Marek Bialoglowy's Blog

We will fall. We can rise!

2011-11-30T23:43:00.000+07:00

Los Angeles Galaxy won today 1-0 over an Indonesian all-star team. At least unlike Manchester United, they have not cancelled and actually played in Jakarta! Anyway, we all should remember what life is about. We will fall. We can rise!

Indonesian TV Commercials

2011-10-08T22:28:00.003+07:00

I'm against promotion of tobacco products, but I must admit cigarette companies in Indonesia release some of the best TV commercials in the world: The above TV commercial released by Djarum (Indonesian producer of clove cigarettes) really shows amazing beauty of Indonesia. Below another two cigarette commercials I really like: You can also compare it to TV commercials

Jalan Orang Utan (Orangutans Road)

2011-07-24T00:57:00.002+07:00

Not the kind of view I like to have on a trail run: Strangely, the name of this street is "Jalan Orang Utan", which means "Orangutan Road". Sad.

NakedPasswords

2011-03-12T01:06:00.001+07:00

How do you encourage users to enter stronger passwords? How about showing girl removing her clothing as the password entered by user grows stronger? That's exactly the interesting idea proposed by NakedPasswords. Yet, I'm not quite sure this would be legal to use in Indonesia (my ISP is yet to block it in their filters) and I think most female users would probably prefer to see a male version.

Java Trail Running - Scenic Views

2011-02-19T01:03:00.007+07:00

In previous posts I wrote about beautiful views trail runners can enjoy outside Jakarta. A picture is worth a thousand words, so I'll just share a few photos from my trail runs:

New trail running shoes - Nike Zoom Structure Triax+ 14

2011-02-18T23:33:00.010+07:00

My 6 months old Nike Zoom Structure Triax 13+ trail running shoes were already too worn out to continue running in it, so I started to look for a new pair of trail running shoes. I'm really happy with Nike, but just out of curiosity I wanted to check what other brands have to offer. I visited several Adidas stores in Jakarta, but they didn't have a single pair of trail running shoes, which was a

Giant wood spider (Nephila maculata)

2011-02-16T15:51:00.007+07:00

In the previous post I mentioned a Giant wood spider (nephila maculata) I saw on a trail run outside Jakarta. Well, I managed to record a short video (HD) of a female Giant Wood Spider having lunch: The body is around 10cm in length. If you look closely, you'll also see a tiny red spider. This is a male Nephila maculata, so small that female N. maculata would not even notice it.

Trail running in Indonesia - The Scorpion Trail

2011-02-13T00:33:00.016+07:00

Mountain areas near Jakarta offer trail runners some very beautiful views. Best trails often feature something exceptional such as unique landscape (e.g. rice terraces, tea plantations), unique forest (e.g. pine tree forests of Gunung Pancar), waterfalls, beautiful rivers and alike. However, what makes some of my favorite trails interesting are not the views, but the fascinating and unique

Trail running in Indonesia - Gear

2011-02-06T22:33:00.019+07:00

What lots of people living in Jakarta don't realise is that beautiful green scenery, fresh air, unique wildlife of Java is what you can get just 45 minutes drive South of Jakarta. If you wish to escape crowded Jakarta and smell smog free air, there are many great places out there to visit, exercise out in a fresh air (no fitness membership required!) or even do some trail running,

Do pineapples grow on trees?

2011-01-31T05:04:00.005+07:00

No they don't. Pineapples grow in the middle of a plant which grows up to 1.5 metres tall. The plant produces only one fruit and then dies. I took the above photos of pineapple plants in Indonesia around Bojong Nangka, near Gunung Putri (location details in Panoramio).

