I went out to find new shirts yesterday, and I can’t get anything fit to my current neck size … sigh…
I noticed that I don’t have well defined neck anymore, and oh, is that second chin I have now ? Worst thing is body size still change that much, shoulder and such, but I can’t button up the neck part which means I can’t wear tie properly… oh well, maybe this is the dawn of custom made clothing era for me…
No, it is not an automotive club name… It’s about all those people who ride motorbikes in the crowded and overpopulated Jakarta roads. And it’s been a month now since my father-in-law-to-be lend me an automatic transmission scooter. Quite a slick vehicle I must say.. I don’t need to change gear or fiddle around with transmission pedal and clutch, simply pull the accelerator to run faster or pull the break lever to slow down and stop, everything is done using both hands, freeing my feet from elaborate footwork, except to support the vehicle when stoping at traffic lights.
Anyhoo… I need to readjust to Jakarta traffic, considering I usually on a car’s driver seat or being a passenger in bigger vehicles like bus or somebody else’s car. I used to be cursing at motorcyclist for their carelessness… now I feel like everybody was cursing at me when I feel I’m doing something stupid along the way.
What I fear most are not buses, cars, or any other big vehicles… I really fear most are… other motorcyclist. Seems like they really don’t use rear view mirror that much, and they seems to have drone telepathic ability and some sort of swarm logic 
)
Hmm… I hope I can catch up, not in negative way though, such as zig-zag-ing through queues of cars, but more in awareness when some other bikers doing weird maneuvers…
Long Live Jakarta Jam !!
Life is strange.
I knew it is for a long time, but never really notice it until it hit me big time, this time in a good way. I always have this strong feeling about when my life will change drastically, won’t call it premonition but close enough… i just knew all along that when i hit my mid thirties, things will change. and so it is.
I was in a very great mess at work when i get this email from a friend of mine in Singapore, notify me that he might have a potential client for me. And then this person he refered me to called long distance directly to my mobile, and that was the moment my life changes drastically. Sufficient to say, it wasn’t only changing my career, but also my perspective on people, and life a large.
Changing perspective on people ? how so ? I’m talking about my own people here, Indonesian people. We are such a big nation, in term of populations, but never a nation with big heart. Seriously. In my 10 years plus working experiences, it never hit me like this time, it’s a simple enlightenment, that i felt most appreciated when i was out of this country. This nation’s inferiority syndrome has widespread and become a cultural disease, and that , my friend, is more dangerous than HIV, avian flu or whatever plague you can think of. I believe strongly that when people start having inferiority syndrome, the symptom will be the opposite behavior. They will intimidate you, acting like they are bigger, bossing around, while they actually realize that deep in their heart they have nothing. nada. big zero. And worst thing is, they will shit on you just because they can, so beware.
So what this has anything to do with life being strange ? a lot. Now I understand why people act like something they are not. And most importantly, I realized i shouldn’t let other people speak for me when it comes to my own well being. It’s not that i can’t trust people, but it’s just difficult to find good people with good motivation to collaborate. I always believe that this kind of people really exist, I just found only very few of them. And most of them are not Indonesian.
Long story short, my strong feeling about my own life proven to be right. 10 months ago I never would’ve thought that all these could happen, but is does happen now. I got a sweet renewable contract from a Singapore company, with Singapore salary standard while I still stationed here in Jakarta. Only part of it is about the money, but most of it are the level of appreciation I can get for my skill and my willingness to work. Not long ago when i worked for local company, i got shit for the same amount of works and dedication.
On my other facet of life, I met this girl, well, again, because i actually known her 14 years ago in my college days. And then everything was just a breeze, we just bought a house ( I amazed myself because of this ) … and … well, it just feels great
I just finished watching the OS X Leopard’s guided tour video at Apple’s site, and really, it’s looks so sweeeet !!
It was launched just 2 hours ago ( I check the time countdown counter )and I know that it’s all intended for marketing purpose, but i know when i see it that it’s not just MS-ish whistle and bells demo… Just take a look at the new desktop, it’s as clean and tidy as Tiger desktop, but subtle difference let you know that it isn’t Tiger, namely the perspective look of the Dock. Look deeper, and you find Stacks, Cover Flow view, Quick Look and all other hoo hah hidden neatly in simplicity.
