Update Twitter Using Python Tweepy

I just spending sometime to play with tweepy. This post will show how to use that lib to access Twitter API.

First, install python (obviously). Second, install (if not installed yet) easy_install a tool to install python package easily. Refer to this http://pypi.python.org/pypi/setuptools

Go to console and check if easy_install instalation.

Now install tweepy module if not available yet.

Next create application in twitter so we can access the API. Go to this URL: https://dev.twitter.com/apps and create new application

Please note in there is a configuration to set application type.

After application has been created, we need some special authorization to access API. Twitter use OAuth. There are 4 important values that we have to note:
OAuth Consumer Key
OAuth Consumer Secret

and
Access Token
Access Token Secret

The last two are the token which is granted by our application user later.

Enough for configuration, now go to python console (I am using iPython) evaluate following code:

import tweepy

# provide all the keys and secrets

CONSUMER_KEY = 'the_key'

CONSUMER_SECRET = 'the_secret'

ACCESS_TOKEN = 'the_token'

ACCESS_SECRET = 'the_token_secret'

auth = tweepy.OAuthHandler(CONSUMER_KEY, CONSUMER_SECRET)

auth.set_access_token(ACCESS_TOKEN,ACCESS_SECRET)

api = tweepy.API(auth)



# do anything you want now

api.friends()

api.update_status('Hello world from Tweepy')

A Short Reflection of Age Increment

"Life is beautiful. Be grateful for everything you have but keep fighting to achieve every of your dreams"

Age is nothing rather than just a number increment. However the increment of age should be a great moment to do self evaluation. More mature a person should made him more wise and not the opposite, older but become more childish. Hopefully I can became the first type.

Like several years before, this writing will try to reflect what I feel and what I want to be afterwards. Indirectly it will be a kind of evaluation and resolution.

Start from evaluation. I get married now for more than full year. Although I am having long distance marriage but still, more or less I have to try and be more mature compared at the time I was single. But I think I have to be more expressive to show my love to my wife because at the other side my wife also always give many gifts and surprises. Including this wonderful video for my birthday.

And also an awesome cake surprise

Second I already work in Singapore for more than full year as well. There many things I have learnt for that range time. More demanding job and multicultural environment for instance. All of those things are shaping and improving me more.

Next is about what I want to achieve. I want to make it simple and less material oriented. "I want to be always grateful and humble in life". To do some tangible elaboration, I want to be an expert in my field but at the same time can give significant positive impact  to society, perhaps by being a speaker, writer, teacher or just a good programmer which can make some positive contribution (hopefully not become too cliche) for a better world. More specific, I want to be a good father this year (hopefully Allah can trust me). I want to have some shelter for my family soon. I want to write a book to leave trace that I've never exist in this world. Want to have some more wonderful job and activity.

So different with previous year post I don't want to make too long bullshit explanation bit instead just make small thing become true. "To be more grateful and more humble".

For the closing I just want to make same quote by myself for reminder to myself. "Life is beautiful. Be grateful for everything you have but keep fighting to achieve every of your dreams".

A Retrospective of First Wedding Anniversary: Why Your wife must be the most important person in universe?

This month is special month. In November I celebrate my anniversary of marriage and my wife birthday. I get married on 19 November 2011. So, I have been married for 1 year. Time flies. Everything feels just like yesterday. I can remember almost all scenery on last year. How we (me and my wife) were preparing all the wedding things in very short time. I don't wanna re-share again about all those express preparation. I already blabbed somewhere else. I just want to make a retrospective for this one year marriage.

Most of the people will get marriage one time. Some of unlucky couple will decided to divorce. Decision to get married is the most difficult thing to decide for most people. Even more, for religious person, marriage is a commitment to God.

Marriage is often symbolized as a ship with a husband as the captain and the wife as a navigator. Both of them have important role. Captain cannot drive alone and navigator cannot take over the ship. Harmony between husband and wife will determine whether the ship will sail smoothly to the right direction or at the worst case there is possibility the ship will sink when conflict is escalated become so big.

