Simplicity

Nice Friends - Added Gerben.  Say halo to him in Madurese, Indonesian, English, and/or Dutch.

Added Firman.  Say halo to him.  Ask him about his economics post-doc.   

Southeast Asia - The Sun.  Web companion to The Sun and The Edge Financial Daily newspapers.  Free print version circulates mainly in Klang valley in peninsular Malaysia.

Our Net - GnuPG.  Open source software to encrypt your online communications if you’re worried about the National Security Agency or lesser bodies reading them on the sly.  There is also the unfree Pretty Good Privacy.  Hey, nobody said this was going to be easy.  It’s the NSA, people, the big enchilada.

TripStalker.  Download the software and let the robot constantly query travel sites to get you the best air, hotel, and car prices.  Works even while you sleep.

MoveOn.  The major US liberal campaign site.  Highly influential.  And don’t forget Meetup, much less political than it once was, but who knows about the future.  Has international coverage, including cities in Indonesia.

Nice Blogs - Ogle Earth.  An extremely current blog about Google Earth.  Very nice for the exponentially growing number of addicts.  Beware. 

And three blogs from East Timor — DillyDallying, Dili-gence, and Tumbleweed in Timor Lorosae.  Apart from nice posts, some spectacular sidebars here.

Daily Kos.  Leading liberal blog on American politics.

Informed Comment. University of Michigan history prof Juan Cole keep you very up-to-date on developments in the Middle East, especially Iraq.

Talking Points Memo.  Josh Marshall and journalist colleagues zero in on latest scandals in the Republican Party.

Huffington Post.  No good news here for King Gorge Bash and his lords and ladies.

Nice Blogs - Singabloodypore.  Oppositionist blog focused solidly on Singapore.

Mythical Dude.  Expat photographer posting judiciously from inside Cambodia.

Life in Chiang Mai.  A farang’s occasional observations of all matters Thai from northern Thailand.

Luis Teodoro.  Academic and political commentator Luis Teodoro dishes it out from Manila.

ExpectoRants.  Irreverent blogger in Manila rages about the world and the Philippines.

Inside PCIJ.  Official blog of the highly regarded Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (link in left sidebar under Southeast Asia).

Lim Kit Siang.  Extensive official blog of an old friend and a DAP leader who leads the opposition in Malaysia’s Dewan Rakyat.  See his biodata in Wikipedia.

Our World - Reporters without Borders.  Network monitoring attacks on reporters worldwide.  Site in French, English, and Spanish.  Numerous annual reports, including restraints on net.

OpenNet Initiative.  Systematically studies and challenges net filtering worldwide.  Many studies on the site.

Electronic Frontier Foundation.  Protects all manner of digital rights.  Many court cases on site.

Our Net - Photobucket.  Put your images and videos  here and link to them from your blogs, websites, and other netplaces.  1 gig free storage (that’s a heap) just for you!

Google Maps.  Once Google Local, now re-named Google Maps by popular demand.  Very, very flexible way of finding places and events in US.  Would you believe Rockville has a ‘Chinatown?’

Nice Blogs - Blogger Indonesia.  By A. Fatih Syuhud, a dedicated and prolific  blogger writing from New Delhi.

Presiden SBY.  The President’s team gets the news out.  Fresh every day.  It’s really a syndicated website, but let’s give SBY a little leeway.

Change.  New thoughtful blog by Martin Manurung, a young progressive Indonesian intellectual.

Direktif.  Consistently useful Indonesian aggregate blog with solid tech slant.

Sarapan Ekonomi.  Nice light blog on Indonesian economy by former journalist Rasyad A. Parinduri.

FP Passport.  Official blog of Foreign Policy magazine.

DetikInet.  Popular portal detikcom’s tech blog. 

Satya Witoelar.  What’s to say?  For those who love the net, this blog is consistently interesting.

Nice Friends - Added Antony.  Say halo to him.  Ask him about thriftiness and distance learning.

Our World - NDI.  National Democratic Institute, US non-profit working to promote democracy worldwide.  Substantial interest in Indonesia.  Also East Timor.

Minorities - Religion Maps. Detailed mapping of religions in US.  Includes Muslims.

Our Net - ZabboWabbo.  Searches a selection of very diverse sources on the net about whatever keyword you type.  Yes, it does get you thinking.  Nice for those who like to test the water without getting their feet too wet.

Google Cooking.  Googles searches selected recipe sites in categories you designate.  Better than an earlier version where you just typed in a list of ingredients and got a list of fanciful recipes.

Nice Blogs - Internet in Asia.  Restrained but useful commentary by Singapore Internet Research Center.

Bangkok Pundit.  Excellent blog on Thai politics.  See also the very long-running BurmaNet, a list, now a syndicated website, possibly the best net source on politics in Burma.  It’s not a blog — find it in the Southeast Asia section of the left sidebar.

Nice Friends - Added Icha.  Say halo to her.  Help her create peace.

Added Moris.  Say halo to him.  Will he fix Jakarta?

Our Net - Google Calendar.  Wonderful.  Lives up to all its glowing reviews.

Language - Orangoo.  Spell-check in 28 different languages.  Including Indonesian.  Sorry, only one language at a time. 

Nice Blogs - Jakarta, Oh, Jakarta.  Nice photo blog.

