Accomplished SaaS course from UC Berkeley

Earlier this whole March, I joined an online free course from University California, Berkeley. The topic is Software as a Service, an interesting issue that just become popular lately. The program is hosted in https://www.coursera.org/ , as a part of joint experiment by three top Universities of USA, Stanford University; University of Michigan; and UC Berkeley.

For SaaS course itself, I think they prepared it quite good that it covers enough part of the issue in just 5 weeks. Thanks to Armando Fox and David Patterson, two professors of UCB, as with their efforts, this great online course is possible. The program itself is delivered in Video and .ppt presentation materials that covers precisely five chapters; from introduction to Software as a Service to some kinds of agile development methods, which are Behaviour Driven Development and Test Driven Development.

Throughout the course, the two professors oblige students to use Ruby (and Rails) as a language for assignment projects. Two choices are whether we want to work in a pre-built Virtual Machine or from the Amazon Web Service (they partnered with AWS to give away $10 voucher for students who passed first assignment). It also encourages students to use heroku, a popular online Platform as a Service (PaaS), that also supports Ruby on Rails for deployment.

There are four assignments and three quizzes that will determine students’ final score. For the first assignment, it’s designed to make the students get familiar with Ruby. To be frank, this Ruby thing is new to me, and it took one full weekend for me to get used with the language (it’s more flexible than Python, good but a little bit confusing). Second assignment asked students to improve a “Rotten Tomatoes”-like website with added functionalities (this one is called Rotten Potatoes ), and deploy it to the heroku. Btw, here’s my attainments for the project http://narutocuk.herokuapp.com/movies. Last but not least, the third and last assignments tested us the knowledge of Behaviour Driven Development and Test Driven Development by using handy frameworks called cucumber and RSpec. So, in this context, during a software development, the developers (or teams) are encouraged to develop set of tests first before actually developing the functionalities. Also, cucumber is a great tool where we can define set of tests in plain English text:

Scenario: restrict to movies with 'PG' or 'R' ratings
 Given I check the following ratings: PG, R
 And I uncheck the following ratings: G, PG-13, NC-17
 When I press "Refresh"
 Then I should see the following ratings: PG, R
 And I should not see the following ratings: G, PG-13, NC-17

This cucumber tool depends greatly on extensive Regular Expression string parsings. It helps to minimize technical gap between development team and the clients. And as for the score, I did a quite good job on the assignments (deducted points on last assignment as I submitted it late, and perfect score on others), but unfortunately not on the quizzes. I didn’t realize that it was a one-time attempt test, that when I did it and had an errand, I left many numbers unanswered and it gave me a bad score.

Anyway I finished the course until the end, and roughly two weeks after the last quiz, a mail came to my gmail with a Statement of Accomplishment in pdf format. I think it’s fair enough for me, and I got a new knowledge too

Here’s how the Certificate looks like: SaaS Class Statement of Accomplishment

Publishing Open Source Project: Android Coming Holidays

git remote add origin git@github.com:antonrifco/Coming-Holidays.git

After finalizing fix and minor enhancement, now Coming Holidays Android App is Version 1.0. Good news, it’s also an Open Source Project now. It is hosted on https://github.com/antonrifco/Coming-Holidays
or, directly from github console: git@github.com:antonrifco/Coming-Holidays.git

Actually the application itself is quite simple. I made it only one week on after office hours. Even so, I hope by publishing it as Open Source, I can share the experience of developing Android Application with other Android die Hard fans.

Description about Coming Holidays v1.0 ( https://market.android.com/details?id=net.antonrifco.comingholidays ):

Waiting for Holidays?!? Install Coming Holidays App to track upcoming Holidays!
Coming Holidays helps users to track nearest Holidays (Public and Private one). A nice-looking countdown should inform users how near they are from a free fooling around day. Finally, an annoying daily alert at stress-peak time (2p.m) will persistently remind People that life is not Yet over. There’s still Upcoming Holidays..

About Coming Holidays Version 1.0:
-. Fix “Alert get up on random time”
-. Fix “Nearest holiday should always days after today 00:00″
-. Fix Incomplete Deleting leave problem
-. Project hosted as Open Source on https://github.com/antonrifco/Coming-Holidays yeayy!

Announcement Coming Holidays Android App Release Candidate-1

Waiting for Holidays?!? Install Coming Holidays App to track upcoming Holidays!
Coming Holidays helps users to track nearest Holidays (Public and Private one). A nice-looking countdown should inform users how near they are from a free fooling-around day. Finally, an annoying daily alert at stress-peak time (2p.m) will persistently remind People that life is not Yet over. There’s still Upcoming Holidays..

