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

Happy New Year 2012

I spent the New Year’s eve in Bintan, Nirwana Garden Resorts in Bintan Resorts, Lagoi, to be exact, and spending the last day of 2011 shuttling (islands hopping, to be exact) between Bintan and Batam. Going through the change of year with mixed feelings, here’s the story.

Towards the end of 2011, I was informed that my brother’s family would be spending New Year’s eve in Bintan Resorts, and that my parents are going with them. And my mother specifically requested me to join them to celebrate the new year there. I then decided to go with my son Irza, while my wife and my daughter Inka are staying in Singapore.

My brother and his family and my parents arrived in Bintan on Friday (30/12). They took a flight from Jakarta to Batam, and then caught the speedboat from Telaga Punggur in Batam to Tanjung Uban in Bintan. There used to be a direct ferry from Telaga Punggur to Bandar Bentan Telani (BBT) ferry terminal in Bintan Resorts, but for some reason, the ferry service was not operational.

I and Irza left Singapore for Bintan on Saturday morning (31/12). We took the 9am ferry from Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal (TMFT) in Singapore, and arrived in Bandar Bentan Telani ferry terminal at 9am Bintan (WIB) time. This was when the bad news came in.

When we boarded the shuttle bus which would bring us from the ferry terminal to the resort, my brother called. He said that my mother fell off the electric bicycle she was riding, and she fractured her arm. When I and Irza arrived in the Nirwana Resort Hotel where we are staying, we immediately went to the hotel’s clinic to check my mother’s condition.

Going back to the hotel’s clinic reminded me of another unpleasant experience I had couple of years back there. When I was swimming on the sea with the kids, my foot was bitten by some kind of a poisonous fish, and I needed to spend couple of hours in the clinic to get the venom taken off my foot.

While the hotel doctor has tried her best to put a bandage for my mother’s arm, it’s not sufficient. The hotel clinic doesn’t have X-ray equipment, so my mother needs to go to the nearest hospital which has the equipment, as well as the specialized doctor who can further check her condition. Luckily, she has a friend in Batam who can arrange for an orthopaedic doctor to check my mother’s condition in Awal Bros hospital in Batam.

I then accompanied my mother and my father to go to Batam, after leaving Irza in Bintan under my brother’s care. We took a pre-arranged taxi to Tanjung Uban, from where we took a chartered speedboat to Telaga Punggur in Batam. From Telaga Punggur, we took another pre-arranged taxi to go directly to Awal Bros hospital’s emergency department.

My mother had her arm being X-rayed and the result was not good. She had three bones fractured on her left arm, and most probably would need to undergo operation. I was prepared to spend the new year in Batam when my father decided that he is bringing my mother back to Jakarta so that she can have better treatment (including operation, if necessary) there.

My parents’ Lion Air tickets to Jakarta was for the next day (1/1)’s flight, and I tried calling Lion Air hotline in Batam in a hope to change the tickets to the current day (31/12), but there was nobody picking up the phone. So we decided to go to Garuda Indonesia office located in i Hotel Batam, located near Nagoya Hill, to purchase new airline tickets to Jakarta so that my parents can fly to Jakarta on the same day.

Since my parents decide to go back to Jakarta on that day, I then had to go back to Bintan, and I needed to go back fast since the speedboats from Telaga Punggur to Tanjung Uban only operate during daylight. After sending off my parents at Hang Nadim airport in Batam and had a quick (very late) lunch at Singgalang Jaya padang restaurant there, I took a taxi to Telaga Punggur (Rp 65k). Finally I managed to secure a seat on a 4:30pm speedboat to Tanjung Uban (Rp 30k + Rp 7k tax). It was a bumpy ride to Tanjung Uban with choppy waters and a full-house boat with standing passengers.

My brother had arranged for a taxi to pick me up at Tanjung Uban jetty back to Nirwana Gardens, although I needed to wait for around 30 minutes until the taxi arrived. We had a brief stop in a sate Madura stall in front of the At-Taqwa grand mosque in Tanjung Uban, before arriving in Nirwana Resort Hotel, in time for the gala dinner and the new year’s countdown party.

It was one of the great countdown parties ever. Great gala dinner, and we also won one of the lucky prizes. Awesome live band, and great fireworks over the sea off Bintan during the countdown. But still, we celebrated the new year with mixed feelings, since at the same time, my mother arrived in Jakarta and directly checked-in to Fatmawati hospital.

