Perbandingan gaji pekerja IT di Indonesia vs Asia

Gaji pekerja IT di Indonesia dibandingkan dengan rekan2nya dari Singapore, HK, Malaysia, bahkan Thailand.

Indonesia meduduki rangking terakhir.



Yah namanya juga bos2 di Indonesia itu kurang appreciate dengan keberadaan IT. Sadar akan kepentingan IT cuman waktu koneksi internet terganggu dan email tidak jalan. :)


Artikel selengkapnya :
Asia IT Salary Benchmarks : Experience pays well for those in IT : IT employment Trends - ZDNet Asia

via enda

Indonesia Internet Cencorship (continue)

Following the Ministry Instruction (the last post), YouTube had been blocked nationwide by local ISPs.

JakartaPost has the news : link

Reporter without borders : link

Several other big sites are also reported being blocked :
Multiply.com
MySpace.com
Liveleak.com
Rapidshare.com
elance.com (by telkom speedy)

Ministry of Communication and Information yesterday had a discussion with IT and blogger community, but resulted nothing. No surprise, since the government is not really into public aspirations.

UU ITE (Information and Electronic Transaction Law) = Law to allow information censorship by Indonesian Government

Indonesian government has produce a law that govern information and 'electronic transaction'. It called 'UU ITE' Undang Undang Informasi & Transaksi Elektronik. The law aimed to prevent cyber crime such as carding which is quite popular in Indonesia.
The draft of the law can be viewed here

However, a lot of people see it as a law and base for the government to do internet censorship.

This week (week of 8 April 2008), it's widely known that a popular site YouTube has been instructed by Ministry of Communication and Information to be blocked nation wide. This instruction has to be complied by all ISP.

The reason for YouTube blocking is because there a video called Fitna made by a Dutch politician that has been touted as a misleading critique of Islam.

As of today, the whole Indonesia that use local ISP can not access YouTube. Some ISP go even further by blocking a few other site including multiply.com

Below is the Ministry's letter to ISP :

photo credit : KOMPAS/RENE L PATTIRADJAWANE link

A loosely translation of the content :

"In relation of the video called Fitna (made by Dutch politician, Geert Wilders' that circulate via internet media, and can cause inter religious disharmony globally.

Because of that, we instructed you to coordinate with APJII (Indonesia ISP Assosiation) members and IIX (Indonesia Internet Exchange) authorities with all effort to block the site and blog that post that video.

This was told to be done obidiently.

Ministry of Communication and Information
Muhammad Nuh

cc : Indonesia Police Chief.
"

News in Jakarta Post regarding Fitna link

Using Mac will make you 'dumb' 'dull', using Windows will just waste your time.

Yes, if you spend too much time using Mac, you'll eventually become 'dumb' 'dull' in technical troubleshooting sense of way. You've taken by granted that everything in Mac will just work.

Yesterday's evening, my brother in law called me. He signed up for Speedy ADSL service. The technician came by to install the modem. He tested it using his notebook (with XP) and worked with no problem. Then he tried to connect the modem to my bro's Vista. It didn't work. In my conversation with the technician, he said that he got no experience with Vista, thus didn't know how to troubleshoot the problem. It is suppose to be plug and pray right? The ethernet suppose to automatically get an address from the modem. Apparently it didn't work.

So I have to drive to his house, 20 minutes away. When I arrived, the technician was quite confused, as also it's already 8pm, and I don't think he is being paid overtime. I told the tech guy to leave, since he proofed that the internet is working using his notebook.

I started tweaking with the network setting in Vista. Automatic addressing, didn't work. Manual address, didn't work. Strangely I saw 2 'network connections'. One being the ethernet port itself, and the other was 'unidentified network'. What the heck. Did Vista has new network feature that I didn't know about?

Darn, I didn't bring my Powerbook with me. So I had to drive back home, bring my PowerBook over. I plugged in my PowerBook, and whoala! it worked!

I started tweaking with Vista network setting again. A strange sign was when I ipconfig, in the gateway there's 2 entries. They are '0.0.0.0' and '192.168.1.1'.
It was suppose to be only 1, which is the 192.168.1.1.
I go to the TCP/IP prop, go to Advance and check the gateway entries, nothing there.

Diagnosting and Repair feature didn't help, but wasting my time.

Finally, I tried to reenter the IP address info manually, including entering several fake gateway addresses, click Apply, and then erase them, and click Apply. Set to automatic, and whoala! it works! The 0.0.0.0 was gone!

