Tracking GPRS Internet Usage

Posted on May 26, 2007 by Alist

The problem using Internet Data Plan Package is you have to control yourself to avoid over-quota. I’m using Mac OS X Tiger, Sony Ericsson M600i with Indosat 3G Package for internet connection. Monthly charge is Rp 130,000 (promo rate) for 1 GB.

I can check usage in the symbian phone by opening Connection Manager, find GPRS Modem entry (usually created by PC Suite Software), and check its total connection log. How about using computer software to track it? I’ve crawl so many websites to find freeware for Windows or for Mac with empy hand. One day, Benny gave me a reference to download SurplusMeter for Mac.

It measures your download and upload in PPP port in very handy way. Install and forget. SurplusMeter Agent will run in background even you quit the main program. You can input your monthly quota in the program so it will display usage status compared to the quota, reset the usage on specified monthly date, pause the counter for your own reason, etc. Let this program as your GPRS data usage counter and the best thing is it’s FREE under GNU GPL.

Movie Review: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End

Posted on May 24, 2007 by Alist

My Rating: 6/10

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End is a 2007 adventure film, the third in the Pirates of the Caribbean films following The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) and Dead Man’s Chest (2006). At World’s End is helmed by Gore Verbinski, director of the previous films, and the cast includes returnees Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Bill Nighy, Geoffrey Rush, Jack Davenport, Tom Hollander and Naomie Harris. Chow Yun-Fat makes his first appearance in the franchise as Sao Feng, one of the film’s antagonists, as does Keith Richards as Jack Sparrow’s father. (from Wiki)

All my watching Pirates movies ends with a intermittent fall-asleep. That means the films were so boring and to long for me (and for most audience). Well, I’ll not recommend this film to anyone.

Movie Review: Next

Posted on May 22, 2007 by Alist

My Rating: 7 of 10

Las Vegas showroom magician Cris Johnson has a secret which is a gift and a curse which torments him: he can see a few minutes into the future. Sick of the examinations he underwent as a child and the interest of the government and medical establishment in his power, he lies low under an assumed name in Vegas, performing cheap tricks and living off small-time gambling “winnings.” But when a terrorist group threatens to detonate a nuclear device in Los Angeles, government agent Callie Ferris must use all her wiles to capture Cris and convince him to help her stop the cataclysm. (from Yahoo Movie)

Played by Nicholas Cage, this film offers great joy of watching. Somehow the plot ends with not-satisfactory twist. If I didn’t watch the ending I could have given this movie a higher score.

Setting SonyEricsson M600i as USB Drive in Mac OS X

Posted on May 16, 2007 by Alist

I’ve just found a way for MacBook OS X to recognize my SonyEricsson M600i as USB Flash Drive.

Maybe because there are a lot of users of M600i who also use Mac OS X, so we have to try solution and help each other since no official driver available to download, neither from Apple nor SonyEricsson. One thing is to have the phone as GPRS/3G modem dial-up, this was solved several weeks ago. Now this USB mount drive has been solved. Hope in the next release (Leopard) iSync can detect my phone.

Back to the topic, here is the procedure to have your M600i act as USB drive:
1. Download kext file from Magnus Blog. (M600USBFileEnabler.zip)
2. Extract the file to anywhere
3. Close all running applications (this is a must since you have to restart computer later)
4. Run the installation file extracted from zip
5. Follow the step in the installer (basically you just hit the next button)
6. Upon completion, it will ask you to restart computer.
7. After restarting, change your M600i USB setting from “Phone Mode” to “File Transfer”
8. Plug data cable from phone to computer
9. Pray that your Mac will detect a new storage and mount it. (it works for me!)

FYI, I’m using Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.9 and SonyEricsson M600i (firmware R4C01). Lower version of Mac OS X and lower firmware should be working to according to the site. Great work for Magnus, bravo!

Latest Update : As I’m using Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.3 right now dan my M600i Phone firmware is R9F011, it seems that without installing plug-in above OS X can automatically detect the phone as USB Device.