Regarding that ship analogy, there is one value that always emphasized by my parent in laws since the first time I propose my wife. Usually person will choose a spouse based on similarity. Same hobby, same style, same behavior  same education level, same interest, same common attitude, etc. Human love someone who similar with them. This is important because what is the point of married with totally different people. But we have to realize as well that, there is no identical human. Even twin sibling will have considerable differences. More and more for the case man and woman which are fundamentally different. The key is the leverage the differences for the good thing. For example complementing each other. If wife is an expert of speaking and husband is a good writer maybe they can share their knowledge that will make both of them expert of writing and speaking. Of course this is only very shallow example.

After one year, although most of time me and my wife are in long distance, I can conclude several things about marriage. Marriage is sweet at one side but also challenging at the other side. But undoubtedly  marriage will make us fell more peaceful and  Because we will arrive at the position where we have somebody to rely on. There are several challenges as well. Some significant examples are conflict and egoism. It is almost impossible for two human that spent most time together, day and night, summer to summer for don't have any conflict at all. Conflict is a spices in a marriage said some wise person. But too many spices will not the food taste good even can make it throw to the rubbish bin as a garbage.

At the end of this post I want to share a story.

***

One day in one philosophy lecture in one of good university, professor ask a question to the class. "Who are 10 most important person in your life which you will spent most of your life with them? Write in on paper" said the professor.

The student start writing some names. Logically most of them will write closest family like parents, children, spouse, best friends, etc until the list fill up to ten person.

"Now remove 5 of them!" Ask the professor.

In confussion student try to follow the order. Most of them again will remove the so not close person in their life. The will stroke so not best friend. So the 5 person in the list will consist only very important person for them.

"Now remove 4 of them. Leave only one trully most important person for you."

Confussion getting higher. Now the student start to think very hard who have to be removed and leaving only one person. Until sometime the professor ask the class to stop their activity. Then he ask one of his most brilian student to reveal the aswer.

"If I could only choose one, she must be my wife. My wife is the most important person in this world." Said the student.

"Why?" Ask the professor.

"Parents are important, children are important. But in this life we cannot choose who are our parent and who are our children. God decide for us. In other side I choose my wife when the same time she choose me. So if I can select one as the most important person in this world, I will only select my wife"

Dreamer vs Visionary

While I was writing a love email to my wife this morning, I got some topic to write.

I always love to talk about future dream. I like to imagine. I like to aim the target. I love the challenge. Speaking about future dream, actually there are two types of people based on how they react to their dream. First is a dreamer. Obvious. The second one the most important is a visionary. Similar but not same (remember the clause in bahasa: serupa tapi tak sama :p).

A dreamer is a person who just live in his dream. His mind flying here and there like a junkies. He have many things to achieve in his list. Hist mind full of imagination about how is when the dream come true. But this type of person is lack of effort. Most of time, his dream is just a dream. Like a cloud in the sky. Visible but not tangible. Dreamer is a person who look forward but just looking without moving. Who just aim but never shot and the target fly away.

The second type is the best. Visionary is a person who look forward and start to move immediately. He have list of things to do and just do it. Visionary is never wait the perfect moment, he fetch the moment. When he want something he will start then talk. Not talking too much but never start. Aim accurately and shot. He dedicated more effort and any effort to achieve his dream.

By the way, this distinction is based my own analysis, so most likely you will not find elsewhere. This concept also most likely will be not too valid :). By the way again, I share this concept just to make sure to be not too often to be a dreamer but move on more to be a visionary.

Sentimental Rain

I don't have interest yet to meteorology or climatology. But climate (one of theme researched in those mentioned sciences), is always affecting our daily life. One informal signal of season change in tropical country Indonesia can be derived by it's naming. When the naming of the month is end with "ber" like September, October and November, rain season has come.

Rain often brings sentimental feeling. Asphalt is wet, the air is humid and the temperature is cold. Singapore has been poured by rain again almost everyday since last week. But at least in here there will be not too much negative side effect of rain. As far as now, there is no flood or even puddle and without any significant reason usually no traffic jam.

