Could you believe it. The most breathtaking result of the Pesta Blogger 2007 (Indonesia Blogger Party 2007) which was held yesterday and presided over by Minister of Information and Communication, Mr. Mohammad Nuh, is the official announcement by the Minister himself that 27 October 2007 will be remembered and celebrated each year as the Blogger Day. Probably the first in the whole world!

Big success and I am so thrilled to hear this. Congratulations to Ong Hock Chuan and Maverick in particular and to all great guys involved in the great event especially the congenial Hanny and Enda. More about this later (in particular, about my inability to attend the i-must-come event).

Update: Adhi Kusumaputra, a blogger-journalist, wrote a good report on this.

Bird flu becomes an increasingly dangerous desease in Indonesia. A five-year-old girl is the latest and thus the 89th victim:
A five-year-old girl in Indonesia has died of bird flu, raising the toll in the nation worst affected by avian flu to 89, the health ministry said Wednesday.

The girl is the second child to die of the H5N1 virus in Indonesia this month from Tanggerang, a satellite town just west of Jakarta. A 12-year-old boy from there died on October 13.

Another new invention from AdSense. Video Units:
…a new way to enrich your site with quality, relevant video content in an embedded, customizable player. Simply embed a snippet of code and have relevant YouTube partner content streamed to your site. You can choose categories of video to target to your site, select content from individual YouTube partners, or have video automatically targeted to your site content. Companion and text overlay ads are relevant and non-intrusive. To further blend the YouTube player into your site, you can also customize the color scheme and layout as well as choose from three different player sizes.

Muhammadiyah Muslim organization–the second largest after Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) has decided that the day of Idul Fitri or Eid ul-Fitr will be on Friday, 12 October 2007. While NU–the largest Muslim organisation– has yet to decide, it’ll depend on moonsighting, either on Friday or Saturday (13 October 2007). Meanwhile, the pulang kampung tradition has already begun. Pulang kampung or going back home is done by those rural people who are working in some major cities particularly Jakarta. The tradition is carried out usually once a year that is during the end of Ramadan. They will come back to work a week after Idul Fitri or Hari Raya Lebaran.

For everyone, those who do pulang kampung to celebrate Idul Fitri in their respective home town or who don’t, I wish you all Happy Eid ul-Fitr Selamat Hari Raya Idul Fitri. Minal ‘Aidzin wal Faizin. Mohon maaf lahir dan batin.

Yesterday, I was invited to attend an iftar party. It’s hosted by a political party which assured me that it’s nothing political. Iftar party which is held during holy month of Ramadan is a common practice not only here in Indonesia, but also in India. Particularly in India, iftar party is not only held and hosted by Muslims, many non-Muslims are also holding this event as a good gesture to their Muslim counterparts.  To have a clue about this term, here’s the definition:
Iftar refers to the evening meal for breaking the daily fast during the Islamic month of Ramadan. Iftar during Ramadan is often done as a community, with Muslims gathering to break their fast together. Iftar is done right after Maghrib (sunset) time. Traditionally, a date is the first thing to be consumed during Iftar when the fast is broken.

A strong undersea earthquake rocked Indonesia’s Aceh province Thursday, but there were no immediate reports of damage or casualties, the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency said.

That sparked a bit panic and chaos in the region and the government issues a tsunami alert after the 6.3 quake.

On AdSense basic and Western Union new payment method

I think Team AdSense is a little bit getting bored by the facts that many people ara so interested to be an AdSense publisher for many success story they’ve heard about it. As enthuastic as they are, they even forget the basic things to be done–reading the TOS, having a blog or website as a landing page for the AdSense javascript to touchdown, etc.