Virtual Blog of Hiro Nakamura for Heroes Fan

Posted on May 16, 2007 by Alist

Well, I have just watched Heroes till episode 18th, the intense was so high but I haven’t got next episodes. Waiting is very hard job right now. I can say this serial is very good and addictive. A worth watching tv series.

One of interesting character in the serial is Hiro Nakamura (played by Masi Oka). He is a Japanese that were mean to save the world with his special ability: bend time and space, doing teleport. And now we have the interesting fact: Hiro has a blog! He wrote many side notes regarding his journey (along with actual episode). Now you can confused about who’s writing the blog: Masi Oka or Hiro Nakamura. Well I think none of them, the blog must be wrote by someone else in the production company.

You can also view each episode from NBC Heroes 360 site (http://www.nbc.com/Heroes/360/) , including viewing commentary, send your artwork (who knows your painting will be showing as Issac’s future paintings), and exploring map owned by Suresh Mohinder

Indonesia Open 2007 Live at Stadium

Posted on May 14, 2007 by Alist

I’ve never watched international badminton game before in my life. Then the opportunity came last week on Djarum Indonesia Open 2007 held at Istora Senayan Jakarta. I watched second round on Wednesday for free (yes!). Actually Tickets were sold only for quarter finals, semi finals and final.

Istora Senayan was quite a good place to held international game. It is an air-con stadium, with capacity more than a thousand seats, I guess. The place was nice and temperature was cool. One tips is to park your car quite far since parking in the complex is expensive and you still have to pay for car-keeper.

The final was actually not so good for Indonesian team since they had only one representative in final – that was mix double. Watching final on the spot was really a new experience, different from just sitting on the TV living room. The atmosphere was so high and intense. The scream, the moment, and the yell blended together with hundreds of crowd.

The most watch game were Men Double, Fu Haifeng+Cai Yun (CHN) vs Abdul Latif+Mohd Tazari (MAL). Although we could predict who was gonna be the winner (China Team is world #1), the game still was so intense and high.

I don’t want to report the gameplay here (you can read in news), I just want to report the atmosphere. Sometimes I forgot which side I wanted to give support.

Importing Lotus Notes Calendar to iCal Mac OS

Posted on May 14, 2007 by Alist

Since I’m using Sony Ericsson M600i in MacBook running Mac OS X 10.4.9, iSync doesn’t support the phone. This causes headache because I have to maintain 4 calendar applications: in my SE phone, in Google Calendar, in Lotus Notes Mail, and now I want it in iCal. Previously my SE Phone sync perfectly with Lotus Notes 7 in Windows XP world, and then I export the file to Google Calendar.

Now I have to perform 5 minutes effort every time to import the Calendar to iCal. First is you need to run Parallel Desktop and install Lotus Notes 7.0.2 as well as Sony Ericsson PC Suite version 1.2.15 (this version support sync with Notes 7), make sure you can sync calendar in both world.

Make sure you have been using Lotus Notes 7.0.2 because prior this version, exporting to iCal format is not supported.

The follow these steps to import the calendar to iCal:
1. Open your Lotus Notes Calendar
2. Open All Calendar Entries Tab instead of Day/Week/Month Tab View
3. Select entries you want to import to iCal (the stupidity of iCal is it couldn’t check duplicate, so importing entries twice will result duplicate)
4. Choose menu File – Export – Save as type .ics
5. Copy the file to your Mac folder.
6. Open the .ics file using TextEdit
7. Find&Replace Time Zone (optional, see comment below)
8. Save the file
9. Open iCal Application
10. Choose menu File – Import, and select your file.
11. Import finish and you should see correct entry.

Notes:
- You have to replace Time Zone if you notice time difference after importing calendar (you can undo importing and perform step 7 to fix this case. Try to export an iCal entry to ics and examine the X-WR-TIMEZONE and TZID value produced by Apple and Lotus Notes using TextEdit. If the value is exactly match then you can skip this step, but if not you have to replace all time zone with correct time zone expected by Apple.