APRICOT 2013 and Traceroute Party

Last month, I attended APRICOT 2013 in Singapore. It has been a long time since I attended APRICOT or any other APNIC events. The last time I attended APRICOT was in 2010 when it was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Therefore, it was nice to meet some old and new friends during the event.

As usual, I attended only the conference and not the workshop. Some of the interesting topics discussed during the conference were:

1. Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI), which is designed for Internet routing security to prevent route hijacking or blackholing;
2. Software-Defined Networking (SDN), which is an approach to provision network connections on-the-fly, normally within cloud computing and virtualisation environment;
3. DNSSEC, in a bid to secure the DNS (Domain Name System); and
4. Last but not least, IPv4 exhaustion and the (very slow) deployment of IPv6.

This weekend, I will be going to Jakarta, Indonesia to attend Traceroute Party. This is one of the biggest gathering events related to the (very big) Indonesian Internet community, with telcos, NAPs, ISPs, content providers, game providers, Internet communities, bloggers and the Internet users in general, are expected to attend. There will be 300 exhibitors, talk-shows, workshops and last but not least, many indie bands performing live. This even is hosted by IDC Indonesia.

I will make use of the opportunity to hang around and get together with some old friends, and make some new friends as well. Some of my friends from the Indonesian ISP and Internet industry are expected to be there. I hope to meet some of my old friends during the RADNET era. Most of my friends in BemoNet community will also be there, since BemoNet has 3 booths at the event, and we don’t have any idea on how to make use of the booths. ;P  I will also make the opportunity to meet some friends from the RKTI and BlogFam communities as well.

See you in JCC this weekend. :)

Koprol Team Disbanded By Yahoo!, Will Koprol Follow Kronologger’s Fate?

Just after I read Aulia Masna’s article on Daily Social about the plan to relaunch Yahoo! Koprol in May, I was surprised to see Satya Witoelar’s tweet stating that he would post the CVs of “talented experienced ex-Yahoo_ID/Koprol ‘s developers” soon. The list was eventually posted on Satya’s blog, confirming that the whole Koprol’s developers team has been disbanded by Yahoo.

From what I understand, Yahoo! is a sinking ship, and as part of the new CEO Scott Thompson’s strategy to keep the ship afloat, Yahoo! is axing about 2,000 of its staff globally. Yahoo! Indonesia is no exception, and unfortunately Koprol’s development team has been included on the list. It beats me though, on why the whole team had to be disbanded ahead of its planned launch of the supposedly new Koprol 2.0 engine in May.

The big question now is what will be Koprol’s fate. Will the social media platform be closed? As Aulia of Daily Social has pointed out, Koprol has a strong users base in Indonesia, and when the news of possible imminent shutdown has spread out, many of its users voiced out (with special hashtag: #saveKoprol) that the platform should not be closed.

I have to admit that I have not been using Koprol for quite some time. As a location-based social media platform, it is losing out to Foursquare especially for my case here in Singapore. However, Koprol is purely made in Indonesia and by Indonesians, therefore as fellow Indonesians, we should be proud of Koprol.

I met some friends, such as Ryan, Nunil and Ari, through Koprol. I met Leo and Smitty, in person, through a Koprol gathering here in Singapore. KCR, Koprol’s community radio, inspired me to setup Radio Komunitas Twitter Indonesia (RKTI). Therefore, like it or not, I have some fond memories in Koprol.



Let’s ask Yahoo! not to close down Koprol. If Yahoo! doesn’t want to run Koprol anymore, then may be Koprol founders can request to take over back Koprol and keep on running the social media platform outside Yahoo? I’m not too sure on whether it’s possible, since I understand that Yahoo! has spent quite a lot of money to acquire Koprol way back in May 2010.

Please, do not let Koprol follow the fate of Kronologger, another Indonesian-made microblogging platform in the past, which was closed down after being acquired by now-defunct Asia Blogging Network. 

PS. Images courtesy of @candoddi and @chocoz

Eid Mubarak

It’s been a long time since I updated my blogs. :)

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my Muslim friends a very happy Hari Raya Idul Fitri 1432H. Taqabalallahu mina waminkum, shiyamana wa shiyamakum. May everyone has a blessed Eid festival.

