-The Guo-

Cooking Hack

2011-02-03T07:37:00.000-08:00

Happy Chinese New Year All!
This time I have the opportunity to "celebrate" the Chinese New Year in Singapore. A country with most of its population are Chinese.
At first, I thought it is going to be glorious to be here during the CNY because the people here are more enthusiast which makes there's something to be consider. Since most of the people here were celebrating the event, most of the food courts / hawkers or even supermarkets are close.

Some experience to help my parents running the small restaurant when they're still alive, certainly helps me a lot :)
So during this opportunity I would like to share one of the cooking hack :)
Cooking hack is basically finding the substitute ingredients due to some certain reasons... it could be because of the unavailability... or even because you're too stingy to buy it hihihi...

This time as my sample I would like to introduce my family "tomato sauce" recipe. This simple sauce is quite easy to make and useful for some cooking, such as: steak and egg foo young.
The original required ingredients are: bottled tomato sauce, sugar, vinegar, margarine and for additional ingredient: cornstarch.

Here, actually I could find all of the ingredients. However, due to the packaging which are really big, I didn't buy the sugar and vinegar. And I also forgot to buy
margarine and cornstarch :P

So I started to "scavenge" my refrigerator to find something that can be useful for substituting the ingredients that I didn't have.

First, for margarine is a bit easy, I could use one or two tea spoons of olive oil to make the sauce a bit "greasy".

For the sugar and vinegar, however, it's a bit difficult. Actually, lime could be used as alternative to replace the vinegar. But unfortunately it's not available in the refrigerator.
So I start to look at the available canned soft drinks. Ahaa... there's a lime tea... It contains the lime and sugar... however I believe the taste will be weird because of it also contains tea :P
Then I started to look around again, and found a perfect substitute... which is lime soda drink :P It contains lime and sugar... you don't have to worry about the soda... which is actually only carbon dioxide... so when you boil the carbonated drink... the carbon dioxide gas will be evaporate :)

Finally, for the cornstarch... I couldn't find the alternative... But it won't effect the taste of the sauce... just adding extra "sticky" feel to the sauce... so we can skip this one :)

Maybe the substitute ingredients sounds weird... but trust me the taste is not that different... hehehe...

That's all...

Have fun trying to do some cooking hack but do it with your own risk! hahaha...

Pollution Indicator

2011-01-24T08:10:00.000-08:00

As some of you may have noticed that since last few weeks I've an opportunity to be assigned in one of the most well developed country in Asia, Singapore.

One of the thing that I am amazed from this country is the public transportation. It's really well managed and convenient and also relatively cheap. You can go to anywhere of this island with few dollars only.

And in this opportunity, I would like to share how it is compared to my beloved pathetic country... but I will make the comparison in the different way... as usual :P

In my point of view this well organized transportation... made this country is way less polluted if we compared to Jakarta.
Hey, it's not just a nonsense assumption which has no proof... It doesn't require us to be a scientist with all of the fancy laboratory equipment to prove this...
We can use our own body part to help this experiment. I'm not kidding... If you're confused... let me give you a hint... nose...
Yeah we can use our nose-s#it to assess the air quality... we can see the color of it... hihihi...
If it's brown or even black... which I usually had while in Jakarta... I think the air pollution is quite high...
But while I'm here... although I used public transportation all of the time and walk more than 10K steps daily average... my mucus's color always white to bright-yellow... which can be interpreted as a good air condition... hihihi...

I want to give you some picture of the specimen to help giving the illustration... but... currently it's still in the process of the specimen gathering... hopefully next month it will be sufficient hahaha... kidding :P

Farewell...

2011-01-06T17:50:00.000-08:00

This post is especially dedicated for appreciation to my friends who I used to hang out with while working here in Bali.

