Peoples who likes exploring Bing’s hotspots should’ve notices a new type of search from the hotspot. In addition to Web search, image search, video search, map search, travel search. Reference search. The search result link starts with http://www.bing.com/reference/semhtml/ (but that link itself redirect to the homepage).

I’m interested in the Semantic result in the name. So far, it seems to be pulling information directly from one of the most favourite site which has semantic result to search engines, Wikipedia, featuring content and a floating outline box, but seems like not much else.

The feature itself is not new, just that it’s difficult to find. I tried searching some terms and can’t find any link to reference search at all.

But if you’re interested in using this Reference search feature, try using Powerset that’s acquired by Microsoft back then and feature integrated to Bing. The Powerset result has different layout and more bell-and-whistles compared to the result it returned to Bing. But it also has link to Bing’s reference search (which is just http://www.bing.com/reference/search?q=[search_query] compared to the usual result).

For something as virtual as pre-paid voucher card, it sure is difficult to find.

Situation description. Here, we have several type of payment for cell-phone.

• Post-paid, paid by the end of the month.
• Pre-paid, paid in front using top-up vouchers.
  • Physical voucher cards.
  • Electronic, where reseller get a special number and they can send the credit to customer who buy from them.
• Contract, actually pre-paid. For the iPhone, unlike in other countries where they sacrifice part of revenue to gain customer by subsidizing phone, here customer pay for monthly fee+phone’s mortgage.

My wireless card is pre-paid too. Lately I don’t have time to go to shop in the local mall to buy the top up voucher. But no problem right, after all, in Indonesia where pre-paid is far more popular (no commitment culture?), there are voucher seller virtually everywhere. There’s mom&pop shop selling voucher with other stuffs (snack, drink, etc), street side peddlers, even in the promotion division there are employee who had side income from selling electronic voucher to other employee (payment can be done when pay check arrives and order can be made from internal PBX line).

Now, the “electronic voucher” probably starts here from carrier feature to “share” credit to friends. For example, your friend is running low on credit and don’t have access to buy top-up voucher (on the street, no money, etc), you can send a part of your available credit to him. This probably evolve into reseller feature, where they can buy credit on discount price and then transfer it to customer purchasing from them. Think of it as a paperless operation. This is also more efficient, because for the seller can buy 1 million credit for example and sell it more flexibly, easier than stocking 5 pieces of 100k and 25 pieces of 25k and have to sell all of it.
This is also convenient, because customer could ask someone else to buy the credit for them, and it’ll be sent instantly even if the customer is somewhere else, busy.

The street side retail’s main consumer are… locals, students, employee who took public transport, not exactly the type who would shell out 100k for a month or even use that much. Logically, it’s better to stock up small nomination vouchers instead of large nomination right? Those vouchers had expiry date and most likely not returnable. For peoples who want to use large nomination, here the electronic version is available.

So here’s my problem. I’m not sure if my wireless card will accept electronic voucher. I usually do top-up payment from the website and I don’t really trust electronic voucher system anyway. there’s lot of stories about bad practice in the resellers. I’ll try later during lunch, maybe try using ATM transfer. But if things don’t go well, I guess I’ll just buy 5 pieces of the 25k nomination.

For those wondering of the large nomination, €1 equals to approximately IDR 15k. I had unlimited plan at 64kbps (with the disclaimer word bestowed by the devil to network company marketing division, “up to”) costing IDR 125k / month including tax. The quality is so-so and I had experience routine disconnection at office even when the signal strength is full.

[Update] The bottom line is, I just realized it’s difficult to find a large nomination voucher. Luckily there’s a seller near office who sell large nomination. Bought it during the lunch break.

Lately, a muffled loud voice can be heard anywhere in my room. I didn’t realize it at first, or maybe I’m thinking it’s just the old air conditioning unit. But the sound is consistent from everywhere in the house.

It’s until this night when I went out to the ATM (getting money to buy top-up voucher for my pre-paid wireless internet) that so late I finally realized. It’s most likely from the mall across the street outside the complex. Some sort of building infrastructure, whether it’s the air conditioning machine or the electric generator. At night, the sound is more prominent.

By the way, night walk might be not so healthy, but after short rain before I get back from work, the night wind is wet and cold, felt nice to me. Especially the feel of cold wind blowing around my feet (wore sandal, not shoes). Been a while, I thought it’s the dry season already, but rain like this sure is a nice variation to the hot weather. If just it falls during the hot afternoon and longer to cool down the world and wash away the dusts in the air.