This year, I am celebrating Hari Raya Idul Fitri in Singapore. Actually, I wanted to go back to Jakarta for this year’s Hari Raya, especially since the Hari Raya gathering for my extended family and relatives in Indonesia was conducted in my parent’s house in Cinere, just south of Jakarta. Unfortunately, Inka had an examination last Wednesday, 31 August 2011, exactly one day after Hari Raya, so it was not possible to excuse her from attending school during the day. Especially, since she is now preparing for the PSLE examination for her to leave primary school by end of this year.

For the first time, during this year’s Hari Raya, we celebrated Hari Raya Idul Fitri one day earlier than my extended family and relatives in Indonesia. The Singapore government and MUIS (the Islamic council of Singapore), which is using hisab (wujudul hilal) calculation to determine the first day of the Islamic lunar calendar month, decided that this year’s Hari Raya Idul Fitri falls on Tuesday, 30 August 2011, while the Indonesian government, which is using rukyah (rukyatul hilal) system (by sighting the moon), decided that this year’s Hari Raya Idul Fitri falls on Wednesday, 31 August 2011.

We always follow (local) government’s decision in deciding which day for us to celebrate Hari Raya. Therefore, I and my family in Singapore celebrated Hari Raya on Tuesday, together with other Muslims in Singapore, while my extended family and relatives in Indonesia celebrated Hari Raya on Wednesday. I felt very awkward when I couldn’t call my parents and relatives in Indonesia after Eid prayer on Tuesday, because they haven’t celebrated Hari Raya on that day. I called my parents only on the next day, Wednesday, from the office, while my wife was at home and the kids were already going to school (and Inka was having her exam).

Fortunately, we have friends here in Singapore, mostly Indonesians living in Singapore, who celebrate Hari Raya together with us, so we don’t feel much the loneliness in celebrating Hari Raya Idul Fitri in Singapore. After performing the Eid prayer in Ar-Raudhah mosque, which is located just next to our apartment’s complex, I and family attended a Hari Raya gathering for Indonesians staying in Bukit Batok and surroundings, which was conducted in Parkview Apartments, Bukit Batok. We also attended a Hari Raya open-house event conducted by one of our friends in The Trevose, Dunearn. Actually, there was another Hari Raya gathering for Indonesians in Singapore, which was conducted in Woodlands, however we couldn’t attend the gathering due to time constraint.

The pictures during the Hari Raya gathering event in Bukit Batok can be found here, while the pictures during the Hari Raya open-house event in The Trevose can be found here.

Who’s Copying Who?

Very interesting moments are happening now on Malaysia and Singapore’s GPS community. After earlier, Malfreemaps (also known as MFM) were being accused of copying the data from Malsingmaps (also known as MSM) for Singapore map, right now there are reports saying that the new Garmin-compiled MSM version of the map is allegedly copying the data from MFM. To be exact, the new Garmin-compiled MSM map is making use of the old data belongs to previous mappers who have left MSM and formed MFM. This is after Garmin announced that they have agreements with MSM to pre-load and distribute Garmin-compiled MSM maps for their users.

I am very much interested to know what will happen next, especially since Garmin is already involved in this case. From what I can see, the root cause of what happens now is the issue about map ownership, on whether the source data of the map, which is the intermediary .mp files (in Polish format, please CMIIW), belongs to the mappers or the community. This issue has actually been heatedly debated way long back in 2006 (before I joined the community), which resulted in the creation of (now defunct) GPSMappers.net community (the MSM mappers community) at that time.

When some of the MSM mappers left and created a new community called MFM, they brought back all the source data with them, and used the data as a base to build the MFM maps now. I was asking on why MFM would have to start with only the northern peninsular Malaysia area (which is the area where the mappers are in-charge with) while the MSM version 2.30 (which was the next version of MSM after the split) could still retain all the maptiles. I was told that the mappers who migrated to MFM have allowed, for the last time, for their maps to be incorporated into the MSM version 2.30, after which, MSM would have to source their own data to map and rebuild the areas from scratch.

On a further development within the MSM community, mappers from another GPS community, Masmap, came on board to start rebuilding those missing areas being left by the MFM mappers. I was then later made to understand that the Masmap mappers were actually ex-MSM mappers who left during the formation of GPSMappers.net community, as a result of the map ownership issues I have mentioned above. Based on the further development, my understanding was that MSM would build the map for northern peninsular Malaysia from scratch by the Masmap mappers team.

