If you are landing on my blog post, it means that you have been driven to the wall by this error message that you got from your Google Groups, ”An error (#357) occurred while communicating with the server”. Don’t worry I have been there….I tried so many times to add new members to my Google Group, but no matter how many times and when I added the members, I simply can’t add new members to my Google Group. Arrghhh…how frustrating

Well…error #357 can be triggered by different things. I was searching through the Internet, and it seems most of the time, this error happened when:

• Replying a message
• Inviting new members

To save you some time, let me share you with the solution that I found. I tried this solution when I was trying to invite new members to my Google Group, so hopefully the same principle would work in replying a post too….so far, I don’t have any problem in replying a post though.

Make sure the following are true.

1. Your welcoming message are shorter than 800 characters.
2. The email addresses that you use to invite your new members are in this format:
   “name1″ <email1@domain1.com>, “name2″ <email2@domain2.com>, etc…

That’s it. Please try them and let me know whether the solution above worked for you.

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It’s towards the end of the month and all of us who work as an employee will experience the same problem…running out of money!!

Luckily our HR department came out with this brilliant idea to have “Bokek” Lunch Day “Bokek” is an Indonesian slang word for “broke”, so the idea is that the company will sponsor a lunch for everybody in the company one day before the payday. Isn’t it nice and thoughtful?

This month’s menu is cap-cay, bakwan jagung, and ayam bumbu bali.

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1. My New Journey with Multiply Indonesia These past several months after I’m back to Indonesia, I...

These past several months after I’m back to Indonesia, I have been with Multiply Indonesia, mainly helping their search engine marketing. I would say that I’m so thankful that I can be with them. I’m surrounded by many people that I can learn so much from. Most people there work not just to earn a salary, but most importantly because they care about the company, so you can imagine the people who work there. They are top-notch. Moreover, it is a vibrant company, very competitive, and they strive to be the best e-commerce platform in Indonesia. More importantly, we care about our sellers. We want to make them successful, so if you haven’t opened a free store with us, you are missing out!

If you haven’t been following the news, Multiply has decided to move their headquarter to Indonesia, as soon as next year. This was a shocking news for me. I would never think that a US company would even consider moving to Indonesia. But knowing the stats how much we grew this past year since its first inception of Multiply 5.0 last year, I can understand their decision. Indonesia is just such a vast ecommerce market that still has a huge growth potential. I can’t wait to see how Multiply would become a year from now.

My hope is to see Multiply grow so big that it will become the Indonesian’s version of Amazon in US. Honestly, one thing that I missed the most from US is Amazon.com. I relied heavily on Amazon.com to satisfy my crave for computers and gadgets LOL I’m glad that Multiply.com starts to fill my “emptiness” with its growing marketplace.

You can now find me in Multiply at ssentosa.multiply.com. I’m actually looking to sell something on Multiply, so if you read this post and you have something that I can sell on Multiply, just let me know. We can have a nice conversation how I can be your online seller and make two of us successful

If you were curious how Multiply Indonesia office look like, here are some pictures of it

More about Multiply to come….

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Here we are…talking about the hottest Blackberry phone in the market, Blackberry Bold 9900 Dakota.

It took me 2 years to realize that my old Blackberry Bold 9000 was getting rusty and close to the point where I have been wanting to throw it to the wall. It failed me so many times. Imagine this…it froze every 2 days and sometimes, it even froze right when there’s an incoming call!! I ended up unable to receive the call and had to reboot the phone. So I told myself, “that’s it. I need to change my phone.” So I decided to switch to this sexy Blackberry Bold 9900 Dakota.

Alright…enough with my rambling about how I got this phone. Let’s get down to our business, shall we.

