It's about Having Dream

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.

It's about Having Fun 101 for Engineer

The time is now indicating 21:30. I just finished updating my Facebook account, answering my friend's mail, commenting on people status and stuffs :D There is a friend of mine who just joined facebook, and we ( me and my friends in Facebook ) are really making fun of her. Not in bad way though, it's just the way we express that we are happy that she finally has Facebook. I have been busy with Facebook around half an hour, and I gotta say that Facebook put a smile on my face. It helps you to connect with all your friends no matter where they are.

Two hours a go, I was still sitting in front of my laptop, diving through documentation for a PHP framework called Symfony. When the clock hits 20:00, I told myself to quit working and have a nice bath. I always took a bath whenever my head is heating up from all my work. A nice warm bath do really help!! It lets you relax your muscle, and after that you can enjoy your evening without thinking about work anymore. So what is my work then exactly... I'm starting this website called selerakita.com which is a food search engine for Indonesia. I currently managing the website technical part. On top of that, I work as a consultant for Capgemini.

With all this loads of work, one do need to have fun. Everyone should be agree with this statement ;) No one can live without having fun. My receipes for having fun are simple, do the things you like most!!! So for example I like to play games, so I do make time to play my Nintendo DS. Having a nice dinner is also irreplaceable, especially with a nice girl. It's always a pity to know that time flies so fast when you are enjoying the moment. Food is important for your life!!! Then you need to communicate. Communicating with people can relieve your fatigueness. Talk to your family or to your friend whenever you feel stressed. Don't talk about your depression, but instead try to ask how they are, and what are they up to in lifes. Problems is part of your life, you just need to face it. And if you are a man, you should stand strong enough to solve your problem. If you are a woman, then you are welcome to talk about your problem ;) It's just how woman is.... by talking about their problem, it gives them relieveness, and that is on the contrary for men.

So life's just once, DO the most of it, and ENJOY it!!!

It's about Valentine Days...

First of all, happy valentine for everyone who read this blog, especially female ones :) There is nothing special for valentine this year, except that I found something interesting in the chocolate shop. I bought some chocolates for my friends few days a go, and I saw this nice marsepaine rose. I bought that marsepaine rose and gave that to my best friends, since I'm currently not dating anyone. If anyone of you who read this aare single, you can leave your name and phone number on the comment ;) If you are curious about the marsepaine, you can see the picture below

What I found really interesting is that it actually looks like rose. When I gave it, they even thought it was a real flower. The history of valentine day is actually quite sad. Valentine was a name of a priest from ancient Rome time. That time, the Roman empire were banning marriage because soldiers which are married never stay long in the battlefield.

Valentine stood up to this decree, and secretly uniting people in a holy matrimony. Later on, Valentine got caught for his indigeous action and banished to jail. He got a death penalty for his atrocieous act. During his stay in prison waiting for execution time, he often saw the daughter of the jail master. The daughter is blind. The legend told that Valentine miraculously cure the jail master's daughter from blindness, and later on they were falling in love. On the day of the execution, Valentine asked for a pen and paper, then signed a farewell message for her "From your Valentine".

That's more or less the story about Valentine's day. I can't say if it's real or not, Do you????

It's About Masked Rider

Does anyone here know what a masked rider is?? Masked Rider is a kind of superhero made in Japan. Its like a person which can transform into super human form. I'm fond off this kind of things since I was a child. and now, I still put interest on it, although not as much as it was. Back then, I even remember how this human can turn ( translated in Japan "Henshin" ) into super human form by doing some series of movements. I usually practice that movement :D

Enough with the nostalgic moment... Yesterday I stumbled accross a spin off of masked rider. Usually you can consider masked rider as cool, and their henshin style is always superb. For you who never see masked rider, you can watch this video below for example.

  

Thos two are my favorites, the first one is Kamen Rider Faiz, and the second one is Kamen Rider Kabuto. Kamen Rider is how people called Masked Rider in Japan. Kamen means Masked. Yesterday, I stumbled accross a spin-off of Kamen Rider which made by a Japaneese TV. The way he henshin is really funny. This guy used Wine bottle to transform himself. And the belt is in form of bottle corkscrew :D It's so funny that I feel want to share this kamen rider with all of you. The name of this kamen rider is Kamen Rider G.



This is realy hilarious. I tought at first, it was a commercial made by beer company. But it actually a one episode kamen rider which made by the TV station to commemorate it's 50 th birthday. It is lame, but it's interesting to see :D

It's about Multi Touch Interface... (Again)

Yesterday, my friend at the office told me that Microsoft Surface finally being shown in our company. Too bad I wasn't there to see the things. But there is always tomorrow, so I can still check it out. Meanwhile, my interest on multi touch interface grow bigger each day. I still can't comprehend why that damn thing from Microsoft cost 15,000 dollars !@$%$^$^!

