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Five years ago I was privileged to start and build up an humanitarian and social organisation called Caritas Sibolga . It has become a strong local NGO with international network (long term MoU with some international partners). In the first five years of its existence Caritas Sibolga implemented programmes with the value of 6 million Euro. Although it didn't hired the best professionals and consultants, Caritas Sibolga demonstrated the ability to design and implement big scale programmes with local staff, which could compete in quality with that of big INGOs. What was the key to this success? Let find out in an article  Kunci Kesuksesan Caritas Sibolga  I published on my Indonesian blog. * The author was Programme Manager and Deputy Director of Caritas Sibolga from 2005 to 2009. During his professional work in Caritas Sibolga he has developed implemented 22 projects with the support of donors from different countries (among them Caritas Italy , Secours catholiq...

For those who try to stand outside the commercialisation trend of our world, it is amazing to see what the community of open source software   and free software movement could do. Many people work together and contribute to a better software without the main concern for profit. One of them is xda developers . They and the others show us that there is a world of humanity beyond the commercialised world. I just realised this when I was trying the work of the community around Android , which has modified the look of my Nexus One to be like iPhone. As an iPhone 3GS owner I can say that this one is even better than the iPhone. Why? Read more

I bet that the iPhone users and other mobile phones are envy if they look at the new UI of my Nexus One. The appearance of my Google Nexus One has now transformed into that of HTC Desire . I got this after I deleted the previous ROM and replaced it with the new one from a xda developer called Evil's NXSense . I even impressed somebody in the cinema last week, who amazed said, "Wow, you've got a Desire?" (You know, Desire is now the best mobile phone in the UK). As the screen-shots below show it, the new UI is really beautiful. Read more here . Although I like the new mod, I personally prefer to use the ROM version of CyanogenMod . CyanogenMod has built into the ROM some extra tweak settings that I miss in the other ROM. It is good so. Android user has more choice than the others!

In the previous article I wrote about my experience with Google applications Calendar, Contacts and Gmail on Nexus One . This time I will write about my experience with Google Translate , built-in web browser , and news application. An exciting user experience. Of course I'll show also the screen-shots. Life hasn't been so easy and mobile phone hasn't been so fun to use. Read more here .

I've been using three leading smart-phones for a while now and I want to share my experience. The three are Apple iPhone 3GS (iOS4) , Google Nexus One (Android) , and Nokia E72 (Symbian) . I used to be heavy Nokia fan and was a proud owner of almost all its best smart-phones (E90, N95, N97, E71, E72). Unfortunately Nokia E72 lost the competition against iPhone 3GS and Google Nexus One. With its Symbian Nokia E72 seems to be out of date, so that I always left it home. After using the other two smart-phones browsing and IMAP experience on E72 feels really frustrating. The other two are more advanced in terms of innovation and technology and therefore can accompany my day everywhere. I the following I'll show some screen-shots and brief description of my excellent user experience on Nexus One. Read more here .

As Nexus One owner most probably you don't know, that it is possible to listen to FM Radio with it. Basically you can't, because the stock kernel doesn't support it and there is no application available. I don't know whether Google knew it and has done it on purpose: the Nexus One chip is capable of receiving FM radio signal. How? Read more here . Yesterday I downloaded the newest ROM from CyanogenMod and was surprised that among some new added apps I found a new application called FM Radio . I tried it and it worked perfectly (see the picture). While writing this article I was listening to BBC2 Radio, which was reporting about the huge spending cuts programmes of the UK government approved in the parliament yesterday (20/10/2010).

Google is profit -company, but it has a totally different approach compare to other companies. As if Google bridges two worlds, has one foot on the profit side and other foot on the non-profit side. Non-profit organisations define itself by providing its services for free for better world, better humanity. But they are not alone now. Although a profit company Google provides a broad spectrum of services for free too and makes other profit and non-profit organisations make profit out of Google services. Google Maps, Gmail, Calendar, Google Apps, Google Earth, and a lot more; Android, Chrome, Google TV and so on; Google releases them all for free. Imagine how many people, organisations and governments are using Google services and therefore keeping the cost low. Even if you hate Google, you can't help but acknowledging this. No other company has contributed so much for better world and better humanity like Google. Even if Microsoft donated recently 2 million dollar for education,...