ronny.haryan.to

Let’s join the bandwagon. Hey, it’s better than Friendster’s bulletin board.

Total volume of music on my computer

18 GB — 3,596 songs, 11 days, 3 hours and 6 minutes.

Last CD I bought

“Perjalanan Panjang” by Jikustik.

Song currently playing

“Trail Blazer” by Acoustic Alchemy.

Five songs I listen to a lot, or mean a lot to me

Now, this is a challenge. Pick five out of 3,596, yes! I’m going to make it more than five. Sue me.

These are the songs that mean a lot to me:

• “You Never Know” by Jim Brickman and Boney James
• “Above All” by Michael W. Smith
• “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking for” by U2
• “Heaven” by Live
• “For the Rest of My Life” by Nelson Rangell
• “Tak Bisa ke Lain Hati” by KLa Project
• “It Never Entered My Mind” by Miles Davis
• “If I Ever Lose My Faith in You” by Sting
• “You Don’t Love Me” by The Philosopher Kings
• “Romance d’Amour” (classical Spanish song), this is the first complete song that I could play a guitar with.

These are the songs that I play a lot lately:

• “This is Such A Pity” by Weezer
• “Feel Good, Inc.” by Gorillaz
• “Lonely No More” by Rob Thomas
• “Give a Little Bit” by Goo Goo Dolls (I like the original Supertramp version, too.)
• “Someday, Someday” by Thirsty Merc

Five people to whom I’m passing the baton

It wouldn’t be fun to pass this to only five people. So if you read this then you’re welcome to post your own. Make sure to trackback here. Have fun!

Found this one on the news today:

A MELBOURNE invention that claims to slash vehicle petrol bills by up to 20 per cent and reduce harmful engine emissions will go on sale tomorrow.

This is what the distributor has to say about it:

Typically, a fuel injection system only vaporises 80 to 85% of fuel injected into a combustion chamber. The remaining 15 to 20% maintains its liquid form and is wasted through incomplete vaporisation. Vaporate minimises this vapor loss to provide average savings between 10 to 20% on total fuel costs for 6cyl & 8cyl family cars and larger 4WDs.

Vaporate costs about AU $300 and must be installed by a mechanic. Repco (the distributor) claims that normally it can be done in under 2 hours. And there’s a Flash illustration showing how it works on the Vaporate website. It doesn’t seem too complicated, but I just don’t get it at first. I’m neither an engineer nor a mechanic by any means. How does attaching a thick metal ring improve the vaporisation process? I suspected it has something to do with heat, and looks like I’m in the right direction, it uses a clever trick with pressure and temperature as answered by this explanation.

Imagine you have a mobile device, like a PDA or a smartphone, that knows where you are and understands the context of the surroundings (e.g. “I’m at home” or “I’m at work” or “I’m at the mall”). Now, having such a device, what kind of things do you imagine the mobile device would do to make your life easier and/or better?

I’ll give you an example to get you started. For example, I would imagine that when I arrive at home or at work, the mobile device would wirelessly and automatically synchronize with my home or work computer without my intervention. It would also inform me if it had found a new Wi-Fi network (maybe the neighbour had just installed it). When I’m walking in the mall, for example, it would detect if there were any wireless network or other services that I could use during my visit at the mall, for example a mall shops directory, free internet access, movie schedules, ordering food from the food court, paying for parking, etc.

I would really appreciate it if you could write your ideas as comments to this post, and you could write in English (preferred) or Indonesian if you’d like. Thanks!

I’m a really big fan of Acoustic Alchemy, as well as a fan of smooth jazz in general (especially guitars and saxophones). I enjoy all of AA‘s uniquely distinct and beautiful songs. For those of you who don’t know Acoustic Alchemy, their signature is a dual guitar (steel and nylon) setup being played together dominantly in all of their songs. You will find me listening to AA‘s songs very often when I work or study. And even when I take breaks, I usually grab my guitar and play along with Greg (Carmichael) and friends, well… I play their songs and I play along really. I only wish I was half as good as them. Their music is like a relaxing magic to me, I never get bored of the songs and they seem to sound better the more I listen to them, and the best part is that I always feel recharged after listening. Even my dad, who is not really a jazz fan, likes Acoustic Alchemy’s songs.

