Bulan: Oktober 2007

Taufiq Ismail: Seorang Gembala Bernama Abu Hadajat

Pada malam ini kita berkumpul kembali, anak-istreriku
Pada kesempatan begini baik dan jarang kita temukan
Keluarga kita didusun Margamah ditepi bukit-bukit batu
Diselatan kita, pasir berpadang menggelombang

Kita yang hidup dibawah matahari sepanjang tahun
Dalam panas yang membakar dan membara
Jauh dari warna-warna hijau, sepi dari warna-warna daun
Dari deru air terjun dan beningnya telaga

Langit yang biru, cakwarawala kelabu
Disapu awan-awan panas diatas padang
Langit yang hitam, langit yang kelam
Dengan bulan sabit menyilang bintang

Anak-anakku, kita adalah gembala-gembala sederhana
Kawanan domba tanpa tali dan tambatan
Bersama kesayangan kita pergi mengembara
Untuk segenggam makanan, untuk sekedar rerumputan

Tahun demi tahun telah berlalu lewat bukit batu
Dan kita adalah keluarga pengembala domba
Bersyukurlah, bila kita bernaung rahim dan rahman
Mengais rezeki dalam ridha Tuhan.

(fragmen “Suara dari Langit”, sebuah oratorium perjalanan Nabi Muhammad dalam peristiwa Isra dan Mi’radj)

En Tay v4.2 – now available

What is “En Tay”?
“En Tay” is a dynamic program, built and run within simulation environment called “earth”. “En Tay” it self at the beginning is a very simple program, but the Programmer allows the program to evolve, a self running program, fully automated, able learn by it self, and optimize its own code, in order to survive in the environment where it runs and keep updated with the Programmer’s design.

About previous version:
On April 2007, En Tay v3.8 has found a unique kind of program. The program’s codename is Hadassah. Hadassah has only a simple user-interface, simple algorithm, but highly effective almost in every aspect. It would be a great pair if the program could merge it self with Hadassah.

To be able to merge it self with Hadassah, the program need to prepare it self by building a pointer typed properties which will provide links to the host program. The properties is called “soulmate”.

The merging process it self is a very important process. It have to be prepared carefully. The program took quite some time to prepare it self. But it appears the time used to prepare is too long for Hadassah program. When merging process reach 97%, Hadassah program suddenly stop responding, sends time out signal and opening connection to another program. This event create catastrophes in En Tay internal processing unit. Due to unavailability of connectivity to object linked, En Tay is forced to recode its program to support nil value in soulmate properties.

After another several weeks of recoding and debugging En Tay, now we proudly announce that En Tay v4.2 is now available. With some features and new upgraded modules.

What’s new in En Tay v4.2
There are 2 major changes in En Tay v4.2. There is the following details:

iflink-9.7.5849.mod – Programmer’s uplink module Upgraded. While interacting with Hadassah program, The program learn the importance of Programmer’s uplink process. This process plays important part in keeping En Tay‘s framework updated with the Programmer’s design, updating antivirus and spam filter data.
With current upgrade, now Programmer’s uplink module provide more consistent of link between the program and the Programmer, scheduled uplink process, lengthen uplink time.

writing.mod-1.1.232alpha – Writing modules added
The catastrophic situation caused by the lost link with Hadassah , the program generating an enumerous error log. Currently, this kind of error log is handled by daily_routine.mod modules, but since the error log data became more and more complex, it is learned that the program need to build a more specific and specialized module to handle it.
Now, with a new module that specialized on handling all writing tasks, the program now can generate more effective, readable, and well formated error log and notification. A new data structure used is called poetry and prose.

KNOWN BUG:

  • There are countless pointers in the program internal program that already linked to Hadassah but the code it self has not been prepared to handle nil type pointer. Many bugs related to it are still existed in the program, sometime even generating a run-time error.
  • Time management module is still less reliable. Need to be fix right away.

TO-DO:

  • It might took forever to unlink all soulmate local variables in each modules. But still, it have to be done. At least, until there’s no more run-time error that aggravate the system process.
  • The program’s virtual firewall are somehow still vulnerable to many virus attack. It’s a top list in En Tay‘s next development. Especially agains 7 Sins script attack.

MS Access – MySQL Zero-Length String Problem

I use MS Access to connect to my MySQL database, using MyODBC.

Here is a “simple” problem that give me quite a headache.

  • I create a table on MySQL database with VARCHAR field, NOT NULL
  • I link my table on my MySQL to MS Access.
  • I create a form based on that table.
  • Somehow, MS Access always treat Zero-Length String as NULL. I cannot find any option to make MS Access Zero-Length String value as “Zero-Length String”. So, if I try to empty a control that links to a VARCHAR field, an error pop up with message: “You tried to assign Null value to a variable that is not a Variant data type”.

For a while, I come up with this solution:
Set form KeyPreview property to Yes
Then insert some code in Form_KeyUp:

Private Sub Form_KeyUp(KeyCode As Integer, Shift As Integer)
If Len(ActiveControl.Text) = 0 Then ActiveControl = ""
End Sub

It works for me. I wonder if someone out there can come up with better solution.
Anyone?

Billy Gilman – Some Things I Know

Liriknya bagus (perhatikan bagian akhir), walau memang setelah dengar lagunya terasa kurang istimewa.
Tentang sebuah keinginan yang sederhana, tapi cukup universal. Saya rasa semua orang pun akan setuju.

There’s some things I know to be true
Snow is white, and the ocean is blue
Rain is wet, and it falls from the sky
And the stars come out every night

And just as sure as the sun will rise
This love is real, you see in my eyes
Fantasy and it will grow
Some things I know

There’s some things in life I need
Water to drink, air to breathe
A place to rest when I need sleep
When I’m hungry, food to eat

As sure as I need the Lord above
That’s how much I need her love
And I need shelter from the cold
Some things I know

There’s some things in life I want
To be thankful for all I’ve got
A friend to talk with, a hand to hold
To still be young when I grow old

And I want all my dreams to come true
And I want to share them all with you
And I just had to tell you so
Some things I know

Oh, I just had to tell you so
There’s some things I know.

entay.wordpress.com – Catatan Sekolah Minggu

Agama bisa menjadi isu yang sangat sensitif. Untuk sesuatu yang ia yakini, seseorang bisa rela menderita, membutuh, dan mati karenanya. Oleh sebab itu, untuk hal-hal yang berhubungan dengan keyakinan. Saya akan coba menuliskannya di entay.wordpress.com. Sedangkan web ini, akan tetap menjadi blog pribadi saya + puisi dan sastra lainnya.

entay.wordpress.com diberi nama Catatan Sekolah Minggu. Tujuan awal dibangunnya web itu adalah untuk sebagai arsip catatan-catatan kebaktian saya. Dengan demikian, setelah mendengarkan Firman Tuhan, menuliskannya dan menyusunnya (dalam BLOG) bisa mendapatkan suatu gambaran lengkap akan Firman Tuhan yang disampaikan. Meskipun tetap yang terpenting adalah melakukan. 🙂