February 2007 - Posts

How to Read and Do Proofs
27 February 07 08:51 AM | norman | 1 comment(s)

If you're into Mathematics like me, you should read this GREAT book (perhaps you did?). With a help from a friend I finally got this book: "HOW TO READ AND DO PROOFS: an introduction to mathematical thought processes" by Daniel Solow

It's going to be a fun days ahead...

From Dr. Solow: 

"The objective of Mathematicians is to discover and to communicate certain truths. Mathematics is the language of Mathematicians, and a proof is a method of communicating a mathematical truth to another person who also "speaks" the language".

"Properly presented, a proof will contain no ambiguity: there will be no doubt as to its correctness. Unfortunately, many proofs that appear in textbooks and journal articles are not presented properly for someone who already knows the language of Mathematics."

"Thus, to understand and/or present a proof, you must learn a new language, a new method of thought."

This great book will help you learn that method of thought. Wonderful!

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HPBSC, have any experience with them?
26 February 07 03:17 AM | norman | 17 comment(s)

When you heard the consulting firm names, you'll imagine very bright, smart-ass consultants. High profiled, well groomed, elegant speech, etc, etc. You'll see great reports, pretty power point slides, and so on, and so on during their work.

But then... I've heard a lot from folks that work in the Enterprise that actually those consultants are HPBSC (Highly Paid Bullshit Consultant). They never really deliver anything of practical value that really works and solve your problem. I don't know the case in other domains, but in IT domain, I too have met A LOT of HPBSC; Consultants from consulting firms that have big names but then they deliver bullsh_t.

How about you? Ever been in touched with these HPBSC?

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Geek Speak at ITB, Bandung
22 February 07 11:50 PM | norman | 1 comment(s)

With few other geeky folks I will deliver a talk at ITB Academic Day in Bandung, tomorrow, Feb 24, 2007. This is to honour the invitation from ITB Student Ambassadors. I will deliver a talk about various paradigm/style in authoring a computer program.

See you there... btw, it's been a while since the last time I visited Bandung. It was more than a year ago I guess. It was when I delivered a talk about .NET Framework at Unpad.

O, what's HOT in Bandung these days?

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Won a prize at "Super Deal 2 Milyar"
17 February 07 01:01 PM | norman | 7 comment(s)

Baru aja shooting Kuis Super Deal 2 Milyar di ANTV bareng teman2 Intimedian & alumni Intimedia. Guess what? I won a voucher worth 10 million IDR from Mitra Adi Perkasa. Not bad. Check at their website and you can see what I can get from the voucher.

But folks, actually, I could have won a Daihatsu Terios!

Here are the whys I could won the prize:

1. Luck. Nico Siahaan choosed me as a Trader representing my group. Lucky me.
2. Very simple Physics knowledge. Knowledge about Coefficient of Friction. One should know that Static Friction is greater than Kinetic Friction. You should see how I beat three other traders from other group in the toy car race. I bet those guys don't have love to Physics as much as I do.
3. Luck again. Or unluck? I don't know, loosing a Daihatsu Terios over "just" a 10 million IDR voucher. What do you call it? But compared to other guys that came home with nothing? Ha...ha...ha...

Besides, I got the chance to show up in a nation wide TV network! And this happened to be my tv show debut. He..he..he... Just like my first paycheck, my national tv debut has got nothing to do with IT/Software Development.

Anyway, please see Super Deal 2 Milyar on Tuesday, February 27, 2007 at 07:00PM at ANTV.

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Binus & JobStreet.com Job Expo
14 February 07 07:43 AM | norman | with no comments

Intimedia Talents, sub of Intimedia will be there at 9th Binus & JobStreet.com Job Expo to recruits new talents; passionate software developers. There are other companies too at the event but I'm not sure how many companies offer Software Developers positions.

Intimedia Talents will have more than just a booth there, they'll have a classroom too. And in this class room I'll deliver a talk, a session about .NET Framework 3.0 (Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation, Windows Presentation Foundation and Windows CardSpace). The framework we use in Intimedia projects. I will also relate netfx3 to netfx2. Cos there are a lot of confusion out there. This is to give candidates the feel of what kind of technologies they'll work with once they're on board at Intimedia Talents.

C u there!

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It is safe to host Windows Workflow Foundation in ASP.NET
14 February 07 02:26 AM | norman | 5 comment(s)

I am a skeptic person. Always be.

I will always challange whether something is true until I cannot proof otherwise. (But then I will challange it back again once I found another proof though...).

This time it's about Windows Workflow Foundation (WF). I was always worried that it is not safe to host WF in ASP.NET. I was questioning the Workflow Runtime, Thread / Asynchronous Issue, Memory Issue and Web Farm Scenario Issue.

