The page from Audacity Team said that I need to turn my ‘Input Device’ to ‘Stereo Mix’, but there is no ‘Stereo Mix’ option in my Audacity, it’s on Windows. My list of ‘Input Device’ is:

• HDA Intel PCH: ALC892 Analog (hw0,0)
• default: Rear Mic:0
• default: Front Mic:0
• default: Line:0
• default: Rear Mic:1
• default: Front Mic:1
• default: Line:1

There is nothing on the list that can record from the stream, all option is silent.

I followed the suggestion from Linuxer to configure the ALSA Mixer using command

alsamixer

Then I need to activate the capture device, done. After I tried to record again but the results are:

• HDA Intel PCH: ALC892 Analog (hw0,0)
  • Nothing Happened
• default: Rear Mic:0
  • Nothing Happened
• default: Front Mic:0
  • Noise from my Mic but the stream recorded a bit in the background
• default: Line:0
  • Nothing Happened

I was getting a little mad. The thread from Ubuntu Forum suggested me to use Ardour. I went to Ubuntu Software Center and installed Ardour, but I want to give one more shot to Audacity. From the Stream Recorder Forum it was suggested to install PulseAudio Volume Control, I installed the volume control and got the ‘Input Device’ option in Audacity had more options:

• HDA Intel PCH: ALC892 Analog (hw0,0)
• pulse: Rear Mic:0
• pulse: Front Mic:0
• pulse: Line:0
• pulse: Rear Mic:1
• pulse: Front Mic:1
• pulse: Line:1
• default: Rear Mic:0
• default: Front Mic:0
• default: Line:0
• default: Rear Mic:1
• default: Front Mic:1
• default: Line:1

Then I followed the instructions to change the ‘Output Device’ and ‘Input Device’ option in Audacity to ‘Pulse’, let the PulseAudio Volume Control open when recording the stream with Audacity. Still, nothing changed. Then I found the page from Audacity Team stated that I need to configure the PulseAudio Volume Control. There are some configurations that I did:

1. Go to ‘Input Devices’ Tab, in the ‘Internal Audio Analog Stereo’ option, look for ‘Port’ tab
2. There are options for ‘Front Microphone’, ‘Rear Microphone’, and ‘Line In’. set all of those volume to silence, I can let it go, but just for precautions if the microphones’ noise disturb the recording



3. Scroll down and there is ‘Monitor of Internal Audio Analog Stereo’, to make sure the stream can be recorded, play the stream, watch the bar below the volume adjustment, if moves then the recording process can be done



4. Go to ‘Recording’ Tab, there is notification that no plug-in doing the recording, don’t worry
5. Play the stream, push the record button on the Audacity, then back to the PulseAudio Volume Control, on the ‘Recording’ tab, it can be seen that now there’s an option for Audacity recording
6. At the ‘ALSA plug-in [audacity]: ALSA Capture from‘ option, change the ‘Internal Audio Analog Stereo’ to ‘Monitor of Internal Audio Analog Stereo’



7. The Audacity could record the stream by now

Happy recording!

–
Anton Hermansyah

It’s a common that nowadays if you found something interesting, you want tho share it through your Twitter or Facebook. If I opened the online version there are share buttons available, but hey, this is a paper, where is the share button?

I noticed that newspaper business (the printed one) must be shifted into an online media business, some benefit that the reader will get are:

1. Read on Demand

You can choose to read the article or not, see the list of the title and go to the page if you want to see it. Yeah, it’s like skipping the rest of the article you don’t want in the paper, but this one gave you more control, just buy the article you need without buying a bundle of newspaper (if the publisher have this feature of course).

2. Faster Search

You can search the article just based on single word, without exploring your dusty bookshelf.

3. Explore the Other Interesting Article

Sometimes there’s other article related to the topic or the article is continued in the other one. Just click and the other article will appear without any pain to find the missing newspaper.

4. Not Just Text and Picture

Sometimes video media is attached too.

5. Share It (and Everyone can Read)

As I mentioned before, you can share it in social media, yes the social media is online matter, copy the link or push the share button, the post maybe like this for example:

I have read the nice article!! http://……

Now everyone can go to the link you mentioned and read the rest of the article. Imagine if you share the newspaper article:

I have read the nice article!! on the XXX Post Sunday, November 27^th 2011, page 11 Column 3

Not nice huh? And not everyone who has the newspaper.

But the transition from newspaper to online media will be painful to the newspaper maker because:

1. Need to Build The Infrastructure

For the old player, they must forget the billion big press machine and convert it to the billion gigabyte server, the user interface (sites) is the next consideration, the site must be good enough in design both to user and to customer.

