Selamat kepada The Groom dan The Bride

Selama beberapa hari terakhir, beberapa artikel di Planet Singapura, situs agregasi blogger Indonesia di Singapura yang saya kelola, sedang diwarnai berita tentang "seseorang" yang akan melangsungkan pernikahan pada tanggal 3 Februari 2007 nanti. Dimulai dari posting Mbak Hany disini, dilanjut dengan posting Teh Ellen disini, dan terakhir baru saya baca posting Mbak Wiwie yang sekarang sudah berada nun jauh di Riyadh sana, disini.

Cukup menggelitik, mengingat rencana pernikahan ini terlihat dirahasiakan, belum lagi ditambah dengan beberapa komentar dari The Groom sendiri di beberapa artikel tersebut, misalnya komentar yang "sedikit menyesalkan" sulitnya membedakan antara tempias, bocor sama banjir. *sampai tersenyum-senyum saya membacanya* :) :)

Nevertheless, siapapun orangnya :) , saya turut mengucapkan selamat berbahagia untuk The Groom dan The Bride. Semoga terus langgeng sampai akhir hayat.

Syndication Problem after Upgrading to New Blogger

For some reason, my syndication sites such as Planet Singapura or Planet Indra are now only showing the titles of all my posts on my Blogger-based weblogs, such as Rumah Indra and Info, instead of the full articles. Not too sure why. The problem started immediately after I upgraded my Blogger-based to new Blogger.

I have checked my Blogger settings and it's confirmed that the blogs are being configured with full RSS feeds. I even tried to browse the RSS feed manually to ensure that full feed is shown. I also have checked the syndication options on the FeedWordPress-based syndication sites, and confirmed that it should extract the full article from the feeds. Why only the titles are being shown on the syndication sites?

Anyone has a clue? :)

Acara BBQ Indo-Sing di Moonstone Lane

Pada hari Sabtu, 20 Januari 2007, saya dan keluarga pergi ke acara gathering BBQ komunitas Indo-Sing, yang diadakan di tempat kediaman Muda Ikhsan di Moonstone Lane. Dalam acara ini, sang tuan rumah menyediakan masakan spesialisasi beliau, sate Moonstone Lane.

Acara tersebut termasuk sukses, cukup banyak anggota komunitas Indo-Sing yang datang ke acara tersebut. Mengingat acara tersebut adalah acara potluck, banyak rekan-rekan yang datang dengan makanan specialty masing-masing, memberikan kesempatan kepada setiap orang untuk menikmati semua makanan yang terhidang. :)

Beberapa makanan yang dihidangkan diantaranya adalah bakwan malang dan siomay dari Teh Ellen (khusus untuk siomay, atas pesanan khusus dari Nisa), tongseng dari Gita, yang katanya merupakan proyek percobaan setelah terinspirasi dari resepnya Teh Mela (lah proyek percobaan aja udah enak begitu, gimana yang bukan percobaannya ya), sate padang dari istri, otah-otah dari Anto, brownies dari Yosi, empek-empek Sengkang yang dipesen oleh Ichan, dan masih banyak lagi makanan dan dessert lainnya.

Sayangnya, hujan turun cukup deras pada sore hari itu, terutama pas awal-awal acara. Sehingga Inka dan Irza pun mengurungkan niatnya untuk berenang. Walaupun demikian, mereka senang bermain dengan teman-teman mereka, seperti Iffah, Fathir, Alif dan Namira, Teta dan Zia, serta beberapa anak lainnya.

Oh iya, dalam acara ini, untuk pertama kalinya saya bisa bertemu muka dengan Anthony Fajri, salah seorang blogger senior Indonesia yang sekarang bermukim di Singapura, setelah sebelumnya cuma berkomunikasi melalui e-mail dan Yahoo Messenger.

Foto-fotonya bisa dilihat disini. Sayangnya, saya tidak sempat mengambil foto Aa Duddy, Teh Ellen dan Iffah, mengingat Aa Duddy yang harus menghadiri acara di kantornya jam 8 sore (halah, malam minggu gitu loh!), sehingga mereka sudah meninggalkan acara sebelum saya mulai mengambil foto.

