RSS Feeds: Available Google News Feeds

Google News section feeds: You can get a feed for any Google News section. For instance, if you select a feed link while you're on the Business page, you'll get a feed of business news.

Google News search results feeds: You can also get a feed for any search you do on Google News. First do any search on Google News, then simply use the RSS link on the left-hand side of your search results page to generate the feed.

Customized news feeds: You can create a feed of a customized news page (note: for now, this applies only to English language sections), simply by creating a customized news page, and then using the RSS link on the left-hand side of the page to generate the feed.

Links to Feeds:
Top News RSS
World RSS
Australia RSS
Canada RSS
India RSS
Ireland RSS
New Zealand RSS
South Africa RSS
US RSS
UK RSS
Business RSS
Sci/Tech RSS
Health RSS
Sports RSS
Entertainment RSS

Example of search results as a feed:
"Lemurs" RSS
What are feeds and how do I use them?
A feed is a regularly updated summary of web content, along with links to full versions of that content. When you subscribe to a given website's feed by using a feed reader, you'll receive a summary of new content from that website. Important: you must use a feed reader in order to subscribe to website feeds. When you click on an RSS feed link, your browser may display a page of unformatted gobbledygook.

What is RSS?
RSS is a feed format. Right now, Google News supports RSS 2.0.

How do I use Google News feeds?
To access Google News feeds, look for the RSS link on any Google News page. This link will generate a feed of current stories related to the page that you're looking at.




For further details on incorporating feeds onto your site and our terms of use, please see this article.

Google Privacy Blunder Shares Your Docs Without Permission

by Jason Kincaid on March 7, 2009


In a privacy error that underscores some of the biggest problems surrounding cloud-based services, Google has sent a notice to a number of users of its Document and Spreadsheets products stating that it may have inadvertently shared some of their documents with contacts who were never granted access to them.

According to the notice, this sharing was limited to people “with whom you, or a collaborator with sharing rights, had previously shared a document” - a vague statement that sounds like it could add up to quite a few people. The notice states that only text documents and presentations are affected, not spreadsheets, and provides links to each of the user’s documents that may have been shared in error.

I’ve contacted Google for confirmation and haven’t heard back, but this seems to be legit - our tipster says that he had previously shared the document listed in his notice, but now it has been reset to show 0 collaborators (one of the precautionary measures mentioned in the note).
Update: Google has confirmed that the note is real, and says that it was an isolated incident affecting less than .05% of all documents. The damage may not be widespread, but it’s still an unsettling lapse in security.

Here’s the letter in full:

Dear Google Docs user,

We wanted to let you know about a recent issue with your Google Docs account. We’ve identified and fixed a bug which may have caused you to share some of your documents without your knowledge. This inadvertent sharing was limited to people with whom you, or a collaborator with sharing rights, had previously shared a document. The issue only occurred if you, or a collaborator with sharing rights, selected multiple documents and presentations from the documents list and changed the sharing permissions. This issue affected documents and presentations, but not spreadsheets.

To help remedy this issue, we have used an automated process to remove collaborators and viewers from the documents that we identified as being affected. Since the impacted documents are now accessible only to you, you will need to re-share the documents manually. For your reference, we’ve listed below the documents identified as being affected.

We apologize for the inconvenience that this issue may have caused. We want to assure you that we are treating this issue with the highest priority.

The Google Docs Team

In short, this is a massive blunder on Google’s part. I fully appreciate the lengths Google has gone to to offer a wide array of helpful online services, many of which are free of charge. But this error highlights why cloud-based services scare many people. Regardless of what a site’s posted rules and policies are, a technical glitch is all it takes to expose your sensitive data.

Update: An affected user posted his story and the exchange he had with Google support over the issue on Slashdot.

Update 2: A Google spokesperson has confirmed that the note is real:

We fixed the bug, which affected less than 0.05% of documents, and removed any collaborators. We also contacted the users who were affected to notify them of the bug and to identify which of their documents may have been affected. We have extensive safeguards in place to protect all documents, and are confident this was an isolated incident.

