Finished reading this book a few days ago. It’s written by marketing guru Seth Godin. This book primarily tells us about the “Purple Cow”, something remarkable and extraordinary. If you saw a purple cow on the road, you will notice it straight away. This remark applies to marketing, whereby rather than focusing on marketing the product, one should focus more on creating a remarkable/extraordinary product. A product that’s remarkable will market by it self.

The author also tells us to not be afraid to develop a product that already has a big market in it. In fact we should market products that already has high demand for it. The trick to be successful is that to, rather than marketing for the masses (focus on the bigger market), find a niche market and focus on that smaller market. Marketing for the masses works in the past where there aren’t many products circulating around the market and didn’t cost as much. But now it costs a lot and does not guarantee success. One should start from niche market and it will eventually spread to the masses, if you got the “Purple Cow” right.

Moreover, the author points out that its important to market products to “sneezers”. Sneezers are ones that will use your product, and tell everyone they know about it. Sneezers are usually inovators/early adopters who will influences the masses to use your product. They’re the ones that will make your “Purple Cow” successful, they’re one of your marketing tool for success.

The idea of purple cow can be applied to everything, not just to your product. It can be applied to your service, packaging, pricing, publicity, etc. The author gives a lot of case studies to back his argument, and to show that purple cow works.

So how one create a purple cow? While being passionate in the product does help, but it’s not necessary to have it. One could just learn of:

• The art of projecting of getting inside the heads of the people who are passionate about the product, and making something they love and like to share.
• The schience of projecting – to build discipline of launching products, watching, measuring, learning, and the cycle goes on.

I think the purple cow is a fantastic book. Really inspires me to create a purple cow, rather than being the first to create/develop a product. Nowadays being the first is rather impossible, because everything that everyone ever need has been created.

RWendi

It’s been almost 2 weeks since I got married. Before I talked about my big day, I think its worth telling how I spent my last days as a single guy. Me and my mates (Bujs, Sait, Kazod) like to go out for a drink. We usually get a bottle of liquor and drink it till someone or we’re all passed out.

1 week before my big day, we (Me, Bujs, and Kazod) had a drink at SMS (stands for Sumarecon Mall Serpong). It’s a mall with an open air dining area, and a music stage in the center. We had a bottle of Chivas Regal 12 Years, and we managed to drink 2/3 of the bottle. Only the weakest in the group, Kazod, passed out. I still managed to drive my car back home safely.

5 days before my big day, we (all the gangs) had another drinking session. This time was at my friend’s friend’s apartment (MOI apartment). I brought the leftover Chivas and a full bottle of tequila. The drinking went Ok until we hit the bottle of tequila. One by one started to fall like flies. All of my mates puked, but I didn’t (although I did fall asleep the soonest).

3 days before my big day, I had my bachelor party. I had my party at Equinox, a night club I often go with my mates. We had 2 bottles of Gold Label, 1 Bottle of Tequila, 1 Bottle of Smirnoff Raspeberry (for the ladies), and 5 Waterfall flaming cocktails. This time I’m the one who puked, badly. Turned out that my friends had been planning to get me drunk that night. I had to drink Gold Label straight from the bottle for 5 plus seconds and plenty of tequila shots. What’s worse is that, beforehand I went to another Club called "’DOMAIN”, and had 2 glass of Martell Cordon Bleu Cognac and a glass of gin and tonic. Despite of the endless puking, I didn’t feel hangover on the next day. Woke up pretty early, had my brekkie, and then went to deep sleep for the whole day.

I got married on Sunday, 17^th October 2010. I had a catholic wedding ceremony in the morning, and a wedding reception (the party) in the afternoon. The ceremony was held in Santo Thomas Rasul church which was led by Father Sylvestre. Despite the western name, he’s actually a javanesse and his full name is Father Sylvestre Hari Pamungkas. The wedding ceremony went very well, except for my vows. I memorized my vow and practiced it over and over again. I was pretty confidence that I would be able to speak out my vow with no problems. But my nerve got the best of me and caused me to stumbled a little bit.

My bride looked very beautiful in her wedding gown. Never saw her wedding gown before. I decided long ago that I didn’t want to see her wedding gown until on the day. And I don’t regret that decision for one bit. It was truly a blessing to see her for the first time in her wedding gown on our special day. Felt like the luckiest man in the world.

My Wedding reception was held in Hotel Mulia, Senayan. Not to brag or anything, but Hotel Mulia is one of the best and most prestigious wedding venue in Jakarta. They serve good food like Sushi Sashimi, Tempura Udon, US Rib Eye steak, Peking duck, and Salmon ecroute. Roughly about 1950 people came to the reception, who mostly are my dad’s business guests. I choose “Especially For You” by MYMP as my entrance song. I really like the song. It’s an acoustic song, so it gives a relax and cosy atmosphere. The song is against the current trend, whereby a wedding entrance song must sound grand and big. The party went fantastically smooth. The crowd was good, food was good, entertainment was good, everything was good. Have to say big thanks to my Wedding organizer for doing such a great job.

The party finished around 9.30 pm. Half an hour later me and my friends gather around the bar wine to have last rounds of drinking for the day. I prepared a bottle of Chivas Regal 12 Year Old scotch whisky, a bottle of Martell Gordon Bleu Cognac, and a bottle Camus X.O. Cognac for this occasion. The Camus XO actually belongs to my father, and it tastes really damn good. If I was to rate the two cognacs, I would give the Martell a 7 and the Camus a 9. Not sure if it’s a really good cognac, or the fact that my father had kept the XO in shelve for more than 15 years, but the taste of the Camus was so fruity and smooth. Really top notch Brandy, I will definitely get my self a bottle or two in my trip to Europe. Anyway, the after party was legendary. Managed to get my revenge to my friend for making me drunk on my bachelor party. Four of my friends were seriously drunk; three blacked out, two puked endlessly, and one managed to damaged his car (no one was injured thankfully).

Well, that’s the story of my big day. I will definitely cherish and remember all the moments I had in that one week, and that one blessed day. Now, I look forward to my new life as a husband and a married man.

Recently I purchased a Dell laptop that comes with Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit. As you know, Windows Vista Home Premium edition comes with a media center software installed, called Windows Media Center. As great as Windows Media Center is, just like Windows Media Player, it is not able to play AVI and MKV (Matroska) files straight out of the box. You need to install some AV Codecs in order to play those files in Windows Media Center. The problem is that there are gazillions AV codecs out there, which one works? Here are the breakdown of all the codecs I’ve tried:

• DivX Codecs: This one works, but only for Windows Media Player. It does not work for Windows Media Center.
• FFDShow Tryouts: This one apparently does not work. Maybe I had to configure it to work in Windows Media Center, but straight out of the box it does not work for me.
• Media Control Plugin: This one uses FFDShow Tryouts. Doesn’t work.
• Shark007 Codec Solution: This is THE ONE, this one WORKS. It seems to use FFDShow Tryouts to do the job, but it works straight out of the box. NOTE: if you’re using 64 bit Windows Media Center, you need to install the 64 bit component as well.

RWendi

I got my XPS laptop on Tuesday this week. My first impression on the laptop thus far has been good. There are 2 words that can sum up my first impression, beauty and quality. I will write more about it once I’ve played around with it more. Stay Tune.

One of the greatest thing with buying from Dell is that you are given the opportunity to customize your system configuration before buying. You can upgrade any components you like, add more components to your system, or on some cases downgrade your component. These upgrades do not come free, they will add up to your final price that you have to pay for your laptop.

If you’re like me, you probably have the “I want a future proof system” mindset, when configuring your Dell laptop. The only way to have a future proof system is to have a powerful system configuration that can withstand the trial of time. This does mean that you might be required to upgrade the base configuration offered by Dell.

When I was configuring my XPS 16 laptop, the biggest question that comes to my mind was “Is it worth it to upgrade these components now?”. Now that I have bought my laptop, I wandered if I made the right decision by not upgrading some components early. These are the component upgrades that I decided to leave out:

• Upgrading the 500GB 7200RPM hard drive to a 128GB SSD.
• Upgrading the DVD drive with a Blu-Ray Drive.
• Adding an integrated TV tuner.
• Upgrading the battery to 9 cells.

Lets take the first case, upgrading the 500Gb 7200RPM hard-drive to a 128Gb SSD. The reason for me not upgrading early is because the upgrade is too expensive. It would cost me $267 (AUD) to upgrade, and I would lose 372GB. Now how much does it cost for me to upgrade this on my own? If I take the price of a 7200RPM hard drive ($168) plus the upgrade, this means you actually paid $435 for the SSD upgrade by Dell. According to StaticIce (computer hardware price comparison search engine), you can get a 128Gb SSD as low as $322. That’s a $100 different, which is not bad.

The second case is to upgrade the DVD drive to a Blu-Ray Drive, which costs $266.60. This is quite a tricky one, because it is not easy to find a slot loaded internal Blu-Ray Drive. In fact I was not able to find any on the market, except for second hand ones which cost around $80 on Ebay. Another option is to get an external Blu-Ray drive, which costs around $170. Again another $100 different, and it’s external too! This means you can add blu-ray capability to every PCs that you’ve got. I think that is a BIG plus.

The third case is to add an integrated TV tuner. The TV tuner that Dell provides is an integrated DVB-T digital TV Tuner, which costs $79.20 to upgrade. Another tricky one to compare, because all the internal tv tuner that I could find will take up an express card expansion slot. The cheapest that I could find is AVerMedia Hybrid + FM Express TV tunner, and it costs $95. Yes it is more expensive, but it’s also an analog TV Tuner, Digital Radio tuner, and it comes with a remote control. With all those additional functionalities I think its worth the $15 difference. Another option is to get an external USB Digital TV Tuner. I’m able to find AVerTV Volar X USB Digital TV Tuner for $50. Very good price, and it comes with a remote control too.

The last case is probably where it makes sense to upgrade early. A 9 cell Dell battery is definitely something that you will not be able to find retail. Even if you can find retail, are you really going to trust those aftermarket batteries? Battery is a very crucial component of a laptop. I may be a little bit paranoid here, but I think there might be a chance in a case of mismatch, you might end up burning your system internal circuit. That is definitely something you want to avoid at all cost.

When it comes to upgrading your component early, whether it’s worth upgrading, it all depends on the nature of the component. Is it something that can be bought on retail market? If It is not, by all means upgrade it. If it is, then you better off upgrading later and save yourself some money.

RWendi