Even better is that iPhone has great apps for photography, picture editing and processing. My favorite apps are Instagram and Camera+.

Below are my pictures sample from Instagram.

Fall to Winter Tree

Red Flaminggo Pond - Dallas Zoo

Indonesian Komodo Dragon - Dallas Zoo

My Girls - Dallas Zoo

Living Room & Kitchen - Our Apartment

Coyote Creek Park - HDR

Ramen Dinner at Fin Sushi

Eid ul Adha Mubarak - Plano Masjid

Aimee meet Bruno - Coyote Creek Park

Ericsson Richardson Campus

The flight was extremely long and this was my daughter’s first flight But she was just so calm, I was afraid that she would get scared when take off or landing, but she was just fine. We had one night sleep at Rainforest Check In Lounge at Changi Airport. It was very nice lounge with all you can eat food and drinks, comfortable sofas, nice beds and also lots of shower facilities with towels. This is the foursquare link: https://foursquare.com/v/sats-premier-checkin-lounge-terminal-one/4d2a3549f7a9224b734205a0 and photo I took when I just relaxing at very comfortable sofa at the lounge:

The next day was very tiring, flight from Singapore to Japan and Japan to Atlanta was very very long, more than 25 hours I guess. But Alhamdulillah, I could watch several new released movies between sleeps and eats: Pirates of Carribean on Stranger Tides, Bridesmaid, Something Borrowed, Hangover, etc.

The immigration process in Atlanta, Georgia to enter United States also went smooth, our I-94 granted until 2014. Then we continue with 1 hour flight to Dallas Fort Worth airport. We arrived at DFW airport at 22.00 PM and get picked up by our good friends/seniro: Mr. Titan and his wife Shita. They took us to our hotel, the Courtyard Plano Mariott. But as expected from North American hotels, the service was not as good as Asian hotels. And we decide to just stay there for 5 days (instead of 7 days) and move to our cozy apartment sooner.

One thing with apartment in the US: it is different with Indonesian apartment. I thought it would be like just one medium room with kitchen and living room in high buildings. It turns out that apartment here is just like housing complex (kompleks perumahan) in Indonesia. One family stays at one house with closed gates surrounding very big complex consists of 400 houses secured by RFID tag cards. Parking space is available in front of each houses giving 2 car slots per house. Parks for barbecue and Pizza party available inside, also basket ball field, Volley ball field, 24 hrs free fitness facility and even swimming pool. Each houses usually provides Time Warner Cable TV or Verizon Fiber Optic Access for Internet, IPTV and Phone, nice!!! Management office located in the front rows that opens 7 days a week. Our apartment village also just 5 minutes drive to Ericsson Headquarter office, Walmart, Citibank, Pizza Hut, IKEA and Cinemark. In summary we love this place.

Public School (www.pisd.edu) for my daughter is free starting 4 years old. Islamic private school also available by Islamic Association of Collin County. Universities and Community Colleges spread across the area if my wife would like to take Master Degree or certified courses.

But, the public transport is not yet mature around here. They are still building DART system (www.dart.org). So yes, we have to drive anywhere at anytime. Fortunately the company rent me a nice Chevy Malibu for first five days and it was changed to Chevy Impala because the Malibu has flat tire on the fifth days, now I am still waiting for my Social Security Number to be released before I can own my private car.

https://foursquare.com/v/windhaven-park-apartments/4c38d7eb0a71c9b6267341c9

So then we are busy decorating our new house, and IKEA store is very close. We believe that our cozy apartment plays important role for our future life here, so let’s make it as comfortable as possible

Last but not least, this week I started to work at Ericsson Region North America. I joined Solution Integration and Advanced Services team consists of highly experienced Solution Architects, I definitely need to learn fast and catch them up as soon as possible.

Let’s move on!!!

PS: no such thing as traffic jam at any time ^____^

Definition

So let’s start with US L-1 VISA definition. According to http://www.workpermit.com/us/us_l1.htm :

The United States L1 visa is a non-immigrant visa which allows companies operating both in the US and abroad to transfer certain classes of employee from  its foreign operations to the USA operations for up to seven years. The employee must have worked for a subsidiary, parent, affiliate or branch office of your US company outside of the US for at least one year out of the last three years.

Companies operating in the US can apply to the relevant USCIS service center for an L1 visa to transfer someone to the US from their overseas operations. Employees in this category will, initially, be granted an L-1 visa for up to three years.

