Canon PIXMA iP1880 Printer in Ubuntu Feisty

I just opened the Canon PIXMA iP1880 bought it about 2 months ago. I never use it as laser jet printer is always ready in the office :-)
This morning my wife ask me to print my kid's photo, that is the reason I open it.

I've tried googling to find if somebody have installed it in Ubuntu Feisty, but no luck. The current driver provided by Canon are only for OpenSuse and Fedora, but it's good at least they made the linux driver.

First step installation, download the files from canon server :
Go to http://www.canon-asia.com/index.jsp?fuseaction=support&prod_type=bj&country=SG
select the Model PIXMA iP1880 and Menu Drivers & Softwares
Choose the version 2.7.0 for Linux
Download only the two files which are "Common package" and "Package for the iP1800series"

The files are in RPM. So we need to convert it to Ubuntu packaging format.
Second step :
Install the alien package by command

sudo apt-get install alien

Convert it to .deb
sudo alien -k cnijfilter-common-2.70-1.i386.rpm
sudo alien -k cnijfilter-ip1800series-2.70-1.i386.rpm

Install it
sudo dpkg -i cnijfilter-common_2.70-1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i cnijfilter-ip1800series_2.70-1_i386.deb

Other than those files, you need some old library to support it like libtiff3 and libpng3. I can't find the libtiff3 on the repository so I make softlink to point libtiff3 to libtiff4. Without this installation, you won't be able to print anything.

cd /usr/lib/
sudo ln -s ./libtiff.so.4.2.1 ./libtiff.so.3

for libpng3, install from repository
sudo apt-get install libpng3

After you install above command successfuly, we go to Step 3
Turn on the printer and connect the USB to the printer.
Open the printing from System->Administration->Printing
Double click the new printer
Select Printer Type " Local or Detected Printer"
Select a Detected Printer : Canon iP1800 series ......
Then go to the next page
I can't find the iP1800 on the list, so I select the "Install Driver" button and point to
/usr/share/cups/model
and select canonip1800.ppd
Go to the next page and press the apply button.
You will see on the Printers window, there will be iP1800 icon on it. You can make it default printer by right click and select "Make Default"
This part, voila, you are ready to print!

For the Hardy users, you should install libgtk1.2 and libxml1 and no need to go to step 3.
sudo apt-get install libgtk1.2
sudo apt-get install libxml1

After turn on the printer, there will be popup to install the printer.

The Top Consultant: Developing Your Skills For Greater Effectiveness

This week I've just cleared two books. First book that I need to share with you is
"The Top Consultant: Developing Your Skills For Greater Effectiveness", 4th Edition
by Calvert Markham ISBN:0749442530 Kogan Page © 2004.

Markham defines consultancy as a 'delivering specialist skills from outside the organization' means the consultant has specific skill that needed by the client and the consultant normally is not on the same organization or if it's in same company it will be different department. Organization need consultant to bring objectivity, minimized the risk and also learn from the expert. The role of consultant have evolved in 30 years from deliver experience of practice to identify and address organizational issue. And these are the consultancy skill that consultant must have:
- The body of knowledge, skill and experience
- Experience or knowledge of the application of the specialist skill in specific area
- Consultancy skill to deliver the expertise

Consultancy activities can be consider as a product which value is added to the client. Markham quote Ralph Waldo 'If a man... make a better mousetrap than his neighbour, tho' he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door.' Which means even you have very good expertise but if nobody know, you can't sell it. I won't go deep in marketing content of this book as I'm a technical guy :P

In the chapter 6 explain about consultancy problem solving as the challenge of consultant are to make right boundary. Without it, project won't be effective. To get whole picture, consultant need to engage with top management for strategy, middle management for process and junior staff for the action. Markham highlight about preconceptions between consultant and client is very important . Here is the diagram for problem solving approach :


Use creative thinking to generate hypotheses <-|
Select which to investigate |
Identify the data you need to verify |
Collect the data |
Analyse the data ------------------------------|
Arrive at conclusions


On the last chapter explain about managing client relationship. Good relationship to customer will help sales and it have to be managed.

