It's About All Things

Book of Our Life

2011-11-09T20:21:00.000-08:00

Human life is like a book....

The front and back cover represents your birth and decease date

Every pages of the book represents each days of our life

Once it is written, you can't change it anymore

But the good thing is,

No matter how badly written the last page is, there is always new page afterwards

clean, new, waiting to be written properly

Everyone Praise God on Their Own Way

2011-11-04T00:24:00.000-07:00

An Excerpt from Paulo Coelho's Blog, it is so nice that I would like to keep the original version intact. Everyone praises God on their own way, what counts is the intention within one's heart

Moses heard a shepherd on the road praying:
“Lord, where are you? I want to help you, to fix your shoes and comb your hair. I want to wash your clothes and pick the lice off.
“I want to bring you milk to kiss your little hands and feet when it’s time for you to go to bed.
“I want to sweep your room and keep it neat. God, my sheep and goats are yours. ”

“Who are you talking to?” Moses could stand it no longer.
“Only something that grows needs milk. Only some one with feet needs shoes. Not G’d!”

The shepherd repented and tore his clothes and sighed and wandered out into the desert.

A sudden revelation came then to Moses.

“You have separated me from one of my own.
“Did you come as a Prophet to unite, or to sever?
“I have given each being a separate and unique way of seeing and knowing and saying that knowledge.
“What seems wrong to you is right for him.

“What is poison to one is honey to someone else.
“Purity and impurity, sloth and diligence in worship, these mean nothing to me.
“I am apart from all that. Ways of worshiping are not to be ranked as better or worse than one another.
“It’s not me that’s glorified in acts of worship. It’s the worshipers!
“I don’t hear the words they say. I look inside at the humility.

“Forget phraseology. I want burning, burning. Be friends with your burning.
“Burn up your thinking and your forms of expression!
“Lovers who burn are another.

“Don’t scold the Lover. The “wrong” way he talks is better than a hundred “right” ways of others.
“When you look in a mirror, you see yourself, not the state of the mirror.
“The flute player puts breath into a flute, and who makes the music?
“Not the flute. The flute player!

“Whenever you speak praise or thanksgiving to Me, it’s always like this dear shepherd’s simplicity.”

Turning Lemonade into Helicopter

2011-10-15T15:47:00.000-07:00

Just today, my friend had told me a nice story about building relation with someone, and then I google it up. The story was actually coming from Tina Seelig's book "What I wish I knew when I was 20". It is a very aspiring story about building relationship with people that MAY serve you well in the future. If there is one thing I would stress in this story, it should be the purity of the intention to help people, not the rewards in the end. Even in corporate life, we are all familiar with the term "networking". In networking, it is not what your network can do for you, it is more WHAT you can DO for THEM. Reward MAY or MAY not COME. You just have to be sincere in all your words and actions. Here is the story about turning lemonade into helicopter:

Being observant, open-minded, friendly, and optimistic invites luck your way. Take this simple story: several years ago I was at a small local grocery store frequented mostly by those who live nearby. A man and his young daughter approached me in the frozen-food aisle and politely asked how to prepare frozen, canned lemonade. The man had an accent I couldn’t identify, and I was pretty sure he must be new to the area. I told him how to prepare the lemonade and asked where he was from. He said Santiago, Chile. I asked his name and what brought him to our town. I had no ulterior motive. I was just curious. He told me his name was Eduardo and that he and his family were in the area for a year so he could learn about entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley. He was in line to run his family’s business and was in search of tools to make it more innovative. I told him about the entrepreneurship program at Stanford’s School of Engineering and said I’d be happy to do what I could to be of help. Over the next few months I introduced Eduardo to various people in the entrepreneurship community, and he expressed his thanks for my assistance.

Fast-forward two years. I was heading for a conference in Santiago and sent Eduardo a message asking if he wanted to get together for coffee. At the last minute, he wasn’t able to make it, but invited me to go to a specific location in downtown Santiago with a few of my colleagues. We showed up at the office building and were led to the roof, where we were picked up by Eduardo’s family’s private helicopter for a simply spectacular ride above the city, up to the surrounding mountains, and over his family’s ski resort. It was incredible! And to think that it resulted from helping him figure out how to make lemonade. Of course, I didn’t help Eduardo because I wanted a helicopter ride. But by putting myself out there, being open to helping someone, and following up years later, I became quite “lucky.” Earlier I discuss the art of turning lemons (problems) into lemonade (opportunities). But luck goes beyond this—it’s about turning lemonade (good things) into helicopters (amazing things!)

Life of a Donkey

2011-10-12T01:17:00.000-07:00

One day a farmer's donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally, he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway; it just wasn't worth it to retrieve the donkey.

He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, th...e donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone's amazement he quieted down. A few shovel loads later,

the farmer finally looked down the well. He was astonished at what he saw. With each shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up. As the farmer's neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and happily trotted off!

MORAL : Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our troubles is a steppingstone. We can get out of the deepest wells just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up.

Remember the five simple rules to be happy:

1. Free your heart from hatred - Forgive.

2. Free your mind from worries - Most never happens.

3. Live simply and appreciate what you have.

4. Give more.

5. Expect less from people but more from God.

Diary of a jobless part 2

2010-09-13T15:54:00.000-07:00

Well, this is the second week of unemployment. I have managed to stay occupied all this time, thanks to all of the paper works I have to taken care for leaving The Netherlands and approaching Singapore. Life is going good. In my previous blog, I mentioned that I was planning jog everyday, and I managed to keep that promise. I run almost daily for around 4 Kms. The downside is tto do that I still make few stops along the route because I dont have a really good stamina yet. So the next objective is to run non-stop for 4 Kms. I think another week of running, and I will be able to run 4 Kms non-stop ;)

A lot of grand planning is coming on the way. Starting with a plan to cycle to Antwerpen this Wednesday with a friend of mine, Izal. Kinda crazy, but might be worth while to try. I hope I dont faint on the way :D Looking at the route, a retour trip will take around 10 hours to complete. Must be sure to take some rubber plying stuff, in case we got a leak on the way. I decided to take my shitty bicycle for a memorable journey :D. Wait till you see the pic of the bike...

Grotere kaart weergeven

And tomorrowww, finally my new 3D camera from Sony will arrive. Yes, it has the ability to take 3D picture, and its a compact digital camera. This is a new release for cybershot model, DSC WX5. I was considering to buy NEX 5, but its too bulky, and would not fit in my pocket. Plus, I hate to bring a camera bag around. After all, digital pocket camera is really handy as I have experienced countless time of almost-got-pilfered by pick-pocket. Golden rule is, mind your wallet, but not your bulky expensive camera ;) A bit of teaser about my new camera

And guess what, along with the camera, I order a photography book. Might be handy to understand things about photography, especially about lighting, shooting angle, technical aspect of a camera, and some samples shot by John Freeman, a photographer and journalist.