The latest album from Acoustic Alchemy, “American/English”, was recently released on 29 March 2005. The band’s biography page on their website has some interesting insights about the latest as well as their prior albums, such as this below paragraph:

“Our last album (2003’s Radio Contact) was a bit of a step backwards,” says band manager Stewart Coxhead. “The Beautiful Game and AArt both took the music in very different directions than we had explored in the past, but for Radio Contact we stepped back a bit and did something more familiar. On American/English we realized that the music had to move forward, so the band took some chances and tried some new sounds and ideas.” However, rather than indulging in the piano, keyboard, and horn lines that played prominently in The Beautiful Game and AArt, American/English finds the band using those instruments as textural accompaniments, setting up dramatic surroundings for the dual nylon and steel string guitars that have defined Acoustic Alchemy since the band’s inception two decades ago.

Acoustic Alchemy was originally founded by Nick Webb and Simon Jones, both from England, in the 1980′s. Later on the formation became Nick Webb and Greg Carmichael, which was the formation that were popular and well-known by many people. They released their debut album “Red Dust & Spanish Lace” in 1987. From the beginning their signature has always been the two guitars, and their music is commonly classified as adult contemporary, employing a range of musical flavours from jazz, latin, soft pop and new age. Their 1990 album “Reference Point” was nominated for a Grammy award. Nick Webb passed away from battle with cancer in 1998. Greg Carmichael carried on with Acoustic Alchemy with new members as well as longtime supporting musicians.

(Compiled from Acoustic Alchemy’s website and All Music Guide.)

I just visited a local AppleCentre shop here in Sydney at Broadway today with my friend Jul because he wanted to buy an iPod Mini. I was trying my best not to drool over the keyboards and the displays, but it was really tough, you know. They have (almost) all of the usual suspects in the shop: Powerbook G4, iBook G4, iMac G5, eMac, iSight, PowerMac G5, yada yada yada, and–always–a cute Asian girl behind the counter. The first thing I noticed when entering the store, however, was a QuickTime movie in a window (not fullscreen) projected on a huge canvas screen as a second display to a 30-inch Apple Cinema HD display connected to a half-transparent-cased dual-CPU PowerMac G5. And the cute girl, of course.

I immediately played around with the G5 and the 30″ display. It was running Mac OS X Tiger, so I got a chance to play around with that and Dashboard, too. I wanted to try the iSight camera sitting on top of the 30-inch display but I don’t know which application to open other than iChat, and I couldn’t find anything in the menu that can show the video from the camera.

Now I know what I want for my Christmas present. A 30-inch Apple Cinema Display. This baby’s optimum resolution is 2560×1600 pixels and it probably takes almost the same space as my bulky 19-inch CRT monitor, just perfect for my desk, although I might have to sit a bit farther back. The display was bright and crisp like nothing else I’ve ever seen before. Just the 30-inch size alone was enough to amaze anyone.

The AU $4,899 price tag, however, is way too high for my wallet at the moment, but I reckon I’ll be getting one of these in the future. Maybe there are better models out by the time I can afford this, but you know what they say about there being no good day to buy any computer or techie gadgets because there’s always a better, less expensive model waiting in the corner the following day, so maybe I could be getting something better then, we’ll see. I should probably buy a Powerbook G4 or a PowerMac G5 first, though.

Here’s the full tech specs for the Apple Cinema displays.

Oh, and my friend didn’t get his iPod Mini because it was out of stock, and the shop staff didn’t know when the next shipment is coming, it could be anytime between next week and next year. What the…?? My friend was a bit pissed off about it I think because it took him so long to think about buying, but when he actually decided to buy it, it’s not available. Looks like he’s buying it from eBay.