What’s in this version:

Version 0.9:

• Keep track Holidays from following countries: China, Germany, France, Hongkong, Indonesia, India, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, UK, US
• Automatically detect location (country) based on MCC of GSM (No GPS required)
• Track upcoming Holidays and give Countdown
• Able to add Personal Leaves to the list of Holidays
• Give alert for Holidays until the next 3 days. Alert Notification will start at 2p.m local time.
• Fun!

Download at: Android Market

le Me: Berburu Roshan

Here’s a photo of le Me, imagining as a Warcraft DotA hero, Jah’rakal just before fighting with the Roshan. I used to play DotA a lot during my college time and early work life as a freshy. I realized that this had taken much of my time, so I decided to quit. So, here’s a post to memorize those fun time with friends!

“Jah’rakal: Hunting Roshan”

The Troll Warlord is a pure fighter, able to attack from a distance or up close, where he becomes stronger overall and may also bash. He capitalizes on attack speed, being able to strike and move quickly, as well as enhance his allies to sometimes do the same. Jah’rakal can also Blind his opponents, making it difficult for them to land attacks. Additionally, successive attacks landed on a target enable greater focus for Jah’rakal, greatly increasing his attack speed. If he is able to acquire items and momentum soon enough, there aren’t many fighters who can best him.

nb: the picture of  le me is taken in Henderson Wave, Singapore.

Analisa terhadap bug “Could not fetch content, sorry” dari Twitter SMS Telkomsel, Axis, dan Esia

Belakangan, beberapa teman yang saya follow pada jaringan sosial Twitter memposting kalimat yang unik dan serupa pada timeline mereka, yakni “Could not fetch content, sorry”

Beberapa hal seragam pada “pelaku” postingan tersebut ialah:
1. Posting dikirim via txt, sebuah aplikasi twitter SMS kerja sama antara twitter.com, third party Content Provider, dan Operator telekomunikasi.
2. Kebanyakan dari mereka merasa pernah terdaftar pada layanan di atas. Entah melalui pendaftaran REG sms, maupun paket bundling nomor prepaid.
3. Dari yang saya tahu, teman-teman yang mengalami masalah ini, mendaftar pada layanan twitter SMS dari Telkomsel, Axis, dan Esia (atau ada yang lain?)

Berikut adalah analisa blackbox yang saya pikirkan (tanpa mengetahui arsitektur solusi sesungguhnya masing2 operator):
-. Solusi twitter SMS ini dikerjakan oleh third party dari Operator telekomunikasi yang bekerja sama dengan twitter.com
-. Sms MO (request) yang masuk dari pelanggan (melalui suatu shortcode) dilanjutkan operator ke Content Provider via API HTTP
-. Sebagian atau seluruh solusi SMS gateway dari Operator ini menggunakan Kannel

Dari mana sesungguhnya text “Could not fetch content, sorry” ini berasal?

Text tersebut sebenarnya berasal dari Kannel. Ini merupakan known bug dari aplikasi SMS gateway tersebut ketika berusaha untuk mem-forward isi sms ke sebuah HTTP URL, namun webserver-nya me-redirect request ke alamat lain. Sampai saat ini, Kannel belum bisa menangani use case tersebut ( www.kannel.org/pipermail/users/2006-August/000356.html)

Jadi, untuk menuju pada solusinya, ketiga Operator tersebut (atau ada yang lain?) harus menganalisa apakah use case yang disebutkan di atas terdapat pada layanan Twitter SMS ini.

-just my 2cents-
CMIIW

Suatu hari di Kebun Binatang

Suatu hari di kebun binatang…

A: Nyamm…nyamm…nyamm…. Masbro, masbro. Gmana nih kalian pada betah apa di tanah rantau begini? Enak pulang kampung kali ya, bisa garap sawah enya ama engkong yang luas sepanjang mata melihat. Bisa jadi tuan di rumah sendiri gituhh…

B: Hmmm,,, iyeee juga ya masbro! Kagak betah gw disini. Tanahnya sempit dan semuanya serba mahall! Udah gitu ngesot dikit udah negara sebelah ajee.

C: Ah eluu eluu padee,, enakan juga disini! Nyari makan ga perlu berantem dulu. Mau jalan2 gak pake macet. bisa naek MRT kemana-mana serba deket dah! Apalagi disini hidupnya lumayan nyaman. Ntu liat deh si Monyet, sampe makan ajee disuapin. Asikk dahhh!

Monyet: Ahhhh,,, berisik yee elu elu pade. nyamm…nyamm…!

begitulah ceritanya…

Note: Kedua gambar tersebut diambil di Kebun Binatang Singapore di suatu hari di bulan September 2011

A little more information on Patent

Today I had an internal training about Patent. This was a quite useful information, I think, as it gave me a lot of insight on how the patent actually works to ignite the act of invention. Moreover, this legal right gives companies or creative individuals a chance to work peacefully to create another invention, as their patents are protected, against illegal copy, by the state.