We will see what is coming again next week, seems like there are awfully lots of things to do, and awfully lots of goodbye to say. The goodbye part is not that pleasant, but it is more unpleasant not to say goodbye at all ;)

Diary of a jobless part 1

2010-09-03T15:18:00.000-07:00

Its been 3 days since I quit my job. I must say that this already been 3 beautiful days from this past few months. It has been hectic months this past few months as me and my team are rushing to deliver a software for our client. It has been good, and too bad I have to left my team in the middle of the process. I would like to continue to support them until next year, but I have already another appointment with destiny :D To cut story short, I will attend a MBA program at Singapore in November. Before that, I am taking 2 months vacation to relieve all the stress.

So the story goes... I have made a vow before to myself that I will do some sports when I quit my job. Today, I have run around 8 KMs because i got lost on the way!! I have my daily route everyday, but special for today I took a detour just for a change. It turns out to be a bad decision.... Anyway, I run more so its actually good :) I am trying to jog everyday now, just to recuperate from months of unhealthy life, full of red bull, coffee, and sitting in front of computer.

Here I am now, writing this blog with aching leg because of the stupid mistake this afternoon. And after that, I have to bike to other side of town to attend a choire training. Talking about working out my leg today... But the good part is that I manage to get some people to go to a city in The Netherlands called Giethoorn. I always wanted to go to this place since a long time, but never got the chance. This city is actually known as the 'Venetia' of the Netherlands. Simply put, the city is surrounded with waters and canals. Perhaps some picture will help to imagine.

We are planning to go there perhaps coming two weeks. I will definitely update the blog if I have visited Giethoorn ;) Now its time to enjoy few cans of beer and continue living as a jobless.

"Life as a jobless is good until you finish all your money"

Five factors that affects organization success

2010-06-01T15:17:00.001-07:00

The first key factor, that will ensure the success of an organization, is the ability to manage its collective expertise. Those who can tap and nurture these expertise will further increase their value. As a person, you have the needs to develop, and as an organization, it will get a lot of advantage if it can accommodate this desire to grow.

The next thing to have as an organization is the source of income. Income will be used to sustain the daily operation of an organization, and make enough profit to grow bigger ( and satisfying your stock holders, if you have any ). The clients or customers play important role here. To get the maximum advantage out of them, an organization needs to build a good relationship with them. This relationship must be based on mutual respect and fair play.

Good service or quality needs to be in place in order to retain customers. This is an important aspect because it defines an organization’s sustainability. Customers who are disappointed with its level of service/quality will tell their families or friends. This will be some sort of chain effect that might ( and possibly will ) cripple your income. A good case study around this subject was Dell, who was considered having poor customer service. What’s interesting to see here is the ability of the customers to found each other in the internet ( there were actually a lot that feels the same ) and later on spreading their complains through various blogs and forums.

When you have a sustainable organization, it means that you will be in the market for long period of time. Surely you will need to invent new product/service, or in other term, to innovate. Through innovation, you will embrace new development in your expertise field, and it might even lead you to a totally new market. The impact for an organization not to innovate is not immediate. Rather, it will cost the organization in the long-term run.

Along the way, the organization has picked vast amount of experiences in its expertise field. By using all of these experiences, the organization can assume the role of thought leadership. The term was first coined in 1994 by Joel Kurtzman, which means that your organization is capable to spearhead new initiatives. Such initiatives can broaden the reach of your field, while in the same time creating new chances for others to spur new businesses. Not to be confused with innovation, with thought leadership you will need to cooperate with others. It can be considered as a joint-venture between parties to gain mutual advantages.

And as a closing, organization will not cease to function when it becomes a thought leader. The new initiatives that are proven to be successful will be absorbed as part of daily business process. As new businesses grow, new competitors also come into play, which means that the organization will needs to stay innovative. All of the steps are repeated again in a cycle that keeps the economy revolves.

It's about Gundam Unicorn

2010-03-03T12:52:00.001-08:00

Lately, I stumbled upon an advertisement about the newest installment of gundam series, called mobile suit gundam unicorn. I came across it when I am browsing my favorite anime site, www.crunchyroll.com. For you who don't know, you can watch anime for free in this site. not only anime, they also provide japaneese and korean drama. I sometimes watch korean drama too ;) sounds bit cheesy, but I like cheesy stuff hehehe

so back to the discussion about gundam. I am quite huge fan about Gundam, and I have some scale models of Gundam at home. the first episode that I follow was Gundam SEED. I just barely know about the previous Gundam episodes, like Gundam Wings, Gundam Zeta, and Gundam 00. I think there are a lot more hardcore gundam fans out there who can name more gundam episodes than me, but these are enough to get someone started to like Gundam.

So the story of Gundam Unicorn takes place in the far future, where human already found a way to live in space. The human in space has their own goverment, and its separate from the earth goverment. the earth was trying to maintain its control to the space colony. In the end, earth was having dispute about the control of space colony, and the space people didn't like it. War broke out for around 10 years between earth and space. The war was also colored by technology wars, where earth and space has their own gundam. On the end of this war, peace treaty was signed between earth and space. The story of Gundam Unicorn takes place three years after the end of the long war.

I have to say that I have just seen the first episode of Gundam Unicorn, and it looks really good. The graphic and the mech design is always superb in gundam series. For the story, I bet it will also be interesting, with a lot of plot twist here and there. the plot twist is mostly about war politics, I pressume. Without any further adeau, I present the trailer of Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, for the curious head out there ;)

The rise of natural user interface

2010-02-18T11:51:00.000-08:00

The term natural user interface means that when a computer device which has user interface can be used without series of learning beforehand. Natural user interface, or in short NUI, dictates that user can perform series of actions / control to the device by using daily motions, movements, and gestures. The most descriptive identifier of NUI is the lack of physical keyboard and mouse.

Such good example of NUI on action is the iPhone interface. You can do a flicking hand gesture to scroll through your contacts, or pinching on picture to change its dimension. Such action is actually more natural than clicking / dragging scroll bar button. we can say that a standard GUI is of exploratory nature while NUI is more intuitive. The most common application of NUI can be seen in the multi-touch technology. See the diagram below on how the user interface has evolved since the DOS era to nowadays.

Currently, this NUI concept is being considered as the future for user interface implementation. It was all started with iPhone, and then Windows 7 soon follows. Microsoft makes an investment of $24 million on multi touch technology developed by an Iranian company, N-trig. Windows 7 then support multi touch interface by default. Not only that, Dell and HP also brought the multi touch technology to the PC and laptop market.

