Seven people, two years old, no funding, success. That's the elegant 37signals, creator of splendid web-based applications and the tradition-breaking Ruby on Rails framework.

And they wrote the book "Getting Real" about how great they are in managing small team. A genuinely interesting read for web developers, programmers, designers, and entrepreneurs; much more if you're small bits of (or aspiring to be) all those.

This case of David Widjaja Hartanto is driving me crazy. This whole week I have been in constant barrage of information and request for comments from friends and even family about this case. Wow.

This loss of life must be shocking and we, people who share common bond with David albeit weak and small, share our deepest condolences for David's family.

Today I received an email containing a letter which supposedly was written by Klemens A., David's friend. Seems that this letter (in Indonesian) has fallen into many hands so I won't post it here. I will translate portions of this letter that fascinate me most, and have my say.

My subjective opinion and recent development are also added.

Note: I am an NUS student with Indonesia nationality. So bias is inevitable. Also note the disclaimer at the bottom of this post.

About the slit in the wrist

From the letter: Read more »

Let's see a few common problems of file management for commoners:

• They never care about backing up their data as it is usually too cumbersome.
• They work on multiple PCs and their head aches about synchronising all of their stuff between computers. Or they are working on a project and they keep passing around files by flash disk or e-mails and forget which person has which version and which files are the latest version.
• They keep the history of their documents neatly by appending phrases: "Letter to X.doc", "Letter to X (boss amend).doc", "Letter to X (final).doc", "Letter to X (final amended).doc", "Letter to X (final final).doc", "Letter to X (real final).doc" (which become less and less intuitive on each iteration!).

I was one of all those people once --- but not anymore because of a free service called Dropbox. It makes backup, sharing, and versioning a snap for everyone. Zero learning curve. Read more »

An infinite number of mathematicians walk into a bar. The first one orders a beer. The second orders half a beer. The third, a quarter of a beer. The bartender says “You’re all idiots”, and pours two beers.

— Randgruppenhumor cont’d

Awww, so emo.

Indonesia ICT Award, atau INAICTA, adalah bentuk penghargaan terhadap inovasi-inovasi yang dilakukan oleh bangsa Indonesia dalam bidang teknologi informasi dan komunikasi (TIK). Saya adalah salah satu pemenang dari INAICTA 2007 (tahun lalu) kategori Student Project.

Lomba Apaan Sih?

Lomba-lomba yang berhubungan dengan komputer, mulai dari OSP, OSN, sampai olimpiade internasional (IOI) semuanya mengadu kecerdasan dalam bidang problem solving dengan implementasinya menggunakan pemrograman. Tentu saja hal ini tidak salah sama sekali, bahkan sangat baik karena dengan mempelajari algoritma kita mempelajari cara berpikir sistematis dan logis.

Tetapi, dalam bidang informatika, algoritma hanyalah salah satu dari sekian banyak faktor yang diperlukan. Ada teknik pembuatan software, penguasaan API, design pattern, dan lain-lain. Nah, dengan faktor-faktor yang lain itulah baru kita dapat membangun sebuah program yang benar-benar digunakan oleh masyarakat. Mau maju sampai mana Indonesia kalau generasi mudanya cuma bisa membuat program dalam Pascal, command line pula? (Jangan pakai VB ya, berbahaya.) Read more »

OMG, and she learned materials science and engineering too!

Perhaps in Alia Sabur’s wildly advanced studies she came across a famous quote from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

“Knowing is not enough. We must apply,” the German writer once observed.

That could serve as explanation for what prompted the 19-year-old to become the youngest college professor in history.

Armed with prodigious wisdom, Sabur told TODAY’s Ann Curry on Wednesday that knowledge is power — especially when sharing it.

“I really enjoy teaching,” said Sabur. “It’s something where you can make a difference. It’s not just what you can do, but you can enable a lot of other people to make their changes.”

Sabur, from Northport, N.Y., has clearly been ahead of the learning curve since an early age.

She started talking and reading when she was just 8 months old. She had elementary school finished at age 5.

She made the jump to college at age 10. And by age 14, Sabur was earning a bachelor’s of science degree in applied mathematics summa cum laude from Stony Brook University — the youngest female in U.S. history to do so.

Read more »