Sometime my memory is thrown back to previous one year in my life. That was when I was still in Jakarta. When I was working, rush hour comes to office and going home from office will be literally rush and hectic. In normal condition, all the vehicle will be stuck in that rush hour. For the driver it will stressful. For the public transport passenger, it will be boring time to home. The situation will be worst when the rain come. Even for very short rain, congestion will be increased significantly. Travel time can be doubled. When I was in university, I remember a moment when some of my friend spent 5 hours to home, because of the rush hour after rain.

Without elaborating too much, on of the main reason of the traffic congestion is overload road capacity. When rain come the congestion become so significant higher because there will be a lot of bottleneck happen on the road. First bottleneck is careless motorist who take shelter in the middle of the road (usually below flyover or bridge) and disturb traffic flow. Second, because vehicle have to queue for passing some small to large puddle.

But that was a memory. Rain or not rain in Singapore the road traffic will be usually same. I just often enjoy sentimental moment in the bus ride to home. Rain is sweet and scary. Sweet because the cold that it brings can make us calm and scary because heavy rain usually brings black cloud with a lot of thunder. In Singapore we just need to wait for the last month with "ber" ending passed to leave this sentimental season. Hopefully can meet another rain season in next year.

Nine Algorithms that Changed The Future

I just finish read John MacCormick book, Nine Algorithms that Changed The Future some days ago. This book describe about algorithm in popular way. The selected algorithms are high level algorithm and not explaining basic algorithm like sorting, data structure and graph. For whom prefer the second  with complicated theoretical explanation can refer to Introduction to Algorithms by Cormen one of the best book about algorithm.

Let's start from the basic. What is algorithm? Formal definition can be found in text book and maybe will cited in wikipedia. For me algorithm can be explained as follow:

Algorithm = Recipes

Recipe is step by step definition to cook food. Same with algorithm, step by step definition to solve problems. But different with recipe which usually executed by human being, algorithm is executed by computer. Recipe can be written in free way and most of time can be understand by executor without to much problem. In the other side algorithm have to be precise in definition without any ambiguity so computer can executed that correctly. Later probably I want to write in more detail with popular way some post about fundamental algorithm.

In the mean time let's going back again to the discussion about the book. This book list following high level algorithm:

1. Search Engine Indexing
2. PageRank
3. Public Key Cryptography
4. Error-Correcting Codes
5. Pattern Recognition
6. Data Compression
7. Databases
8. Digital Signature
9. Computability

The content of the book is delivered with very easy to understand way. I skip reading number one and two because I have read many books about google and Apache Lucene with more and less already explaining basic thing about search engine indexing and PageRank. Public Key Cryptography is an awesome chapter. It describe about Public Key Cryptography using very good analogy. Error-Correcting Codes and Pattern recognition raise my interest again to artificial intelligence  Data compression is delivered with detail description. I skip chapter database and continue to Digital Signature. Digital signature have some similarity with Public Key Cryptography. Digital Signature is one of chapter that took my interest a lot. Digital Signature is a method about how we can sign something and make sure our signature will be not tampered by someone. Last part actually not discussing any specific algorithm but more elaborating a question about is it any thing that can be computed by computer? 

The book is so concise and can be finished reading around 3 hours cumulative reading. Very recommended. Another expectation, I plan to write something relate to Cryptography and Digital Signature.

The Power of Impulse Control

In Emotional Intelegence, one famous book of Daniel Goleman, has emphasized the importance of delayed gratification. This concept is introduced through Marshmallow Experiment conducted by Walter Mischel at Standford University. In that experiment, some children is offered a marshmallow. If the kid can resist not to eat that immediately and wait another 15 minutes he can get one more marshmallow. But for the kid who cannot resist temptation and eat the first marsmallow before 15 minutes then he cannot get second marsmallow.

Some years later, researcher follows progress of the children at adolescence time. Researcher sees "the delayers" -- the child who can wait is somehow more successful rather than "the grabber" -- the child who took gratification directly. The delayers have more impulse control than the grabbers.

Impulse control is an important component of Emotional Intelegence. Impulse control is so easy in concept but need strong commitment in practice. Impulse control is element that distunguish between success people and not too success. Also distinguish honest authority vs corupt authority. Corruption is one habit which a person cannot stand against immediate gratification.

