arya199.com

Move out, once again.

http://www.arya199.com

The contents of this blog will also be moved there as well. But in time, until such feat accomplished (well, I was lazy most of the time), this blog will stay alive for a while.

Update:

I won't recommend hosting at a3plusmedia.com. For as it is, the database to my previous blog is acting-up and they don't seem to have good intentions to fix it. So, pissed off, I moved yet again to:

http://shoutinthecrowd.com

I hope, this one is going to be my lasting brand for I had prepared several services that uses the aforementioned domain.

Gosh

I've been so wrapped, entangled, whatever words out there to describe inability to spare some time for a non-real-life related activities such as Films and Bloggings. There, it's out of the box. Now back to the checked list of "Things to do before the clock hits December 31st, 2008"

Wrath of the Lich King System Requirement

In my plurk page, I've been mulling about the possibility to stay connected through mobile devices, through my MacBook for 24/7. The image above is the partial reason of why. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. If you had no idea what World of Warcraft is, then congratulations, you're not yet cursed by the imminent addiction of gaming. It is after all, THE most popular MMORPG. Now, the system requirement of the game has been revealed

Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4.11 or newer
Processor: Minimum: PowerPC G5 1.6 GHz or Intel Core Duo processor
Recommended: Intel 1.8GHz processor or betterProcessor:
RAM: Minimum: 1 GB RAM
Recommended: 2 GB RAM
Video: Minimum: 3D graphics processor with Hardware Transform and Lighting with 64 MB VRAM (such as an ATI Radeon 9600 or NVIDIA GeForce Ti 4600 class card or better)
Recommended: 3D graphics processor with Vertex and Pixel Shader capability with 128 MB VRAM (such as an ATI Radeon X1600 or NVIDIA 7600 class card or better)

Hm, given the requirement, I might need to buy an iMac or better yet, a MacBookPro. It just a matter of convincing my wife that spending US$ 2000+ on a machine I already own is actually a good, beneficial thing, :D

Last day at the Office (for the time being)

Well, today is the last office day before an obligatory a week-off holiday beginning next Monday. I thought about writing something witty, smart, or downright philosophical. But, nothing came to mind even if I rather found myself more often than not, living in an illusion of being a better than average composer of words (for a non-English speaker, anyway).

Anyhoo, if you're living in a country where Islam is majority AND a Moslem (I am both, by the way) this time of day would surely saw influx of incoming mails electronic or stamp-and-envelope wishing you a merry Idul Fitri, ask for forgiveness, or just some sweet words around that theme. It is, after all, probably the most celebrated holiday in the Islamic calendar.

So, I wish you a happy holiday if you happened to celebrate Idul Fitri, may the wrong doers and talks in the past turns into myth that soon be long forgotten. The scheduled next entry to this blog would be on October 6th.

5-in-1 USB Charger

I see the image first before I read the content. Immediately, I thought, "Why do I need another iPod charger-slash-syncer?" However, as it turns out after I read the article, this little 5-in-1 USB Charger (US$ 14) could charge/sync 5 different gadgets (iPod, Nintendo DS (!), Sony PSP (!), GBA, and a mini-USB device, whatever that device is), three of which I had in my possession. Now, add a Samsung hand-phone charger, and I would order one of these online like, right now.

Time

"You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun"
- Time, Pink Floyd -

The dude in this video below, Dmitri Gaskin, is talking and introducing jQuery in front of developers in Google Tech at April 2008. I've been furiously and excitedly learning about jQuery for a couple of days now, and while the knowledge of John Resig, the original creator of jQuery is only 24 has put me in some kind of jealousy and excitement to match his achievement in a near future, with a product of my own (*yeah, yeah, some dream, eh?*), Dmitri Gaskin made me look ancient as he is only 12, and already a core Drupal developer.



I'm still excited all over though, as most of you probably know, my current stint as a cubicle worker is merely a temporary. I want a job that I love, not just a job because it's a job and paid well and it took me a while, but I knew what I love (as the wisdom often said, you never knew what you love until it taken away from you) and this job I'm holding right now, clearly not one of them.

Large Hadron Collider

Yea, yea, I know, it's been almost a week since the first beam in the LHC launched. Yet, the mounting concern of whether what LHC would uncover is some sort of a Pandora's Box refused to deceased and although it's deemed most unlikely, the possibility that the first collision in 6-8 weeks could made a great rift in a time-space plane, fourth-dimension, and even could spawned a Black Hole threatened to cast our beloved Earth into an oblivion, a sure Doomsday, the final existence of humankind.

