My Nokia N9: Personal Review

I have been using Nokia N9 for about a week, and I would like to share a bit more about this phone. In my previous post, I posted about the unboxing photos. In short, I think this phone works for me and I’m comfortable with the features, speed, and more importantly to keep myself ‘connected’ to the internet world.

The design

When I opened the box, it was like love at the first sight. I got the black Nokia N9. I think Nokia N9 has a beautiful product design. Here’s why.

I have been using some Nokia phone in the last few years with various phone designs. My first Nokia phone was Nokia 3110. That’s right, that big phone. After that, I switched to Nokia 5510, Nokia 3230, Nokia N78, and Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. I also tried Nokia E72 (with the QWERTY keyboard). The latest Nokia phone I have is Nokia N8 which I’m using right now.

Lots of phone companies put their efforts creating products that are not only about the technical aspects like hardware specifications, but also the design. “This [put the product name] is beautiful!” is a very common expression. And I think Nokia N9 got this expression.

Large screen is another features. Lots of phones has bigger screen these days. But still, people will use their hand to operate. I like phone with big screen, but not too big. I was not sure whether Nokia N9 has ‘big enough’ or ‘too big’ screen area. Can I hold and work with it only with my right hand? It’s taller than Nokia N9, and iPhone 4.

Can I reach whole screen area using my thumb? I can. For me, this is something important.

I look at the design, and I could not find any buttons at the front. I’ve heard that it’s all about ‘swipe’. The only buttons/keys are only on the right side: volume/zoom and power/lock keys. It took few minutes to explore how the swipes work. And, it’s not difficult at all. It’s easy. I will write about swiping on Nokia N9 later.

About the SIM card, I need to have the micro SIM card. There are two options: buying it from my desired provider, or make it by cutting the regular SIM card. I went with the second option.

Continue reading »

Foursquare is now available in Bahasa Indonesia!

I don’t use Foursqure on daily basis. If you want to have Foursquare in Bahasa Indonesia, it’s now available in Bahasa Indonesia. Foursquare team announced about some new languages for the application interface:

Today, with the launch of five more languages (Bahasa Indonesian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Thai), we’re excited to announce that over 1,500,000,000 people now have access to foursquare in their mother tongue. These five new languages represent some of our fastest growing areas internationally.

If you’re using Foursquare on your iPhone, Android or BlackBerry, you can have the new languages by upgrading the applications. Also, you can have Foursquare website in more languages, including Bahasa Indonesia. Look at the language menu on the bottom page to change the language interface.

This is a good addition, and the language for the application depends on your phone settings. If you want to use Bahasa Indonesia, you need to go to your phone settings, and change your phone language.

Anyway, Twitter also made Bahasa Indonesia available for its users a month ago.

 

Hey, we have ‘rendang’ from Indonesia as one of world’s 50 delicious foods!

CNNGo.com released an article of 50 World’s most delicious food, and put Rendang (from Indonesia) on the 11th most delicious food! That’s right, rendang from Indonesia! CNNGo.com described Rendang as:

Beef is slowly simmered with coconut milk and a mixture of lemongrass, galangal, garlic, turmeric, ginger and chilies, then left to stew for a few hours to create this dish of tender, flavorful bovine goodness.

Tasting it fresh out of the kitchen will send your stomach into overdrive, but many people think it gets even better when left overnight.

Rendang

So, what’s the most delicious food in the world according the article? Here are the top three:

  1. Massaman curry (Thailand)
  2. Neapolitan pizza (Italy)
  3. Chocolate (Mexico)

For a complete list, go to World’s 50 most delicious foods at CNNGo.com. Yummy!

Google Plus Sticky Header’s User Styles

Pujiono shared a wishlist to have Google Plus‘ header displayed in sticky style. Since Google does not offer this feature, can we have this feature using a simple trick? The answer is: yes.

There is a small extension of User Styles called ‘Google Plus Sticky Common Header’. I have applied this simple style to my browsers (I currently use Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome), and it works really well. If you want to install it, first you need to get the extension.

Voila!

TED Talks video subtitles

I like watching TED Talks videos. And, I have downloaded lots of videos from TED website. Actually, it’s okey if I watch them without subtitles. But, with subtitles I think it’s much better. The question is: is it easy to get the subtitles? The answer is: not that difficult to get it. But of course, not all videos having subtitles in multiple languages. English is more than enough, I think.

I came across to TED Talk Subtitle Download website and it’s easy to use, to get the subtitles needed. Enter TED Talk video URL and hit the “Download” button. If subtitles are available, just download which subtitles you want.

I’m using VLC on my Mac, and lots of my TED Talk videos now have subtitles. Watching the talks is more enjoyable right now. Time to get more subtitles!

TEDx Jakarta: SOMETHINK DIFFERENT! I’m going!

I went to TEDx Jakarta for the first time in July this year. And, it was because I stay in Jakarta. When I was in Jogjakarta, going to TEDx event become something that I didn’t expect. I like TED events — including its independently-organized event, this is why it has “x” in its name. I downloaded lots of videos from TED Talks. Not sure how many videos in have in my hard-drive, but until today, I feel that I got many knowledge — only by watching the talks.