Actually, beside patent, there are several other intellectual property protections that cover different point of a product. They are copyright, trademark, registered design, and trade secret.

Patent

A government authority to an individual or organization conferring a right or title, esp. the sole right to make, use, or sell some invention

Copyright

The exclusive legal right, given to an originator or an assignee to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material, and to authorize others to do the same.

Trademark

A symbol, word, or words legally registered or established by use as representing a company or product.

Registered Design

Based on The Designs Act of 2003. It was introduced to protect the visual look of a product, on sale.

Trade Secret

A trade secret is a formula, practice, process, design, instrument, pattern, or compilation of information which is not generally known or reasonably ascertainable, by which a business can obtain an economic advantage over competitors or customers.

Supposed that we take an example of a product, Nokia N95.

Here, the Patent could be the Data Processing Algorithm that are used inside the phone.

The software code, Instruction manual, and Nokia tune ringtone could be the Copyright.

The name of N95, brand Nokia and software name Symbian are the Trademarks.

Registered design of the product could be the form of overall phone body, and the shape of external button.

There could be some Trade secrets within the product that Nokia decides not to publish it.

The existence of patent law is basically to encourage technology innovation. Suppose that we create something new, then we duplicate the things to reach the market. But if other parties can easily copy everything that we made with efforts, this will discourage us to create another innovation in the future. It also promotes healthy competition through a race to make better product by doing innovation. Companies will try harder to invent a new way to realize the best product they could make. In the end, customers will benefit from this kind of competition. Finally, as consequently patent disseminate the information among companies, it will encourage them to promote technology transfer and do collaboration to deliver product.

By holding a patent, a party can prevent others to copy the solution that he made (valid for 20 years). But, this is only valid in the country where the patent is granted. There is no way to hold a worldwide patent, except you register it individually to each countries. Patent holder is also right to sell the idea to other parties by offering licensing contract.

What does a patent look like?

-. Bibliographic Information: date of patent application, information about author, title of patented item, classification number.

-. Abstract: a 150 word explanation about the idea.

-. Description:

Summary of prior Art

Problem that it solves

Explanation about solution

-. Claims: define the scope of patent application

-. Drawings: illustration of claims and protections

In Europe Patent Office, it needs 4-5 years of patent application process to get a grant of patent for individual or companies. There are several steps before we can hold a right to a patent. First one is Patent Application Submission. We prepare a document like the one that explained before to express our soon-to-be patented idea. Then, the committee will conduct a patent search on their database. As the number of patents are so many, they will need 18 months until a search report is produced. Here they will decide whether our application has already been submitted by others party or accepted. If they don’t find similar existing patent, our application will be proceeded to review for another 4 years. Overall, we need to prepare money around 35000 Euro to register patent to the European Patent Office (EPO). It’s quite a big money to invest

 

Check out for patent database: http://www.espacenet.com or http://ep.espacenet.com -> there are around 60million of patents, 90% of them are already free to use.

 

Finally, there are many ways to use and maximize the investment that ones put in a patent, which are:

1. Licensing / Cross licensing the patent to other parties that might need it.
   ex. RSA sells their cryptographic algorithm to parties that want to secure their application
2. Building Reputation, Companies is valued by the number of patents that they own.
   A good example is like lately Google bought Motorolla only to acquire their patent collections (http://www.forbes.com/sites/quentinhardy/2011/08/15/google-buys-motorola-for-patent-parts/).
3. Blocking competitors to enter market.
   Apple never sell their patent to other parties. Instead, they only don’t want competitors to enter their market. Like the case in Germany, where Apple sued Samsung for patent infringement against their tablet product, Galaxy Tab, that resembles iPad (http://www.thelocal.de/sci-tech/20110909-37491.html).

So, are you ready to protect your right?

In the world full of geniuses, the slithery wins...

Master of Business Administration explained in the MBAtour event

Yesterday I attended the Singapore MBA tour event in Marina Mandarin hotel Singapore. This was the last session of the tour held by the consortium (at http://mbatour.com) to broadcast information related to Master of Business Administration program, especially the program that are ran by the consortium members, including INSEAD, NUS, University of Melbourne, and other US University like Indiana University.

The event itself divided into three sessions, two panel discussion sessions (each session is running two topics), and one session dedicated for schools presentation.

I was attending two discussions, one was about GMAT strategy, while the other was Alumni Sharing.
Here are some QAs that I remembered of:
Q:1 year or 2 year MBA?
A: It depends. If you are freshy or tend to change Industry, it’s better to attend mba with Internship (2 year). But if you tend to come back to the same industry that you’re experienced in, take 1 year program.

