XML error on swapping blog and post title on new blogger

UPDATE: This hack is no longer valid as you will not be able to add it to your blogger template.

When you search for a post in a blog, say, with google, does the search result shows the title of the post? Or the name of the blog? If you say the latter, which is the default condition for blogger, then you'll need to swap the blog title and the post title on your blog.

Jacky Supit, on his blog, posted New way to swap Blog Title and Post Title on New Blogger.

What is this, exactly? To put it simply, it's turning this:

Into this:

Now why would anyone try to do that? One might wonder. It doesn't seem to worth the effort. However, this little change can mean a lot. Putting the title of the post before your website title means that when people search for something and google returns your site, the title of the page presented to the user will not start with the title of your site. Which in my case would mean, because of the title's length, it'll take up most of the space available on google search to show the title of the page, like so:

Which means that the user would less likely to click on it because they don't see the title of the page representing the topic they'd want to see. Not only this is SEO, this is just common sense.

Now, to remedy this, you'll need to swap the titles. To do that, you'll just need go to your blogger dashboard, go to template > edit html. You will then need to select expand widget template, and then look for:

<title><data:blog.pagetitle/></title>

Like so:

That single line is the only thing you'll need to replace. However, the hack to achive our purpose, is not that simple. The code is provided on Jack Supit's blog post, however, some users (like me) has reported that it returns an XML error, like so:

Your template could not be parsed as it is not well-formed. Please make sure all XML elements are closed properly.
XML error message: Open quote is expected for attribute “{1}” associated with an element type “cond”.

So, after a bit of investigating, the code apparently contains some minor bugs. I think it's due to blogger's habit on changing punctuation marks. A little tweaking, and I managed to get the code to work on this blog. Here's the code that I end up using.

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
<b:section id='swaptitle'>
<b:widget id='Blog2' locked='false' title='Blog Posts' type='Blog'>
<b:includable id='nextprev'/>
<b:includable id='backlinks' var='post'/>
<b:includable id='post' var='post'>
<title>
<data:post.title/> - <data:blog.title/>
</title>
</b:includable>
<b:includable id='commentDeleteIcon' var='comment'/>
<b:includable id='status-message'/>
<b:includable id='feedLinks'/>
<b:includable id='backlinkDeleteIcon' var='backlink'/>
<b:includable id='feedLinksBody' var='links'/>
<b:includable id='postQuickEdit' var='post'/>
<b:includable id='comments' var='post'/>
<b:includable id='main' var='top'>
<b:loop values='data:posts' var='post'>
<b:include data='post' name='post'/>
</b:loop>
</b:includable>
</b:widget>
</b:section>
<b:else/><title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>
</b:if>

If, somehow blogger decides to change some marks, here's a txt file of the code that you can download.

After that, just save the template and go see if it works.
The title hack only changes the titles of post pages, and not your main page.

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Define Friendship . . .

Define friendship, Charlie Brown. I think that simple question is not very easy to answer. For one, what kind of friend are you? And how do your friend befriend you? That would weigh in to your evaluation of the definition of friendship quite heavily. Don't cheat. Everyone has come up with their own definition. What's yours?

Charles M. Schulz, he was one lucky guy. Getting that strip was the best thing that ever happened to him.

I drew this the other day. I made the original PNG file available for download if you want to examine my inking up close. There's good detail captured in the scanning process. I used Photoshop to clean out my sketch lines and fix some weird scaling problem I didn't realize I have until I put this two drawing together in photoshop. Believe it or not, the Charlie Brown part was on the right side of a landscape paper, while the left occupies another sketch. The Lucy sketch was on the left side of another landscape paper while on the right side was the sketch of the dancing snoopy.

Peanuts (C) United Features Syndicate. No parts of this publication may be reproduced without the author's permission.

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Good ol Charlie Brown

It's Good 'ol Charlie Brown.

Charles M. Schulz, . . . I still miss him.

This is the early style Charlie Brown. I'm not sure why his head is very oval but I can assure you, that's how oval he looks in the book I'm copying this from. Just that particular drawing. The others aren't very oval.