The common sample of impulse control can be found in morning wake up. When we don't have anything to do e.g. In weekend we usually will add sleep time more than necesary even though maybe we also not totally sleep but just lying lazy on the bed. We enjoy to take more sleep rather than wake up directly to do more useful things. In other day when we have an important things todo like going to work or school in the morning we can wake up easier or at least we can push ourself to wake up from the bed. From this sample we can conclude that brain actually have full capacity in controlling how we react again immediate gratification. We just need to train ourself harder to stand against immediate gratification. You can read how we can train ourself in The Power of Practice post.

Hopefully next time when someone offers a marshamallow we can little bit patient and wait hopefully he will give another marshmallow. ;)

Image from: http://ellybeanstalks.blogspot.sg/2012/06/delayed-gratification.html

The Power of Rejection

A few days a go I receive a letter from Germany. My first rejection letter. Few months back I was applying to one master program in TU Ilmenau Germany. The program is so interesting. Research in Computer and System Engineering. Actually I will do anything (in positive way) to be accepted in that program. But unfortunately I was rejected this time. The announcement first come through email. The detail of rejection is coming by post few days back. I am not sure whether I will have another chance if reapply again. But I learn some important things from this experience.

First, rejection is bit. Second, rejection is sweet. The first reason is so tangible. Everyone doesn't like rejection at first moment, for any reason. But somehow, rejection at the moment later will give some useful advantage. New enthusiasm to be not rejected anymore. There three steps that I have identified to react to rejection.

• Accept
• Evaluate
• Retry

The first one is most difficult. Every time I got a rejection, I will lose my mood for couple of days. It has been proven by several time fail in scholarship application. I feel so hate to myself which is not competitive enough to be admitted  The feeling will become worst if not handled properly. The best way to handle it is by accepting the rejection. Sometime when we were rejected is not only because we are not competitive enough. But probably there are some required criteria that is not matched with our profile. This the thing that I learnt form the letter that I receive. My score is not enough to be accepted in Research in Computer and System Engineering mostly because my previous degree is not too similar.

After accepting rejection next is to evaluate. Why is we were rejected? Then do evaluation and prepare strategy adjustment or improvement. Don't be insane! Albert Einstein said: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different result. Adjustment will avoid us to be a donkey that trapped to the same hole. For every evaluation we have done, we will learn enormous experiences.

The last step is retry. With proper evaluation and strategy enhancement we should get different result. In case applying scholarship for example, we supposed to have better application and more prepare for any selection process like interview. We will also more prepared to be rejected again. But whose know if the next time we retry maybe we will success.

The Power of Practice

Yesterday, almost all major newspaper around the world put headline about record breaking being done by Felix Baumgartner by his jump from height about 39 Km. 39 Km more or less is Singapore distance from west to east. With speed driving we will spent about 45 minutes from end to end. But in Baumgartner's case the distance is vertical from top to bottom. He took only about 10 minutes and drop with supersonic speed. He became the first man who break speed of sound without riding any vehicle. One important lesson we can gain from this achievement.

The supersonic man doesn't got this skill in one night. He was quite famous by doing many jump from many high building. Several famous places that he have been visited are Petronas Tower and Taipei 101. Its mean he must be have train so hard. In this post I want to bring a discussion about the power of practice.

Gladwell mention about 10.000 hours rule in his seminal book Outliers. He said it will need about 10.000 hours learning and training to be an expert in one field. Then he give several example of success people like Bill Joy the founder of Sun Microsystem and Bill Gates founder of Microsoft who most likely have spent their 10.000 hours to enhance their particular skill. Similar case with Baumgartner and must be similar to us as well.

Life is iteration of learning. Who want to make progress in life supposed to be never stop to learn. Learn cycle is quite simple in my opinion.

• Read
• Repeat
• Retrieve. 

Please notice this is ordinary blog post that doesn't refer to any formal reference. But I hope the explanation could be quite logical. Read doesn't need to be literally reading text. Reading book or any text media could be the main resource of learning. But other form of "reading" like scrutinize carefully, see a beautiful nature and thinking deeply can be considered as a form of reading. As a Muslim, the first verse revealed is Iqra which mean Read. Read is the first moment when human brain exposed by information.