There are two types of employees who may be sponsored for USA L1 visas:

• Managers/Executives
• Specialized Knowledge Staff

The dependent of L-1 holder (wife, children) will get L-2 Visa and eligible to work/study in the U. S.

Since some companies needs their transferred employees to stay longer than L-1 validity period, these companies have to sponsor for Green Card application.

In my case, Ericsson Inc. usually needs its transferred employees to stay longer than L-1 validity period, Green Card application process started immediately. I have received the required forms already from the HR and Immigration team, but I will write this Green Card application process later on when my application process finished.

Emloyer Forms

The company will fill the I-129 to be proposed to the USCIS ( U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) and will send the ORIGINAL approval from USCIS, the I-797  to the applicant. So we have to wait for FEDEX package for at least 1 week since these documents have to be original.

The I-129 contains Petitions from the employer showing that applicant has added values to national labor pool that can not be fulfilled by hiring U. S. Citizen.

The I-797 contains approval notice from USCIS for the applicant’s I-129 and should be submitted to the U. S. Consul in original country for VISA stamp in applicant’s Passport.

Applicant’s Forms

The DS-160 form has to be completed online. Check all the forms here:

And very important thing is that the photograph should meet the requirement exactly. Just go to Jl. Sabang In Central Jakarta, lots of photo studio there comply with US Embassy standard.

The DS-160 should be filled for you and your dependent, one each. So I create 3 DS-160 forms: for me, my wife and my daughter. For DS-160, it should be filled to the full extent of completeness, for example is school history: fill in from your Playgroup/Kindergarten school up until University.

The Payment

L Visa costs USD 150 per person. It can be paid at Standard Chartered bank Margaguna (Near Pondok Indah, Radio Dalam). You should pay it on IDR (Fix currency, 1 USD = IDR 9000). After you pay this Visa fee, you will get application code which should be filled again online to book your interview appointment.

However at least 5 hours time after the payment until you can successfully enter the code into the online appointment booking website.

In the US Embassy, L Visa also cost USD 500 (IDR 4,500,000) to be paid in cash.

The Interview

You have to come early. I thought that I have come early enough 1 hour before the interview schedule, but when I come to the embassy, there’s lot of people in line already . Just enjoy it. In the embassy you are not allowed to bring your smartphone. So yes, it was boring.

After the queue finished, in the front gate, there will be Indonesian staff of Embassy who will check your DS-160, I-129 and I-797 documents. All should be according to standard. If not, you will be asked to correct it first and come again tomorrow. Don’t ever let this happen to you

After documents stated as complete, you will get your interview card. The interview card states which group you are belong to. And the interview is done while you standing, the interviewer will be behind glass speaking with you using speaker. Odd yes, but that’s the fact.

There is no obligation for children to come to the interview, parents are able to represent their children, but make sure you bring your marriage certificate and child birth certificate (make sure it has English version or translate it first!!). So it was only me and my wife coming to the interview ,and the American Consul Interviewer was very nice and friendly. Compared to Indonesian lady staff at the front gate, she really “bark” at you in front of other people.

Our interview went smooth, he was asking about my competence, what will I help to get done in the US. I said I am helping them to do 3G/4G network design and he was satisfied with it. He asks whether I have been to US/Europe before. I said I went to Germany and Sweden back then. My wife asked whether she has been to US/Europe also before, and that’s it.

We get our white paper (which means our Visa application is success) which contains where we should take our Visa at Fedex office Jakarta. I have read somewhere that if you get yellow paper, you need to review your application and red paper is for being rejected.

Hope this writing useful

The NTMC Mabes PolRI office is located at Pancoran, near Menara Syaidah, if you ask Taxi driver to go there, there will be no difficulties at all.

Now what to prepare?? Just these things:

• 1 pcs materai/stamp duty
• 3 pcs pass photo 4×6 with blue background and formal shirt
• KTP (for Indonesian) and its 2 pcs copies
• Driving License (SIM) and its 2 pcs copies
• Passport and its 1 pc copy
• KITAP (for Foreign) and its 2 pcs copies
• Administrative Fee: New Rp. 250,000; Extend Rp. 225,000

The International Driving License itself valid for one year and can be extended.

That’s it, wait for maximum 2 hours and you will have your International Driving License ready. Plus the Polwan (Polisi Wanita/Female Police) usually quite cute and friendly Right, those Polwan as seen on TV on Traffic Report/Farah Quinn’s show.

