what is it with this froyo obsession

Eclair still rocks :)

spring-to-summer: photo blog

Since I've not been blogging for a while, let me do a post on some pictures (plus the stories) instead.

On a weekend, Balboa Park is a very nice attraction. Rather than explaining it in details, I suggest to just drop the park a visit. Beside a lot of different types of museum, there is also this Japanese Friendship Garden. A small cafe there, the Tea Pavillion, is a very nice place to relax and enjoy the surrounding. They serve sencha and other types of tea. Hungry? Get a rice bowl:

If you are more a beach person instead, then there is a plenty of choices, for example Silver Strand Beach. It is rather small, but it is always a nice spot to enjoy the sunset.

When I was at Google IO, I took some pictures of the large overhang banners because I wanted to test the 8 megapixel camera of HTC EVO 4G that Google gave away (see more in the complete set):

Getting a fantastic gift for the Father's day? Thinking of something for the next Mother's Day? What about a beautiful pendant (get one from LuShae Jewelry) like what my other better half elegantly captured below?

"i" for innovate

As I have hinted before, somehow I aimed to move to some sunny place in California. Well, lucky as we could be, after days of experiencing the transient stage (with tons of good and bad experiences, what a roller-coaster), we slowly settle in San Diego, (arguably) a beautiful place to live. The proof is the following picture, basically I can enjoy watching sunset from our balcony every day when the weather permits (it does usually).

Few weeks ago, I started a new position within Qualcomm Innovation Center Inc., specifically in the new Web Technologies team. This center is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Qualcomm, one of the top 10 semiconductor sales leaders last year. The official party line of Qualcomm Innovation Center is best understood by what our president, Rob Chandhok, has expressed once: focus on such important open source initiatives as Linux and Webkit, and on open source operating systems such as Symbian, Android and Chrome.

Of course, faithful followers of my blog can quickly point out that this whole thing is just a cover-up for the real motive: the strong desire to live in a perfect symmetry :)

In addition, to convince you that the alignment of the planet has been planned for this, surely you know (perfectly) where the upcoming Camp KDE will be held?

See you in 2 weeks. Happy 0x7da!

putu, kelepon, terang bulan

While enjoying this vacation, I managed to steal few hours to do some fun coding. Nothing spectacular, but it yielded something I will surely share in the near future. However, since I am still in the mood of bombing the planet again, here is another post with food pictures.

Something else we were glad to taste during our extremely short visit to Bandung were Putu and Kelepon, typically sold at the price of 1 EUR for 25 pieces. They are basically rice cake filled with palm sugar and served with grated coconut. Putu is steamed, while kelepon is boiled. The latter is also colored using pandan leaves.

While sampling culinary specialties means that we do not cook quite often, when the opportunity presents itself, it is of course a good feeling to eat something home-made once a while. Here is one: Terang Bulan (literally: bright moon). It is some sort of pancake, very similar to Martabak except Terang Bulan is filled with sugar, sprinkles, condensed milk, cheese, and the likes. Hence, it is also known as Martabak Manis (literally: sweet Martabak), a term that is somehow I dislike (because language-wise it is unnecessary as there exists a good name for that and thus it extends and pollutes the meaning of Martabak with a very weak reason).

The recipe? Check what this lady has posted. Terang Bulan is sweet and healthy (reduce the amount of sugar if in doubt), it makes for a good snack in the afternoon.

Last but not least: Eid Mubarak to everyone!

from autumn to winter

The wave of cold weather is approaching us, the nature's way of saying Wind of Change. While some parts of Europe enjoy the snow already, Oslo is relative still calm and actually enjoyable, even in the afternoon, for a walk.

(Picture was taken and shared to Flickr using Nokia N900 :)

bye munich (and D2)

After kickstarted on Tuesday, Qt Developer Days 2009 Munich has ended. Some of us, the Trolls, are already back in Oslo, recovering from the intense adrenalin kicks within the last 72 hours (or more). The extra surprise was to experience the first snow in Munich (and this is still mid October!). Most must recharge pretty fast, considering the San Francisco version of the event is in about two weeks time.