The next day (1/1), I and Irza took the 2:35pm ferry back to Singapore, while uncle Arief , auntie Via, Alif and Kayla went back to Jakarta via Batam using the same route: taxi to Tanjung Uban, speedboat to Telaga Punggur, taxi to Hang Nadim airport and then the Lion Air plane back to Jakarta.

At the moment, my mother is still warded in Fatmawati hospital, and currently is undergoing pre-op examination. She might be undergoing operation on her left arm in 3-4 days.

Mohon doa dari rekan-rekan sekalian untuk kesembuhan beliau.

Happy New Year to everyone!

F*cking Bad Service from Swensen’s Jurong Point

Last Wednesday, I went to Swensen’s in Jurong Point (located in the B1 floor of the new Jurong Point 2 shopping mall) to have dinner with my wife and daughter. As usual, the queue is long, which is the norm since Jurong Point is one of the busiest shopping malls in west Singapore. I ordered an Arabiatta Penne while my wife and daughter ordered other dishes in the menu.

I noticed that the restaurant was understaffed, it was full house but only a handful of staff were servicing the customers. My problem started when my Arabiatta Penne never reached our table, even after my wife and daughter have already finished their meals! And it was very difficult to call the staff, we had to raise our hands several times just to get their attention.

Finally I managed to get a staff to attend to us, and I informed her that my Arabiatta Penne was not served yet. She then went back to the kitchen to check, and after another 10-15 minutes of wait, then my Arabiatta Penne arrived.

Another problem surfaced when we wanted to pay for the bill. Again, it was very difficult to get the staff’s attention for us to request for the bill. After more than 5 minutes without avail to get their attention, then I took the initiative to go to the cashier directly to settle the bill. When I arrived at the cashier, the lady was attending to another customer so I waited patiently until my turn to be served.

Another customer, a lady, came to the cashier, stood right next to me and immediately told the cashier her table number, and the cashier processed her bill and served her first. I was very irritated but still waiting patiently, presuming that the cashier would processed my bill after processing the lady’s bill.

And, guess what, the cashier simply ignored me and attended another lady, who stood on my left. I was angry so I decided to walk back to my table. The cashier seemed to notice my anger and she informed her manager, who then came to the table. I simply informed the manager that I wanted the bill, and then she processed the bill and I left the restaurant.

That’s it? No. Several steps after leaving the restaurant, I examined the bill and noticed that they have double-charged the Arabiatta Penne, it was listed as two instead of one. What the f*ck??? It seems that when I informed the staff that my Arabiatta Penne was not yet arrived, the staff thought that I wanted to order another Arabiatta Penne!

I went back to the cashier and asked them to fix this. At the same time, the manager and the cashier were both there so I informed the manager about the earlier incident. And the cashier still wanted to defend herself, saying that the lady on my left was actually coming first, so she had to attend her first. Then what about the lady on my right, which definitely arrived in the cashier later than me? Why the cashier attended to her first?

I didn’t want to argue further, so I just tried to keep myself calm and let them process the refund. They said they can only refund by cash, which is OK with me. After getting the money, then I just left.

And I will never visit this Swensen’s outlet again. At least, until they fix the queue management issue on their cashier, and until they hire more staff for the outlet.

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.

An Indonesian Minister’s Analysis on Singapore

Indonesia’s Communication and Information Technology Minister, Tifatul Sembiring, shared his analysis on Singapore and its relationship with Indonesia, through his Twitter account.

According to Tifatul, Singapore’s history is inseparably related to a figure of Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s first prime minister and current minister mentor. On year 1959, while Singapore’s gross national product (GNP) was US$400, Lee had a vision of the GNP to have a 60-fold increase to US$24,000 by 1990. And in 1995, Singapore’s GNP was US$20,000, nearly reaching the target.

Tifatul said that he had the opportunity to have a direct discussion with Lee twice, and at the age of nearly 90 years old, Lee is described by Tifatul as “still smart”. Tifatul asked Lee on how he built Singapore, how is Indonesia’s future competitiveness, the role of China, India, Japan and South Korea, and Lee answered his questions with excitement.

Singapore is like a mini-Indonesia, multi-ethnic with Chinese majority, and Lee said, they are being “engineered” to interact with each other. As a small nation without natural resources, they have to invite people to do business in Singapore. That’s why they must have an airline with the best service, referring to Singapore Airlines (SQ).

