Albert Tanutama

My Internet Service Provider, Starhub, has recently upgraded their connection speed to 6.5Mbps for free. In addition, they provide free access to i-view, where we can watch some of their cable-tv channels in pc. For the time being, we have discovery, national geographic, fashion tv, and soundtrack channel.

I have a great experience watching them. The connection was smooth and the picture is sharp – just like watching real tv. Given such experience, I think I don’t mind to pay to access more cable tv channel on my pc. I think watching on pc is more fun. I can easily launch google to find some information while watching. Hmm, imagine if I can share it with other people as well. Cool. I guess we’re not really far from it.

Congratulations for my sister who was convocated today @ swissotel. She received her BSc degree in Information System and Management with second upper honour. Great achievement!

I’ve created a new weblog for my school coursework in critical inquiry. It’ll be my test bed to use weblog as a collaborative tool. In my opinion, weblog is ideal (esp. blogger’s blog spot). It’s free. It’s available anytime anywhere. Comment is included along with email notification. By posting all reference items, and having online discussion, I believe working on the project will be much2 more fun. (and that should explains why there is hardly any new post here)

Feel free to look at my weblog @ criticalinquiry.blogspot.com. And feel free to post any comments (or resources) as well. Cheers.

I’m attending two-day course (13-14 Jan), called “Think on your feet” course conducted by Singapore Institute of Management. It is a workshop on the spontaneous speaking and presenting. The trainer is David Mason who used to be PWC training partner.

The main idea from the training is to use plans to peg ideas. 3 plans are neutral: clock (time), globe (location/places), triangular (aspects) and the other 3 plans are persuasive: zoom, pendulum, and benefits plans. It they are used within standard presentation format (main idea, 3 keypoints, summary), it should results in clear, brief, and “impactful” presentation.

I guess what makes this training effective is the people. You meet people with the same objectives. They make the environment really friendly, as a result boost the confidence to speak. When you know that you could do it, it is simply a matter of confidence to implement it in the actual world.

Yup, I guess I’ve covered three training aspects in this post; about the training, what we learn, and why it is effective

Gokourama (which means “Thank you for your troubles”) is a blog that displays people from various walk of life – ordinary people with “ordinary” work that we might often overlooked. This blog cherish them – I love to see how those people looks very happy by being recognized and appreciated. Can we have more like this?

I’m delighted when I want to print this article about the blogosphere. I expect to have cluttered prints when I couldn’t find printer-friendly option. However, it actually automotically use different stylesheet for printing – removing all unnecessary navigation and portlets. That’s what I call user-centric design.

Speaking of which, I remember one nifty feature of delicious. It is actually the URL first and populate its form with existing data. This actually reminds me if I have actually posted the URL before. Another simple functionality, but it is really nifty and useful to me.

Time to do a little reflection here (and it’s always good thing to do especially in the begining of new year). This blog has been around for almost one year since my first post – and that was my fourth attempt to do blogging. I learned a lot of things since then, from CSS web based design to the use of RSS and news aggregator. I could still recall how I was surprised to see the template code used in movabletype that contains no table tags – and how challenging it was to come out with my own personalized design.

Now I’m ‘evangelizing’ CSS based design in my company. I’ve used CSS extensively in design projects that I’m involved (i.e. AFACT2004 and PAA.net). It was not a smooth sailing journey. Technical issues like browser compatibility, change in design process, are some of the difficulties that I’ve encountered. And fortunately, that what makes my work exciting.

However, I’m really excited how blogs have turned out to be. People has increasingly seen the value of blogging. With recent tragedy, blogs has played important role as front line reporting that provides different perspective from traditional media – of which I increasingly noted repetitive paragraph (note to self: might be interesting to track how similar lines are repeated in different newspaper). And, importantly, how people use weblogs to act and help those victims. When technology enables people to collectively act and help others, I believe, is what makes it count.

Looking back, I realized that my blogging style is really varied. From personal journal, portfolio to online bookmark. I haven’t really figured out the unique soul of this blog. What I want to achieve. It is nice tho to see how my interest has shifted and changed in the past year. And I guess, that should be my resolution for this year – to find and establish the ’soul’ of this weblog…

Happy new year Finally, 2004 has passed and 2005 has arrived. It’ll be a much better year. And it’ll be an exciting one. This year celebration is one of those ‘calm’ celebration with family and friends. It’s really wonderful just to stay at home, have dinner together, watch movies, playing games, and having toast for upcoming year. I guess, to enjoy the presence of each other is really a meaningful way to end this year, and to greet a new year. Especially, after we’re reminded of the frailty of lives. Hopefully, this 2005 will be a better, joyful, and hopeful year.