I drew this the other day. I made the original PNG file available for download if you want to examine my inking up close. There's good detail captured in the scanning process. I used Photoshop to clean out my sketch lines.

Peanuts (C) United Features Syndicate. No parts of this publication may be reproduced without the author's permission.

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Composition in Red and Blue

It's Composition in Red and Blue.

Made with blender.

I can't believe I forgot to post this here....

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Lucy and Snoopy

Lucy and Snoopy by ~feureau on deviantART

Snoopy is the only character due to his naivete and purity, cannot be crabbied out by Lucy.

Charles M. Schulz, thru snoopy, has taught us the value of positive thinking, which is what we desperately need these days in the condition the world is in today.

I drew this the other day. I made the original PNG file available for download if you want to examine my inking up close. There's good detail captured in the scanning process. I used Photoshop to clean out my sketch lines. Then frame and text bubble the thing out in Inkscape.

Peanuts (C) United Features Syndicate. No parts of this publication may be reproduced without the author's permission.

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Dancing Snoopy

Snoopy dancing his happy feet. :)

Too bad Charles M. Schulz passed away just before the world turned upside down. We could use some of his insights to make us feel happy again.

I drew this the other day. I made the original PNG file available for download if you want to examine my inking up close. There's good detail captured in the scanning process. I used Photoshop to clean out my sketch lines.

Peanuts (C) United Features Syndicate. No parts of this publication may be reproduced without the author's permission.

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Composition in Lines and Brown

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE see this not in regular view, not in full view, but download it and see it zoomed to 100% in in your viewer of choice and enjoy the details on this thing. See only parts of it, and never see it as a whole.

These lines are mathematically generated in ubuntu then cleaned up in Photoshop.

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Linus and Snoopy

Happiness is a warm puppy and security is a thumb and a blanket.

So, I decided to color these two. Digitally. The paper background made it look natural, I think. There's no way I could color something like this in real life. The ink would go runny I think and I have to go out in my ninja suit and throw some shuriken at it. Please see it in full resolution. I love the dirty details on this thing, this should be printed to a billboard and put in a living room to enjoy how the ink and watercolor is spreadly soaked on the paper. You know what I mean.

We are in badly need of another Charles M. Schulz because the world today is too cold and insecure. . . .

Peanuts (C) United Features Syndicate. No parts of this publication may be reproduced without the author's permission.

Paper background is from [link] 's [link] .
I think this is the best paper stock ever existed in deviantART.

How do you make those links to other DA account with the icons? Do you know? Mine turns out linky links style.

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Linus Van Pelt

Linus Van Pelt by ~feureau on deviantART

This is Linus Van Pelt sucking his thumb and hugging his security blanket from the Peanuts comic strip of good ol' Charlie Brown.

We need another Charles M. Schulz because the world is in a pretty bad shape today, and I sometimes, I don't even know what's going on....

I drew this the other day. I made the original PNG file available for download if you want to examine my inking up close. There's good detail captured in the scanning process. No photoshop is involved in the process. I used gimp to adjust the white point and crop the image and removed parts of other sketches that gets scanned along, That's all. I did not even clean up the pencil sketch on this thing. I think it adds to the natural feel of the ink.

Peanuts (C) United Features Syndicate. No parts of this publication may be reproduced without the author's permission.

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Snoopy with an Apple

Snoopy with an Apple by ~feureau on deviantART

This is the early Snoopy with an apple on his head from the Peanuts comic strip of good ol' Charlie Brown. This looks a bit different from the other Snoopy sketch I uploaded because, Snoopy underwent a LOT of design changes over the ages.

We need another Charles M. Schulz because the world is in a pretty bad shape today, and I can't stand it. I just can't stand it!

I drew this the other day. I made the original PNG file available for download if you want to examine my inking up close. There's good detail captured in the scanning process. No photoshop is involved in the process. I used gimp to adjust the white point and crop the image and removed parts of other sketches that gets scanned along, That's all. I did not even clean up the pencil sketch on this thing. I think it adds to the natural feel of the ink.

Peanuts (C) United Features Syndicate. No parts of this publication may be reproduced without the author's permission.