In the previous TEDx Jakarta event, there were many inspiring speakers like Irfan Amalee, Irwan Ahmett, Dr. Nurul Taufiqu Rochman, Barry Likumahuwa, Ade Rai and Ridwan Kamil. After that event, I told myself that I should be going to the next TEDx event. Today, I got a confirmation letter that I got the invitation. Nice!

I’m ready to be inspired by some speakers like Adi Panuntun, Betti S. Alisjahbana, Chandra Tresnadi, René Suhardono, Anies Baswedan, and Sanggar Roda. Go to speakers’ page to find our more about them. I’m not trying to search for any details about what the speakers will present. Well, for this… I will let them surprise me — and hopefully all the audience. :)

Now, for personal reminder:

  • Venue: Pusat Perfilman Usmar Ismail (Usmar Ismail Hall) Kuningan
  • Address: Jl. H.R. Rasuna Said Kav C. 22, Jakarta 12940
  • Time & Date: December 19th, 2010. 2 PM — 6 PM, registration opens 1 PM

Anyway, I took lots of picture during 5th TEDx Jakarta event. You can go to its photoset at Flickr. And, if you want to see the videos, you can visit TEDxJakarta video playlist. And, if you want to be TEDx Jakarta speaker, there’s a question to answer. :)

Taking Photos using Nokia N8 (Personal Experience)

The first thing I did after having Nokia N8 (product details in Bahasa Indonesia) in my hands last week was taking photos. I have been following this phone for months, and feel so lucky because I now have chance to try it myself. First impression: Love it! Nokia N8 offers a great improvements on its camera. Now, it has 12 MP camera, equipped with Carl Zeiss lens and also Xenon flash.

I like taking photos (go to Flickr photostream for photos), but since I live in Jakarta right now (and I didn’t bring my DSLR camera), this phone should be a good companion for me. Better quality photos (using phone camera) is one of the features offered besides entertainment, music, business-related features, and also video. For this post, I will write more about the word ‘photo’. Anyway, you can explore full specification and features by going to Nokia N8 product page (or, go to Nokia Indonesia for details in Bahasa Indonesia).

In the last few days, I took some pictures in some different condition (day light, night, low-light). I have to admit that I’m really impressed by the final results. Each photo has around 1 MB in size. If needed, I can adjust some settings like “Scene Mode” (Automatic, User defines, Close-up, Portrait, Landscape, Sport, Night, and Night portrati), Color Tone (Normal, Sepia, Black and White, and Vivid), White Balance (Automatic,  Sunny, Cloudy, Incandescent, and Fluorescent), Light sensitivity, Contrast, Sharpness and also Exposure. But, the “Automatic” mode should just work when you only need to point and shoot.

After photos were taken, I can also make some basic editing actions like cropping, resizing, or color adjustment. Photo dimension taken using Nokia N8 is 4000×2248 pixels. For a landscape photo, it will not be a problem. But, when taking portrait photo I feel that it’s “too tall”.

Seeing is believing, right? So, here are some photos taken using my Nokia N8. All photos are displayed without any editing.

20102010066

20102010030

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I Heart Jakarta Clean

5,000+ Flickr Photos

This month, I saw that there are more than 5,000 photos in my Flickr photostream. In last October, there were 4,000 photos. So, in less than two months, there are more than 1,000 photos uploaded? Of course, not all of them are displayed for public. There are lots of private photos there. I think, the increasing number of photos happens after I purchased my Canon EOS 450D few months ago.

flickr5000

Here are some numbers related to my Flickr photostream — when I write this post:

  • 5,403 photos in total: 3,872 public photos, 1,218 private photos, 18 friend-only photos, 262 family-only photos, 33 friend-and-family only photos.
  • In total, there are 5,400 photos and 3 videos. Right, Flickr also support videos.
  • About photo tagging, there are 2,914 photos with tags (2,489 untagged)
  • Sometime, I uploaded some photos with geotagging info. Also, I put some photos on the Flickr map. I have 849 photos geotagged.
  • I manage my photos in sets and 5,163 photos among total collections are in sets.
  • My photostream has 120 sets and 7 collections.
  • In December 2009, I uploaded 962 photos, but in September 2009 there was only one photos uploaded.
  • In total, I made 8 transactions (buying Flickr Pro credits). But, I only use two credits. The other credits were bought for my friends who want Flickr Pro upgrade (Flickr Gifts).

Jogja Wall Nation: Mural Competition

There will be an event in Jogjakarta called “Jogja Wall Nation” this weekend (October 14-15). It’s a mural competition. The competition will take place in Malioboro area. What makes it different is that the event will start in the evening until early in the morning. I got news that right now (when I write this post), there are already 150+ registered participants.

