Moon Solution

This is me .. and this blog will be closed very soon.

2009-06-27T20:45:00.000-07:00

Hi there, thanks a lot for your attention being reader for this blog. But I'm facing some obstacles to maintain this blog further.

From now on, you can read older posts in my blog http://muhyi.hostei.com. Newer posts will be held there, and this blog will be closed soon.

Now, you know who I am .. :)

New Contributors and New Owners Needed

2009-03-19T06:57:00.000-07:00

Dear all Moon Solution readers,

I thank you very much for your kind and warm attention for all this time. Hopefully this blog helps you to solve your problems in software and business.

I'm very sorry I couldn't update this blog lately, even more than one year. I am quite busy lately in teaching and some other business of mine. I have a lot of new ideas to share, but I have no time to write.

And if you notice, the blog design is even not arranged propoperly as it was before. I really have no time right now, even just to think about how this blog looks.

To cope this problem, I offer and encourage to all of Moon Solution readers, to continue this job colaboratively. Please share your ideas and thoughts to every body, by writing them in this blog. Express your self freely!

If you're interested to this offer, please send a message to this post. Give some details about yourself, also give your purpose and reason in joining this colaborative work. Write your complete name and email addresses (email addresses will be kept secret). I will give my personal details to you by replying your message privately.

I also encourage to all of my students in Jakarta, Indonesia, to join me writing our new and fresh ideas in this blog. Don't forget to use English in posting your message, but you may use other UN official languages you like and know best, such as Chinese, Arabic, French, Russian or Spanish.

At the end, when the conditions and situations permit, I will hand over the ownership of this blog to the public or the contributors to keep this blog and maintain it. Please, join me fellas, make it happens!

Regards,

Moon Solution

PDFCreator .. the best PDF creator ever!

2008-01-27T22:36:00.001-08:00

I’ve mentioned in my post before, about CutePDF, a simple and powerful PDF creator. Well, I recently found the better one and even the best PDF creator. It is PDFCreator. As usual, I only give free and great stuff. You can download it here: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/pdfcreator/PDFCreator-0_9_5_setup.exe?download.

These are the key features of PDFCreator (I copy and paste from the website):

Create PDFs from any program that is able to print
Security: Encrypt PDFs and protect them from being opened, printed etc.
Send generated files via eMail
Create more than just PDFs: PNG, JPG, TIFF, BMP, PCX, PS, EPS
AutoSave files to folders and filenames based on Tags like Username, Computername, Date, Time etc.
Merge multiple files into one PDF
Easy Install: Just say what you want and everything is installed
Terminal Server: PDFCreator also runs on Terminal Servers without problems
And the best: PDFCreator is free, even for commercial use! It is Open Source and released under the Terms of the GNU General Public License.

And to make it even better, PDFCreator is open source. We can get the source code, modify, and compile it in our computer, in case we want to look at and study it. Or even when we want to customize some behaviour of the application.

Great stuff ever! Have it a try fellas .. :)

Free Strategy Map and Balanced Scorecard Software

2007-10-29T00:37:00.000-07:00

Are you ... Building a new company? Being a new manager or director? Worrying about your bad company performance? Not knowing how to measure your company performance?

It's time to learn Strategy Map and Balanced Scorecard concept. It's about how to measure your company's overall and detailed performance. And it's about how to monitor actions toward your company's goal.

It's your task on where to start or what to learn about Strategy Map and Balanced Scorecard. But you can do that by learning the software. Sometimes, and quite often, doing is better than reading.

StrategyMap will give you the software for free. You can download the stable version 2.98 here. The software need DotNet framework, where you can downlod it here.

Download it, install it, and learn it. That is all you have to do to understand what Strategy Map and Balanced Scorecard is. At least, that is the way I understand about there two great concept.

Have a nice try, fellas .. :)

Your Blog - Step 5: More and more MONEY!

2007-08-29T18:36:00.000-07:00

This is the final touch about creating you first blog. It's about money again. But, right now, we will cross the limit, explore the new frontier. Google AdSense sure will give us money. But, will it be only Google AdSense? NO WAY! There are a lot of pay-per-click providers exist in this world!

Enough with talks, just read this list. Please pay attention to what these providers give and what are their terms and requirements. Here we go:

Will it be all? No, the number is increasing. But these providers will be enough for you right now. Go get 'em guys! :)

Your Blog - Step 4: Show me the MONEY!

2007-08-29T18:34:00.000-07:00

Now, it's time to talk about the money opportunities in your blog. Basically, all you have to do for this is one thing: create a pay-per-click link. That's it. Finish. And technically, you can do this in your blog by creating a HTML Script element. You already can do that, right? If you can't, send me a comment on this post, I will give the answer.

Now, the final question: who does provide such this generous service? The first is obvious, and probably many of us already know this: Google AdSense. This is the most famous pay-per-click advertising exists in Internet. If we see an advertising in websites, mostly, it will be Google AdSense.

