Muhammad Suhada

Eid Mubarak

syuhada — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 07:37:00 GMT

Today is Eidul Fitri day, a big day for Muslims, the day that marks the end of Ramadhan. It's a tradition in Indonesia to go back to our hometown and spend the Eid with the families and relatives. This year I celebrate the Eid in Malang, a city in East Java, Indonesia with the families from my wife's side.

We went to Malang by night bus from Denpasar, Bali on Thursday (September 17, 2009) afternoon and arrived early the next day. The trip itself took about 12 to 13 hours but we didn't really feel it because we slept along the way to Malang. One thing I regret is why I didn't book the ticket for three so my daughter didn't have to sit and sleep on my lap during the trip.

Our Eid rituals were started with the Eid prayer at the Alun-alun (city center). Once the prayer is completed we went home and do the family tradition like sungkem (ask for forgiveness for any sin which we may have committed) and (the fun one) eating the special delicacies which usually only can be found during Eid.

This year we ate Ketupat sayur with Opor Ayam and Sambal Goreng. It is spicy and very delicious.

It's fun, it's family time, it's Eidul Fitri.

Eid Mubarak!

Five Websites Launched in a Day

syuhada — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 07:22:00 GMT

I make websites for living. Since my freelance time until now my works are always related to websites and projects, but today probably is a special day for me as I am going to launch 5 websites at a time.

This year is really a challenging year where economic is not good and many people forced out from their work. While money and personnel is limited, the work and demand is still high. Running several projects at a time and try to deliver it on time makes me stress and balding. I'm very grateful that today we will deliver almost all of the projects. It's a big achievement I can say but it also a big responsibility and hopefully not big mess.

Time to relax for a while and be ready for the next projects

Travel Tips#2 - Book as advance as you can

syuhada — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 07:04:00 GMT

On Travel Tips#1 I encourage to do the bookings in advance. I found that this is very useful with several reasons, like:

Many budget airlines give better price when we book way before the departure date
Some hotels also have special early bird rate

But beside those reasons, I personally have my own reason why I love to do the booking as early as I can which is spreading the expenses. Let say I'm planning to have a vacation in 6 months from now, I can buy the air ticket this month, hotel voucher next month, and so on.

This way I can prepare my financial more careful by avoiding to receive a shocking credit card bill when I return from vacation.

Travel Tips #1 - Plan the Trip Yourself

syuhada — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 09:23:00 GMT

I love travelling. Too bad I can't travel as much as I want due to my work and budget. The later probably is the problem for most of people when deciding to travel to some places (unless you are on business trip and everything is paid by the company).

On this very first edition of my travel tips series, I want to share my trick to get my vacation as cheap as possible. Remember, I'm not a backpacker so I will not encourage people to backpacking and hitchhiking to save some money.

What I want to suggest is to avoid to travel using tour service or something similar to that. It's not only cost you more money but you also won't have flexibility to go aorund as you like as everything is already arranged. I think it's more wise to plan the trip yourself, search for information as much as you can have, and do the booking in advance (in the next series I will tell you why I suggesting this way).

By doing this, you are already connected to the trip way before you do it because you did the searching yourself, you pick the flight and accommodation yourself, you choose what you want to do and the most important thing is this activity stimulates your passion about this trip and you don't want to wait any longer to do it.

Have a nice trip!

Marhaban Ya Ramadhan

syuhada — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 04:19:00 GMT

It means "Welcome Ramadhan". For you who doesn't know what Ramadhan is, this link will probably give you a better understanding.

Ramadhan is not only about fasting but also time for us get ouselves as closest as we can be to Allah the Almighty. Ramadhan is also the perfect time for us to practice and build our self-discipline, self-control, sacrifice, and empathy for those who are less fortunate.

For me, Ramadhan is coming at the perfect time. A time when I really need more discipline and self-control in order to complete all my tasks and projects. I really hope and believe that all my deadlines will be achieved in this Ramadhan month. Finger crossed and keep praying for that.

Marhaban Ya Ramadhan!