More and more device in the future is going to incorporate Natural User Interface concept. For the tech watcher, I am sure you already know that Windows Phone 7 is on the making, and Microsoft already released some promotional videos. As you can see, it uses a kind of user interface that we never seen before in mobile device. In my opinion, the user interface looks slicker than the one Apple has. But then, Apple has their upper-hands in the app market which tolls more than 140 thousand apps.

I predict that in the future, we will see more and more different markets use natural user interface for their application. Starting from children, where they will have a table like notepad to make drawing and do their homework. Note that I don't refer specifically to iPad is it sucks, according to my previous blog :) Imagine you are an architect, where you can make a CAD model directly by using hand gesture. Or an office worker, where you can show the draft of your document directly to your manager, and apply rectification in-place only by gesturing through the document. Take also an example of showroom, say a cellphone showroom. You can use such multi touch technology as your virtual showcase. You will not need any dummy anymore, and it can provide informations about the device at the same time. The applications are vast, and it goes as far as your imagination can. I am quite interested about it, and I have placed a question at N-trig about ordering their multi touch hardware. Well, I hope that the prices is not that expensive ;)

Disney back to the classic with The Princess and the Frog

2010-02-05T13:46:00.000-08:00

At last, the long awaited Disney classical has come to the cinema. I just watch this cartoon movie tonight, and I must say that Disney has found its root back. Since the beginning, Disney is always the best in making such classical cartoon. I must admit that the story can be categorized as cheesy by some type of people, but heck I like cheesy stuffs. In fact, the princess and the frog is more beautiful to me than cheesy. It is something that you haven't seen in ages since the story of Aladdin, Little Mermaid, Cinderella, Snow White, or Beauty and the Beast.

The movie was made by the same team who brings Little Mermaid and Aladdin to live. The think tank behind it is John Lasetter. He is currently the chief creative officer for Disney and Pixar, and also the director of Toy Story. Apart from that, the story and the music score intertwine perfectly in this latest installment of Disney. The story is not really heavy, and perfect for children. It also introduce them with fairy tale about prince and princess, live happily ever after, and wishing upon a star. A good norm is also taught in the movie, that you must work hard to reach your dream.

The setting takes place in New Orleans in year 1920. The story revolves around a waitress by the name of Tiana. Tiana comes from poor family, and she would like to build a restaurant in New Orleans. One day, A prince from Maldonia came to visit New Orleans, and there, he got tricked by a witch doctor. The witch doctor turned him into frog, and he met Tiana by accident. Tiana tried to help him, but instead she got turned into frog too. The story goes on about their attempt to turn themselves back to human again. There are a lot of things happen in their journey. The prince is a spoiled brat who only knows how to have fun, while Tiana is a hard-working person.

So that was a bit about the story. It is simple, right? if you are a Disney lover, you gotta see this movie. It is not a 3D cartoon, and you don't need to use those 3D glasses, it is not as long as Avatar, but you will enjoy its 100 minutes duration ;)

Why new IPad is a FLOP

2010-01-28T14:11:00.001-08:00

By reading the title of this blog, I think you already know which side I choose. Yes, I choose a side that criticize Apple of its latest move releasing IPad. But before criticizing it, I would like to compliment Apple hardware house which release a new processor called Apple A4. Apple is the only company out there where you can innovate in such hardware and software level. Hey, even Microsoft doesn't make their own processor, not even Google. The performance of this processor is comparable to the "Moorestown" atom processor which is used in the Google Nexus One phone. It is considered as the fastest mobile processor out there.

Other compliment goes to the Apple ability to expand its revenue stream by making book store app inside its device. Apple cuts deal with a big publisher in New York in order to fill its virtual shelf with books. And this deal actually can be good for Apple, because publishers now have the chance to get out from the clutch of Amazon's Kindle. This can be good for publishers because with competitor for Kindle, they can bargain over the price.

Now let me explain why it will be a FLOP. Let me start first with the presentation of IPad's spiritual father, Steve Jobs. If we compare the presentation between IPhone and IPad, the presentation of IPad just missed flares and optimism from Steve Jobs. It might just be my feeling, but for people who knows Steve Jobs, you should also look at his presentation when he is unveiling the first Apple computer in 1984. It is just not electrifying enough. And God knows what Steve, if you make such device that just simply an oversized IPhone, I don't think that you will be happy with your achievement. Hey, where is your famous "BOOM" word when you presenting IPad!

Second, I have problem with the price. The cheapest variant is 16 GB, sell with the price tag of 500$. 16 GB is not enough if you plan to put music, HD movie, and pictures there. I even choke with a 100 GB harddisk. So let us buy the 64GB variant, and it has price tag of 700$. If you have a data plan attached, then the price will be 829$. Compared to the price of Amazon's Kindle which is 260$, this device from Apple is still expensive. Compared to the price of netbooks in the market, they are all priced in the price tag around 250$ - 300$. But of course Kindle can not do web surfing as good as IPad!! but then let us look at netbooks. Netbooks can surf the web, and you can also read books with Netbooks. So IPad has to compete with netbooks in terms of functionalities.

Third, the operating system used is the same OS as the IPhone one. Only Apple made some built in app in order to make this device appealing. Also, all games that are made for IPhone can be played in IPad. And the backdraw of this OS is that there is no MULTITASKING!! Yes, it is not possible to chat with AIM while you read a book you bought in Apple Book Store. I chat occasionally, and I think it would be nice if I can chat while browsing through my favorite website.

Fourth, is the design of IPad. IPad use on-screen keyboard, which will be shown when you are typing mail, or having need to input something. If you know the shape of IPad, it is just like a flat slate, and imagine the position you have to take to type on that thing. You must put that thing on your lap, and by then you can type comfortably. Having to type on your lap for a long time is actually not good for your arm. As your arm is straining, it can cause some pain if the duration are long. Perhaps in the future, Apple will release a docking station and keyboard for its IPad. But if that happens, then its just Apple admitting the mistake of its INTUITIVE DESIGN. I better of with a tablet from HP where it has multi touch screen, and it has normal keyboard.

