Life of meaning

There were some people coming from different path and heading toward one same direction. They met in one intersection. Not too far from that intersection, there lied a tree, a big one (just combine the street, the path, and the tree, and you easily have a different story on it :p). A tree with enormous amount of fruit hanging on it. They looked at each other, and they decided to climb that three, to pick up some fruits. Some people climbed until a few meter ahead the others. Some people just looked for a long stick to reach the closest fruit above them. They didn’t climb. Finally, all of them got the fruit, relatively same amount of fruit in their bag.

A few second later, some people decided to start eating that fruit. Some people just stared on it, but ate the fruit at end. They sat down side by side down the tree. Everyone looked like enjoy their small food, in the middle of nowhere. Suddenly (there is always a climax in every story, but I don’t know how to start better than the word ‘suddenly’ ), some people started to cry. Not a real cry actually, the tears streamed down glide upon their face. Just a few second later, the others people started to throw the fruit on their hand, a half bite fruit, into the bush. They looked so terrified. The rest of them looked so confuse, about what just happened. They wanted to ask, but too reluctant to move from their seat.

So, already have an answer? No, it don’t actually have an even close connection with the title :p. There are three different schemas, three different kinds of people, and three different reasons of what really happen above. Why three? I hope you still remember about yesterday, today, and tomorrow things. So, what on earth this my three favorites thing play the role in my story today. The simple answer, it happened everyday. The closest thing around us. The easiest thing I can imagine. Thousands mystery there waiting to be solved (or not). And the last, they compose a thing called life (my ‘quote of the day’ ).

Basically, there are three different paths from them coming. Simply change the word paths into pasts on the previous sentence. That would be done it perfectly. These three groups of people are heading toward one direction: The future, or tomorrow. But, in the middle of their journey, just a few meters away with that intersection, they met a big tree with many fruits on it. The story teller always has a big expectation with every tree in their story. I don’t know why, but I can guess, that the tree has a similar character with its story teller or the story itself. It always grows no matter you do, covering you with it leaf, giving you a sense of peace, secure, and life. A perfect descriptor to describe about what the story teller want to be. Yup, I want to be that story teller, I want to be that tree.

Well, back to the topic. When everyone decided to picking up some fruits, they do in vary way. Most of them climbed that tree, with vary level of elevation. Rest of them just looked for some stick to help them to reach the closest fruit above them without climb up the tree. Still, at the end, they got relatively same result, same amount of fruit. We can’t get the real meaning of this until we move on the next scene (emm,, what the complementary word ‘scene’ in story matter? Whatever). After they got what they want, or maybe its better using phrase: achieving their goal, they react in vary ways. Some of them drop their tears, half of them calm for a second, and then look so terrified, and the rest of them act like common people do.

There are three kinds of people that I’m trying to describe. The first group of people are the people with the highest effort to achieve their goal, actually not an effective one, a process oriented one, a people that choosing life of meaning. They climb higher than the other, and they easily spill out the tear when they succeed achieving their goal. They respect the past, and do the best for today. The second groups of people are the people with an average effort to achieve their goal, they doubt all the time, and think about future much than the others. They really try to pursuing a life of happiness but unfortunately they got it all wrong. They got nothing but worried and terrified about uncertainty of tomorrow. The last group are the effective one, they goal oriented, they ignore the past, the past will only slow them down, they believe that tomorrow is just another today, tomorrow they will achieve even greater goal, they dedicated themselves to pursuing life of happiness. And likely they have it.

There are two different way of life. Life of meaning, and life of happiness. A clearly two different path that we never have it both. Chasing happiness in your life, will likely lead you into ‘yes that I want’ people, third group in story above. We talk about happiness in common, not the truly happiness (no one can describe this kind of happiness, only God had it right to fill it in your heart), the measurable one, the thing that had been chased by the ancient king in this world, the thing that sometime we feel it far beyond us, the thing, when you reached, will probably giving you nothing but satisfy. It will make you happy always, but which happy?

The other path is life of meaning. The life itself has totally teach us how to think, how to speak, how to react, how to respect, and how to life itself. You never lost when choosing this path. Because everything has it own meaning, it own purpose, no coincidence. You will respect the past as your great shifu, do your best for today, and make a wish for better tomorrow. There will no single moment such as pain, angry, sad, love, lonely, down, happy, without you notice what that really mean. We can look everything behind the wall, everything behind the code, everything beneath the earth, but it doesn’t seem what it like. Just like the piece of lyric from maroon five: ‘..we have not hit the ground, doesn’t mean we’re not still falling..’.

