Notes on Zotero

This afternoon when I was logging into my lab computer, my Firefox was crashed. I restarted it, and I found my Zotero could not show my data in its all panels: both in collection and in main entry panel. All were blank. I then created a new Firefox profile and copy my Zotero data to a new space and I connected this new copy to my Zotero installed in the new Firefox profile. After entering my DAV server which is in box.net, I could not connect to it. The error message was related to certificate or what, I forgot. But I knew, my dav server was ok, because when I browsed it via the browser, I could connect via my account. I repeated by creating another new Firefox profile, it gave the same result.

I Googled and, after quite a long hour, I got another advice to restart the computer. I restarted the computer, and open my old Firefox profile, and it worked. Zotero worked again.

It seems this trouble relates to my networked computer, right?   In my "Local Area Connection" status, Number of bytes in sent and received activity grows very fast, and I still don't know the work around of this anomaly. But when I have spare time in the future, I will restore my system to my old copy of the windows system that I have the backup for it. I hope doing this may recover this problem. But as usual, before restoring to old version, I will need to back-up my troubled system. I use free version of Macrium Reflect to do these jobs.

Improving storytelling skills in the age of fourties

Improving storytelling skills in the age of forties

This is what emerge from my mind because, historically, I've been categorized by my environment, unfortunately forced to believe this, that I am an introvert. Seeing many benefits of story telling (Fawcet, 2011), I am forced to renew and change my current belief. I need to change my self from an introvert man (characterized as a good listener, telling only few words) into a well accepted storyteller.

The benefits (strengths) include:

1. in few words, much information sent
2. device to increase memory
3.  meaning maker, theory builder enhancer
4. experience and context to share 

But how to do this? Is it possible for me to do this? As long as you believe another formula that below the sky there is nothing impossible, you will be able to become a good storyteller. Your capability grows as you practice. You can practice in your spare time when you are in contact with your friend(s). In each day, prepare and develop a simple story that you want to share with your friend(s). Whenever the opportunity comes out, start to find time slot to tell your prepared story.

Keep practicing because practice makes perfect.

Fawcett, S. E., & Fawcett, A. M. (2011). The “Living” Case: Structuring Storytelling to Increase Student Interest, Interaction, and Learning. Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education, 9(2), 287-298. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4609.2011.00307.x

Yahoo! Mail Infinite Loading Folder Phenonenon of New Yahoo Web Mail Interface

During some last few days, I've been experiencing difficulty in accessing Yahoo! Mail. My Yahoo Mail is a free account. I've been registered to Yahoo Mail far longer time before Google Mail.

When I want to open a folder, sometimes Inbox folder, I got infinite loop of Loading Folder message like the one in the image picture attached with this blog. If this phenomena continue to persist, then this will be my another evident for judging that Yahoo! Mail quality is far behind the mail provided by Google.

How to overcome loading folder trouble? To date I still cannot find any trick in the Internet. I think this phenomenon is an internal defect and a default behaviour of my current yahoo mail interface. (Please, the interface I use is not yahoo classic interface but the new one).

The experience with this trouble happened not only in my Chrome browser, but also in my Internet Explorer browser. Has anyone experience this in Mozilla Firefox browser?

Pro XL kartu pra bayar ku yang suka hangus

Kartu prabayar pertama yang pernah aku miliki adalah Simpati. Aku masih ingat, nomorku adalah 081 227 28821. Nomor cantik bukan? Tapi tahukah Anda saya pernah kelupaan, dan ingatnya pas H+ 1 dari hari kehangusan kartuku. Karena saldoku ada 1 jutaan, maklum waktu itu nominal isi ulang minimal adalah 100ribuan dan aku jarang telepon, aku komplain ke kantor gerai grapari terdekat. Dia bilang apa? Yang hangus ya hangus, nomor tidak bisa direkoveri. Dia ajukan alternatif bisa tapi harus migrasi ke pasca bayar. Aku tak mau, hanguslah nomorku beserta pulsanya.

Setelah itu aku beralih ke Pro XL. Nomor pertama ku di Pro XL adalah 081 75 49 13 49. Lama aku pakai nomor itu, dan aku juga mengalami kelengahan, hanguslah nomorku itu. Hangusnya nomor ini terjadi di Taiwan.