Therefore, I was quite surprised to learn about the allegations that MSM has used the old data (including those previously belong to the ex-mappers who had since formed MFM) to supply the map to Garmin for the new Garmin-compiled Malsingmaps map. When I brought this issue up on MSM forum, I was told that the data does not belong to the mappers, but belongs to the community, so MSM has the right to use the data. That was before I received a friendly warning from the site owner for not discussing about this matter in the open forum, which I abide. Eventually, my post with regards to the matter got deleted :) , together with the answer (if I’m not mistaken, from bab1e) I received, which I understand fully since the issue might be too sensitive to be discussed in an open forum.

Nevertheless, as a normal GPS user and a (very small) contributor to both communities, I really hope that this matter can be settled amicably.

MSM Released New Map Version in Mapking Format

I just read that Malsingmaps (MSM) has released their new March 2009 version of the map in Mapking format, although it’s only covering Singapore and East Malaysia (including Brunei) only, and doesn’t include West Malaysia as yet. While it’s a good news for Mapking users in Singapore and Malaysia, I find it a bit strange, since normally they will release their maps in the original Garmin format first, before converting them to Mapking format.

Not too sure why they haven’t released the Garmin format of the new version of their maps. I understand that MSM has been approached by Garmin to supply the Garmin official maps for Malaysia and Singapore (and Brunei as well, I presume). This means that there’s a possibility that the next official Garmin maps for the region will be Garmin-compiled MSM maps, instead of the not-so-good City Navigator Singapore/Malaysia NT maps.

Does it mean that we will have to pay to use the new version of Garmin-compiled MSM maps? I’m not too sure, since there’s no official announcement from MSM on this matter, yet. However, I understand that at least one GPS vendor in Singapore has advertised the new nuvi 255W which is pre-installed with Garmin City Navigator Singapore/Malaysia *and* Garmin-compiled Malsing maps, which I presume is referring to the Garmin-compiled version of MSM maps. The hint is that the new maps will be released during the IT Show event in Suntec City, Singapore, this coming weekend.

One of the advantages of using the official Garmin compiler instead of using the normal cGPSmapper compiler is the ability to provide some new features supported by newer Garmin GPS devices, such as lane assistance and 3D junction view, although unfortunately my Garmin Mobile XT, which runs on my Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 mobile phone, does not support that yet. That would bring MSM map one step ahead of its competitors, I agree, but since it will become a Garmin official map, are we still able to use it for free? What would happen to all the contributors who have contributed in building the maps?

Let’s wait for the “official announcement” to come from MSM admins. In the meantime, I’m very much impressed with the progress of the Singapore map built by Malfreemaps (also known as MySgFreeMaps or MFM), and have been using this map, together with MSM’s map, for my navigation in Singapore. The MFM version of Singapore map has much nicer polygons for HDB blocks and some other types of buildings as well, which is much better than MSM’s Singapore map and is comparable to Jerome’s donor version of the Singapore map. I am just hoping that MFM’s copyright issue with Jerome, who is the MSM’s mapper for Singapore, can be settled soon so that it won’t affect the good progress of building the best GPS map in Singapore.

Indo-Sing Photographers' Lighting Workshop

Last Saturday, I and Irza went to Indo-Sing Photographers' lighting workshop. This event is hosted by Andre, one of the active members of the mailing list. The workshop itself is conducted by eRBe.

As some of us might have known, my presence there was just a "penggembira" :), since I don't consider myself as an avid photographer. I believe I was the only one who came to the event with a pocket camera. :) :)

That's why, while the others were busy attending to the workshop and trying all the various lightings to take pictures of the models (who are actually Andre's friends who volunteered to become the models for this workshop event), I chose to bring Irza and his friends (Wawan and Ahmad Dasuki's kids) outdoor and create our own photo sessions. :)

We went around the swimming pool area, as well as to the water fountain area and the BBQ pit area and I took their pictures while they were happily playing and running around. The result? Beautiful Wina and Marsya, as well as handsome Rafli and Rifqi, together with Irza, really look great in front of the camera. And the most important thing, they were really having fun! :) :)

More pictures can be found here.

