Moment of happiness

Elders said that there are three big events in your life that bring you and your family joy and happiness: graduation, marriage, and birth. From all three events, only the first one brings you happiness without possible pain.

In marriage, you may get stressed by the pressure to provide a "perfect" marriage. You have to accommodate both your family and your partner's family wishes. Friction may happen when the families have different arguments or different point of views. The same friction may also happen when you have your own child. Don't get surprised if in the end, the name of your child is decided by both your family and your partner's family rather than yourself as the child's parent. In the eastern culture, at least in Indonesia, the name of a child is a kind of family legacy and is believed to determine his/her character and fortune. Hence, both families often "suggest" you name for your child... which means that if you totally do not accept it, there always a chance that your parents or parents in law may feel uncomfortable. Wisdom is needed to accommodate both families' wishes.

However, graduation is very different. Everyone is happy during graduation. Nobody has any reason to complain. This makes graduation as a perfect moment to gather with your family, friends, and people close to you.

This noon, I had my graduation ceremony. It was nice. I wore my one and only suit that my father gave me before I arrived in the Netherlands. I tried to be the best as I can be. I ironed my clothes, used my perfume, shaved my beard, just to make this day perfect.

The ceremony went very well. The main event was held in the "blauwe zaal" (the blue hall). First, the dean representative gave a speech. Then, personal speech were given to each graduate candidates by their supervisors (dr. Natalia represented both Prof. Wil van der Aalst and Boudewijn as my supervisors, because they were not able to come due to an obligation to attend a conference in Ulm). The ceremony ended with a reception in a room just beside the blauwe zaal. Some friends came to share the happiness: Andi Rusiawan, Mas Lesky, Ceu Qonita, Phacoel, and Eva. Later during reception, Agni came too.

Apart of my sister, Elva, and my best friends, if there is something else that I really wanted for my graduation, it is the presence of my Mom and Dad. Mom, Dad, thank you for all of your support. Without both of you, I wouldn't be here, choosing the path that I'm on. This following picture of me is dedicated to both of you. Hope you notice one of your favorite suite in this picture, Dad. And Mom, hope you can see that I am smiling in the picture in the way that you like me to. :)

P.S: Special thanks to Ceu Qonita and Andi Rusiawan, as both of you helped me to document one of the most important events in my life.

Posting blogspot posts to FB notes

As mentioned by the title of this post, I'm just trying whether this tutorial really works... hmm...

1 day, 3 friends, 4 cities, and 8 Bossche bols

Last Saturday, I went to several cities throughout the Netherlands for souvenirs hunting (as I'm coming home this Saturday, guys!!!). To my surprise, although the main purpose of the travel was to hunt some souvenirs, some good friends were willing to accompany: Amalia, Reyhan, and Mbak Nelly. With their presence, hunting souvenirs event changed into a lovely weekend vacation!

The first place that we visited was 's-Hertogenbosch, the capital city of the province of North Brabant (Noord Brabant). FYI, this city is commonly called Den Bosch by the Dutch people. Several days before our journey, mbak Nelly went to a shop in the city that sells various souvenirs in a relatively cheap price, even cheaper than the shops in the small city of Volendam. Therefore, motivated by my hillarious economic instinct, I decided to hunt as many souvenirs as possible in the shop. Unfortunately, when we arrived, it was closed until the middle of september without any specific reason. But hey, it wasn't so bad after all. See the picture below?

It is a picture of a Bossche bol. Bossche bols are kind of "Soes" cakes (in Indonesian) that are covered with chocolate. Thanks to Reyhan, we're able to find a store that sells the finest Bossche bols, Jan de Groot banketbakkerij. So, rather than buying souvenirs, each of us bought two Bossche bols... However, the most of us were fasting. So, although the bols looked very delicious... we had to wait until it is dawn before we can taste them... Let me tell you, they looked marvelously yummy!

Next stop: Utrecht. In this fourth most populated city in the Netherlands, we have only one thing in mind.. coming to the book festival. We were lost at the first place, as we went out from the wrong side of the central station. After we asked a guy with yellow uniform (which then answered our question in Dutch [^^]' ), we were able to find the place where the festival was held. The place was very big! I had a very good time, exploring books as I usually did during my childhood. Most books were sold at a relatively low price, so I bought two books: one is about how cool things works (yeah.. just say I'm a geek :p ) and the other is about pirates. The latter is also the first souvenir that I bought at the day. I'm anxious about how my cousins will react when I give them the book. Using the guide and the paper materials in the book, you can create a model of a pirate's ship! I'll be happy to have it for myself if I'm a kid (well.. I still feel like one, actually).