The Seven Habits of Successful Networkers

You guys should familiar with 7 habits's Stephen Covey which inspiring many people on earth. I just found the PDF file from cisco networkers 2005 presented by Accenture with the title "The Seven Habits of Successful Networkers".

• Be Proactive
It's similar with 7 habits's Stephen Covey, networkers should prepare to react on the new big technology.

• Be Bold
It is not time for timid thinking and Do you have the right partners?

• Be an Effective Businessman
Run a network like businessman and align with business strategy

• Learn from Others
Be aware of what is essential now and what is next

• Communicate Your Plan
Network can be like electricity, executives only hear about it when it is not working

• Challenge Your Thinking
The path to successful project delivery is not always straight

• Execute Ruthlessly
The path to successful network delivery is merciless

Index and Ring Finger relationship

When we are in the womb, researcher found if sex hormone testosterone was supplied higher than estrogen your ring finger (jari manis) should longer than your index finger (jari telunjuk). And vice versa, if estrogen higher than testosterone the index finger will be longer than ring finger. Normally, man will have longer ring finger (testosterone effect) than index finger and woman have same length index finger and ring finger.

There are few survey have conducted about this issue, very good football players have much longer ring finger than index finger. And male scientist normally have ring finger and index finger same length. Some people also say for woman longer ring finger will give masculine behaviour and for man longer index finger will give feminine behaviour. Also researcher found relationship between index finger and ring finger with heart attack, autism and breast cancer.

Taken from http://www.mondovista.com/homosexual.html, sexual orientation by the finger :

Man's Finger and sexual orientation

Woman's Finger and sexual orientation

HTTP compression/deflate

Currently there are two implementation in http compression which are on Web server and also proxy server (web cache/cache engine). One of example of web server using http compression is Google.com, proven it's very fast (beside it's also simple:-). For Indonesia, www.detik.com also have implement http compression/deflate but many other famous website still didn't implement it. You can check wether the website implement http compression or not by using this tool

http://www.isapilabs.com/products/isapizip/compress.php

Just put the URL on the left side empty field.
I've configured apache using mod deflate. The text file size below is 5.1 MB

http://202.155.100.254/rfc.txt

When you download it, you will only consume 1.1 MB of bandwidth (didn't count the outgoing traffic). It's 4 time faster than without compression!

For proxy server implementation, it will reduce your internet bandwidth usage if you are an ISP/enterprise. Other than caching the content, proxy server will also compress the uncompressed data, and send it to its client. Squild will release the official feature of gzip content encoding on version 3.1.

Other than advantage of using http compression, you also need to know the compression will depend on type of data. If it's text or html files, it can compress up to 80% . But if it's an image, sometime compression file is higher than the original file. Most content of the website are image, movie, flash which are compressed already.

CALEA and intercept internet traffic in Indonesia

I've just read about CALEA (Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act) issue in nanog mailing-list. Basically ISP must have capability to intercept internet traffic/voip of their customers. More information can be read in :

http://www.fcc.gov/calea/
http://www.askcalea.net/
http://www.access.gpo.gov/uscode/title47/chapter9_subchapteri_.html

Related with CALEA, probably you ever heard about this rumor before. This rumor I have heard about one year ago, the source is Singaporean. If you're using Indonesia ISP and the ISP is using Singapore ISP/telco as an upstream (you know who), and if there is any suspicious word like bomb/jihad, your data will be sent to the US. This should related as many Indonesian terorist activity using Internet as a main communication.
It's a rumor, don't know it's true or hoax :-)

What's wrong with Telkom BGP

Every week I always receive BGP update report from Potaroo.net. And always see telkomnet ASN always listed there as Top 20 unstable origin AS. But this weeks is Telkomnet is listed as number ONE. I think, Telkom as a biggest telco in Indonesia should notice about this. This will give bad impression to Telkom. Anyone know why it can happen ? These are the possibilities :
- Saturated upstream connection. As the upstream have congestion, BGP connection will be affected
- Unstable link connection from Indonesia to Singapore.
- Link problem between iBGP routers