I spent almost a day on Friday to read about this LHC and its impact almost obsessively. PHD Comics had a pretty cool five part comics that explained this LHC. Wired.com had an article of FAQs about LHC in Twitter format (less than 140 characters) as well as a thorough long article. Wikipedia is of course, another reliable source on this subject. But, by far the most effective and entertaining explanation of LHC surely has to come from this hilarious rap song apparently sung by CERN's scientific members that worked closely in the environment.

Hug a Developer Today

From this site. I had a good and fit laugh when the image above shown. "PEOPLE KEEP ASKING ME TO FIX THEIR E-MAIL, SO I HAVE NO TIME TO CODE" Ha. Talk about a personal experience. An abundance of it. :D

Farewell to the Kings

I'm no saint nor angel, but I've always tried to be honest in everything I said and did (at least, for the last couple of years :D). Currently, I'm preparing to make a move from this virtual leased house to a permanent home I shall called "my own"

Backlog: Malaysia - Singapore Travelogue pt.3

Our journey is far from over. It was almost 1 am in Singapore, and we've got practically nowhere to go. We were left wandering in Chinatown by cab ($ 8.20) from Queens Terminal and spent almost an hour in local 24 hrs restaurant that actually still filled with many patrons. Finally, exhaustion took its toll (at least for me) and walking with that huge backpack isn't much fun anymore. This is our first (of second) mistake in Singapore soil. Checking in to the nearest hotel in Chinatown (Hotel 81) that cost us dearly ($ 179 for a night). But, all in all, it has been a pretty adventurous trip, and me and my wife were actually excited to re-enact our journey next time despite this wrongful decision (my decision, if I may add) that cost us a lot.

We spent almost nine hours in that hotel. At 11 am, we checked out, heads to one of the apartment in Chinatown, and got ourselves a small place to stay for a night for a measly $ 40 and the fun of the day had just begin.

Little do we know that on that particular day, Singapore is celebrating its National Day. Therefore, it was especially crowded that day, and we saw red shirts everywhere. We begin our day by going to the nearest MRT station, Chinatown. The very first thing I noticed in Singapore is how everybody using some sort of card as their payment. Thus, the very first thing I wanted to have is that card. Luckily, there's a Ticket Office in Chinatown MRT station (not all station had this office, and in Chinatown it only opens from 12 pm) so we asks the very helpful lady behind the counter for a card. She offers us a Daily Tourist Pass ($ 8 / day each with $ 10 deposit refundable upon returning the card within 5 days. Total: $ 18). We were so lucky to have this card for given the standard tariff, and the amount of time we were using the transportation either by MRT or bus, had we didn't have the card, we would spent $ 30 - $ 35 minimum on tickets alone.

Commuting in Singapore is a no-brainer if you're good with maps and I'm considered myself very very good with maps. It took very little for me to memorized the MRT map and means to go to various "recommended" location to visit in Singapore. The first location we're visiting is obviously Orchard Rd. We travels there with MRT which involving switching trains halfway through, took a lunch there (I personally, didn't really liked Orchard Rd. perhaps because other than Starbucks or Movie theater, I generally hated Shopping-Malls and I don't really see why I should treat Malls that littered Orchard Rd. differently) and quickly went away albeit not quick enough to my liking.

Another obvious site is Melion Park. We really have no idea where to go, even my friend who has been to Singapore for an n-th time doesn't really have the clue either (I told you before, he was a spoiled-and-freakishly-rich boy). He said it was in Sommerset, and so we go there by MRT, but we saw another Malls and I hate it already. One of the local citizen pointed us to City Hall and this is where we, for the first time, actually seen the ridiculous crowd who celebrated the National Day. People flocking the street in front of the Esplanade theater, all the way to the bridge that led to Melion Park. My wife, who wanted to visit the lion statue in Melion Park, put a second thought and decided against it after we saw the ridiculous crowd which make it near impossible to go near the statue.

After few photo shoots, we go to Bugis Village for souvenirs (they're cheap! This is where you need to go to bought souvenirs, if you asked me) and a light dinner. Afterward, we went to Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal almost all the way to the eastern side of the island to bought our home ticket to Batam. Of course, the Terminal is almost closed. But, we learnt a valuable lesson that there's actually another Ferry Terminal just two MRT stations from Chinatown (Harbour Front). Our feet is already sore from walking all the time, but as the nice lady in Tanah Merah said that the last ferry from Harbour Front departed at 10 pm, we decided to go to Harbour Front. Only to find out that they don't sell tickets in advance. Exhausted, but happy, we decided to go back to Chinatown and immediately fell asleep.