Method of unlocking locked Windows XP that works on some ThinkPad laptops

2009-12-20T00:45:00.006+07:00

This video demonstrates method of unlocking locked Windows XP [without password] that works on some ThinkPad laptops:

Time flies

2009-08-23T18:37:00.007+07:00

It's amazing how time flies. You've probably noticed lack of new posts for more than one year. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find much time to write anything due to permanent lack of free time. Fortunately, since my daughter is 15 months already, I should be able to start writing again soon. Over past year I've received massive amount of e-mails regarding various post on this blog - thanks

How to use Indonesian traditional toilet

2007-12-28T23:44:00.001+07:00

If you are a foreigner who plans to travel to remote areas of Indonesia, you may be surprised when visiting a toilet. Imagine you've just had too much spicy saus sambal and are in some serious need and instead of something that you'd normally expect to find in WC, you'll see something like this: Ooops, a major problem here! How to use this thing?!?! Fortunately, folks in India are using

BiZNET Storage Launched

2007-10-04T00:37:00.000+07:00

BiZNET has launched a very interesting service, a FREE on-line file storage with almost 1GB of free space to store any of your files on a remote server! It is easily accessible via web interface and I must say that access from Indonesian networks is incredibly fast. It is a fantastic service and I’m seriously surprised to see that local ISP could come up with something like that and offer it for

NetBeans IDE 6.0 Beta 1 Released

2007-09-18T21:09:00.000+07:00

We're getting closer to NetBeans IDE 6.0 Beta 1 was just released today. NetBeans is definitely my favourite Java development IDE, thus I try to follow its development. Some of the really cool updates are: smarter code completion; editable Diff (screenshot below); support for Ruby/JRuby/Ruby on Rails (including Ruby debugger) – for all those fans of Ruby programming language; finally NetBeans

Sumatra, more earthquakes

2007-09-13T10:16:00.000+07:00

This morning, there was another strong earthquake near the shore of Sumatra. Since yesterday, the area was hit by multiple earthquakes, including at least three really big earthquakes.

MAJOR M8.2 earthquake near Bengkulu, September 2007

2007-09-12T20:59:00.001+07:00

Today, there was a major earthquake very close to Bengkulu (~130km) (Sumatra/Indonesia) around 18:10 (WIB/GMT+7). As seen on the ShakeMap below [source USGS], it could be felt even in Jakarta, that is around 620km away! The scale of the earthquake is difficult to comprehend, just notice the huge area of the Sumatra island that was affected. Actually, it was a string of multiple strong

Aurigid Meteor Shower over Jakarta, Indonesia

2007-09-01T01:11:00.000+07:00

On Saturday, Sept. 1, a very rare meteor shower will take in the skies. The peak time is 6:30-7pm WIB (Jakarta time), which is not a favorable time for a Jakarta observer, because of two reasons. First of all, the sky is still relatively bright before 7pm, and the second reasons is that unfortunately in Southern hemisphere the meteor shower will be less visible as Auriga constalation - source of

Indonesian killed in Virginia Tech shootings

2007-04-18T01:28:00.000+07:00

Most likely you've already heard about shooting at Virginia Tech University, where Cho Seung-hui, a 23-year-old student of South-Korean origin has killed more than 30 people. Today, more news about the story emerged including information about one Indonesian who has been killed during the shooting, that is Partahi Mamora Halomoan Lumbantoruan. In less than 2 weeks, on April 26th, it would have

Solaris 10,11 telnet 0-day vulnerability

2007-02-13T00:23:00.000+07:00

How long does it take to remotely hack fully patched Solaris 10 installation with telnet enabled? As long as it takes to type this simple standard system command: telnet -l"-fusername" host i.e. telnet -l"-fbin" solaris10-server or telnet -l"-fsys" 127.0.0.1 Yeh, it's that simple. Here's a screenshot: Information about this 0-day vulnerability appeared on a security news list today and

Jakarta Flood 2007 - Wednesday

2007-02-07T19:15:00.000+07:00

I went back to Kelapa Gading to copy some data from my workstation. I moved out of Kelapa Gading on Monday evening, so I had the opportunity to see how the flood condition changed. The news is good. Basically, the flood is off the major streets of Kelapa Gading area, but most houses are still flooded. It is also rather difficult to get into the area using a regular car as all the access points to