Limelight Networks

Limelight Network is US based company that deliver rich media content like video, music, game and download. They are one of Akamai competitor.
The way it works is different with Akamai. Where Akamai put servers on more than 1000 ISPs, Limelight Networks does peering with ISPs. It's similar like Yahoo/Google/Microsoft peering.
Currently Limelight Networks already has more than 700 clients. Few of its big customers are MySpace, MSNBC.com, Foxnews and Xbox.
If you're an ISP/NAP, they open peering in Hong Kong and Japan for Asia, and for US & Europe they open in major cities.

LCD Flat Panel 23"

It's like dream come true. This morning I saw carrefour advertisement in Kompas, they sell LG LCD Flat Panel 23LC1RB 23" wide screen for Rp 3.5 Million (around $380) from original price Rp 5.6 Million. Have checked on the internet, most store sell it at $600-800 . Also in www.tokolg.com for 20" is Rp 4.6 Mill and 26" is Rp 7.6 Million This afternoon I went to Kelapa Gading Carrefour, but there is no stock available. They said the LCD is run out and we can still buy it, on Monday they will deliver it.
Can't wait till monday, arrgghh. It will be very comfortable using 23" for my computer monitor & TV in my study room.
The spec for LCD are :
- Resolution 1366 x 768
- HD ready
- Viewing mode 176° x 176°
- Contrast Ratio 700:1
- Weight 20.1 lbs

If you stay in Indonesia, hurry up as this is very good deal, while stock last! And don't forget to buy Durian Thailand for only Rp 8750/Kg at Carrefour :-)

Free wireless for community

There are few free wireless community out there. One of the famous one is the service provided by Fon. It's quite interesting service. You need to buy the wireless access point hardware from Fon at cost $39.9. The wireless access point is installed on your internet broadband, and there is configuration how many bandwidth you would used by your own, and how many kbps will be shared. And Fon will give you username & password, so you can access wireless where the Fon community exist. Have checked the location, but there is no Fon community in Indonesia. But there are many community in Europe, North Asia.
Probably because internet bandwidth is still expensive in Indonesia and the impact is the internet broadband for unlimited service still not attractive.

3G-Net / CSM WiMax

This ISP, I guess, the first ISP that implementing WiMax technology in Indonesia (didn't count Aceh). All information below is gathered from Internet. 3G-Net/CSM WiMax is using technology 820.16-2004 and frequency 2.5/3.5 GHz as according to Postel Indonesia, CSM has both frequency allocation. And the WiMax equipment is provided by Aperto.
But I surprised, why the speed is limited to max 384 Kbps Downstream and max 64 Kbps Upstream ?

NetZap frequency

I'm interested with NetZap advertisement in couple mailing-list. Some information about NetZap which I've collected from internet are :
- Netzap using TD-CDMA technology. This technology similar like W-CDMA, except it doesn't need to pay fee to qualcomm and the technology is using TDD.
- The service similar to 3G, but NetZap doesn't buy 3G frequency allocation from Indonesia government.
- NetZap doesn't use 2.4 GHz, so that mean it will use other frequency allocation
- NetZap have certified equipment & license from Post & Telecommunication Indonesia

So, which frequency used by NetZap ? According to Wikipedia, TD-CDMA is using 1.9 GHz, 2 GHz, 2.5 GHz and also 3.5 GHz.

I've found the answer from Postel http://www.postel.go.id/update/id/baca_info.asp?id_info=388
NetZap is using 2GHz.

SAP Consultant

I still remember when my lecture said about SAP consultant one year ago. If you are end user and you are deploying SAP, becarefull with your brightest SAP programmer/analyst asset. SAP will try to get your programmer/analyst work with them, and your company become depend on SAP. SAP will charge with consultancy rate 10 times than normal salary of your SAP programmer/analyst, and the consultant sometime are your previous programmer/analyst :-) What a strategy!