For fear of no tickets available, we head to Harbour Front early in the morning to bought three tickets to Batam at 1250 pm. This is where I made my second mistake. The nice lady asked me, "Pulang balik?" (Going back?) which I had wrongfully assumed that she asked wether I was going back to my home country to which of course I said, yes. An hour later, my wife revealed to me that she actually asked wether I want a two-way ticket to which I had given a "Yes" for an answer. That set us back $ 41 each, and three unused one-way ticket to Singapore from Batam that valid until July 31st, 2009 which we're planned to use for ourselves later this year.

The ferry went exactly on time and you know the very first thing my wife and I did right upon our arrival in Batam? Local food, plenty of rice, plenty of chillies, and a glass of warm tea. That made my day.

All in all, it was a very nice experience. My wife and I brought $ 400 and RM 200 and we are left with $ 40 in small change. But, there's a plenty room for improvement that I dare to say, you could spent two days and two nights in Singapore with only $ 150 and still able to brought back souvenirs. Professional wise, Singapore is a place I would love to work in. Superb transportation system that renders the ole reason of "caught in a traffic jam" largely useless and laughable. But for a mid-range salary man, I still prefers Jakarta than Singapore to raise a family. Much.

By the way, we had already planned our next "unplanned" trip. Instead of going south from Kuala Lumpur, we're going to try to head north from Kuala Lumpur. Penang, Phuket, and perhaps as far as Hanoi if our budget permitted.

Fin.

Backlog: Malaysia - Singapore Travelogue pt.2

We don't know who had made the decision, or even if a discussion has been made that led into such action. I remember throwing a question of wether we should stay for a night in Johor Bahru before crossing the border to Singapore early or straight ahead to Singapore that night as well. All i know is that we found ourselves standing in line for a transit bus that led us to Singapore. It was 2230 hrs.

The driver asked us where we're heading. Stupidly, I answered (most of the time, I had assumed the role of leading the party and did all the questioning-and-answering) "Singapore" The driver said, "Singapore is big, where is exactly you're going to?" I said, "Chinatown" The driver frowned a bit and later said that he could take us as far as Queens Terminal and the fare is 5.40 for three. I found out later that the bus was numbered #170 and didn't passed Chinatown at all and the fare he asks was in Singapore dollar which I had paid in Malaysian Ringgit that due to the minimum light and an almost identical color of 5 Malaysian Ringgit and 5 Singapore dollar went unnoticed by the driver. This is a genuine first time mistake in my part. I could assured you that the mistake was not deliberate, and I genuinely felt sorry for it.

Thinking that everything is going to be alright, we rode the bus away to Singapore. Despite the situation that we had no idea whatsoever whence we're going to head in Singapore and the fact that it was a mere hour away from midnight doesn't damped our spirit. In fact, we're so high spirited that we felt like singing. I was, for once, excited about traveling.

Singapore

Initial plan: Arrive at 0400 hrs, look for an apartment to rent in Chinatown, and sight seeing for the whole day.
Miniscule details: A map of Singapore that shown MRT line.
Execution:

Upon crossing the border to Singapore at Johor Bahru, we got hold up at the custom due to our religion (I say, WTF?) which apparently was obvious judged by our goatees. My wife cleared though, but me and my friend had to spent almost half an hour questioned. Of course, we are cleared eventually, but really, just because we had goatees we had to be detained? Even if it's for a short while, I was quite insulted. Anyway, the clock hits 2330 hrs when we finally stepped into Singapore's soil. Imagine, 2230, no means of transportation, no local acquaintances, no nothing. Yet, we were happy and chatted excitedly about the previous event even took some photographs (only minutes before we saw a $500 fine notice for taking pictures. Fortunately, no one spotted us taking photos).

We sat around for a while in the custom discussing of what to do. There were buses coming and going but we have no idea which one to take, and after all, our bus that we took from Johor Bahru bus station has obviously leave us behinds for we took quite a long time in custom.

When the night goes on, we decided to board any bus available. And again, noticing our big backpacks, the driver asked us where we are heading and he pointed us to board bus #170 instead. Moments later (considering that it was almost midnight, it's amazing that there's still buses available), we board the bus. Upon seating, we are wondering wether we should pay or not. Again, I did the asking. I asked the Indian bus driver wether we should pay or no because we've already paid the other #170 driver at Johor Bahru for taking us to the Queens terminal. To my surprise, he urges me to sit back and asking none.

And finally, we've got our first view of Singapore and it has been a long day.

To be continued.. tomorrow.

Backlog: Malaysia - Singapore Travelogue pt.1

Generally, I won't say that I'm in favor of traveling. Not enthusiast, at least. Hence, when an opportunity to travel appeared before me, I wasn't really hyped up for the task. However, time and again, I found myself actually enjoying traveling. The past week is one of an instance where I found myself enjoying traveling.