So All in all, this product is so NOT STEVE JOBS. I can say Mr.Jobs is proud of his multi touch, app store, itunes, book store concept. But for the device itself, probably he just feel so-so. If Mr.Jobs reads this blog, he can send me a personal mail to say if I am correct or not. No need for NDA because I will not tell anyone :)

Using Gmail as your mail server

2010-01-24T04:47:00.000-08:00

Few weeks back, I face a problem when I am trying to setup a mail server for my website, SeleraKita.com. I found out that exim, the default mail server from my VPS is not working properly!! After looking the problem with a support technician from a web company, Pondok Media, it is actually broken because our previous sysadmin upgrade the Apache and PHP module manually through UNIX command, while he supposed to do it through WHM..... The moral of the story here is to always use your built in management control panel for your VPS. If you can't do it yourself, always contact the administrator of the VPS first, instead going on your own saga to do something that you will regret later :( :(

The solution of using Gmail as mail server was actually proposed by the web company I am working with. Kudos to the owner, William Sutanto who proposed this. So, instead of re-installing a new mail server, I can just outsource my mail server entirely to GMail. This is considered better solution than reinstalling the mail server, because a new mail server means that you must administrate it yourself. Using Gmail, it is administrated by google. Using Gmail as mail server falls under the feature of Google apps. There are already worldwide companies using this approach, such as Genentech, Salesforce.com, and Motorola. In this case, we are using only the gmail feature, but we can use many of the Google features such as Google calendar, groups, Docs, sites, and Video. all can be configured specific for your own company, and zero maintenance cost of course ;)

To use gmail as your mail server is actually very simple. You have a selection to use either Premier edition or standard edition. For cheap asses, use standard edition, its free!! You can see the comparison between standard and premier edition in the picture below

SeleraKita only using standard edition because only gmail is used, and other enterprise functionalities are not yet needed. The steps to configure your VPS will be explained once you register to Google Apps. The nice about this is that you can use a mail address under your domain name, while the mail will be routed to Gmail server. For example, If I send an email to support@selerakita.com, then this mail will be sent to a gmail account that I made using Google Apps Control Panel. If you are enterprise company, you might be interested to use more advanced feature such as push mail, and this is also available. Even Single Sign On is supported by Google Apps.

To cut the long story short, what you need to do is only modifying your DNS record. To verify that a certain domain is indeed yours, you have to add a CNAME record. In the configuration process of Google apps, you will be presented with a unique apps code. This code will have to be added as CNAME. Actually this step can be skipped entirely, and go straight to MX ( Mail Exchange ) record configuration. This is the entry that indicates that an email should be routed to Gmail server. You can see the example here below:

It's about SeleraKita technology

2009-05-26T02:55:00.001-07:00

While approaching the release of my culinary website for Indonesian market, SeleraKita, I want to deal some of the technology used by it. As SeleraKita, we position ourself as service provider for people who wants to search for their culinary needs in a fast manner. We aim to provide comprehensive database of food around Jakarta initially, and later on targeting the whole indonesia. We hope the support of Jakarta citizen who are food-savvy to enrich our database by writing articles for us. This information will go back to the citizen, and solely used to make our service better for the sake of our user.

By leveraging current technology, we try to build an environment where it can scale up good in the future. As the first consideration, our server is located in Singapore, which is the closest internet landing point to Indonesia. We have chosen a service provide in Singapore because of their competitive price, and their proven support. If the demand increase in the future, we planned to locate the server back to the home country, Indonesia. Having a close landing point means that selerakita page will load faster.

Internet speed in Indonesia is also a concern. Jakarta is well exposed by broadband connection, but there is still noticeable amount of dial up connection user. Shared connection in internet cafe also not work as fast as a private broadband connection. we aim to provide a website where user which use dial up can access within time window less than 20 seconds at max. Having this target, we implement server side archiving of content before being sent to your browser. By archiving the content, a smaller package can be sent to you, effecting on a faster load of the web page.

SeleraKita website is fully javascript driven, using professional packages to drive its functionality. The same packages have been used by Google, Apple, and NASA to power its website, which are Prototype and Scriptaculous library. The decision to use javascript is to evade the excessive usage of Flash content. Scriptaculous provides animation framework which give the user a rich user interface experience. We will keep on working iteratively to make the user experience better in SeleraKita website.

SeleraKita has a search engine capable to analyze the current trend on the market. The result of the search will be given in a sorted order from the most famous to less famous location. All thanks to KulinerKita algorithm which runs every day to analyze the data of our user behavior. The searchengine is implemented by using Stored Procedure in MySQL database to attain the highest query speed possible. The reason that stored procedure is chosen is because we can gain the favor in speed if we bring the search process closer to the heart of the operation, MySQL itself by using the built in SQL programming language. Through time, we will keep improving the performance of the search engine so it can be as blazing fast as Google.

To speed up the building process of the website, we leverage industry standard PHP framework, Symfony. By using Symfony, Selerakita can build its website within time span of 30 days. The coding is supported by Eclipse IDE using various plug in for its Database modelling, Clay, and script editor, YAML. Symfony make use of Propel, capable of generating a fast way to access the database while eliminating the header of writing too much SQL query.

In our core, we are on the same time service-oriented team as well as technological team. we tried to deliver the solution using the most efficient technology there is. And of course the aim is better user experience for our user. In the end, no matter how advance our technology and how much we have spent, our users are the ones we serve. Within our business model, we would like to invite the user to take part in the process of inventing SeleraKita website. We are welcome for any suggestion through our community forum in Facebook and Friendster. If we think that the community of the users have good idea, we will answer their challenge by implementing it.

Stay tune for the launch on 16 July!!!! Around that date, I will release the second iteration plan to make SeleraKita better, such as mobile version, and the rest is surprise... ;)

It's about Shaping Business - Business 101 Part 2

2009-05-11T07:56:00.000-07:00

On my last entry in the series of Business 101, I have talked about how you should answer to idea that pops up in your head. The focus on this series will be about taking this idea one step further to reality, carve its first shape. This is comparable to the step taken by artisan who made sculpture. He will get a big lump of stone, which he carved roughly to represent the shape that he wants. That’s exactly what we are going to do here. Note that it is dangerous not to plan carefully in giving shape to your business. Fail to plan means plan to fail.

Let us start first with branding. Branding is notably the most important aspect for your business. The term branding is also famously known in marketing world. According to my experience, product with weak / no branding will evaporate rather quick from the customer’s mind. Branding is all about the impression that your business get from your customer. It’s not about how you position yourself in the market, but how your customer will look at you. Do you see the differences? While the one has focus with competitor, the other focus more on the customer. Take for example when you heard the name Google. The first impression that comes to your mind is “Search Engine”, and yet the best “Search Engine”. When I say “BMW”, the first impression that might come ( or at least come to my mind ) is “Luxury car”. That’s what it means by branding. I consider branding to be more abstract and you have to work your way to get that branding, like Google effort to employ thousands of PHD to make Google the best search engine on earth. I’m not at any way affiliated to Google, but make them as example simply of their disruptive and innovative way of thinking. Which I apply also to a project I’m currently working on: SeleraKita.com , The Indonesia’s first culinary search engine.