This practice actually not only happen in SAP, but also in Telco environment. I just notice last week when somebody say exactly the same scheme happen in huge Telco vendor, guess who ? Pay attention with your brightest enginner/programmer and create a system that you have backup engineer/programmer with similar quality. Some telco have agreement with the vendor where vendor can't hire person from the telco.

The services from vendor take important role for vendor's revenue. With selling services, vendor will still get annual revenue from end users. Without it, vendor only can get revenue every 3-4 years.

The Pursuit of Happyness

This movie is recommended to be watched and will inspiring you. It's about real life story of the founder Gardner Rich, Christhopher Gardner. The story is begin with his struggling to his live . His wife runaway because she can't life in poverty. He has a dream as a broker, and this is his answer during interview as broker candidate "I'm technical guy. If I don't know the answer, I will say I don't know. But I know how to find the answer". Before interview, he just get arrested because he can't pay the fine of car park :-(
After six months without getting salary, where he also homeless with his son, Gardner is accepted as a broker. The happy moments after his boss give congratulation is very touching. I like the words that he told his son "Don't say that you can't do it, even to me". Great acting for Will Smith and Jaden Smith!

About Beijing

I need to share my experience visiting Beijing. First rule, very difficult to find someone that understand English. Don't try to take Taxi to anywhere if you don't bring the paper with mandarin written of your destination. Also if you take Taxi, be carefull. My first come to Beijing, I've got cheated by Taxi driver. From Airport to Hotel normally 100 Yuan, but they charge me 300 Yuan.
For internet, I've checked few website are banned. Example wordpress.com and wikipedia.org. But if you have VPN to you office, please do so. They won't filter traffic inside tunnel VPN, like IPsec and even PPTP.
If you would like to buy something like souvenir, you should know the price first. Without knowing it, you also can get cheated. Actually not really cheated, for us their price is consider is low, but the right price should be half than the original or even 1/10. I bought some Beijing T-Shirt, originally they offer 120 Yuan, but after negoatiation I could get 12 Yuan. And after I walk to another shop, the other shop offer only 10 Yuan :-))
I have only few experiences about place for buying souvenir. The first one is before Great Wall Badaling gate, and the other place is Wang Fu Jing.
Things are very cheap here, you would like to spend all of your money here :-)

Wimax World in Beijing

I've come 17 April 2007 night in Beijing, the venue itself start from 18-21 April. It's my second time come here. The weather is perfect, 10-20 degree celcius. Fortunately I've stayed the same hotel with the Wimax World venue. The conference divided to few class such as Service Provider, Application and Service, Technology, Universal Broadband and Wireless Cities. In the Service Provider Track, I show one conference about Business Case for Wireless Indonesia. I have attended the Wireless in Indonesia session, but unfortunately is cancelled by the host. Mr Berge, the host, told me he already invited many Indonesian telco to become presenter, but no one response :-(( Haiyaaaa. I think he send to the wrong company, he should send to my company.
In Day 1, half day is on the big conference, talking about Wimax/Broadband wireless prospect and also deployment Wimax in India. One the last half session is finished after TD-SCDMA session. TD-SCDMA topic is very interesting. China use their own standard for their 3G. It's smart move as they don't need to pay fee to Qualcomm. The presenter say it will use TD-SCDMA as 3G HSDPA and also for Wimax. But for Wimax, I think TD-SCDMA still not good solution for Internet as Internet need higher pipe.
One second half day, with the Yankee Group research about mobile prospect and also mobile application.

ICT Expo in Hong Kong

ICT Expo is hosted by Hong Kong Trade Development Council started 14 to 17 April 2007.
I stayed at Park Lane Hotel, about 1 KM walk to Hong Kong Expo. It's fourth time come to Hong Kong. There is shuttle bus every 15 minutes from Hotel to Hong Kong Expo. I thought in ICT expo I will find many big vendors there, about 1/3 vendors are selling USB OEM (USB camera/flash/etc). I found few interested product such as :
- WDM/100FX to Ethernet interface at cost below $20
- OEM SFP/GBIC also below $20
- Load balancer cost below $400
- Small CPE/Voice box also with a good price

I don't recommend this venue for people looking for core network equipment. But it will be suitable if you are reseller for OEM product from China. Other equipment that interesting but not related with network equipment are :
- Photo frame with LCD inside with multiple images
- DVB-T TV
- Paperless Fax
- Fix Phone for GSM

DNS Blackhole for Spyware/malware/adware

Everybody should familiar with DNS blackhole for SPAM. Many organizations like spamhaus (http://www.spamhaus.com) provide feeds for spammer IP addresses. These listed IP address not only suspected SMTP IP address but also IP address of URL domain inside of body e-mail.