Evacuated

2007-02-06T10:16:00.000+07:00

Living isolated in Kelapa Gading has become unbearable, thus yesterday I moved out of the area. My evacuation vehicle was a Teh Botol SOSRO truck. More than 10 trucks from SOSRO were picking up people all around Kelapa Gading area and transporting to safe location. I'm not sure if SOSRO knows about it, I've tried to ask but they web-site is not updated since 2001, all contact details are wrong

Jakarta Flood 2007 - Sunday

2007-02-04T15:52:00.000+07:00

Another day of the Jakarta flood. Today, I had to go through the flood to Cempaka Mas to buy some food. Surprisingly, there was actually more water in Kelapa Gading area than yesterday and I barely managed to cross the river to get to Cempaka Mas mal. Well, and when I already got there it was a completely different world. Business running as usualy, shops and restaurants open, supermarkets full

Flooded Jakarta at night

2007-02-04T04:28:00.000+07:00

Water is an excellent conductor of electricity which makes electrocution a number two cause of death in floods. Knowing this Indonesian state electricity company PLN (Perusahaan Listrik Negara) has cut electricity in areas of Jakarta affected by the February 2007 flood: I took the above photos on Sunday around 4AM, just after a heavy rain. The first one shows area of Cempaka Mas (view of

Jakarta Flood, February 2007

2007-02-03T18:15:00.000+07:00

This week Jakarta experienced disastrous flood triggered by the high intensity of rain in the city and surrounding areas. It all started with a very heavy downpour on Thursday night which caused floods in some areas of Jakarta. Next morning number of offices reported missing employees who most likely could not get through the traffic havoc caused by the flood. I was myself stuck in the traffic

Jakarta's three-in-one solutions

2007-01-26T22:47:00.000+07:00

Jakarta has some interesting three-in-one rule, in which a car must carry at least three passengers when passing through a restricted zone - applied from 7AM to 10AM and from 4:30PM to 7:30PM. The regulation was put in place by Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso in order to reduce traffic jams in Jakarta. You might think that this could be a very fairly annoying obstacle. Well, not for some clever

Molucca Sea Earthquakes

2007-01-22T02:14:00.000+07:00

A number of earthquakes occurred today in the Molucca Sea region close to small Islands of Gureda and Maju. String of earthquakes started with major 7.3 magnitude earthquake which occured on 18:27 WIB (GMT+7) time and shook surrounding islands: The first earthquake caused damage to buildings in North Sulawesi cities of Manado, Bitung, Tongkoko and also Island of Ternate located on the East of

Mobile Phone Based Emergency Alert/Information Systems

2007-01-15T23:19:00.000+07:00

Each year brings new advances in mobile phone technology which enables our mobile phones with new features and introduces new services related to it. Modern mobile phones allow us to take photos or videos and instantly share it with other users via MMS/e-mail. We also have 3G video call, mobile games, Internet browsing from mobile phone, mobile banking, location based services and so many new use

Top 10 best of living in Indonesia

2007-01-10T20:50:00.004+07:00

Ever wondered why some foreigners like to live in Indonesia? Well, maybe my list of TOP 10 best of living in Indonesia will explain. Here it goes. 1. Best coffee and tea in the world. Cultivation of coffee trees in Indonesia started on Java in 17th century when Dutch first brought coffee to Batavia (city changed its name to Jakarta in 1942) and started export of the second oldest commercially

Adam Air PK-KKW aircraft NOT crashed near Polewali (West Sulawesi)

2007-01-02T10:31:00.000+07:00

On 1st January 2007, Adam Air Aircraft Boeing 737-400 flight KI-574, registered as PK-KKW departed from Surabaya to Manado at 05:55UTC (12:55WIB, JKT time) with total of 96 passengers and 6 crew on board. The aircraft was first missing yesterday and it was later reported to be found near Polewali town (West Sulawesi). Base on recent news there were only 12 survivors of this air disaster.

