Category Archives: Uncategorized

2008-08-08

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Today is 8th August 2008, the beginning of Beijing summer olympic 2008. I was stunned watching the opening ceremony on TV. It was the most beautiful opening ceremony I’ve ever seen in my life (the second one is the Seoul Olympic in 1988). It’s really really beautiful and calming. I think it touches something deep inside me, I even got some tears in my eyes…

In the last 4 years, I’ve watch several opening ceremonies: World Cup 2006, Winter Olympic Torino 2006, and the UEFA Euro 2008 Austria-Swiss. To tell the truth, I was not really impressed by them. Maybe my expectation was too big. Or maybe Asian is quite good managing something big, colosal, and beautiful.

Well, that’s just my preference 😉

Today is also my lucky day. I finally finish my thesis documentation after working on it for the last one and a half month. It was really hard days since I have my full time job and have to do my thesis on the evening. And also in the weekend. It’s really tiring but that’s the only way for me to get my work permit.

That’s why I didn’t update both my Blog and portfolio for a long time… Sorry for that.

I hope I can get everything done: my thesis defend, my master degree, and our work permit in Germany, before 1st of September. That’s one of my wishes for this amazing and beautiful day.

Getting Germany Work Permit

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I didn’t know that getting work permit in German is really this hard. It’s been 3 months and I haven’t got my work permit yet 🙁

It’s quite surprising for us. We did a consultation with immigration lawyer a week before I applied my work permit. The lawyer said it won’t be a problem for us to get work permit. The job requires skilled worker (J2ME programming), I have 3 years experience on J2ME, got a bachelor degree in Informatics Engineering, and currently finishing my master thesis in Digital Media in Germany (it’s our third year in Germany). My wife also has the same qualification like me, and she even speaks better German than me.

The problem is not in the immigration office. In fact, they are really helpful. They respond all my e-mails (in English!!). We went to the immigration office in Berlin and it’s far nicer than the one in Bremen. The person are so kind and friendly (including the security guys).

The problem is on the Arbeitsagentur (the state job agency). The immigration office has to send my documents to the Arbeitsagentur and wait for their approval. Normally, it takes 3 –4 weeks for the Arbeitsagentur to approve the document, or 2 weeks if they reject you. Even the person in the immigration office was confused that there’s no answer yet from Arbeitsagentur, even after more than 2 months.

So on the last one month, me and the HRD person from the company have been in contact with the Arbeitsagentur. It’s quite hard to work with the Arbeitsagentur. The response was quite slow, hard to find the contact person, and they keep on asking for some extra documents.

They keep on arguing that I have to finish my master degree first. I found it untrue because I know some indian friends who managed to get work permit (after dealing with them for 3 months) while finishing their master thesis.

Fortunately, the person at the immigration office is really kind and aware of our problem. She gave us temporary permit for 3 months as students, which means I can start working in the company immediately while waiting for the permit approval, and also finishing my thesis 🙂 We were so happy when she gave the permit because my student permit was supposed to ended on May 31st. Otherwise, I have to go back to my home country. At least, our financial problem will be solved at the moment.
We really really hope to get our real permit soon. We love Germany, we have close friends and good memories here, and it feels like our second home country.

This issue has to be changed since almost 95% of foreign students in German choose to work at other country or go back to their home country after finishing their study (Spiegel, August 2007). I find it kinda true since only a few of my foreign friends can get a job in German. Maybe it’s hard to get a job here, or maybe the horror stories about German bureaucracy?

I guess we are still lucky.

Fixing a Broken Wacom Pen

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Two weeks ago, I accidentally drop my Wacom Pen. It happened several times before but this time, the pen stop working 🙁 The tablet could not detect the pen tip but the eraser tip was still working.

It’s an old model which I bought on 2002 (Wacom Graphire 2) and the replacement pen cost around 40 Euro 😯

Now I am using a mouse.

Three years ago, I decided to stop using computer mouse and rely 100% on my Tablet. Actually, I was training my eye-hand coordination using the tablet. I found it’s more natural to use a pen so since then, I stick with it. It’s also good for your wrist since I read somewhere that you could reduce the risk of getting Carpal Tunnel.

I plan to buy a new tablet later (maybe the Wacom Bamboo) so it’s worth it to try repairing the pen 😛

Click more to see my step-by-step instruction (with photos) how to fix a broken Wacom Pen 🙄

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Moving to Berlin

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I finally got a job (Yay!!!!!! ) I am going to be J2ME developer in a design and technology company in Berlin 😎

I have signed the contract last Thursday but I still have to wait until I get the work permit. The process for the work permit could take up to 3 weeks 😐

So now we’re quite busy finding apartment, getting some administration papers, and travel Berlin-Bremen. Thanks to the Internet, some of the works can be done via e-mail. It’s been quite tiring and hectic weeks for me and my wife but we really feel excited. Can’t wait to start our new life in Berlin 🙂

Next week, we are going to go immigration office in Berlin for the work permit. Wish us luck 😉

One Laptop Per Child

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I am a little bit worry about this project. It’s true that technology can change many things and solve many problems but in this case (one laptop per child), I don’t think that the laptop is the key to solve the education problem in developing countries.OLPC2

One of the hot debated issues is the laptop’s price which is around US$100-150. This is very  expensive for normal people in developing countries. In those countries, US$100 can gives you more things than you can imagined. I remember when I was study informatics in Indonesia (1997), I can live normally with US$80 monthly. When I graduated and worked in a software company, my monthly salary was around US$200 and I could live normally and saved a hundred bucks per month 🙄

However, the main problem is not about the price but whether the laptop is worth the price. People said that this laptop can train children to be creative and encourage them to do exploration and experiments. Unfortunately, all these things can be done without a laptop.

The laptop has word processor, paint program, and calculator but all these things can be replaced easily by pencil and paper. The children need to thought how to write, draw, and count properly, no matter the tools they’re using.

Another problem is the content that the laptop has. The content is far more important than the media itself. It’s like having a durable school notepad which has nothing inside. Empty. You hardly learn something from an empty book; you still need content to read (education books and materials) and a teacher.

Sure it has Internet connectivity, but the OLPC project seems doesn’t provide any education materials that can be downloaded online. IMO, these centralized contents are far more important than the laptop. It’s the system, not just the client-side device. Without this, the children could be lost and just browsing around the Internet. You don’t want to teach them about procrastination on early age 🙂

This project is still in early process.It’s unfair to judge this program badly. It takes time, patience, and maybe trial-and-errors before we know the right answer for the education problem.