According to Lee as quoted by Tifatul, the society have to be disciplined, there have to be certainty on law, which is enforced strictly. No smoking by law, a ban on spitting, and death penalty for drug traffickers are just the examples. There’s no democracy in Singapore, opposition is just a complement. As what Lee said, they don’t want to take the risk of political turmoil, they have to be stable. As a result, investors are streaming in.

Tifatul asked Edward Lee, a former Singapore’s ambassador for Indonesia, on what is Singapore’s modern vision. Edward replied: “Vision Hub”. Tifatul asked what does that mean, and it was explained to him that Singapore has to become the central (hub) of businesses. We (Indonesia) might be rich in oil, gas etc, but they have to be sold via Singapore, resulting in the price to follow MOPS (Mean of Platts Singapore). We might have Bali, Lake Toba, Singkarak, Maninjau, Bunaken, Senggigi, Bromo, Sentani, but visitors will have to go through Singapore, using Singapore’s travel agents.

With main businesses on finance, banking, insurance, telecommunications and trade services, and with a population of 4.5 million people, Singapore’s foreign reserves reaches US$ 120 billion. In 2005, Singapore is Indonesia’s biggest foreign investors. They are now harvesting the result of their expansion strategy (Tifatul used the term “tebar jala” in bahasa Indonesia) to neighbouring countries.

Therefore, Tifatul concluded that we have to learn from history. A crisis will not be resolved by simple amok and flag burning. There have to be “smart moves”. He’s referring to the current crisis between Indonesia and Malaysia, pertaining to the arrests of Indonesian maritime officers by Malaysia’s police.

“Older” Hyperlink on Koprol Mobile

If I’m accessing Koprol via its mobile interface and go to Home, when I click the “Older” hyperlink to see the earlier timeline for the first time (to go to page 2 of the timeline), it’s working properly. But when I click the “older” hyperlink for the second time (to go to page 3 of the timeline), I see very old updates (around 7 days ago) instead of the earlier timeline.

The problem only happens if I use my mobile phone to access the mobile interface. If I use my laptop, I don’t encounter the same problem.

Not too sure why. Is it my mobile phone’s browser issue? I’m using Opera Mobile on my HTC HD2.

Update on 27 June 2010, 10:30hrs SGT: I have performed further troubleshooting last night, upon getting some advice from Daniel Armanto, one of Koprol's bosses. It seems that the problem only happened if I'm using SingTel's 3.5G connection. When I switched to my wi-fi connection at home, I didn't encounter the problem, despite it's connected to the same ISP, SingNet in this case.

Thus, I'm convinced now that the problem is not on Koprol's server nor on my mobile phone's browser, but it's most probably my 3.5G Internet service provider issue. Looks like it's SingTel 3.5G's proxy issue?

Xperia X1’s Sliding Keyboard: Design Flaw

Photo: My Sony Ericsson Xperia X1

After almost a year using my Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 mobile phone, I have come to a conclusion that its sliding keyboard is a design flaw. If you really a heavy user of the keyboard, I would not recommend the phone at all. On the other hand, people normally choose Xperia X1 because of the keyboard, otherwise they would opt for other cheaper phones such as HTC Diamond or Samsung Omnia. Therefore, it’s not worth spending your money for that expensive phone. For Xperia X1 wanna-be user, I would suggest you buy another phone instead.

Lousy Phone

I bought the phone on November last year, and after becoming a happy user of the phone for just several weeks, I have started to experience the problem on its sliding keyboard some time on late February or early March 2009, which was just several months after it was bought. I will not go into details on the problem, you can just click the above-mentioned hyperlinks for more info about the problem. In short, the problem was fixed after I sent the phone for repair some time on July 2009. Basically, they changed the keyboard with a new one to fix the problem, although since they confirmed that it was a hardware issue, I had concerns that the new keyboard would eventually have the same problem when the time comes.

And… guess what? My concerns came true. Since last month, again I started to experience similar problem with the keyboard. And yes, it *is* the new keyboard which is having the same problem. And I am not alone, many other Xperia X1 users experience the same problem after several weeks or months using the phone. With even new keyboard experiencing the same problem, I conclude that the problem is due to a design flaw which will cause the keyboard to have the problem after several weeks or month of usage, depends on how often the user uses the sliding keyboard.