There already a bunch of articles covering the event which show up in some sites, Aron has most of them in his wrap-up blog entry. More links are and will be available via qtbynokia twitter. Fancy some pictures instead? Search for qtdd09 tag on Flickr and enjoy them!

As for me, I am glad that this is finally over. It's all about people: it was exciting to meet old friends and make new ones. In addition, my Special FX with Graphics View talk was well received (the room was jam-packed), I got some very interesting feedback and questions to follow-up. The other talk, Copy Your Favourite Nokia App with Qt, was a bit quiet (the typical problem of all presentations in the afternoon of the last day) but still, it was as interactive as it could be.

This mini wrap-up is not complete without food photos. While we were in Munich, we ventured some different possibilities for dinner. Let me just show you two of them: Low-carb Seafood and Biryani:

bye amsterdam. next stop: munich

Today is the last day of Maemo Summit 2009. I am sure the news spreads quickly; everyone and his uncle know already that Nokia lends around 300 shiny N900 (preproduction devices), worth 500 EUR, to the summit participants, excluding Nokia employees and contractors. It's Christmas in Amsterdam!

I had done my Cross Platform with Qt talk, I was quite content with it (that hopelessly small room was jam-packed). There were (and still will be) many other interesting tracks as well. For the detailed coverage, check out All About Maemo site, they are doing great jobs keeping the rest of the world up-to-date with the latest excitements from WesterGasFabriek.

While waiting in Schiphol for my next flight to Munich (for Qt Developer Days 2009), I had a quick glance at some of photos taken in the last few days. Let me just post one:

One evening, we picked Restaurant Sari Citra for our dinner. It serves Indonesian cuisine, the proof is the picture above. You have the choice to mix your own rice dish, such Nasi Kuning (rice with coconut milk and turmeric) with Tempe Kering (slices of fried, crispy tempe mixed with peanuts), Perkedel Kentang (mashed potato fritters) along with a wide selection of vegetables. Authentic experience with a reasonable price. Everyone enjoyed the dinner; happy Trolls :)

And see you in Munich!

webkit dinner: gado-gado + nasi uduk

Something I can always be proud of is to be part of the Nokia QtWebKit team. The fact that we are all the WebKit reviewers from Nokia (at the moment, surely the situation will improve in the future) is one thing, but most important is that the team is small and agile, and it comprises great hackers. You surely already hear a lot from Simon, Tor Arne, and Kent these days, and you will hear from the new blood pretty soon, too.

The least we can do for such great coworkers is to offer them a bit of culinary journey to our culture. Hence, the so-called WebKit dinner. As much as I love Italian food, such as pizza, it's also time for a change.

The starter was Gado-gado, which is just vegetable salad served with peanut sauce as the dressing. The main dish consisted of fish curry (generously contributed by Kavindra) and Nasi Uduk. The latter, which is shown in the photo above, is rice cooked with (among others) coconut milk served with sliced omelette, fried tofu, chicken, fish, and vegetables. A lot of other slight variations also exist. Original (from Sidoarjo) prawn crackers, aka Krupuk, completed the experience.

Dessert? Not forgotten. It was basically just fresh waffles (like I blogged before) served with the sauce made from brown sugar and coconut milk. Let's say it's the European interpretation of Serabi.

Tasty. What else does a man want?

paris lisbon madrid

Finally I had a real vacation, albeit short. Like many typical holidaymakers, I decided to do a little tour passing three selected cities in Europe, at the same time also using the chance to practice light, one-bag travelling (with a great success, mind you!).

Paris can always make a good start. The target at this second visit to Paris was to enjoy it at night. After all, it is supposed to be la Ville Lumière (City of Light). However, a long walking tour during the day was still inevitable, as evidenced from the picture of Église Saint-Eustache above.

As for the food, we decided to try non-local cuisine instead. We dined at the nicely-decorated Restaurant Indonesia, one of two restaurants in Paris (the other one is Djakarta-Bali) serving authentic culinary experience from my home country. If you happen to be nearby, give it a try as the dishes were good and reasonably priced.