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Snoopy

Snoopy by ~feureau on deviantART

This is the early Snoopy from the Peanuts comic strip of good ol' Charlie Brown.

I miss Charles M. Schulz because the world, in the state we are today, need the comfort of our safety blankets found in his Peanuts strip.

I drew this the other day. I made the original PNG file available for download if you want to examine my inking up close. There's good detail captured in the scanning process. No photoshop is involved in the process. I used gimp to adjust the white point and crop the image and removed parts of other sketches that gets scanned along, That's all. I did not even clean up the pencil sketch on this thing. I think it adds to the natural feel of the ink.

Peanuts (C) United Features Syndicate. No parts of this publication may be reproduced without the author's permission.

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Godzilla

Godzilla by ~feureau on deviantART

This one of my early computer graphics work. I never consider it finished, and one day, I'll make a proper Godzilla.

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City by the bay

The city by the bay.
Just a quick render. Well, the rendering takes hours because it's a very huge image, but it was made pretty fast.

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Corinthian Column

This was rendered as corporate logo for a company. Therefore I'll not be able to supply a hires version, print or CC license.

The artwork is copyrighted and you're not allowed to do anything with it. Even looking at it in your computer like what you're doing right now may land you in prison. Just kidding. But our agents should be knocking at your door any minute now.

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Space Buddha

It started as an alien and turns out rather Buddhists. (I'm apatheist myself) I decided it was actually how Buddha would've looked like in the planet Skyron. But the title Buddha in planet Skyron sounded like a bad B movie title. And at the time, I was listening to Futurama commentary a lot and one of the commentator said something like, "When in doubt, add Space before name." Hence the name Space Buddha.

It was published as a cover and it generated some controversy. Apparently the Buddhists took a page out of the christians and islams and threatens the editor. So much for karma.
Anyway. The original is quite hires, but it's in the archive. I'll dig it out later and reupload the hires here. In the mean time, enjoy a magnetic Space Buddha for your fridge. :D I was hoping DA would one day be able to print 3D statues, then, you can have your own space Buddha to put in your altar.

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Cow in a glass of Milk

This is another huge image that I rendered. It was printed on T-Shirts and as it turns out, the girls love it so much. The complete title of this piece is: "The cow in a glass of Strawberry Milk." But DA is too dumb to consider long titles on their system. Stupid admins.

Anyway, this piece is very cute piece and very cuddly. I'll upload the full res version once I found it. In the mean time, enjoy a mug of milk with a picture of a cow in a glass of milk on it.

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Halloween Bat

This was originally my entry in a collaborative 3D artwork. I had to redo this stinkin' creature 3 times since the software crapped out on me, and I didn't get the chance to pose it for the final pic so this guy sticks out rather stiff.

Regardless, this looks quite rather handsome, nice for avatars and stuff. I used it myself for quite some time.

This is the full resolution pic with a bit of compression. I don't have this specific 3D model anymore as this was an earlier version of the critter. As I told you, the software crashed and corrupted the file.

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Dragonfire Closeup

Dragonfire Closeup by ~feureau on deviantART

This is a closeup of the Dragonfire's head. This is not even close to the full res. It's a very large pic.

Like my recent uploads, the full res is archived and I'll get them out and reupload this pic in full res.

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Dragonfire

Dragonfire by ~feureau on deviantART

This is my first ever published artwork! The dragon floats across the sky after a fireball. I plan to remake this artwork one day with the skills I've garnered all these years.

Again, this is a lowres picture. The fullres is archived and I'll post the full res picture once I found it again.

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Rex on a Plate of City

Rex on a Plate of City by ~feureau on deviantART

This is the T-Rex rexing it up on a city.
This is part of an ad I placed to congratulate a friend's opening an architecture beureau. It has since closed.

Again, this is not a full resolution upload, the full res is archived and I have to dig thru hundreds of DVDs to find it. I will, however, one day reupload this with the full res. So stay tuned.

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T-Rexus Maximus

I think almost everyone in doing 3D computer graphics character has at some point made a 3D dinosaur. Most likely a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Unfortunately, this is not the full res version I uploaded. I backed that up somewhere in my archive discs and perhaps if I chance upon it, I'll re-upload the pic.

