Posted by indra on October 28th, 2009 — Posted in Blogging
Menurut Ndoro Kakung:
Jadi benarkah blog itu hanya trend sesaat?
Bagi para pionir itu mungkin iya. Tapi jangan lupa: selalu ada orang baru, generasi penerus, yang tergoda oleh blog dan tertarik mencobanya. Mati satu, tumbuh seribu ….
Komentar Pitra di artikel yang sama:
jadi ingat riset IndoPac Edelman + Blogfam, di mana usia blog umumnya sekitar 2 tahun, lalu setelah itu mengalami penurunan kualitas dan kuantitas posting. Sebabnya beragam, dari menikah sampai urusan pekerjaan.
Kalau melihat yg senior memang sudah banyak yang bertumbangan. Mereka mencoba “tantangan” media baru. Yang junior pasti akan selalu bermunculan.
Yang kurang adalah, bagaimana yang junior ini bisa lebih dekat dengan senior. Supaya tongkat estafet pun bisa dilakukan. (kok kayak alih kepemimpininan ya?) Intinya sih, supaya yang junior pun tahu bagaimana awal muawal blogging di Indonesia, dan bagaimana mereka menentukan visi blog mereka di masa datang.
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Posted by indra on October 27th, 2009 — Posted in Blogging
Dalam rangka Hari Blogger Nasional yang dirayakan oleh seluruh blogger Indonesia pada hari ini, Pitra “Media Ide” mengadakan sesi tanya jawab seputar blogging melalui media microblogging Twitter. Undangan sesi tanya jawab tersebut tentu saja mendapatkan respon positif para tweeps yang sempat membuat Pitra kewalahan, walaupun akhirnya beliau menjawab semua pertanyaan yang diajukan dan menulis rangkumannya disini. Mas Nukman Luthfie bahkan mendukung Pitra untuk menjadi ketua panitia (chairman) Pesta Blogger 2010. 
Dalam kesempatan sesi tanya jawab tersebut itu, saya menanyakan soal Hari Blogger Nasional, yang dirayakan setiap tanggal 27 Oktober, apakah masih relevan mengingat Pesta Blogger, yang diadakan setiap tahun, tidak tepat diadakan pada hari tersebut? Hanya Pesta Blogger yang pertama diadakan pada tanggal 27 Oktober 2007, untuk tahun-tahun selanjutnya diadakan pada tanggal yang berbeda. Pitra menjelaskan bahwa Pesta Blogger selalu diadakan pada hari Sabtu, supaya banyak orang yang bisa datang. Kalau diadakan di hari tertentu lainnya (apalagi hari kerja), takutnya banyak yang tidak bisa datang.
Supaya Hari Blogger Nasional bisa dirayakan oleh blogger Indonesia tepat pada waktu Pesta Blogger diselenggarakan, saya mengusulkan agar Hari Blogger Nasional jangan dipatok ke tanggal tertentu (27 Oktober) seperti sekarang, tapi dibuat “floating” mengikuti tanggal Pesta Blogger diadakan untuk tahun tersebut. Mirip lah seperti Hari Raya Idul Fitri atau Idul Adha yang tanggal-nya juga floating setiap tahunnya, mengikuti kalender Hijriyah.
Ada beberapa pertanyaan lain seputar blogging yang cukup menarik, diantaranya adalah pertanyaan dari Rhesya, yang menanyakan kapan gerakan blogger aktif pertama marak di Indonesia. Pitra menjawab kalau Enda Nasution udah mulai nge-blog sejak tahun 2005, yang kemudian dikoreksi oleh Enda sendiri yang mengklarifikasi kalau beliau sudah nge-blog sejak tahun 2001. Saya sendiri menambahkan kalau blog di Indonesia sudah ada sejak tahun 2000, sambil memberikan tautan ke artikel lama saya mengenai sedikit sejarah blogger Indonesia di tahun 2000 yang saya ketahui, dimana pada waktu itu para blogger yang saya kenal adalah alumni BemoNet. Aulia juga menambahkan kalau Boy Avianto juga sudah mulai blogging sejak 2000, yang kemudian bales bilang kalau Thalia aka @turniptopia, yang kebetulan tetangga saya di Singapura, pertama ngeblog di tahun 1999 dan MASIH AKTIF sampai sekarang!