Lisbon is fabulous and rich with history. We managed to explore the downtown area on foot, enjoying the busy Marquês de Pombal, even walking up to the Castelo de São Jorge. However I feel that exploring the surrounding would have been much better with a car. The view of Lisbon from the castle was majestic, also from the dozens of the short alleys on the way up there (the photo above). Of course, passing Ponte 25 de Abril - the sister bridge of San Francisco's Golden Gate - both on the motorway and using the train, was also a wonderful experience. Due to our limited time, we had to skip some other tourist attractions. We already compiled a list of must-visit places for the future, in case we fly to Lisbon again.

Nevertheless we had the obligatory fantastic dinner with cod. In another occasion, a simplistic but enjoyable dinner buffet in a Churrascaria was also memorable. A short detour to the beach at midnight completed the unforgettable journey.

Madrid was very vibrant and dynamic. It is also quite warm (as expected) with the heat at noon being close to unbearable. I like the fact that it was still possible, even convenient, to sit on a bench even somewhere in downtown as long as it is still in the shadow. Unfortunately Madrid was defeated by Rio in the race for the 2016 Summer Olympics host. Otherwise it would have been extremely fantastic as we were there after the last round.

We did the usual sightseeing (on foot) - including the compulsory visit to Palacio Real - and other usual rituals: having chocolate con churros for breakfast, drinking horchata to ease from the heat at midday, as well as eating traditional paella (and fidueà) for the (very!) late dinner.

Madrid at night on the other hand is a bit problematic for me. Since I am not a nightlife type, I don't drink, and I can't stand the cigarette smoke, touring the city after sunset is practically a mild torture.

Next to visit (due in few days): Amsterdam and Munich.

a moment, a love, a dream, a laugh, a kiss, a cry

Seems autumn always calls for my service, hence the usual pizza-baking obligation, as evidenced from the photo. Recipe? Check what I have posted last year. A slight variation: slices of pineapples :)

light beams

Some kind of midnight light attractions a week ago in Bremen was a good opportunity, a better one than just in the physics class, to remember that light beams are actually invisible, except when the beams get scattered by some particles or other objects. Hence the fog machines operating in the same space and time as the powerful headlights.

mails I wish I could skip

Don't get me wrong, I love to get emails. In fact, as long as the emails are not nuked by the spam filter, I read each and every one of them. I might not give a response immediately, but I seldom skip an email. However, there are few types of e-mails that I wish I could just skip, thereby saving my and the everyone else's time.

that starts with "Dear Sir/Madam". Nothing wrong with it of course. But if someone knows my email address, a little check with Google would reveal my gender and my full name. However, with that Sir/Madam thing, I cast a suspicion upon the content of the email (likely a spam anyway).

that asks "how to download FooBar". Maybe s/he reads one of my articles or a post in my blog. But normally I always state the web site of that particularly interesting program so that people can try it. Usually I give her/him the benefit of doubt and send the first few links I find by googling (or lmgify-ing) on "download FooBar".

that only says "I tried to do X and it did not work". Unless I have a crystal ball, how on earth could I possibly know the problems? Shall I forward this email to Uri Geller, or any of his successors, then?

that requests suggestions for a (final) project. If I do not know the sender (what s/he's studying, what the interests are, etc), well what would I say then? I can mention anything, e.g. create a rocket that flies us to Jupiter, but that wastes more of our time.

that ends with "Please help, it's urgent" or something similar. As much as I would like to help, I also have a life, and I have my own sets of problems, too. And so does everyone else. True, urgency requires a delicate handling but I am not in business of waving a magic hand. Beside, we are not in the kindergarten anymore, screaming does not make the solution comes faster.

that asks for some architectural diagram of my example code. It's soooo "corporate". Seriously, do you expect me to fire up Rational Rose and draw colorful charts (flying arrows included) for a 300-lines example program? Some people fail to see that an example, just as the name implies, is meant to be taken as an example.

that is closed with a very long signature. It's fine for the legalese purpose, but isn't it ironic when the mail signature is ridiculously long, sometimes up to 4x longer, than the content of the mail itself? And when the email is basically a set of some of the points above, the signature is like adding an insult (a terrible one even) to the injury.