Sunday morning M5.7 Earthquake felt in Jakarta

2006-12-24T16:10:00.000+07:00

This morning around 6AM my wife woke me up as she has felt an earthquake. Accodring to her the appartment building was swaying which was fairly scary. I couldn't feel anything in my sleep so I was actually wondering if it was only a dream. However, just few minutes later I got an SMS "Moderate earthquake (M5.7) occured on 24-Dec 05:59:47 (WIB/GMT+7) 52km (SW) from Labuhan (West Java), 148km (SSE)

Rainy season arrives in Jakarta (Dolphins?!)

2006-11-12T01:07:00.000+07:00

Long-awaited rainy season clearly arrives as we finally have some rain in Jakarta. This certainly brings risk of floods, horrible traffic jams caused by massive rainfalls, need for an umbrella etc. which all is obviously nothing fun. Fortunately, there are some positive aspects of heavy rains such as less pollution after the rain or cooler weather. Strangely, I've always had strong interest in

Siau Island: North Sulawesi (Indonesia)

2006-11-06T23:17:00.000+07:00

Recently I've been on a very short holidays to North Sulawesi, to be precise the Siau island. It is rather remote area as it takes 7-8 hours by ferry from Manado to get there - it is very close to the Philippines. I must say it is an amazing place that offers multiple tourist attractions such as incredible white sand beaches, amazing ocean life, active volcano, hot springs, great seafood and lots

Mo-Na-Li-Xa and 500kg Free Semen

2006-09-11T12:59:00.000+07:00

Jakarta is such a fun place to live that I just can't stop enjoying living here. One of the things that often makes ma laugh is use of English language in advertising. In Jakarta you can often see a big advertisement in a major newspaper written in English language and full of grammar and spelling mistakes. I'm not a native English speaker, thus my English is not perfect either, but in my

Photos: North Sulawesi

2006-06-26T01:23:00.000+07:00

Following the previous post with photos from Bali, this time I'd like to post few photos from my trip to North Sulawesi ... Bunaken Island around Bunaken Cruise around Bunaken Fishing at Sangihe Island (7h by boat from Manado) Beach at Sangihe Island Manado from boat Bunaken was certainly an amazing place to visit and corals were indeed incredible beautiful. I really enjoyed swimming by

Fighting On-line Scam

2006-05-17T01:10:00.000+07:00

If you are tired of spam, here comes an idea of good revenge. In a brief summary Nigerian scammer got tricked and sent two guys to travel 1.400 miles (2253 km) from Nigeria to Chad in order to pick-up nonexistent money from nonexistent camp. The story is ongoing and to this date two guys from Nigeria already travelled 931 miles and I believe everyone is waiting to see how the story ends. Mr

May 12th 1998

2006-05-12T22:20:00.000+07:00

On May 12th, students at Jakarta's Trisakti University, many of them the children of the elite, planned to march to parliament to present the government with their demands for reform. The police prevented the students from marching. Some time after 5pm, uniformed men on motorcycles appeared on the flyover which overlooks Trisakti. Shots rang out. Four students were killed. Several bloggers

Google shoots a satellite Photo of Jakarta

2006-05-10T07:01:00.000+07:00

Very good news! Google Maps and Google Earth finally provide high quality satellite map of Jakarta. Finally, after waiting for so long, I’ll be able to use this precise satellite map of Jakarta in my own applications (through Google API), I can also measure the distance between various points of Jakarta (using Google Earth), record location of various places in Jakarta, use this map in my

Photos: Silent Bali

2006-04-30T01:05:00.000+07:00

Indonesia is an amazingly beautiful country. I feel very lucky to be able to experience its beauty and I feel it compensates all the madness of life in Jakarta. The best way to express what I feel is to share my favourite personal travel photos. For a start Indonesia’s no.1 tourist destination which obviously is Bali. Kuta Beach. Beach near Candidasa. Candidasa. Candidasa. Traditional