Rangkuman dari seluruh pertanyaan dan jawaban dari sesi tanya jawab seputar blogging tersebut bisa dilihat disini. Terima kasih, Pitra.
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Posted by IndraPr on October 20th, 2009 — Posted in happening, singapore, thoughts
I was attending a friend's wedding event at An-Nahdhah Mosque, Bishan on Sunday, 11 October 2009 and when I went back, I inadvertently and carelessly left my bag, containing my HP Mini netbook, at the basement carpark, before I went into my car. It seems that I might have left the bag when I needed to put on my shoes, and I only realised it after I reached my home at Bukit Batok.
I immediately called the mosque's management after getting the number from SingTel's directory service (100). While driving back from Bukit Batok to Bishan (which seemed like forever), I had Mr. Jamal on the other line, who patiently listened to my panic voice explaining that I had left my bag in the basement carpark. I even wrongly informed him that it was a blue bag, while it is actually a purple backpack. Mr. Jamal said he would check and advised me to call him back in 15 minutes.
Fifteen minutes later, I was already exiting PIE onto Lornie Road when I tried to call the mosque again, and was nervous when nobody picked up the call. I kept on calling using my handsfree but unable to reach anyone in the mosque, until I reached the mosque itself and went into the basement carpark. I was even more nervous when I couldn't find the bag at the place where I might have left it, and immediately took the lift upstairs to the first floor to go to the management office.
I met the mosque's staff at the office (I'm not too sure whether he's Mr. Jamal or another staff) and, alhamdulillah, thank God, the bag was there and he gave it to me. He mentioned that upon receiving my call, he immediately went to the basement carpark and found the bag near the carpark's lobby entrance. There were some other people around when he found the bag so he asked them whether the bag belongs to them, and they said no, so he brought the bag to the management office and kept it there. Thank God!
I also met some of my friends from the wedding event there, and shared my experience with them. Because of that, I didn't manage to thank the mosque staff properly. Thank you, Mr. Jamal and An-Nahdhah mosque's staff, for helping me to locate and keep the bag for me.
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Posted by IndraPr on October 18th, 2009 — Posted in indonesia, travel
This article is originally posted on ABN's Asia Travel Blog here.
Pangandaran is a famous tourist attraction, located at the south-east end of West Java province, Indonesia. Its beaches are reputably the best and finest in Java island, and also offer excellent surfing. Other than its fine beaches, Pangandaran also offer a beautiful national park and its own version of green canyon.
However, its location at the southern regency of Ciamis in West Java makes Pangandaran not really appealing to Jakarta and Bandung tourists, let alone foreign tourists. By road, it takes around 5-6 hours to reach Pangandaran from Bandung, the capital city of West Java province, and it takes around 7-8 hours to reach Pangandaran from Jakarta, capital city of Indonesia, by road.
Fortunately, there is now a faster alternative to reach Pangandaran, which is via air. Susi Air, an airline previously specialised in chartered services, has started scheduled services from Jakarta and Bandung to Pangandaran. This will cut down the travel time between Jakarta and Pangandaran to only one hour. It will operate a Cessna Grand Caravan aircraft with a capacity of 12 passengers to service the Jakarta-Pangandaran route twice a day, one direct flight and another one with a stopover in Bandung.
The flight from Jakarta will depart from Halim Perdanakusuma airport, located east of the city and closer to the city centre compared to Soekarno-Hatta International airport.
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Posted by IndraPr on October 17th, 2009 — Posted in happening, singapore, travel
On Friday (16/10) morning, I received both SMS and e-mail from AirAsia, to inform me that my and my family’s upcoming Indonesia AirAsia’s QZ 7785 flights (same flight on different dates) from Singapore to Jakarta on December 2009 are being rescheduled from 12:40pm to 5:45pm. There seems to be a re-timing exercise affecting this specific flight number and all QZ 7785 flights after 25 October 2009 are affected.
