It’s not a White Christmas, it’s a Colorful Christmas

Yes it’s not white, it’s colorful, and it’s wonderful. First Christmas in a place I called ‘my 3rd home’ (1st Kudus, 2nd Jakarta).

Kudus, +/- 12 years ago
Om Agus: Ok Desson, it’s your job to find a Christmas tree for our church…
Desson: What? Christmas tree? (I think I need to snoop and steal from somebody garden)
Ko Pujo: It’s ok, you can get it in public forest, maybe in Muria (a mountain)?
Desson: Puff, I thought I need to ask one by one to ‘sacrifice’ their tree
(Finally, we get it in the forest - with the permission of forest scout)

Jakarta, a year ago
Danny: OK, it’s already November and we need to prepare an organizer for this year Christmas celebration (for youth). I’m act as a coordinator.
Desson: And why my name in the list?
Danny: Coz Yohana want your name in the list…
Desson: And her name in the list?
Danny: Sure…
Desson: Perfect, one more thing, Can you change my section? Consumption section perhaps?
Danny: Not necessary, all ladies there.
Desson: Yes, that’s all I want for Christmas!
(Finally I still in multimedia section…)

Singapore, this year

Saturday, 23 Dec 2006
Last practice for Christmas choir and have some session of drama. Go to Burger King (Orchard, near by Borders book store), to get 2 crown for Solomon and Queen of Sheba. After that we enjoy a set of Christmas Carols in Orchard (in front of Takashimaya). Have a set of photographs, going home (almost 12pm, midnight). Some people still go to Geylang and have a Durian session there…

Sunday, 24 Dec 2006Overslept, came late to the church for last drama practice. But the show runs well -peoples laugh. Just thinking, they laughing the things I said, or laughing me. Hi all, you’re so funny (especially Lufi with her Indian’s gesture). Finally, Christmas service is over, we (whole of church) have a dinner (not lunch?) together. After that, we - the youth – spent 2 hours to discuss where to go for tomorrow (2 hours?). And play several session of 'Polar Bear' or ‘Police and Murder’ or I can say ‘Kill the Innocent'?
(Note: Yes, they kill an innocent people, and that’s me. I’m sad when they doubt my integrity, especially when I try to convince them. I said, ‘I’m innocent, look at my face.’ But they undoubtly doubt my integrity. So sad!)
After that, we (6 of us) have another dinner in Kopitiam Plaza Singapura.

Monday, 25 Dec 2006
First of all, Merry Christmas everyone, God bless you. OK, still overslept (again?), and I visit Fifi and Lufi house in Paya Lebar (Yes, after 2 hours of discussion; east coast, bowling, etc finally we decided to go to Lim Sister’s house…). We eat (thanks Tante Rita), we watch (Open Season), and we play (‘Watch your Hand’, ‘Big Fish-Small Fish’, and 'Kill the Innocent'). From Lim’s house we go to Pang’s house in YCK. In Pang’s house, we have (another) Christmas celebration and Thanksgiving. The last but not least; dinner and sing together (I like it). The 4 jomblo (Me, Samuel, Yanadi, and Bayu), the ladies, Javanese Sinden (uhmmm, I mean Pak Herry), Jazz music (Tante Annete - and Om Paul?), and the grand finale : Ahmad Dhani and Ratu… (uhhhm, it’s should be Yanadi and Pang’s Sisters). Everyone happy, everyone full, and everyone going home.

Thanks everyone for a wonderful Christmas, and thanks for Yanti, Grace, Ade, Lukie, Ali, David, Yohana, Hendra, Aries, and Johan for the SMS. Merry Christmas for you all.

I still waiting for a white Christmas.
(Now I'm stuck in the office)

Where is My Service Pack?

I read somewhere around Nov/Dec last year (now I forgot where, but still remember when) that service pack for Visual Studio (.NET) 2005 is on the way. But now, we are already in the mid November, and still no news.
If you are a VS 2005 user, you maybe aware that changing a control's id will trigger the refactoring job in the solution. After some times (and it's a long time I can say), and a high CPU committed, it's end with... crash. I'm sick about this, it's already too long.
One year already gone, but the 'problem' is still there...where is the service pack?

Update:
The service pack finally released.
After one year, now I consciously authorized Redmond's product to eat my HD's spaces. Hope it's worth...

Have Great Trips, Rich!