[English version]

Indo-Sing BBQ Potluck Gathering at Moonstone Lane

On Saturday, 20 January 2007, we went to the Indo-Sing's BBQ potluck gathering, which is conducted at Muda Ikhsan's residence at Moonstone Lane. At this event, the host is preparing his specialty, Moonstone Lane satay.

The event itself is a great success, quite a lot of people turned up and came to the event. Being a potluck event, everyone came in with own specialties, allowing everyone to try everything being served. :) Some of the good food served during the event was Ellen's bakwan malang and also siomay (as per Nisa's request), Gita's tongseng, my wife's sate padang, Anto's otah, Yosi's brownies, Sengkang empek-empek (as per Ichan's request), and some other foods and desserts. The food is quite plentiful, allowing some of us to bring some food back home *wink wink*. :)

It was raining, so Inka and Irza didn't manage to swim at the swimming pool nearby. But they were happily playing with other kids, such as Iffah, Fathir, Alif and Namira, Teta and Zia, and some other kids as well.

The pictures are below. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to take the pictures of Aa Duddy, Teh Ellen and Iffah, since Aa Duddy had another appointment at 8pm in his office (halah, malam minggu gitu loh!) and they left before I started to take pictures. Apologise for not being able to remember the names of everyone, kindly help to complete the captions next to each photo (especially the empty ones). :)

Eid-ul Adha in Singapore

The last day of 2006, which is 31st of December 2006, is the Eid-ul Adha day. In Singapore, we call it Hari Raya Haji, while in Indonesia, we call it Hari Raya Idul Adha. We started the day by performing the Ied-ul Adha prayer together with Pambudi and Dini's family at Ar-Raudhah mosque at Bukit Batok East, not far from where we live here in Singapore.

Close to noon, together with Satya and Enon's family, we went to the IMAS and Indo-Sing's Idul Adha gathering event, located at Dwi Tjandra's residence in Sophia Court. Inka and Irza took the opportunity to go swimming at the swimming pool there.

Mudik Trip #12: Bandung Super Mall

During our mudik trip to Bandung end of last year, I also took the kids to Bandung Super Mall, the biggest shopping mall in Bandung. This big shopping mall is located along Jalan Gatot Subroto, east of the city. There's a big indoor theme park inside, although it's not as big as Kuala Lumpur's Times Square or Genting's First World Plaza.

Each ride will cost each kid around 4,000 Indonesian rupiahs (or around Singapore 67 cents). Quite cheap, that's why they don't sell any combo day tickets. There are roller coaster, bumper car, ferris wheel, train and some other rides as well. It's also conveniently located next to the food court.

Mudik Trip #11: Horse riding in Bandung

One of the great experiences Inka and Irza had when they visited Bandung, my home town, was when they had the chance to ride horses. This is an experience which they can't find here in Singapore. Well, you can ride a pony at the Singapore Zoo, but the pony is so small and the track is so short. In Bandung, particularly Cisangkuy and Ganesha, you can ride a "real" horse, cruising through roads in Bandung with its great scenery.

Among the two horse riding sites, I would recommend Ganesha over Cisangkuy. At the same price of 5,000 Indonesian rupiahs (approximately 84 Singapore cents) per ride, Ganesha's horse riding route is a bit longer than Cisangkuy's.

Jalan Cisangkuy is on the east part of the city, not far from the factory outlets located along Jalan Riau (Martadinata) and also not far from Gedung Sate, one of Bandung's iconic buildings. Jalan Ganesha is where the famous ITB campus is located, not far from the Zoo at Taman Sari, and also not far from the factory outlets located along Jalan Dago (Juanda).

When you park your car, be prepared for a lot of jockeys with their horses surrounding the car, trying to offer them the ride to your kids. Bargaining is necessary, since the jockeys would usually start to offer very high prices, which might be double or triple of the normal 5,000 rupiah fare.

See the pictures below. Photos with numbers start with 10** are taken at the Cisangkuy site, while photos with numbers start with 20** are taken at the Ganesha site.

Overall, the horse riding trips are one of the moments always be remembered by the kids, and they always keep on asking when can they ride horses again. :) They really really had a great time!