Then take a look at Time Machine, now that, is backup system done right… Really, it has visually great looking interface, let you freely roam into backup filesystem as if you’re working with your current files, but with time dimension added. It let you do preview, full view of the files in question, and restoring is a simple click away, right down in file level.
Spaces, hmm, I’ve using this in Linux machines for quite a while ( years actually, right from the start ) but now I can have it built in OS X is simply a great news. Expose is cool, Spaces make it even cooler…
Other stuff like iChat are cool also but I don’t think I will use it as much due to lower internet bandwidth I have here at home, Mail also greatly improved and it works much like Google Calendar with the date recognition.
So, this is how a desktop OS should be done, simple, no fuzz, with everything you need right there when you needed them. I’m not trying to start a OS war, but comparing to Vista ( yawn ) it is waaayy cooler… I tried to setup Vista on my sister’s new laptop to connect to home wireless network, and it was a pain, the OS gets in the way, asking too much security confirmation … Hell, what am i doing, i’m not trying to break into DoD here… and then i just knew that it was just a simple checkbox to turn on the wireless module… worst thing is that checkbox was hidden under one of wireless setting which there are several different types of them lying around. No wonder MS have so many user certification for it’s product, let alone all those books and tutorial teaching you simply how to use the OS, and you’re not even close to being productive with the OS and application that run on it. And with all that flashing button, semitransparent look and 3D stuff, what the hell was that for ? I don’t mind with all those flashy stuff, i certainly do mind if they become the cause of animated waiting circle on *every* click i made, even in 1Gb RAM machine.. sigh…
I’m not kidding you, but even Linux has done much better job on this department than Vista tried to claim to be.
Anyway… I just can’t wait to get my hands on Leopard upgrade DVD now
I got stumbled upon ( again ) Akelos, another PHP framework, but this time my short attention span seems didn’t work 
…
Yeah, it seems mature and stable enough, and maybe because i’m in process of learning RoR now, that Akelos’ claim of being “port of RoR in PHP languange” make more sense than before.
Why am i interested in Akelos ? There are several other PHP frameworks that claim to be “inspired by” or “ports of RoR” namely CakePHP, CodeIgniter ( inspired ones ) and PHP on Trax ( port ).
I’ve been using CodeIgniter for a while and like it so far, because it has great documentation, lightweight, and easy to extend, although as many other PHP frameworks, it tends to get hairy if the developer gets too excited or plain too old fashioned to adhere to MVC concept. the lack of automation and claim of being small, lightweight freeform MVC framework in CodeIgniter is likely the cause of such failure to enforce MVC separation and reuseability ( or DRY ). I don’t blame the creator, actually i like CI very much because it cuts a significant portion of my work on particular project, make everything so fast, and above all, fun.
After i tried Akelos however, i got more excited, because it has the same ease of use of CI, at least in terms of requirements, like it works in PHP4 and PHP5, the package is easy to install, through SVN and downloadable package, and self contained, it doesn’t get stranded to PEAR ( like PHP on Trax ). Personally i don’t like PEAR because i’ve encounter too much trouble setting up on many different kind of machine ( Windows, Linux, and now OS X ).
With the bonus of Rails like automation, like generator, migration, etc. which doesn’t currently exist in CI, Akelos should be fun to work with, after all , it is a port of Rails. So i think i will take a closer look at it, maybe it could become a good learning tool on Rails concepts. I know PHP for a long time , then it’s a bit hard to switch lane to Ruby, learning RoR using Akelos should be a logical way to gradually move to pure RoR world.
Mind you, I’m not into language / framework war, for me it’s just another language and another framework. I use them accordingly depending on my particular needs, so i don’t scrap one for another, but i simply put them in my personal toolbox to use any of them as required.
The reason i don’t pick CakePHP is because it’s a whole different kind of framework although it has many of good features of RoR ( automation with bake, ORM, etc ). PHP on Trax, hmm, PEAR, so i think i’ll pass. I pass on other PHP frameworks too because they are PHP5 only, which is not good for the moment since my servers are still running PHP4, although they have great features too.
So, Akelos should be good enough now, although I don’t think it will match RoR fame, but it will become a fresh breath of air on PHP world, particularly in this moment where PHP gets mocked as inferior than Ruby or Python ( or other languages by fact ). Other thing is I actually like the modest attitude of Bermi Ferrer, Akelos’ creator. DHH is just simply irritating, but i still respect him as a great programmer.