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Crossen Zimmer

It's been a while since I uploaded anything, but that's because I haven't been very productive lately.
Anyway, here's an 8 hour render of a cross. I was going to add some chain etc but I got lazy. I'm not very productive lately, as I said. And I don't know why. Let's see what I can come up with in the near future.

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Blue Orange Fanta

If there's anything wrong with DA it's inavailability of bulk upload and weird categorization. Some categories go too deep, others, don't go deep enough. Also, you'll keep guessing where you should put your artwork under.

Take this one for example. It's a photo of a product, but it's been photomanipulated, also, it's rather surreal to have a blue orange Fanta.

Otherwise, this was a result of photoshop goofing off and it didn't fall as deletable, yet it deserves no merit of getting saved. So I'm calling it. This one's getting off my Hard Drive but it's scrapped into DA. Maybe it should fall under scrap... Hmmm....

Picture
Make: NIKON CORPORATION
Model: NIKON D40X
Shutter Speed: 13/10 second
F Number: F/5.6
Focal Length: 38 mm
ISO Speed: 100
Date Picture Taken: Jul 31, 2007, 6:02:43 PM

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'Night of the Living Dead Pixels' released

The winner of the 2007 Suzanne Awards for Best short film, called Night of the Living Dead Pixels was released for download. For this final version, the animation was improved with some better music and small errors fixed.

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The making of There is nothing homo about homo sapien

Click to enlarge

The entry for this pic was made to my main blog, but there's a technical side to this that should go to this blog instead.

Technical note: Btw, if you noticed, the first panel looks significantly different than the other two panels. This is because the first panel was made entirely in Photoshop. The second and third panel was made with GIMP entirely. All three then combined in Inkscape to add the balloons and borders and stuff. I'm trying to make a transition over to entirely open source system. Stay tuned.

By the way, if you know how to have a color managed ubuntu desktop, like that in vista or OS X, please drop me a line at feureau@gmail.com thank you.

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Melsa Morons Sent Me An Email

The melsa morons sent me an email apologizing for yesterday's downtime on their cable connection. The thing is, I'm no longer subscribed to their service, but somehow, apparently, my account is still active. AND, I'm glad I'm out of their fucking loop because I DID NOT experience any downtime yesterday due to me having moved to another MORE RELIABLE ISP.
If you're still using melsa: ENJOY YOUR EXPENSIVE SLOW UNRELIABLE INTERNET WITH EXTRA DOWNTIME, YOU IDIOT!


Dengan hormat,

Bersama surat ini kami sampaikan permohonan maaf sebesar-besarnya atas terputusnya koneksi layanan Melsa pada hari Rabu, 15 November 2007 pukul 00:15 WIB yang disebabkan oleh adanya gangguan pada Jaringan Inter City Link Bandung Jakarta Melsa.

Tim teknis kami telah mengambil tindakan lebih lanjut guna memperbaiki gangguan tersebut sehingga koneksi sudah kembali normal pada hari Rabu, 15 November 2007 pukul 02:00 WIB

Kami mohon maaf atas ketidaknyamanan ini.

Untuk informasi lebih lanjut, silahkan menghubungi Customer Service Melsa di nomor telepon (022) 4209418 atau Layanan helpdesk 24jam kami di nomor telepon (022) 4209413.

Terimakasih.



Hormat kami,

Melsa Customer Care
PT. Melvar Lintasnusa
Jl. Ir. H. Djuanda 43A Bandung 40116
Indonesia
T : 022-4209418 F : 022-4209408
email : melsacare@melsa.net.id

==============================

============================================================================================================================================================================================================================

Dear valued members,

We apologize for Melsa Kabel Network disruption on Wednesday, November 15th 2007 time 00:15 AM due to the network problem on Melsa Inter City Link Bandung Jakarta.

Our emergency response team immediately fix the problem. Melsa network connection back online at Wednesday 15th November 2007 at 02:00 AM.

Again, we apologize for any inconvenience this might have caused.