So, because I am using too much Mac, I become dumb dull. It should't took that much time to troubleshoot this problem. I begin to loose my troubleshooting skills and feeling, because aint much to troubeshoot in Mac.
Because my brother in law use Vista, he wasted my whole evening, just for this silly problem.

[update : the very next day]
Aparently the problem reappeared the very next day. Darn! If it can't established a network connection due to "unindentified network" problem, then I can't connect to internet and google. Disable, enable, and restarted several times, and on one lucky shot, it connected to the ADSL modem. I quickly google for this problem, and whoala! we are not alone! And there's no single solution for this problem, as nobody for sure knows what caused it (including those MS MVPs).
One of the most possible solution is to download Norton Removal Tool link. The notebook came with Symantec Internet Security preinstalled.
[Tips from lockergnome.com
I downloaded it, and run it TWICE just to make sure. Restart the notebook and it connected after reboot. The problem went away, or did it?

[update : the next day]
Aparently it didn't go away. So I recheck everything again. Run Norton Removal Tool again, uninstalling unneeded programs, and updating the network driver. It didn't work. However, I notice that if the modem is on before I TURN ON the notebook, then the notebook can connect to the modem, but if the notebook is on before the modem, then it will goes into "unidentified network" status, and can't connect.

SOLUTION : Turn on the modem, wait for 1 minutes, then turn on the notebook.

MORAL : Using Vista is just a waste of time. You'll most likely end up troubleshooting for something that suppose to work. You'll loose your precious time. You better stick with XP or use Mac OSX.

image credit : http://www.gameshout.com/news/windows_home_server_bug_causes_problems1/article9922.htm

Our Lovely Busway Bus on Fire!!!

got it from a forwaded email

Pariwisata Indonesia : Oh Mama Oh Papa....

Hong Kong didatangi oleh lebih dari 28 juta turis di tahun 2007 dan diperkirakan akan meraup pemasukan melampaui HK$130 miliar (kira2 16,6 miliar US$). link

Sedangkan menurut situs budpar (yeah.. what a name..), pemerintah Indonesia mencoba menarik 7 juta wisatawan di tahun 2007, dan mengharapkan pendapatan 6.4 milar USD. (estimasi 941US$ per wisatawan).
Budget promosi yang diadakan adalah sebesar 15 juta USD.

(Kalau tertarik, silahkan bandingkan 'budget promosi tourism' kita dengan laporan keuangan HK Tourism Board, sebuah badan di HK yang dibentuk khusus untuk menjalankan pariwisata HK secara profesional : link

Jadi dibandingkan dengan HongKong yang wilayah daratnya tidak sebesar Jabodetabek, maka target pengunjung sebanyak 7 juta orang adalah sangat sangat kecil. Hanya 1/4 jumlah turis yang ke HK di tahun 2007!
Apakah tidak bisa ditargetkan target yang lebih tinggi? Atau memang karena pemerintah Indonesia tidak terlalu optimis untuk menjual Pariwisata Indonesia?

Saya sendiri sih tidak terlalu optimis untuk menjual pariwisata Indonesia ke luar negeri. Mengapa? Karena untuk menjual, tentunya harus rapih2 dulu... dandan dulu... Kalau saya mau membuang uang saya di Mal, tentunya saya tidak mengharapkan tempat yang becek dan bau amis. Saya mengharapkan lokasi yang nyaman, ber AC, free hot spot. Untuk semua itu, saya berani membayar parkir mahal (Rp.2000,- per jam).

Satu2nya tempat di Indonesia yang bisa menjual dirinya hanya Bali. Bagaimana dengan daerah lain, misalnya Jakarta?

Ini adalah apa yang harus dialami oleh seorang turis kalau datang ke Jakarta :

Toilet di Bandara yang bau pesing menyambut para turis yang baru mendarat dan keluar dari pesawat.
Ketemu loket Imigrasi. Petugas Imigrasi dengan antusias selalu akan mencoba untuk memeras orang luar negeri (kalau orang lokal tidak usah diperas sudah tst...). Seorang rekan saya dari China dimintai uang oleh 'oknum' berbaju Imigrasi dengan cara mengibas2kan uang HK$20,- karena tidak bisa bicara bahasa Mandarin/Cantonese. Rekan saya itu memberikan uang HK$20,- kepada si oknum mengira bahwa itu memang fee-nya. Saya tidak tahu harus tertawa atau malu ketika rekan saya menceritakan hal itu. (Moral dari kisah ini, belajarlah bahasa asing sebanyak mungkin, karena jika bisa berbahasa Mandarin, maka sang 'oknum' akan dengan gampang meminta HK$50 atau HK$100).