Care(ne)les(s) the parsimonious -> I never thought that there is a living creature here in earth who has stingy level in the same league as I am :P To illustrate how cheap he is, one day when he bought us some “bright moon” we thought that he was ordered by the leader (*kindly refer to the leader) to do this.
He is also a tempe addict; this should explain his parsimony level :D. Additionally, because of “the overdose”, his Y chromosome already gives the impression to start mutating; developing another “leg” so it looks like it will turn into X chromosome xixixix

Deky the lucky -> for a person who nearly almost never wins a lottery or draw games like me... I certainly envy to you! :D

Darwee (as pronounced from the OZ guy in the TV)-> not much for this new comer, so this time I would like to remind you that you haven’t gave the ritual offerings to the senior members! :P

Laurensia(l) the leader -> hail to the leader... sometimes we obey your order because you’re right... but often we obey merely because we still want to be in one piece :P But this leader is not that bad when it comes to food. She always shares food, also her experiment on new recipes. It is too often until sometimes we think that she’s doing this kind of experiment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_experimentation_in_North_Korea#Testing_deadly_poisons

Yunianto the g*y -> c’mon it’s time to move on and forget the past even though we all know that you’re having traumatic experience with your previous love and she’s obviously still haunting like North Korean homing missile, but you can’t use it for a reason to be a g*y :D

Nita the brown (take it as a compliment since I'm not saying black) -> pursue those bule-bule what are you waiting for?! One of our friend admitted that you have “the quality” so good luck! :D

Unay the kupret -> you should rename the bank where you’re working to its antonym... to represent your characteristic :P

Albert the boxer (Chris John)-> I would like to apologize that when we’re in the same badminton team, I couldn’t glorify and bring your badminton career as successful as your boxing career :P

Tiar the silent and Devy the Manohara --> silent which also means vibrates in the cell-phone... hope that both of you vibrate all of the time... xixixi... wait, don’t get me wrong... what I mean is the vibration of love in the new family :P

Selly the ukdw-er -> we graduated from the same university, but that doesn’t mean we have the same quality... I mean she’s better than me for sure :P

Edo the broker -> if I have enough money to spend to be invested in the stock market, surely I will contact you :P

Vera the adventurer -> she really passionate on nature, dunno maybe she’s born in wildlife or zoo... :P and she’s really masculine... that the only feminine side that I could see from her was when she cooked us pancakes hehehe... but the pancake she created was surprisingly delicious... :P

Jenal the overpaid -> he always think that he’s overpaid... and I hope that he’s getting promoted to be manager soon so he become more overpaid... hehehe... and I could give you one tip: Be less useful! It will help you to get promoted and make sure that M*R*N club is expanding! Hahaha... kidding :D

Hartoyo the panda -> thank you for the suggestion on the freakology and those mean and evil books that really worth reading :P

EP the hobbit -> just use your OZ PR or maybe some of our colleagues in Bandung can introduce you to “someone” :D

MarKus the -> congratulation and happy working in OZ! Finally you can ripe what you have sow on that “torturing” project... :P

Merisca and Defeng -> hope both of you start a family soon... and happily ever after... and of course without any “violence in the house ladder” a.k.a KDRT hihihi...

ToHa the PhD -> just keep up your uniqueness... and I hope your first child is look more like his/her mother than look like you... kidding :P

Deddy the deviationist -> hope you can go back to the right path... :P

Once again thank you for being like a family to me. I will tell you guys how awesome you are to my child and grandchildren... nah... you guys aren’t that good :P

Don't be dismayed by good-byes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.
Richard Bach

Trip to memory lane of 2010

2011-01-01T06:30:00.000-08:00

Since today is the first day of 2011, I would like to say my greetings to all of you: Happy new year!

Well, this time I would like to share a list of some achievement during the year 2010. Mostly were my 2010 resolution that nearly almost everything were achieved. And yes 2010 was really a great year for me :) Although everything didn't run very smooth... but that's life... shit happen hehehe :P

It is not a show-off list, but merely because I want to list all of the blessing that already given to me :) I guess this should be useful to make me thankful, especially when I was down. And hopefully it will help me out to stop complaining about anything... as mentioned by some of my friends :P

Passed the IELTS with band score more than I need :)

Car-driving license. Maybe for other "normal" people it is just a simple thing. For me, however, it is a great achievement because I had to experience horrible car accident which took both of my parents. The "trauma" was haunting me and discourage me for almost 6 years. But the year 2010 I finally can manage the trauma and get the car driving license :)