Specifications

• Network:  GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900;  HSDPA 850 / 1900 / 2100 / 800; HSDPA 900 / 1700 / 2100
• Dimensions: 115 x 66 x 10.5 mm
• Weight: 130 g
• Display: Type TFT capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
• Size: 640 x 480 pixels, 2.8 inches (~286 ppi pixel density)
• Memory: Internal 8GB storage, 768 MB RAM; External Card slot microSD, up to 32GB
• Wi-Fi: 802.11 b/g/n
• Bluetooth: Yes, v2.1 with A2DP, EDR
• NFC: Yes
• USB: microUSB v2.0
• Camera: Primary 5 MP, 2592×1944 pixels, LED flash
• Video: Yes, 720p
• OS: BlackBerry OS 7.0
• CPU 1.2 GHz QC 8655
• Sensors Proximity, compass
• GPS: Yes, with A-GPS support
• Media: MP4/WMV/H.263/H.264 player; MP3/eAAC+/WMA player
• BATTERY Standard battery, Li-Ion 1230 mAh
• Stand-by Up to 307 h (2G) / Up to 307 h (3G)
• Talk time Up to 6 h 30 min (2G) / Up to 5 h 50 min (3G)
• Music play Up to 50 h

Display

It has a beautiful display with vibrant color and spacious display. Blackberry Dakota also uses a Gorilla screen now, so you can rest assured knowing that your phone will stand the most “abusive” treatment.

Blackberry OS 7

Overall, Blackberry OS 7 is a solid operating system. However, there’s 1 major glitch on my Blackberry Bold 9900 Dakota phone. When it is rebooted, it oftentimes stuck around 70% of the process. Apparently, it is a known bug called a “reboot loop”. I’m currently using Blackberry OS 7.0 Bundle 2395. Some people said that this is just a minor glitch that will disappear once you upgrade your software. The one I’m using now is actually an upgrade from the previous one. I forgot that the Bundle # for the previous one, but it seems with this new bundle, I didn’t experience the “reboot loop” too many times. I hope your Blackberry Dakota reboots smoothly It just annoys me sometimes when I have to pull out the battery and put it back in when something like this happened.

NFC

This phone is one of the few phones that has NCF (Near Field Communication) in it. I can’t really test this out since I can’t find any place that offers an NFC tag to read from. However, this youtube video will show you how it works. One caveat…one of my friend bought his Blackberry Dakota from US (FYI, I bought this in Indonesia) and he didn’t have NFC installed on his phone, so be careful and make sure you check your phone (or ask the customer service if you are buying it online) if it has NFC or not. You are definitely missing out if your phone doesn’t have one. True that it’s not very useful now, but I can see it will be very useful few years down the road.

Camera

This is where Blackberry Bold 9900 Dakota is lacking. It only offers 5MP camera! Granted that it has flash built-in. However, it doesn’t have auto-focus feature. So when you are taking a close-distant picture, your camera phone will be having a hard time to focus on the object and give you a blur image.

Below are the few images taken from Blackberry Bold 9900 Dakota.

Battery

Now…this is also another area that my Dakota is lacking and what most of friend asked me,  ”How’s the battery?”

I would say my battery could last a good 12 hours. I usually unplug my phone from its charger at 7:30am, and it still has some juice left until around 9pm. Granted that I only use my phone to make few calls (around 3 calls/day), all day long using blackberry messenger, and  checking my twitter and email; but it is still good compared to my old Blackberry Bold 9000.

Some people said that you need to charge the battery 2-3 times a day. In my experience, I don’t have to. I did still buy an extra battery though, just in case…and a wall charger.

Case

The cellphone case that I used is made by Capdase. This is actually the first time I’m using that brand. I would say that it’s pretty sturdy, and the thing I like most about it is the thinness of it. Blackberry Bold Dakota 9900 is a thin phone, so if you were using a thick case, it will ruin the whole experience of using a thin cellphone.

Conclusion

Blackberry Bold Dakota 9900 is a solid phone in terms of technology. It has supreme display screen, fast processor, touch screen display, and NFC. However, its operating system needs some tweaks to make the whole experience of using this phone excellent. Would I recommend this phone to my friends? Yes, I would. However, I need to warn you that you might get few frustrations when you experience the “reboot loop”, so just bare with it. I bought this phone for around $450 without contract. I’m sure by the time you read this post, the price will be cheaper.