Lousy Service

I brought the phone to the Sony Ericsson Service Centre at Wisma Atria again last Sunday (1/11). Since the warranty period is nearing the end, the customer service officer said that the service will be chargeable, even though I brought the warranty card, because I was unable to provide her with the receipt as proof of purchase. She said that she was not able to determine the exact date of purchase because it was not on Sony Ericsson’s database.

She advised that I can try calling SingTel Mobile’s customer service and get them to fax the copy of my mobile contract to Sony Ericsson. When I called them, they said that they can provide the service, however it would take 5-7 working days and it costs me $30. The SingTel’s service officer advised that I might be able to get the copy of the mobile contract from the shop I purchased the Xperia X1 from. Sigh, I ditched the idea and decided to search for the contract on my pile of files at home on Sunday night. Alhamdulillah, thank God, I found it after almost two hours combing my files, and I have faxed it over to Sony Ericsson earlier this morning to ensure that I don’t get charged for this service.

No More Sony Ericsson Phones For Me

With such an experience with a lousy phone with a lousy service from the service centre, I have promised myself that I will never buy another Sony Ericsson phone. Well, some might said that since Xperia X1 was built by HTC for Sony Ericsson, that means the design flaw might be HTC’s fault, but I have friends who have HTC Touch Pro and the newer HTC Touch Pro 2, and they are happy users of the phones. My friend Arga suggested me to upgrade to the upcoming Xperia X2 phone which will be released this month, or even the future Android-based Xperia X3, but how can I ensure that similar design flaw will not apply to the newer phones as well?

 
Photo: HTC Touch Pro 2 (courtesy of gsmarena.com)

  
Photo: Samsung B7610 OmniaPRO (courtesy of gsmarena.com)

 
Photo: Sony Ericsson Xperia X2 (courtesy of gsmarena.com)

Photo: Nokia N97 (courtesy of gsmarena.com)

Yes, I intend to replace my Xperia X1 soon, if the problem still happens again after this second round of servicing. But I’m still not too sure which phone I should buy. It has to has a sliding keyboard, and it cannot be another Sony Ericsson phone. :P So, Xperia X2 is definitely out of question. I was considering Nokia N97 before my friends advised me that it’s not really a good phone, since it hangs quite frequently. I am currently considering either HTC Touch Pro 2 or the new Samsung B7610 OmniaPRO (the sliding keyboard type-one, not the Blackberry-alike OmniaPRO B7320). Do you have any other phones I should consider? :)

Kudos to An-Nahdhah Mosque's Management

I was attending a friend's wedding event at An-Nahdhah Mosque, Bishan on Sunday, 11 October 2009 and when I went back, I inadvertently and carelessly left my bag, containing my HP Mini netbook, at the basement carpark, before I went into my car. It seems that I might have left the bag when I needed to put on my shoes, and I only realised it after I reached my home at Bukit Batok.

I immediately called the mosque's management after getting the number from SingTel's directory service (100). While driving back from Bukit Batok to Bishan (which seemed like forever), I had Mr. Jamal on the other line, who patiently listened to my panic voice explaining that I had left my bag in the basement carpark. I even wrongly informed him that it was a blue bag, while it is actually a purple backpack. Mr. Jamal said he would check and advised me to call him back in 15 minutes.

Fifteen minutes later, I was already exiting PIE onto Lornie Road when I tried to call the mosque again, and was nervous when nobody picked up the call. I kept on calling using my handsfree but unable to reach anyone in the mosque, until I reached the mosque itself and went into the basement carpark. I was even more nervous when I couldn't find the bag at the place where I might have left it, and immediately took the lift upstairs to the first floor to go to the management office.

I met the mosque's staff at the office (I'm not too sure whether he's Mr. Jamal or another staff) and, alhamdulillah, thank God, the bag was there and he gave it to me. He mentioned that upon receiving my call, he immediately went to the basement carpark and found the bag near the carpark's lobby entrance. There were some other people around when he found the bag so he asked them whether the bag belongs to them, and they said no, so he brought the bag to the management office and kept it there. Thank God!

I also met some of my friends from the wedding event there, and shared my experience with them. Because of that, I didn't manage to thank the mosque staff properly. Thank you, Mr. Jamal and An-Nahdhah mosque's staff, for helping me to locate and keep the bag for me.

Pangandaran is Getting Closer

This article is originally posted on ABN's Asia Travel Blog here.