Mortgage.
I can finally have enough saving to start getting a mortgage for a house. Although I have to pay the bill until the next decade :P and it is considered small... isn't located on the urban area... but I hope this should be a good investment :P

Opportunity to work in abroad :)
End of this year... I got a new job offer which give me a chance to have a training in abroad. And it was scheduled for 4 months starting January 2011. To be honest I'm quite excited, but also sad, since I have to leave this awesome island, Bali :P But I guess sometimes we have to make sacrifice for something that we pursue :)

I guess that's all of list that I think it will craft some memory in my life :)
Once again happy new year 2011! Let it be a prosperous and joyful year to all of us :)

We never know... we can only do our best... and hope for the best...

2010-11-04T07:53:00.000-07:00

Following to my last post... my mind was still juggling with something that related to the phrase: what goes around comes around.
Coincidentally, when I was watching a show during my trip to Thailand... the show also uses this karma or ripe and show thing for its theme...

In this opportunity I would like to share some of my thinking... which extend a bit further concerning to the idiom... and probably a bit out-side of the box ... :P
It is mentioned in my previous post that the ripe could be happening directly or in the future... our kids can ripe something what we sow....
Because of this, I believe that our act now is determining our descendant’s faith...
Since we couldn't determine when and where we're born also we never know what kind of family when we're born.
We could be born either in rich or poor family... we could be born in either harmonic or non harmonic family... we can be born in peaceful period or even during wars...

However, one thing for sure is that we have the opportunity to create what kind of family that we are going build... and this means that we take part of our children faith... because we are the one who take part to prepare what kind family where they are born in this world... :)

I also believe that this starts with choosing the right spouse to spend our life with... and let’s hope that we are not choosing and having the right person... since it’s not only for accompanying the rest of our life but also for our descendant...
We never know... we can only do our best... and hope for the best... :)

*what the hell on earth I’m writing such a thing?... maybe lack of sleep made me loosing myself a little bit... :P

What goes around comes around...

2010-10-15T05:51:00.000-07:00

--Attention: this article is loosing its grip and drifted outside the blog's unifying theme :P--

I don't know why this idiom always rings in my head lately...
So I decided to write something in regards to this idiom :P

The idiom means something like this... your deeds, good or bad, will repay you in kind...

And apparently, as far as I know religion also teach the similar thing...
Probably the words such as "You reap what you sow" or "Karma" are more familiar in our ears.

There are people who believe this idiom, but not few people who disbelieve this either.
Regardless which one do you believe, please allow me to share a bit of my perspective... but even if you don't allow me I will write this anyway... hahaha...
My opinion concerning this idiom is based on my experiences and some literature that I've read... but for some of them, I haven't got the chance to read it entirely... and some of them I only skimmed it :P

I will start to explain it with the "ripe" and "sow" approach... As we all know, when we sow a seed, it will takes time for it to grow... and it it depends on the type of the plant to fruit... :)

This illustrate that the "sow" can be happening sooner or later... or in other words it can be happening directly...

I believe it easy to understand... it's basically the human nature of behaviour either to repay or to seek revenge to someone depending on whether a good or bad deeds that the person got.

And I believe it's already crystal clear so example for this type would not be necessary :)

Mentioned also that "sow" can also happening in the future... or even to our kids... or our descendant...

Yup... it's not just a blunt assumption... without any prove... both my personal experience and some story about which based on a true story that I skimmed evidences a similar thing...

Ok, for the negative story... you can search around the internet or find some literature on this following people's history...

Oe Hui Lan --> daughter of a very rich sugar trader from Semarang
Tjong A Fie --> very successful businessman and banker from Medan

You may find writings about both of them by Agnes Davonar... famous blogger and writer in Indonesia :)

The reason that I don't want to discuss in this blog is that the topic is too sensitive can lead me to some problem :) so I don't think it is worth it to discuss it here... hehehe... so I'll give the clue which is "unfaithfulness" and let the you read by yourself and conclude what my point is :)

And I hope that this gives a gentle reminder to people who has already thought that something like that is ok although it is wrong just because it's too common...
Which also similar to a branch of knowledge that tickles my mind... it is called Kelirumologi... hehehe... but let discuss it in another session... :P

Ok then, let's get back to the business... the positive sow but not directly the person who sow who obtains the benefit...