Then, we went to the student city, Delft. Our agenda was clear: Souvenirs, walking around, and meet some friends. Alhamdulillah, we managed to do all of the things. We (well, actually just me) bought some pretty souvenirs at the shops around the centrum. We walked around the Oude Kerk and the Nieuwe Kerk, and we met our friends, the "tampan" guy and his two side-kicks :p. And guess what, on the centrum, there was a half-aged lady who brings pig as her pet! Just as if the pig is a dog, she tied the pig and walked him around. Gee... I would like to take a picture together with the pig, but my reluctance to be touched by any parts of the pig prevented me to do so... It's just so.... eeewwwwwwwhhhh!!!

Last stop of the day was the Hague, where we walked around Binnenhoff and joined an ifthar in the only Indonesian Mosque in the Netherlands: Al Hikmah. All of us have already been on the city, so there's no new things to be seen. However, when we came to the ifthar, we had such a good time! The foods were authentic, so authentic that it really felt like home. Many people were coming as well, regardless of their nationality. I ate various foods, such as fish meatballs, "balado" meat, yellow-spiced fish, kolak, bala-bala, and many others. I really miss my mom's cooking. Hope that in a short time, I'll be able to taste some of these foods again in Indonesia.

After ifthar, we traveled back home. We were exhausted, but excited as well. In the train heading back to Eindhoven, we finally ate our Bossche bols.. They were simply... DELICIOUS. So delicious that mbak Nelly's book also "ate" some bols :P Thanks Amalia, thanks Reyhan, thanks mbak Nelly, for such a nice experience. Looking forward to travel with all of you again! :)

clockwise: Me, Reyhan, mbak Nelly, and Amalia

Using TU/e server to search and download journals/papers

For all of you TU/e students who wants to search journals or papers from home using google and download them using TU/e's account, there is another alternative rather than using the TU/e's VPN. We can ask Janus server, provided by the TU/e bibliotheek, to download the journals and papers and forward them back to us. How to do that?

What you need is no other than your own account in TU/e (s******) and password. Then, perform these steps:

1. Go to "https://login.janus.libr.tue.nl".
2. Log in using your account and password. For instance, username : s012345, password : hardrocksupercool
3. After you logged in, go to "http://www.google.com.janus.libr.tue.nl/" by typing it in your address bar. Notice the addition of ".janus.libr.tue.nl" behind the real URL of Google search engine. By having the text as addition to the original URL, we ask Janus server to download the corresponding pages for us.
4. Then, search your papers and download them in the provided window.

Easy, isn't it? Now, you can work remotely safe and sound from your home!

Yes! I did my final thesis presentation!

Just two days ago (20 August 2009), I did my master thesis defense. And alhamdulillah, I got 9 for the thesis, which allows me to graduate with honor (cum laude). HUGE thanks to my supervisors Prof. Wil van der Aalst and Boudewijn van Dongen (daily tutor). I learn a lot of things in an enjoyable manner, which is something that I've never had before. Looking forward to work with both of you again in the next couple of months. Also thanks for Huub van de Wetering as one of the members of the examination commitee.

Thank you very much for all of my friends who came all the way to the presentation room (Seidelzaal, HG 5.95): Eko Setio (he's not even TU/e student! :p ), Joos Buijs (next van der Aalst? :D ), Grant (officially unemployed, Grant?), Diana (also M.Sc now :D ), Olimpia and Gioia (they came all the way from Italy for the presentation), Bung Adi Purwono, Agni, Ari Manik (thx for come by during your visit from Braunschweig ;) ), Jimmy, Amalia, Jian, Thijs, Babe Wayan, Erik, Carmen, JC, and other people that I haven't known (hope I'll know you all in the future!).

Thank you for the people who have helped me to prepare the presentation: Jimmy (I made major changes to the slide according to your suggestion, and it works!), Amalia (yess.. I remove several slides, Mal :D ), Samuel (thx for the advice with the pointing stick!), Diana, Andi Rusiawan, and Juan Diego. Without you all, I would be very nervous and shaky during the presentation :) Thx!

And of course... Mom and Dad, both of you mean a lot. Thank you for the never ending prayer. Sister Astrid, who often make your old brother smile with your ridiculuous acts :p Elva, for your great support along the way. Close friends: Merli, Chitra, and Rendy. Thx for accompanying me during the harsh time.. (and I believe you all know when). I couldn't make it without all of you. And of course, everyone that I can't mention one by one... Thanks a lot!!!

And look what I got after the presentation... tadaa! a special pen, only for special purpose :D thx a lot, Olimpia. You're such a great friend :) As you said, friends forever!

So, the cliche question would be, what's next?

Considering current world crisis, Indonesian economy, opportunities, and of course, my goal in life, I set my path to be an expert in process mining. Based on talks with Prof. Wil and few friends whose job are related to business process (I believe you know who you are! :P ), analysis to business process is commonly performed by mapping/comparing current business process to existing standards/best practices. While in my opinion, with current approach, quantified analysis is already possible and arguably yields better results. Moreover, I already see possible extensions of current approaches. I believe in the next 4 years, I can contribute something real to my own country, Indonesia, with my business-process-related knowledge. Wish me success everyone!

p.s. : Marhaban ya Ramadhan... everyone, please forgive all of my mistakes. Let's perform our best according to Allah's direction in this Ramadhan with a pure heart, so that we'll be free from sins in the end of this holy month.