Related links:

• IndoSing Photographer Lighting workshop - 26 April 2008
• Andre's photo results
• Ahmad Dasuki's photo results

RSI Interview at MediaCorp

Original article and pictures can be found here.

It was just a normal and usual day in the office couple of weeks ago when I received an e-mail from Renatha, one of my fellow moderators of the Indo-Sing mailing list, asked me to join a forum interview by Radio Singapore International (RSI), the Indonesian section, with topics related to Indonesians living in Singapore.

He said that Handoko, another of our fellow Indo-Sing moderator, was supposed to join but he couldn't make it, so he asked me to cover for him. Other people who were invited to join the forum were Sigit, an Indo-Sing mailing list user, Hany and Ellen, Indo-Sing mailing list users and IndoSing-Mums mailing list moderators, and another one which was not yet decided.

Earlier, Renatha asked Andre, Dedhi, dan Ikhsan, three of some active Indo-Sing mailing list users, to also join the forum, but they were not able to make it. Therefore, we decided to invite Judhi, one of the moderators for the IMAS mailing list, to also join the forum, and fortunately he's able to join. So there would be representatives from three Indonesian communities in Singapore, namely Indo-Sing, IndoSing-Mums and IMAS.

Efika Rosemarie (Fika) is the RSI's presenter who interviewed us. She said that it was supposed to be Rane's show, but now Rane is being posted in Indonesia for six months, as RSI's correspondent in Indonesia. We had a pre-interview meeting on 29 January 2007, located at Hany's residence in Braddell, Toa Payoh, for Fika to brief us on what the programme is all about, and how we were going to conduct the forum discussion.

During the briefing, we were also brainstorming on what topics we would be discussing on the interview forum. There were three topics being discussed during the interview, and each topic was being discussed in a 30-minute duration. Fika suggested "working in Singapore" and "mailing lists for Indonesian communities in Singapore" as the two topics that we would be discussing, and for the third discussion, the topic would be "how long we would continue to stay in Singapore and whether we would be back to Indonesia later". Quite interesting topics to discuss. :)

Unfortunately, Ellen's daughter was admitted to hospital, so Ellen was not able to join both the pre-interview meeting and the interview itself. So there were five of us: myself, Renatha, Sigit, Hany and Judhi attended the forum interview.

The interview itself was conducted on 31 January 2007 at MediaCorp's Caldecott Broadcast Centre on Andrew Road. This is not my first experience in attending interview by RSI, I have been there before to attend an interview session with Rane. However, this is my first experience of a forum interview session with my friends, discussing about familiar topics that we all know very well. It was really, really, really fun!!! :)

Furthermore, Fika allowed us to take pictures prior, after and even *during* the interview session, and being narcisst photographers, Judhi, Hany and myself took our pictures during the whole event. :) :)

Similar to my interviews last time, it was not a live programme. It's recorded and I will update again on the exact time when the programme will be aired so that all of you can hear us on the radio. :) Unfortunately, being an international radio in Singapore, the programme cannot be heard in Singapore using the normal radio, since it's being broadcasted through the short-wave (SW) frequency which can only be received outside Singapore. Listeners in Indonesia can also hear RSI programme through some local radio stations which list can be found here. For those in Singapore, you can still hear it via the Internet, either via streaming or podcast. I'll update you again when they become available.

Update on 4 February 2007, 6:15pm: Fika has updated us that the FORUM talk show will be broadcasted by RSI Indonesia every Monday night at 9:35pm Singapore time (or 8:35pm Western Indonesian Time), starting from 18 February 2008 until 14 April 2008.

There are three topics to be discussed and each topic will be divided into three time slots. Thus, the whole interview will be broadcasted in a span of 9 weeks. The broadcast can be listened through RSI Indonesia's live streaming as well as its podcast, which will be available during and after the broadcast.

