Do you know camel racing? Camel racing has been the sport of kings throughout the Arab peninsula - Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, and United Arab Emirates. A fast camel can cost several hundred thousand dollars, and an owner may house and feed scores of them. A camel will not run without someone riding it and egging it on. The lighter the jockey, the faster the camel. For as long as anyone can remember, the solution was to use child jockeys - not adolescents, but little boys as young as 4, hustled in from poorer countries like Sudan and kept in hovels in the desert where they did nothing but ride camels.

Wired News wrote an interesting article about how Switzerland company creates robots which is able to ride camels in the Arabian desert. It is a thirty-five pounds of aluminum and plastic, a 400-MHz processor running Linux and communicating at 2.4 GHz; GPS-enabled, heart rate-monitoring robot.

Yesterday my blog went off. It’s not my fault. WHPlus, the company where I host my blog, uprofessionally managed the problem. When I noticed that something wrong, I tried to contact WHPlus. I sent an SMS to the manager asking what’s wrong. It took more than an hour to get a short reply. Nothing was wrong, it’s said. OK.

I also sent an email to supporting department of the company. But I get no reply. I tried to sent message via Yahoo! Messenger, but they are offline. I tried to call the cellular phone of the owner, she never picked up my call.

I tried to connect to my blog. But I still could not get an access and my blog still went off. Again I sent an SMS asking why WHPlus.com went off. I had to wait another hour to get a reply, a SHORT reply: unscheduled maintenance was running.

Conclusion: yesterday my blog went off!

This morning I checked my inbox. I got no email from WHPlus. No apology, no explanation on their homepage!

WHPlus sucks, really really sucks!!! Do not make a business with them. Period.

WordPress.com is giving away account for those of you who use Flock to browse the web. Since Flock is based on Mozilla, some people are reluctant to change to Flock. They are more comfortable to use Firefox than Flock. How we can get an account of WordPress.com using Firefox?

Dudi Gurnadi from DGK.or.id has a tricky idea. Follow a simple step by step:

• Find a file named firefox.js If you are using Linux, it is located at
  usr/lib/firefox/defaults/pref/firefox.js
  if you are using Windows, it is located at
  C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\defaults\pref\firefox.js
• Open the file using your favourite TXT editor such as Notepad
• Add a line at the bottom of the file:
  pref(”general.useragent.vendorComment”, “Flock”);
• Save the file and close it
• Open your Firefox and surt to http://wordpress.com/flock/ to register your WordPress.com account
• Congratulation, you are able to register at WordPress.com using Firefox

Google is rumoured to launch a new service called Google Base, Google’s database into which you can add all types of content. They’ll host your content and make it searchable online for free. Examples of items you can find in Google Base:

• Description of your party planning service
• Articles on current events from your website
• Listing of your used car for sale
• Database of protein structures

Imagine this: By allowing us post nearly anything, Google will get huge database of everything. This is parallel with Google’s Mission ” to organize the world’s information and make it useful and accessible to our users”. Sounds good, huh?

“Quaerimur, Ergo Sum” is derived from René Descartes’ Latin statement “Cogito, Ergo Sum”.

“Quaerimur Ergo Sum” can be translated into “I’m searchable, therefore I am.” I found this statement from an interview with C.K. Sample, III, a blogger of TUAW, The Unofficial Apple Weblog. He thinks that if you are not searchable, you do not exist. He thinks that it is the beauty of blogging.

Matt, developer of WordPress, said in one of his page: “According to Google I am the # 7 most important Matt in the world. When I reach the top of that list I’m going to take my website down.” He put a screenshot of Google search engine which shows his weblog position in Google. Now he is the most important Matt in the world. Matt and his weblog are searchable, therefore he exists.

Priyadi, a blogger from Depok, stated that most of Google search results using “priyadi” as keyword refer to his weblog although he is not the only Priyadi on the net. It means Priyadi and his weblog are searchable and therefore he exists.

Are you searchable? Do you exist?

IT department of my company has been running a big project. They launched the project called “Linux for ALL - Dijamin Halal”. Yes, it’s project to migrate more than 400 pcs from Microsoft Windows to Linux Xandros. It actually started two weeks ago. Marketing department from which I come from, is the latest division to migrate to Linux. It is not a smooth process after all. Most of us are not familiar with Xandros. Currently I am still using Windows, but next week I will be Microsoft-free man.

Do you have tips for beginner user of Linux? Please share with me.

This is very short question: which one do you choose as your main browser: Firefox or Flock? Why?

I am falling in love with Flock. It gives me all I need. I can manage my del.icio.us easily. Also, I am able to manage my blog seamlessly using one particular browser: Flock.

But, before using Flock as my main broswer, I used to get my Firefox browser. Sometimes there is a “gulity” feeling not to use Firefox as my default browser. I do not know why. Maybe because Firefox is my first non-Microsoft browser.

Bart Decrem, one of Flock Developers, in his weblog stated that his new start-up isn’t aimed at making their popular Firefox Web browser obsolete. But the fact is: Flock, in my humble opinion, is one step ahead of Firefox. Time will tell.

Back to my question: which one do you choose as your main browser: Firefox or Flock? Why?

The Minister of Manpower and Transmigration, Fahmi Idris, predicted that there will be one million workers be laid off due to the increasing of oil price in the early Oktober. Idris said that textile and electronic industries are most suffered by the increasing of oil price.

Operating costs of several industrial sectors have gone up by 10 percent to 50 percent since, prompting companies to consider reducing their workforce to stay in business.

Source: Jakarta Post