I happened to read these two articles: http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/06/04/cuttingedge/default.aspx
http://dotnet.sys-con.com/read/319760.htm

They convinced me that it is safe to host Windows Workflow Foundation in ASP.NET. Below are the questions I had, and how WF deals with those issues:

Single Workflow Runtime Issue
Workflow Runtime to be created in global.asax, then in every request that needs the runtime we can use WorkflowWebRequestContext.Current.WorkflowRuntime so that it guarantees only one Workflow Runtime is used within the web application AppDomain.

Thread / Asynchronous Issue
We can use ManualWorkflowScheduler service so that workflow will not run asynchronously, rather, it will serialized the workflow instance so that the workflow instance will run synchronously within a page life cycle. ASP.NET pooled thread will be in charge of executing the current request waits until the workflow is completed or in idle state.

Memory Issue
We can use WorkflowPersistenceService that will passivate/persist workflow instance in a given state into a database after each page request (see above). So, a workflow instance won’t sit in memory until the instance is called again by another page request. This guarantees memory won’t be occupied by long running workflow instance.

Web Farm Scenario Issue
It is clear that WorkflowPersistenceService work like Out Of Process State Management (SQL Server State), so that it supports web farm scenario. It allows multiple Web servers to handle the page requests without the request having to go back to the same server as workflow instance is stored in database (just like SQL Server State store session objects). All we need to do is activate the sleep workflow instance by giving the right instance id.

I have other questions about WF, but that is WF in general and got nothing to do with ASP.NET. And just speaking about hosting WF in ASP.NET, it's safe. I'll keep you posted on my journey digging this API.

O, and I am reading Dharma Sukla's "Esseintial Workflow Foundation" now. Good book, but I suggest you to see more introductory level books/articles and play around with the WF API first. This is the kind of book like Don Box's "Essential .NET", you'll lost if you haven't read other book about .NET.

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Filed under: C#, .NET, CLR

Five Things You Didn't Know About Me
09 February 07 04:10 AM | norman | 10 comment(s)

Following a recent trend of posts made by some bloggers I frequently read like: Joe Duffy, Chris Sells, Somasegar, etc, where I believe other Microsoft bloggers also do... I decided to come up with my own too. I hope you'll blog yours so that I can know you better.

1. I was a rocker. My first band was when I was in high school, it was a punk rock band named NFB (Nice F_cking Band). Any song we play became a punk song. We just got three chords, the truth and attitude. In college I played in a band that change names a lot: Wise Pearl, Wet Dream then became Ten Eleven. We played in campus events. In ITS, Unair, etc. Surabaya campuses. We played alternative rock. We kicked ass and quite popular! But the band never really took off cos none of us could really write a song. We did cover a lot. I also sing in a Top 40 Band named Majestic in Cafes/Clubs in Surabaya and Malang. My first paycheck was not from software related activities. But from singing in a band in cafes! Btw, in this band I met a beautiful girl that... became wife. She was a singer in the band too (Top 40 Band formations usually has one male singer and two female singers. She was one of the two). Btw, I'm still a rocker today, but with no band.
2. I'm into fighting! I did Karate when I was a kid. But I became serious when I was in college. I took private lesson from a Muay Thai (Thai Boxer) Trainer named Kimberly Lee Tan (he fought at TPI Fighting Championship). Muay Thai is kickboxing, but in addition to kick and punch, elbows & knees are also legal. I also joined Sawunggaling Boxing Camp in Surabaya to learn Boxing. There are national champions from this boxing camp. It's a usual sight I came to campus with injured wrist and bruised eyes. I don't fight lately. Unless you start it and wanna give it a try...
3. My Nilai Ebtanas Murni (NEM) in Mathematics in high school was 10. Benar semua. Padahal jaman saya Ebtanas, ada soal2 essay, bukan cuma pilihan ganda. O, dan nilai NEM "Pendidikan Moral Pancasila" saya enam koma sekian... Jd, kata orang 'gak bermoral', he..he..he..
4. I don't have formal education on Computer Science / Software Engineering. My degree is in Engineering Physcis. I studied Physics & Mathematics a lot. How to model a Physical System into Mathematical Model. Then solve that Mathematical Model, manually or using computers. The goal was more into control that physcial system  (Control Engineering). So, I also wrote a lot of software to do just that. In fact, my Tugas Akhir was on implementation of Artificial Intelligence (Fuzzy Logic) in Control Engineering. I'm now in Software Engineering world, but actually my passion is more on Mathematics. This might be due to my never ending love to Mathematics. I do have plans on this. . Wanna have one leg in Industry (what I'm doing now), and one leg in Education/Research (current future plans). [ NORMAN NOVEMBER 2007 UPDATE: This section is no longer valid. I am now pursuing Master Degree in Computer Science at Institut Pertanian Bogor. Planning on thesis on Numerical Analysis/Computational Mathematics.]
5. I have the same hairdo since I was in Junior High. It was since I saw Top Gun. And because I don't have nice hair though. "Fighter Jet Pilot", cita2 gak kesampaian. He..he..he..

Now, I'd like to tag ALL my fellow Indonesian MVPs, Student Ambassadors and INDC Group Leaders. [:].

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