Thanks to Ed McManus for the tip.

Twitter Robot from 1935 (PIC)

Using hooks in Google App Engine

Introduction
As code grows in the wild, it sometimes becomes hard to maintain and modify. Implementing features like profiling datastore usage or adding "audit data" (who changed that row?) throughout the codebase can be tough. How can we be sure that we did not miss any place in our sources? How can we prevent another developer from making errors when later extending the code?

Background
Often, we would like to implement a change in the global behavior of an application that has nothing to do with its business logic. The goal is to make a big change with very little risk and code. We would like to apply a crosscutting concern, such as logging of performance-related data, to an entire application. We would like to achieve this goal globally, no matter what kind of higher-level api (Models versus datastore, Django versus webob) a developer uses.

The natural module to use is api_proxy_map, a low-level registry of RPC services that delegate higher level API calls to the appropriate service implementation. Traditionally, the way of modifying api_proxy_map is to monkeypatch this module, and replace its main entry point apiproxy_stub_map.MakeSyncCall. While this approach will work in some cases, it is not without its dangers. To make unit testing easier, other modules sometimes choose to inject the MakeSyncCall method and store a local reference to it -- this way, a test can easily substitute a mock instead.

The memcache module is a good example how this technique is used. Unfortunately, this also means that whatever memcache-Client is created before we apply our patch will bypass our modifications altogether. That could be for example the case if the memcache module was imported by a script before our patch was applied. Tracking down and fixing all these references is complex, and there is no guarantee that a new version of an SDK (or any other externally developed tool library that we might use for some other purpose) will not introduce new static dependencies later on.

Luckily, there is an alternative to monkeypatching. Version 1.1.8 of the SDK introduces a new mechanism into api_proxy_map: the concept of hooks. Any developer can now define a method with the same signature as MakeSyncCall:

def hook(service, call, request, response): ...and register it with the runtime using one of the following methods:

apiproxy_stub_map.apiproxy.GetPreCallHooks().Append('unique_name', hook, 'optional_api_identifier')apiproxy_stub_map.apiproxy.GetPostCallHooks().Append('unique_name', hook, 'optional_api_identifier')apiproxy_stub_map.apiproxy.GetPreCallHooks().Push('unique_name', hook, 'optional_api_identifier')apiproxy_stub_map.apiproxy.GetPostCallHooks().Push('unique_name', hook, 'optional_api_identifier')There are two different types of hooks. A PreCallHook is executed before an RPC call is made, a PostCallHook is executed after the RPC call. It is also possible to specify an optional api identifier that will make sure that a hook only gets invoked for a particular type of rpc (such as datastore or memcache). It is possible to register more than one hook to the apiproxy: Append will append a new hook to the end of the list of existing hooks, Push will append the hook at the beginning.

Example
Let's take a look at a concrete example and implement some datastore profiling. The idea is to automatically collect statistics for each model type in our database. We'd like separate counters for put/get/query/delete -- but without having to modify the model classes or handlers that access our data. For performance reasons, we decide not to write any of our results to the datastore. Instead, we collect some quick and dirty (not accurate or long-lived) stats in memcache, and put more detailed information into logging statements: each datastore operation creates a log entry which can be retrieved and analyzed offline.

The first step is to create a helper that can collect data in memcache and log more verbose information. It is worth noting that the counts in memcache are only approximations, since we have no way of locking that data and performing increments in a transactional way. That's ok though, since it is only meant as a rough overview, compared to the more detailed data in the logs. The following db_log achieves that objective.

def db_log(model, call, details=''): """Call this method whenever the database is invoked. Args: model: the model name (aka kind) that the operation is on call: the kind of operation (Get/Put/...) details: any text that should be added to the detailed log entry. """ # First, let's update memcache if model: stats = memcache.get('DB_TMP_STATS') if stats is None: stats = {} key = '%s_%s' % (call, model) stats[key] = stats.get(key, 0) + 1 memcache.set('DB_TMP_STATS', stats) # Next, let's log for some more detailed analysis logging.debug('DB_LOG: %s @ %s (%s)', call, model, details)Note: memcache does have transactional capabilities for increasing counts, such as incr() and decr(), but these work on single values and not a dictionary of counters).

