Tuesday, January 22, 2008

VAS need operator's incentive

Indonesia content market has grew from a second row become first class revenue channel for operator and VAS (value added service) companies. But, as the market become more modern, now VAS companies demanding a new idea to come up with the market grows stagnant.

There is a lot of idea to bring this business back to life again, actually. Backed by 3G technology as transport, and advanced mobile phone platform from Java, Symbian and Windows Mobile, there are likely we have the development scope like desktop programming do.


Some of it are online gaming, full track songs, video on demand, and mobile tv. But all come to a common problem. Most people here is not wealth enough to spend more money for "not-really-important" pulsa. Pulsa refer to prepaid credit, as most mobile phone user here uses prepaid service than post paid. And average ARPU is between Rp. 70.000 - 100.000 (about US$ 8 - US$ 11), most of it are used for SMS and voice call.

But the situation will change if operator willing to become more "flexible" on data charge (GPRS fee). Flexible, is just another way to say "make it free" As this is VAS, user is get charged by the service itself (could be subscription or on demand) and if come with other charges, I personally will think twice to have that service.

Even the technology is so advance that can stream video, but phone with TV tuner feature is very attractive, even we can't really say the quality is satisfying. That's why people here are more like "Nonton TV tanpa pulsa !" jargon than expensive messy mobile tv. So 3G phones just like other low end phones, used for make call, send SMS, and listen to "pirated" music. Do you agree with me ?

Note. VAS company also known as CP (content provider) company.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Using ssh, scp, sftp without password

SSH is a remote access protocol that designed for security purpose, replacing non-secured Telnet. As it main strong point is its security, there's both side signature and authentication to establish a connection. And also, if you notice, most SSH clients didnt offer a "remember password" option and always been asked for password each time you want to connect.

But on linux you can set the connection establish itself without prompting for password. This quite useful if you very often connect to a server. I assuming connecting from LOCAL to SERVER.

1. Log on to LOCAL computer. Run following command :
$ ssh-keygen -t dsa
Left the field empty (press enter to accept the value)
As this step complete, there are 2 file created in your home ~/.ssh/ folder
id_dsa.pub --> this is your public key
id_dsa --> this is your private key

2. Merge the public key into SERVER's authorized key. First we need to transfer the file first using SCP. Add -P option if your SERVER user other port than default SSH port 22.
$ scp ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub user@SERVER:/tmp
Then, log on to SERVER for further step by
$ ssh user@SERVER -p port_number
Change the port number to a value of your SSH port. If you dont know you may try 22.

3. As we logged on SERVER, merge the public key into authorized_key2 :
$ cat /tmp/id_dsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_key2
Now you can delete the public key :
$ rm /tmp/id_dsa.pub

4. Now you can SSH, SFTP or SCP to SERVER from LOCAL computer without get prompted by password.

For security reason, please apply this for trusted computer only.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Why Indonesia local TLD isn't so popular ?

Indonesia as part of global networking has its own top level domain (TLD).
1. co.id, is for company and business institution.
2. or.id, for non-profit organization
3. ac.id, for school and educational institution
4. go.id, for government and its related offices.
5. net.id, for internet related institution
6. web.id, for personal sites

Among these TLDs, there's common problem which can only be registered by person or company who has Indonesia Tax Number (NPWP) and strong reason why need to register the name. Simply no room for these personal domain and occasional domain registration. Have you think of to register i-love-blogging.co.id instead of i-love-blogging.com ? Even some government promotion are registered to dotCom domain!

Beside that, manual processed registration procedure makes only a professional can understand the form and fill it correctly. But some of these complicated procedure are taken care by hosting company. But everytime you need to make changes to these data, always have to ask your hosting company to do it. Although, some hosting company has their own control panel for client to manage. But what if we want to relocate the hosting ? Ooppss.

That's why when we need a domain to hook our promotion or project, Indonesia local TLD would never come as first choice. So, I'm calling Indonesia internet authorities, let build a strong management to handle this domain registration business. And I believe, this is a really potential business the worth to manage professionally and will produce a significant incomes.

What do you think ?

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Customize Windows XP logon screen

One year after Microsoft Vista launched, its predecessor still on top of most famoust operating systems chart. This can be see at some web page counter put Windows XP percentage far above Vista. This is because Windows XP is proved mature and stable OS while Vista still lack of it's support for driver and performance that Microsoft claimed.

But, still Vista-style interface is very tempting to try. Luckily, Windows XP offer so much customization option, so we can customize everything to make it looks like real Vista. There are Vista Transformation Pack that can transform your XP to nearly-perfect Vista interface, from the boot screen, welcome logon screen, start menu, and even icons and behaviour.

For some who doesn't like the total make-over of XP, please try just customize one thing that you might see it every time you start your computer. That's logon screen.

Default logon screen system is controlled by a file name logonui.exe in C:\Windows\System32\ (actual folder location may vary depend on your installation). Do not change or delete the file. All we need is find the same functioned file and put to the same folder.

First step, you can find the interface you like from search engine. But I prefer to search from DeviantArt. Choose the interface you like, but make sure it's an EXE file. Otherwise, you might need another program the make it work. Once downloaded the file, put it into same folder as C:\Windows\System32 and do not overwrite the original logonui.exe, if they have a same name.
Let say, name it logonui_vista.exe

Then open a REGEDIT session (from START -> RUN -> type REGEDIT). Navigate to
\HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\logonUI
Change the default value "logonui.exe" to the new file name just copied.

Dont forget to change the user logon style at Start -> Control Panel -> User Account -> Change the way user log on/off. Check the "Use welcome screen" check box. Try to log off then log in again to see the new interface in action.

Now you can change your login screen whenever you like !