[Indonesian version]

Upgraded to New Blogger

At last, I finally saw the long awaited option on my Blogger dashboard for me to switch to the new Blogger, which is already out of Beta (see left picture). The option appears on top of my usual Blogger dashboard when I logged in to the dashboard today. This is a great surprise to me, since I have actually tried to switch just several days ago, and it was not successful. I believe this was because my Blogger account is also a contributor of the Bemo Live and Suka Suka Gue blogs, preventing me from switching to the new Blogger account. It seems that now, Blogger has managed to give me the option to upgrade all my blogs separately from the two blogs which are still on the old version of Blogger.

Having said that, I immediately chose to switch to the new Blogger. First, I needed to confirm my sign-in by signing in using my old Blogger account (see right picture). After signing in, I am given the list of all my blogs, which are going to be upgraded (see below picture). It was mentioned that the two blogs I have mentioned above are owned by someone else, and although I will still be able to post to those blogs after upgrade, but the blogs won't have the new feature until the owners upgrade them.



After pressing "Continue", the screen would prompt me to choose a Google account (see right picture). I could either use my own Google account if I have one, or create a new one. Since I already had a Google account, I just needed to key in my Google account and password. After signing in, the upgrade process will start, and depends on the number of blogs and how big they are, it may take several minutes. Once done, an email will be sent to our Gmail e-mail account.

So, here this is, my first post on the new Blogger version. Haven't really explore the new features yet, though. One of the obvious features I can see, which I think would be very useful, is the labels tagging, which can be used for me to categorise all my next articles. Well, let's see how it goes after I post this article. :)

Mudik Trip #10: d'palm Sundanese Restaurant

During our mudik trip to Bandung, my parents took us to a nice Sundanese restaurant called d'palm. I'm not too sure what's the meaning of d'palm or how is it related to the Sunda culture :), but nevertheless, the food is quite nice. Some of the food we ordered includes grilled fish, fried fish, grilled chicken, karedok (Sundanese-style mixed raw vegetables served with peanut sauce) and sayur asem.

The restaurant is located along Jalan Lombok, not too far from my ex-high school campus there. There is also a small playground near the entrance of the restaurant to keep the kids occupied. I also noticed a signboard saying that there's a Melsa hotspot there, although I'm not too sure whether it's free or not, since I didn't try it that time.

Wireless@SG Coverage in Singapore

As some of us in Singapore might have known, the Singapore government has launched the Wireless@SG programme, a project to create wireless network across public areas in Singapore. It was launched on 1st December 2006, one month ahead of its intended launch schedule on 1st January 2007. The Singapore government, particularly the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA), has decided that the two-year period for users to enjoy the wireless services for free will be extended to three years.

However, I noticed that at the moment, the coverage of the wireless service is not as good as what was being announced. For example, my two favourite eating places, Al-Ameen and Al-Azhar, which are located at the heart of the Bukit Timah area, is not yet covered. I also tried to search for the Wireless@SG SSID when I was in VivoCity couple of weeks ago, and I couldn't find it on the list as well. I thought the Wireless@SG should cover most of public places within the CBD and in all town centres across Singapore?

Perhaps IDA should closely monitor the deployment of the wireless services by all the three operators (iCell, QMax and SingTel) to ensure that they deploy the wireless services up to the required standards, especially with regards to the coverage. Well, now I can understand Pak Budi's frustration when he said that it's very difficult to find free wireless hotspots when he visited Singapore, just a week ago.

Kelahiran Putra Pertama Indra Tobing

Baru saja menerima kabar ini di mailing list mti98:

From: Indra Tobing
Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2007 20:53:21 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [mti98] happy birth news

Dear all,

We are delighted to announce the birth of a blessed boy of delighted couple:

Indra Tobing & Vera br. Siregar.

On Thursday, December 14 2006, 7:45 Indonesian Time.

We welcome with love: Gracio Kevin Nathanael L. Tobing

Weight: 3.1 Kgs
Length: 48 cms

Delivered by : Dr. Saman
Baby's Doctor: Dr. Theresia

Local weather:
Bright to cloudy, 26° - 32°C

Sunrise & Sunset:
4:37am & 6:01pm

Regards,

Indra Tobing