Wouldn’t it be nice to know where the traffic jams are in Jakarta so that we can AVOID them ? Yup, we thought so too. Thus, we have been working on a solution to provide just this type of information and we call it FireAnts… (Why that name ? Watch the video below to find out !)
In the countless of hours that we’ve been stuck in traffic jams, have you ever got the funny feeling that there is really no reasons for a lot of the traffic jams that we had to suffer through ? You’d slow to a crawl at some point on the road and after cursing your way through the jam, it suddenly disappears. What happened ?
Apparently traffic jams can be created out of thin air, and I presume this is what happen most of the time: Check out this video I found on YouTube. (more…)
What exactly is google apps ?
It’s a collection of online google tools such as gmail, google docs, and google talk which you can setup for your small business own use by associating it with your registered domain, separate from the public google area.
The standard google apps is free and most of the time you don’t need the pay editions.
The easiest way to explain it is to look at gmail first. Say you own company XYZ, and you have already registered for the XYZ.com domain. Now you would normally get a hosting site for your website and then configure emails from the hosting site. You can, however, choose to use gmail as your interface to your small business emails.
After doing some setups, you can then create @XYZ.com email accounts from gmail, and read and write emails to and from that @XYZ.com account from there. (more…)
How do you track the traffic to your blog once you have installed WordPress on your hosting site ? Google Analytics seem to be really good for this and it’s free, so here’s how I made it work for my site.
After the longest time holding off on hosting my own sites and blogs, I finally caved in… What made me do it? It’s the enticement of getting unlimited lifetime free storage at DreamHost.
If man were designed to think rationally, I wouldn’t have been as compelled to sign up. (more…)
Wow ! Indonesia now has its own internet based on demand TV.
I just recently found out through our corporate grapevine, that WowTV is now available in Indonesia. It is a partnership between M2B World Asia Pacific with PT. Wow Television Indonesia (a subsidiary of PT. Agis, Tbk).
They offer programming through the web, or to your television through what they call WowTv media box, as well as through your handphone using WowTv Mobile.
There are several pricing tiers available to consumers, including a free one.
What’s so special about this ? Presumably it’s the ability to watch programming at any time 24 hours a day and on demand, unlike regular broadcast television, where you have to follow their programming schedule if you don’t want to miss your favorite show.
How good is it ? I really can’t tell you right now. I signed up for the free account and was able to browse through their free collections (which, by the way, seems to be really old programs that’s not bad if you just want to try out WowTv, but really can’t sustain you for more than several days). However, clicking on the programs, all I got was a “back to video listing” button in the middle of the screen.
I’m running it using Firefox on an iMac running Tiger. Perhaps there is some plug-ins or something that I’m missing ?
Do you hate traffic jams as much as I do ? Do you feel helpless not being able to do anything about it ?
Well, I and a friend of mine recently started a social network whose mission is to help all of us cope with the traffic jam in Jakarta today and to discuss and better yet implement solutions. This site facilitates the discussion, exchange of ideas, experiences, tips and tricks, and more revolving around the topic of driving in Jakarta and traffic jam.
Perhaps something good for all of us can come out of this, and we hope that this site can be a resource for all.
All of us would love to hear your thoughts, ideas, and insights around this topic, so why not join us by clicking here.
See all of you at the bebasmacet.ning.com site !
Here is an article that I posted today on bebasmacet.ning.com, a social network whose purpose is to share ideas on how to cope with the nasty traffic jam in Jakarta today, and possible solutions for tomorrow.
Would you believe it ? Jakarta has its own Traffic Management Center and it’s not half bad either.
Located within the compound of Polda Metro jaya, the TMC is the center for all traffic tracking and information for the city of Jakarta. It is also where they man the 1717 sms for traffic reporting and information.
The inside of the TMC reminds me somewhat of the houston command center where they control the launch of the space shuttles..:) There is one giant screen in the middle with about 4-6 other smaller screens on its sides.