Setelah itu aku beli pro xl lagi mengingat pro xl bekerja sama dengan chunghua telecom taiwan, dan bisa aktif di sini untuk menerima sms. Aku sudah kehangusan setidaknya 3 kali.

Usut punya usut, ternyata Pro XL (dan juga SIMPATI) sangat tidak melindungi konsumen dalam mencegah kehagusan. Pro XL terakhir saya yang hangus masuk masa tenggang pada tanggal 24 Maret 2011. Saya masih bisa mengecek info ini dengan memerintahkan *123#. Asumsi saya, karena masuk masa tenggang 24 Maret, kartu itu akan hangus pada bulan berikutnya. Eee... apa yang terjadi, sekitar empat hari yang lalu (sekarang 17 april), kartu itu sudah tidak bisa register ke bts. Ho ho ho.....?

Kok gitu ya? Mengapa perusahaan Pro XL tidak mengirimkan SMS notifikasi bahwa kartu akan hangus pada tanggal tertentu? Saldoku tidak banyak sih sekitar 35ribuan, tapi kalau PRO XL mau mengirim SMS pemberitahuan kapan hangusnya, aku tentu bisa minta tolong orang di rumah untuk mengisi ulang. Ya, lagi-lagi memang dasar PRO XL selain dia berbisnis pulsa ternyata dia juga berbisnis jualan keping sim card. Dia suka kalau kartu pelanggannya hangus....

Anehnya konten-konten iklan suka masuk ke kartuku via SMS. Lha kok, mengirim pemberitahuan bahwa kartu akan hangus pada tanggan anu, kok enggak mau? Lucunya juga ternyata, masa tenggang kartu pro xl tidak sebulan tapi kurang dari sebulan. Ini yang menjadikan saya salah berasumsi.

http://rd.web.id is up and running

Yes, a few days ago I've registered to 1free.ws to host http://rd.web.id. And it is now up and running. I use pmwiki to manage my contents. This is another place for my notetaking that is accessible by my unique URL.

The contents is still empty but it will grow as time goes. I will use it for my central repository of things that I published scattered around the internet. Previously I use nur.uni.cc but later the hosting was freezed and I can no longer edit anything there.

Ticket Reservation Data Template

What I do is not what ticket agents do. I just help my friends who have no card so they can’t buy online. I don’t make any commission what so ever. I just pure help them. I cannot guarantee that I can purchase all tickets you order for various connecting flights. In case I only can buy incomplete flight/flights that you want, you cannot demand me to be responsible about this. Upon purchased, any further complains need to go directly to the related aviation company. Once again, I just help in purchasing process. In this case, you must also agree that any risk of money lost due to my online ticket purchasing activity for you should be on your responsibility. But generally so far, most orders were successful.
Please provide this data for each flight:

Roundtrip or One way?
Flight number (if round trip, please specify depart flight and return flight number)
Date (if roundtrip, please specify Depart date and Return date)
From City (and time hh:mm) to City (and time hh:mm)
If round trip: From City (and time hh:mm) to City (and time:hhmm)
First Name
Last Name
Date of Birth
Passport No
Passport Expire date
Passport Issuing Country
Baggage size
Insurance (yes/no?)
Meal (yes/no?) if yes what meal?
Your Address
Your Email
Your phone number
Others (please specify)

Total Cost for each flight: ………. (you can get this number when you do complete simulation [up to credit card number entry stage] on online ticket ordering)
Grand Total Cost: ……… (I need this number so that I can check my available balance.)

===
Selain itu, Anda harus setuju kalau membeli tiket online itu mengandung risiko (yang Anda harus bersedia menanggung semua risiko itu, meskipun saya yang membantu membayarkannya). Risiko itu antara lain:

• tidak selalu berhasil. Kadang kita kena reject.
• bisa jadi ingin beli dua tiket, hanya berhasil satu tiket
• bisa jadi ingin beli dua tiket, yang satu sudah berhasil dipesan tapi tiket yang satunya lagi saat mau dipesan, harganya naik drastis. [dan setiap kenaikan harga dari harga yang kita lihat sebelumnya, akan saya konfirmasikan ke Anda sebelum saya berani untuk membelikannya.]
• tiket yang mau kita beli, sewaktu-waktu harganya naik [ini pun akan saya konfirmasikan, sebelum saya membelinya]
• ngisi formulirnya kadang merepotkan, terutama kalau harus diulang-ulang karena faktor ketidakberhasilan tadi
• (dan risiko-risiko lain yang belum saya ketahui)
• 
  

AirAsia new Online Payment System, is it good?