Then we have to look from our point of view, who is our market?? Determining market is important, unless you have a product that is so general that it can reach all kinds of people, take for example TV- set. Even if your product is only meant for a niche-market, it will still sell. If you don’t believe, you can ask Lamborghini how it’s car is made. While all other automobiles factory depends on robotic arms, Lamborghini assembled its car by using man-power. And it’s only sold for limited amount of each type of car and which is BTW really expensive!!! So it is clear which market does the Lamborghini serve. So make sure you know your market, or community!!! A good targeted market can make a community by itself, and they generate more revenue. This practice is applied successfully by Harley Davidson, where you can see such community around the motorcycle sprung up in different countries. With the advent of internet, there is more and more chance to target different market segment. Internet disparate everything. Internet makes organization easier because it doesn’t have the demographic boundary and physical presence. You could imagine how many kinds of opportunity available in the internet. This is marked with the birth of Web 2.0, the social web paradigm. Due to long discussion around Web 2.0, I will not cover it right now. I’ll make sure to cover about it in coming articles.

And of course no one will believe / buy your product if it doesn’t have unique selling position. There should be something unique which you can offer to your customer, even if it’s not your main product. You can offer a good service around your product, and you will notice that the customer will pledge their loyalty to you. And be careful with angry customer, because they can do more damage than you may think of. First of all, they can tell their associates that your product / service sucks. And if they are internet-savvy, they will post in their blog, Digg, Facebook, or even You Tube!!! The next thing you will know is that you might have lost small percentage of your sales. If you don’t react to this, it is guaranteed that you will lose more. The same thing had happened to Dell before, where a group of angry customer wrote blogs about their service desk’s bad quality. This group succeeded to stall the sales of Dell in America, that Dell see significant changes in certain region. Luckily, Dell reacts rather quick, and it manage to save itself on time. And this experience gave birth to Dell’s Idea Storm where customer can propose idea to Dell. The product of the community around Dell was the roll out of Dell computer with Linux operating system in it. With your uniqueness, you want to broadcast the message that you are different from the other player. Unique Selling Position means also Differentiation. The way you differentiate your brand determines also who your market is. If you have a Mac, I’m pretty sure that you understand how you differentiate yourself from PC/Windows user ;) An example of unique selling position is coming from our Japanese friend, Nintendo. Nintendo released the Nintendo Wii around 2 years ago, and it directly become a hit thanks to its revolutionary way of playing game by using movement.

Another point which is known in the marketing world is positioning. I will not bother to do this, because in my point of view, positioning is rather same with branding. Although some people states that it’s different…. One example that I can see about positioning is a rent-a-car company in North America. I can’t remember the name, but there are two major companies playing in this field. The second best make their second position in the market as a slogan. If I remember clearly, it sounds like this “Because we are second, we works harder to be the first” :D I think it’s really catchy, and quite funny. So if anyone has idea about the main difference between positioning and branding, they are welcome ;)

And for the final act, I would like to add my own theory about social responsibility. I have coined this term after reading book about the management of Starbuck, and the founding of Google. I want to deal the vision of both these companies. The vision of these companies are not to be the best bla bla bla whatever or for the money, but they are aiming to improve the quality of mankind. Vision of Starbuck is to make human life better. Starbuck paid good incentive to their Barista, and they give leadership lesson to the people working in their shop. They strive to make a better human out of their current employee. The same with Google, with their vision of making information freely available for mankind ( and organized!! ) So you see, neither of these companies want to be the best coffee seller, or the best search engine, but they aim for something higher. Something social that make mankind life better. I believe that company with such social responsibility is able to attract various different parties to be involved with them. Everyone would like to have their shares to make earth / mankind better, but someone has to press the ignition button. And as the topping of my theory, I have included this social responsibility theory into the project I’m currently working on. It is done not based on a financial cause, but more for my willingness to prosper my home-country, Indonesia. We would like to bring the innovation of technology to the Indonesian market, and to disrupt the current way of working so that the people and government will benefit more with IT and internet.

And my social responsibility statement closed this article about shaping up your business. As time goes on, I will prepare yet another interesting article for you, especially technology-savvy and entrepreneur people.

It's about Long Weekend

2009-05-05T12:38:00.000-07:00

There is nothing more fun than a really long weekend. I just had a chance to have 4 days free, thanks to The Queen of The Netherlands :) Long live the queen!!!! It was a celebration to commemorate the birthday of the late queen. We called it "Koninginendag" here in The Netherlands, or literally translated as Queensday. The Queensday celebration was held on Thursday, and I was entitled to take a leave on Friday, the day after. So it was a vacation starting from Friday till Sunday.

First of all, I had planned a trip to Turkey for this long vacation. But since the financial situation makes people think twice to spend money, no one are interested to go to Turkey. So my friends thought something nice to do on this vacation. We had a picnic!!! we were having a picnic alongside a river nearby people's favorite meubel store, Ikea. In that area lies a big river surrounded by nature park. We went there by bicycle and it took almost 40 minutes :( Talking about far.....

Upon arriving on the riverside, we directly fill our empty stomach with home-made sushi. thanks to Alia AKA "Lili" and Lia for the sushi. it was delicious, although some of them are wrapped with aluminium foil, in place of dried seaweed ( Nori ). It's ok, I don't prepare anything anyway, so I don't complain.... :D We were finished around 6 PM. Afterwards, I went to the movie to watch "Wolverine", a movie about a character named Wolverine in X-Men.

Friday was ok. I spend half of the day preparing my website. It is a culinary platform specially designed for Indonesia. We are going to soft-launch on July, so the schedule is quite tight. A man gotta do when he gotta do.... I guess this is the main fundamental difference between men and women. Men are so result-oriented. Women are also, but to certain degree. They enjoy to discuss about the "steps" to reach the result, while men only wants to go to the result.

On Saturday, I went to a barbeque party at my friend place. We had everything prepared for the day. The menu are hamburger, salad, stay made of various things ranging from chicken meat, paprika, and mushrooms. It's all thanks to Ze Wen that prepared for all of them. Although small in size, Ze Wen is really good at cooking and cleaning. This is ZeWen preparing the barbeque.

We finished around 5 PM. After that, everyone gather at my house to play Wii. In my last post, I mentioned that I bought a Guiter Hero set for my Wii. It is a fun game, you really can enjoy it especially if you like to play game and to listen rock music.

It's about Easter Celebration

2009-04-14T14:11:00.000-07:00

"Living as Christian means living in fullness"

That was one sentence I heard during an easter celebration last Monday in Den Bosch. Living in fullness means that no matter what happened in life and whatever comes next in life, we have to face it with utmost believe that God; no matter what will guide us. It is a fact that life is never smooth. If you by any chance has never encountered problem, thank God who has given you a life with fullness.