Sampsa Daily.  Very, very selective pointers to creative sites.

Mashup - Stingy Scholar.  Free podcasts, webcasts and more from universities throughout the world.

Countries. Graphics comparing all countries in the world according to population, area, and pop density.  Lots of ways to arrange the display.  Helpful in making simple comparisons and contrasts.

Just click on the title to see the news or review.  There’s no guarantee all these links will remain there long.  Most are very current.  Some were found using the many new site search engines.

This initial posting in what is intended to be a series focuses mainly on book reviews in Indonesian.  Later posts will be more diversified, covering also books and similar materials published in English, problems facing the book industry, and topics extending beyond  Indonesia. 

Kota Lama, Kota Baru: Sejarah Kota-kota di Indonesia

Dreamseekers: Indonesian Women as Domestic Workers in Asia

Manusia Bugis

Dinamika Kekuasaan : Ekonomi Politik Indonesia Pasca-Soeharto   

Antara Hidup dan Mati 325 Hari Bersama GAM

Mimpi Buruk Selama 17 Tahun di dalam Penjara Lee Kuan Yew

Bunuh Munir

Matinya Toekang Kritik   

Menengok Bengkel Rendra

Menalar Tuhan 

Just a little intel — I’ve increased the number of most recent postings appearing on this blog’s front page from 10 to 15.  Easier retrieval.  In this template, the Recent Posts list on the top of the right sidebar has an unchangeable limit (at the moment) of only 10 entries.

Our Net - ZoneAlarm.  Free firewall for Windows.  Controls incoming and outgoing traffic — Windows’ firewall controls only incoming traffic.  Fee ‘pro’ versions available.  All work very well but the frequent updates are big time-eaters.

SysInfo for Windows - A dazzling utility run anytime you want from its .exe file.  Tells you in great detail many useful, often forgotten features of your hardware and software.  Only — when you download, have Pest Patrol or some similar program running to zap some guy’s piggybacking stealthware (not malware) from sneaking in.  You can also zap him later if he eludes you at first.

PDF Creator.  Adds a dedicated PDF printer to any of your applications which has a print function.  You just choose PDF Creator as the printer for the file you want to save in pdf format.  Very smooth.

Foxit pdf Reader.  Yes, it lets you do more things faster with pdf files than Adobe Reader.  But for Firefox users, it must be run outside your browser.

Mashups - Planet Hazard.  Maps in exquisite detail the top 86,000 companies in the US emitting air pollutants.

Color Picker.  Find Flickr photos immediately by dominant color.  Brilliant.

Waves of demonstrations by workers against revisions which would weaken the landmark Law No. 13/2003 on Manpower have spread to many urban areas in Indonesia over the past few days.  Though far smaller than the massive demos during the Soekarno period, they mark the coming out of organized labor in the SBY-Kalla era.  This demo occurred in front of the Presidential Palace on April 5.  Yes, those are police holding back the protestors. 

You can find related news stories in my Indonesian Press  searchroll.  A picture, so the saying goes, speaks more than a thousand words.  But  here  are a thousand words (unedited version in a pdf file) I recently wrote for Inside Indonesia about the increasing attention researchers have been paying to the entire gamut of Indonesian labor issues.  Selections from Inside’s April-June 2006 edition will be up later on that site. 

Picture credit — Tatan Syufana for the Associated Press.

No, I’m not really dying (so far as I know, and though I do think about it), nor am I promoting the great novel by the late William Faulkner of the same name.  Just trying to get your attention to muse briefly on an, um, not small problem of the many, many afflicting Indonesian studies.  Namely, the growing sloppiness of much of the Indonesian press.

In its print edition of April 6, Kompas’ reporter described Benedict Anderson as an "indonesianis asal Australia."  Surely, this sensational discovery merits front-page coverage and is far more important than anything Ben said during a discussion on anarchism at Universitas Airlangga the previous day. If Indonesia’s leading daily can so easily transplant Ben’s national origin, godsavetherestofus.

In Jawa Pos’ April 6 edition, that pronouncement-a-day-on-everything member of DPR Komisi I, Djoko Susilo, in his column, spelled Ben’s name as "Bennedict Anderson."  Now we know the value of the remainder of his article, Ketegangan Canberra v Jakarta, labeled as written from "perspektif ideologi."  So, that’s what it takes to get into print in Jawa Pos nowadays.  Better to spell this out clearly, also  right on page one.

May I humbly suggest this entry in Wikipedia for fact-checking on Andersoniana.   An American of Russo-Italian descent surnamed MacDougall like myself would not be so convincing as Wikipedia’s home-brew bibliophiles.

Nice Friends - Added Manunggal.  Pay him a visit, no cost for initial consultation. 

Southeast Asia - Terbit.  Jakarta daily omitted from list of other Indonesian newspapers.

Minority Groups - Asian Current Pop Survey.  Recently released (and past) data on Asian population in the US.  Comparable updates have also just been released in Current Black Pop Survey.

Our Net - Moviefone.  Rent or buy downloaded movies.  Surprisingly inexpensive if you follow the rules.  Run by AOL.

Netflix - Extremely efficient DVD movie rent-by-mail service.  Cheaper than anything offered on cable.  Enormous selection.

Mashups - Thailand Subdivisons.  Input the place, watch the balloon pop up on the map, click on the website link.  Very handy.