Change YouTube Size on your blogpost

Want to change the size of an embedded-video from YouTube in your blogpost ? Try this one..(hey, I'm still an amateur...so correct me if I'm wrong, okay?)

1. Open your YouTube video to be inserted in your post. Copy its HTML code (in the red circle)
2. Create a new post. Add video from YouTube by pasting the embedded HTML code of the video in your create-post box.
   
3. Click on "Edit HTML". You will see the HTML code from that YouTube video.
4. Find the parts that show the width and the height of that video. (see the red arrows).
5. Change those numbers with the suitable size like you want. Change both, upper and lower parts. Usually YouTube video/object has "425" in width and "344" in height.
6. Publish post. You can immediately view your blog now.

Hope it works....:)

Ken Lee?

"Without You" by Mariah Carey.

Have you ever heard of that song? It's a nice song, you know..
But have you ever heard someone sing that song in a very unique way? See this one :



I'm sure you'll laugh at it. But I think we should see that from another point of view.
You see, the girl's name was Valentina Hasan. She followed an audition in Bulgaria. It was an audition for Bulgarian Music Idol, some sort of American Idol, Indonesian Idol, etc. You can see that Valentina was very confident about her performance. Although she didn't understand English, she was determined to sing that song. You can see her expression. She didn't care at all, even when one of the judges laughed. This was something awesome. I call this " a brave action". Not everyone could do this! Infact, Mariah Carey admitted it. Watch this :



And you know what?!? After that "KenLee" surprise, Valentina got another surprise, as the chief of EMI (you know, that famous music-recording company..) contacted the chief of Universal for Bulgaria, in order to find out more about her performance. Pheww..who never know???



Well, at least I can learn one thing : if you are determined to reach something, just follow your heart and don't get bothered with what people think about you. Two thumbs up for Valentina Hasan!

Soto ESTO

SOTO (often called as sroto, coto, or tauto) is the name of one of many Indonesian food. It's the kind of food that almost every region in Indonesia has, in many different variations. But among those many kinds of soto, they have one thing in common, which is, composed of broth, meat and vegetables. So soto is more like a kind of soup, usually accompanied with rice. There are so many variations of soto, which are commonly differentiated by the meat ingredient in them. For example, soto ayam (chicken soto) and soto daging (beef soto).People in Indonesia also give specific names for many variations of soto, usually based on the location or region where the soto had been made, e.g. Soto Kudus (from Kudus-Central Java), Soto Surabaya (from Surabaya-East Java), Soto Makassar (from Makassar-South Sulawesi), Soto Betawi (from Jakarta), etc.
Soto can have a clear broth, a yellow transparent broth and a coconut-milk broth. The broth is the main part of soto, because it consists some spices like : shallot, garlic, turmeric root, galangal, ginger, coriander, salt and pepper.

This time I want to share about a kind of soto from my hometown, SALATIGA (this is a small town in Central Java, located between cities of Semarang and Solo) .
The name of this famous cuisine from Salatiga is : Soto ESTO. For your information, ESTO is the name of a legendary bus company in Salatiga. ESTO stands for : Eerste Salatigasche Transport Onderneming (it's in Dutch language, I don't know what's that supposed to mean....:p) .So, what's the connection with that bus company anyway?
Well, it is called Soto ESTO because people can buy this soto right in front of ESTO's garage. That's why people of Salatiga used to call it Soto (Garasi) ESTO, or Soto of ESTO's garage.
If you want to buy this soto, don't imagine of a large, comfort & cozy place to eat, cause you will only find a small-size kiosk-like booth. It's only opened from the early morning until 7-8 AM. You have to come early, otherwise, you won't be able to have soto as your breakfast. You won't find this soto in the afternoon nor in the night, because it's only sold in the morning.
This coconut-milk-broth soto is very unique. It's quite spicy and can make you sweat while you're eating it. Together with a glass of hot-tea, this soto will give you such a great sensation of breakfast. You can add some snacks too. There are things that called "kerupuk karak", some sort of crackers made from rice, or "perkedel", that made from potato or something like that (i'm not sure...but still I can assure you how delicious they are..), and many others.
You will feel "hot" when you eat this soto, let alone eating it with chilli..And when the place gets more crowded, that "hot"sensation will increase as you keep on sweating. This food is highly recommended to those who want to have a special-spicy breakfast in the morning.
So, when you visit Salatiga, don't forget to try this delicious cuisine....!!!


PS: it's popular for sure.... here is an example..(thx to adhitsuniverse)

Isabella Search...

When I browsed YouTube this morning, I accidently found a song called "Isabella". It reminds me of an Asian pop song from early 90's. It was sang by a Malaysian band named the "SEARCH". Amy was the name of the band's vocalist. Don't get wrong..Amy is "him"! Yes, Amy is a man :D
This song was quite popular in Indonesia at that time. In fact, there was an Indonesian movie with the same title based on this song. And if I'm not mistaken, Nia Zulkarnaen, a-well-known beautiful Indonesian actress played as "Isabella" in that movie (boy..Nia was very cute that time....she still is...hehehee...).
But "Isabella" itself was a kinda' soundtrack of a Malaysian film titled "Fenomena" starred by Amy Search and Ramona Rahman.(CMIIW).