Q:When is the best time to attend MBA program?
A:Better you understand what you want to do in coming years (goals), then attend MBA (after several years of working exp.)

Q:full time or part time?
A:for full time basis, prepare to have a tight bonding with you colleagues in MBA class as you are going to work with them almost every day.
Better to have one year leave out of the office to attend MBA (full time), unless you are unable to have it (company needs to deliver product, and you’re the only person that could make it)
In part time course, prepare to have efficient discussion with peers as you don’t have much time.

Part time MBA is only encouraged if it’s being paid by the company.
——-
Actually there are three types of MBA program:
1. Executive MBA, you are the executive of a company, and you need to improve yourself in managerial sector. It requires 8-10 years of working experiences to attend this class.

2.General MBA, basically it is for the generalist. Don’t care what industry you were working, don’t care what functions/role you were engaged in. You attend this class to improve your ability to better manage people (either it is only yourself or subordinates). Commonly it requires 2 years of working exp., but actually there are few MBA classes that don’t require working experiences.

3. Specialized MBA, this class is only purposed for them who are going to focus their career in a specific role (marketing, finance, etc.), or in a specific industry (I don’t have good example for this type). Also, lately there are some Master classes in other major, like engineering or Art, that are extensible to MBA, for example like the one I planned to attend, Master of Knowledge Management in Nanyang Technology University (NTU)

Basically the difference between General MBA and Specialized MBA lies in the top position role you’re reaching for. General MBA is designed for CEO (chief executive officer) type of people, while specialized MBA is for them who like to be CFO (chief finance officer), CIO (chief information officer), COO (chief operational officer), and CTO (chief technology officer).

The Reconstruction of Social Mindset

So in the era of information, people get used to engage on social media apps, like twitter. There, they can do almost anything the want, gather as many information they like, and especially to share any idea or data that they think useful,  cool or even funny. Here’s the main power, they actually can choose to follow any friends that are popular, or tends to give good information to them. Often, they stop following another users that give trashy tweets or words. Unconsciously, this list of information is shaping their mindset. So, if they read information about good promotion in a nearby place, most probably they would go there. It’s a big deal, I think. This can help us to unravel the mystery of marketing science. On another word, if we can compile the list of what a twitter user read on their twitter client, we can (with a help of assumptions) extract their mindset. Moreover, if they are active users, the process of this called “mindset extraction” can be better accurate.

Here, the idea is to create a portal that inputs a valid twitter username, then tries to compile the list of tweets from its following users that they possibly read (in a realtime, of course).

Potential obstacle

So after we know who are the twitter users that a user is following, next action is to compile all the tweets in a timeline. So, what if one of the users is a private users.

-> Here we need to create a dummy twitter user that tries to follow all the user in the twitterland. So that our engine is always able to see what any people say in twitter, via this dummy user.

“Actually, twitter limits the number of following that a user can do (compared to its follower)”

Another problem is when the user blocks tweets from one or more users from their twitter client, we aren’t exactly able to know. It’s become a problem because we made assumption that these tweets also shape the mindset, while actually they are not (because the users never see these tweets). Maybe a very complex Artificial Intelligent (AI) algorithm could solve the problem. Basically it is to smartly assume the interaction between a user (A) and another user that it follows (B). For instance, supposed that if user B mentions user A in the tweets, and they always be ignored. Here, we can roughly assume that the user B is blocked by user A. It’s a very raw example actually.

I don’t know exactly how to implement this, maybe just like I said before, it’s complex!

*this simple idea is too fancy, I know, to reach the goal of extracting mindset from people. But maybe starting from this basic idea, and to expand it to even bigger realm of logical, it becomes possible.

*twitter.com has actually made this possible to see what other user see on their timeline. Goto: http://twitter.com/username ,choose tab Following, then click View as Following.

The story of Mr. Sunny side up Egg

Hello,

Lately I kinda like to learn cooking. Not just a cooking actually, it is a story. Maybe we can call it cooking with background tale, or a narration. Whatever… let’s just come close to the stage…

Hello, I am Mr. Egg. Tonight is my execution day. I might not be around anymore. But I hope my spirit and my idea will always remain in your mind.

 

 

 

 

They carved me like idol, shape me with fashion. So as I thought that I‘m the luckiest human alive. Errr,not human actually

 

 

 

 

 

But, yeah you know, the fact is too harsh. I‘m being consumed. My mind, my soul, and even my bright big yellow eyed at foremost. Bad for me…

 

 

 

 

 

Shure it is. I will always remain in your heart. No? Ah at least I‘ll remain in your mouth, then your throat, then your stomach… and finally ahhhh… I will exit…

*FIN