Lewat Imigrasi, ketemu 'oknum' Bea Cukai. capeee deh... Keluar dari Bea Cukai, harus melewati lautan calo2 taxi gelap. (sekadar reminder kalo ini cerita masih di Bandara Soekarno Hatta, dan bukan di terminal Kampung Rambutan). Kalau tidak hati2, walau sudah memilih taksi resmi, bisa2 diperas untuk borongan.

Setelah keluar dari Bandara, harus menikmati kemacetan yang kadang dimulai dari ruas tol Bandara. Kalau beruntung, si turis bisa menikmati Venice ala Jakarta, karena ruas tol Bandara bisa tergenang air.

Bagaimana dengan situs pariwisata di Jakarta?
Kapan terakhir Monas memperbaharui lift-nya?
Museum Gajah yang pada hari Senin tutup jam 2 siang, tapi pada jam 1 sudah tidak ada petugas di loket? (what do you expect from a PNS?)
Kebun Binatang Ragunan yang banyak sampah karena kurangnya tempat sampah, dan sangat sudah menemukan peta.
Macetnya Jakarta membuat hampir impossible untuk melakukan City Tour dengan nyaman.

Saya rasa hanya ada 2 situs pariwisata (cmiww) di Jakarta yang worth visiting karena dikelola secara PROFESIONAL yaitu Ancol dan mungkin TMII.

Kata kuncinya adalah PROFESIONAL. Pengelolaan situs pariwisata secara PROFESIONAL. Titik.

Tapi tau sendiri dah, pemerintah Indonesia memang jagonya cuman bikin jargon. :)

image credit : http://www.my-indonesia.info/

YES!!! WE ARE NUMBER ONE, AGAIN!!!

Yes!! We are number one again in the world! On December 26, WHO confirmed the death of a 24 years old in Indonesia caused by the bird flu. She is number 94 in Indonesia, out of 210 humans death caused by the virus since 2003.
Indonesia accounted for almost half of the fatalities.

I don't really see the government is really into this matter. Yes, every now and then, you can see on TV public announcement about this. How we should proceed if we find suddenly died bird or chicken, bla bla bla. But there hasn't been any harsh punishment on people who still keep and sell the sick bird, live or death.

Again, why should government think about this issue? 2009 (the next election date) is a year away, and that's more important!

images taken from http://www.crdf.org

Merry Xmas!!! :)

Merry Xmas... peace on earth...


image taken from http://www.mitchoconnell.com/glittergraphics.html

Maybe the most expensive web site in Indonesia

Indonesia may have a lot of people in poverty, but that doesn't stop our beloved clueless and brainless government to throw away money.

This Minister of Culture and Tourism's website cost 17.5 Billion Rupiah (equivalent to approximately 1.9 Million USD @ 9300 rate). (Kompas, Monday Dec 17th, 2007)



Do you think it worthed? Personally I would rather spend all those Rupiah to renovate Elementary School (SD) across Indonesia.


(picture from Media Indonesia)

Richest man in Indonesia, is also the man responsible for the biggest environment dissaster in Indonesia in the last 3 years

Aburizal Bakrie, according to Forbes, is the richest man in Indonesia. link

But his family own company, Lapindo Brantas, caused an environment disaster back in 2006, causing thousand of peoples homeless, jobless, loosing their precious belongings, and depressed. And the company trying not to compensate the lost.

Aburizal Bakrie, since you're filthy rich, you should be ashame of yourself as some of your wealth are based on other peoples' (we are talking thousands) misery.

Shame.. shame....

And Aburizal Bakrie is Coordinating Minister for People Welfare... What an irony.

Image of the Lapindo "Bakrie" Brantas mud disaster :

image taken from corporatewatch07.wordpress.com

Iklan Leopard di Kompas

WOW... ada iklan 1 halaman penuh di KOMPAS hari Jumat 2 November 2007 halaman 22. Kayaknya saya tidak ingat ada iklan VISTA 1 halaman penuh sewaktu launchingnya (atau saya mungkin melewatkannya. Maklum.. beli korannya eceran... :))

Sedikit yang perlu saya kritisi :

1. Dalam fitur : Boot Camp. Run Windows software right on your Mac at native speed. Seharusnya "Run Windows right on your Mac at native speed", karena "Windows software" memberikan illusi seakan software2 yang jalan di Windows bisa berjalan Parallel di OSX.

