William

Remember the days when computers displayed only characters, green or black? Well, I still remember when I first tried to use it, it was purely command-line-interface (w/o a mouse). Needless to say, it was extremely unfriendly.

The year was 1988 and computers were still bulky. Only National Library could afford to “demo” it. If I never recall wrongly, they were placed in AMK National Library’s level 2, purly for searching library book database.

A bit stupid to place expensive command-line-interface computers in a Library when only Computer-Science students know how to use it.

And it was only about 6 years later, DOS game started to get popular in Singapore. I still remember playing “Romance Of The Three Kingdoms” sango.exe from KOEI. And you can go to this “game store” to buy floppy disk to download your game. Each Floppy is 1.4 MB, the bigger your game is, the more disk you need. And thanks to these games, I learned MS DOS command lines. To be honest, I really hate command-line-interface environments.

Windows 3.1 was my first touch with Graphical-User-Interface (a.k.a GUI), the year was 1995. I never look back because I agreed with Steve Jobs, GUI is the best computing experience for consumers.

Nevertheless, I was using Windows for all my work. That was also the year I saw a Mac. I remembered I was swearing and cursing about a right click on the Mac mouse. I couldn’t even shut down the Macintosh. And 1995 is also the year when I got my first computer virus (Die Hard 2). In fact, it wipe out the whole computers in my office (I was working in this design firm). I understand that there is no “Internet” nor Network between computers in small office. But back in those days, we shared everything using floppy disk.

Bear in mind, the Mac is the only computer that is not hit by the Die Hard 2 virus..

However, despite the fact that MUD is the earliest game developed for computer, I only got to see MUD (multi-user-domain) text games much later. I tried to play on Windows (Adventure) but the experience was only so-so. I saw other version of MUD much later, but it was kinda impossible to try (in 1995).

Internet only start to get “attention” in 1997. Before that, no one cares if his PC is equipped with modem card or not. The perspective of getting a PC had changed tremendously. Now, it is pointless that computer could not connect to Internet.  In 1997, Internet services were dominated by Pacific Net and CyberNet. The charges was rocketed-high and they charge by per hour. So imagine the charges you have to pay, just to connect to MUD server back then?

However, everything is different now. You get Wireless access almost everywhere (not applicable in Jakarta). And the fact that it is only text communication, it is even faster. The only problem is which client should you use? I understand the choices is a bit hard for Mac Users. Unless you don’t mind playing via your Terminal, if not you really have to look for an alternative.

I understand that most MUD clients for Mac were written for PowerPC environments. You are not able to use them in your new Intel Macintosh. However, I found “Nuntius” by Lobotomo Software. It is only USD 10 bucks, this thing work like a charm. I downloaded it on my MacBook Pro and try:

Fall in love with it totally. It is simple, just check your MUD server information. Example 3 kingdoms is telnet 3k.org 3000, you just have to input this piece of information in the “World Settings” as follow:

I am glad to have this back in my life to kill some boring time in office.

Many friends asked me where I stayed… Well, quite far from office actually. If you want to know the exact location, you may refer to the map below:

Well, noticed that it is surrounded by “kuburan”? It is the cemetery..

I saw this outside my office.. I am not sure if you can see the difference:

Very nice of the local government to build a walkway along the road right?

Look again!

That is actually a big drain. The water, is practically no moving at all. The dirt, together with the water has stuck there for more than 4 months. Apparently, the waste water had clotted itself with dirt. And it must be so bad, so mutated that the color turned Green.

I’ve seen my share of pollution in Jakarta. This simply blew me away…

So we heard of local government working very very hard to stamp out piracy. Anti-piracy posters can be seen anywhere, also on TV ads, newspaper reports.. etc.

Once a while, you will see grandiose actions such as this:

The truth is, there are more than what you can actually picture. Pirated DVDs are practically everywhere in Indonesia. In Malls, outside main roads, streets so and so..

However, there are some tricks in buying these DVDs..

1. Never buy the latest blockbuster! (New movies are usually recorded via HandyCam)

2. Always test the DVDs before you make your purchases. The shops usually have TV and DVD players to test!

3. TV series are divided into two types. 3 episodes per disc or 4 episodes per disc.

*The differences? 3 Episodes per disc is in Hi-Def (720 x 480) resolutions. While 4 Episodes per disc is in VCD (320 x 240) resolutions. And your standard TV is taking 640 x 480 reso, so you will not see much differences in their quality.

4. Look out for “DVD9″ label if you intend to purchase a old movie. DVD9 indicate that the movie is copied from original movie disc.

No 4 is very important! Especially if you are looking for French or Italian movies! You need subtitles for understanding. don’t you? Cos most “Clear” (means not handycam quality) movies may not have the right subtitles. They kinda anyhow throw in some Subtitle files on the dvds to make it look impressive / original…

And should you end up with a DVD that could not play on your player or even VLC, you may want to try “handbrake” to rip the video out. Surprisingly, this worked for me.

I have customers & friends who keep asking me if they can look into their iPhone or iPod Touch. Perhaps they are too used to the way old iPod (or even iPod Classic) works.

With iPod Classic (& old iPods), we are able to “enable disk use” for our iPod (even iPod Mini or Nano) so it will mount on our Desktop and we are able to use it as a Hard Disk.

However, both iPhone &  iPod Touch do not have this feature.

Now, with DiskAid, you can use this as a  external disk, copying files and folders btw your iPod Touch / iPhone and your computer.

For link to DiskAid download site, please click HERE!