There are a lot of way to make this table yourself, basically you have to be able to do basic electronic things such as reading wiring schema, do some carpenter skills such as sawing table, and do programming stuff. In which luckily I can do all of them :D

Basically, multi touch table is just a screen being projected with a beamer, and behind it lies array of Infra red lights. The infra red lights is invisible for human eyes, so you will not notice anything. under the table, we put a camera which alredy covered with IR-pass filter. Then everytime your hand touch the screen, it will recognize the skin contact point as a point, or in multi touch term "blob". For a small table, one camera would be sufficient, but for larger table, you will need to place more cameras.

A library to develop a multi touch software also exist already. It's called touchlib. You can see touchlib in following site:

http://www.nuigroup.com/touchlib

As this technology is getting more and more mature, many people have thinking different ways to utilize this table. There are people that can use this table as a consulting means. It is indeed made for consultant to fulfill their consultancy needs!! Microsoft is trying to target a larger audience in areas such as hotel, banking, retail, restaurant, and consumer electronics. But seen the price given by Microsoft, there will be no one interested to use it, at least until the price drops, which are predicted in 2010. But hey, if you want it, you can buy it in credit though :D

It's about Indonesia Tourism

This morning when I woke up, I stumbled upon a video in youtube titled "Welcome To Beijing". I guess this is a promotion video used by Beijing in the time of Beijing Olympics 2008. "Welcome to Beijing" literally translated in Chinese language is "Beijing Huang yi ni" which you will heard throughout the video. While hearing it, I can get a strong feeling of Beijing inviting people to come and enjoy the culture and heritage of the land. Diverse people being shown in the video, and places, with a nice jingle song. You can see the video below, it's quite long though... :)



Having seen about this, I thought about Indonesia. Do Indonesia have such an AD??? Searching a bit, I found the a video about Indonesia that runs around 9 minutes, and It's really beautiful. The slogan of Indonesia Tourism 2008 is "Ultimate in Diversity". If you are curious, you can watch the video here:



So Indonesia also have a campaign to visit the country, but why the tourism of Indonesia is not going so well.... The only places where we see a lot of foreigner is only Bali. We rarely see one in other island such as Java and Sumatra. I live in a big city in Central Java, Semarang. So If the foreign tourism is blooming, I should notice that there are more foreigner to be seen in the city, but the fact it's not. Perhaps Indonesia has no budget to advertise itself abroad. Having living in the Netherlands for 5 years, I never see for even once, a TV ad about Indonesia, while I have seen ad for Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand for many times. Seriously, Indonesia is a beautiful country. It worth a visit because it's different from the rest of Asian country. It's not like China, not like Thailand, not like Malaysia. Indonesia is a culture heritage on its own that dated back to the 5th centruy.

Goverment should do something to increase exposure of Indonesia in outside world, and also increase the information infrastructure so foreign tourist can easily found its way in Indonesia. What makes me sad is the 1 minute TV ad about Indonesia, which is a cuts from the 9 minutes version. It shows nothing at all about the diversities. In place of that, it shows mostly about how modern Indonesia nowadays... that's pretty sad in my opinion. Foreign tourist is not interested on how modern we are now, but how cultural we are. You can see the ad here:

It's about YES!!!

Tonight, I just finish went out with my friends. We watched a movie called YES MAN!!! starred by Jim Carrey. This movie is a tale about a man that always say no to all possibilities in his life. He said no everytime his friends asking him to go out, his neighbour asking for help, or people in the street offering him something. His life changes when he follows a YES seminar, where YES is the new NO. He must say YES to everything that comes to him, whether he wants it or not and live with the consequences. It turns out that his life has turned upside down. He changes from a boring straight guy to a passionate spontaneous one. It's really good movie which I really recommend because it's so funny. I have a hard time not to laugh while watching this movie.

While watching this movie, I remember something about this yes thing. I read somewhere in a book that as a person, you must have a yes mentality. That doesn't necessarily means that you must always say "yes" to everything that comes to you. But be someone that is more spontaneous, try new things. If you don't like it than don't do it anymore. Live is only once and it's worth a living.

If you don't believe me that yes mentality is useful for you, I have a small exercise for you. You can try to close your eyes and say "no" for 10 times now in your heart. Now compare with you saying "yes" for 10 times in your heart. There must be a difference between those two, and you know which one feels better ;)

So What I want to say is, be a YES man!! embrace the future, embrace the opportunity. You don't know what waits you in the end, so it might better to take the chance.

I'm Yours

By looking at the title, someone who knows Jason Mraz might think to his song. I admit that Jason Mraz song is really nice. Back on my vacation period in Indonesia, I sang it a lot in the karaoke bar. I'm not as good as him, but quite close ;)

There is a song with the same title as Jason Mraz's I'm yours, its called "Aku Milikmu". "Aku Milikmu" is the literal translation of I'm Yours in Indonesian language. It's really nice song from Iwan Fals, a famous Indonesias ballad singer. He is now considered as legendary figure in Indonesia's music industry.