2. Digitalization

The old articles must be digitized in order to maintain continuity, it’s painful because you need to browse the old edition and rewrite article by article to the digital format.

3. Hacker

This is the unwanted one, you need to consider the security factor, and who says that was costless?

–
Anton Hermansyah

Save as much as you can before the rainy day

That might be a match sentence for Indonesian Automaker. Forget about the recall crisis, Indonesian car market is not affected by that and (possibly) not sensitive enough with the recall issues, but the distributors need to boost sales as much as they can. Why so? Because the hard days are yet to come.

The causes are:

Progressive Tax Plan

The progressive tax means higher tax will applied for the second car. If the owner buy his second car, the car will have higher tax than the first one, if he buy the third, it has higher tax than the second one and so forth. Conclusion is to prohibit Indonesian to have multiple cars. Good news for crowded Jakarta street, bad news for Automaker. It’s still on debate to be applied in Jakarta, which is the biggest market for automobile in Indonesia.

No Subsidized Gas for New Car

Most (maybe ‘nearly all’) car in Indonesia used the subsidized Octane 88 gasoline. It’s a hidden feature of tax rebate I know, but Indonesia is not an oil land anymore (I will discuss about it more in the next post). Some policy plan has been discussed regarding this problem, and the last one is the car which produced in 2000 and thereafter are not allowed to consume the subsidized gas. It’s still on debate, but the latest news said that Pertamina, the one and only oil company allowed to sell the subsidized gas is booked Rp 456 billion (about US$ 45.6 Million) loss because of the gas. If the rule really applied, good news for Pertamina, bad news for Automaker, as the demand of the new car estimated to be decreased because of this.

Increasing Steel Price

The steel price is reported to be doubled from last year, because of steelmaker increasing operarional cost. This will create a pressure to the price of the new car as they need more pocket to buy the main ingredient. Okay they will charge more to the customer, but remember the demand is contradictionary to the price. Bad news for Automaker bad news for Consumer too.

The last one is slow but sure will make the car price more expensive, the first two? Still on the debate but when those two are really applied, the market will be totally changed. The Automaker must boost car sales as much as they can before running out of time.

–
Anton Hermansyah

So this is Nokia’s attempt to reach the low end market?

Well, in Indonesia the trending topic of Mid-High gadget is full of Blackberry, iPhone and Android. there’s even no small room for Nokia’s Maemo (and Windows Mobile) to be talked.

The Mid Low is the same, there are many Made in China QWERTY Phones which imitate the design of mid high class phone mentioned above (of course lack of feature and high speed connection) in the market.

What Nokia could do?

Aim for the niche one of course, which are the non urban societies. There are several characteristic for this type of society:

1. Mostly work in Agriculture sector
2. Prefer to use mobile phone, because the fixed line usually not available in their area, and it’s a waste of time to go to the city just to pay the telephone bill only
3. Mostly don’t have high speed connection signal

So they do have the mobile phone but not a sophisticated one, the infrastructure is not yet support them for high speed data access. The access via SMS can be more consistent than data, but the problem is how much they should pay?

From this link (in Bahasa), it’s stated that the user should pay about Rp 1,000 per day. I think that’s too expensive, because the price of the data service now is Rp 1 per KB, so with Rp 1,000 you could download about 1 MB data. Well if you say the data and SMS are in a different world, the price of one SMS is Rp 50 per one SMS, with Rp 1,000 you could make 20 SMSs. That means you should access the Life Tool at least 20 times a day for a break even.

Low end everybody?

–
Anton Hermansyah

First, I look up for the charging specification of LEAF, there are three kind of charge ‘Slow’ which is the standard one, ‘Fast’ which halved the time with double amp, and ‘Quick’ which enables you to charge in less than one hour. In the full capacity, the Lithium Ion battery could run the LEAF for 160 km.

Below is the table of Indonesian electricity cost,based on 2009 price.

After look at the price of electricity, I match LEAF charging specification with the price. All of the charging types are under S-2 class, but only Slow charge under TR (4) and the rest are TR (5).

I calculate the total cost based on the charging type and it’s pricing category, then looking for the cost per km, which is the total cost divided by maximum range (see the first table).

Then I compare with the ordinary gasoline car. I chose Nissan Livina with HR15DE engine, because this car fall under same category based on the body size with LEAF. Assuming Octane 88 price : Rp 4,500/l; Octane 92 : Rp 6,000/l; Octane 95 : Rp 6,200/l

Then I calculate the percentage of how much Indonesians could save if they use LEAF instead of Livina.

1. In the City

	Slow	Fast	Quick
Octane 88	81.83%	79.36%	96.83%
Octane 92	86.37%	84.52%	97.62%
Octane 95	86.81%	85.02%	97.70%

2. In the Combination Route

	Slow	Fast	Quick
Octane 88	73.57%	69.98%	95.38%
Octane 92	80.18%	77.48%	96.54%
Octane 95	80.82%	78.21%	96.95%

3. In the Highway

	Slow	Fast	Quick
Octane 88	65.31%	60.60%	93.94%
Octane 92	73.98%	70.45%	96.46%
Octane 95	74.82%	71.40%	95.60%

The calculation shows that Indonesians could save at least 70% of their daily operational cost if they’re using LEAF. From here we also know that the Quick Charge could give the cheapest cost among the three charging type, but don’t use it too much because the battery is not charge in full capacity.

So, buy a LEAF everyone??

–
Anton Hermansyah

So I need to convert the subtitles and watch it at Totem. I’ve tried to convert it manually but takes a long time even just for 30 minutes movie. And I found Gaupol an subtitle editor :

1. Install Gaupol with :

   sudo apt-get install gaupol

2. Open the SSA subtitle
3. Save As… (Not ‘Save Translation As…’)
4. Select ‘SubRip’ at the ‘Format’ selection
5. Don’t forget to put it under the same name as the movie and in the same folder

Then you have a SRT subtitle and you could watch the movie in Totem. Have a nice watch!

–
Anton Hermansyah

Lereng Motif

‘Lereng’ (literally means ‘Cliff’) history began at the escape of royal family from Surakarta, they had to hide in the mountains area for their safety, and the Sultan look at the cliff, which became the inspiration to make Lereng motif.

Fundamentally, the deisgn of Lereng is the same with Parang, some says that Jogjanese called it parang and Surakartanese called it Lereng. It’s one of Motif Larangan (Prohibited Motifs) that only royal families could wear. But nowadays, some of Lereng/Parang motif, could be wear by people outside the Keraton, except for some sacred motifs.

Semen Motif

‘Semen’ word originated from ‘Semi’ that literally means bloom, the motif reflects prosperity and and fertility. The history is originated from Hindu mythology, that tells the story of Sri Rama giving the advice to his son, Gunawan Wibisana, when Wibisana was about to be crowned as the king. The advice is known as Hasta Brata (Eight Bratas) that a leader should have.

1. Indrabrata
   Means a dedication to give the prosperity and protect the earth, symbolized by plants.
2. Yamabrata
   Means fair and honest to the others, symbolized by mountains or cloud that reflects a high position
3. Suyabrata
   Means courage not half hearted, symbolized by Garuda
4. Sasibrata
   Means give the light and cheer to whom that feel sad, symbolized by animals
5. Bayubrata
   Means the high position that doesn’t expose its authority, symbolized by bird
6. Danababrata/Kuwerabrata
   Means give respect or appreciation to the people, symbolized by relic
7. Barunabrata/Pasabrata
   Means a forgiving, symbolized by dragon or something related with water
8. Agnibrata
   Means a power to fight against evil and protect the weak, symbolized by fire or flame

These symbols are base for the pattern of Semen motif. There’s a hope that the wearer could always communicated with God.

Parang Motif

‘Parang’ literally means sword or knife, this motif reflects alertness, guard and sharp. By wearing Parang motif, the person could be alert, have a sharp think, and gifted with glory. The bigger Parang means bigger authority, this motif is one of Motif Larangan (Prohibited Motifs) that only royal families could wear. The King, as the highest authority in the kingdom wears the biggest parang motif. Parang design is usually alternated with narrower bands in a darker contrasting color in which another motif called ‘Mlinjon’ is located which differentiated Parang from Kawung Motive.

Truntum Motif

Truntum motif is worn by the parents in their children’s wedding, it’s a symbol that parents can guide or give model to their children to accomplish their own peace in time of entering family life. There’s some verisons that the word ‘truntum’ originated from. First, it derives from ‘tumaruntum’, which means guiding or often is connected to ‘tentrem’, literally means peaceful. Second, it derives from word ‘tuntun’ literlally meaning guidance.

It was believed that this motif was created by Ratu Beruk, the consort of Sunan Pakubuwono II (King of Surakarta, 1749 – 1788). She was upset because her husband ignored her. For a long time, her husband did not visit the queen. Only stars in the sky accompanying her patiently.