For further information please contact Melsa Customer Service at (022) 4209418 or Technical Support at (022) 4209413.

Thank you.



Regards,

Melsa Customer Care
PT. Melvar Lintasnusa
Jl. Ir. H. Djuanda 43A Bandung 40116
Indonesia
T : 022-4209418 F : 022-4209408
email : melsacare@melsa.net.id

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How to Charge an iPod using electrolytes and an onion

In this episode we show you how to charge your iPod (or other mp3 player) for up to 20 minutes using electrolytes derived from Gatorade or Powerade which are then stored within the cells of an onion.

You will need:

1. 1 White onion
2. 2 cups of Gatorade
3. Screwdriver
4. iPod and USB cable

Check out our website! http://householdhacker.com

Disclaimer: This and other videos produced by HouseholdHacker are controlled experiments performed by professionals and unless you are an expert should NOT be attempted at home if you don't know what you are doing!

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ISP Change, or JANGAN PAKAI MELSA!!!

Finally, after about a week being offline, I'm back with a new ISP.

My old ISP, Melsa, did not came up to my expectation, I finally had enough of the traffic shaping and the instability of their network. Plus, you must agree to their spying on your online communications.

Here's a review of how Melsa, or Melvar Lintasnusa sucks: If you live in Bandung, and you want an unlimited broadband internet access, you have four options to your gateway to the internet. You can choose from Melsa, Centrin, Telkom or Indosat.

Here's a breakdown of their services.

	Melsa	Centrin	Indosat	Telkom
Name	Kabel Personal	KABELNET	IM2 Indosatnet	Telkom Speedy
Connection Type	ADSL/SDSL	ADSL	ADSL	ADSL
Advertised Download Speed up to	512 kbps***	256 kbps	384kbps*	384kbps
Actual download Speed	64 kbps	128 kbps	256 kbps**	384 kbps
Monthly fee (unlimited)	Rp 690.000 (SDSL) Rp 590.000 (ADSL)	Rp 499.000
Registration Fee	Rp 1.000.000 (SDSL) Rp 500.000(ADSL)	Rp. 1.000.000****	Gratis or Rp 200,000 (via partner network)	Rp 75.000
Security Deposit	Rp 500.000 (SDSL only) Refunded one month after contract termination.*****	NONE	NONE	NONE

*512kbps via IM2 PayTV, Jakarta only.
**I have yet to try this out, but it was reported at this speed.
***Their technical people admitted local (indonesia, or IIX only) speed at 384 kbps and 256 kbps for SDSL and ADSL resprectively.
****Not listed on webpage.
*****Not written in contract.

I KNOW I used melsa for more than a year, so, why am I disrecommending them when I've chosen their service in the first place? Well, when I registered with them, I was raking up to and above Rp1.000.000 in dialup internet. SO, I decided to use high speed broadband internet. But at the time, the only one with coverage in my area was Melsa. I thought, well, alright they said 512 kbps and at the price, it's quite a bargain. I registered when they were having free registration promotion so I only had to pay Rp 1.000.000 for the security deposit. The first disappointment was that they need three weeks to install the cable, and another week for Melsa technician to deliver the SDSL modem. (They didn't have ADSL at the time) Then after that, they plug in the wrong plug on their DSLAM and I had to wait another week for them to bring the modem back to me. They required a purchase of an APC protectNet which is only available from them in this demented city.

When Melsa technician setup the connection to my PC, he noted in a report the speed that I can get from that PC, which is 7.7 kB/s or 61.6 kbps with 44kB/s or 352kbps connection to melsa server. Evidence:

Not long after that I met up with a network admin of an online game center and he laughed when I told him I signed up with melsa internet. They had just terminated a contract with melsa because their network is unstable and switched to XL and Indosat.

And after that, disturbance after disturbance follows. Their network is very unstable. The connection at midnight is about 5 times faster than it is at noon due to network congestion at noon. Later I found out that if you connect via proxy, you can get faster connection at around 20-30 kB/s. Although they kept changing proxy number and settings.