I will use my personal experience to describe this... with this opportunity to share a bit my family background...

Hmmm.... My grandmother from my mother is the second wife of my grandfather. Although the reason was because his first wife couldn't give him even a child, this leaded to a conflict.... similar with the story of the two stories that I've mentioned above :)
The problem was even worse when my grandfather passed away... as he was the only person who worked for the family... my mother family became really struggle because there was no earning at all... This forced the my mom's older sister and my mom to quit from school and help my grand mother working... to get earning so that can support her sister and brother... to buy food, buy clothes and for schools... :)
To simplify the story when my mother and father passed away because of terrible car accident... During that time I was at the very last semester of my study in the university. And one of my uncle offered a scholarship to continue my study... He asked me to choose whether I want to study in the reputable university here in Indonesia or even abroad... It was a very tempting offer... However for some particular reasons I refused the offer :)

That's my story... my mother the one who "sowed" the good deeds but I'm as her son "reap" the benefit...

Tutorial: Changing a phrase

2010-10-06T07:04:00.000-07:00

One of my interest is to change a lyric of a song or a a phrase to be in very different meaning.... no matter if it is going to be silly, sarcasm or even sceptic. However, I still try to maintain the rhyme... :P

I've done this in since I was in Junior High School when Boy Bands were growing like a mushroom in the rainy season... or even similar to... spreading like very contagious viruses... :P So during the time the Boy Bands' song were my primary victim... hihihi...

The simplest way of changing the lyric was by changing the word 'heart' into 'butt'... they both have the same word category which is noun... and they both are body parts... and the best of all they have the both end with the same letter... so the rhyme of the song will still be maintained :P

The other word that you can change is... the word 'beauty' into 'ugly'...
Practice and training is really important so we can improve the ability to the find suitable word to substitute the words... :P
And if I may suggest... watching good quality situation comedy is highly recommended to enrich our vocabulary... specially the sarcastic vocabulary... hehehe...

I won't provide some example to this step because this is very easy to find and you can find enormous number of songs that contains the word 'heart'... since most of theme of the songs are love... but, let's discuss it in the different opportunity :)

However don't be disappointed... since I will provide a step by step example on changing a phrase...

Recently, I have a nice phrase regarding a of a friendship...
"Old friends are gold. New friends may be diamond. If you get diamond, don't ever forget the gold because to hold a diamond you always need a base of gold"

Ok, let's scrutinise this nice... humble... and sweet quote and destroy it into the sceptic one... shall we?

First, find the key words... for example: gold and diamond...

Secondly, find the substitute for those words...
gold --> goat
diamond --> demon

Thirdly, combine it!
"Old friends are goats, new friends may be demon. If you get demon, don't ever forget the goat... because..."

Nah, here's come the tricky part... which requires some thinking and a bit creativity... :P
Ok, since we had changed the keywords, we have to change the part of the phrase that explain the opening. This is important because we have to make the phrase still logical... hahaha... but c'mon this is the fun part... :P

Hmm... on of the way to make it sounds logical is to find the correlation between the words...
so the correlation between the word 'goat' and 'daemon' is... goat head and pentagram is the symbol of the satan/daemon... hahaha....

See! there's a correlation between them...
but if you can't find any... just make them up... hahaha...

Thus we can continue our modified phrase...

"Old friends are goats, new friends may be daemon. If you get daemon, don't ever forget the goat... because goat head is the symbol of daemon."

But wait a second... it's not finish yet... to finalize the modified quote... we have to explain the meaning of it:
"Sometimes we have a very disturbing and annoying old friend and you imagine this friend is just like a goat, and we got a new friend... but apparently the new friend you found is even worse than our old friend"
sounds realistic, isn't it? :)
or on the other words, this new phrase is having the same meaning with the famous phrase "things could be worse" hahaha...

See! changing a nice phrase to the sceptic one is not hard, is it? :P

Additionally, one day when I've become famous and there someone who wants to write a book: "How to think like Teguh Suryadi"* this article should be considered as good reference... hihihi....

*inspired by a book that I am currently reading "How to think like Leonardo Da Vinci" :)

Google Translate

2010-09-15T05:30:00.000-07:00

As you may already notice, I added google translate tools in this humble blog.
One of the reason is that some friends told me to use bahasa instead. Maybe they don't understand what I wrote...
But please don't get me wrong... I'm not trying to blame them... what in my mind is that maybe they're trying to tell me that my English is too poor to be understanable for them... so they told me to use Bahasa instead. :P

So I added this awesome tools from google... so everyone who speak the supported langunge -which around 50 languages if I'm not mistaken- can read my blog... including the one who speak bahasa... :)

And for your information that the translation is not 100% as what I wanted, but at least it can deliver the main idea :)

Instinct...

2010-09-05T23:38:00.000-07:00

Recently I listened to another audio book about economic... however the topic is being introduced in different way... very different way... :)

In that book there are some phrases that tickle my mind. One of them is
"the male instinct to impress the female is apparently strong even when..."*

Hmmm... in this kind of sentence you can put almost anything without abusing the sentence so it will have different point...

For example, you can put even the most absurd reason such as... the woman is not from planet earth... the point of the sentence is the same... hehehe...

Ok, now let's get down to the business... Of course the instinct is part of the human as we are a living creature...
However as a human we are given ability to think that define us with the other creature...

And it is our call to determine whether we let the sense of thinking win... or the instinct win because of the temptation...

Don't get me wrong... and I am not trying to say that the instinct is always wrong, and the sense of thinking is always right. After all the instinct sometimes tends to be more honest then our mind.

Some people will say it depends on the situation...
For instance, in situation when one of the person is already going to married and still the male is trying to impress her... simply to get her heart... most of the people will say it is something that really wrong to do...

And this kind of situation usually is being risen as the topic of a movie... And recently I watched an Indian comedy (3Idiots)... yes I watched an Indian movie! (let's discuss this another time hihihi...)
This topic was also existed on the plot of the movie...
Even in the movie, there was an idiom that says "Everything is fair in love and war"... and personally I don't know exactly where is it come from...

There's no one know, which one is the right thing to do... to follow our instinct or to follow the sense of thinking...

However this also reminds me to a controversial Chinese espionage thriller film which is titled "Lust, Caution" or 色戒 (Se, jie)

--- WARNING! Spoiler alert! ---

The movie is telling about a attractive woman who has a mission to lure and then assassinate a corrupt leader. But she failed although she's able to lure the corrupt leader and only just one step to complete the mission. And it is because she is overcome by emotion bound and then breaks down and urges him to flee. Hence the mission is failed; after all of her tremendous effort... you can see the movie by yourself if you want to say why I choose the word tremendous... :P

Maybe that's the differentiate between love and lust... love should give you power to help you getting what you aim for... or make you move forward... not giving obstacle or even worse... dragging you back into your darkest past...

But I don't know... Since as you all may already notice, I'm just a geek... for me these kind of things are more complicated than quantum physic... :)

However I do understand one thing... even if the male has tried to seduce but there is no reaction from the female... the result would be nothing... just like third Newton's law of action reaction... hehehe... or in less geeky way there's saying "It takes two for tango"...
So the "tango" won't be happening until there are two people doing it :)

Reputation

2010-09-02T07:03:00.000-07:00

It's been a long while since my last post on this blog :)
The reason is just simply I got lazy and had no topic to write...

Recently, I enjoyed to have sunset jogging. While having jogging I usually listen to musics... Then some idea pop up in my mind... the idea is to listen to an audio-book while jogging so I can learn something and practice my English listening skills :)

Few days ago a friend of mine suggested me to read a quite interesting book... and then I searched for the audio-book version of it. And fortunately I got it...

Some chapter of the book inspired me to start rolling this blog again :)

One of the book chapter mentioned: "So Much Depends on Reputation – Guard it with your Life"
It explained by using the story of a strategist in china history, named Zhuge Liang who beat his sworn enemy Sima Yi "only" by using his reputation. It was the legendary Empy Castle/Fort. The tactic can only be successful if the user has absolute reputation. However, I won't give the detail of the strategy here... since I don't want to kill my reader... :P but the detail can be found easily by doing simple googling... if you're interested even further...

The story is describing the idea on how important reputation is. Another silly simple example is if someone has been labeled as a fart master... when there's rotten smell... it is common that person will be accused :)

A bit serious example is if you has been labeled as a liar, although you are telling the truth... no one will believe in you... In the other hand, if you're an honest person and you telling a bit lie... and everybody will believe in you... :)

The practice is also being applied in the real world situation. In my country, when we want to apply for a credit or mortgage... a bank officer will check whether the applicant is trustworthy or not... the first thing that bank officer do is looking for a at the black list which is released by Bank Indonesia. If the person is listed on that list, it means that the person has a bad credit history. In the other words it is difficult or almost impossible that the mortgage is granted....

This reputation thing will applied even though when someone has repent and forswear. Religious people said it is the wages of the sin. However it doesn't mean that I don't believe in repentance... I still believe people can change... :) However, I think repentance without any forswear means nothing...

Due to the fact, many people tried to change their life, maybe changing his/her identity or by going to remote place which no one know... just because he/she had committed something that killed his/her reputation.

Reputation is a lifetime tag... or even more than just a lifetime... another example is when Zhuge Liang already dead but still could beat Sima Yi by only using a wooden statue... yet again it's all because of the reputation...

And the history will label you as a person with a good or bad depends on how your reputation right now... :)

The new version of "Flash contender" has been released...

2009-07-10T05:18:00.002-07:00

Today the Silverlight 3 RTW* has been released. In my very limited knowledge… I dunno whether there was a RC version before or not. Since all that I know the last previous version was beta… but who cares… this new version of “flash contender” has been released anyway :P
The run time can be downloaded via this link.

And the overview...

The new features description can be found in this link.

There are some features that exciting for me, those features are GPU support, 3D support, 3. Out of browser capabilities and new bitmap manipulation API.

Regarding those the new features, these are some comment that pop up from my head, but please be aware that due to my limited knowledge and I haven’t try this feature my self so better not use it for reverence hehehe…

GPU support - for faster video and bitmap rendering…

Perspective 3D support - yes… finally the “real 3D” support! not just a 2D vector that looks like 3D. So for those who previously were expecting to implement 3D in this Silverlight world… it’s time to bring it on dude! Hehehe…

Out of browser capabilities - if you think that this feature will kill the WPF application… in my opinion it won’t… well at least for now. The features of this Silverlight version are still very… very… very… limited compared to the WPF desktop application. One of the simple example is that there is no printing/reporting support on this Silverlight application. Another silly analogy to explain this is, from the size of the framework. This Silverlight 3 run time is only around 4MB. Which is very small compared to the .NET 3.0 framework, although it is combined with the other Microsoft foundation (WCF and WF) so I personally don’t know the size of the WPF framework itself. So this second analogy is not very relevant :)

New bitmap manipulation API - I personally quite glad hearing this feature. Since it will certainly ease my pet project :P

For the other features… you can see it for yourself from the given link… :P

However… without any intention to devastate the excitement, there are some (basic) features that are not included in this release. Some of those features are right click and mouse scrolling button support and also the printing/reporting support. From my point of view, for the right click and scrolling is really essential for today application. For the printing/reporting support is also essential especially when we want to build business application or even enterprise level application.
Therefore I would like to ask you guys to support by asking this features to the wish list in the Silverlight official forum.

In case if you want to develop Silverlight 3 application you can download the SDK from this link.