Today, my friend Richard Stubbington will start his 8 months journey around the world. We were part of IT team in Baker & McKenzie (my last company). I’m resigned on June, he resigned on October. The reason of resignation is different; I want to earn more money, so I decided to find a job in Singapore. But he earns too much money, so he decided to leave the firm and to go traveling. What a contradiction!

Desson: when u start the journey?
Rich: 15th november going to: Australia, NZ, Singapore, Thailand, China, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, New York, Chicago, Jamaica, Chile, Argentina, maybe Brazil, Bolivia and Ecuador.
Desson: so many? great...
Rich: yep, going for 8 mths
Desson: and after that 8 mths? back to work to collect your deposits and go again for another trip? :P
Rich: dunno yet, i'lll et you know in 8 months ;)

The fact is he will leaving today. So have good trips my friend, and see you on Feb. Ex-Manila team (Jovie, Rhea, Mike?, Ruben?, Rommel?, etc) already prepare some special welcome to Rich. As the only ex Jakarta team, I must be there (inviting myself :p ).

(Psssst, I just want to know how much money Rich spend for the trips, coz maybe someday I can have my own journey…)

Form DateCalculator

Sometimes I need to calculate date, this form can help

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace DateCalculator
{
    public partial class FrmDateCalculator : Form
    {
        public FrmDateCalculator()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private void btnIncrease_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            txtResult.Text = dtpDate.Value.AddDays((double)nddDays.Value).ToShortDateString();
        }

        private void btnDecrease_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            txtResult.Text = dtpDate.Value.AddDays(-(double)nddDays.Value).ToShortDateString();
        }

        private void btnTryFeb_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            DateTime dtm = new DateTime(DateTime.Today.Year, 2, 30);
            txtResult.Text = dtm.ToShortDateString();
        }

        private void btnGetPrevMonday_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            DateTime dtmStart = DateTime.Today;
            DateTime dtmValue = dtpDate.Value;
            int intDayOfWeek = Convert.ToInt32(dtmValue.DayOfWeek);

            if (intDayOfWeek == 0)
            {
                dtmValue = dtmValue.AddDays(-1);
                intDayOfWeek = 6;
            }
            dtmStart = dtmValue.AddDays(-((intDayOfWeek+6)-7));
            
            DateTime dtmEnd = dtmStart.AddDays(6);
            MessageBox.Show(dtmStart.ToString("dd/MM/yyyy") + " - " + dtmEnd.ToString("dd/MM/yyyy"));
        }

        private void btnMinValue_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            DateTime dtm1 = DateTime.MinValue;
            DateTime dtm2 = new DateTime(1900, 1, 1);
            bool blnEqual = dtm1 == dtm2;
            MessageBox.Show(dtm1.ToString("dd/MM/yyyy") + " == " + dtm2.ToString("dd/MM/yyyy") + " -> " + blnEqual.ToString());
        }
    }
    
}

As you can see, this form already using "partial" keyword. With "partial", the definition of a class, struct or interface can be splitted into multiple files.

CVS and His Tortoise

So far, for source code repository or simply called "source control", I only using Visual Sourcesafe. My new employer is not only using Microsoft Technologies, in fact our main product is written in Borland Delphi. How we manage the source code? If you guess that we copy to another folder, backup it or zip-it, you guess it correctly. Now, this is not KISS (Keep it simple, stupid) anymore, this is really-really-really stupid. We are in urgency to look for a source control. And we stumbled upon CVS and it's Windows client; Tortoise CVS.

If you're a Windows user using CVS, and you're currently not using Tortoise CVS, I suggest you better to look into it. It integrates nicely with your Windows Explorer, ease your job significantly. Currently they are in a 1.9.x release, but I'm using the 1.8.x version (as in x.y.z, if y is an even number, it's considered stable release). Check their website for more information (and download)

New Job, New Country...

I'm hired for a job as a System Analyst in a software house in Singapore. The company is specialized in HR solutions. It's a new job, new country, new life. Hopefully I can adapt quickly (new home, new environment, different food), new colleagues, new TV Channels :D

Update (1/7/2006): The company, Timesoftware Pte Ltd currently has 5 developers (included me). My boss, Mr Raymond. Then Siong, Seng, and Vanessa. All of them are Malaysian. The shocking news: they are using Delphi, and (worse) Delphi CGI. We are in the progress to build new ASP.NET product