I had pretty rough life in the past, and it is just so different compared to where I am today. Last Monday was one of the days where such fulness was present. I went to this easter celebration which was being held by Catholic community from the whole Netherlands. On that day, at least 1000 people are gathering to celebrate Easter. People are coming from every corner of The Netherlands, and most of them are Indonesian.

The celebration takes place in a sporthall somewhere in the outskirt of Den Bosch. The celebration is lead by few pastor, which two of them are my acquintances, Pastor Bart and Pastor Clement. Upon arrival, we were directly welcomed by Miss Yvonne, the chairperson of Catholic community in Tilburg. To say it correctly, she was looking for me because I am in charge of the offering :D We were a bit late that day because we missed one bus stop.

The celebration opened by a group of tradional dancers which lead the way for the pastors. In this place, you can really feel the atmosphere of Indonesian culture. The praise song were sang by Catholic communities from town such as Tilburg, Amsterdam, and Den Haag. The photo below shows the group from Den Haag, which happens to be sitting close to my seat. I think they are the most spirited group from all of the others.

The celebration takes about 3 hours. It is quite long indeed :D There were speeches held for abou half an hour, and that was the most boring part on that day. Well, as we say in Indonesia, There are no horn which is not broken.... which means that nothing is perfect :) What comes next is the moment that we have all been waiting for, the lunch time!!!!

For the lunch, everyone got a lunchbox for free ( Then I thought..... Yipeeee!!! ) The lunchbox contains a balado egg ( Egg with Chili mix from Sumatra island ), Rendang ( smoothed beef cooked with coconut milk and spices ), and Sayur Buncis ( Sauted long bean with garlic ). There were also kids meal which is not spicy :) All in all, We had a great day on that day, and accompanied by great food for closure. I really can't expect better than that. I hope that there are more celebration follows after this..... :)

It's about Guitar Hero Jamming Night

2009-04-05T13:38:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since last post I wrote myself. Few weeks back, I hold a fun event at my house. I called it Guitar Hero Jamming Night!!! As I have mentioned in my three previous post, I bought a guitar hero world tour set. It consists of a drum kit, guitar, and microphone. So to gave it a try and unleashed the rock star within :D, I invited my friends to play along. The result was constant singing and screaming starting from 19:30 until 23:00. I do respect my neighbour, and I'm sure they don't want to hear us howling like lone wolf after 23:00 :D

Although some of us howl like wolves, some of us do can sing pretty good. There were two ladies in the club, and God I thank you for letting them came. Without those ladies, it would be a Guys night T_T The guys are not really good at singing, but we totally rock using the instruments. You will soon see how good we actually are :D I usually play the guitar, but since I'm taking the video.... I'm not visible. The bald guy licking his joint is very good with guitar :D

The jamming night goes on not only for guitar hero. We spends some of the time playing Wii Sport, and guess which sport..... Yep it's Tennis :D See, some of us never play Wii before. So we need to show them one of the neat stuff in Wii, and that is the Tennis game. It was so funny looking how they try to play the tennis game like in reality. Some did it cool without so many moves because they know how to play it. Some did it in extraordinary way that I never see before :D Some did it like he know the game, but keep losing.... :(

In the end, we close the night by enjoying Dutch snacks, complimentary ( but not free ) of T'Dreefke snack bar. It's a small snack bar behind my house run by egyptians. I'm so lucky to live near such a place like this :D

Well, see you guys on the next post about another game night. Probably it will be Mario Kart Drifting night, but who knows....

It's about Apple FLOP in India - Soon China follow...

2009-04-03T00:26:00.000-07:00

iPhone came to India with a bang. That bang lasted only for the night of the launch. Since its launch it has been weighed, tested and found wanting.

Here are the 7 reason why iPhone did not work in India.

Cost is too high for a phone which offers no new features except the touch screen. Priced at Rs31, 000 for 8GB and Rs36,100 for 16GB most of the phone buyers felt it’s not worth it.

There is no 3G network yet in India. Though the 3G auction process is complete and the spectrum is allocated it takes a while for the service providers like Airtel and Vodafone to roll 3G enabled services out. It could be in early 2009, which is a good 6 months away. So why pay for a service which cannot be used?

People are waiting for Nokia N96. Seriously, most of my colleagues have said that Nokia N96 is a better phone and they will wait for it rather than going for iPhone. Sure the iPhone’s touch screen is good and its iPod music playing capability is awesome but I would rather not spend my money for just that. I want more. Besides, the brand value of Nokia in India is pretty strong and Apple has to work really hard to break that. iPhone did not give a compelling reason (other than the touch screen) for people to leave their N series phones.

Hygiene factors are missing. Many features which are a given in a phone that costs you Rs4, 000 are missing in iPhone. I am not sure why they were but, video recording, cut paste, sms forwarding (how can you miss this) options are lacking.

Consumers are waiting for the price to drop. This has been the case for a while now. I bought a 4GB iPod Nano for Rs.18, 000 in March 2006. I have checked backed into apple store after 6 months and for the same price they were selling 30GB iPod video. It is an apples and apples comparison and they did not match. So, I think apple will cut its prices and people are waiting for that.

Alternative routes to acquire the phone at a cheaper price. iPhone crazed are the people who mostly work with technology. They usually know what the going rate of iPhone overseas is. So, it is not hard to get an iPhone 2G for $200 and unlock it for Rs. 1000 here in India. I am not sure if this route will work for 3G. Since there is no difference between 3G and 2G right now in India this would be a steal. Even the rising dollar would not be a factor here.

Apple’s monopoly did not go well with Indians. Apple has ingenuously designed products and equally ingenuous monopoly. Indian consumers do not want contracts. They would like to change phones, change numbers whenever they want. They do not want to be married to a number and a phone. Besides, when you buy a phone at such an exorbitant price, how can you justify the fact that you cannot change your phone for a different number or a different vendor? I am finding it hard to justify. Only Steve Jobs can answer that but until then Nokia might rule the roost.

iPhone in India has a long way to go. Unless the prices are slashed and apple ties up with other GSM service providers it might never take off. We just have to wait and see if rolling of 3G services might give it a second life. A price of Rs. 20,000 would find more takers at least for the 8GB version.

Taken from trak.in article.

This is why a company / a product / a service should cater to the local need of their mass

It's about 3rd World Country - Indonesia Learn 2009

2009-04-01T03:20:00.000-07:00

Indonesia and any third world country should learn from the experience of one village in India called Tilonia. First appearances can be deceptive. Tilonia, a remote village in the Ajmer district of Rajasthan, looks like its not changed in the last 100 years. But spend some time there and you will realize why this tiny village has made its mark on the world map. The village is home to the Social Work and Research Center and the Barefoot College founder Sanjit Roy also known as Bunker Roy.