What do you think about this phone? if you are an owner of this phone, please give some of your experience of using one in the comment section below. Thanks.

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In a world we live in now, we often separate religious and secular matters. We often tend to think that we are doing secular matters from Monday to Saturday, and then on Sunday, we are doing religious matters. It should not be that way. As you will see in the video below, work is also an act of worship to God. As worship is our reaction and respond to God’s unmerited love, worship should encompass every area of our life, especially work, where we spend over half of our time there.

I hope this video can stir your heart and make you rethink where do you put work in your act of worship?

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Apple is undoubtedly the most creative tech company in the world. Just when you think that you’ve got their coolest gadget, iPad 2, they just now released “iTea”. Hit the video for more information.

You might have already noticed that this video is not real (or maybe you have not! LOL) Steve Jobs is NOT selling Taiwanese Tea now. He’s still sitting in his office trying to wash people’s brain to think that Apple’s products are the coolest products ever….at least that’s my humble opinion. No offense if you are Apple’s fans. This is actually an advertisement that was aired on Taiwanese TV network for Tong Yi Cha, a Taiwanese tea product. Nonetheless, who ever impersonated Steve Jobs did a pretty good job!

If you think that this is the end of the story. You are wrong. An attempt to impersonate Steve Jobs continues with MTR release of their subway apps.

If you like this post, please “like” it on facebook and share it with your friends and family. Thanks!

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The long anticipated alliance between Facebook and Skype is finally bringing forth its fruit with the rolling out of Facebook Video Chat.

There are 3 new features that Facebook is now rolling out:

• Group Chat
• Video Calling
• and new design

However, the most anticipated one is Video Calling. Even though Facebook is one step behind Google in terms of the release date, I’m looking forward to see how Facebook Video Calling is compared with Google+ Hangout.

If you are so eager to try this new feature, you can now go to http://www.facebook.com/videocalling to activate the new feature. If everything works like it normally does. You should see this screen below.

What do you think about Facebook’s latest move to compete with Google+? Do you think the mighty social media giant would triumph? I don’t know. Let’s give both Facebook and Google+ sometime to prove themselves. Meanwhile, we, as their customer, would gladly accept this new addition to our social media tools disposal.

If you enjoy this post, please like it on Facebook and share it with others. Thanks!

Source: Wired.com

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1. Will Google+ Beat Facebook? (Invitation Available) Apparently, the rumored news about Google’s own social network is...

Apparently, the rumored news about Google’s own social network is proved to be a fact. Starting few days ago, Google launched their own version of social media network, rivaling Facebook, that’s called Google+.

Some of the features that are currently being rolled out are status updates, check-ins, huddle, and hangout. You can read a complete Google+ overview from Search Engine Land to see in detail about Google+.

My main question now is….”Will Google+ be able to beat Facebook?”

It might be still too early to tell for sure if Google+ would be able to beat Facebook in terms of popularity and user base. However, I see that Google is moving to the right direction with Google+. They sure learned a lot from Google Wave failure. I mean Google Wave is cool, but it’s too complicated and impractical to use for a non-techie person. I can see how Google Wave technology could be developed into something great in the future, but in its current state, I don’t think it’s gonna go anywhere.

On the other hand, I can see a great potential already in Google+. I have been using Google+ for about 2-3 days now and I think Google+ could beat Facebook, for several reasons: 

• Google+ is able to limit/control to whom your post/updates will be shared with. This gives me a greater control to make sure that my message could only be read by the people (circles) I intended the post for. In Facebook, you don’t have this ability. Once you post something on Facebook, it will go out to ALL your friends.
• Easy access from Google.com. Since most of our homepage is Google.com, Google+ is one tab-click away from it, so it’s really easy to access. Plus, Google+ notification bar is always there sit at the top of Google.com so if you have any activity on your Google+, it will show at the top right hand-side bar.
• Google+ Chat will allow you to invite more than one people in a text chat. Plus, your conversation will be archived and searchable for later use. Facebook has finally caught up on this by combining Facebook Chat and Facebook Message, but you still can’t combine more than one people in your Facebook chat.
• Moreover, Google+ Chat will allow you to audio chat with your friends, something that still hasn’t been seen in Facebook even thought rumored says that Facebook is working with Skype to enable this feature soon.
• Google+ Huddle. If you are using Android (and soon for iPhone), you can download Google+ Android apps and do a “huddle” together with your friends. Google+ Huddle is basically a mobile chat feature that enable several people to quickly chat over the phone. I think this is great to save on your text message money.
  