Hope this post helps.

*I have done this long time ago, but just have time to write this today*

The SD-Card uses Patriot Memory micro SDHC 16 GB Class 10, partitioned to 1.5 GB EXT3, the rest is FAT32.

Here’s the screen capture of Software configuration and Quadrant test result.

Yang dibawah ini kayaknya waktu angkatan 2002:

Yang ini baru, waktu ITB narik biaya super mahal buat para mahasiswa baru, denger-denger setelah angkatan 02 loncat ke angkatan 45 alias 45 juta :p

Although there is a2sd, that keeps the apks on the sd-ext some files are stored on phone’s nand on /data partition and if we install alot of apk’s then you remain out of free space. WE DO ALL THIS WITH PHONEON, NOT IN RECOVERY
1st let’s see how much free space i’m having:

# df -h | grep data

/dev/block/mtdblock5 147.6M 76.7M 70.9M 52% /data 

 As you can see i have left about 70 MB free. Let’s see what folders eat my space:

#du -sk /data/data/* | sort -rn | head

18641 /data/data/com.navngo.igo.javaclient

14911 /data/data/com.opera.browser

6756 /data/data/com.google.android.gm

5194 /data/data/com.android.providers.contacts

3661 /data/data/com.htc.launcher

3083 /data/data/com.htc.googlereader

1276 /data/data/com.swype.android.inputmethod

1172 /data/data/com.android.settings

1144 /data/data/com.htc.android.mail

1084 /data/data/and.blogger

Ok so it seems that iGO and Opera is eating 32 megs together. I’ll leave data/data/com.google.android.gm alone since it’s gmail and I want to be more responsive by keeping its files to nand(i only have a class 4 card). Lets get to work. 1st we need to make a folder on sd-ext where to keep the files.

#mkdir /system/sd/.moreapps  

I made the folder .moreapps. Now let’s move stuff and symlink them.

First we move them:

#mv /data/data/com.navngo.igo.javaclient /system/sd/.moreapps/com.navngo.igo.javaclient 

Then we symlink them:
#ln -s /system/sd/.moreapps/com.navngo.igo.javaclient /data/data/com.navngo.igo.javaclient

# 

Now we repeat the operation for opera:

Move:

#mv /data/data/com.opera.browser /system/sd/.moreapps/com.opera.browser  

Symlink:

ln -s /system/sd/.moreapps/com.opera.browser /data/data/com.opera.browser  

Now let’s check again my free space.

#df -h | grep data

/dev/block/mtdblock5 147.6M 51.8M 95.9M 35% /data 

Well it seems to me I gained 35 mB without uninstalling apps, without moving ALL of them to SD and experience some lags.

Now let’s check if we made the symlinking right

#ls -al –color=none /data/data/com.opera.browser

lrwxrwxrwx 1 0 0 38 Feb 22 05:46 /data/data/com.opera.browser -> /system/sd/.moreapps/com.opera.browser  

Yap all seems right. Opera and iGO are working at same speed, i freed up some space. Everyone’s happy.
The advantage of this method is that you can choose what to move to sd-ext you don’t have to have all to sd-ext.
Now make sure you don’t name your folder in /system/sd “data” since a2sd script will move back on nand all its contents.
This method is recommend for GPS software, Browsers, Games, some apps you got from market. It’s best to  leave system apps there to avoid FCs or slowdowns. If anything goes wrong with your app after this you can always move them back.
1st you delete the symlink (rm /data/data/whatevar) then move it back

HTC Sensation Sense 3.0 UI

My HTC Desire initial specs:

• Unrooted
• HBOOT 93.0001
• Frozen Yoghurt (Android 2.2)
• HTC Sense 2.0
• AMOLED screen (not SLCD)

So I searched on how-to and required files. Basically here’s the source of my method and reference. Thanks to below sites that has guide me through overnight.