This morning, I woke up with my clock pointing right on 4.44, one number less from having it perfect dead x dead. Taking the bad omen, I don’t bring my notebook to work despite the cocktail of internet filter imposed on me. Well, this one day, besides, working on two screens is not that easy thing to do.

But seems like the surprise is different.

• Post 1: first conclusion
• Post 2: clarification
• Post 3: the smoke

Sometime around 8-9, smoke starts to come out from the air conditioning system. Soon, everyone evacuate the building in an orderly fashion and leaving the computer on. Something that bring up our complaint is that there’s no fire alarm, no smoke alarm (despite visible smoke in the room) and not even emergency broadcast telling the employees to evacuate.

It’s probably the air conditioner. The ventilation belch out black smoke out. Then, asking security staff, they said that the emergency generator chamber located underground is flooded. The wall breaks in the water tank buried under the parking area and flow into the generator room, thus all this mess.

But because there’s no big fire, they only need to drain the water and then all’s fine. Open the window for a while, let the smoke out, and back to work.

There’s problem with the provider, it seems. Been for several weeks now that when I want to access Facebook or Japanese websites, the proxy or gateway server will just return error screen. Overloaded perhaps, browsing using Wi-Fi from my bedroom hasn’t work well either.

Back to the daily life. Ever since that flood of returned translation result, my daily life has been filled with some sort of routinity more than ever. Had to clean up those by the end of this month, really. Not to mention is the stack of proofs yet to be finished. *sigh* But it’s not just the Islamic new year’s holiday season that’s come of great concern (because there will be shipment shut down due to the higher priority of traffic for peoples going back to their hometown).

Yesterday, the manager already asked us to list the titles we had for next year, which is admittedly not much. But the higher ups in the management seems to only care for a thing. Raise the target, more income, please the executives and share holders. The G.I.? Well, it’s our jobs to think of a way for that expectation even if it means selling soul to the devil as long as we don’t drag them down together. :P

But let’s talk about something more cheerful… holiday season… not.

Just like the Easter, for one month the Muslim will begin fasting. I don’t know about in other countries such as the west, but in Indonesia they use the to-the-words rule of observing the moon phase. Because there are several prominent groups here, we could have debate about who’s version of the 1st of Ramadhan is right. I heard in Arabia and Turkey they already do it by calculation.

Second thing is… the change of behaviour. while the sun is on the sky, there’s no eating or drinking. Other than that, eat all you can. Sunset is… coincidentally, near the time peoples will be getting home. With hungry and thirsty body and soul, more than ever everybody rush back home, filling the street with cars. Not to mention peoples dining out. Being hungry, there will be peoples who would disregard traffic rule or bear to wait for even a second.
Other part of this is… usually it’s three mostly balanced meals a day. But now, it’s feast after sunset. The stockpiling or high demand for food supply caused a rise on the price. Let’s not get to the I-day yet, added with the distribution shutdown, scarcity became worst and price will go up.

Third thing is the local tradition of going back to hometown to ask for forgiveness (most of the time for something both party don’t even remember anymore ?). This rush of traffic back to the rural area usually caused traffic jam dozens of kilometres, if not hundreds, along the major inter regional street like the Java north shore course. This year, I heard from the managers of the printing and marketing division, that expedition and distribution will be closed for a week before and after the day. This is to cope with the traffic load. No distribution could mean each cities must survive with it’s own supply of goods.

I’m not sure on how true that is, but really, it affects a lot of peoples, including those who only consider it as a No-Work-Day rather than Holy day.

Cell phone plans, basically there are two types. Pre-paid and post-paid. Post paid users are the loyal users, even if they had less features.

Not exactly loyalty. We don’t have number portability here, so all those social connection would become obsolete if we switched. Telling each and everyone is a tiresome job, not to mention costly if you choose using SMS to inform… dozens to hundreds of them ? Keeping the current number has it’s convenience, that is everyone I know already knew I’m here.

Not exactly the same problem… but I could feel the same for Facebook or Twitter. I would use it because peoples I know is already there. I don’t have to play an MLM agent promoting everyone to go there, but the mass and momentum is strong enough to pull peoples I know and don’t know into the place. The position then become so dominating, looking for alternative would be difficult. Personally, I hate posting the same thing everywhere, that’s annoying especially in the age of social web aggregator like nowadays. Second… well, not all resource I like in Twitter is available in the alternatives.