Pangandaran is a famous tourist attraction, located at the south-east end of West Java province, Indonesia. Its beaches are reputably the best and finest in Java island, and also offer excellent surfing. Other than its fine beaches, Pangandaran also offer a beautiful national park and its own version of green canyon.

However, its location at the southern regency of Ciamis in West Java makes Pangandaran not really appealing to Jakarta and Bandung tourists, let alone foreign tourists. By road, it takes around 5-6 hours to reach Pangandaran from Bandung, the capital city of West Java province, and it takes around 7-8 hours to reach Pangandaran from Jakarta, capital city of Indonesia, by road.

Fortunately, there is now a faster alternative to reach Pangandaran, which is via air. Susi Air, an airline previously specialised in chartered services, has started scheduled services from Jakarta and Bandung to Pangandaran. This will cut down the travel time between Jakarta and Pangandaran to only one hour. It will operate a Cessna Grand Caravan aircraft with a capacity of 12 passengers to service the Jakarta-Pangandaran route twice a day, one direct flight and another one with a stopover in Bandung.

The flight from Jakarta will depart from Halim Perdanakusuma airport, located east of the city and closer to the city centre compared to Soekarno-Hatta International airport.

Indonesia AirAsia’s Change of Flight Timing

On Friday (16/10) morning, I received both SMS and e-mail from AirAsia, to inform me that my and my family’s upcoming Indonesia AirAsia’s QZ 7785 flights (same flight on different dates) from Singapore to Jakarta on December 2009 are being rescheduled from 12:40pm to 5:45pm. There seems to be a re-timing exercise affecting this specific flight number and all QZ 7785 flights after 25 October 2009 are affected.

I immediately logged in to AirAsia’s website and tried to change my itinerary to an earlier flight for the day using its “Manage my Booking” function, however I would have to pay S$40 “change fee”. Luckily, there were some other Indonesians in Singapore who had also purchased tickets for some future QZ 7785 flights and were affected by the same problem, and they were kindly enough to share their experience in Indo-Sing mailing list. They mentioned that if we call their call centre to request for a change to an earlier flight due to this re-timing, they will process it without charging the $40 change fee.

That’s good news! The only problem is that it was very difficult to call AirAsia’s call centre number in Singapore on that day. I tried calling the number (630 77688) since 10:30am in the morning and I kept on getting busy tones. I eventually managed to get in touch with them at around 3pm in the afternoon, and I immediately lodged my complaint about the change of schedule and requested for a change to an earlier flight, free of charge. He requested for the booking codes and I gave him.

The call centre staff then gave me a Service Request Number (SRN) and was transferred to their support staff. They put me on hold for quite some time (I think close to 5 minutes) before a support staff then took my call and request for the SRN. After I gave him the SRN, he then processed the flight change (for both myself and my family, who are on the same flight but different date) and informed me that I will receive an e-mail containing the new itinerary within 15 minutes. Yay! :)

Less than 5 minutes, I received the email with the new itineraries, and immediately print them. Just to make sure, I went back into the “Manage my Booking” function on AirAsia’s website to check the booking, and it’s confirmed that the flight has been changed to an earlier flight (10:30am) for the day, for both booking. I am a very happy AirAsia customer now.

Thank you, AirAsia. :)

Padi - Live in Singapore!

Green Media, a Singapore-based concerts and event management company, is bringing Padi, an Indonesian rock band, for a one-day only live concert here in Singapore. The concert is scheduled to be on Sunday, 1 November 2009 at 3pm, located at Dragonfly, a live music room within St James Power Station, Singapore’s first coal-fired power station built in 1927, which has since been converted into one of the Singapore’s leading music and nightlife venues located just next to VivoCity, in Harbourfront area.

According to Green Media, they currently have a special project which aims to bring together the various groups of Indonesian community already existing in Singapore and to help them co-exist with the Singapore community. PADI Live in Singapore! is a first in a series of events and concerts to be organised by Green Media which promotes peaceful social integration of the Indonesian community to that of the local Chinese or Malay community. The Indonesian and local friends' base that we have consists of the Indonesian Chinese, Malays and Eurasian from various religious backgrounds but with one main objective and love - the love for Indonesian music.