The song's tone is a little bit ballad or kinda-slowrock, BUT it's lyric is very mellow and melancolic. Love and heartbreaking are the main story behind that :(
And if you see the band's on-stage performance, you'll easily find that they were strongly influenced by many 80's and 90's Rockbands , like Queen, Guns 'n Roses, Mr. BIG, Firehouse, etc.



Well... despite of it's "contradictive" style, the song did a very good job to the band. As a matter of fact, many Indonesian people loved it. I too, used to sing it, when I took a bath in the bathroom LOL...xixixixixxx....

Samsung E590 Camera

Samsung SGH E 590

Yup...that's the type of my mobilephone. My wife gave it to me as a birthday present :)..

This mobilephone is quite awesome despite of its simple design. We can find many useful features in this type. One of those is its camera.
The SGH E590 has a 3MP Camera with AutoFocus and 4x DigitalZoom. Combined with 1.79" Colour LCD Screen (TFT 260K), the E590 is very fun to use in making photos.

Its picture-taking ability is great. And what makes it more fun to use is the "Macro" feature in the camera. Shooting an object at a very close distance would be a little bit difficult to do, especially when you use a camera-phone. But with SGH E590, you can easily do that with the "Macro" mode.
Here are some pictures showing the result of SGH E590's camera in "Macro" mode. I took these pics with my own E590.

Installing WAMP in your Computer

This time I would like to share about how to install WAMP in our computer.
This is based on my experience as a very very beginner, who knows a little about webserver, hosting, database, etc. I just want to share it. Hope its useful though....:)

WAMP is a package of webserver and database that runs on Windows. WAMP contains : a fully operational webserver i.e. Apache, a database i.e. MySQL, and a scripting language i.e. PHP. These are needed when you want to install Joomla in your computer and use WAMP as your localhost. A localhost is a webserver and assiociated database that is set up directly on your computer or that may be on a local network.
(http://downloads.joomlacode.org/docmanfileversion/1/7/4/17471/1.5_Installation_Manual_version_0.5.pdf)

1. The first thing you have to do is to download that package. You can download it from : http://www.wampserver.com/en/. It contains Apache ver. 2.2.11, My SQL ver. 5.1.30, and PHP ver. 5.2.8.
2. Then click on "Download Wamp Server 2". It will be stored in your computer, usually in this location : "C:\wamp".
3. As soon as you download it to your computer, you can install it.To check whether or not it has been installed, you can open your browser and visit : "http://localhost/". If you have been successful, you should see this :
4. Now, in the folder "C:\wamp", find a folder named "www" (C:\wamp\www). Open that folder and make a new folder in it. Give the folder name : "Joomla15". So next time you download Joomla 1.5, extract all Joomla's file to that folder (C:\wamp\www\joomla15).
5. To activate the localhost, just simply click on the "WampServer" icon on your desktop. Then visit "http://localhost/", or click on "Localhost" icon in the Wamp toolbar.

Motorbike Touring

It was the EMC (Eben-Haezer Motorcycle Community) who first invited the J-RiCo (GKJ Joglo Riders Community) to joined their touring to Purwakarta, East Java.
FYI, both of them are motorcycle communities in 2 churches, i.e. : Gereja Kristen Jawa (GKJ) Eben Haezer (located in Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta) and Gereja Kristen Jawa (GKJ) Joglo (located in Joglo, West Jakarta).>>Gereja Kristen Jawa = Javanese Christian Church<< style="font-style: italic;">Notice that the car with sirens was NOT the part of our group. It was just the police escorting a goverment- officer's car.

George Younce-Best Male bassvoice I've ever seen...

George Younce..

He's the member of the prominent Cathedral Quartet, one of the Southern Gospel vocal groups in U.S. He was the group's bass voice.
I like him very much because of the way he sing and his voice quality.
George's voice is very very special. He could sing very deep and low, and CLEAN too...as low as the guitar bass, played by his group mate, Mark Trammell. He often sang as a lead voice too..It's awesome to see the lead vocal in a vocal group is a bass voice..and George did that very well indeed...
Although he was still singing in his old age, but his deep-low voice stayed the same...amazing...
Thats why I like watching his performance...

These are some of his performance :

Cathedral Quartet (2)

Sekali lagi tentang Cathedral Quartet..alias The Cathedral...