Every second she spent her time attaching chanting to batik wax. One day Sunan was home from hunting, coming to her dwelling. He found the queen diligently making batik, drawing animals. Seeing the king arrived, Ratu Beruk’s love sprouted again. The king then was very patient accompanying her making batik.

Gringsing Motif

‘Gringsing’ word originated from words ‘Gering’ that means sick and ‘Sing’ that means not. So Gringsing means not sick or against illness. This motif believed to be able to cure the illness. This is one of ancient motif inspired by Patola clothes that originated from India. The motif resembling the snake skin and generally used in backgrounds.

Kawung Motif

Some say that Kawung is a kind of palm tree having ellipse-shaped fruit, with color of white called “Kolang-Kaling”. Others say that kawung comes from a name of insect ‘Kwangwung’. It believed that this motif created by Sultan Agung of Mataram.

The ornaments consist of four symmetric circles surrounding a little circle in the middle that symbolizes ‘Kiblat Papat-Kelimo Pancer‘ (four sources of energy that surrounding the centre of power, God that rules every direction). East is a direction of sunrise, the symbol of life source. North is a direction of mountain, symbol of gods’ dwelling, place of spirit/death. West is a direction of sunset, the coming of luck. South is a direction of zenith, peak of everything.

This motif brings hope that the user is given strength to rule well and have a meaningful life, like the palm tree that useful for everyone from the root to leaf.

Ceplok Motif

‘Ceplok’ originated from ‘Seceplok’ that means ‘A Bud’. This motif is a modification from Kawung Motif, with ‘Kiblat Papat-Kelimo Pancer’. Although fundamentally geometric, ceplok can also represent abstractions and stylization of flowers, buds, seeds, and even animals. It’s an ancient motif that can be found at the Hindu Temple. Variations in color intensity can create illusions of depth and the overall effect is not unlike medallion patterns seen on turkish tribal rugs. But in Moslem’s rule forbids the portrayal of animal and human forms in a realistic manner. To get around this prohibition, the batik worker does not attempt to express this matter in a realistic form. A single element of the form is chosen and then that element is repeated again and again in the pattern.

Nitik Motif

This motif is believed to be influenced by Indian cloth named ‘Patola’, that brought to Indonesia by Indian trader. This motive was developed from coast cities in the north of Java, like Cirebon and Pekalongan before it arrived in Keraton. The pattern consist of square and rectangle form and dots as ornaments. There’s a differences in the color used in every place, in Pekalongan the dominant colors are red, green, blue and yellow as the consumer of this cloth are from India and China. Jogja’s Nitik are using indigo, brown and white color.

Pinggiran Motif

‘Pinggiran’ literally means ‘Edge’. This is actually a motif located at the edge of the batik cloth.

Terang Bulan Motif

‘Terang Bulan’ literally means ‘Moonshine’, basically it’s a motif consist of triangle pattern ascending vertically in a simple backgrounds. The ornaments are only in the bottom part of Batik.

(From many sources)

–
Anton Hermansyah

1. Download the Indonesian dictionary (you can download it here)
2. Unzipped it and copy the id_ID.dic; id_ID.aff; and hyph_id_ID.dic to

   /usr/share/myspell/dicts

3. Locate for ‘Linguistic.xcu’ file in ~/.openoffice.org/3/user/registry/data/org/openoffice/Office/ open it in text editor
4. Look for ‘HyphenatorList’ node and add this below the node :

   <prop oor:name="id-ID" oor:op="replace" oor:type="oor:string-list">
   <value>org.openoffice.lingu.LibHnjHyphenator</value>
   </prop>

5. Look for ‘SpellCheckerList’ node and add this below the node :

   <prop oor:name="id-ID" oor:op="replace" oor:type="oor:string-list">
   <value>org.openoffice.lingu.MySpellSpellChecker</value>
   </prop>

6. Save the ‘Linguistic.xcu’ file

When you check the OpenOffice 3, you could select Indonesian language at Tools -> Options -> Language Settings -> Languages. Have a try!!

Credits to :
Tom Crewford and Gombang

–
Anton Hermansyah

But this year two other tribute cars are launched to public, the difference from other tribute cars is the cars made to tribute the management person. They are not a legendary racer, not a celebrity too, the one is a great automobile maker CEO and the other one is a loyal employee of the automobile maker.

Lee Iacocca

Iacocca is famous for his effort to revive Chrysler at 1980′s, but before that, he had worked at Ford Motor Company from 1946-1978 and involved at the birth of some Ford successful models, including the legendary Mustang before he was dumped out after clash with Henry Ford II the CEO at the time also the grandson of Henry Ford.

