Sering kali saya mempertimbangkan untuk unsubscribe dari mailing list Java User Group (JUG) Indonesia karena isinya yang tidak jelas. Kebanyakan topiknya anti Microsoft, anti PHP atau random postings tidak berkualitas dari Frans Thamura, yang ironisnya adalah pendiri Java User Group Indonesia.

Satu satunya alasan kenapa saya belum unsubscribe adalah banyaknya flame war di mailing list tersebut. Flame war terakhir disulut oleh Edwin Nathaniel, anggota baru JUG Indonesia. Setelah mengirim posting jualan buku, Edwin mengirim 4 post panjang berjudul “Conclusion of Java/.Net - Desktop Application Issue”. “Hmm, it’s going to be interesting”, pikir saya waktu itu. Kata-kata macam Microsoft, .Net, PHP adalah kata-kata haram di JUG Indonesia.

Samuel Franklyn, aktifis JUG Indonesia yang terkenal dengan kekasaran dan keangkuhannya, adalah orang pertama yang menanggapi post Edwin. Round 1 begins … Seperti biasa, Samuel mengabaikan etika ber-milis dengan langsung menyerang Microsoft. “MS itu residivis/ penjahat kambuhan“, “pembuat .NET itu penjahat“, kata Samuel. Samuel juga tidak lupa menunjukkan ego dia, dengan mengatakan “Sebaiknya kamu punya pengalaman dulu selama beberapa tahun sebelum kamu buka mulut besar kamu” atau “Dasar goblok” atau “Bullshit. bullshit“. Posting Samuel ditutup dengan “KAMU PEMBOHONG BUKAN ORANG JUJUR.” Samuel, saran saya daripada seperti orang kebakaran jenggot, lebih baik bikin blog (seperti ini atau ini) untuk menunjukkan opinion atau hasil karya Anda.

Anggota JUG lain juga tidak kalah panasnya. Nanang Purwanto : “sebelum berkoar-koar ria harus lihat2 dulu”. Irwanto : ” Menurut gua(jangan kesinggung) elu ini banyak mulut, tapi ngelatur!! jadi baiknya diam aja deh!”. Ferdinand Nemand: “You’re making your self a joke”. mailindra : “Tapi gue jadi kasian banget, di amrik yang begitu banyak lowongan java, elu ngga bisa dapet.”

Menurut saya, Edwin Nathaniel itu kemungkinannya entah sengaja memancing flame war atau orang yang arogan. Kalau kemungkinan pertama, saya salut! Edwin memasukkan semua elemen yang bikin orang panas di posting dia. Selain diskusi Java vs .NET, Edwin mengaku kalau dia sekolah di luar negeri, name dropping various big companies and authors, membawa-bawa nama bapaknya yang menurut dia adalah petinggi di BCA dan menyinggung2 pacarnya yang barusan membeli laptop seharga 8 juta-an, he he. Overall, posting Edwin bernada menggurui dan kesannya adalah “saya sekolah di luar negeri jadi saya lebih baik dari Anda”. Sisi bagusnya, Edwin tidak terpancing untuk menggunakan kata-kata kasar atau menyerang pribadi seseorang jadi kesannya lebih berpendidikan dan terpelajar. Nevertheless, I have to thank Edwin for the free entertainment that I have enjoyed in the past few days! Keep up the good work

Update: Check out my Playstation 3 auction at eBay.
Why all the shortage? These are the possible reasons that I can think of.
1. Test the water. It would be very risky for Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo to produce a gazillion units of their PS3, Xbox 360 or Wii without knowing how the market will react.

2. Limit the money loss. Sony loses an estimate of $241.35 for every sold PS3 while Microsoft loses $126 per Xbox 360 when they were launched.

3. Viral advertisements. The console launches were covered heavily by TV news, radio, newspapers and blogs around the world. Console shortage makes people camp out in front of the stores days before the launch date, riot during launch, outrageous eBay bids, which are good materials for the news.

4. Prepare for recalls. Nothing worse than having to recall a gazillion units of consoles after found out that there is a bug in the first batch of the hardware. The first production batch is more like a beta version. There will be flaws and bugs that may or may not be addressed by firmware patch. If the patch can’t fix it, they will have to recall the hardware.

Anything else?

I was reading some job postings from several Indonesian sites and very surprised and also amused about some of the qualifications for the jobs.

1. The most common one is “must be younger than 25 years old” or “not married”. So, if you are 30 year old with a family and just got laid off from your company, you are pretty much out of luck. It gives a whole new meaning to the “career vs family” dilemma.

2. “Money oriented” is another common one. This one is an easy one. Who aren’t “money oriented” these days, anyway?

3. “Mentally healthy”. I guess crazy people, psychos and serial killers out there better stay in whatever mental institutions or psychiatric hospital that they belong to rather than looking for jobs.

4. “Honest”. This is like having “bomb” in the list of prohibited item sign at the airports hoping that terrorists would change their mind after seeing that sign.

5. “Good looking“. Well, this pretty much eliminates 90% of the population.

6. “Hard worker”, “Work well under pressure”, “24 hour call” and “Work well under tight deadline”. Tip for job seekers: if you see those words in the job posting, do NOT apply. Unless, of course, you are very “money oriented’. But you will probably get fired after 3 months because fail in the “Mentally healthy” category.