Ada satu personil grup ini yang sangat menarik perhatian saya. Dia adalah George Younce, yang menyanyi di posisi bas. Menurut saya, kualitas suara bas nya sangat menawan. Bersih, bulat dan dalam. Bahkan dalam beberapa lagu, bisa menyaingi suara gitar bas yang dimainkan oleh rekannya, Mark Trammell.
Salah satu contoh aksinya ketika menyanyikan suara bas bisa dilihat di sini.
Ternyata suaranya bisa menembus jauh ke bawah. Lagipula dalam video itu-yaitu ketika diadakan reuni mantan personal The Cathedral yang berganti-ganti (kecuali Glen Payne dan George Younce)- usia mereka rata-rata sudah cukup tua. Tapi kualitas vokal mereka sangat terjaga. Salut buat performa mereka.

Saya saja kalau ikut bernyanyi dalam paduan suara kadang kehabisan nafas.....weleh...weleh...jadi malu..hehehehe....

The Cathedral

Cathedral Quartet...

Have you ever heard that?

Yes, it was one of many Southern Gospel vocal group in the U.S. The group was famous at that time, and still is, I think :D.

Saya belum lama mengetahui tentang grup ini. Gara-gara mampir ke situs YouTube untuk mencari satu lagu rohani yang berjudul "I Know Who Holds Tommorow". Lantas ada salah satu video yang memperlihatkan kebolehan grup yang juga dikenal dengan nama "The Cathedral" sedang menyanyikan lagu itu.

Selama beberapa hari kemudian saya tertarik dengan penampilan grup ini. Hampir setiap hari setelah itu, saya browse ke YouTube untuk mencari lagu-lagu lain yang dinyanyikan oleh The Cathedral. Group yang terdiri dari empat orang pria, dengan konfigurasi person yang berganti-ganti (meskipun yang selalu berganti hanya dua orang, yaitu posisi tenor dan bariton) ini muncul pada tahun 1964. Pentolan utamanya adalah George Younce dan Glen Payne. Anggota-anggota yang lain ada beberapa dan berganti-ganti. Antara lain : Roy Tremble dan George Amon Webster , Kirk Talley dan Mark Trammell, Danny Funderburk, Ernie Haase dan Scott Fowler. Dalam penampilan di panggung, mereka juga sering diiringi oleh seorang pianis bernama Roger Bennet, yang juga tak kalah ciamik dalam memainkan irama-irama Southern Gospel dengan pianonya.

Yang membuat saya terkagum-kagum adalah kemampuan olah vokal mereka yang sangat cantik, ditambah dengan aransemen lagu-lagu yang ciamik. Belum lagi kemampuan mereka, terutama George Younce, untuk membawakan dialog-dialog penuh humor ketika di atas panggung. Juga kemampuan bermain musik ditunjukkan dengan sangat bagus oleh Mark Trammell, yang bermain gitar bas sambil bernyanyi di posisi bariton (1980-1990).

Salah satu penampilan "jadul" mereka, yang kental dengan nuansa Southern Gospel , bisa dilihat di bawah ini :

Install Joomla

Piuuuhh.........

Akhirnya hari ini berhasil meng-instal Joomla. Berkat bantuan seorang rekan yang memandu langkah demi langkah via chatting.

Hari ini juga pikiranku mulai terbuka dan dapat menangkap gambaran dari proses instalasi Joomla.
Versi yang saya instal hari ini adalah versi 1.5. Sedangkan untuk server, saya pakai WAMP, yang sudah mengandung satu paket yang terdiri atas :
1. Apache version 2.2.11
2. PHP version 5.2.8
3. MySQL version 5.1.30

Meskipun saya sama sekali buta dengan konsep-konsep webserver, PHP, database, My SQL dan sebagainya, tetapi dengan menggunakan Joomla, saya mulai bisa belajar tentang hal-hal itu. Rupanya benar, untuk menggunakan Joomla, tak harus mempunyai background yang mendalam tentang hal-hal tadi. Cuma, supaya lebih bagus, memang sebaiknya kita juga belajar sedikit-sedikit mengenainya. Hmmm..lumayan susah juga, karena orang awam seperti saya, belum mempunyai konsep mapping yang jelas. Masih sepotong-sepotong, dan mencoba menghubung-hubungkan satu dengan yang lain. But its worth to try...

Langkah selanjutnya adalah mulai mengutak-atik Joomla ini demi menghasilkan suatu website yang menarik, dengan menggunakan template-template yang sudah disediakan. Well, I hope I can do that...sudah tak sabar buat menyelesaikannya. Berikutnya mungkin bisa masuk ke urusan domain dan webhost, yang juga tak kalah membuat saya bingung....lha wong sama sekali belum pernah berurusan sama mas "Domain" dan kang "Webhost" itu tadi...

Kita lihat saja nanti...

Try to figure them out...

This time i'm trying to learn about several things in the virtual world. Things that are new for me. I'm trying to understand the connection between those things, i.e : domain, hosting, webserver, database, CMS and website.
Perhaps someone could help me?

The First Step

This is the First Step of my Blog. I hope I can learn more, step-by-step. Can't wait for the AdSense too...Hope it will come true...