Now, let's put that helper to good use and actually write our hook. We use a PreCallHook that evaluates our data before the rpc call is made (a PostCallHook would work just as fine in this particular case, though):

def patch_appengine(): """Apply a hook to app engine that logs db statistics.""" def model_name_from_key(key): return key.path().element_list()[0].type() def hook(service, call, request, response): assert service == 'datastore_v3' if call == 'Put': for entity in request.entity_list(): db_log(model_name_from_key(entity.key()), call) elif call in ('Get', 'Delete'): for key in request.key_list(): db_log(model_name_from_key(key), call) elif call == 'RunQuery': kind = datastore_index.CompositeIndexForQuery(request)[1] db_log(kind, call) else: db_log(None, call) apiproxy_stub_map.apiproxy.GetPreCallHooks().Append( 'db_log', hook, 'datastore_v3')We can also create a very simple script that displays our statistics in a browser:

def main(): """A very simple handler that will print the temporary statistics.""" print 'Content-Type: text/plain' print '' print 'Mini stats' print '----------' stats = memcache.get('DB_TMP_STATS') if stats is None: stats = {} for name, count in sorted(stats.items(), key=operator.itemgetter(0)): print '%s : %s' % (name, count) print '----------' if __name__ == "__main__": main()Most of the effort in the code is used to determine the model name on which we are working. If you are interested in how to get to this data, take a look into the modules entity_pb.py and datastore_pb.py of the SDK. These contain the protocol buffers used for datastore RPCs.

So far, we have created

a helper that compiles datastore information in memcache (and logging)
a hook that executes the helper and
a simple handler to display the results.

All three components can be stored in a single module (let's call it db_log.py). We can activate the hack in our application by adding the following two lines of code to an application:

import db_logdb_log.patch_appengine()This snippet should be placed where it is guaranteed to be executed, no matter what handler gets invoked. For example, if there is a common main method (in case of a django application), adding this before that main method gets defined would be a good location. Also, do not forget to add db_log.py to your app.yaml to get access to the quick-and-dirty memcache stats. You can find the entire source code for this article in the Google App Engine cookbook.

Windows Server 2008 SP2 dan Windows Vista SP2 Dirilis

Setelah akhir bulan lalu mengumumkan Release to Manufacturing (RTM) Service Pack 2 (SP2) untuk Windows Vista dan Windows Server 2008, akhirnya Microsoft merilis pula Windows Server 2008 SP2 dan Windows Vista SP2 untuk publik. Pada SP2 ini ditambahkan support untuk hardware seperti prosessor 64bit dari VIA, Bluetooth v2.1, dan Windows Connect Now (WCN) Wi-Fi Configuration. Update ini juga menambahkan kemampuan untuk merekam pada media Blue-Ray, menambahkan Windows Search 4.0, berbagai update keamanan, termasuk pula update-update yang telah dirilis setelah SP1.


Untuk dapat menginstall SP2 pada Windows Vista diharuskan sudah mengupdate ke SP1, berbeda dengan Windows Server 2008 yang memang sudah termasuk SP1 di dalamnya. Selain itu, sebelum menginstall SP2 final ini, SP2 rilis sebelumnya seperti Beta atau RC harus diuninstall terlebih dahulu agar batasan waktu pada rilis tersebut hilang.

Proses update ke SP2 ini dapat dilakukan melalui layanan Windows Update atau dengan mendownload terlebih dahulu file installer SP2 pada alamat download berikut untuk kemudian di install ke komputer dengan Windows Vista SP1 atau Windows Server 2008.

Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 and Windows Vista Service Pack 2 - Five Language Standalone for x86-based Systems
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=a4dd31d5-f907-4406-9012-a5c3199ea2b3 (348.3 MB)
Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 and Windows Vista Service Pack 2 - Five Language Standalone for x64-based Systems
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=656c9d4a-55ec-4972-a0d7-b1a6fedf51a7 (577.4 MB)
Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 - Five Language Standalone for Itanium-based Systems
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e890b3cf-972b-483f-a2ff-03f6aefac6f8 (450.4 MB)
Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 and Windows Vista Service Pack 2 - Five Language Standalone DVD ISO
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9f073285-b6ef-4297-85ce-f4463d06d6cb (1376.8 MB)
Kebanyakan komputer yang digunakan saat ini adalah menjalankan Windows Vista 32bit, jadi kemungkinan besar yang perlu Anda download adalah link download yang pertama.

Untuk informasi lebih lanjut mengenai Windows Vista SP2 dan Windows Server SP2 ini, Anda dapat membaca Microsoft Knowledge Base KB948465.

Google Keeps Tweaking Its Search Engine

THESE days, Google seems to be doing everything, everywhere. It takes pictures of your house from outer space, copies rare Sanskrit books in India, charms its way onto Madison Avenue, picks fights with Hollywood and tries to undercut Microsoft’s software dominance.

But at its core, Google remains a search engine. And its search pages, blue hyperlinks set against a bland, white background, have made it the most visited, most profitable and arguably the most powerful company on the Internet. Google is the homework helper, navigator and yellow pages for half a billion users, able to find the most improbable needles in the world’s largest haystack of information in just the blink of an eye.

Yet however easy it is to wax poetic about the modern-day miracle of Google, the site is also among the world’s biggest teases. Millions of times a day, users click away from Google, disappointed that they couldn’t find the hotel, the recipe or the background of that hot guy. Google often finds what users want, but it doesn’t always.

That’s why Amit Singhal and hundreds of other Google engineers are constantly tweaking the company’s search engine in an elusive quest to close the gap between often and always.

Mr. Singhal is the master of what Google calls its “ranking algorithm” — the formulas that decide which Web pages best answer each user’s question. It is a crucial part of Google’s inner sanctum, a department called “search quality” that the company treats like a state secret. Google rarely allows outsiders to visit the unit, and it has been cautious about allowing Mr. Singhal to speak with the news media about the magical, mathematical brew inside the millions of black boxes that power its search engine.

Google values Mr. Singhal and his team so highly for the most basic of competitive reasons. It believes that its ability to decrease the number of times it leaves searchers disappointed is crucial to fending off ever fiercer attacks from the likes of Yahoo and Microsoft and preserving the tidy advertising gold mine that search represents.

“The fundamental value created by Google is the ranking,” says John Battelle, the chief executive of Federated Media, a blog ad network, and author of “The Search,” a book about Google.

Online stores, he notes, find that a quarter to a half of their visitors, and most of their new customers, come from search engines. And media sites are discovering that many people are ignoring their home pages — where ad rates are typically highest — and using Google to jump to the specific pages they want.

“Google has become the lifeblood of the Internet,” Mr. Battelle says. “You have to be in it.”

Users, of course, don’t see the science and the artistry that makes Google’s black boxes hum, but the search-quality team makes about a half-dozen major and minor changes a week to the vast nest of mathematical formulas that power the search engine.

These formulas have grown better at reading the minds of users to interpret a very short query. Are the users looking for a job, a purchase or a fact? The formulas can tell that people who type “apples” are likely to be thinking about fruit, while those who type “Apple” are mulling computers or iPods. They can even compensate for vaguely worded queries or outright mistakes.

“Search over the last few years has moved from ‘Give me what I typed’ to ‘Give me what I want,’ ” says Mr. Singhal, a 39-year-old native of India who joined Google in 2000 and is now a Google Fellow, the designation the company reserves for its elite engineers.

Google recently allowed a reporter from The New York Times to spend a day with Mr. Singhal and others in the search-quality team, observing some internal meetings and talking to several top engineers. There were many questions that Google wouldn’t answer. But the engineers still explained more than they ever have before in the news media about how their search system works.

As Google constantly fine-tunes its search engine, one challenge it faces is sheer scale. It is now the most popular Web site in the world, offering its services in 112 languages, indexing tens of billons of Web pages and handling hundreds of millions of queries a day.

Even more daunting, many of those pages are shams created by hucksters trying to lure Web surfers to their sites filled with ads, pornography or financial scams. At the same time, users have come to expect that Google can sift through all that data and find what they are seeking, with just a few words as clues.

Article on Google Book Search Settlement

Yesterday’s issue of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) contains an interesting article on the Google Book Search Settlement written by Prof. Burkhard Hess:

The settlement concerns a class action lawsuit between Google and - as plaintiffs - the Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers as well as individual authors and publishers about books scanned for the Google Book Search without the authors’ consent. Basically, the proposal for the settlement provides on the one side the payment of compensation for class members and the establishment of a registry of rights to books while it contains on the other side an authorisation of Google to scan books, maintain an electronic database and to make worldwide commercial uses of books.

The problematic issue the present article is dealing with, is the opt-out-mechanism provided by the settlement: Authors who do not object within the opt-out deadline (which has been extended until 4 September 2009) will be bound by the settlement. Thus, authors are “compelled” to take action if they don’t want to be bound by the settlement. In other words - the opt-out mechanism is meant to substitute the authors’ consent in the digitalisation and marketing of their books.

Hess points out in his article that the strategy of an opt-out mechanism might involve difficulties in view of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works since this Convention guarantees a certain minimum standard of protection: In his article, Hess raises doubts whether the opt-out mechanism - which would lead to an automatic deprivation of the authors’ copyright - meets the requirements of this protection standard.

With regard to the fairness hearing - which will take place in New York on 3 September - Hess suggests that it is not only the concerned authors who should intervene - rather he suggests that also the German Federal Government could do so, as an amicus curiae, in order to submit the reservations against the settlement.

Installed Google Chrome 2.0

Today i'm installed browser at my dekstop with Open Source Google Chrome 2.0. I'm check and try use Google Chrome 2.0 ... WOW.. realy this software work fine. I get suprised from Open Source Google Chrome Stable Release. I have browser alternative too ( Mozila Firefox, IE, Safari, Opera ) and today I'm use new browser Google Chrome... realy this software very fast for me.

Siapa Bilang Chitika Sudah Mati?

Selamat datang bulan Mei 2009! Hola, setelah sekian lama absen posting kali ini saya akan memberikan sebuah info bagus buat teman-teman sesama pencari makan di internet melalui adsense. Jika di posting lalu tentang Chitika saya sudah memberikan garis besarnya dan stat awal, maka kali ini saya akan menunjukkan screenshot pembayaran dari Chitika yang baru aja saya terima.
Well, judul posting kali ini adalah untuk menjawab isu kurang sedap mengenai Chitika yang beredar di kalangan netpreuner. Banyak yang bilang Chitika sudah mati. Bahkan, di forum sekelas DP (digital point), sub forum mengenai Chitika nyaris sepi tanpa thread dan diskusi, kalah jauh dibandingkan perbincangan mengenai CJ atau Amazon. Tapi faktanya, Chitika buat saya muaknyos gila.
Sabagai gambaran, saya hanya menggunakan Chitika in links berdampingan dengan adsense di salah satu blog saya yang ber traffik rata-rata 1500 visitor sehari. Dan hasilnya, ternyata Chitika memberikan earning hampir 5 kali lipat besarnya dibandingkan dari apa yang saya dapatkan dari adsense di blog tersebut. CPC (nilai per klik) Chitika account saya rata-rata $0.3 dengan CTR lebih dari 10%. Well, coba bandingkan dengan adsense yang hanya memberikan rata-rata CPC $0.05 dan CTR 4% di blog yang sama.
Hasilnya bisa Anda lihat dibawah :
Hasil yang terlihat di account saya = hasil audit tim Chitika. So, ga ada potongan sama sekali alias dibayar full! Bagusnya lagi, sudah 2 kali saya menerima pembayaran dari Chitika yang sangat-sangat on time.
So, jika Anda ingin menambah penghasilan blog yang saat ini Anda pasangi Adsense, Chitika in links adalah pilihan yang sangat tepat. Untuk mendaftar silahkan ke link ini. Untuk membaca artikel saya yang lalu mengenai Chitika silahkan ke halaman ini.
Semoga bermanfaat

First there was a blog - Memperingati Hari Blogger Nasional 27/10

Posting ini juga dapat dibaca di buku dengan tajuk "100 Blogger Bicara" hasil kerja keras teman-teman dari BlogFam dan penerbit Gradien Mediatama. Image modification by Ronceh nang Yogya


Pada awalnya

Blog adalah tentang manusia dan hubungan antar manusia yang disampaikan lewat cerita yang kita bagi diblog kita masing-masing. Kekuatan bercerita yang dimungkinkan oleh blog serta tersedia untuk siapa saja itu yang pertama kali membuat saya tertarik untuk ngeblog.

Saya mulai ngeblog pada tahun 2001, tapi sepertinya bibit-bibit ngeblog sudah mulai hadir 8 tahun sebelumnya saat saya masih duduk di bangku SMP.

Naik ke kelas 2 SMP saya mulai menulis buku harian, mencatat apa yang terjadi pada diri saya setiap hari. Saat itu saya berpikir bahwa hari-hari yang saya lalui dipenuhi dengan banyak hal yang baru pertama kali terjadi di pada diri saya, dan alangkah sialnya dan malangnya kalau saya melupakan hal-hal tersebut. Pertama kali bermain sendiri dengan teman-teman, pertama kali pulang malam, pertama kali malam mingguan berpura-pura jadi orang dewasa, pertama kali mendapat surat cinta atau menyatakannya. Saya merasa hidup baru bermula saat itu dan saya harus mencatatnya!

Percepat 7 tahun ke depan, dengan kombinasi ketertarikan pada Internet yang baru hadir beberapa tahun di Indonesia, saya kembali mencari media personal yang saya bisa gunakan untuk mecatat dan bercerita.

Di tahun 2001, tanpa sengaja, dan bermula serupa dengan cerita semua blogger rasanya, saya menemukan yang namanya blog.

Apa ini? Saya bertanya. Bagaimana orang menggunakannya? Di saat itu pun saya sudah merasa bahwa saya berhadapan dengan sesuatu yang lebih besar dari tampilannya.

Berikutnya selain membuat blog saya sendiri, saya kemudian juga membuat riset panjang yang saya tuliskan dalam tulisan “Apa itu blog?” yang tidak hanya mencoba menerangkan apa itu blog, tapi juga sejarahnya, budayanya, pengguna-penggunanya.

Pada tahun 2001, Blogger Indonesia dapat dihitung dengan jari. Hampir semua saya link dari blog saya. Untuk menemukan blog yang menarik tidak ada cari lain selain meng-klik link-link di blog teman kita. Sebaliknya pun untuk membaca blog teman kita, tidak ada cara lain selain dengan memeriksa blog teman kita satu persatu.

Tidak ada fasilitas komen yang terintegrasi, tidak ada fasilitas untuk mengupload gambar secara otomatis, tidak ada trackback, tidak ada RSS.

Blog adalah blog saat itu, tempat kita berbagi dan berekspresi. Tempat kita mencatat dan bercerita.



Lalu kemudian

Di tahun 2002, kebetulan saya mengikuti istri saya tinggal di Bangkok, Thailand. Blog menjadi sebuah media kami untuk sedikit mengobati rasa rindu pada tanah air. Sedikit peluang untuk masih mengecap canda dan tawa serta cerita dengan teman-teman di Indonesia.

Tapi ternyata perasaan saya pertama tadi betul. Blog lebih besar dari yang tampak di permukaannya.

Di tahun-tahun ini, begitu banyak blog dan inovasi yang banyak orang lakukan dengan blog. Muncul blog audio (podcast), blog fotografi yang kemudian disusul dengan blog video (vlog).

Blog rupanya akan menyelamatkan dunia. Blog digunakan untuk memberdayakan masyarakat, menambah kualitas pendidikan, memasarkan produk, mengabarkan kata-kata baik tentang perusahaan.

Blogger makin banyak dan tumbuh. Konsumerism digantikan oleh Produserism.

Manusia makin dimanusiakan oleh teknologi, dan untuk pertama kalinya dalam sejarah umat manusia, seorang individu tidak lagi dibatasi untuk menjadi seorang produser materi.

Konten-konten bermunculan. Puluhan, ratusan bahkan ribuan topik hadir.

Dari blog behind the scene-nya sang sutradara Joko Anwar saat memproduksi filmnya ”KALA” (http://deadtimethemovie.blogspot.com/), hingga blog Intelejen Indonesia (http://intelindonesia.blogspot.com)yang membahas isu-isu intelejensia secara anonimus.

Dari blog penggemar klab sepak bola Persib Bandung (http://persib.wordpress.com/) hingga blog-nya Bang Reinhard Hutagaol (http://reinhardjambi.wordpress.com/) seorang perwira polisi yang mengemban tugas PBB di Darfur, Sudan.

Topik dan tema yang muncul di blogsphere tidak pernah habis. Seperti kata Mao Zedong, sang Ketua Partai Komunis China, ”Biarkan ribuan bunga bermekaran”.

Memang ada sebuah rasa kolektifitas yang tumbuh disertai selera melawan kemapanan yang diemban oleh blog dan blogger.

Melawan kemapanan media dan menara-menara gading pusat informasi. Infomasi kini bebas untuk dimiliki siapa saja dan bukan hak kemewahan media beserta redaktur, editor, pemimpin perusahaan dan gerombolan pengiklannya.

Informasi kini bebas merdeka dan dapat dimiliki serta dimulai hanya dari seorang blogger.



Sekarang ini

Blog dapat dibandingkan dengan kehadiran mesin cetak yang dibuat oleh Johaness Gutenberg di tahun 1439.

Sebelum Gutenberg menciptakan mesin cetak mudah dan murah (alat cetak Movable Type) informasi dalam bentuk buku dan ide-ide dimonopoli oleh institusi kemapanan seperti gereja dan kaum bangsawan semata.

Penyebaran ide lewat buku yang dipermudah dan diperluas oleh alat cetak Gutenberg membuat, dalam waktu singkat, buku dan ide pembebasan dapat dinikmati oleh orang biasa. Masa pencerahan (Renaissance) menjadi bukti nyata dengan dampak luar biasa yang kita rasakan sekarang yang dimulai dari sebuah alat pembebas informasi tersebut.

Berbahagialah teman, sejarah terulang kembali dan kita tengah berada dipusatnya. Blog membuat, untuk kedua kalinya, informasi menjadi bebas kembali.

Dua hal yang dibebaskan oleh blog adalah biaya produksi dan biaya distribusi dari informasi. Dengan blog tidak lagi kita dibebani biaya memproduksi sejuta lembar kertas berisi ide yang ingin kita sampaikan. Dengan blog tidak lagi kita dibebani biaya distribusi menyebarkan sejuta lembar kertas tersebut.

Dengan sebuah blog, tanpa biaya berarti, satu juta orang dapat membaca informasi yang hendak kita sampaikan.

Apa yang bisa kita perbuat dengan kebebasan ini, apa sumbangsih nyata blogger untuk masyarakat Indonesia dan masyarakat dunia?

Hidup kita jadi lebih kaya, kaya budaya, kaya informasi, ada sebuah kecerdasan dan kesadaran kolektif yang muncul dan tumbuh di dunia blogosphere.

Saat ini ada 500 ribu blogger di Indonesia, 500 ribu orang, generasi pemroduksi konten yang sudah nyaman menggunakan blog untuk mengirim dan menerima informasi

500 ribu individu dengan sikap yang lebih partisipatif, terbiasa menuangkan pikiran dalam tulisan, berbuat sesuatu dan tidak berpangku tangan, berpikir secara terbuka dan aktif mencari dan membagikan informasi.

Dan jumlahnya bertumbuh sangat cepat, berkali lipat 2 kali setiap 6 bulan sekali.