The terms are easy. All we have to do is, register for Google Adsense, provide our valid address, identity and so on, until finish. Just follow the order asked. And, in the latest step, we will be asked for the kind of advertising we intend to have.

Warning! You must provide a valid postal address. That is the only way for Google to send you the money. Well, we can have it transfered through banks, but it's not easy. The postal address is the most preferred by Google to send you the money. So, don't give fake address. Or, you won't get the money.

There are 3 types of advertising:

AdSense for Content
AdSense for Search
Referrals.

The most common one is AdSense for Content. That is the advertising we always see in many websites.

After we finish all the registration and setup processes, we will be given a HTML Script to add to our website. This is the script that we must put into our blog. This is the main goal of all the steps, to have this money-generating script. But, still we have to finish the procedure.

It's quite long to tell the whole process and steps. You must to do it your self. Try it, that is the only way. If you afraid or worry of something, just ask me. Put a comment on this post. I will send you the answer.

Now? What? Do it! Grab the money! :)

Small Business Guide Series

2007-07-08T04:52:00.000-07:00

This is the most we, business starters, want to have. We need some clues about how to start the business: to pick business idea, to plan it, to run it, and to grow it. And here are the clues. Again .. it's FREE! :)

I think it's very important to share this information to the new comer to biz world (as I am right now). So we are sure that we are following the path to success, and we are sure that we are avoiding the path to failure and doom. This guide series are in brief, not in detail. So you must find other resource to read, to guarantee that you are doing right. I'll give you some other guides about this later.

The guide series are taken from Citibank Small Business Guide Series. Well, I don't care about Citibank right now, all I care about is the guides. :) Since it's free and useful, so .. what bothers me to read this guide series?

And here is the Small Business Guide Series in pdf to download:

Enough with talks .. go get 'em guys! :)

Open Workbench: FREE Project Management Software for Windows

2007-07-05T00:09:00.000-07:00

Dealing alot with projects? Need software for project management? Open Workbench is the answer. Don't think. Just grab the software from the link above. Download and install it. Have it a try, that's it.

This software is a great tool for project management. I have used this software for making some proposals and managing some projects. The result was great. I win 2 projects. Thanks to Open Workbench. :)

It has complete set of charts we may need. It also has standard features that Microsoft Project has. If you're so "highly deeply pationately comfortable" with Microsoft Project, you may think that Open Workbech is not that good.

Well, you wrong .. :) Open Workbench can do anything you can do in Microsoft Project. The only problem is you are not familiar yet with Open Workbench. Try it for a while, and you'll notice what I'm saying.

Go grab it, guys .. :)

Your Blog - Step 3: Beautifying and visitor monitoring

2007-07-03T19:28:00.000-07:00

One more thing, before we talk about making money from our blog ... beautifying our blog and in the same time, monitoring our site visitor.

It seems to be useless, right? Well, at a first short easy view, we can say .. yes, it's true. But, it's wrong in the same time. Why?

First, we can monitor how many surfers have visited our blog. We also able to monitor, how many of them are "repeat visitors" (keep visiting our blog routinely) and how many of them are "unique visitors" or "new visitors", over times.

And second, to make this beautifying stuff to be more interesting, we can track down our blog visitors' country. Amazed? You should be. :) We can see how many of them are from Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, America, and all spaces available in this world.

It's all about our sake and our interest. It's now about our visitor's sake and interest. These beautifying stuffs can drive traffic to our blog. Just make your monitoring stuffs publicly viewable to your blog, and I'll bet they will be amazed and interested too.

It's interesting for visitors to be able to realize that they are viewing the same thing with many other people. It feels good. Now, wonder if you are watching a web site or a blog that is being or has been viewed by other people in different part of this big earth. It's feels good, isn't it?

The same thing applies to your blog. If your blog's visitors are able to feel that good feeling when they are viewing your blog, than you have won their heart! :) If you don't believe me, now look at the left near the top of page, there are a little map and a visitor count number. What dou you feel? :) Not enough? Click the little map, and see what's inside it. :)

Now, how can we do that? Well, there are plenty FREE monitoring stuffs in Internet, and I'll give you some of them which I've used in this blog. For visitor counter, you can use Easy Counter. And for visitors' location tracker, you can use ClustrMaps, and I can say that this is a very good free thing about visitor tracking.

How to put it into our blog? In my previous posting, titled Your Blog - Step 2: Filling it up, I've told what's needed to make this beautifying matters applied to you blog. Go read it first, if you don't understand how this works.

Have fun, guys .. :)

CutePDF: Print documents to PDF in Windows ... FREE!

2007-06-19T18:37:00.000-07:00

Hi, guys. This tools is great. For Linux users, it's not a problem all. They can create PDF documents from any Linux document editor easily. Just one click, and the PDF is created. But, for Windows users, creating PDF has some costs. And it needs some learn to use too.