Set up in 1972 the Barefoot College believes that solutions to rural problems lie within the community and trains people who often have had no or very little formal education and teach them skills through the process of learning by doing. The college does not give out any paper degree or qualification after the course.

It has a campus spread over 80,000 square feet that has residences, a guest house, a library, dining room, meeting halls, an open air theatre, an administrative block, a small hospital, pathological laboratory, teacher’s training unit, water testing laboratory, a Post Office, STD/ISD call booth, a Craft Shop and Development Centre, an Internet cafe, a puppet workshop, an audio visual unit, a screen printing press, a dormitory for residential trainees and a 700,000 litre rainwater harvesting tank.

The village and the college are electrified through solar panels designed and manufactured by the villagers. The college serves over 1,25,000 villagers in the district.
“When I went into a village in 1967, I dint know what I was going in for. But I said if I don’t do it now I’ll never do it. People didn’t think I would last. Even I didn’t think I would last,” says Bunker Roy.

Within two years the villages in the block were electrified. ”After coming here I feel it’s not necessary to be educated. Even an illiterate person can learn to test and assemble solar panels,” says Kailash who makes solar panels in Tilonia.

He is a class eight drop out, who initially came to Tilonia from a neighbouring village to learn how to make circuits and electrify his village. He now trains many African women on how to make intricate solar circuits for products and has helped electrify villages around Tilonia.

After being replicated elsewhere in Rajasthan, the Tilonia model has now spread to 10 countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America. Engineers trained by the Barefoot College have solar electrified over 200 communities in India, bringing light to over 80,000 people. And that is not all. The village also trains women to make solar cookers and has 25 to 30 solar cookers made by women.

Taken from www.livemint.com
Part of plan for future initiative "Indonesia Learn 2009"

It's about Spiderman

2009-03-25T15:11:00.000-07:00

BANGKOK - A Thai firefighter dressed as Spider-Man to rescue an autistic boy who climbed onto a third-floor balcony and dangled his legs over the side because he was nervous on his first day of school.

Firefighter Somchai Yoosabai was called in after the 11-year-old boy's teachers and mother failed to coax him off the ledge on Monday, he said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

"He was nervous about the first day at school, and he was asking for his mother," Somchai said. "He cried and refused to let any of us get close to him."

Overhearing a conversation between the boy's mother and his teachers about his love for comics and superheroes, Somchai rushed back to the fire station to change into a Spider-Man costume before swinging into action.

"I told him Spider-Man is here to save you. No monster will hurt you now," Somchai said. "Then I told him to walk slowly toward me. I was very nervous that he might have slipped if he got too excited and ran."

Somchai, who keeps costume of Spider-Man and a Japanese superhero Ultraman to liven up fire drills at schools, said the teary-eyed boy broke into a smile and started walking into his arms.

Taken from AP, Associated Press news...

It's about Having Fun part 2

2009-03-21T16:28:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I post an update to my blog. This is because I have been busy with many things lately. One is caused by my work. For few previous weeks, we have to perform major reorganization in our client, so it took most of my attention and time. In the end, it works fine in general. There is still room for improvement though. Well, at least we know now how to do it well and expecting the reorganization for other department.

Other things that taking my attention is the way I'm having fun lately. I notice that I play game a lot these days. My weekend is mostly comprised of going out to to town in the afternoon, and playing game in the evening. That way I still keep the balance of socialized life :)

I just bought a Nintendo Wii with 2 cool games ( I consider cool!!! ). One is the House Of the Dead Overkill, an arcade shooting game made by SEGA. It's a famous shooting game where it's first came out on 1997 or 1998. The current release of House Of the Dead series has entirely different format. The game has a character of Quentin Tarantino game, with a lot of blood, rude language, and cut scene-like movie. It's resemble close to a movie called Planet Terror. I bought the hand cannon package with the Game DVD. Take a look the packaging.

Beside this game, I also bought a set of Guitar Hero World Tour band package. God, it cost me a lot of money, but it's worth to buy. I enjoy playing music games. It's relaxing as if you are playing real instrument.

The band package comes with a drum set, a wireless guitar, a microphone, and the Gutar Hero DVD. I was not feeling really well on the day when the band package arrived. So I have to put it in my living room, waiting to play with it if I'm feeling well.

Having feeling well, I want to try the new toy that I just buy. I try to play with the drum set, and I must admit it feel really good. It has the feeling like you are playing with an electric drum. So kudos for the producer of Guitar Hero. The game contains almost 80 songs from famous band in the world, like for example:

Metallica
R.E.M
System of a Down
Van Halen
Black Sabbath
The Rasmus
Beastie Boys

And some famous singer that we know such as Michael Jackson and Ozzy Osborne. Below you can see the picture of my latest collection :D

I let my friend to record the video where I play the guitar while she sings. She was embarassed when I asked her to upload the video to youtube :) So instead of embarassing myself, I will show you the trailer of Gutar Hero World Tour ;)

It's about Singapura

2009-03-11T01:54:00.000-07:00

Singapura oh Singapura...

Pretty island sets in the sea

Singapura oh Singapura...

Pretty flower blooms for you and for me

This is a piece of song about Singapura. I visited Singapura few months a go, and it has changed quite a lot since my last visit 4 years a go. For people who wants to travel to Asia, but doesn't have a lot of time, you can visit Singapura. For me, Singapura is a place where cultures from Asian's continent merge with each other. There you can experience a lot of cultural diversity and commodity. Basically, you can found these following cultures: Chineese, India, Malay, Peranakan. Peranakan is a mix culture between chineese and malay. This culture comes from the Chineese people that are born and grown in a malay environment, known also as "Straits Chineese".

During my stay for 5 days, I have taste almost all cultures in Singapura, thanks to my friend Tety Intan Sari for her companionship. At morning we already began scouring the town for continental breakfast. Afternoon is the time to visit different places in town, and tourism sightseeing. In the evening, we prepare our stomach for Singapore's gastronomical delight. I have here a video which shows you a little bit about Singapura:

And a visit to a country like Singapura will not be complete without knowing about its political situation. Its famously known as "fine city" where even bubble gum is forbidden :D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore

I happen to found a funny video made by Singaporean that shows a bit about Singapura's political situation

It's about mayonaise jar

2009-03-10T05:12:00.000-07:00

When things in your life seem, Almost too much to handle,When 24 Hours in a day is not enough,Remember the mayonnaise jar and 2 cups of coffee.A professor stood before his philosophy class And had some items in front of him.When the class began, wordlessly,He picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jarAnd proceeded to fill it with golf balls.He then asked the students, If the jar was full.They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and pouredthem into the jar. He shook the jar lightly.The pebbles rolled into the open Areas between the golf balls.He then asked The students againIf the jar was full.. They agreed it was.The professor next picked up a box of sand And poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.He asked once more if the jar was full. The students respondedWith an unanimous 'yes.'The professor then produced Two cups of coffee from under the tableAnd poured the entire contents Into the jar, effectivelyFilling the Empty space between the sand.The students laughed.