I immediately logged in to AirAsia’s website and tried to change my itinerary to an earlier flight for the day using its “Manage my Booking” function, however I would have to pay S$40 “change fee”. Luckily, there were some other Indonesians in Singapore who had also purchased tickets for some future QZ 7785 flights and were affected by the same problem, and they were kindly enough to share their experience in Indo-Sing mailing list. They mentioned that if we call their call centre to request for a change to an earlier flight due to this re-timing, they will process it without charging the $40 change fee.
That’s good news! The only problem is that it was very difficult to call AirAsia’s call centre number in Singapore on that day. I tried calling the number (630 77688) since 10:30am in the morning and I kept on getting busy tones. I eventually managed to get in touch with them at around 3pm in the afternoon, and I immediately lodged my complaint about the change of schedule and requested for a change to an earlier flight, free of charge. He requested for the booking codes and I gave him.
The call centre staff then gave me a Service Request Number (SRN) and was transferred to their support staff. They put me on hold for quite some time (I think close to 5 minutes) before a support staff then took my call and request for the SRN. After I gave him the SRN, he then processed the flight change (for both myself and my family, who are on the same flight but different date) and informed me that I will receive an e-mail containing the new itinerary within 15 minutes. Yay! :)
Less than 5 minutes, I received the email with the new itineraries, and immediately print them. Just to make sure, I went back into the “Manage my Booking” function on AirAsia’s website to check the booking, and it’s confirmed that the flight has been changed to an earlier flight (10:30am) for the day, for both booking. I am a very happy AirAsia customer now.
Thank you, AirAsia. :)
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Posted by indra on October 15th, 2009 — Posted in Kejadian Terbaru, Komunitas Singapura, Pengalaman
Beberapa minggu yang lalu, seorang rekan blogger asal Bandung yang sudah saya kenal sejak lama tapi belum pernah ketemu, kang Indra "Odonk" K.H., mengirim pesan di Facebook, mengabarkan kalau beliau dan pak Budi Rahardjo akan berkunjung ke Singapura tanggal 9-11 Oktober 2009. Hari Sabtu (10/10) kemarin, Pak Budi menulis komentar di blog saya ngajak ketemuan, sekalian aja sama pak Budi Putra, katanya. Kebetulan memang pak Budi Putra sekarang lagi di Singapura, setelah beliau ditunjuk oleh Yahoo! sebagai Country Editor untuk Yahoo! Indonesia. Saya sendiri sempat bertemu dan ngobrol dengan pak Budi Putra seminggu sebelumnya, di Starbucks Suntec City Mall.
Kita janjian untuk ketemuan di Lucky Plaza, Orchard Road, untuk makan malam di restoran Lucky Prata, yang terletak di lantai satu pusat perbelanjaan tersebut, tepat di sebelah restoran Ayam Penyet Ria. Setelah membangunkan Irza yang ketiduran di mobil, saya ketemu dengan pak Budi Putra di depan Lucky Plaza dan langsung menuju restoran Lucky Prata. Pak BR sudah menunggu disana bersama dengan kang Indra KH, kang Rully dan putri pak BR yang sekolah di Singapura.
Dari kiri ke kanan: saya, pak Budi Putra, kang Indra KH, kang Rully dan pak Budi Rahardjo
Obrolan pun mulai mengalir dengan lancarnya, mulai dari misi kedatangan Pak BR dan team ke Singapura yang katanya dalam rangka "studi banding", sampai ke "terdamparnya" Pak Budi Putra di Singapura. Sebagai salah satu blogger Asia Blogging Network (ABN), kang Indra sempat menanyakan "nasib" ABN setelah Pak Budi Putra bergabung dengan Yahoo!, dan alhamdulillah Pak BP menegaskan bahwa ABN is his "baby" dan akan jalan terus, tidak akan ditinggalkan begitu saja. Jadi, untuk rekan-rekan blogger ABN, jangan khawatir.
Tanpa terasa, obrolan yang diselingi foto-foto terus berjalan dan karena Lucky Prata tidak buka sampai malam, kita pun pindah ke kafe The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf yang terletak di Paragon, tidak jauh dari Lucky Plaza. Obrolan pun terus berlanjut dengan asyiknya, sampai pada akhirnya kita pun harus bubar karena harus mengejar batas jam malam yang diterapkan oleh asrama tempat putri pak BR tinggal.
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Posted by IndraPr on October 7th, 2009 — Posted in travel, europe, france, seine, eiffel
On Monday, 1 June 2009, which was our first full-day in Paris, still recovering from jet-lag, we took our time in the morning to walk through A Kide's residence at Châtenay-Malabry.
Late morning, we had A Kide's driver, om Join, to take us to the most popular tourist attraction in Paris: the Eiffel tower. We needed to queue for about 1.5 hours to buy the tickets before we can climb the tower. We bought the tickets which can bring us up to the top floor. The price is €13 for adult, and €7.50 for child.
Note that they only sell tickets to walk-in customers, and the tickets can only be used on the same day they are purchased. I checked their website that found out that they are planning to provide online reservation services for all visitors, but that would only be available end of this year.
We took the lift directly to the second floor, skipping the first floor. We immediately circling the area and take pictures to all the different directions. One of our favourite directions for viewing from the Eiffel tower is the north-west view, towards Pont d'Iena bridge and Palais de Chaillot at Trocadero, with the tall buildings of Paris' business district, La Defense (pronounced "la difong") in the background.
Another of our favourite direction is the south-east, which will give the view towards the Champ-de-Mars park and Ecole Militaire building, with the ugly Montparnasse Tower in the background. South-west direction will give the view towards the Seine river, with RER train tracks crossing across the river, while north-east direction will give the view towards the north area of Paris, with the Taj-Mahal-alike building of Basilica Sacre-Couer visible on top of the Montmartre hill.
We then took the lift up to the top (third) floor, and the view is even more amazing from higher level. It's also a bit windy up there, so we decided not to spend too much time there and went back to second floor. After had some snacks on the second floor, we descended back to the ground floor, in time to see some kind of procession parade passing through the road just in front of the tower.
We then further descended to the riverside under the Pont d'Iena bridge, for us to take the Bateaux Parisiens boat cruise tour along the Seine river. This includes automated commentary through headsets which are available on each seat. The price is quite cheap, €11 for adult and €5 for child.
We purchased the tickets and boarded the boat from pier number 3 along the number of piers just in front of Eiffel tower. The boat took us to the east direction from Eiffel tower all the way to the islands of Ile de la Cite and Ile Saint-Louis and back, passing under many bridges along the way: Pont de l'Alma, Pont Alexandre III and Pont Neuf, among others.
Unfortunately, the boat is not air-conditioned and with most of the boat's structure made of glass, it was becoming so hot in the afternoon. When we disembarked from the boat, we felt very tired, and with the jet-lag still taking effect (it was already night time in Singapore at that time even though it was still evening local Paris time), we decided to end our adventure for the day, and went back home to a Kide's residence.
More pictures can be found here.
(To be continued)
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Posted by indra on October 6th, 2009 — Posted in Testing
I have just installed Windows Live Writer 2009 on my HP Mini netbook. Does it mean that I will start to actively blog again? Not too sure. 
Can’t guarantee that.
Right now I’m just testing to use Windows Live Writer 2009 on my netbook. So far, it works just fine. Let’s see whether it can publish…
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Posted by IndraPr on October 6th, 2009 — Posted in happening, singapore, information, event
Green Media, a Singapore-based concerts and event management company, is bringing Padi, an Indonesian rock band, for a one-day only live concert here in Singapore. The concert is scheduled to be on Sunday, 1 November 2009 at 3pm, located at Dragonfly, a live music room within St James Power Station, Singapore’s first coal-fired power station built in 1927, which has since been converted into one of the Singapore’s leading music and nightlife venues located just next to VivoCity, in Harbourfront area.