Brain is working like muscle. The more it used, it will be more stronger. That also the case of brain. The more it trained, the more it sharp will be. Read will not guarantee information will be persisted strongly in mind. The next important phase of learning is repeat. Repeat is the form of training for the brain. This is the most significant phase because this determine whether information and understanding can be saved permanently or at least in long term. Form of repeat in learning could be continuous reading, study test in shool or college, writing, sharing, etc. Any activity that involve using the information that have gained before can be considered as a form of repeat or practice.

The last want is retrieve. This is the part of we actually taking advantage of what we have learn. Back to Baumgartner case this is the moment when he finally jump from his Zenith capsule after several years of read and repeat. The success of learning can be asses by how easy information being retrieved and used. For example in learning language the successful learner should be have a capability to use his knowledge of language in communicating. In basic level he has been adapted to retrieve knowledge about that particular language and use it in communication easily.

At the conclusion  human ability is almost unlimited. Human can learn almost everything. Human just need to practice and repeat a lot. Then anyone maybe could be like Felix Baumgartner after enough read and repeat.

Preparing GRE

Today I just bought another book. On my lunch break time, I went to Junction 8 mall in Bishan. After browsing for a moment, my eyes attracted to one official GRE book from ETS. No need to long time 40 SGD have to go out from my pocket. GRE which stand for Graduate Record Examinations is a standardized test to assest analytical writing, verbal reasoning and quantitive reasoning of a person. Even though not mandatory, this test is usually used as an admission requirement for many graduate schools. GRE will be used especially for applicant who plan to apply a course which is different with his bachelor degree. More or less is the situation that I've face right now.

Since last two years, I have applied several scholarship. Most of time I was rejected. Several time I even don't get any notice at all. Finally I arrived to a conclusion, I have to evaluate my strategy. Improve my approach before I apply scholarship or apply to graduate school again. The first thing that appear in my mind is GRE. GRE is not mandatory in most scholarship or graduate school. But providing GRE must be a significant added value.

GRE itself consists General Test and Subject Test. General test is what I have mentioned previously. Subject test is special test which will measure knowledge in particular field of study. There are eight disciplines currently available:

• Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology
• Biology
• Chemistry
• Computer Science
• Literature in English
• Mathematics
• Physics
• Psychology

From those list, my concern beside General Test will be GRE Computer Science Subject test. Because most good graduate school in computer science most of them asking this test. General test is offered as computer based test in most place but Subject test is offered in paper based only.

GRE fee is 175 USD for General test and 150 USD for subject test. General test is available about every one month in most of places while subject test is available 3 times per year only. Personally I aims to take the test in about next 3 months. Let's begin to practice. :)

Fast Method for Learning jQuery using JavaScript Console

I already know jQuery for some years. But I just using jQuery excessively in my current project. One of requirement on this project is to minimize request to server either ajax or non ajax. So all processing is done in client and request to server is done only if very necessary. From this project I found one useful method in learning jQuery.

jQuery itself is JavaScript library which give developer facility to select and or modify part of html page using a kind of css selector. So learning jQuery is learning to use it selector. Previously my method in learning jQuery is by writing one html file and write my jQuery code inside one script tag and inside jQuery ready method as follow:

The jQuery ready method is very useful. Since jQuery aim is to process document structure of html then we have to make sure all html document object already loaded before jQuery script processing. We have to remember JavaScript which jQuery run for is interpreter language, it is processed from top to down. jQuery ready method fulfil that requirement.

Putting my learning code inside that block is not wrong in learning process. After writing our script we can refresh the page and see the result. Later we can edit our jQuery script inside that html file, save and refresh again. But there are other way to learn faster. We can learn more effective by using Google Chrome javascript console or Firebug in Firefox (other browser also have similar tools we can just use that as well). Buy using this tool we only need to load one html file for learning and playing the jQuery script inside the console. We can try various selector and manipulate document object model (dom). We don't need to go through type, save, refresh cycle anymore. We only need to edit html if we want to add more html structure for experiment. Otherwise we only need to interact with JavaScript console.