The tale of Mba Sri and a missing mobile phone

2006-04-29T15:16:00.000+07:00

Majority of Jakarta’s middle class families employ at least one domestic servant. For few hundred thousands Indonesian Rupiahs monthly (US$40-100 + food) servants cook meals, wash dirty dishes, clean the messy house or apartment, wash and iron dirty clothes, take care of kids while parents are away etc., the list goes long. Overall they save their employers lots of time which they can spend in a

In Indonesia TV stands for "Teaching Violence"

2006-04-17T01:00:00.000+07:00

While browsing through Indonesia related blogs I’ve hit on a very good article by Duncan Graham on his Indonesia Now blog. Let me quote few lines of the article for you: Thanks to the TV companies’ commitment to lifting the national knowledge base I’m smarter, wiser - and more evil. You thought TV means television? Wrong, foolish reader. It stands for Teaching Violence. I now know how to

Protecting your Copyright in Indonesia - Brief Guideline

2006-04-16T13:47:00.000+07:00

Following the previous post Copyright Piracy in Indonesia I've asked lawyer to prepare a short guideline on how to ensure protection of your copyright in Indonesia. Following is the response from known Indonesian lawyer Rakhmayanti Esther Makainas: Just like in many other countries, copyright in Indonesia is protected under the law (Indonesian Copyright Act No.19/2002). Most of the Indonesians

Google Calendar Launched

2006-04-13T23:59:00.000+07:00

I was pleased to see Google launching Google Calendar service today, thus additionally to extremely useful GMail service, you can now use Google Calendar, all FREE. The following features are supported - starting from the one I like the most: • Notifications: you can receive notifications about your calendar events to e-mail, pop-up messages or via SMS (unfortunately not supporting

Copyright Piracy in Indonesia

2006-04-13T01:00:00.000+07:00

There is no doubt of a common lack of respect for copyrights in Indonesia. This problem not only affects most frequent victims such as music or movie industries, which is the most noticeable if you just happen to visit Mangadua or ITC near Mal Ambassador. Several other business areas while less noticeable are also heavily affected by copyright piracy. One of such areas is architecture, which

Clouds over Jakarta

2006-03-24T17:02:00.000+07:00

Since my holidays, I haven’t got much time to publish anything on my blog. I’m working on a bigger research paper covering banking security in Indonesia, which unfortunately requires lots of work. Beside that, I’m still heavily occupied with my current projects, thus hardly can find spare time for anything else, such as my blog. I hope to be able to write some security related articles when I

Fear Factor: Flying with Adam Air

2006-02-17T04:45:00.001+07:00

Recently on the way back from my holidays in Bali, I took a flight from Denpasar to Jakarta with Adam Air. I’ve heard about this relatively new airlines from several friends who all mentioned that Adam Air have brand new aircrafts and are even authorised to fly to Singapore. It sounded extremely good especially considering the one way ticket price of Rp295.000, which was just a bit higher than

Holidays in Bali - enjoying modern communication technology while securing my laptop

2006-01-26T20:27:00.000+07:00

I’m now on my holidays in Bali, which should explain lack of updates on my blog. It is rainy season here, thus the weather is quite cloudy and rains at least once a day. I personally think this type of weather is pretty much perfect for holidays, as it is not too cold and not too hot. Cloudy Bali. Surprisingly, thanks to strong Bali sun even in a very cloudy weather I could get sunburned. The

Mobile Application Development: Can I do it? (Part 2)

2006-01-14T13:29:00.000+07:00

In the part one of the article series I’ve introduced the very basics of mobile application development that is a preparation of mobile application development environment. I’ve also introduced the technology that will be used in all the series of “Mobile Application Development: Can I do it?”. The chosen technology is Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition (J2ME) and NetBeans IDE (Integrated Development

Dangerous food in Jakarta

2006-01-12T17:36:00.000+07:00

Indcoup writes about problems of food safety in Jakarta. Dangerous food is on my top 3 most disturbing things in Jakarta, just after the nightmare traffic and scary butcher doctors. Just read the post and join the discussion. Meanwhile, Jakartass writes about various problems with customer service often faced by ppl in Jakarta. All very interesting read.