7. “Have a good sense of humor”. Be prepared to tell your best Yo-Mama jokes in the interview.

I wonder if these hard and ridiculous requirements is the caused of high unemployment rate and make people prefer to make money illegally.

I just came across this job posting at Google. The posting is for AdSense Coordinator (Indonesian). One of the requirements is fluent in English and Indonesian. I guess this is the first time I see a US tech company job posting that requires fluency in Indonesian.

Based on the list of responsibilities, I am guessing this is more like a customer service / account manager type of job. It does not require a lot of technical skills although the posting did mention about HTML and JavaScript skills.
So, should or shouldn’t you apply for the position?

Ini trik untuk mencari tahu website yang menjual email Anda ke spammer. Anda harus menggunakan gmail supaya trik ini berhasil.

Triknya adalah untuk menggunakan format GmailUserName+TrackingID@gmail.com waktu Anda meregister ke suatu site, mailing list atau membeli barang di internet. TrackingID adalah String sembarang yang digunakan untuk melacak siapa yang memberikan email address Anda ke spammer. Gmail membuang semua karakter setelah tanda plus jadi Anda akan tetap menerima email yang ditujukan ke GmaiUserName@gmail.com.

Contoh: gunakan myuserid+amazon@gmail.com waktu Anda berbelanja di Amazon. Anda dapat menggunakan fasilitas Search di Gmail untuk mencari myuserid+amazon@gmail.com. Kalau ada spam yang ditujukan ke alamat di atas, berarti Amazon menjual email Anda ke spammer.

PageRank is Google’s way to determine the importance of web pages. Higher PageRank usually means better ranking in the Google search result and that means more traffic, which at the end translates to more ad revenue.

A lot of site owners are obsessed with PageRank. They spend a lot of time and money to get higher PageRank. Some companies make a living by providing consultation on how to improve PageRank. In eBay, high PageRank site owners are selling outbound text links to improve PageRank.

Obtaining high PageRank is very difficult and time consuming. So, if your blog has a high PageRank, congratulations!

Here is a compilation of Indonesian blogs that have high PageRank. Actually all of them has PageRank 6. I haven’t found any that has PageRank higher than that.

Indonesian Blog PR Elite

PR8
Deny Sri Supriyono

PR 7
Agus Hery
PR 6
William Pramana
Thomas Arie Setiawan
Rahmat M. Samik-Ibrahim
Priyadi Iman Nurcahyo
Mohammad DAMT
Fatih Syuhud
Enda Nasution
Ariya Hidayat
Andry S Huzain
Yulian Firdaus
Nana
Dental
Andry S Huzain
Willy Sudiarto Raharjo
Kemas Antonius

Here is a list of some popular Indonesian dishes and the perfect meat cut to cook with it.

Source: http://www.pustaka-deptan.go.id/agritech/dkij0119.pdf

Tag cloud generated from Black Friday ads from BestBuy, Circuit City, OfficeMax and Walmart. Notice several popular items in 2006 that did not exist last year, such as “2gb”, “wireless” and “gps”.
2006

1gb 20 2gb 2pack 32 58ghz adapter brother camcorder camera canon card cd color combo cordless desktop digital drive duo dvd external flash flat for free game games gift gps hard hd hdtv hp insignia ipod kit kodak lcd linksys machine memory monitor mp mp3 notebook optical panasonic panel phone player polaroid portable printer pro radio router samsung sandisk secure select selected set sony stereo system the toshiba tv usb video watt westinghouse widescreen wireless zoom

2005

15 1gb 20 512mb after assorted box brother bundle camcorder camera car card cd chair color combo computer desktop digital drive dvd fisherprice flash flat free game games hard hdtv home hp insignia ipod kit kodak lcd machine memory mini monitor more) mp3 panasonic phone player polaroid portable printer rebate recorder router sandisk screen secure set stereo system the theater toshiba tv usb video widescreen

KDWB of Minneapolis recently had a very strange interview with Ashley Judd. Corey Foley of KDWB was asking Judd about how she handles her popularity and then the interview went downhill from that point.

Corey: I haven’t been in FHM as one of the sexiest woman in the world though .. but you have.
Ashley: Gross .. (disgusted)
Corey: Oh, you think that’s gross?
Ashley: Gross ..
Corey: Really?
Dave: So, that’s not something celebrities trying to get into then, huh?
Ashley: Wow ..
Dave: No, I really don’t know .. I mean ..
Corey: I .. I don’t know.

silence ..

Ashley: First of all, I don’t even know that. And second of all, wouldn’t the world be a nicer place if that magazine didn’t exist?
Steve-O:Oh, so you don’t like that magazine at all .. or any of those like Maxim, FHM?
Dave: I heard a lot of celebrities don’t like to be in People magazine as sexiest person of the year or whatever, because they become known as that. And you don’t want to become known as that, right?
Ashley: Let me see if I can get another famous person on the phone to handle this call, because these questions are really not my cup of tea.

To make things worse, at the end of interview, Ashley Judd thought that she was talking to a Detroit radio.

Ashley: BTW, is this Minneapolis or Detroit?
Dave: This is Minneapolis.
Ashley: I am so sorry ..
Dave: Really?

Listen to the interview here.

http://www.kdwb.com/pages/dave/audio/AshleyJudd_110606.mp3