That’s old, here’s new thought of something old. Back then, the social networking which at least I know is… maybe Spartan in today’s view. The online profile we know in social networks are personal website with articles and later blogs. The networking is formed in chat, instant messenger, e-mail, forum or mailing lists, any way possible. Of course, real life if possible. Tracking the connection using link list, web ring, those days :P

Distributed network, independent. Probably nice if there could be such thing again plus new technology isn’t it. A distributed system, something like FOAF file as XML based database secured with… OpenID authentication. But because many peoples just use free hosting like Wordpress or Blogger, every host should support it. Not only because installing is a hassle for most; most doesn’t even allow saving file into the directory (e.g. saving file to add this Live Space to use Bing’s webmaster tool).

Intriguing matters for me recently. First is a lot more personal. Without warning, I received from the IT manager a cocktail of internet filter including messenger and several websites. Well, luckily it doesn’t block Windows Live, FaceFeed nor Facebook connect. Most other sites left untouched.

Second is something more national. The government announced new money in Indonesia, 2’000 bill. In the same time, the old 1’000 bill will be phased out. The problem is, both are supposedly low nominal money (1’000 is the smallest nomination of paper bill here) and I’ve never ever seen 2’000 bill in circulation. In the other hand, 1’000 bill destined to be phased out is… getting close to their limit.

The photo over there is sample of a 1000 Rupiah bill. From scale 1 to 5, it’s around 2-3 (1 is worst and 5 is mint condition).

There are small cracks on the paper too, and money getting fixed with tape might become more common. Getting new bills are most likely impossible, because few months before when I want to change my money (ATM machines gives only 50k or 100k bill), the bank already doesn’t have the 1’000 bill.

Anyway, I just hope they would soon give that 2’000 bill to the peoples. It’s one of the essential thing in our daily life.

I heard that teen had weird sleeping pattern. They stay awake until late at night, and sleep until much later.

My sleep pattern is… like comfortable seasons of the year.

• January (0-1): sleep
• February (2-3): sleep
• March (4-5): awaking, still rather sleepy
• April (6-7): a bit sleepy
• May (8-9): normal
• June (10-11): getting sleepy
• July (12-13): afternoon hibernation
• August (14-15): getting better
• September (16-17): concentrate
• October (18-19): somehow, enjoy
• November (20-21): late, but enjoy
• December (22-23): where the fun starts, although it ends quickly

Of course, not the yearly pattern of tropical zone where half year of rain is concentrated in 2-3 months. For those who actually experienced what it means of taking the best and worst of four seasons, forgive my stereotype-based interpretation (^-^;)

ForumPonsel gathering today @ Pronto restaurant Pondok Indah Mall, Jakarta.
A short description, it’s a forum and community for gadget fans, especially mobile phones, in Indonesia.

I went there after going to screening of Aliens in the Attic. Tight schedule, but arrived there just on time. Actually, there’s another event I want to go to, a cosplay event in Kinokuniya. But the time is the same, and I’ve already paid for this event, so there I goes.

In short, it’s fun, really. Although I’m mostly a lurker there, I can still listen and engage a little with them one by one. Personally, I’m slow at registering name and face, so I still didn’t remember who I’m talking with.
In (weak) relation with that, I didn’t remember the person sitting next to me in the bus leaving, although I’m sitting next to the alley and he had to go through me to get out. Might just be too tired and sleepy, so it’s not anything horror.

That picture up there is part of the collection bought by members. As can be seen, most are Blackberry and Nokia devices, all unlocked of course (well, maybe not the BlackBerries). Someone even have the leaf-shaped Nokia device already discontinued for years.

Finally, here’s the group photo. This is one row, there’s another row to the left and right. According to the guest book, we probably have 50+ peoples in this gathering, and all’s happy! Of course, there’s also the mood maker who act as our MC.

The quiz session asked some forum related question with concert ticket (valid until this midnight). The session by person from the Indonesian Opera user group is race to open the forum’s mobile site. Another one is race to post a one word reply to the forum. The last event, door prize, give two unit of cell phone.

After that, more eat and talk and socializing among members. Anyway, fun event, will be waiting for the next year’s too.

For more pictures, check here: http://www.cariapaaja.com/forumponsel/

From the gathering this afternoon, I heard of an interesting monetizing model from Lelang Gokil. It’s an auction site, but as members bid, the price goes down. Anyway, here’s the rundown.

• Member buy tokens. The starter pack cost IDR 200k (approx. EURO 14.17). Each token in the price is valued IDR 5k (approx. EURO 0.35).
• Seller register their item. The site check the item’s condition, and probably pay the seller in advance.
• Members starts shooting with the tokens they have.
• Until at a point, with rule I don’t really understand, the winner is selected.
• In case that the final price is minus, the winner will get the item, plus cashback.