*RTW stands for Released To Web in case you’re not geeky enough… :P

Things that I’m drooling for…

2009-05-14T07:05:00.000-07:00

I got this idea because last month some lots of colleagues of mine were having a birthday and we’re confused to buy a present for them. Yeah… them… since their birthday date is only in a few days difference.
We made a discussion by email, however unfortunately, like usual, it was inconclusive discussion… :P Because all of us dunno what they’re wanted…
So I guess this kind of matters won’t happen to me if I write this wish list… :P so here’s the list: oh yeah, this list is ordered what I drool the most… (read: most expensive hihihi… $_$)

Chateau

Porsche

Multimedia Speaker

this earphone

AE Aego M Series

Acoustic Guitar

Digital Camera

New cell phone

Those are the things that currently I’m drooling for… Unfortunately there’s a tax bill that I had to pay and for sure it cost me a fortune… T_T so keeping this list for a while probably is the best idea for now.
But someday I’ll buy those things myself… but if there’s someone want to buy it for me… I don’t have to spend my money… and I’ll be really happy!...
Anyway for this wish list is just a joke of course. The truth is that having friends… and gather with them… laughing together… and sharing the happiness… hmm… those moments are very priceless… much more precious than any birthday presents… ^^
However… again… if someone want to buy me those things… I really appreciate it… wakakaka… kidding…

Pet Project

2009-02-16T01:27:00.000-08:00

A geek is not that “geek” if she/he ain’t having pet project. So based on that judgement, this time I would like to share my plan for my pet project.
Ever since I graduated I always wanted to rewrite my final project application that I wrote for my graduation. The application was a very simple image processing application. It implemented the Exemplar-based image Inpainting. Although it was a simple application but I think the implemented algorithm is so damn interesting. The application lets the user choose an image and a part or object that user wanted to remove, and the application with some unique algorithm do the “magic”, regenerating those empty part that being left by the object that being removed. The result will be just like a background of the image. Burrrb… enough already with the geeky explanations… I’ll just show you the example:

Input:

Result:

I got this interesting topic from a friend of mine, than the introduced me to his friend who’re working on it for final project for his graduation. Thanks to him because of his help, I managed to finish it and graduated ~~in time~~ :P

Alright, let’s back to the ~~pet project~~ geeky stuff. The previous application was written in Delphi ~~programming~~ geek language. And for sure the application wasn’t written in a good way. It was only written to kill the job. No compile error and the program ran as expected… than the job is done… he3x… :P

As I mentioned, I want to rewrite the application to the .NET technology. To make it look more ~~professional~~ fancy, the design for the application is described on the following simple diagram:

As you all can see… the front end for this application is going to use Silverlight 2.0 technology, and it will consume a WCF Service. The service will process the image based on the user input and then send back to the client to display the result.

There are some obstacles for developing this application. Apart from the issue of learning curve to get familiar to those new technologies, here are the issues that currently I have in mind…

• On the front end,
I haven’t seen any component that helps the development of the image processing application, such as: “marching ants” selection tools. If I have to write this tools by myself, for sure it will take a lot of time… :P

• On the back end,
Finding a free web hosting that support Silverlight and WCF service isn’t that easy. I quick browse on the net and found these two options. Aspspider offers free hosting for 6 months trial only. And for the silverlight.live.com, I’m not so sure if it supports the WCF service

I wish that those obstacles do not make my spirit down, to start working on this pet project.

Any information, suggestion or even comment that can help me to finalize this pet project is positively welcome.

Welcome to my blog...

2009-01-27T04:41:00.000-08:00

I’m glad that finally I can write a blog, after postponed for a quite long while.

There are some reasons why I’m tempted to be a blogger. One of the reasons is to practicing my writing skills; especially in English; but I can’t promise to write all of the articles in English due to the fact of my limitation in English. And sometimes I believe that some story or article is more fun or exited if it’s written in Bahasa or even in Ngoko* :P

That’s the “normal” reason; the other thing that motivates me is the fact that a lot of people who knows me (my friends or even my family member) told me that I sometimes always have a different point of view analyzing things. Well, sitting in other way I’m writing this blog also to tell the world how silly I am (please refer to About Me for more explanation). And I really hope people can enjoy my blog, if you find that you aren’t enjoying my blog feel free to add critics, comments or… just redirect to other blog or web site… it’s just that simple… hehehe… Enjoy!

*One of the types of Javanese language.. yes Javanese... no Japanese... :P