get mad (like that idiot in City Hospital) and actually understand why I went there instead of trying to get an appointment for her GP (which, I was told, I can have in the next several weeks – by that time Sarah will have no skin left on her body!).
We have some useful discussion and now our confidence are restored that Sarah can be cured. We just need to be persistent and patient with her condition. (well, easy for me to say indeed)

When you’re feeling blue, go to this site.


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18 March 2001 — 19.38

I was sick for several days. Throat infection – this usually happens when my condition is down. This hasn’t happened to me for quite some time (those badminton sessions sure helped) but with Sarah’s sickness and other people getting sick all around me, I knew this would happen.
The last time I got this problem (throat infection) I went to my GP and was given paracetamol. what the ??? however I was a nice boy and intended to play by their rule – and got sick for three weeks. Ugh.

Now I’ve wisen up, I use the medicine prescribed by my doctor in Indonesia (Amoxicillin 500 mg) and in 3 days I’m almost clear.
You know, Indonesia is supposed to be a third-nation, developing country, very poor, etc. But how come the doctors are way more competent than the ones in UK? S*ckers…


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18 March 2001 — 19.31

Sarah’s eczema returned – now with rubella/measle, great.
Her skin was already very smooth just like other babies, but suddenly she got this rubella. Then her eczema just had to flare up again. And she got cough. And runny nose. And high body temperature. Poor baby, she cried because of all the pain…
But that’s not all – then NHS just had to refuse seeing her at all.
First, I brought her to NHS walk-in center. The nurses there are very friendly, but granted, they’re not GP so can’t prescribe anything. They told me to contact my out-of-hours GP and give their letter describing Sarah’s condition. So I did. But what that GP said? He told me that those nurses are unreliable, so just sit tight, and you’d be fine. ??????? what the *#*!)*# unbelievable. By the way; this is over the phone, he hasn’t actually see my baby. Yeah dude, why don’t you just confess that you’re so lazy! (it was 11 pm)

So I wait until Monday morning and bring Sarah to her GP directly. This time, they refused her flatly on my face. “No can do until the next 3 weeks” basically is what they said, and they turned their back on me. I felt like I’m falling in a bottomless pit…

And some people are wondering why people flocked to the hospitals… I think I’ll do so, because I have the right for the service (the tax here is high!) that would cost NHS more money? See if I care.

What we’ve done so far, we visited our local pharmacist, asked for some medicine, and that’s it. A week goes by already.
A bit helpful, but still she shouldn’t suffer this way if NHS service was a bit better.

Some friends are suggesting that we should complain; problem is, to whom? Deaf ears are everywhere, I need to find a way to make the complaint actually heard and processed. Otherwise I won’t bother wasting my time.


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07 March 2001 — 12.33

Sarah is still a very happy baby – I’m overjoyed.
Hopefully her eczema doesn’t have any plan to return any time shortly – better yet, don’t return at all 😉

I REALLY need that Xircom Rex 6000 to remind me of my own schedules and enabling me to take notes anywhere, without inconveniencing me as with other bulky PDAs …. *sigh* later perhaps, especially to remember that we just did a buying spree recently.


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07 March 2001 — 12.24

My Intel PocketPC camera just arrived today! and you can see the sample pictures (my brother picturing himself, being a megalomaniac) here Hamdani Harman Rukun aka Megaloman and here

The picture is pretty good for sub 100 poundsterling digital camera indeed. And not only that, it comes LOADED, such as the fact that it can become a Digital Video too (granted, only around 2 minutes, but still enables you to record that funny moment), be a webcam (you read me right) so finally I’ll be able to teleconference with my family in Indonesia! yipee. And with 8 MB of RAM I can snap 64 pictures.
Then it comes with quality software too… a lot of them, and not too shabby as well. Especially I’m looking forward to its Reality Fusion games – where you can play virtual games such as Virtual Basketball with PocketPC – cool.