Related links:

• RSI Interview at MediaCorp
• RSI Pre-Interview Briefing and Meeting
• Suatu Malam di RSI
• Rekaman di RSI
• FORUM bersama para anggota komunitas Indonesia di Singapura

100% Smoke-free

To: manager of public places

Scientific research about the harms of second-hand tobacco smoke has been accumulating for over 20 years. There is no doubt that breathing second-hand tobacco smoke (SHS) is very dangerous to human health, causing cancer and many serious respiratory and cardiovascular diseases in children and adults, often leading to premature death.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has concluded that there is no safe level of human exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke, and the upcoming WHO policy recommendations on protection from exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke clearly state that the establishment of 100% smoke-free areas is the only way to protect the public to such exposure and its consequences.

The right to clean air, free from tobacco-smoke is a human right.

Therefore, we ask you to defend and protect the health of employers, workers and the public by implementing the necessary legislation that will make all public indoor working places, including bars and restaurants 100% smoke-free. We think this is a critical step to protecting our health and that of our children.

Sincerely,

Signed by

Indra Pramana

Related links:

• Ajakan untuk Mengikuti ‘Hari Tanpa Tembakau Sedunia 2007′ by Priyadi (in Indonesian)
  
• World No Tobacco Day 2007 in WHO website
  
• WHO: Introduction: rigorous research leaves no doubt
• WHO: 100% smoke-free is the only answer
• WHO: Call for action
• WHO: Dismantling tobacco industry myths: be prepared with answers
• WHO: Not yet smoke-free? Here is what you can do…
• World No Tobacco Day in Wikipedia
• Tobacco: Deadly in Any Form, posted last year in Info
• Hari Tanpa Tembakau Sedunia 2006, posted last year in Minda Indra (in Indonesian)
  

Bemonet Alumni and First Indonesian Bloggers

My friend Budi Putra, reputedly the first full-time Indonesian blogger, is currently doing a research on the history of first Indonesian bloggers. I agree with him that articles with regard to this matter are rarely found on the Internet, and I fully support his initiative and efforts in doing the research. I foresee that this will be quite a difficult task for him, but once the task is done, I believe the research results will be very much rewarding, not only for him, but also for us and the Indonesian blogosphere in general.

Currently, he's in the early stage of gathering all the necessary information. Some fruitful inputs and feedbacks have been received as comments on the article. Based on the inputs and feedbacks, it seems that the year 2000 is the start of the blogging era for Indonesia.

It was noted that some of the first Indonesian bloggers, such as Harry Sufehmi, Priyadi Iman Nurcahyo, T.A. Coen, Kukuh T. Wicaksono and Kuncoro Wastuwibowo are coming from the BemoNet community, a BBS community which I joined during the Indonesian BBS era in the 90's. The start of the Internet era marked the end of the BBS era in Indonesia, and the members of the community had to move on to use Internet as their communication media. Some of them used the mailing list, and some other used blogs.

T.A. Coen, the Bemonet coordinator, started a poliblog called Bemo Live, which I was one of the contributors. The first post of BemoLive was dated 7 April 2000. At that time, I already had a Blogger account even though I haven't started to blog, as yet. On the same year, Idban Secandri also started another poliblog called Blog Suka-Suka, and he was also very kind to add me as one of the contributors. The first post of Blog Suka-Suka was dated 23 August 2000.

At that time, Coen and Idban should have started their own blogs as well, so I believe we can safely say that they were some of the first Indonesian bloggers who has started blogging since early 2000. On top of that, some of the active contributors of the two poliblog sites, such as Kukuh and Kuncoro, can be considered as first Indonesian bloggers as well.

Again, I would like to emphasize that I have not started to actively blog at that time. At that time, I chose to use the bemo-batavia mailing list, setup by Heryudi Ganesha, to get in touch with other Bemonetters. I only started to blog on year 2004 (based on my first post on this blog), and only started to actively blog on year 2005, when I launched Rumah Indra and The Journey of Inka and Irza. Therefore, of course, I am NOT one of the first Indonesian bloggers I have mentioned above. :)

On a side note, the official domain of the Bemonet community, bemo.or.id, is currently down at the moment. Couple of months back, I had a chat with Coen about the possibility of reactivating this domain and host the site in my facility, however so far there's no further updates on when can the domain be reactivated. Perhaps Coen or Priyadi can shed some light on the status of the domain? :)

Last but not least, I hope the above short article can help Budi in doing his research. Again, I fully support his efforts in doing this research and I am looking forward to see the results of the research. Good luck. :)