Let's go to practice by copy paste following html script into one file:


<html>
<head>
<title>Learn jQuery</title>
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script>
jQuery(document).ready(function(){
 // jQuery script here
});
</script>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Welcome to My Homepage</h1>
<p class="intro">This is Intro</p>
<p>This is paragraph</p>
<p>Another Paragraph</p>
Some list:
<ul id="choose">
<li>one</li>
<li>two</li>
<li>three</li>
</ul>
<div>Inside some div</div>
</body>
</html>

After saving file just open it using google chrome or firefox with firebug installed. This post will consider using google chrome only. If you are using other browser please adjust accordingly. Following is rendered page from above html script.

To open JavaScript console in Google chrome, we can go to wrench menu --> Tools --> JavaScript Console. Or we can just hit Ctrl + Shift + J. It will open following console at bottom browser:

From that console we can start play with jQuery. Just type "jQuery" to make sure jQuery setup properly. If showing like this than it already setup properly. 

By the way this post assume that you have internet connection because jQuery library referenced in html is loaded from CDN on internet. If you don't have internet connection make sure you download jQuery js file and referenced accordingly in src script attribute correctly.

Let start to use id selector type  jQuery('#choose')  in console. It will show the result below the script we type.

If jQuery cannot find the tree it will show empty bracket [] since selector found empty element.

Let's try to select element directly using  jQuery('li') . This will select all three elements of li tags.

Next let's play little bit with filter and start to play with manipulation. Type this inside the console jQuery('li:first').css('color','red'). This script will select first li in document and set it css property color to red. Final result can be seen below:

Ok that's all for now. We can see more complete capability of jQuery by reading its API at http://api.jquery.com . Using jQuery is the matter of getting used to know its selector. By using javascript console we can learn faster. 

Living in Singapore

Today I just saw my desk calendar. Little bit surprised when I realized it is already July 2012. It's mean more than 7 months I have work in Singapore. Of course I have been getting used with daily life here. When little bit sharing some history, since really first time I really want to work abroad. Even if I am not mistake, since I was in university. The chance finally came by itself when fortunately there was one project from one of IT consultant in Singapore which need human resources which very match with my profile. After several recruitment and selection processing I arrived in Singapore on end of November 2011.

Going overseas will force us to getting adapted to different environment and situation. There will be always good side and challenging side for everything. I will try to share those things in this post.

Good Things

Let's start with good thing. Singapore is very advance country. We can enjoy many great public facility. One of them is transportation. I think Singapore has the most advance public transportation system. Singapore has already long running MRT (Mass Rapid transportation) system that connect almost between all edge of Singapore and still growing. In following years will be added another new MRT line. Beside MRT public bus will connect MRT line to resident area or other area. Either bus and MRT are very clean same as well with MRT station and bus terminal.

Most of those transportation support cashless payment. The most widely used is EZlink card. By using this card we can enjoy integrated payment mode even if use combination of bus and MRT while we travel. We just need to tap the card to available reader on bus or at MRT station entrance and tap again when we alighting from bus or go out from MRT station. When we transfer mode of transportation for example from bus to MRT or from bus to bus, the fee will be calculated accordingly which a lot cheaper compare to cash payment. Of course cash payment still available some time. But for daily commuter cash payment will be lest economic and  slow.

Other great public facility in Singapore are sport facility. In almost every area there will sport center. In that facility usually available badminton court, basketball court, gym and swimming pool. All of those facility can be accessed by all people with affordable fee. Regarding swimming pool, Singapore is a country which has biggest density of swimming pool per area.

Move to other public facility is library. As advance country Singapore government fully aware to the important of education for society. Like sport facility, in every area there always a public library that can be accessed for 7 days per week from morning until 9 PM. The library have very update collection. For citizen membership is very cheap. For foreigner even though the fee is not as cheap as citizen but still reasonable. Library also placed in easy to access location like mall and near MRT station which can encourage people to visit often.

Next is park. Also similar with sport facility and library, Singapore has so many open park. Even though Singapore is small country but authorities here always try to maintain nature environment like park or city forest. In every of that open park there will be jogging track, lake, playing ground for children or even barbecue pit for gathering of people.