'Now,' said the professor, As the laughter subsided,'I want you to recognize that This jar represents your life.The golf balls are the important things - God, family,children, health, Friends, and Favorite passions Things that if everything else was lost And only they remained, Your life would still be full.The pebbles are the other things that matter Like your job, house, and car.

The sand is everything else --The small stuff.'If you put the sand into the jar first,' He continued,'there is no room for The pebbles or the golf balls.The same goes for life.If you spend all your time And energy on the small stuff,You will never have room for The things that areImportant to you.

So...Pay attention to the things That are critical to your happiness.Play With your children.Take time to get medical checkups.Take your partner out to dinner.There will always be time To clean the house and fix the disposal.'Take care of the golf balls first --The things that really matter.Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.

'One of the students raised her handAnd inquired what the coffee represented.The professor smiled.'I'm glad you asked'.It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem,there's always room for A couple of cups of coffee with a friend.'Please share this with other "Golf Balls"

It's about Idea - Business 101 part 1

2009-03-04T11:41:00.000-08:00

I consider ideas as God's gift to human. We human have the capability to dream. And this dream in turns gives birth to idea. We encounter ideas in our daily life. The most fundamental ideas that we experience everyday are the way we solveproblems. We need idea to go through daily problem, and from idea we can also make something out of it. Great idea canbe a beginning of good business. Innovative idea can be the beginning of innovative business. In my point of view,innovative business has the advantage of gaining fast market share. Take for example Apple's IPod. When it was first introduced, there are no MP3 player with such sleek design like IPod. In no time at all, millions of IPod were sold world-wide.

My friend told me a story once about how he started a fitness centre. He has this creative idea to put high tech equipment in his fitness centre. The intention of this equipment is not for eye-candy, but rather to assist people better in their training program. According to him, there are three things people need in order to succeed in making business. number one is IDEA itself, number two is money, and number three is marketing. All of these three aspects are unseparated from each other.money and marketing without idea would means burning all your bucks. the same with idea and marketing without money, your idea will not take off from the ground.

So everytime you have idea for a good business, always follow it by assessing the financial aspect. There are a lot of ways to get money for your business, for example from family, bank loan, and investors. Bur rather than looking for investors first, you should before hand know your financial needs. Then know your target. Target determines the way you do marketing.If you do a good assessment of your target, it can make a LOT of difference on your advertisement budget. For example,if you have an online webshop, you will not consider to advertise in the television for start, eventhough you have big startup capital. Instead, you can do your advertisement in the web since people in the web is your target market. For consumer electronic, it is inevitable to do TV advertisement because your target are as much people as you can get.

So, that was basically the beginning of business in my opinion. This blog entry will follow few next coming articles of business 101.It will be more focused on web business and combined with few insight on non-web business. The next article will be about how you give shape to your business and bring them into reality ;)

It's about Having Dream

2009-02-19T12:50:00.000-08:00

All of you will be agree that life is not sweet without a dream. It is comparable with dreaming while you are sleeping. When you don't dream, you still sleep well, but it feels better in the morning by having sweet dream. In the course of my life, I found out that I always try to fulfill my dream. My dream never stay the same.

When I was a child, I really like to read this Japanese Manga called Astro Boy. Astro boy is a robot figure which is created on the 22nd century. The story of the manga goes about the fight between Astro boy against evil people, robots, and aliens. The advance of the technology in the manga mesmerize me, that I decided to become a Robotic Scientist. It's easy to say for 10 years old boy :D

During high school, I found a new dream again, to become a 3D artist. I played video game a lot back then. One of my favorite RPG game is Final Fantasy. I even started to study 3D Studio MAX myself. Having realized that it's not that easy, I seek help to my friend. I happen to know this friend of mine who is really good at 3D Studio Max. At his junior grade, he already made his first CG movie :D It happens that his dream is to be a CG artist, and he still faithfully holds his dream. While improving his CG skill, he tried to make his living by becoming Manga artist. He just showed me one chapter of his manga to me yesterday, and I'm quite impressed... ;) So for you who read my blog, you can have the two pages sneak preview :D

Nice Huh!!! I feel really happy to know someone like him, who can hold his dream until now. It's just like he is being loyal to one purpose till the end. While I serve more than one purpose... :D

I found myself another dream again on my university period, to be a game programmer. I found out that I'm way better in programming than in 3D graphic. To be a 3D artist, you need an artistic skill, which I'm lacking of :( Having able to master programming really fast, I divert my course to game programming. I train myself to program game. I start first by programming 2D game. My first experience was my entry for Sony Ericsson Game Competition which brings me top 20 position in the world ;) Having mastered 2D, I move to 3D game programming. I have worked once for period of 6 months with a game studio called Playlogic in The Netherlands. Here, I made my first debut on console game, Xyanide Resurrection. I was in charge of programming some of the enemy movement. It was a small fry job... but I'm really happy to be given this chance. It was a good experience though. Gaming is hard industry. Full of overtime, and high learning curve. It's really a place of survival only for the fittest.

Yet I found know myself on the junction of my life again. For me, I consider game programming takes too much of my personal time. I would like to enjoy my life, going out with my friend, chill out after 17:00. I don't see myself having that luxury if I put my career on game industry. You can't bite more than you can chew. So here I am know pursuing my career in Software Engineering. I believe that I got the skill needed and the correct attitude for this choice. I do have big dream in this so called software world. My biggest dream will be to make quality improvement for the standard of living in third world country by utilizing Information Technology. Such program that aligned well with my ideal is for example OLPC program ( One Laptop Per Child). Currently, I am managing an internet startup to provide search engine service for culinary purpose, selerakita.com. This search engine is meant initially for Indonesian market, and will be our main innovative breakthrough for IT world in Indonesia. It features the newest Web 2.0 technology along with so called New-Wave advertisement medium :) SeleraKita site will be launched on June,1st 2009. Till then, I hope that you all can pray for our success. It's always about money in the end, but our vision is not making money. It's about increasing Indonesia's technology landscape by bringing in new way of thinking to the IT market.