It was a hard decision for me to choose between Intel PocketPC and Logitech Quickcam Traveler. But after looking at its sample pictures, Intel PocketPC is very clearly the winner – and cheaper too! Kudos to Intel for this gadget.


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02 March 2001 — 06.33

Oh WOW… can’t believe it, finally for the first time since Sarah’s illness, her cheek is now smooth and supple again – just like a normal baby.
Still a bit red, but it’s smooth and not itchy anymore, and she’s very happy for that.
My wife broke into tears of joy when she realised it. Hopefully from now on we can just become a normal happy family again.

We had a very heavy snowfall this morning, I even have trouble looking when I walked since the snow keeps on falling on my eyes – it quite hurts 🙂
Unfortunately it stopped for now, but hopefully it will continue again so we can play in the snow again in the weekend – yeah!


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01 March 2001 — 14.04

It looks the change of presidency from Abdurrahman Wahid to Megawati is imminent now; mostly to Wahid’s own faults. Amien Rais (head of People’s Council) is very sure that Megawati will be able to bring Indonesia into better situation.
I beg to differ. The most visible potential problem is her husband, which has had some bad track records. I’m afraid she’ll end up just like Benazir Bhutto – in which her husband was the cause of her fall from her PM position.
Then, as Head of PDI party, she has been proven to be easily swayed by people around her. Unfortunately, most of them are opportunists, and have proven so previously in many occasions. Imagine what will happened when she rose to presidency – the power on her hand.

People also talked about her unproven track record as a leader, that she was just a housewive, she just taking opportunity of the fact that she’s the daughter of Soekarno – the charismatic, and first, president of Indonesia. I don’t know about those, but I think most of them are correct.

But of utmost interest to me is the lack of her interest to Muslim’s issues. I can’t blame her 100% on this to be fair, because the problem mostly lies on her close friends – quite a lot of them are Muslim-haters and some of them are responsible for the death of many Muslims during the Soeharto’s regime.

We just wish for some peace, but still, the future looks bleak for us.


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01 March 2001 — 12.59

FUN dept:
Anyone wish to get to know me better (yeah, like there are any!) try visit this website – http://www.kabalarians.com/gkh/your.htm; and enter my first name (eg: “harry”), then press SUBMIT.

Funny enough, the description there matched me perfectly! However I don’t think I understand “Also, you are prone to suffer from weaknesses centering in the head“. Whatever.
And of course the description there doesn’t describe me fully, although it does come damn close.

Thanks to Steve for that one 🙂


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22 February 2001 — 16.28

I’ll start my MCSE course next week.. yipeee. Finally, some formal training, the last time I did any training was on the “Data Communication” (or something like that) course – things discussed including the use of Telix software to connect to BBS. Oh man, it’s been too long 🙂 however I never did any training that’s intended for formal certification, can’t afford it – so this is the first time in that case. It should be finished in 6 months if everything goes OK. In the same time, I’m supposed to undertake an exam for CNA certification. Well, why not CCNA and OCP and the whole lot while we’re at it ??? Certification overload 🙂

My friend put a link to a story (that I sent him) about how Nike mis-treated its workers in Indonesia in his online journal. Whenever I read stories like this, I’m grateful that I live in a MUCH better condition than them.
According to UN statistic, if you have a roof above you, have food for tomorrow – you’re better than about 70% than Earth population. I was speechless, stunned. I just didn’t realise how lucky I am. I shall try my best to cherish every moment that me and my family can enjoy together, and make other people’s life easier whenever I can.


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22 February 2001 — 16.15

My IT-related website, pangsit.com, is doing good, more visitors, and also somehow I’m getting better at creating contents for it. Taking a step back, I just realised that I love sharing what I know in writing. Hope it’d be useful for everyone visiting that site.

The next step would be sharing it in speaking. I really would like to become a lecturer in computing. I’ve seen a lot of lecturers, but unfortunately most of them are so disconnected with reality – the students then became very confused when they started doing jobs. Not to mention the attitude of most of them. Granted there are some that are not, but they tend to be the exception (Mike Boyd and Jim Martin comes to my mind) not the majority.
Unfortunately it’s just not possible in the moment, but I hope it will soon.