Special Security Warning: Windows OET Font Heap Overflow Vulnerability

2006-01-11T04:22:00.001+07:00

A friend of mine has been researching Windows Embedded Open Type (EOT) Font vulnerability that he discovered in Windows about a week ago. Just when he finished the analysis, eEye released the vulnerability advisory, thus being ahead of him. Anyway, to this moment his analysis is the best known publicly available analysis of this vulnerability. Overall, the vulnerability should be considered as

Unhappy with Wi-Fi hotspot insecurity? Fight for your rights!

2006-01-10T16:09:00.000+07:00

I’ve received number of interesting e-mails from my readers in relation to the Wi-Fi Hotspots in Jakarta – Hacker’s playground article. One of the often repeated subjects in e-mails was the terms and conditions of hotspot service set by local ISPs. Someone pointed out that one of the Indonesian ISPs obligates users to accept the fact that the hotspot service is

Ask Marek: How to set-up Internet connection for my SME office in Jakarta?

2006-01-07T01:30:00.000+07:00

As I work in Indonesia/Singapore as an IT consultant and auditor (mainly IS Security), I've gotten used to receiving a number of interesting IT related questions from my clients and friends. As I want to run a few regular sections on my Blog, I had an idea of a regular section that might be very useful to many. It is simply called "Ask Marek", where I will try to answer on all possible IT related

Mobile Application Development: Can I do it? (Part 1)

2006-01-05T02:28:00.000+07:00

Modern mobile phones provide number of advanced functions, among which possibility of running mobile applications seems to be the most interesting feature. It changes a standard mobile phone into a mini-size yet still powerful computer able to run various applications. Available mobile applications range from games or and organizer type of applications to advanced business applications designed

What Happens when Mobile Virus Goes Bad?

2006-01-02T17:52:00.001+07:00

Refering to my previous post on Mobile Viruses in Jakarta :-) Click on the picture above to see full-size picture story.

Jakartass Blog Awards 2005

2006-01-01T21:56:00.000+07:00

My Blog has been mentioned in the Jakartass Blog Award 2005 :-) Thanks Jakartass and keep up the good work of independent journalist!

Happy New Year 2006 from Indonesia

2006-01-01T01:46:00.000+07:00

Happy New Year, Selamat Tahun Baru, Xin Nian Kuai Le! My best Happy New Year Wishes to you all! Let this New Year 2006 (11111010110) be prosperous for us all. But that’s not the end yet. For the New Year eve I’ve prepared a small and special geek style gift for all of you. My gift is a calendar of public holidays that you can import to your Microsoft Outlook or other electronic organizer. I

Mobile Fauna – what’s eating mobile phones in Jakarta?

2005-12-29T02:59:00.001+07:00

Some time ago I published a two part article (part one, two) in the Security Focus on the subject of Bluetooth security. As part of the article I discussed worms that were appearing on mobile phones at that time. I am still active in researching the Bluetooth security, but my current attention is more on Symbian OS related aspects, rather than communication medium such as Bluetooth. As part of my

Wi-Fi Hotspots in Jakarta – Hacker’s playground

2005-12-25T19:58:00.000+07:00

Wireless Internet access points also called “hotspots” are increasingly available at cafes, malls and restaurants within business districts of Jakarta. The popularity of hotspots is increasing and more and more business people equip their laptops with wireless cards in order to have access to Internet while they are away of their desks. If you are a happy owner of a wireless enabled laptop, you

First Post!

2005-12-25T18:12:00.000+07:00

I decided to start my blog. This is the first post!