But not many people familiar with DNS blackhole for spyware/malware/adware. The way it works is a bit different with above explanation. It use list of domains instead of IP address. The using of domains will be very effective as if the spy website change IP address, it still can be caught. In Bind, the configuration will be like this :

zone "coolwebsearch.com" { type master; file "/etc/namedb/blockeddomain.hosts"; };

where coolwebsearch.com is spyware domain and inside the blockeddomain.hosts file will point anything to 127.0.0.1.

More detail explanation and the feed for listed spyware/malware domains could be find here :
http://doc.bleedingthreats.net/bin/view/Main/BlackHoleDNS#Configuring_your_DNS_server_Bind

If ISP implement this feature in its DNS server, there will be reducing not necessary traffic flow to spyware/malware website and also will protect its customers.



Note
Spam is e-mail that is both unsolicited by the recipient and sent in substantively identical form to many recipients. Thus, a common synonym for spam is unsolicited bulk e-mail (UBE).
Spyware is computer software that collects personal information about users without their informed consent.
Malware is software designed to infiltrate or damage a computer system without the owner's informed consent.
Adware or advertising-supported software is any software package which automatically plays, displays, or downloads advertising material to a computer after the software is installed on it or while the application is being used.

Half of Internet traffic is P2P!

According to NTT reports and others, P2P occupy 50% of internet traffic. As people know, normally P2P is used to download movies, songs, books which are violating the copyright. So in few country, P2P is blocked by the ISP. How about Indonesia ? I believe many companies/ISPs also have tried to block P2P but not because of copyright, but because bandwidth consideration.
Blocking P2P for corporate users might be ok as users should use internet for their job (not for downloading movies), but for home users may be not acceptable in many cases. Home users will try to find other ISP that don't block P2P. If the policy come from government forcing all ISP block P2P, it will be good. At least 50% of internet traffic can be used for the usefull things.

90% e-mail in Internet are spam!

According to Spamhaus, about 90% e-mail traffic in Internet are Spam. Using the right filter will decrease a lot of spam e-mail. One of the filtering is Policy Block List, that I believe many ISP in Indonesia doesn't implement it. Currently I'm using ADSL Speedy, my IP address is 125.161.193.140 but not listed in PBL.

125.161.193.140 is not listed in the SBL 125.161.193.140 is not listed in the PBL 125.161.193.140 is not listed in the XBL

Why my IP address should be listed there ? It have to be listed as I'm using ADSL that give dynamic IP address, this kind of service normally used by spammer to do their action. If the e-mail originate from MTA using the range IP address of ADSL and listed on the PBL, this e-mail will be rejected by the recipient MTA.

http://www.spamhaus.org/effective_filtering.html

Indonesian, Alcohol and Zheng He

Have you ever read the news in Indonesia about few people drunk, then fight and the one get killed. Normally it happen in the dangdut concert, rock concert or sometime a place for hang out.
Don't be surprise, Zheng He (Cheng Ho) a greatest admiral from China have reported 600 years ago the similar thing happen when he went to Java. At that time he reported the citizens like to drunk and sometime after that they kill each other. (source National Geographic TV)

RFC 3330 instead of RFC 1918

Many people have implemented RFC 1918 to block private addresses. Actually there are other range of IP addresses that you need to block according to RFC 3330.