So, to you all melsa user, please abuse melsa proxy and here's how you can get more bang for your wasted bucks; That is:

How to make your melsa internet connection faster:
Basically, use different proxy for every application you use.
If you use proxy3.melsa.net.id and proxy4.melsa.net.id you can achieve that speed. Sometimes, if you're lucky you can get speeds around 40 kB/s at midnight using proxy3.melsa.net.id or proxy4.melsa.net.id. With both, I can get full 768 kbps speed with a hacked modem and bittorrent. However, it will only last for a few hours at night and the speed will go down to the 10s kB/s rate. At one point, you can get more speed if you use proxy3.melsa.net.id and its IP number separately, say use proxy3.melsa.net.id in firefox, and the IP number for proxy3.melsa.net.id with bittorrent. However, you will overrun your max speed quota of 64kbps and your connection speed will suffer. That is the time it takes to connect to a server and ask for a download but you'll get "exorbetant" download speed.

The available proxies are:

1. proxy.melsa.net.id
2. proxy2.melsa.net.id
3. proxy3.melsa.net.id
4. proxy4.melsa.net.id
5. proxy5.melsa.net.id
6. proxy6.melsa.net.id

They always rotate their proxy, so keep experimenting.

The only downside is your upload port will get blocked when you use bittorrent and other user will not be able to connect to you but you can download from other people. Thus, even so you can download at speeds up to 50kB/s for a couple of hours at some nights, your seeding rate will suffer. (although, workarounds are available to solve this issue, but that's for another post.)

Every month I had to call their technical division asking for them to check the network and there'd always be problem with proxy or MAC address or whatever and the technical officer would give you improper settings because the network admin has changed something on their networks.
If you are a melsa user, notice that their speed is faster at mid month and is very slow at the end of the month until the beginning of the month.

The last straw came a few weeks ago when I was having very slow download speed. I tested downloading firefox from mozilla server and only got 0.1 kB/s speed. I called their 24 hour technical division and nobody picked up the phone for 4 hours. Later that day I called back and somebody picked up the phone and recommended a stupid solution to my problem and it was quite obviously didn't work because the problem was on their side of the network. I called back and nobody picked up the phone and so I called their customer service and a polite girl answered and told me that the entire technical service division was out. I was pissed. I terminated my contract that day. I had enough. Come to think of it I was quite patient with them, being their customer for more than a year putting up with all thier bullshit. But in the end, I needed something reliable that works.

The termination took a week of beureaucracy. They called me at least five times asking why I'm quitting melsa internet service. I told them they didn't deliver on their advertised speed and the network trouble was endless and I had hard time contacting their tech support. They wanted me to return the modem myself to sign some statements and I had to wait a month to get my security deposit back even though the contract explicitly said that I'd get my security deposit back when they got their modem. I told them they must send someone to take the SDSL modem and bring me the security deposit or I won't return the modem. Everytime they called, I told them that and their reply was always they'd consult the manager.

Today, telkom Speedy don't cost too much and it's available at my home, so, I signed up with Telkom Speedy, and currently, I can get speeds of 30-50 kB/s all day long. Depending on where I connect to, not how the ISP throttle my connection like melsa did.

To make the long story short, DO NOT get persuaded by their marketing campaign and discount. Melsa is the largest hotspot provider in Bandung, but even that is changing because telkom speedy hot spot is much cheaper (750.000 per mo. compared to around Rp4.000.000 at melsa) for the hotspot provider (be it, a cafe, a mall or a starbucks) to maintain. At this writing, melsa has just lost two hotspots at Bandung airport and D'Palm.

The only thing about telkom speedy is that you provide your own ADSL modem, and some non technical people buy cheap modems at regular modem prices and their connection suffer because of it. So, if you're using telkom speedy, and there's nothing telkom can do to fix your connection, make sure you use a good modem, like linksys (the one I'm using), SMC, belkin, Siemens or at least D-Link.

Another thing, if you'd care to read Melsa's Acceptable Use Policy, it's available online, but for some reason, I can't connect to open it. Anyway, in the AUP, you must agree to allow them to log anything use your internet traffic at their discretion, and you are not allowed to breate any bad thing about them and their employee. They can also cut connection to newsgroups (usenet) at their discretion. And they monitor internet messenger service traffic (like Yahoo Messenger or MSN messenger) at random and at their discretion, can block any communication using those protocols. Of course, your emails are monitored too.
Which I think violates some human and privacy rights. Which telkom does not claim to do, although, they will bow to the will of the police. Like all cowards terrorrized by the law.