Do you ever get other types of annoyances like that?

oslo mela

Just like last year, Oslo Mela Festival few days ago was something we did not miss, in particular because of the food.

paella de marisco

Also known as seafood paella, something we tried when we were in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria. Now I am motivated to cook it myself, sometime in the near future, in particular since I am also a fan of mussels.

there was a time that we'd stay up all night, best friends, talking til the daylight

Just like last year, I took again the picture of the horizon from my apartment, in the early few seconds of Monday. Last Sunday was summer solstice (for the northern hemisphere), the day was 2 seconds longer (in Oslo) compared to Saturday.

Martabak

Martabak - a popular snack in some places, including my home country, Indonesia - is actually easy to prepare. Basically it is just crepe (but potentially with many eggs for the batter), stuffed with vegetables and (if you wish) minced meat, deep fried for 3 minutes. Typically it is served with a dipping sauce that is a combination of shallots, chili pepper, palm sugar, soy bean, vinegar, and often cucumber slices.

it takes two to tango

sate kelapa

A dish that is on the prominent position of my must-eat list (when I am on vacation) is sate kelapa (or in its local variant known as sate kelopo). This is like the usual satay, except that it is sprinkled with coconut rasp (hence the name, kelapa is coconut) before being grilled, thus giving its distinctive, wonderful and appetizing smell.

You can find sate kelapa if you travel around Surabaya and perhaps other places in East Java. A portion of 10 pieces typically costs only 50 Eurocents. Served with lontong (bite-size compressed rice), with peanut-mixed-with-soy-bean sauce, you would never stop eating it. There was a time I had a double portion for breakfast, every single day in a week!

chocolate brownies

It is cold. It is snowing outside. It is weekend time. What would be better than baking something delicious?

By popular demand, here is the recipe for home-made chocolate brownies. It is so easy, it would never fail. Think about this: last summer, after I was injured in a football match, I had a surgery on my left hand. Effectively for weeks I could use only my right hand. Guess what? I still baked brownies when I was in the mood!

Ingredients: 4 eggs, 200 gr sugar, 100 gr flour, 100 gr butter, 100 gr bitter chocolate.

Preheat your oven to 450 K (OK, it's around 180 C or 360 F). Melt the chocolate. Melt the butter. In a bowl, stir together everything. Grease a pan and pour the mix. Bake for 30 minutes. Enjoy!

For a variant, add slices of fruit to the mix. My favorite is mango, but banana and orange apparently work pretty well. Usually I also spice it up with a bit of ginger and/or cinnamon.

for the glorious nation

Approaching the Qt 4.5 release, in order to relax the atmosphere a bit, and while I was just back from vacation in Indonesia, last week I brought nice goodies to the office. Read what I posted to our internal list:

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Subject: durian, for the glorious nation of Indonesia
Date: Tuesday 24 February 2009
From: Ariya Hidayat <ariya.hidayat@trolltech.com>

Executive summary: try durian candies I brought, find them on the desk in the 5th floor, next to the stairs.

Durian [1], an arguably very nutritious and delicious fruit, my all-time favorite snack, best things before sliced bread and LISP, is unfortunately forbidden to be carried in the flight, placing it in the same category as guns and drugs. Since I am not a brave as our Chief Troll (with his cheese adventure), instead of smuggling a large quantity of durians, cowardly I fall back to a simpler solution: durian (flavored) candies. For me, they taste fantastic (albeit not as heavenly as the fresh fruit, or when made into mixed drink [2,3]), but for most people, they stink, smell horribly, and taste disgusting.

When you start the losing fight with your stomach, when you count the minutes in the toilet, when your days in Emergency Room are almost over, now think about it: how do most Asian feel about European cheese? [4]

Now I am back on completing my patent application on "Method and Apparatus of Information Extraction from Combatants Using Exotic Tropical Fruit", before someone ratifies the counterpoint as an addendum to the Geneva Convention.

Enjoy the ride!

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durian
[2] http://flickr.com/photos/ariyahidayat/3293814359/
[3] http://flickr.com/photos/ariyahidayat/3294638128/
[4] Surprisingly, "durian" and "revenge" share a general theme: they are best served cold

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These candies of course can not reach the real taste of the fruit itself, especially when made into fresh drink like the picture here: