The time’s changing again…. (the DST is applied)

So this is the 4th time for me to experience the time-change in Europe for the graduate study part of my life. The clock was advanced 1 hour yesterday (Sunday, 29th March 2009) which means the summer time (day-light saving time) is applied now.

The 3rd chapter is (unofficially) finished….

As the title describes, it’s unofficial since there’s still 1 pending report to submit and not all grades have been registered to the online system of the University of Trento. But I have all the grades already in hand, so I might say it’s finished…. unofficially So let me highlight a bit the courses that I took during the 3rd semester.

I’ll start with the Computer Graphics course which was conducted by the Graphitech in cooperation with the University of Trento. I start with this course simply because it’s worth for 12 ECTS credits and the best grade I obtained during the 3rd chapter of the EuMI programme, thanks to my partners: Alessio Guerrieri and Gavriel Smith. I enjoyed working with them, and in fact I learnt a lot from them as they were experienced in the area. So the course was divided into 2 parts, the first part was mainly tutorials about how OpenGL works coupled with in-class exercises, and the second part was the project development phase (each group was assigned a project to accomplish). All implementations were done using the Java programming language with JOGL API. My group’s project was about the hybrid-terrain representation using a TIN (Triangulated Irregular Networks) on NASA’s Worldwind API. For a visual demo of several exercises and the final project, please watch the 2 clips below. The original clip was captured using the Istanbul desktop screen recorder in ogg theora format, then it was converted to MPEG4 format using FFMpeg, then splitted into 2 files to fit youtube’s 10-minute-length constraint using the Mencoder. Everything was done on top of my currently installed Fedora 9 linux distribution. I’d like to thank the teaching assistants: Olga, Bruno, Giuseppe, and of course prof. DeAmicis for giving me something to know about computer graphics

Computer Graphics demo – Part 1 (to watch directly from Youtube, please follow this link)

Computer Graphics demo – Part 2 (to watch directly from Youtube, please follow this link)

I’ve been interested in data communications topics since the very beginning I joined the EuMI programme, inheritted somehow from my previous job. During the third semester, the only related course to this topic that I took was the Advanced Networking course conducted by prof. LoCigno and his assistant Csaba, and also several guest lecturer(s). I learnt many things on the network, transport, and application layers through this course, complementing the second semester’s Nomadic Communications course which mainly focusing on the physical and MAC layers. For the final project, I teamed up with Ruchi for developing a call traffic generator program that used the (negative) exponential distribution for the call interarrival time and call duration. The final exam was dealing with the project as well as some questions from the theoretical class. In the end, I got a good grade for this course. Thanks to prof. LoCigno and Csaba for conducting the course, also to Ruchi for the time developing the program And to Fabrizio as well for giving us the direction during the project’s development phase.

The Computational Complexity course was quite tough inherently, but it was a bit releaving to have the exams (both mid term and final) in an open-book fashion. It reminds me the good-old-days of my bachelor programme where almost every course incorporated an open-book exam approach. In the end I got a quite so-so grade. Thanks to prof. Massaci and Ida for conducting this course.

Mathematical Logics was the nightmare of the semester. No doubt. Many students failed the intermediate exams, and so did I I studied hard like for a week at aula 22 of the faculty of science with Sandeep for the final complete-exam, and the result was not that good. But well, it’s enough as other students still failed this one. This course was about 3 classical logics: propositional, first-order, and modal logics. Despite the gory nature of this course, I’d still like to thank prof. Luciano and Anna Paola for conducting the course.

During the early month of the third semester, I also took an intensive basic Italian language course (that was compulsary) at CIAL for the A1a level. It was only for 1 month in September, and I got the certificate stating that I passed this course

Last but not least, the most interesting course was none of the above. Instead it was the Italian culture course that made me interested most. It took place by the end of January 2009 for a week or so by a professor who conducted the course very well. He talked, talked, talked, and we laughed, laughed, laughed In addition, the final 3 days of the course was conducted by his assistant, a super pretty girl. All guys in the classroom couldn’t agree more I believe A friend of mine even stated: “She’s the most beautiful Italian girl I’ve ever met”

So now comes the 4th chapter: the master’s thesis…. I hope everything will go well….

CeBIT 2009

This is a log about my trip to Hannover for visiting the CeBIT 2009 expo that’s claimed to be the world’s largest computer expo. I’ve been wanting to visit a CeBIT expo since last year, but I moved to Trento already when the expo took place last year. So I decided to visit this expo this year since I’ve moved back to Germany. But when I asked several friends of mine, nobody seemed to be interested in joining me (well, I don’t have many friends yet in Aachen). Then I asked an EuMI student from Indonesia, Citra, who lived in Aachen if she would visit the expo. And she said she would. So I asked if it’s possible for me to join her. She replied me positively, very positively as I was given a free pass (ticket) for the expo Thanks to Citra and her friends

CeBIT 2009 – The ticket and my visitor ID

So we were 5, we took the schönes-wochenende-ticket (weekend regional train ticket valid throughout Germany) which cost for € 37 for max 5 persons. We departed from Aachen Westbahnhof to several intermediate stations (which I can’t remember) before reaching Hannover. The train departed at 02:59!!! So I went by foot to Aachen Westbahnhof from my flat. It took around 30 minutes.

CeBIT 2009 – My travel friends (Mariana, Divya, Alex, Citra)

We arrived at Hannover hauptbahnhof around 7 a.m., grapped some coffee, then took the S-bahn to the expo spot. The expo’s entrance gate was not far from the S-bahn terminal, but to enter we had to show our tickets which we had registered beforehand through the CeBIT’s website. Then they printed our visitor IDs.

CeBIT 2009 – Me, on the way to the entrance gate

The expo ground consists of 26 huge halls that we tried our best to traverse through all of them but couldn’t manage to visit every stand. At least not me We started from hall 13 as shown in the expo map. It was the telecommunication area.

CeBIT 2009 – The expo’s ground map

There were many big companies and I can’t remember all their details. But as far as I remember, Cisco Systems, SAP, Microsoft, IBM were there. IBM showed some demos about the so-called cloud computing, but as it was so crowded, I didn’t really get into it. And of course Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft was there, and surprisingly I met Ferry, an employee of the Fraunhofer FIT, who is also an Indonesian I met him before last year when I did my lab work at Fraunhofer FIT.

CeBIT 2009 – IBM’s cloud computing technology demo

CeBIT 2009 – The new way of working (viruses)?

CeBIT 2009 – Want your business to be one of the best-runnings? Buy SAP products!

And as the trend goes green on everything, the IT world doesn’t want to be left behind. Well, my laptop’s colour is not green (yet) There was also the Green IT World section in the expo, showing some concepts of green computing etc. I know very little on this.

CeBIT 2009 – The green IT World

And another surprises came from 2 sets of stands from 2 specific countries: Singapore and Malaysia. Unfortunately no Indonesia stand to be found there

CeBIT 2009 – Malaysia’s stands

CeBIT 2009 – Singapore’s stands

Several antivirus companies were there also in the Security World’s hall such as McAffee, Symantec, Kaspersky, and G-Data. I also came accross a cool tactile technology demo and a cool advert: Live in Los Angeles, study in Berlin, research in Alaska, and love in Taipeh. Cool…

CeBIT 2009 – A cool tactile technology demo

CeBIT 2009 – A cool advert

And inside Hall 22, there’s the Intel Gaming Hall packed with youths witnessing some gaming tournaments. I watched the SK Gaming Asia team beating its opponent by 2-0 in the World of Warcraft tournament, but then I got bored and moved on to the next hall.

CeBIT 2009 – The Intel Gaming Hall

After getting bored and tired, we decided to go back to Aachen around 4 p.m. I didn’t bring cool souvenirs except a pen, a mouse pad, and a book on Storage Basics. Had I been more proactive, I might have got the laptop bag just like Alex did. Yes, the Fujitsu-Siemens stand threw many laptop bags to the crowd, but I wasn’t tall enough to catch one

CeBIT 2009 – My take-away souvenirs

Finally I’d like to thank my travel friends to Hannover for the wonderful time visiting the CeBIT 2009 expo. I hope I’ll have the chance to see other CeBIT expos later on.

My first days in Aachen

My first days in Aachen didn’t start as smooth as I was expecting. It started with a very bad experience at the Milano Malpensa airport several minutes before my flight to Köln-Bonn airport (well in fact it’s more likely to be categorized in the ending of my stay in Italy than the new part in Germany). The story went like this: On Sunday, 1st March 2009, I arrived at the Milano Centrale train station around 22:30. I took the Malpensa shuttle bus to the airport terminal 1, dragging my big luggage and carrying a backpack, laptop bag, and handycam bag up to the check-in area. There I found a good seat for spending the night. So I tied my laptop bag to the big suitcase, also my backpack, and tied my handycam bag to the seat’s handle. Then I slept tightly. Well, playing the PSP for an hour before moving to another world When the morning came, I woke up with all my bags at their intial places. Then I went to the rest room, wrapped my huge luggage using a wrapper service for € 8, and went to Germanwings’ check in desk. The checked-in lugagge was 1.5 kg overweight, but the check-in guy was ok with that Then I went to the boarding gate and…. My handycam bag was not with me I tried to check the seat where I used to sleep, it was not there. There was no time to report my missing bag to the lost & found department, so I just let go. When arriving in Aachen, I reported this incident by phone and email, but no satisfying feedback yet until this post is written The contents of my handycam bag are my handycam and digital camera. Too bad…. In the memory card of the digital camera there were pictures of David Beckham taking corner kicks and free kicks when I watched the AC Milan match against Cagliari at San Siro. And recently I bought the replacement for my digital camera, a Canon Ixus 80 IS, because of the CeBIT 2009 expo that I didn’t want to miss (though in the end I didn’t take many pictures from that expo ).

So I moved in to my new flat in Aachen, thanks to Chat, one of the EuMI buddies from the same cohort as me, who prepared the administration matters for me. So we are flatmates now. The apartment itself is pretty good in my opinion, with a fair price for Aachen standard. It consists of 2 rooms, quite big (used by me and Chat), a small kitchen, and a bathroom/rest room. My room is furnished very well with a sofa and a bossy chair

Aachen – my room (the bossy chair ist sehr bequem )

Aachen – my room (the sofa is very comfortable for relaxing as well )

I spent my first days (first week) in Aachen processing administration stuffs with the international office (student card, stay permit) which haven’t been completed yet, and also with the housemaster. I also spent some time for reading my thesis materials and related articles. I hope everything will go well

Italia, arrivederci!

Today, Sunday, 1st March 2009, is my last day in Trento, Italy. I’ll take a train to Milano Centrale, then take a shuttle bus to Milano Malpensa airport. I’ll spend a night at the airport, and my flight to Köln-Bonn airport will be tomorrow early in the morning.

My last days in Trento were packed with deadlines (the projects were really consuming a lot of time to complete). I couldn’t even manage a farewell party with my university friends But my Indonesian friends here in Trento arranged a farewell lunch on Saturday afternoon. It was really awesome.

Well, at this moment I’d like to thank all of my Trento friends for the time spent together filling my lifetime diary. It is indeed a great memory to be remembered in the future, this particular Trento part of my life. I hope we will meet again some day. I am also hoping that I’ll visit Italy again.

Italia, arrivederci!