Melsa AUP via the wayback machine: [link] It's significantly shorter than the printed matter:

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Composition in Red and Blue

It's Composition in Red and Blue.
Made with blender.

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Gimp 2.4 Released, New Site

To celebrate the release of GIMP 2.4 and to scratch and item off the Long Overdue list, the Gimp team have refreshed the web site and released Gimp 2.4. Grab it now.

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Eiffel Tower

My brother took this photograph. No photo manipulation whatsoever. Didn't even pass thru photoshop. Straight from the camera to your desktop.

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Curveus Maximus

Curveus Maximus by ~feureau on deviantART

This is the biggest single pass render I have ever made, 8000x4500 pixel. Perfect for a huge 30"x40" canvas. ;)

Took 18 hours to render.

Save the fullview size for desktop background.

Reuploaded August 9. Stupid DA sent an email to me notifying a hiccup on their part.

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Indokawa Logo 1

Something I rendered for a company's background pic.

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Crossen Zimmer

Crossen Zimmer by ~feureau on deviantART

It's been a while since I uploaded anything, but that's because I haven't been very productive lately.
Anyway, here's an 8 hour render of a cross. I was going to add some chain etc but I got lazy. I'm not very productive lately, as I said. And I don't know why. Let's see what I can come up with in the near future.

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Automatically Add Digg button to every post in Blogger or Blogspot

This is a step-by-step guide to automatically place a real-time Digg count and vote button to every single blog post. Digg is a social content website where your readers or you can submit content to. If you have a good story, members will 'digg' the post and write comments. As a blog owner, you may want to make it easy for and encourage your readers to submit and digg your articles.

(Click on title to see the steps/walkthrough)

This post is just so I remember where it is.

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Autodesk Maya Renumbering Folly, OR, *SnickeR*SnickeR*ChuckeliN*ChuckeliN*

Somebody at Autodesk (or mental images) didn't get on the version renumbering program.

PS> I'm waiting for maya 9.0 SP1. AutoSuck better get their act together quickly. They're friggin' killin' Maya. I miss the old Alias days.

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Software reset: HP PSC 1210

This is how to reset your HP PSC 1210:

• Set your computer system date to a date before the expiry of the ink cartridges.
• Start the following program:
  C:\Programs\Hewlett-Packard\Digital Imaging\bin\hposvc08.exe
• Use the password "Homer"
• Choose the reset directory
• Hit the total reset button
• Follow the instructions ...

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Autodesk Maya & 3DS Max 2008

What the holy mother fuck*in' god hell is this? Maya 2008? Tradition dictates that it should be maya 9 released this month, not maya 2008! This is another autodesk "Integration" Marketing scheme calling everything 2008 and makes you upgrade every year like every other company does.

This came in my inbox today: Maya 2008 and 3DS Max 2008. They are the latest release as scheduled launched around siggraph event.

Anyway, I'm not sure if I want to upgrade to maya 9 (or as Autodesk would love to call it, Maya 2008) Because we'll be stuck with maya 8.5 users, maya 8.0 users and those who upgraded to maya '08. LOL :D Anyway, it may have some fixes to the crashes autodesk introduced when they acquired maya coupla years ago, and more nucleus feature's released with this one. I'll think about it for a few days, but I suppose I'll be getting the upgrade after all. I'm a sucker for new features. :P

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Domed Frame Structure

Darn this thing is huge. It's like 4 feet in diameter and they wanted it photographed that makes it life size.
It was hand made out of aluminum. Part of a model for a bird sanctuary in a zoo. I decided to get a quick pic as a memento. (they got their large-lookin' dome pic) The rest of the model wasn't as impressive. It was just a regular zoo around this thing.

Btw, we dropped the thing when we tried to move it to the photography table and it's got a huge dent on the bottom.
Don't tell anyone.