While their efforts are indeed to be appreciated, I was quite shocked to see the ticket price for the event. The standard ticket price is S$157 if purchased online, and S$175 if purchased at the door. The price includes of $2 booking fees and one drink coupon redeemable for soft drinks and juices only, but excludes $1 mailing/collection at venue charges. The ticket price is just too high, in my opinion. According to Andre, it’s even higher than the ticket price for The Police’s concert here in Singapore last year.

My Xperia X1’s Keyboard is Fixed, For Now…

After experiencing the annoying keyboard problem on my Xperia X1 for months, I decided to bring the phone back to Sony Ericsson Service Centre at Wisma Atria last week. They confirmed that it was a hardware problem, and they have replaced the keyboard with a new one. I have just collected the phone yesterday, and I am now very happy that I can type normally again on the phone, with ease.

I didn’t have to pay anything for this, since the phone is still under warranty. They even lent me another phone for me to use while my phone is on service, despite it being a very low-end phone which I didn’t use at all, eventually. The only downside is that the phone is being reset to its factory settings, and all my data and applications are gone. The service centre officer has already informed me about this when I send the phone for servicing, so I have prepared to backup all the data and applications on my Outlook and the micro SD card.

My only concern is that it seems that it is really, indeed, a hardware problem, most probably due to wear and tear. Until when before the same problem will start to happen again on this new keyboard? And how if by that time, the warranty is already expired?

The Influenza A (H1N1) Virus is Getting Closer

After reaching Thailand, yesterday the Influenza A (H1N1) virus, previously known as the swine flu virus, is confirmed to have reached Malaysia’s soil by the country’s top health official. The patient is a 21-year-old male student who arrived on a Malaysia Airlines flight from Newark (near New York) in the Unites States, via Stockholm, Sweden.

This confirms that the virus is now getting much closer to Singapore and Indonesia. While the Malaysia official confirmed that there’s no Singaporean passengers nor any passengers with onward connecting flights to Singapore, the MH091 flight from Newark is a code share flight with Garuda Indonesia, so there could be some passengers, exposed to the infected patient on the same flight, who might have gone to Indonesia.

I wonder whether the Indonesian health officials have taken the necessary precautions on this matter. From what I understand, everyone there is very busy preparing for the presidential election.

The Ministry of Health (MOH) of Singapore says that it is only a matter of time before the virus reaches Singapore. Yes, I agree that it’s not possible to prevent the virus from entering Singapore, since the virus has been reported to be highly contagious. More efforts should be put into treating the infected patients when the virus comes in, rather than fire-fighting in preventing the virus from reaching Singapore.

However, I disagree with the Singapore government’s move to lower its alert level for the H1N1 flu from orange to yellow last week, despite the World Health Organisation (WHO) maintaining its alert level on 5 (near pandemic) out of 6. I personally think that lowering the alert level would bring Singapore residents closer to complacency and will make them become less alerted. With this latest development, it would be wise for the government to increase its alert level back to orange.

The Best Garmin GPS Maps for Singapore

Before Malfreemaps (MFM or MySgFreeMaps) was formed, Malsingmaps (MSM) had the best Garmin GPS map for Singapore. It was even much better than Garmin official map, the City Navigator Singapore/Malaysia. In fact, MSM was the best Garmin GPS community map making for Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei.

Late last year, MFM was born, and it was started without the Singapore map. So for GPS users in Singapore like me, MSM was still the only choice. Unfortunately, after the MSM-MFM split, there was no further significant update to the MSM map for Singapore. The only users who can get further updates were those who had donated to Jerome’s donor version of the map.

Not too long later, MFM started to incorporate Singapore into its map. It was removed at some point of time due to some copyright infringement alleged by Jerome but it has been reinstated since. And to be frank, I’m very happy with the progress of MFM in rebuilding the Singapore map, and have been using it since. I’m currently having both maps (MFM and MSM) loaded into my Sony Ericsson Xperia X1, although I set the MFM map to take precedence over the MSM map. Therefore, all routing will be done using the MFM map, the display will also show the MFM map, while I’m still able to search POIs contained on the MSM map. This is because in terms of number of POIs, the MSM map is still more complete and MFM would still need some time to catch up.

Some reasons why I chose MFM to take precedence over MSM for routing and display, at the moment:

1. MFM map has all the HDB polygons being drawn, while the public version of MSM map doesn’t have. Only Jerome’s donor version has similar HDB polygons, and it’s not free.
2. MFM map is being updated on a weekly basis. New versions of the map are always released every Monday and so far they haven’t missed it. :)
3. The MFM mapper for Singapore is very accommodative in accepting my contributions and error corrections, and most of the time, any contributions or corrections would be implemented immediately on the next version release.