 

AirAsia Online Ticket Payment System is better than before because it now includes AJAX system into it. We can do login in the middle of buying ticket process without destructing our previos data. Time to fill form may decrease. This is also benefited from our personal data saved in the server.

However, because AirAsia offers multi node flights, a customer often buy ticket more than one flights at a time! In this case, AirAsia Online Payment System is very bad. I will tell you, why it is bad then.

I and my friends often have a nigthmare experience regarding this, especially when buying tickets for other person. The bad experience is, for example, like this. Suppose my friend want me to buy 2 tickets. One ticket is from Taipei to Kualalumpur and another ticket is from Kualalumpur to Banda Aceh. In current AirAsia Online Payment System what we do is like this. First, we choose flight, select flight, check out, and buy with our card. If we succeed, then we get the ticket and go to buy another ticket. Next, we do the same thing for the ticket of our next flight. A system failure is like this: we only succeed in buying only one ticket! And this is real experience. I had experience on this and my friends also!

Why this is a frustating experience? When we succeed in buying the first ticket and fail to buy another, then we usually repeat the process (steps) of buying the fail ticket many times. And this requiring us to enter data into form. This may take our hours of time because we may try by using various browsers, such as chrome, firefox, and internet explorer expecting to succeed. So, when this case occurs, the system definitely wastes our time!

Why the system developer of AirAsia Online Ticket Payment System does not think like when we buy various items at a supermarket? When we want to buy three items, eg A, B and C, what we do is not go into the store, get item A, and exit via a casheer, pay it, and go out; and enter again to get item B, and exit via a casheer, and pay it, and go out; and enter again to get item C, and exit via a casheer, and pay it, and go out; and done. This is an extremely abnormal work flow to waste customer time and energy! And this is what AirAsia Online Ticket Payment System currently do with its online payment system. There will be unnecassary repetition of form filling (in the case of buying more than one ticket for other person), and there will be also much more work to do (and time to spend) in case of not succeeding in buying all of them.

Instead, what we normally do is: collect item A, item B, and item C, and exit via a casheer, and pay the total amount, and go out and done! If AirAsia want to become a normal Online Payment System, then it should do like this. For example, if I want to buy two tickets for different flights, then I should be able to first get ticket A, then get ticket B, then check out, then pay with card at once the total amount of the two tickets, then (not done or) done.

Or, further improvement may be like this: it is the fact that we can go from Taipei to Yogyakarta using two tickets of Airasia. To make our customer happy in buying via online method, Airasia can just simplify the process by providing this choice. We should be able to choose from “From” field, Taipei, and from “To” field, Yogyakarta; and submit, and ‘wow!’, we get the flights information options that can be chosen at once, and paid with card at once.

I am waiting for the improvement of AirAsia Online Ticket Payment System ! (writer: Nurkhamid)

 

[additional remarks:]

Current system may create half success of for a customer (and thus unsafe feeling for her). For example, a customer want to fly from Taipei to Yogyakarta. She must buy two tickets: one from Taipei to Kualalumpur, another one from Kualalumpur to Yogyakarta. When she buy the tickets via current online system, she may experience one of these four possibilities: (1) 100% success, if she got two tickets, (2) / (3) 50% success if she got either TPE-KUL ticket or KUL-JOG ticket, (4) 100% unsuccess, if she both fails from getting both tickets.  When a customer experiences case #(2) OR #(3), the ticket bought will be of no use, because her final destination is Yogyakarta.

In the eye of a customer, a system with this behavior is not good. A customer only need fewer possibilities: (1) 100% success, or (2) 100% failure.  If case (1) occurs, she will fly with AirAsia, and if case (2) occurs, she will try alternative route from other flight companies. And once again this will be possible if the company is willing to change the flow of its current online ticket buying system as I suggest above.