12 megapixel cam shot.

I'm not sure whether to put this under architecture or product photography.... hmmm...

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Guilin

Softimage is definitely not the way to go. While it has a ton of easy to use stuff, it's still a lot stiffer than maya. There's a reason for being a defacto standard, you know.
Anyway, here's one thing I rendered a while ago that I posted to DA:

Millions of years after the homo sapiens went extinct, mother nature has reclaimed what was rightfully her.

The first in a series.

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Softimage?

I've been learning Softimage|XSI this past coupla days, and I find it much better than maya. It can handle 2 million poly like nothing due to their gigapolygon core. Maya would've crushed under that might. Doing SubD modeling is much better with it too. I haven't tried any "real" rendering work with it yet, but I suppose it would be on par (or perhaps even better?) with Maya due to Mental Ray. What I'm delighted with XSI is that it comes with syflex and joe alter's hair installed. It can use QWERTY keys just like in maya, too, but I find that with a little bit of getting used to, XSI's shortcuts can be much more productive than Maya's.

This is because Maya kept sucking after Autodesk bought it. It progressively go worse and worse with each version. 8.5 is much better than 8.0 in stability and it's got nCloth, but the entire system seems outdated. The x64 version is slower than the x86. (at least on windows system) That it's all a joke of an expensive software. The only thing you can expect to is the nucleus system. The demo seems out of this world. Perhaps it would reinvigorate Maya with 9.0 version this August.

Autodesk, would you please sell alias?

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Junk Halal.

I rendered this for a product and it turns out unused. Maybe you can use it to a purpose. Licensed under Creative Commons 2.5 Attribution-Share Alike. You may use it for commercial purposes under that license. If you do use it, please leave a comment to the thing you used it with. I'd like to see them. :P

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Introducing the new Maya 8.5

After months of practically unusable, heavily buggy maya 8.0, this month sees the release of maya 8.5, featuring an extensive bug fix. And, the more loudly touted debut of the Maya nucleus system.

Maya 8.5 hails the advent of a new era of dynamic simulation. The Maya Nucleus. Although nucleus is a full set of simulation system from fluids to rigid body to, well, everything dynamic, Maya 8.5 shipped only with one module, the nCloth. The first of a series of modules to be released for nucleus system, nCloth is intended as a replacement to the old maya cloth system. (they call it Maya Cloth Classic) If you have older maya unlimited licensed, the classic cloth system can be loaded into maya 8.5. And it will be the latest/last build available for the old cloth system. But for new licenses of maya 8.5, the old cloth will not be loadable. (and it also depends on whether you have older maya installed on your system) But with the new nCloth, why would you want to use old cloth? (other than loading old scene files).

The picture is a rendering of the new nCloth (about 100 face square) draped over a primitive cone. If you load the full size, you can really see how detailed that simulation is. Even the cloth shows the edges on the cone polygons. That's how detailed this simulation is. And this is not even close to the limit of how heavy the cloth can be. It simulates in REAL TIME on my system.

ALSO, on a less touted note, the mental ray renderer gets a revamp. It's also got a sun system, which can simulate the position of the sun and basic lighting of the heavens at a given time and position. This has appeared on other rendering systems, so this is just a long delayed update. Also, the mia_material shader for architectural renderings. (still needs setting up though)

PS. SSS is still a pain in the butt to setup repeatedly.

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Landscaping.

A demo of landscaping. Planting trees and sun. No wonder the house is dark. I don't want to attract attention to them.

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Coconut Island at dusk

A photograph of coconut island at dusk, the lava has begun to emit ambient glow. . .

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Spirit of Indonesia

Every children in Indonesia was taught to draw this picture either in their kindergarten years or before the 3rd grade. Some might say the picture is etched into their souls. In tribute to this mind numbing, creativity-killing exercise, I have found this mountains to emit the spirit of the drawing, with the birds flying above and farmer John's home visible, with the road stretching between the rice paddies. May all children be decreativitized and let's sow the seeds of complacancy.

All hail stupidity.


PS> I'm thinking of rendering a huge pic of this for the 30"x40" canvas. Anyone interested?

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