My friend played with the panels (its position, size, etc) it turned out to cause a tragedy. He nearly couldn’t do anything with the freshly installed, keyboard-shortcut-less Ubuntu. After searching the web, here’s the fix:
1. make a new folder in desktop, to open the nautilus file browser.
2. run gnome-terminal in /bin/ (if not mistaken)
3. Type in
gconftool-2 –shutdown
rm -rf ~/.gconf/apps/panel
pkill gnome-panel
sudo debconf gnome-panel
Hope it works for you.
I installed a fresh Ubuntu Jaunty on a desktop and couldn’t connect to the local area network (DHCP). I tried the following tweaks, and finally it worked.
add to/etc/modprobe.d/options
options forcedeth msi=0 msix=0
sudo rmmod forcedeth sudo modprobe forcedeth sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart sudo dhclient eth0
During the last line, the ethernet will start listening and start DHCPDISCOVER on eth0. I clicked the network manager to reattempt a connection and it worked.
1. Japanese like to eat “Nattou” for breakfast. Nattou is a food destined to either be hated or favored for your entire life. It is sticky, salty and “ammoniacally” smelly. If you do happen to eat it for the first time, you will get caught in stringy “natto” spider web. No wonder it’s tasty, since it is partly made out of fermented soy beans, mustard, raw quail egg, and bacteria (Bacillus subtilis natto). The good part: I nearly threw up after chewing 10 times. The bad part: it’s healthy. 
Itadakimasu!
2. Japanese (female) students like to wear high heels to campus. More than half at mine. Some like to save up to buy Louis Vuitton bags. And while I shiver of the dreaded winter, they have the “heroes” ability of wearing mini-skirts even in those conditions. Envy that! (not the skirts, the ability). Urayamashii yo.
3. Sometimes you can find escalators that are crazily steep, nearly perpendicular to the ground. It’s nearly like an elevator. Not only that, they can also be so long. Beware of the local customs though. At Kyushu-Kanto area we stand still on the left, and walk on the right. In Kansai (Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, etc), it is the exact opposite. Stand still on the right if you don’t want to be bumped with “Sumimasen!”
4. Bring your passport if you go shopping at Akihabara, which the Japanese refer to as “Electronic City”. We can get discounts by showing a tourist visa (6 months max stay). Too bad my visa was for one year, so no luck for me. Zannen desu ne.. 
Also be careful in this area, there were crime last year. Kiotsukete ne..
5. For romantic hotspots in the Kansai area, I would go for Kyoto and Kobe. Kyoto’s atmosphere is uniquely, traditionally outstanding. There are romantic paths of Gion area. But be sure to bring money, a (romantic) dinner here on average can cost $120 per person.
For hungry moneysavers, go to Kobe, there is a Wonderful all you can eat restaurant for only $20. They have delicious crab, meat, seafood, Italian food, pudding, ice cream and even chocolate topping if you need to get fat. One plus, the waitress were very fine Another plus, it is located by a lake/sea and we can view Kobe city from there.
Oh, Kobe have significant number of foreigners, and the first mosque built in Japan was in the city of Kobe! Sughoi…!
Pasca kepulangan dari Jepang, saya mencari server repository utk mengupdate Ubuntu. Mengapa repot2 mengubahnya? Sebab di kampus saya ada batasan filesize yang bisa didownload, yikes X|
Pertama saya mencoba http://kambing.ui.edu. Kecepatannya lebih baik dibandingkan server luar, namun masih kurang memuaskan. Setidaknya saya mencari yg melebihi 1 MB(yte)/detik. Dimana lagi selain server intranet.. Akhirnya setelah susah payah mencari 
, saya menggunakan ftp://ftp.itb.ac.id/pub/ubuntu/
Untuk Ubuntu, karena server ini tidak terdaftar pada pilihan repo, kita harus edit manual file /etc/apt/sources.list (sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list).
Untuk masing2 baris, tambahkan dengan server yang kita inginkan, misalkan dari:
deb http://ubuntu-ashisuto.ubuntulinux.jp/ubuntu/ hardy main restricted
menjadi (copy-paste-edit):
deb ftp://ftp.itb.ac.id/pub/ubuntu/ hardy main restricted
Kemudian, comment isi file yang lama, misalkan dari:
deb http://ubuntu-ashisuto.ubuntulinux.jp/ubuntu/ hardy main restricted
menjadi:
#deb http://ubuntu-ashisuto.ubuntulinux.jp/ubuntu/ hardy main restricted
sekedar untuk berjaga2.
Hasilnya update jadi kenceng (>2 MByte/s) 
Kalau salah memasukkan PIN berkali-kali (atau tidak sengaja seperti kasus adik saya), akan diminta nomer PUK yang tertera di kartu perdana.
Kalau malas menelfon call centre, atau mengambil kartu perdana (atau hilang), coba masukkan 12345678.
Tidak perlu repot2 nelfon call centre (dan membayar)
I watched the movie last night. The story wasn’t that great, but the action was thrilling.
I just hope that I don’t turn into a freak in the movie, who made a supercomputer as a mother, to create a genetically mutated child. (strange concept)
When things get really busy, time really flies by. It has been one and a half month back in Indonesia. I noticed some changes, some important, some insignificant.
1. Price of goods went up!! Significantly!! For every meal, it is now 1.5x more expensive compared to before I left Indonesia. For everything, every food, every drinks, every juice. 50% inflation in one year, wow.
2. Transportation cost goes up, fuel too. Before it costs Rp.1000 from my area to campus, but now it costs Rp.1500. One litre of fuel before cost Rp. 4000, now it is Rp.6000. The 1,5x law still applies. I thought I was going on a shopping spree coming home from Japan, but looking the inflation, it’s best if I save my money.
3. My campus work doesn’t seem busy at first, but considering all of my courses are project-based, I’m gonna have nightmares at the end of this semester if I relax now.. Here is the big picture: Environmental Impact Analysis (Case Study), 3D Game in OpenGL, Digital Design Contest (VLSI, Capstone Project) in Verilog, and my Bachelor Final Project on Multi-core Microcontroller.
4. To top it up, I signed up to be a teaching assistant, and two laboratory course assistant. Offered a microcontroller project by a lecturer. Also another contest for the multi-core multicontroller if I manage to get an idea
5. A new mini-mart opened nearby.
6. Indonesia’s politics doesn’t seem to change much. It’s all about power and money here. Practically a capitalist nation, you won’t survive, be healthy nor get education without money. Indonesia have state companies, but do they seem to benefit the society more than its wealthy and spoiled officials?
7. Somehow my team won the Academic Support Category in a university level business plan contest. Uniquely, while it is supposed to be a 3-person team, I did my presentation alone! Thank God I managed.
8. It’s gonna be a busy but fun and hopefully last semester here at the one and only Bandung Institute of Technology.
9. Girls change.
Wish me luck..
Cheers!
Di sela-sela acara pesta perpisahan, majalah kampus mendatangi tiap mahasiswa pertukaran yang akan pulang akhir semester. Kami ditodong untuk menuliskan cita2 di whiteboard kecil, kemudian difoto. Ada yang serius, ada yang melucu. Pose saya sedang tidak bagus, jadi lebih baik tidak saya pajang.. hehe.. Bocoran linknya saja.
Bundai Oita adalah nama majalah kampus. Bundai Oita memiliki situs online: B-net. Bundai berasal dari Bunga Daigaku, nama kampus ini sebelum menjadi Oita Daigaku.
Situs online kampus Oita U cukup bagus (versi Japanese), namun yang versi English kurang termaintain. Website B-net lebih menarik dibuka oleh mahasiswa, karena memang buatan mahasiswa sendiri. Isinya seperti kegiatan ekstrakurikuler, profil mahasiswa, acara kampus; semua diliput mahasiswa.
Mungkin mahasiswa ITB bisa meniru membuat website kampus sendiri?
PS: Hampir seluruh mahasiswa asing di kampus yang berasal dari negara barat (Eropa/Amerika) adalah exchange student. Maklum, sulit sekali mempelajari kemampuan baca tulis bahasa Jepang untuk kuliah normal.
I had a great and exciting farewell party with my adviser and lab members.
First we made Takoyaki, the famous ball shaped fried octopus cake.. I had some in Osaka, and the ones made here was as delicious, in fact it’s more
Then we had cold Soumen, Japanese noodles cooked in hot water, then dipped in ice water (it’s summer afterall). It is then eaten together with shoyu and seaweed. After that, we had Soba which was treated the same way as the soumen. (cold)
The main dish was when my tutor, Faizal from Malaysia cooked fried rice (nasi goreng). I helped…. heehee. It wasn’t really hot, but I thought it was a bit too spicy for the Japanese (Faizal just keeps on adding hot sweet chili sauce.. haha).. 
It was spicy for them, but the Japanese friends and profs liked it.. so no problem..
Last, when we wanted to have watermelons, I asked about Suikawari, the Japanese culture of smashing watermelon with a baseball bat and closed eyes. Somehow I was the one doing the suikawari. It wasn’t as easy as I thought, but in the end I hit a thorough, perfect middle smash. Then everybody enjoyed the sweet watermelon in the hot, summer night
It was a great night, got a very nice souvenir (traditional clothing) from my research adviser (Prof. Shibata), it feels sad to leave Japan, but excited to come home. Just one week away from stepping my foot in Indonesia again.
Open Volume Control by double clicking the sound icon.
1. Edit -> Preferences
2. Check the Surround
3. Unmute it!
4. Done
It’s just in the setting of the ALSA-mixer.
I wanted to use VOIP, but the mic didn’t work. How did I enable it?
First, I was able to use the internal mic, thanks to this post.
OK, so now how do I use my own mic.
In the volume control,
1. Click Edit -> Preferences
2. Check the Input Source
3. Change the Digital Input Source to Analog Inputs
4. Select Front Mic as Input Source.
Tested on the Sound Recorder, fixed.
After the first install, my virtual WinXP took ages to boot up. The hard disk activity was really intensive for unknown reason. After a quick search, here’s a quick fix. Add to the /etc/vmware/config for always running the following script, or into individual vmx files:
mainMem.useNamedFile = “FALSE”
prefvmx.useRecommendedLockedMemSize = “TRUE”
prefvmx.minVmMemPct = “100″
The main hero seems to be the edit of mainMem. My boot and closing speeds up significantly, but it is still slow to start up. After loading, performance is good, and the HD is quiet too. Still finding out why the VM is slow on starting up (and so noisy for a long time).
I started using my VOIP software on the guest WinXP today (since the VOIP Provider didn’t provide Linux version). I called and the timer showed more than one hour, when it felt like 20 minutes or so. Well, I had a great chat, so I didn’t really think about it. I realized the clock speed was waay to fast when I called for the second time. It was like 10 seconds, counted as more than a minute?!
I checked the clock on the guest XP and it was speeding very nasty. To make the post short, here’s what I did:
sudo gedit /etc/vmware/config
(edit the config as superuser)
Then add:
#edit your cpu clock, this shows 1.0 GHz
host.cpukHz = 1000000
host.noTSC = TRUE
ptsc.noTSC = TRUE
If you want to synchronize host-guest, add: (it only syncs forwards, not backwards. Didn’t help in speeding cases like mine)
In the guest *.vmx file:
tools.syncTime = TRUE
timeTracker.periodicStats=”True”
timeTracker.statsInterval=”10″
We can keep a difference of time in host-guest if we want:
tools.syncTime = FALSE
time.synchronize.continue = FALSE
time.synchronize.restore = FALSE
time.synchronize.resume.disk = FALSE
time.synchronize.shrink = FALSE
We can also make the guest clock slower by increasing the value of the processor speed. I suggest to add a little more than the original, because there are some issues in the power down mode of the processor. It can cause a sudden speed-up of clock cycles. If the guest is a little slower, it would be fine as it can sync periodically.
If sudden speed-up is the case, add:
timeTracker.catchupPercentage = 200
timeTracker.catchupIfBehindByUsec = 60
timeTracker.giveupIfBehindByUsec = 50000000
After installation, Ubuntu asks for an update. I think it would be better to upgrade to 8.10, they have many bug fixes.
Compiz-fusion is enabled by default (I’m using the Intel Integrated), but the settings manager have to be installed. Search compiz on the Add Software App. Pretty much everything works already. Ethernet, sound, USB, 3D Windows. I haven’t tested the Wireless yet. There is a workaround for the internal mic here. If the speaker volume is too soft, check the volume control, and in the Edit -> Preferences, check the Front.
Dell Media buttons? Works like charm.
I’m so glad I got Ubuntu up and running. It feels so much better than the other OS, and Compiz-fusion is simply fun and great!
PS: see next posts for common issues fixes