The better understanding of the life is, the better we can overcome the entire problem. I don’t really mean to be a teacher here, I just want to spill out the ideas that has fulfilled my head in this last twelve hour. Perhaps you’ll find out that many ideas doesn’t match with yours, feel free to give me a feedback. I know I have no competence to write about life and so on in my relative young age. You’re the one who have greater experience about your rough life. But, remember this is not just about the story…

Whose your brothers really are?

“They will dead poorly, shame you all…”

“They waste their time, their life chance…”

“It would be better if you can save your little energy (and your soul of course) with helping victim in your nearby nature disaster in your own country. That would make sense…. ”

“They don’t have any skill, what on earth they are thinking then? They will, I call it extremely lucky, if they can even kill one of Israel soldier”

  Those sentences above are the bunch of idea came from my friend when I browse some of the page that contains news about volunteer from Indonesia who will about go to war in Gaza. I found it quite disturbing me in that moment. It simply hurting me as well. The experienced, the fact that I lived in heterogeneous environment, and the air conditioner itself (it greatly vaporize my temperament), would likely bring a success to stopping me to make a further debate. And than I realize, what wound that created that time? And why do I have to hurt as well? And, I admit, I feel so ashamed to realize that I’m not the one who go on the fight. Are this the feelings that we should feel, when our brother out there, the same religion, the people who ever say syahadah, being threatened unfairly, being killed, and under invasion? I would simply say YES. That mad are what we supposed to feel. That hurts are what we supposed to share. That shame is what we supposed to figure the better way out before we are in state of doing NOTHING.

Well, we just find the paradox here. How about if the one, who tell four of those sentence, is a Muslim? I just can’t understand what they were thinking. Are these going to be the very end of the day? The prophecy says that the Muslim will be outnumbered but few of them have an even good quality, and, I believe, it already happened. But, yes of course, the just reality had given me a brief explanation of the reasons, at least one, why the cursed Jew dare to attack Gaza. They, the brilliant cursed Jew, knew that they won’t likely get a meaning obstacle from other Muslim’s country. And it proved. I just barely see that attack is not the ‘real attack’. It just the ‘how long I can attack without any big counter’ attack from the ‘devil formed human’ Jew. I’m quite sure that if the other Muslim remains calm and not doing something big to stop the attack, then we will soon see the real attack is (not to mention that the current attack is what we should ignore about).

I ask you, the one who tell the sentence above, to not to tell that words again. Before that word became your faith, your blood, and your character. Before the God give you a slap, or worse, before God tells you in a hard way. And, I bet, you don’t really understand what you are trying to deal with. Just realize, that nothing left for us to save the Palestine except that brotherhood, the bond of being Muslim,  and the spirit itself.

I know I’m doing nothing here. We’re doing nothing here. But, at least, please, once again I say PLEASE, respect them. Respect the people who want to give their live to their faith, to fight what they believed, to earn what they supposed to earn, to win what we supposed to win there. I know that there is no prize for the runner up in the war. But I’m sure; you all, the people who giving up his soul for the Islam, are already claiming your price by your intention to fight in the Gaza.  So, keep fight, just believe what you all have to believe. I’ll pray for you all, brothers.

Next Stop, Jakarta: Sudden-Call

That morning everything seems to be usual for me. Wake up early morning, browse the internet for unimportant news and email checking, and waited for my friend to do my recently routine, applying for job. Yup, that was my routine since I’ve finished my final project. Applying for job in the morning, browse the internet in the noon, and chatting with friend in the rest. Waiting for uncertainty, waiting for my destiny, waiting for job, what the not interesting routine at all. And, the worst, I think I was graduated at the wrong time. That was second economic crisis suffering Indonesia. The fact that I haven’t been yet in unemployment state for less than 1 month doesn’t make everything better.

This city, Surabaya, had given me a lot of experience, knowledge, memory, skill, friend, and character. I’ve been living in this city for almost six years, a quite long time I think. And I do have a plan to stay in there longer. Got a job in this city would likely make both my mom and me happy. I still can do a trip to home at least once a week. So my mom won’t be alone as well. That was my previous grand plan. The ideal condition for me, the ideal choice, the comfort zone, the perfect area, and I don’t think there was another better option lied there. Well, I think God already had a big plan, a huge one, for me. Not that one of course.

