It was a great party! Blogger Party 2007 was a successful and memorable event. Thanks to all of the committee, workers and sponsors and of course, big thanks to all blogger who were there or supporting the event from afar.
It was a blast. Words could not expressed how I felt there. Met lots of people, some I already met before, some I knew since ages but never met and some were new. We should do this more often, eh?
Blogger’s power
For Indonesian blogger, this event was a moment of recognition and acceptance. The Minister of Communication and Information Technology, Muhammad Nuh proclaimed 27 October as a “Indonesia National Bloggers Day” and I believe it made Indonesia the first country in the world to have a “National Bloggers Day”. He also promised to value freedom of expression for all blogger in Indonesia. Hmm, should Indonesia offers asylum to repressed blogger all over the world too?
With great power, come great responsibility (Uncle Ben to Peter Parker aka. Spiderman)
So the freedom was granted and the blogger was recognized highly… Now, how Indonesian blogger will respond to that?I believe Indonesian blogger are those rare people who understand and value great power and will use it wisely and full of responsibilty. Without those value, all of this will be vanished in vain and nobody wants that to happened.
Lighter side
On the lighter side, I was enjoying the event so much. It remind me years ago when I started this journal as a mere media to express my thought, opinion, dream and experience without restraint. I never dreamed that one day, blog became a giant snowball and brought down freedom of expression into personal level, especially in Indonesia.
The joy of meeting people I respect and read their writing every day was unbelievable. I felt like I knew them for so long, I could jumped in and started conversation right away with them. Amal said to me that day: “We already know them by their writing and that was a good start since we value and respect them by their mind and not appearance and any other physical attachment.”. I believe he was right on the spot and as an admirer of human’s mind, I think blog is one way to empower a human being to achieve the next level of thinking.
I enjoyed the party too much, I forgot to take out my own camera. Ouch. I know, it was blasphemy not taking any picture during the event but what can I say? I was enjoying the event so much, I really don’t care about taking photos. Anyway, those who want to see the picture could see hundreds of them at flickr.
So thank you to all of you, sorry for not put all of your blogs in this entry – there are too many of you! You know who you are, thank you so much for brought back my faith about Indonesian people. You are the greatest people I’ve ever known, all of you.
What’s next?
Blogger Party 2008, of course! Between them, I hope there will be many meeting and hangout among bloggers. Maybe not just for fun, maybe for business, profit and hopefully for the greater cause like peace on earth or whatever.
Hopefully, Indonesian blogger are realized they are now have a great power and great responsibility. Blog is not just a ‘momentary trend’ as one of the so-called expert said some years ago. Blog is the people power, the power dreamed so many years ago by the fighter of freedom.
Well, for me… it was a challenge. A challenge for a better writing and opinion. In the end, this journal will be one of my legacy and I want to have a great legacy.
Sidenote
Some promises were made. Actively contribute articles to 3GWeek for mas Budi Putra, continue my hiatus podcast for mas Rane and of course, writing more quality content for all of you.
Thank you all. I’ll be just around the corner if you need me.
Finally, using my own design again for this journal. Actually, I’ve been working with this design since around 4-5 months ago and didn’t had time to finish it. Some bugs are still lingering around, let me know if you found them.
Rusting Red
I named this layout “Rusting Red”. This layout relied heavily on Blueprint CSS Framework, which is a great CSS framework – safe me hours of tweaking.
Some new features here:
- Adding Twitter, flickr and del.icio.us widget on the right sidebar.
- Search now performed using Google Search.
- No more CAPTCHA, using “Preview before Submit” method now.
- Thanks to Blueprint, hopefully this layout is easier to read than the default template.
Of course, nothing is perfect, there are some things unfinished yet:
- The Colophon and Contact sections are unfinished. This will be the first priority.
- The Blogroll (Links to other blogs – yes, it’ll back) still not finished too.
- Some bugs probably still laying around.
Well, I hope this new layout will make this journal easier to read and pleasing to the eyes. Enjoy.
Short announcement, I believe most of you already knew it anyway.
I’ll be whirling around Blogger’s Party 2007 tomorrow, starting from 10.30 until 15.00 at BlitzMegaplex.
So, if you happened to be there, say hi and hang out together. Until then.
Short and simple Monday’s fun
Sorry for the long absence, I just took my sabbatical time off from computer and internet, well, not entirely but I just tried to get away from technology for a while and of course still busy with life, Ramadhan and Ied.
Happy Ied
For those who celebrated Ied, Happy Ied, may this year Ramadhan be a blessing and hopefully we all came out as a better person than before. Let us learned from our mistakes and do our best in the next year to come. Bless you all.
Ied’s SMS
Starting a couple of years ago, since cell phone became a standard gadget for almost anyone, the tradition of sending Ied’s greeting card rapidly became diminished and replaced by Ied’s greeting SMS (or mostly known as phone text message in the US and Europe) – technology won, eh? It was quite a shame, since I used to be a card collector, but economically speaking sending SMS is probably cheaper and saving time. I am not quite fond of sending Ied’s SMS myself with my own various reasons, one of them is I rather meet in people in person to say the greeting and if I didn’t had the chance to meet them this year then hopefully next year (such an optimist point of view, isn’t it?). I rather look the person in the eyes when saying the greetings and asked for a humble apologize, but that just me.
The Best of the Rest
From hundreds SMS I received this year (yes, hundreds – I was quite impressed myself), most of them are template-based. In fact I’d read the same about 20-30 SMS from different people. Well, that’s another thing about Ied’s SMS is sometime it was never personal. Of course there are exceptions and I would love to write about the best three SMS I received this year. I know this three people personally and for me, their SMS are truly the expression of their characters. So, without further ado, here they are – in verbatim copies (spelling and wording):
From Iyay:
Bosan dgn templet sms lbrn gitu2 doang!jd nda perlu so2 sopan ya smsny.maafin saya ya.klo salahku kurang bnyak.taun dpan saya bnyakin deh spaya pahala klian memaafkn stiap salahku smakin bsr..slmat lebran sodara!huehuehue (Translation: Bored with the same Ied’s sms templates! So, don’t need to brag politeness. Forgive me, OK. If my mistakes are not many, next year I will add more so your blessing will be bigger too. Happy Ied, brother!)
From Abiwara:
Ketik Abi [spasi] lebaran Kirim ke 0813xxxxxxxx Anda akan mendapat ucapan selamat lebaran dari Abi. Apabila tidak maka Abis sedang tidur atau habis pulsa. (Translation: Type Abi [space] lebaran Send to 0813xxxxxxxx You will receive Ied’s greeting from Abi. If not then Abi is sleeping or doesn’t have enough phone credits.)
From Harry Sufehmi, the ultimate geek! This SMS was probably not everybody cup of tea (it’s so geeky and techie oriented) but for me this one was the best Ied’s SMS I received this year. I laugh my head off when I read this one. He wrote about it too in his blog and received more geeky replies too. Nice one, Har!
/puasa # make clean
/puasa # configure --prefix=/IdulFitri/TheNewBeginning/
/puasa # reboot
Taqobbalallaahu minna wa minkum
So there they are, three best Ied’s SMS I received this year. Good to know there were still creativity and personality in this generic influenced world. Happy Ied everyone!