*.id

I am not trying to be nationalistic or something along that line of fanaticism. I am just wondering why does ICANN never assign Internet country code top-level domain for Indonesia? In short, I cannot register any top level .id domain. A blatant injustice that should not happen but happens anyway like any other sad unfairness

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How Do I Keep Myself Updated

At first, I want to write ‘How Do I Keep Myself Well Updated Despite The Fact That I Live Twelve Time Zones Away From Many Things That Are Dear To Me Without Wasting Too Much Time and Being Perceived as Stalker’. However, two years in Singapore Management University had taught me two important lessons (among many others):

1. keep it simple (read: do not bulls*it too much)
2. Stop at #1 and if possible, make it simpler

So there goes the wonderfully long title… read more

The Missing Manuals: Basic IT Info for SMU Students

Many new SMU students, AND some current SMU students, still do not know how to properly configure their computer. Being as slackers as CIT being undermanned, many SMU students conveniently asked (usually) their SIS peers to configure their laptops. In general, IT-literate students will kindly allow themselves to be outsourcing destination for many things that are supposedly very basic and easy and beyond their scope of academic work (not to mention quite boring)

However, I always believe that the best help you can get is the ability to help yourself. So with that philosophy in mind, here is the list of super basic stuffs that SMU students need to know.

• Setting up Ms Outlook to receive email (PDF)
• Setting up SMS password reset system (PDF)
• Mac OS guide (PDF)
• Connect to Student Wireless Network (PDF)
• Anything else that may be relevant (CIT Website)

The PDF guides may not be of the latest version. Refer to CIT website for the latest info. All the information above can be found at CIT website for free.

Nevertheless, the reason I convert the first four guides into PDFs is to make it convenient for people to store these very basic stuff into their laptop. This will enable people to configure their basic laptop function themselves without the need to connect to internet OR to call CIT. The PDFs also makes it easier to email help to one of the most IT-illiterate guys in your team. Just email them.

Yes. Feel free to download them and store them well in your laptop.

Do not get me wrong, CIT provides great services to SMU population. It is just there is too few of them around. With this handy information at hand, on/off line, I believe we all can lessen the burden of those people at CIT

Locked assets…

Well… my e$ is not exactly an asset to begin with.

Too bad I cannot liquidate e$ into something more valuable (eg. one barrel of crude oil). And yes, I cannot transfer. Btw, for IS student, my e-dollar is considered low.

In any case, e$is the virtual token used by SMU students to bid for their classes – and thus professors, friends, subjects, timetable, hapiness in life.

Professional Exchange Student

I got this inspiration from my friend Aaron Tan. He went for one term local exchange to NUS. So I am thinking if it will be great if we can go for an exchange every term. Let say as Professional Exchange Student.

So the degree will be Bachelor Degree in General Elective Majoring in International Communication. Every term, students are required to do an exchange or two to any other university approved college or institutions. The example program will be something like…

I am sure the fun-factor of this program is more than 10 out of 5. The best part is, the GPA is almost irrelevant since 90% of the modules taken are pass/fail subjects. So if there is scholarship for this kind of program, the GPA requirements will be pretty much for formality sake only. In reality, the scholarship criteria will be somewhat like… ‘must be able to go to at least 2 different continents every year excluding summer term’ or ‘must be able to be conversant in one new language every years’ or ‘acquiring 500 new Facebook/MSN friends every term’ – Actually Facebook is better since it can be easily verified.. Frankly, I am not worried with the details. I am sure people can come up with all the weirdest stuff I could not think of.

Obviously due to the nature of the program, students will graduate with at least 20 General Elective modules (not counting the half credit courses) and unable to specialize in anything but networking (read: clubbing) and distinguishing different types of alcoholic beverages from six continents minus antartica.

Of course to support government campaign to retain talent within Singapore, the last destination will be one of the local university. Hopefully the graduate will stay for good.

Above all, it is a journey more daring

Did I miss anything?