According to Green Media, they currently have a special project which aims to bring together the various groups of Indonesian community already existing in Singapore and to help them co-exist with the Singapore community. PADI Live in Singapore! is a first in a series of events and concerts to be organised by Green Media which promotes peaceful social integration of the Indonesian community to that of the local Chinese or Malay community. The Indonesian and local friends' base that we have consists of the Indonesian Chinese, Malays and Eurasian from various religious backgrounds but with one main objective and love - the love for Indonesian music.
While their efforts are indeed to be appreciated, I was quite shocked to see the ticket price for the event. The standard ticket price is S$157 if purchased online, and S$175 if purchased at the door. The price includes of $2 booking fees and one drink coupon redeemable for soft drinks and juices only, but excludes $1 mailing/collection at venue charges. The ticket price is just too high, in my opinion. According to Andre, it’s even higher than the ticket price for The Police’s concert here in Singapore last year.
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Posted by indra on October 3rd, 2009 — Posted in Pengumuman
Banyak sekali blogger Indonesia di Singapura, yang dulu aktif nge-blog, sudah pindah ke negara lain, either meneruskan rantauan ke negara lain ataupun pulang ke Indonesia. Kalaupun masih ada yang tinggal di Singapura, para blogger tersebut, termasuk saya, sudah jarang sekali nge-blog, apalagi mengingat trend aktifitas microblogging melalui Twitter dan jejaring sosial melalui Facebook sudah meng-”outgrown” (pinjem istilah om Renatha) blog.
Sebagai contoh, bisa dilihat foto-foto gathering terakhir para blogger Indonesia di Singapura, dengan bintang tamu Pak Budi Rahardjo, pada bulan Desember 2007 yang lalu. Banyak rekan-rekan blogger yang ada di foto-foto itu yang sudah tidak tinggal di Singapura lagi, atau sudah tidak aktif nge-blog. Andri, Indi dan Rani, Goio, Fajri dan Arief sudah tidak tinggal di Singapura lagi. Sementara “sisa” para blogger yang masih di Singapura seperti saya, mbak Hany, Didik Achmadi juga sudah tidak terlalu aktif nge-blog.
Namun, seperti kata pepatah, people come and go, ada yang pergi tapi ada juga yang datang. Komunitas blogger Indonesia di Singapura kedatangan dua blogger yang cukup terkenal di ranah blogosphere Indonesia, yang pindah ke Singapura untuk bekerja.
Yang pertama, namanya sudah tidak asing lagi di dunia persilatan, eh, blogosphere Indonesia. Siapa lagi kalau bukan Pak Budi Putra, full-time blogger pertama Indonesia dan juga CEO dari Asia Blogging Network (ABN). Beliau pindah ke Singapura setelah bekerja untuk Yahoo!, sebagai Country Editor untuk Yahoo! Indonesia. Beliau sementara ditempatkan di Singapura dulu sambil membantu Yahoo! setting-up kantor di Indonesia.
Saya sudah cukup lama kenal dengan Pak Budi, sejak beliau masih bekerja di Tempo Interactive. Dan setiap kali beliau mampir ke Singapura, pasti beliau akan selalu menyempatkan diri untuk janjian ketemu dengan saya, di sela-sela kesibukannya. Saya ingat pertama kali ketemu dengan beliau adalah ketika kami bertiga, bersama Pak Rane “JaF” Hafied, ngobrol di Starbucks Orchard Road, seberang hotel Meritus Mandarin tempat Pak Budi menginap.
Yang kedua adalah seorang blogger Indonesia yang juga kebetulan adalah salah satu blogger ABN. Beliau adalah Yessi Pratiwi, yang sekarang bekerja sebagai global marketing di Lux, yang bernaung di bawah perusahaan Unilever Asia. Saya pertama kali bertemu dengan beliau di acara buka puasa bersama komunitas IMAS di Masjid An-Nahdhah, Bishan, sekitar sebulan yang lalu.
Saya, tentu saja, sudah memasukkan blog Pak Budi dan Yessi ke daftar kontributor Planet Singapura, situs agregasi blogger Indonesia di Singapura yang saya kelola, semoga berkenan. Selamat datang di Singapura.
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