Now, the magic is when members starts bidding the price down. Normally in auction, the winner pay all, while those losing doesn’t pay anything, after all, they don’t get the item. But here, everyone use their token and it’s gone. But each token is cheap, €0.35 so the personal loss might be negligible for most. The winner get the item at a very cheap price, sometimes even for free.

The cashback… well, from example I saw, the cashback are usually petty cash in amount so negligible that not even beggar on the street want to accept.

The company then get money from all the accumulated bid, including from peoples who lose the bidding.

I just wondered, it there any site in the west that use this model too ? Or is it really the creativity of the people in this country. By the way, the site linked above is in Indonesian.

The free (and paid) blog provider LiveJournal has rolled out an update on July 29th. One of this updates includes a new LJ Messenger, which is an implementation of Web Messenger (don’t know if it uses the same code as Messenger Web Bar or not). The

Previously LiveJournal also have feature called LJ Talk, which is an XMPP chat server. Friends in LiveJournal immediately  become friends in the chat’s contact list too. Also because it’s XMPP, it can also be used to talk to Google’s GTalk  (and that’s probably the only way I ever used it because I don’t want to draft to the G).

To setup this Messenger, visit the Extension page in the Account setting in LiveJournal. Users without Live ID will be offered to create a new account, while users who already have an account will be able to link their accounts.

PS: there’s also LiveJournal web activities in Windows Live Profile to bring your updates in LJ to our Profile or our friends’ What’s New Feed.

Suggestion

Then in the spirit of bringing your networks together, I actually hoped that in the cooperation, LJ (and other partners actually) could provide suggestion for contact from my other networks who already have Live ID. Currently the suggestions are something like:

John Doe
by Windows Live
Add | Ignore

Maybe it can advance into

John Doe
by Windows Live, LiveJournal
Add | Ignore

We can have even more suggestion from wider range.

Today we had a press release event by MnC Comics. They’re comic publisher, part of the Kompas Gramedia media group, who specialized in comic publishing.

The press event today is for launching of a new label called Koloni Komik. This label will specialize in publishing works by Indonesian artists.

From explanation of the GM during the event, the group with highest volume of sales in most book stores in Indonesia is the children book group, including comic, especially licensed comics from Japan. Yes, I do aware that most are originally targeted towards teen and young adult, but in this country all comic are categorized as child book, either stereotypically, or in the business side such as when making product group placement. But the point is, the whole market is dominated by imported book and works by local authors are close to less than 10%.

There are two major (official) publishers of Japanese comics here, Elex Media Komputindo and MnC comics. There are some others, although I also heard of names who unable to cope with the licensing cost and turn into piracy (publishing without license). Both had experience in publishing local comics, but under the same label as Japanese/Korean comics, so it’s difficult to see from distance. In book store, these books are also mixed so there are no differentiation, local comics fight on the same shelf as foreign titles.
So, one of the publisher started a new label.

For now, there’s in total 8 titles launched together. Originally there’s 10, but two can’t made it by the deadline. I left all the books in the office, so can’t scan it to attach here.

The flagship is of course, IMO, Garudayana by Is Yuniarto. Other than the drawing style, I think he had the ability to communicate with the community, generating buzz for his works just like for his previous works. When the title is published, many had already known it like it’s “made by my friend”.
Hasn’t had time to check the others, but there’s at least two titles I’m personally interested in.

There’s a high expectation made when starting this label. It’s not merely to increase the presence of local comics. In the future (of course if this project is successful), they plan on licensing the titles to foreign publishers. Even more ambitious is character licensing, selling license for adaptation works such as movies or games for example.

In any case, I really admire the publisher’s effort in pushing out this kind of marketing campaign.
As far as I know, the book publishing group is very tight in budgets. Other thing is… perhaps because they used to be in the magazine publishing group (now in book publishing group), the nuances are more varied and they had less corporate aura compared to the place I’m in. Such as, there’s still fun from the staff rather than plain and tired, that shows from the designs. But maybe I’m just talking as an insider :P

Stumbled upon this Windows Live Photo Gallery plug in for Multiply while browsing the site. Seems like this one is not listed yet by the team in their official listing.

Photo Gallery had the Publish feature where we could use it to publish our photos and pictures to online service. Of course there’s Windows Live service (Photo, Groups, Events), but with the right plug-in, it can also publish to other online services. Flickr is supported out of the box, while plug in for Facebook and Youtube has also been available for some time.
But these plug ins are not all developed by Microsoft, so support is pretty much in the hand of the said site’s official developers or crowd developers.

I kept failing the authentication for Multiply though, so can’t say about the available features such as if it supports organizing folder or resizing or such. Will update later if possible.