This year, Mustang has reached it’s 45^th anniversary. and they celebrate it with the Mustang Iacocca Silver 45^th Anniversary Edition, a limited edition that only 45 units exist in the world.

The car is based on the 2009 Mustang platform, costumer could choose between naturally aspirated 4.6-l V8 generating 320hp, or supercharged motor delivering 400hp. The special car is marked by “Iacocca” emblem at the trunk and “I” logo replacing the Ford logo at the rims and tail. It gets an upgraded suspension, Ford Racing Handling Package, and moves on 20-inch aluminum wheels.

Valentino Balboni

Balboni is the former chief test driver of Lamborghini, at 1968 he began his careers at the Italian car maker as a mechanic apprentice, after that he was asked by the founder, Ferruccio Lamborghini to test drive the newly build cars together with Bob Wallace as the test driver. Since then every single brand new model were tested by him, approximately 80% of ever built Lambo has been driven by him.

After serving the company for 40 years, he retired due to Italian Government Regulations. in order to pay a tribute to his dedication, the company make a special model named Gallardo LP 550-2 Valentino Balboni.

Limited to only 250 units, this brand new Lambo offers a unique character of driving as the test driver chief suggested about, instead of using four wheel drive, this car is using rear wheel drive, so the costumer could easily drift this car, which could catch more enthusiast driver to buy. The engine power is reduced to 550 HP instead of 560 HP of ordinary Gallardo, but compensated with the weight reduction of the using of rear wheel drive instead of all wheel drive.

The appearance is marked with white stripe from the nose to the back of the body, you could also find the white stripe in the interior. Combined with the scorpion wheel, it’s a Lambo that need skillful driver to handle it.

A good way to tribute the managements, it’s because of them the company reach it’s success.

–
Anton Hermansyah

Takaful means a scheme based on brotherhood, solidarity and mutual assistance which provides for mutual financial aid and assistance to the participants in case of need whereby the participants mutually agree to contribute for that purpose (Takaful Act 1984, article 2), for short it is an Islamic Insurance, which still bring sharia principles within which are the main differences with the conventional insurance. It’s been practiced for about 1400 years, historians believe that Muslim of Mecca and Medina has started a kind of mutual insurance, and it developed again with trade between Arabs and Asians which require a great time and length that increase the risk of robbery and loss.

According to the Sharia principles, we shouldn’t use the conventional insurance because it contains :

• Gharar
  Means uncertainty, this term referring to economic uncertainty which is unpredictable and has no measurable probability.
• Maisir
  Means gambling, further meaning is the money or wealth that could easily taken.
• Riba
  Means interest, we shouldn’t charge an interest in the transaction.

The System

Parties

In Takaful there are 2 parties involved :

• Ra’sul mal
  Is the investor or the party who provide the capital, in insurance term is takaful contribution or premiums.
• Mudharib
  Is the party who provide the effort or skills in the business venture.

Methods

Generally there are two models of Takaful :

• Mudharabah
  In mudharabah system the profit is shared through a percentage system, it could be 50:50, 60:40 or 70:30 depends on the contract. Whether the loss incurred it’s accrued to ra’sul mal only, not accrued to the mudharib.
• Wakalah
  In the wakalah system mudharib given a fixed fee where the profit/loss is accrued to ra’sul mal only

Cash Flow

Here’s an example of how the takaful company manage the money (based on AIG Takaful Enaya) :

Takaful Cash Flow

Brief History of Takaful

World

The very first Takaful company was established in 1979, The Islamic Insurance Company of Sudan followed by Islamic Arab Insurance Company at UAE in the same year. Malaysia is the first country in Southeast Asia to make a takaful company which is Takaful Act at 1984 and followed by Takaful Malaysia Berhad at 1985.

Indonesia

In Indonesia, takaful business was pioneered by the founding of PT Syarikat Takaful Indonesia (STI) at 24^th of February 1994, with the cooperation between Ikatan Cendekiawan Muslim Indonesia (ICMI) through it’s foundation Yayasan Abdi Bangsa, Bank Muamalat Indonesia, PT Asuransi Jiwa Tugu Mandiri, Departemen Keuangan RI (Indonesia Ministry of Finance), and several Indonesian Muslim businesspeople.

Since Indonesia regulation states that life insurance and general insurance should be at separated company, STI found two subsidiaries, PT Asuransi Takaful Keluarga (ATK) for life insurance purpose at 4^th of Augusts 1994 and PT Asuransi Takaful Umum (ATU) for general insurance purpose at 2^nd of June 1995.

–
Anton Hermansyah