When I updated my CV two days ago, I just realised that I’ve learned so much since the last time I wrote that CV. I just took it for granted I guess. Another event that triggered this realisation is when I joined the mailing list of my first university alumnus – I answered nearly every questions asked there. The fact that I could be of some help to the others is making me very happy.

I’ve approached a newspaper on which my articles were posted several years ago. Hopefully they’d be willing to start accepting my articles again.


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12 February 2001 — 06.21

I just got the chance to update my weblog again. Yep folks, I was THAT busy. Office stuff (evaluating Synchronicity), and in home as usual the kids made “sure” that I never diverted my attention from them.
Like today, I was awake already from 2 am and haven’t sleep since. Amazingly I managed to do a lot of things between 2 am – 5.30 am (when the kids started to wake up) the night is actually your most productive time I guess. At day we’re too busy surfing the Internet to do anything useful… naaah, that’s not me 😉


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23 January 2001 — 09.40

Our Internet Gateway (running Linux Mandrake v7.2) with the new serial I/O card installed is ok now. Woohoo. With irqtune set up it’s actually faster than before, I simply put the serial port’s IRQ as the highest priority in kernel – voila, smoother and faster (don’t compare it with ISDN though!) Internet access.
What’s more, it’s very easy to setup too. I mean, VERY easy. Highly recommended.
Sarah had started rolling her body now. OhmyGod, now she can easily go anywhere in the room, gotta be more careful 🙂 when she started to walk though the real nightmare will start *grin*

Anisah started to behave even better now, a nice change. We need to constantly remind ourselves that we have to be FIRM to our children. Get her attention first (including dragging her to in front of your face when necessary), use short sentences, and show her that you really mean it.
But, being firm doesn’t equal to being mean, or nasty – something that some parent err. We hope we can learn from others and learn very quickly from our past mistakes.


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15 January 2001 — 11.30

I bought my mobile phone (Motorola m3788) primarily because it can use AA battery in case its NiMH ran out of juice. And it happened indeed – several times (I’m so forgetful); but I can’t use AA batteries as its replacement, because its too big.
Turned out you gotta buy another battery door that will accommodate those (bigger) AA batteries. That sucks enough, but then I found out that no one carries it in UK – not even Motorola itself. Argh. WTF??

Sarah is getting even more talkative now. And she gets along better with her sister – she’s not as scared as before to her (Sarah is almost as big as Anisah!!) and she can always plant her nails in case Anisah went too far. Or pull her hair. O-u-c-h =)
We gotta find a better glove for those slick little hands!


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12 January 2001 — 14.00

Nowadays I saw too many people not very happy with their lives.
I remember that in my parents’ village around 1900-1950 it’s very usual for people to get married on a very young age – 18 years and such. They became established traders usually around the age of 20; not too long then they have their own house, transportation means (bike/horse/cow/car/etc). Life was quite peaceful at that time (except for the fact that we’re being colonialised by the Dutch!)

In comparison, nowadays people usually spend their first 25 years of life getting educated; sometimes even more. Memory of the exams, the bullies, the killer tutors; the nightmare.
Escaped from that (at last!) then they try to find a decent job, which is getting harder to get. And the office sometimes can be their first taste of hell too; killer manager, stabber-in-the-back colleagues, etc.
After that struggle, it’s not too long before they become very heavily in debt as they bought car and house – otherwise they won’t be able to buy it at all for, like, 15 years.
Then, they can start thinking about marriage (if they think about it at all) – but by that time usually it’s rather hard to find your soulmate with you busy all day in the office. And you’re already quite old; 32 – 35 years?
Then (again) to cope with the bills, usually (unless the man have a VERY decent job) both of them will have to work – they’ll find it hard to find quality time for them together.
But, just wait until they started having kids…

And all of those trouble for what?

