Steve Jobs and God

What do Steve Jobs and God have in common? Jeremy Wagstaff has this to say (emphasis mine):

What I’m not interested in:
heavily corporate technology or press releases that would only make sense to someone inside the industry
any press release about some new appointment, unless his name is Steve Jobs or God (or both).

An interesting way (good sense of humor too) to express one’s admiration to the ever innovating techno-geek Steve Jobs. One wonders, however, why we rarely find such diehardism to the inventor of personal computer called Bill Gates? Is the latter such a unpleasant personality so much so that people’s dislikeness hinder any admiration to his great achiement?

Mediocrity that Resists Change

Seth Godin as usual has an easy expression for something we feel it floating in mind but is a bit hard to say:

Remarkable visions and genuine insight are always met with resistance. And when you start to make progress, your efforts are met with even more resistance. Products, services, career paths… whatever it is, the forces for mediocrity will align to stop you, forgiving no errors and never backing down until it’s over.

Good thought for those who wants change (towards the better) but don’t have a gut to face resistance and challenge. A leader always opens a new path in which an ordinary passer-by never goes through. Naturally, mediocre forces just avoid to take any potential risk with uncertain result. The few, the leader, will take that path. The result may be unclear. The vision is.

Blogger Indonesia of the Week (81): Marisa Duma

Many Indonesian bloggers are basically not trained in general writing skill, not to say in journalism. It’s understandable given the fact that a blog is, shall we say, citizen journalism. A blogger sometimes just writes whatever he/she wants to write, improperly written notwithstanding. Despite Seth Godin reminds us that ”if you can write what you talk you would be a prolific writer” I believe that writing skill somehow is still needed for a serious blogger to make a blogger’s thought more “shiny”, more easily understood and have a stronger expression.
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Reading Habit and Library: Lesson #5 from India

An Indian professor once was invited to deliver a general lecture in Malang Islamic University (UIN - Universitas Islam Negeri) East Java. From Surabaya airport he went to Malang city by bus. After coming back to India, he told us, Indonesian students in India, his impression thus:

Between Surabaya and Malang, I was so amazed to see so many hypermarkets, great supermalls and big restaurants. I saw a restaurant which is so big that I never see it before in India. What “amazed” me even more was that I did NOT see any public library at all.

He then blasted (with “emphaty”) a question that unable us to answer with pride: “So, what are you people doing other than shopping and eating out?”
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Kosovo a Muslim State in Europe

Finally, people of Kosovo struggle to gain independent realised, thus becomes the only Muslim-majority nation in Europe. Despite its claim as embrcaing the “laid-back” version of Islam, some of its neighbors feel “unsafe”. Considering many factors, this pre-conceived notion is understandable.

That’s said, I think the existence of independent Kosovo is good to let European people in to more understanding towards Islam and that Muslims, many of them, just like any other who are busy to make a dissent living for themselves and their family. Every single Muslim represent a mozaic of Muslims as a whole, it’s NOT a homogeneous entity as one in other parts of the world might or is led to think.

Blogger Indonesia of the Week (80): Rob Baiton

Frankly speaking, I dislike anonymous blogger or ghost blogger as I prefer to call it, particularly those who blog/write on such sensitive issues as politics and religion. Speaking of the latter topic without giving a clear name and identity, to me, does not represent a good intention, and thus credibility. A writer or a blogger who rigorously writes on those issues while hiding one’s true identity and name –such as the one behind indonesiamatters.com deserves our suspicion of having a hidden agenda. Specially when one is critical to certain religion while generously flattering or defending another most of the time.
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Former President Soeharto Dies

General (retired.) Soeharto, the second Indonesian president, who has been in a very critical condition for few weeks, has died today in the RSPP (Rumah Sakit Pustat Peramina) hospital Jakarta. Indonesian government has decided to have a national mourning for seven days starting from now. He will be buried tomorrow morning in Astana Giribangun of Central Java as per his request. Yet, the possibility that he’ll be buried in Jakarta is not ruled out, reports Detik.com.

As a human being he deserves our prayer and forgiveness; and to his big family our condolences. May God rest his soul in peace. As a statement and politician who ruled Indonesia for 32-long years, he might make mistakes. Let the law decides and take decision based on justice for all.
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Blogger Indonesia of the Week (79): Ryan Octavianus

One thing that I always suggest every new blogger who asks me as to how to be a prolific blog writer is that: don’t be too obsessed with a long tiring post and a lot of comments. As far as blogging, quality content neither lies in a quantity of words nor depends much on many comments. Rather it’s on how new and enlightening your idea in a particular blog post is. That’s what a quality blog content is all about. Many famous blog writer or blogger, such as Instapundit with 100k unique visitors/day is making a brief post most of the time and with no comment at all.
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Free New Blogger Templates

Wordpress blogging platform is arguably the most widely used free blog software right now for self-hosted blog. Its openness to outside plugins makes it getting popularity among the coders as well. Wordpress.com, the free blog provider owned by Wordpress founder, Matt Mullenweg, gains popularity in a very azaming speed. That’s said, blogger.com / blogspot is still the darling to some bloggers especially for its javascript-enable policy. Making it a chance for blogger to monetize it.

For those stylish blogger, however, the problem lies on its limited and archaic by-default templates. And that has, fortunately, motivated some templates designers to create various new blogger / blogspot template to use for free. Here’s the links of free blogger templates for you to download. If you know some other interesting blogger template design, please tell us the URI address in the comment box below.

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