Beside facility Singapore also has minimum criminal act. We usually don't get too worried even though for example going home late at night. Because maybe since unemployment rate is minimum, automatically criminal act also very low.

Challenging Things

Let's next elaborate some of challenge when we have to come to Singapore. First, for small country Singapore is very diverse. As one of the proof, when we are in public transport, try to listen surrounding for one time. We can here one person speak mandarin on the phone, one couple will discuss in English, other group of people speaking tamil or maybe hindi, one other person also talk in the phone using Tagalog, three of people at the corner speaking Malay or maybe Indonesian language (Malay and Indonesian language even though heard similar but actually it different) and at different car other group of people will speak with some weird European language. It is mean we have to flexible with this diverse environment and always try to respect each other. Especially each people from different country will have their own culture and habit.

Most important challenge in Singapore is life expenses. Singapore is one of the most expensive country in the world. For someone who has first time job offer in here please don't be happy too soon when getting salary offer that seems so high. Everything in Singapore is quite expensive. The biggest expensive for living in Singapore is accommodation. Renting whole unit government subsidize apartment will be cost minimum 2000 SGD. The price will be higher 2 or even 3 to 4 times if renting unit in private apartment or condo. Cheaper solution for person that still single is to rent room only and sharing common area like dinning room, living room, kitchen and maybe bathroom with other tenant or owner.

Other expense is for daily consumption. Buy assuming one time cheap meal in food court for 5SGD then perday we will spend about 15 SGD. And per month will be 450SGD. Of course this is very minimum assumption. Other expense will be transportation. Per journey we can assume cost about 1.5 SGD so perday will be about 3 SGD. We haven't calculate for telecommunication and other emergency expense (maybe later I will write post dedicated for this topic). At least we can see quite clear that living expense is very high.

For the people who first time come to Singapore will be very enjoy with this country. But for the person who stay more than 6 months usually we can get bored easily. In this country we can go from one side to other side of country for less than one hour. It mean we can run out place to see very soon. My wife one time make a joke. She said it difficult to distinguish area in Singapore. Every area almost exactly same. Every intersection is very similar. I have to admit her statement is quite true. But don't get scary to die soon because boring. Actually if we discover more, there will be always good place to see in this nice country. We can just tracking to city forest, window shopping to so many mall in this country or just get on to the double decker and go randomly to any bus direction. Or perhaps if die die (this is Singlish) boring so much we just can visit neighbor county like Malaysia or Indonesia.

However even though challenging to live here, I have to admit again that this country is good and I love staying here.

Image from: http://mahorela.blogspot.sg/2010/09/mrt-fat-asses-and-superpowers.html

Ubuntu 12.04 Live CD Black Screen

I just try to install ubuntu on my new ASUS K43S. After burning the iso image file and load it to my laptop, the screen only show black with blinking cursor on the top left. To solution for this issue is to hit F6 on Live CD boot menu and select nomode.

Orange Ray in Marina Bay

This blog supposed to consist more technical content. But short poem for my wife should be ok written here. Technical guy also human, right? :)

Orange Ray in Marina Bay

Smile is like a white pearl
Sincere smile is like white beautiful pearl from deepest ocean
Sincere smile is you

Cheerish is like a sunrise in Marina Bay
Looks so pretty start with its orange rays
End with ultraviolet white light which comprise 7 colors like we've seen in rainbow
Cheerish is you

Sadness is like a blackhole in outerspace
It sucks any happyness nearby

Loneliness is like message on paper inside the empty bottle floating on the sea waiting to reach its recepient where sometime never reach at the end
Loneliness is unreplied message
Loneliness is like a husband who waiting to know where his wife when her home
Without any suspicuosness at all
Merely just want to care and to be cared

Distance is like a knife
Can be good mostly can be bad

I don't want distance will stab us

Mature is not the matter of age
Neither the matter of how many times someone prays per day
And this stupid poem is written by a man who try to be mature
But often always failed
By a man who try to be more gentle and patient as a husband

Raffles Place, April 15, 2012

The Wedding: Indri & Jon