TeX editor to write your thesis

After a long hang out session with my best buddy, Lenovo T60p, (without much sleep and proscrastinations, of course :D) finally I finish the writing assignment and have spare time to do MY things... yeah!

(yet, still hanging out with my T60p)

(Geeks? only God knows :P )

Speak for the truth, I'm too tired to playaround somewhere. Sleeping for approximately 3 hours a day hasn't really be my habit. However, I'm glad that now it's all over. Only one more tiny step to end yet this another phase in life.

Writing thesis reports requires tremendous patience and concentration. You need to be consistent throughout your writings. Do not introduce new terms or use new style of writings throughout the documents. Be precise and be aware of your grammars, as unsuitable sentences may cause misleading interpretations. Make sure that you cite proper publications. Etc...

Fortunately, I found several tools that could help me along the way. First, and arguably the most important part, is the correct text editor. Most people, including me, use popular text editor such as Microsoft word or Open Office (I know somebody who used it :p ) to write documents. So to say, these are the most convenient text editor to produce documents. What else are more convenient than WYSIWYG text editors? But for documents with math formulas and formal definitions with a lot of citations, I have to say that these text editors are a level behind TeX editors. Why?

1. TeX editors doesn't bother you with layout, except in the early phase of your document creation.
   
2. TeX editors creates all of your citation index perfectly.
   
3. TeX editors can merge several text documents to a single output file. Means that you can write each chapter of your thesis in one document, make it easily managed.
   
4. TeX editors are (as far as I know) open source. Free with quality, I would say.
   

The only drawback, creating documents using TeX editors is like creating computer programs (which of course, is a grose for many people). First, you write your text. Then, you compile it to PDF (or PostScript format), and you'll get your document! The most horrible thing is... you write documents with syntaxes. Yes... Syntaxes!! To make your text style bold, you have to write it between curly brackets (e.g. to make a text "cool" looks bold in your output, you need to type it \bold{cool} ). And... you can't see your document unless you often compile it (except using one TeX editor which I forgot! :( ) .

In my university, most people use WinEdt as their TeX editor. You can also use other TeX editors. But first, you need have a TeX compiler installed in your computer. For my thesis, I used MiKTeX 2.7. Next, install your favorite TeX editor. You can use a "real" text editors such as WinEdt and Crimson Editor, but I prefer to use LyX. It is an intermediate between the "real" text editors and WYSIWYG text editors such as Microsoft Word. You don't have to understand TeX syntaxes, just type your text as if you are working in WYSIWYG text editors. However, you can still insert "raw" TeX syntaxes in between your document. You'll be an expert in TeX in any moment :) If you already have your favorite TeX editor installed before you install TeX compiler, you just have to attach the compiler to your TeX editor.

It's easier to work based on a template in LyX. For my thesis, I use this template. Thanks to my good 'ol friend, Chitra, who helped me find the basis of this template (she also found it somewhere in the Internet). I modified it a little bit based on my need. Open the "thesis.lyx" with your LyX editor to start to use it. Hope it can help you guys, in case you need it for your thesis/final project report.

Well, time to prepare some slides. Wish me the best everyone!

p.s:

• in TeX document, it is better to use graphics with ".eps" format. Based on my personal experience and my tutor's advice, to obtain this format from a graph that we created, the best practice would be creating the graph using Microsoft Visio, select the part of the graph to be inserted, and save as ".wmf" document. Then, using this tool, convert the document to ".eps" format. Sad to say, but IMHO, Visio is still the number one for the usability vs functionality. I hope someday there'll be open source version of Visio :D

• Picture is taken from here.

2 years!!!

Wow, time flies!

It has almost been 2 years since I set my foot here, in the Netherlands. I just had my thesis review today, and as usual... a lot of comments were addressed to my thesis report. Seems that I'll always struggle with any kind of writing stuffs :p (reminiscing of my bachelor final report)

So what I'm doing now... proscrastinating???

Just say.. that I'm practicing my English writing :D

I just realize, that I used to exercise my writing skills by blogging. So, why don't I give it a try once more.. because due to my selection of future career and the way that Allah guides me... I have to write a lot of things in the future anyway (Still can't believe how I have changed in this past two years).

Let's start from the small things.. such as.. uhm.. let's see... lately, due to my hobby (I prefer to say it this way) of sitting on my chair for hours, working on my thesis.. I rarely go to the sportcentrum. So, have I become fatter? Let's see.. I try to compare a portrait of myself two years ago to a portrait of myself now... and...

can you guess which one is the current me? :D Seems not much different, don't you think?

Well, enough of such narcissism.. But for sure.. I'll write something useful later this week in this blog. Promise. Tot ziens!

Trip Around Netherlands...

Clue :

Grotere kaart weergeven