A lot of people are asking that question. But I’m glad because I have something to hold on. And I’m very thankful to that – otherwise I think I’ll have gone mad by now.


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11 January 2001 — 13.34

I’m very easily tired this past several days.. wonder why.
I think I’ll try not eating dinner for a change.

Dani (my brother) just arrived back from Jakarta several days ago – and lost his luggage again. When he flew to Jakarta, the luggage was lost as well. He use Air France.
Highly NOT recommended – especially since Emirates (better, and cheaper too) now is present at Birmingham Airport as well.

Wow I’m not feeling too well… have asked my wife to pick me up in 15 minutes.


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09 January 2001 — 12.23

WARNING: Computer Stuff

[ 1 ] Linux 2.4 is a good thing, but for widespread acceptance we’ll have to wait for the distro update.

[ 2 ] Bluetooth is still a load of crap.

After taking a look months ago I knew it won’t be ready until a very looong time. The last CES (Consumer Electronic Show?) confirmed that – the devices that showcases Bluetooth sucked big time.
It’s just simply the case of too much hype not enough deliveries; that’s all.

[ 3 ] Office 10 won’t be as successful as its predecessors.

I mean, how advanced and bloated can your typewriter be before you’re sick of it…?

[ 4 ] Microsoft .NET is a load of hype (as usual)

It won’t really take off until at least the next several years. Problem is, ASP (this is what .NET is basically all about) have not taken off even after prophesied for years; because of a lot of possibility of problems. People are simply reluctant to adopt it. Wonder if .NET will face the same fate later.

[ 5 ] Xbox will rule.

Face it, PS2 sucks – technologically it’s rather advanced, but the developers found it hard to harness the enhancements. Xbox on the other hand is very powerful (who could challenge NVidia, really? coupled with 733 MHz processor, etc) and very easy to develop with and with Microsoft marketing team’s backing it will be wildly popular

For added bonus, killer games made for it would be very easy to be ported to PC (read: Windows). That means not only Microsoft will have its reach extended to another area (read: game console = another revenue source! yum) Xbox will also provide more incentive for people to use PC.

Woops… I should submit these as an article to a computer magazine instead I guess…


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09 January 2001 — 06.55

Wake up late this morning and rather tired even though I was way overslept (9 hours!!)
Then I realised what happened; it was very cold outside that my heater was unable to cope. As the result, the room temperature REALLY dropped; sending us deeper into sleep.

Then we finally woke up; nose hurts (humidity only 23%), eyes hurts (again, because of the low humidity), sore throat (humidity again), and we’re not feeling very well. I almost got cold… Joy.

But the girls were very happy this morning. Yesterday, Anisah started going to her playgroup again, the first after the long holiday. Sarah, of course, went there as well. As my wife said, they’re simply ecstatic. Going around like crazy; Sarah can only see them from her chair, but that’s all it takes to make her very happy as well. (she’s started trying to stand btw).

Also yesterday Anisah helped me made a cheesecake. She was very very proud that SHE can help ME 🙂 🙂 won’t stop whisking the mix, hehe…
This morning the cake was finally ready; I took it from the freezer, and she really enjoyed eating it.


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08 January 2001 — 06.42

Saw last night’s episode of X-Files, and it was brilliant.

The story was about some guy, named Henry, who simply can’t have bad luck (he don’t need to say “wish me luck”, ever!) but this guy is smart and realise that it’s not always a blessing.

“Cause and effect, everything is for a reason”, he said.
When he was hit by a truck and badly wounded, Mulder and (the logical/sceptic) Sculley thought he finally had run out of his luck. But things turned out to be a blessing in disguise, when the mafia guy (that wanted to kill him) was dead instead, they found out that he had a very rare blood type – just exactly the one needed by Henry’s closest friend, a dying child.

So everything is happening for a grand scheme, that none of us can fully understand before the conclusions rolls in.
I like that.


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