I was planning to translate the song for you who don't speak Indonesia... but I decided not to. This song is also enjoyable without knowing the meaning of the lyrics. Just watch the video, let your imagination flows, feel the color of the music :)





"When I'm gone away, just wait for me faithfully, and I will be there for you"

It's about my posting

Enough of Techy stuff, after this will be more down to earth stuff. Don't forget to check my blog daily, who knows it might appear tomorrow ;)

It's about Sony Walkman

During one of my holiday trip, I did a transit at Singapore's Changi airport. In the airport, I have a chance to going around and I happen to pass by a Sony shop. Here I see the normal array of Sony's product such as Vaio laptop, Handycam, SLR, camera. What really caught my attention was the showcase of Sony Walkman products. Yep, it's product in plural. Sony has been known for its breakthrough on portable audio player with Walkman. You can consider Walkman as IPod of the past.

Nowadays, people only use Ipod. even I have IPod. But by looking at Sony walkman products, I begin to realize that Sony is trying to go head on head with Apple. I have to admit that IPod design is not so interesting anymore,t he same circular slider, the same style. But Sony Walkman has a lot of varieties of design. Take a look at this small one. this walkman is thin and small

And also these two, one with big screen made for video, and one looks like a USB drive. The one like USB drive in my opinion is suitable for girl.

I think Sony did quite good job with the Walkman. In Taiwan, Sony even made a love song which is used as advertisement for Walkman. Sony hired two famous moviestar which are idolized by the youth in Taiwan. Here is the video, the title is "Wo hui hen ai ni" which means "I really love you"

Actually, Sony has the ability to go head to head with Apple. What they did with the commercial was a huge success. Here, we can see one of the marketing strategy where we tried to embrace the society by using medium which is familiar for them. Taiwanese youth always like to listen to love songs. It can be seen by the amount of such love songs produced every year. By understanding the local situation of specific country, Sony can boost sales in that specific country. What they need to do is act upon it. Maybe Sony can learn from Coke and their effort to commercialize Coca-Cola Zero around the world. Just like KFC and McDonald, each of their restaurants in the whole world are customized according to local taste. McDonald sell Fried Chicken in Indonesia, while KFC sells porridge in China. I don't need to tell the CEO of Sony about this but approaching the audience/customer with local contents is the receipt of success for company that established worldwide.

It's about This Hi-tech table

Today, I heard that my company just got a Microsoft Surface. Well, having heard about its feat for a long time, I'm interested to see what this "thing" can do. The table will be shown on public starting around next week. For you who is curious, the video below will show what A Microsoft Surface can do




So, having seen this, we all know that there is huge possibilities that this technology can be used for business solution. One of the good example is demonstrated by AT&T retail stores. Here you can see that the table is used as information table for customers





Now, I think that there is more possibilities where this table can be used. Imagine a restaurant where all the table is made from this surface technology, it would be really awesome. Or a narrowcasting point in a department store where people can interact with it. Not just interact when people touch it, but actually attracting people attention by using moving pictures. The moving pictures can be triggered if someone passing the surface.

The real problem is that this table cost 12000 euro. And even worse, the developer version cost 14000 euro. I guess the developer one has on-device debugging enabled. Still, the price is what makes it really ridiculous to buy. 12000 euro and you haven't calculate the custom software development for that table. Anyway, I'm looking forward to see the SDK of that table.

Now, What if we can produce a table like that with lower price?????? Interesting isn't it ;)
In fact, there is already such table which made with far more lower cost. And it has been proven to work. The problem is, the size of this "cheap" tehnology is not as small and as compact as the Microsoft Surface.

Yep, that's the guy, Jeff Han. He starts his own company that specialized in multi touch interfacing www.perceptivepixel.com

When calculated roughly, the cost of developing that table is around 1000 euro. This is just a rough estimate. So having bought the paper of Jeff Han, I plan to realize this table, and test myself how the "multi touch interface" can change the way we interact with computer. Nevertheless, by experimenting with new innovative technology, I'm sure that there will be new application for business solution.

It's about blogging

Kudos for the first entry of this blog, and I hope more entry will follow :D
I have been trying to start blogging for a long time, but there is always lack of time to make it a reality. After last vacation period, I have thought to commit some of my time to write blog and here it is. Like the title suggest, I like to discuss about many things that revolve around my life, whether it's about work, hobby, romance, or interest point. Nevertheless, by writing this blog, I invite people to share my mind. Blog can be seen as a medium that connects people. By having this in mind, I hope this blog can strengthen my connection with my ever-growing network of friends and associates.