Friday, May 2, 2008

I welcome you.... winter

Winter has started...
it was the coolest April since 30 years in Sydney... huhuhu.... I started to use my heater yesterday.

My second winter... but not the last... I still need to face it next year, hmmm... I really miss Klaten with country (village) surrounded by rice fields... Tawangmangu which will always be a lovely place for my family... They are not as cold as here... lovely.
I miss Semarang, which is very warm in midday (it was 40 degrees last year)....  I miss Jogja... with every aspect of life there... art, friendship, gudeg, motorcycles...

And for sure, I miss my wife and our beloved son, hehe.... Don't worry honey, I'll be at your side in two months.... (but only for two weeks? oh noooo... make it three).... Pray for me... I'm still struggling on crazy subjects and assignments... But I'm enjoying those...

Life is not easy.. but life is an art to solve the problem..... Enjoy your life guys....

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Be careful with using bypass proxie : Indonesian blocking many sites

As the title above,
Currently, you can't access many sites (youtube, multiply, rapidshare, etc) directly in Indonesia. The solution is easy, you can use bypass proxie websites to access those sites. Just google "bypass proxie website" then you'll get a whole bunch of sites providing the service.
But, just be careful!!! They can exploit your personal data..... so be wise with your password, username, personal details, etc....
When you request a page via those bypass proxies websites, your request will be saved in their server, not only "bypassing" your request and then provide your requested page.
In a request, often you need to supply username or password, for example to login to multiply. This type of request (even it's encrypted), will always valuable for some peoples.
For what they save your request?
firstly, it's a common for a website developer to save all the log and any information that you have. This is very important to do the analysis of the website (performance, traffic, marketing, etc).
Secondly, they have all of your details.. If Im a bad guy, then I'll try to mining all the personal data... then use it to get all your valuable things.

Bypass proxies is a kind of social engineering.
So, be wise..... !!! Don't use bypass proxies to supply your personal details... particularly for net-banking, email, etc....

So what should you do? If you want to access multiply for example? Make sure that you don't have the same password (at least) with your other login details.... Then, don't forget to change your password shortly after the government unblock those websites.

written in class.... after a friend told me that he had problem with his net-bank (even I don't know whether the problem is caused by the bypass proxies or not, but after this guy login to the net-bank via bypass proxie website, next day the bank closed the access (just like if you try to login with wrong login details three times).....)

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Indonesia.go.id error???


Many Indonesian website have been hacked recently regarding to the new electronic information and transaction law. This week, youtube also has been blocked in Indonesia since it contains inappropriate content. Is it the right way? Uhm... what about education?
Hey... youtube is owned by Google... Google is the biggest search engine in the world... more than 70% of what people do when they want to look for something is open google.com. 
I just thinking how if then google then blocked or under ranked any website from Indonesia... waw.. this can be dangerous... as many websites mainly depend on the search engine to be known by others. Is it possible? Technically yes,  but I think and I hope they won't.
Just trying to see the rank of some websites with the common keyword (including combination of my name, hehe)... I found that keywords "Indonesia" brought no authoritative websites from government or tourism department, etc.... The first was a page from wikipedia, the second was FBI fact page and the third one is lonely planet page. Hem... where is www.indonesia.go.id?
This leads me to search keyword "Indonesia goverment" and here was it.... In the first page and the top of the list. Glad to see that. But wait.... When I click that link, oh... I got an error message, waw.... Is it the professional correct message? How many millions has been spent for building the website and I got this error (see screenshot)? For a cracker or other bad people, this error can lead to other valuable informations to let them enter the server.
IT team should spend more time to improve our beloved nation's website, including providing better error message and way to report if there's an error.
Improving the search engine performance also needed so keyword "Indonesia" will lead users come to the desired sites. It's not easy, but there is way to do that... and I believe, millions Rupiah must be capable doing this (it should).

I'm wondering why it's easier to find my blog using my name rather than find www.indonesia.go.id using keyword "Indonesia" (it's on the third page of google.com) .....

Come on.... Indonesia has a lot of IT experts.... If government provide media to elaborate them, surely... IT in Indonesia will grow faster and sure... cheaper.... they will be happy to be volunteers.... (Including me? Sure I will, hehe but I'm not an expert.....) 

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Holly Thursday

Today is Holly Thursday... and I still have a class this night .....aarrrrgh....

Holly Thursday is also called Maundy Thursday. This is an event in Catholic religion which commemorated the mystery of the Holy Eucharist,  the washing of the Disciples' feet by Jesus, Jesus prayed in Gethsemane before He caught and the betrayal of Christ by Judas.

A picture of the Holy Eucharist was created by Simon Ushakov which titled "The Mystical Supper". This picture was inspiring "Tempo" magazine to put Suharto's face on Jesus's face. hiks... it doesn't matter for me... and perhaps for other Catholic people. No..no.. I don't want to talk about that... 
"The Last Supper" or "The Mystical Supper" also inspiring Dan Brown on writing his novel (ups I forgot the title...) which was controversial at that time.

Maundy Thursday is actually a start on "Easter Triduum" or three holy days (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter (Am I right?).... Oh so tomorrow I must do a fasting? yeah... sure, hehe....

Wondering to go to Church with Ling and Andra... It would be nice.... 
My first Easter as a father, as a husband, as foreigner, in Aussie, alone... uh.... life is nice.

New Macbook + Free IPOD

Curious about Macbook, I bought a macbook yesterday... Studying computing and doing an IT business really give me spirit to learn new things just like this new mac. Buy new macbook and IPOD on student price (which is 100$ cheaper, but still... for me actually, still too expensive), I will get cash back for the IPOD price (I mean 4G IPOD price - I have 8G so I need to pay 50$ more).

What I did to my macbook for the first time was installing ubuntu on to it. It was easy, everything works well but wireless and sound which are easy to be solved. Then, as that was the first time I touch macbook, I logged in to mac OS and try to install everything that I need including VirtualBox (virtualization software so you can run windows or linux inside OSX). Again, that was easy and straight forward. Everything was OK and... dear, OSX was a great operating system. It's simple, easy to understand and use.... and the most important, it's a UNIX derivative, means I still able to do anything about UNIX. 
I have 3G RAM from my old laptop, since those are the same specification with MAC's memory, I tried to install it and wew... it was working....... Now I have 3G memory which boosts up my MAC...

Have a plan to buy new laptop? why not trying Macbook....? It's gorgeous. Don't worry about support to windows, etc... it's well supported. Try for half an hour and you'll be wondered to have one. hiks

My next project :
 - research on Demographic map (GIS) using open source software
 - Build AdandSell Job site, so you can find or place jobs on that site freely
 - Moving all AdandSell site to new, faster and bigger server in Australia

Hopefully this macbook can improve my performance in research and study, hihihihi.... thanks for my wife and son who always support me.. I promise to do all my best for you. I do love you guys.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Andra's smile

Happy and proud... those what we feel about Andra....








Saturday, March 8, 2008

Almost two months


Andra is almost two months now....


More than 5kg


Who dare?