• Lastly….Google+ Hangout. I’m saving the best for the last. Google+ Hangout will allow you to do a simultaneous video conference chat with up to 10 people. You could also pop up a Youtube video on it and watch it together with your friends. Off course you could also send text and audio chat while watching Youtube among the 10 people to make your “hangout” even more enjoyable.
  

My point is that Google+ is a purer form of social media platform. Its focus is to connecting people and it does that very well. There are still minor glitches and improvements they could do to improve Google+, but overall, I’m very pleased with it.

Now…if you are not a Google+ member yet, you now have the chance to get an invitation. How? Very simple. Since I made this as a closed-invitation now, I need your participation on this. As I need to raise money to fly back to Indonesia, I will send out a Google+ invitation to whomever chip-in for my plane ticket. Any amount will do, so if you were only able to chip-in $5…that’s fine, but if you were able to chip-in $10…that would so “uber” awesome Just click the chip-in button below and MAKE SURE you put your Google account email address where the invitation will be sent to in the “Instruction to Merchant” box. I appreciate your generosity. Thanks!!!

If you enjoy this post, please like it on Facebook and share it with others. Thanks!

Update: 07/01/2011

• Facebook is planning to launch something “awesome” next week. (Source: Reuters)

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Samsung did it again. After their success with Samsung Galaxy S mobile phone series, they now come up with an amazingly thin 10.1″ Android tablet that top their previous 7″ Android tablet in every aspects. Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (P7150) is now the thinnest and lightest Android tablet out there, even thinner and lighter than Ipad 2.

I just ordered mine 2 days ago, which should arrive today, so I’ll try to do a quick review of it once I got the product. Meanwhile, take a look at the commercial video ads below and the full specification at the bottom.

Galaxy Tab 10.1 WiFi Official Info Clip

Galaxy Tab 10.1 Commercial Ads

I got mine from Amazon for $499. It is packed with 16GB internal storage memory. The 32GB Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is little more expensive with the retail price of $599. Best Buy and some other retail stores also have them in stock; however, I highly recommend you to buy it online. You might ask “Why?? I want it NOW.” Well…if you can’t resist the urge, I can’t stop you. But if you want to save some money, you would better off buying it online. By buying online, you don’t have to pay taxes. For example, if you buy it from Best Buy, you would be charged $35.63 more for taxes. If you buy from Amazon, you can save $35.63. Plus, if you are an Amazon Prime member like me, you can get it in 2 days for free.

Latest News Update about Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

• Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Get Rooted
• Samsung Released Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Source Code
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Coming Soon to Sprint on June 24th

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Japanese people would never stop to amaze me with their creativity. One particular one that intrigued me lately was Karakuri.

Karakuri (Karakuri Ningyo) was developed recently within the last 300 years (in the 1800s) by Japanese people as the embodiment of their robotic technology advances in the most traditional way. Karakuri is a mechanized automata doll/puppet that was designed in such a way to perform certain task without using any electricity.

Karakuri is basically used in three areas:

• Butai karakuri (舞台からくり or stage Karakuri) is used in theater
• Zashiki karakuri (座敷からくり or tatami room Karakuri) is small and mainly used at home
• Dashi karakuri (山車からくり or festival car Karakuri) is used in religious festival

Here are some amazing Karakuri videos that I found around the net.

Karakuri in General

A Karakuri Shooting Arrows

A Karakuri Writes a Japanese Character

A Karakuri Serving Tea (Chahakobi Ningyo)

You can read more about Karakuri origins at http://www.karakuri.info/origins/index.html

If you like this post, please like and share it with your friends and family. Thanks!

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