I was on an office's errand in Pekanbaru last week. A week off-work for a three days duty? Why not? So, me and a couple of friend from the office went to Pekanbaru. On an impulse, my wife bought me a ticket to Kuala Lumpur, and one of my friend, unknowingly asked me, half-joking, about going to Singapore after Pekanbaru. I told him about me and my wife's plan to go to Kuala Lumpur and Singapore and shown him our respective round-trip tickets and he immediately jumped into the wagon and so, there we were, three of us, with a huge baggage, two laptops, plenty of dirty clothes, and a totally unplanned trip.

Mind you, none of us three has ever gone to an unplanned, unsponsored trip to Kuala Lumpur and Singapore before. My friend comes from a rich family (filthy rich family) that never in his life he stayed in less than a 5-star hotel whenever he went to Singapore with his family and no, I'm not kidding. My wife and I comes from a rural village where our idea of delicacy is simply plenty of rice and chillies and had planned to have this trip as cheap as possible. Go figure how we managed our differences.

Malaysia

Initial plan: 0840 hrs from Pekanbaru, 1025 hrs arrived in Kuala Lumpur, immediately bought an over-night train ticket to Singapore, spent an evening sight-seeing in Kuala Lumpur, enjoys local delicacies, etc, and finally head to Singapore with a 2230 hrs train, scheduled to arrive in Singapore around 0400 hrs. Perfect plan, if you asked me.
Miniscule details: None.
Execution: Our plane got delayed. Instead of 0840 hrs from Pekanbaru, we departed at 1015 hrs. Arrived at Kuala Lumpur at 1155 local time. My friend, whose passport due to expired in 4 months immediately put himself in trouble at the custom. Apparently, it seems that there's a new rule that your passport must had at least six months of remaining validity before entering Malaysia. We had no idea about this rule, although that the custom in Pekanbaru has warned us about it. The custom dude even said in a harsh tone that my friend shouldn't even be permitted to enter. Fortunately, my friend could produce our return ticket from Batam and wise enough to keep his mouth shut (he was Bataknese and they often stereotyped as being hot-tempered) and so, he was permitted to enter.

After having a small lunch at the airport, we decided to head to Kuala Lumpur. This is our first time in Kuala Lumpur so we spent a little bit of time fuzzing about deciding what to do next in the terminal. We decided to go to KL Sentral as its name suggest that it was located in the center of Kuala Lumpur and after asking for direction a bit, we board a bus (fare: RM 9) that heads to KL Sentral. The trip took an hour, the road was definitely better than in Jakarta, but the driver seems a little bit timid that although the road was beautiful, wide, and traveled by few, the driver put his speed at check all the time.

In KL Sentral, we're asking around a bit for means to travel to Singapore. This is where our plan deviates greatly. Only three tickets available for the night train, first class (fare: RM 125 each). But, the ticket-master refused to sell us ticket because the tickets were meant for two females and one male not one female and two males as our party currently consists of. Even a persuasion from my wife couldn't wavered the ticket-master to sell us the tickets. That leaves us with only one option even if my wife disapproved greatly, we couldn't see any other feasible way to travel to Singapore. Bus.

For a RM 7, we ride a taxi to Pudujaya bus station. I tried to converse with the taxi-driver but he doesn't flinch, either he is deaf (which is unlikely, given his profession) or he loathe us for bringing huge baggages to his taxi and for traveling a very short distance to Pudujaya (you could actually walk from KL Sentral).

Arriving at Pudujaya, we tried to keep up with the plan of bought an advance tickets to Singapore as late as possible, and spent an evening in Kuala Lumpur but of course, there's no ticket to satisfy our needs. Improvising greatly, we asked for a direction to Johor Bahru instead and bought three tickets (RM 27 each). This include us running around crossing the crowded street, bumping and probably stepping another passerbys, with our heavy luggage (my friend's total luggage was around 18 kg, mine has around 12 kg, and my wife has around 7 kg). The trip wasn't actually as bad as I would've expected. We could really get some decent sleep from KL to Johor Bahru and except for one stop where we were ushered to switch bus by the driver, there's nothing to complain about the trip especially considering that the fare was one fifth of the train's fare. Without accident, or anything worthy to report, we're arrived in Johor Bahru bus station around 2130 hrs local time (Almost 5 hrs travel).

But our problem actually had just made its official start. To be continued.. tomorrow.