2. Launchingnya di EMAX Kemang (6pm) dan iBox eX Plaza @ 7:30pm. Kalau bisa mampu untuk pasang iklan di Kompas 1 halaman, kenapa engak put extra duit untuk sewa ruangan di Hotel, sekalian bisa mempresentasikan ke 300 fitur baru yang disebutkan?

3. Apple... Apple... di Indonesia, kenapa tidak ada representative resmi dari Apple untuk Indonesia, sehingga bisa menaungi seluruh penjual/toko Mac? Iklan Leopard ini adalah iklan dari salah satu Authorised Distributor/Reseller (PADI?), jadi toko2 yang mengambil dari distro ini saja yang tertulis... Tidak ada nama MacData atau toko milik AA Noto di Bdg..... Sama seperti di pameran, 3 (atau 4) booth besar yang menjual Apple...

Monster Initial Sticker Generator

Got this site from boingboing. It's a halloween themed typo generator from this site imockery

Quick and simple cooking @ simplyrecipes.com

I love to cook, although I don't cook as often as I wanted to.

Mainly just quick prep food. Most of the time, they are instant noodle.

This site has a collection of quick-to-made recipes, along with quite clear instructions, and most importantly, color pictures.

Simply Recipes

Another free stock photo site

I stumbled upon quite a good site for free stock photo.

http://www.freerangestock.com

How Nerd Are You?

Another Plane Crash, again...

The third major plane crash in 3 months period.

I don't know what to say except my deepest condolences to all the victims.

These are some video screen grabs from the news (by MetroTV) :
(Taken from a mail circulating around. Thanks to the person who snapped these pics)

Did you know that you can blog from Google Docs & Spreadsheets?

This blog is posted from Google Docs.

Yayasan Kesehatan Payudara Indonesia

Kanker Payudara adalah pembunuh no 2 di Indonesia setelah Kanker Rahim. (Menurut apa yang saya dengar kemarin di Radio Delta FM).

Risk kanker payudara semakin meningkat dewasa ini dikarenakan kondisi lingkungan hidup dan gaya hidup sekarang. Polusi udara semakin parah, bahan2 pengawet makanan, dan juga polusi yang masuk kedalam makanan.

Parahnya penyakit kanker payudara di stadium dini tidak menimbulkan sakit, sehingga wanita (dan juga pria) yang terjangkit tidak menyadarinya. Diteksi dini hendaknya dilakukan secara rutin oleh para wanita, bisa dimulai dengan self-check secara rutin.

Yayasan Kesehatan Payudara Indonesia adalah salah satu pusat informasi (hotline) yang berhubungan dengan Kanker Payudara. www.pitapink.com

Adam Air crashed..... (RIP for all who died...)

It is sad to start a new year with this accident. A plane from Jakarta to Manado, via Surabaya was lost. Up until this very moment (03 January 2007, 13:22), the whereabout of the plane (or the wreckage) is still unknown.

Yesterday, Indonesian government received and announced some false information about the plane being found and there are 12 survivors. Later last night, they reissued some statement announcing that the plane has not been found.

Updated news can be found in Google News

Searching more on the web, I found out that the plane crash is an accident waiting to happen.

Some interesting 'facts' I found :
- Lame maintenance/service records of Adam Air's plane. It had been mentioned 4 months ago in airliner.net. link

- The owner, Adam Suherman, is only 22 years old. Drop out of foreign university, came back home, and his dad give him money to start this airline business. 22 years old, school drop out, and rich brat. Would you trust you life by flying with his company?


- Adam Air was founded in 2002 by Agung Laksono and Sandra Ang. Agung is the Indonesian House of Representative Leader.
With his as the political backing, no wonder in the last incident (a plane went lost in sky, but luckily landed safely in a small airport), there's little, if not none, investigation going to probe the safety of this airline.

****

A discussion @ a local forum, indoflyer.net : link

In Memoriam : James Kim

I don't know James personally. Knew him only from the TechTV plus a few gadget reviews @ cnet.

Last November, after ThanksGiving, he along with his wife and 2 daughters got lost in the Oregon wilderness. After the 14 days ordeals, his wife and the daughters were saved, but unfortunately James didn't make it. He left to find some resque a couple of days before the resque team found the wife and daughter. He died of hypothermia.

I spent a couple of years in Oregon. The scenic is just beautiful. It is so sad that it can also kills.

Click here for the story @ SFGate.

This is a detail map of their journey. If he can survive another 2 miles down the creek, he would have found a lodge where they can shelter for sometime.


Here's a link to GoogleEarth based projection.