This is the current situation now and it might still change. I heard that MSM will release their new map this month, and I’m looking forward to it. I also heard that MSM will distribute the maps for free to all the users and contributors. The map might still be locked but the unlock codes will be given for free, as long as you are an MSM registered user.

So, back to the original question, which map is the best for Singapore, MFM or MSM? I would say, both. Yes, both. :) At the moment, we need to have both maps loaded into our GPS devices so that we can make the best out of both maps. That would be the best combination to form the best Garmin GPS map for Singapore, at least for the moment.

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.

Annoying Sony Ericsson Xperia X1’s Keyboard Problem

After several months using my Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 mobile phone, I have started to encounter some issues with its slide-out keyboard. This problem is specifically annoying since I’m a heavy user of the keyboard (for Internet, e-mail, SMS etc).

Some of the keys especially on the lower part of the keyboard, such as the Fn (blue) key, C key, V key, N key, the spacebar and the . (dot) key are not responsive, and do not register the keys when pressed even though we get the tactile (click) feedback from the keys. And sometimes, if we press harder, it will register double, or sometimes triple, of the keys. Really annoying and irritating

The problem started last month with the spacebar, and then spreads to other keys. This means that the problem seems to get worse over time, since more and more keys are affected eventually. This also means that the problem might be due to a design flaw rather than just a simple mechanical problem. Very disappointing.

I reported this problem last month on the XDA-Developers forum, and at first, there was no reply to the first post I made. However, eventually I found out that many other Xperia X1 users started to experience this problem. I’m not too sure whether the problem will be resolved if I bring the phone to the Sony Ericsson service centre, since it seems to be a design flaw instead of a mechanical malfunction. Any suggestions?

As an alternative, I have temporarily installed FingerKeyboard2, originally developed for HTC Touch HD (Blackstone), for my on-screen keyboard. Quite nice and easy to use. But I still prefer the sliding keyboard, though.

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.

1000 Twitter Updates

I just posted my 1000th update on Twitter. Most of them are not really my direct updates, though, since they are cross-posted from Kronologger.

Nothing much special to call for a celebration. It just a reaffirmation that I’m now more into micro-blogging than the actual blogging itself.

Pretty sad, indeed…

Deepavali This Year Moved to a Saturday

This year’s Deepavali, which previously has been tentatively set on a Sunday, 15 November 2009 (which means the following Monday, 16 November 2009 would be a public holiday), has been brought forward one month earlier, on Saturday, 17 October 2009.

When Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower releases the list of Singapore public holiday every year, the date set for Deepavali is always tentative because it has to be checked against the Indian Almanacs when they become available. Last year, MOM also moved the Deepavali date albeit only one day earlier, from Tuesday to Monday. It is just so unfortunate that for this year, the date is being moved from a Sunday to a Saturday.

This means that the public holiday will only benefit those who are working on Saturdays, and that Monday, 16 November 2009 is no longer declared as a public holiday. :(

In Singapore, if a public holiday falls on a Sunday, the following Monday will also be a public holiday. For example, since Hari Raya Puasa for this year falls on a Sunday, 20 September 2009, the following Monday, 21 September 2009 will also be a public holiday.

Another thing to note, in Singapore, the government has always been able to predict the day for Hari Raya Puasa correctly, and the actual Hari Raya date normally falls on the predicted date without any revision. This is different from the Indonesian government who always decides the exact date of Hari Raya at the last minute, waiting for the result of hilal (moon) sighting. Not too sure where does the Singapore goverment get their formula from? :)

Happy Lunar New Year

On Chinese New Year's eve, I went to Chinatown with Irza to soak into the festive moods of Lunar New Year, and also to watch the fireworks display during the countdown to the new year of ox.

We parked our car at VivoCity and took the MRT train to Chinatown, to avoid (human) traffic jam around the area. After the fireworks display, we had ourselves some tiramisu cake and double chocolate coffee from Coffee Bean at Chinatown Point while waiting for the crowd to disperse, before we took the train back to Harbourfront.

I would like to wish everyone who celebrate Chinese New Year, a very happy new year of ox. Hope that everyone will have a very happy and prosperous new year ahead.

More pictures can be found here.