In case

..you're wondering, I'm at Pekanbaru right now, writing this post from the local hotel. I'll be here for about three days, and then rendezvous with my wife in Kuala Lumpur for about a day, and in Singapore for a couple of days. Therefore, this blog might not going to see another update for a week.

Choice

Well, we, humans had plans, but God may have other plans written for us. The child in me had to sit one out on this occasion as though I had planned by any means to go and see The Dark Knight tonight, my wife had to be hospitalized for a fear of fever (Demam Berdarah) and the husband (me) by all means should go out of town to take care of her, am I right? Of course, I am.

Can't. Wait. Any. Longer.

Okay, i'm now officially restless. James Berardinelli at ReelViews.com, one of the few film critics i'd like to hear from (probably due to his educational background in Electrical Engineering which in my opinion, doesn't stray that much away from Computer Science) has given this film a solid four stars, the first i've seen from him in a long time. Damn! And the word is, that this film arrived at our local theater on July 18th. Shoot 'n Crap, i'd say! But, no matter, July 18th or July 16th, you can count on me being the first in line for The Dark Knight.

Mustn't. Punch. the. Wall. for. Impatience.

Vacation

Tomorrow is my wedding, so i'll be off on a vacation for a while. However, unlike this Pointy Head Boss who off-ing for a fortnight, mine would be a mere week. We had planned to go to Shanghai for a honey moon trip, but of course since the plane ticket was sky rocketing due to a summer holiday and a Summer Olympic coming, well, let's just see how and where this trip is going to be.

FoxTrot: A Comic for Geek

I love FoxTrot comic strip, well, not as much as i love that fat and cynical orange cat, but it was a close call comparison between the two. What i love much about FoxTrot is its constant reference to the pop-cultures and a daring geek stuffs reference. Take this comic for an instance, every programmer by trade would immediately realize the nature of this comic. If you are not at least amused by it, then you're not a programmer but don't fret, not everyone of us is cut for the job, anyway.

Countdown to my Wedding

It may sound as seemingly a mere afterthought, for unlike many couples and soon-to-be-couples we've met who had actively engaged in the blogosphere, we decide to foreclose our journey and keeping it to ourselves. It is ours and even if it may sound selfish (well, it IS selfish), we intended to keep it that way. We might only share it to our grandchildren on our old days. Most of the stories out there on the net about their wedding? Pffttt.. They're joke and far less exciting than ours, anyway. Reading them is a painful experience. Had i shared my experience, you won't stop reading about it. In fact, you might think that i ripped off the story from a pop bestselling novel. Pompous? Maybe, but it's simply the plain vanilla's truth. One of my friend, one of the few whom i shared only a mere tip of an iceberg of my story and this girl i met said that my story is like an exciting fairy-tale. This is two years ago. He said to me - and this is coming from a man whose knowledge on movies is well above average - at the time, "If you managed to marrying her in the end, man, that is a fairy-tale, like in movies". And yep, i ended marrying her. In less than three weeks, anyway.

I've Lost One of my Earphone Sleeve

As usual, the very last thing i did before head out from my room to go to work was strapping my iPod to my belt, plugged an earphone into my ear, and start playing music at random. This morning, i sense something wasn't entirely right with my right ear. It significantly quieter than the left one. I ignored the fact by attributing to the, most probably, increase of my right ear's wax amount. Yeah, gross, i know. So, i went to work anyway.

This noon, however, when i had a time to examine my Sennheiser MX160 (pictured), i noticed the cause of why my right ear hear less through the earphone. I've lost one of the earphone sleeve (circled in red in the picture). A couple of minutes Googling, i don't find any helpful info of wether they sell the spare earphone sleeve or not. Is anybody had any idea on where i should buy the earphone sleeve? Or is there any such thing as spare earphone sleeve?

About How a Programmer's Office Should Look Like

I don't know why - well, actually, i knew just why - but i've been obsessed about programming these days. Of course, it is because i haven't done a lot of programming lately. I feel the aching dull as my creative mind which usually fueled up whenever i faced with a particularly hard algorithm to muster thwarted considerably as more and more paperwork that involves almost next to no programming language.

Anyways, here's a great description on my dream office-space as a programmer.

"Your business success will depend on the extent to which programmers essentially live at your office. For this to be a common choice, your office had better be nicer than the average programmer's home. There are two ways to achieve this result. One is to hire programmers who live in extremely shabby apartments. The other is to create a nice office."

In accordance to the quoted definition above, the best office-space that i've been working for was at my campus. I had a whole office, with a closeable door, an open window, a super quite environment, and i've only had to share it with two of my colleagues in a room which could easily filled with twenty people and still had an open space to make it comfortable. Ah, those days.