Jogja Wall Nation

Now, if you’re journalists, bloggers or social media users who want to come to this event, you’re all welcome. Malioboro street will be closed from around 10 PM (October 14th). If you want to know more about this event you send your questions/inquiries from its website or don’t hesitate to contact me directly. More info about this event can be found at Jogja Wall Nation official website.

Jogtug Celebrated 64th Anniversary of Indonesia’s Independence

Few days ago, I joined @jogtug (Jogjakarta Twitter User Group) to celebrate 64th anniversary of Indonesia’s independence day. The community gathered in an event called #pitulasanTU (the word ‘pitulas‘ means “seventeen” in English). Why seventeen? Because Indonesia celebrates its independence day on Agustus 17.

#pitulasanTU took place at Gedung Agung, Malioboro, Yogyakarta. The idea was simple. We wanted to share something about Indonesia to tourists. And, we chose “gasing“, a traditional toy as the medium. We also handed some gifts to them. When we found tourists there, we talked to them, gave them the some souvenirs (pin and stickers), and asked them whether they wanted to play gasing with us.

Continue reading »

Unable to locate WordPress Plugin directory

I just made a fresh install of WordPress 2.8. As usual, the installatoin process was simple and straight forward. After doing some configurations, I wanted to install some plugins directly using the automatic installer from dashboard. But, I had a problem.

After filling in the FTP information, my WordPress gave me this message:

Unable to locate WordPress Plugin directory

I have no idea about this error. I never got this kind of error. What’s wrong? It seems that some users also found this problem. There’s also an interesting discussion about this. Is it WordPress’ bug? Or, is it related to server configuration? Anyone got this problem too?

Indonesia: A band from Russia

indonesia_band_logo

If you think that Indonesia is only being used as a country name, it’s not. There is a Russian band named Indonesia also. (Hat tip: fisto). Since its website is not in English, MySpace described it as:

Indonesia – band was founded in St-Petersburg in autumn 2007.The musicians’ main aim is to play high-quality rock-music including original arrangements and perfect melodies. There is a strong accent on expert combining of classical western rock and modern progressive sound elements. After the months of the rehearsals and recording demo sound-track “Pretty Colours” Indonesia regularly performs in numerous clubs of St.-Petersburg and Moskow. Mad dynamics and drive distinguishs each Indonesia set, that immediately helps the band to find their own fans. (source)

More about this band can be found at Last.fm, MySpace, and also its official site. When I surfed its MySpace, I saw that there’s a Dream Theater fans club. What’s interesting about this fans club is its logo — well, I’m not sure whether it’s the official logo or not.

Mud eruption ’caused by drilling’

porong_lapindo

A further 16 scientists believed the evidence was inconclusive, and the remaining 13 felt that a combination of earthquake and drilling was to blame.
“The geologists voted overwhelmingly that drilling was the most likely cause,” said Prof Underhill.
“The atmosphere was very tense, so all credit to them for not sitting on their hands. (read more)

via Aku Ingin Hijau. Photo by REUTERS/Sigit Pamungkas, taken from The Big Picture.

The BOBs – Best of the Blogs: Deutsche Welle International Weblog Awards 2008

the-bobs

Just a reminder. This year, The BOBs (Best of the Blogs) 2008 has been started on August 31. Compared to the last year competition, this year Indonesian bloggers will have an opportunity to join the event. So, if your blog is written in Bahasa Indonesia, you may join. The award will be given out in 11 different languages: Arabic, Chinese, German, English, Dutch, French, Indonesian, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

What is Deutsche Welle?

Deutsche Welle is Germany’s international broadcaster: online, on-screen and over the air. It provides a European perspective to audiences around the world and promotes intercultural dialogue.

Last year, the event got more than 7,000 submissions. The number will increase not only because Bahasa Indonesia is included as one of the criteria, but because the number of bloggers is also increasing this year.

Okey, let’s talk about the mechanism. If you want to join, submit your blog from the submission page. Your blog will not be nominated immidiately. The editos will check every submission to make sure that it fits the criteria. You can nominate yourself, or other bloggers.

Read more details about this award on the FAQ page. Anyway, one of the judges — from Indonesia — is Budi Putra (the CEO of Asia Blogging Network).

Hello Firefox 3.0 Final

I am downloading Firefox 3.0 Final right now. When I check http://getfirefox.com/ I could not find the download link for Firefox 3.0, it is still Firefox 2.0.014. Luckily, Spreadfirefox already provided the link. Get it while it’s hot.

links for 2007-02-20

J.CO Donuts & Coffee

J.CO Donuts & Coffee site may harm your computer. What does it mean? According to Google: This warning message appears with search results that we’ve identified as sites that may install malicious software on your computer. Read also about the ‘view source analysis’ (via Herman Saksono)

links for 2007-02-15

Kompetisi Seni Visual 2007: The Thousands Mysteries of Borobudur

Jogja Gallery bekerjasama UNESCO, UGM, dan PT. Taman Wisata Candi Borobudur, Prambanan & Ratu Boko mengadakan sebuah Kompetisi Seni Visual 2007 bertajuk The Thousands Mysteries of Borobudur.

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