Information from the different stations can be quickly pulled up to all of the screens, including the giant one, upon request, much like in the scenes of Star Trek, when Captain Kirk or Picard says “On Screen”.
There are about 6 different stations if I’m not mistaken, in the middle of the room, each with about 3 screens, and manned by police officers. The different stations have different purposes, including: sms monitoring, web monitoring, Police GPS locations, Traffic conditions.
Just behind the stations is a section which looks somewhat like a small auditorium. I believe this is where reporters or visitors can come and watch what is going on.
There are tons of information being recorded: traffic cameras, traffic conditions reported on different roads, accident reports, demonstration reports, police locations, traffic light conditions across the city, etc., etc. There is definitely no shortage of data.
They currently have about 38 traffic cameras all over the city. Some are looking over highways and some are pointed at major roads.
The cool thing is the cameras can be zoomed and panned remotely. Wow! Zoom in on that speeding car’s license plate ! (Zooming in to that level may not be possible in reality, though)
With all this information, the TMC can quickly know if there is a traffic condition that needs to be attended to, and can dispatch the closest police officer to the scene (If he/she is not in traffic herself, ofcourse).
A youtube video, which gives a glimpse of what the police officers are monitoring daily inside the TMC can be found in the videos section of the bebasmacet.ning.com site.
Are you aware of the existence of TMC in Jakarta ?
How would you feel if you buy a book (of the real physical kind, not an e-book) and it says on the shrinkwrap of the book that the minute you open the shrinkwrap you are agreeing to the following terms of use,
You are the only one authorized to read this book. Loaning, selling, or giving this book away is in violation of this agreement and punishable by law.
We reserve the right to at any time confiscate this book if we feel you have violated this agreement.
Absurd ! Ofcourse. But not so in the digital world !
I’ve got copies of e-books I’ve purchased from ebooks.com that is authorized only to be read by computers that I have authorized, and it is limited to 5 computers. I am not allowed to print, annotate, copy, or do anything with it. I can’t give it away either when I’m done with it, unless you want to sacrifice an authorization token. Worst of all I can’t move it and read it on a different device running a different software.
Is it really my e-book ?
I’ve got music that I download through iTunes that only works on authorized computers. I can’t loan it to anybody, I can’t give it away. I can’t listen on different devices.
Is it really my music ?
I know it is easier said than done, but I think they should get these DRMs to behave as they do in the analog world:
They should come up with a worldwide standard of DRM (like I said, easier said than done). Within this standard, people will be allowed to do pretty much the same things as they can do in the analog world, i.e. read anywhere, make copies for their own use, print, annotate, etc. The same limitations as the analog world will apply as well, such as
(It will be neat if there is the capability of carrying annotations around in the digital copies, such that people can share annotations. add links and other informations, etc.)
What do you think ?
Inspired by my own frustration with DRM, Scoble’s blog, and from an episode of TWIT (This Week In Tech with Leo Laporte) (I forgot which episode, though)
How much time have we all wasted sitting idly in traffic in Jakarta? Time that we can use to generate more revenues for our companies, time we can use to spend with our families, time we can use to grow this nation? Instead we are spending more and more time within the confines of our car looking at the same sceneries every single day going back and forth to our offices.
On several occasions, my driver has asked other drivers about how long on average their travel times are to and from the office. On average for people going into the sudirman area it takes about 2 hours one way. If they start going at 9 o’clock i n the morning, they’ll arrive at the office at 11. With that long of a travel time, they could already be in Bandung.
If say you consider that you spend 2 hours going into the city and about 1.5 hours going back, that’s 3.5 hours per day. Say you work 5 days a week, in one month you’d already be spending 17.5 hours in traffic. In a year you’d end up wasting around 210 hours. That’s roughly equal to 26 days of work days, or about one month worth of work time.
Imagine that ! Out of the 12 months that you go to work, you actually spend one month sitting in traffic. Can you think of other more useful ways of spending one month worth of your time ?