• XDA Developer: http://forum.xda-developers.com/index.php
• Rooting: http://unrevoked.com/
• ROM: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1016940 , http://www.baadnwz.eu/
• Damast546 Youtube video guide

Step#1 Download Required Files to your PC

Yes, this rooting and ROM flashing process requires you to have your PC ready with its internet connection. Here’s the required files to download:

• Unrevoked 3.21 (Latest Unrevoked available in the official site is version 3.32. I have try to use this latest version but it stuck on “Validation Error: Backup CID is missing” (CID: Carrier or Region ID) at the end of rooting process. I don’t know what exactly becomes the problem, and I can not find others in the net that could solve this. But one of recommendation is to use older version of Unrevoked which is version 3.21, luckily it still can be found on the net. I attach it here.
• Android USB Driver (for both HBOOT and ADB mode of your phone, modified by Unrevoked team). Download.
• ROM with Gingerbread (Android 2.3) with Sense 2.1/3.0 UI. I use the Insert Coin ROM InsertCoin_GB_Sense2.1_A2SD+_v30.zip with Apps2SD.

Step#2 Installing and Preparing Downloaded Files

Now after you got your files ready, its time to install the Unrevoked and USB Driver to your PC. While the ROM itself should be copied to your HTC Desire SD Card root folder (keep it in .zip format).

• Install Unrevoked 3.21. Well, its not actually installing the program. The downloaded program itself is executable, you can run it instantly (always right click and run as administrator if you are using Windows Vista).
• Install USB Driver. I am using Windows Vista and its complicated. When installing this driver, you will need your phone to be connected via USB cable to your PC. First, install it in HBOOT mode of your phone. Follow instruction on this link. In my case, after I follow the steps on the link, when my phone is in HBOOT mode, the driver works well, but when my phone is in normal mode, the PC keeps searching for the driver (Android ADB Driver not found). If you have the same thing, do this: Open Control Panel, Open Device Manager, in Other Device you can find Android 1.0 and below it, there’s Android ADB driver that could not be found. You just have to right click and update the driver, but not direct it to the downloaded driver as we do for HBOOT mode, select the “help windows find the driver”, then you can find some drivers already there, select the Android Bootloader Driver. Test it by connecting your phone to your PC using USB cable, if the Windows find the driver and not searching it again, then it works. 
• Copying your ROM to your phone SD Card root folder. Just connect your phone into your PC on Disk Drive mode and copy the InsertCoin_GB_Sense2.1_A2SD+_v30.zip (do not unzip) ROM into your SD Card root folder.

Step#3 The Real Work: Rooting and Flashing

• Rooting. In the phone Setting>Connect to PC, select Disk Drive mode as default (not charge only) and untick the Ask Me option. And in the phone Setting>Applications, tick the Unknown sources option, while in the phone Setting>Applications>Development, tick the USB Debungging option. Rooting itself is easy, simply connect your phone (in normal mode, not HBOOT mode) into your PC. Run the Unrevoked program and it will automatically install Unrevoked program into your phone and root it instantly. The process involves your phone rebooted automatically several times, so don’t worry. Just pay attention to the Unrevoked log displayed in the program, when it says it’s done, then it’s done.
• Flashing ROM. Flashing ROM is also easy, after you copy the InsertCoin_GB_Sense2.1_A2SD+_v30.zip into your root folder of SD Card, you can choose the ROM in the recovery mode of HBOOT just after you finished rooting your phone. In the HBOOT mode you can use your volume button to choose options and power button to select your options. After you choose the ROM, the flashing process will be started, just keep monitor your phone screen for the logs. It will tell if it is finished.
• After flashing finished, choose reboot option in the HBOOT then you will have your HTC Desire running Gingerbread with Sense 2.1/3.0 UI, fantastic!!!

As visual aid, video below gives overall guide of the process, its just the ROM loaded is not the InsertCoin_GB_Sense2.1_A2SD+_v30.zip, but the main steps are the same (download mp4).

UPDATE MAY 23, 2011: I have found another great ROM from RCMix: RCMixS_v1.6.2_A2SD+_BravoHboot.zip try both if you want to compare. For me, I like RCMix better compared to Insert Coin, RCMix has working Google Talk 1.3 with video and voice call inside.

UPDATE MAY 30, 2011: I am now a big fan of RMixS ROM. Keep monitor his thread on XDA Forum. I am now using RCMixS v1.8.

Hope the other requirement will also be fine, if not then I have to take the other option.

UPDATE:

The packet:

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don’t ask why
It’s not a question, but a lesson learned in time

It’s something unpredictable, but in the end it’s right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial
For what it’s worth it was worth all the while

It’s something unpredictable, but in the end it’s right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

It’s something unpredictable, but in the end it’s right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

It’s something unpredictable, but in the end it’s right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

—–

Good Riddance – by Green Day