   Address Block             Present Use                       Reference
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
 0.0.0.0/8            "This" Network                 [RFC1700, page 4]
 10.0.0.0/8           Private-Use Networks                   [RFC1918]
 14.0.0.0/8           Public-Data Networks         [RFC1700, page 181]
 24.0.0.0/8           Cable Television Networks                    --
 39.0.0.0/8           Reserved but subject
                         to allocation                       [RFC1797]
 127.0.0.0/8          Loopback                       [RFC1700, page 5]
 128.0.0.0/16         Reserved but subject
                         to allocation                             --
 169.254.0.0/16       Link Local                                   --
 172.16.0.0/12        Private-Use Networks                   [RFC1918]
 191.255.0.0/16       Reserved but subject
                         to allocation                             --
 192.0.0.0/24         Reserved but subject
                         to allocation                             --
 192.0.2.0/24         Test-Net
 192.88.99.0/24       6to4 Relay Anycast                     [RFC3068]
 192.168.0.0/16       Private-Use Networks                   [RFC1918]
 198.18.0.0/15        Network Interconnect
                         Device Benchmark Testing            [RFC2544]
 223.255.255.0/24     Reserved but subject
                         to allocation                             --
 224.0.0.0/4          Multicast                              [RFC3171]
 240.0.0.0/4          Reserved for Future Use        [RFC1700, page 4]

All incoming packets with source IP address of these address blocks facing to your internet gateway you need to filter it.

Algorhyme

I think that I shall never see
A graph more lovely than a tree.
A tree whose crucial property
Is loop-free connectivity.
A tree which must be sure to span
So packets can reach every LAN.
First the Root must be selected
By ID it is elected.
Least cost paths from Root are traced
In the tree these paths are placed.
A mesh is made by folks like me
Then bridges find a spanning tree.


By Radia Perlman (some people call her "Mother of Internet")

On my previous blog entry, I've put algorhyme before. But this is complete with her picture and also MP3 if you would like to her sing this poem. If you like to hear her voice, please go to http://podcasts.networkworld.com/misc/050506perlman.mp3

Kijang Innova 2005 ada masalah ?

Barusan terima telpon dari Auto2000, yang menginformasikan bahwa Kijang Innova yang dibeli tahun 2005 mempunyai masalah pada suspensi belakang. Dulu pernah tanya juga ke Auto2000 ketika ramai2 berita dari auto2000 tentang masalah di suspensi belakang apakah mobil saya masuk dalam keluaran yang bermasalah dan jawaban mereka untuk keluaran mei 2005 tidak ada masalah.
Mobil ini udah 3 kali ke Ponorogo (Jatim), dan beberapa kali ke Bandung. Alhamdulillah, beruntung tidak pernah terjadi apa-apa.

How Akamai Server works

For people working in ISP, Akamai is sound familiar. But a lot of people ask me how Akamai Server work ? Here we go:

• Akamai's customer (bbc, cnn, microsoft, yahoo, etc) pay to Akamai
• Akamai put servers to ISPs around the worlds for free
• Akamai server software is squid that have been modified. So remember, Akamai server is working like cache engine. If Akamai server doesn't have the content, it will find the content to the nearest other akamai servers. But if it's found in its cache, it will deliver that content.
• Normally content in Akamai servers are heavy contents like image, downloaded files.
• When you go to www.yahoo.com, it won't go to akamai server for the html file. But inside of html file (images files) will point to the nearest location Akamai server of users/clients.
• How Akamai can point to your nearest Akamai servers ? By DNS ! So your DNS configuration in PC/notebook will determine which akamai servers will be located for you. So use your ISP's DNS server instead other DNS.
• Why DNS ? Akamai DNS server will check if the resolving DNS are from range IP address of ISP A, it will give Akamai servers that located in ISP A.

Wanted, IPv6 Killer Application

We've deployed IPv6 on our networks. Most of the access can use IPv6 as a network layer. But still, we lack of killer application in IPv6 that make people say "Wow, I need IPv6 installed in my network/computers". Some input to make people will curious to use IPv6 :

• For ISP, give customers additional bandwidth if they are using IPv6
• Put few website that only available on IPv6
• For the merchant, give additional discount if the users are using IPv6

Your input please ?