My cell phone rang. It was Jakarta number. Another Jakarta number. That didn’t surprise me. I threw my application letter rapidly in internet in that recent week. All those company is locating in Jakarta. So, the question was not who was it, but when the interview taken. And the answer was clear enough. I had refused 4 interview offers recently, and that time, if that man or madam behind the phone asked for arrangement for interview, I will answer that I’ll be there at least one week from now. I wont there for sure. That week I applied for at least 15 jobs simultaneously when institute held a job fair there. And still 12 opportunity left before I began to consider accepting interview offer from some company in Jakarta. Twelve is still better than three or four. But, that is not how destiny works.

I was tried to be gentle as I can to answer that phone. Acted like young executive answering the phone from his client. Lowering my voice and said, “Ya, halo,,”. And the conversation goes. Later I found that I have little misjudge here. The company was offering me a contract. Not an interview offers. So the plan was about to changed. And it had to be done quickly. I called my mom as soon as I got that news. She seem to be happy, happy for me, but I didn’t really now what she feel that time. So this kind of news, a relishing one, didn’t give much time and space for me to think. I even forgot to ask, when I will start working. All I know that time was how do I get there as soon as possible, and go back to Surabaya to finish unfinished business, and back to Jakarta again for real things, for pursuing one of my goals in this month, got a job.

That immense spirit suddenly brought me to Gubeng rail station, after finishing my own business in campus of course. I got my friend in companion, same man that came into my boarding house that early morning. I need him, because I hadn’t done such a reservation ticket before. He told me that we could do a reservation in any station and depart in other station. So, I had decided to bought a business class ticket from Gubeng rail station and depart from Pasar Turi rail station. But, I can’t find the business class there. The girl, wearing a neat blue suit, told me that I had to go on Pasar Turi station to find business class ticket there. Because Gubeng rail station didn’t provide the business class one.

My friend’s theory didn’t work at all. That’s mean I had to go further in the west to get that ticket. And then, I had to leave Gubeng and arrived at Pasar Turi 20 minutes later. Just go find a locket after entrance gate, my friend’s said. I hoped that time he was right. And yes, that time he was right. I found the locket. Standing in queue for about 5 minutes, and came my turn. I asked for business class ticket for tomorrow departure, and the women quickly answered that she haven’t had that one. What? How could? That was not a quite busy day I think. And there should be a lot ticket unreserved. Well, that was all about the price, and the opportunity that I’ll be back in Surabaya immediately after signing in contract if there was a space between them. After little debating there, I decided to buy an executive class one. That going to changed my plan before.

The plan before was, I came back to Surabaya for a while to do some packaging, do proper goodbye to my friends in the Kosan (that was how I named my boarding house, and my beloved workgroup in my personal computer), and enjoy rest of the time in my beloved home. It would be a nice plan to do. But, plan was only a plan. I’ve got a ticket, and we were ready to leave the station. All the way home, I was thinking about what I had been done? Was I choosing the right decision? Was Jakarta is my destination?

Shortly I’ve arrived safely at my boarding house 30 minute later. It took quite long time for me to get there because I was stopped by the policeman in my long way home. Fortunately we have both have a good understanding and he didn’t give me any punishment, what my lucky day. I often getting confused when there’s a lot of plan to do, never been easy for me to set the priority. So, I was stunned for about a half hour. I’m not sure what I thought that time. I just remembered that I spent that time for browsing and repeating clicking the refresh button on the browser. I was thinking about going home tonight after packaging all my stuff. And that would be my final packaging in this room, in this boarding house. What a dramatic and melancholic atmosphere had created between me and that corner of the room. The corner I’ve been for 3.5 years.

I had to move from my ‘thinking chair’ (well, not mine actually, I had It borrowed from my friend, I also borrowed that phrase from blue’s clues movies) and get all my stuff prepared. As I opened my cabinet, the plan had already created neatly inside my head. All I have to do was packaging the only stuff I need, and thought about the rest later. As soon as I’ve packaged my stuff, I went home, and spent just one night there. I hoped that would be enough. I hope..

Setting Proxy in Windows using SquidNT

Finally we’ve got our own internet connection. My friend was in the best mood that day. He decided to buy an expensive Huawei E 220 series just before I desperate to get my own internet connection. So thanks to my friend for his massive contribution.

So, what’s the story today? Yes, I’ll tell you about my experience built our own internet connection using Huawei modem with telkomflash firmware on it (i dunno if the phrase firmware is right in these context). We have to be a member of telkomflash program in order to get this modem. This modem is kinda cute, tiny, and fragile (i think ). So, after all prerequisite met, we started to plan how this network should be. We started to think about OS. At that time we have no choice but Windows. The implant firmware on Huawei only work with windows and its variant. So we gave up. We used windows, windows xp, as server.