Kalau itu bukan sebuah masa depan yang lebih baik maka saya tidak tahu harus kita sebut dengan apa.

Blog dan alat-alatnya sudah makin mudah digunakan. Fasilitas sudah tersedia. Tahun 2007 Blogger Indonesia berhasil membuat sebuah acara nasional untuk pertama kalinya Pesta Blogger 2007 (www.pestablogger.com), media massa secara aktif membahas dan mengutip blog.

Pertanyaan, peran dan kemudian ”tanggung jawab” yang blogger usung menjadi lebih serius, luas dan berat.

Blog mungkin dan akan merubah dunia, menjadi dunia yang lebih baik, menjadi dunia dimana tidak ada lagi monopoli terhadap penyebaran informasi.

Dunia Blogosphere Indonesia sudah makin matang dan dalam, tapi diluar itu semua, yang saya rindukan sebenernya bukan itu.

Lewat blog saya ketemu dengan banyak orang, lewat blog saya berbagi kisah, rasa dan cerita dengan teman-teman yang sebelumnya tidak pernah saya bayangkan untuk bertemu.

Lewat blog kami bercerita tentang pasangan, tentang kehidupan, tentang pacar yang baru ketemu, tentang pacar yang tak akan kembali lagi, tentang pernikahan, tentang kelahiran seorang buah hati, tentang orang tua, tentang sahabat terdekat. Tentang perpisahan, tentang perceraian.

Bercerita tentang blog adalah bercerita tentang para penulisnya, tentang para bloggernya.

Lewat blog kami bercerita dan lewat blog kami menjadi manusia lagi.

Selamat Hari Blogger Nasional!

Selamat Hari Sumpah Pemuda!

Sampai ketemu di Pesta Blogger 2008, tanggal 22 November nanti!

VIVAT BLOGGER INDONESIA!

INVESMANDIRI

Sarana Pintar Membangun Aset Di Internet ::.
INVESMANDIRI Adalah sebuah program briliant yang akan merubah anda menjadi seorang yang memiliki kebebasan finansial selamanya. Anda akan memiliki penghasilan secara Unlimited / Terus - Menerus bahkan ketika Anda sedang Berlibur atau tidur sekalipun. Tidak hanya itu, Rekening bank anda juga akan kebanjiran Rupiah terus-menerus tanpa terkendali.
ANDA akan memiliki ASET yang memberikan penghasilan secara terus menerus tanpa henti yang membanjiri rekening Bank Anda selama 24 jam secara otomatis. Semua proses terus berlangsung bahkan disaat Anda sedang berlibur atau tidur sekalipun...

Anda Ingin Bebas Finansial..??


Ingin Uang Mengalir Terus ke Rekening Anda..??


Apakah Anda Ingin Memiliki Penghasilan Tanpa Batas..??


Ingin Merubah Hidup Anda Saat ini Juga..!!
Inilah KUNCI KESUKSESAN Anda Untuk Menghasilkan Unlimited Income
Selamat , Anda sudah berada di media yang tepat untuk merubah kehidupan Anda yang biasa menjadi luar biasa, dan yang sudah luar biasa menjadi Super luar biasa.
Apakah Anda tipe orang yang P 3 M [ Pergi Pagi Pulang Malam] , Anda merasa STRESS setiap hari, tertekan karena intimidasi bos Anda..??
Apakah Anda sudah berusaha keras mencari uang, namun hasil yang didapat belum juga memuaskan..??
Atau mungkin Anda seorang Mahasiswa yang sudah lulus Sarjana tapi masih saja belum mendapatkan pekerjaan, atau bahkan masih menganggur.?
Anda pusing memikirkan kebutuhan rumah tangga yang semakin sulit seiring dengat makin terpuruknya perekonomian negara kita..??
Anda tidak tahu harus berbuat apa untuk segera keluar dari semua tekanan dan realita kehidupan yang sedang anda hadapi..?
STOP..... Buang jauh - jauh pikiran - pikiran negatif dan bersiap - siaplah untuk menjadi Orang yang memiliki kebebasan Finansial Selamanya..