Wait, server for what? Yes, Server for proxy of course. This internet connection need to be shared among all member of this local area network (LAN). So, what is proxy? You can find the answer here. The first problem encounter here was the proxy server have a poor relation with windows (in this case windows XP). Combining proxy server with windows is not my favorite. I believe most of the proxy server in the world using non windows operating system to operate (this is just what i think). With a hard step, we try to get windows version of this proxy program, and we made it. It called SquidNT version 2.6 for windows. Squid have undoubtedly reputation within linux user. But in windows? yeah right. You can get it from here.

The configuration file, structure of program, is all identical with the linux have. You may see var, etc, bin, sbin folder inside it . So, this quite relished. It sure wont be difficult to find some tutorial how to configure, install, and start because this tool quite popular. First, we get into ACL section in /etc/squid.conf and make sure that you define all ACL correctly. Here what it does look like in my configuration:

acl all src 0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0
acl manager proto cache_object
acl localhost src 127.0.0.1/255.255.255.255
acl to_localhost dst 127.0.0.0/8
acl SSL_ports port 443
acl Safe_ports port 80        # http
acl Safe_ports port 21        # ftp
acl Safe_ports port 443        # https
acl Safe_ports port 70        # gopher
acl Safe_ports port 210        # wais
acl Safe_ports port 1025-65535    # unregistered ports
acl Safe_ports port 280        # http-mgmt
acl Safe_ports port 488        # gss-http
acl Safe_ports port 591        # filemaker
acl Safe_ports port 777        # multiling http
acl Safe_ports port 5050    # YM
acl YMPort port 5050 # Yahoo messenger
acl CONNECT method CONNECT

and then we go into http_access section. In this section we are able to set what address allowed to pass our proxy. Make sure we define our local network address correcty. Here’s mine:

http_access allow manager localhost
http_access deny manager
http_access deny !Safe_ports
http_access allow CONNECT YMPort
http_access deny CONNECT !SSL_ports
acl our_networks src 192.168.2.0/24
http_access allow our_networks

That will be done enough. But if you want to block some unwanted site (this is probably because of its bandwidth consume content, or pornography reason :p) i’ve found this in the internet:

acl bad url_regex -i “c:\squid\etc\blockedsite.txt”
http_access deny bad

Just write any phrase on that blockedsite.txt file to prevent that site being accessed inside your proxy. Although this can be cheated by LOT of bypass proxy tool, but at least, we try to be a good man already.

You can set what port this proxy will listen at HTTP_PORT. Just write any number you think, usually 8080 or 3128. And here we go to the other main function of proxy. Proxy will cache any page you’ve visited. This cache is seem very useful when we likely browse same page in all day. I prefer to have a disk cache in this proxy server. Bigger better i think :p

cache_dir ufs c:/squid/var/cache 1024 32 256

We can read further explanation about what ufs and sequence of number above. But first number (1024) is how big your space reserved for cache in MB. I think that will enough to create a ‘beginner’ proxy server. Hehehe…

So, after we done with /etc/squid.conf file, we ready to move into installation of this squid. We can use “squid.exe -z” command to create a cache directory first, and then execute “squid.exe -i” to install squid into windows services through cmd. I recommend to switch squid service from automatically started into manually started. Because we use telkomflash application that connected via usb and identic with port number and so on, so starting squid first is not a good idea.

After installing squid, dont forget to set your firewall system to allow all packet come from port 3128 and 5050 for YM. Just look on the exception tab and add necessary port to unblock. And dont forget to enable router forwarding from registry. Just run regedit.exe and jump into HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters and set IPEnableRouter DWORD value to 1. That will done YM connecting problem in proxy in windows, i think.

So, that’s all my story today, and correct me when something above wrong. Sory for my bad english…

Me and this little dimension in the World Wide Web

It took quiet long time for me to think about acceptable content for this introduction. First of all, i’m not good at chit-chat and expanding a few ideas into the whole stories. That’s will enough to tell you much about how this blog will be. Ok, now i’ll just finish this introduction to the end.

Still studying in Institute Technology of Sepuluh Nopember, hope this will be my last semester, love gaming, eating, and coding (never too much on this). Counter-Strike, DotA, FM, PES, are my most-played game. Pecel, telor-tempe penyet, sayur campur are my most-ate food. Network programming, playing with control, and working with thread are my most-favorite subject in programming.

Spending most of my time in the boarding house (I don’t think this is the right English word for “Kos-kosan” ), enough to keep me away from the outer world. Living in this little dimension wont automatically makes you small. I’m getting out of topic here (see.. i’ve told you before), so it’ll be wise to close this paragraph as soon as possible for all good sake.