Now, for you Windows users, it's not a problem anymore. Just use CutePDF, download and install is, and you will have it easily. You can print any documents from any document editor to PDF documents. Just one click, and that's it what you need. And, as usual ... it's FREE! :)

Download CutePDF right now, and install it. It will appear as a printer in the Printer Folder. You can make some adjustment in it, just like usual printer. But the output is PDF document. Go ahead, have it a try.

Keep reading this blog for other coming great tools, guys ... :)

Your Blog - Step 2: Filling it up

2007-06-19T17:33:00.000-07:00

Now let's continue our lessons. At this point, you have created you Gmail account and your blog at Blogger or Blogspot (both are the same). It's time to filling it up. We won't put much details on this, only the important things we will try to discover. The details is for to you explore.

If you read this without exploring the blog features, it may be hard for you to understand and follow. If you haven't explore the blog features, do it first. And then read this post. Take you time in exploring blog's features, and put big attention on it.

What is blog all about? Blog is simply a personal web site, we can say like that. But, the "personal touch" of this kind of web site is so high. So, what kind of "personal touch"? Information. Yes, that's it. The only thing we want to express is about our self, is by describing who you are, what are you doing, what are the great things of your life you want to share, your personal view and values of life, and so on.

Therefore, blog mostly contains about posting (textual) information. Letters, words, sentences, and information. Of course you can put pictures and other stuffs in it, but it's not main purpose and feature of a blog. So that is blog all about: posting (personal) information. That's why it's so easy for you to create post. Click and write, click and write, and so on.

That's about posting. You must post something in your blog. You want your blog to be read, right? And you want your blog (and your self) to be famous, isn't that true? So, put some posts in you blog, and make sure that it's interesting, either for you and your blog's readers. The interesting your blog is, the better your chance to get money from your blog. :)

If you are curios about how to make your blog interesting, read some posts in this blog, the titles are Blog means ... MONEY! and How can I increase my traffic?. Inside those posts, some thin-but-great books four you to read. I recommend you to read the books. It's worth it. Trust me. :)

Talking about "interesting" word, it means you also have to beautify your blog. When you are adding and arranging the elements of you blog, there is one important kind of element: HTML/JavaScript element. This is the key point to make your blog to be interesting, unique, eye catching, and ... money generating. It's true. So, you must know how to use that element.

Besides HTML/JavaScript element, you must be a little bit artistic. You should place the elements you created in proper, right, and interesting order. The better the order is, once again, that better your chance to get dollars from your blog.

So, that's all about filling up you blog. I've gave you the basic tips and tricks. It's time to practice and practice. It's not hard, but you have to understand and do it your self. After this, the next lesson is ... MONEY! :)

Keep reading, guys ... :)

Your Blog - Step 1: Creating a blog

2007-06-12T23:33:00.000-07:00

Now we start the lesson, about creating your blog, and making it generates money for you. It's easy, but not automatic. You have to learn a little bit and put some actions to do that. But it's not hard at all. All you have to do is .. do it!

I will concentrate the lesson in friendly and familiar way. And I will use free tools and stuffs as much as I could. And we will use Google as our lesson, since it's the most familiar thing in Internet for many of us.

Now, before you create your blog, you must have a gmail account, that is Google Mail. If you don't have it right now, you must create it. Inside Google Mail main page, there is Google Mail Signup link. Click it, and follow the steps.

Oh, one more thing. You also must already have other email address for Google to send your new account verification. If you don't have, borrow you friend's email address, and tell your friend that you use his email address as your Google Mail verification.

Google is not just a plain email account you have. By having a Google Mail, it means you have a Google Account. By having a Google Account, it means you have access to other Google services, one of them is .. yes, you're right .. your way to blog. Google names its blog service as Blogger or Blogspot.

After you follow through your gmail account creation, you already have you gmail account. Now you can create your blog. Simply go to Blogger site, and follow the three-steps creation. That's it. It's easy. It will only take 5-10 minutes to create your blog, and having it online. After that, you have your first blog! :)

We will continue our lessons about blog in some post. For now, it's enough. While waiting to the next posts, make your self familiar with Google Mail and Blogger. There are so many things you can learn from there. But don't rush. Just take your time in exploring them.

Keep reading, guys .. :)

QSEE: Modelling Tools for Biz and IT .. Free!

2007-06-12T21:17:00.000-07:00

Now, this post may be needed for many IT consultant and/or biz consultant. A perfect free modelling tools: QSEE Superlite. So many thing you need about modelling is here: UML, Database Design, Network Graph, Organization Chart, Desicion Tree, Flow Chart, and may things else.

I have used QSEE Superlite for some software projects. That time, I was using QSEE Superlite for UML and Database Design, and even for generating Java code sceletons. What I can say is one thing: perfect! :)

The link I give above is for 1.0.8 version. What I have is 1.0.9 version. I downloaded it from its website, but I think the website is already closed (or parked) right now. I don't know (yet) where to get it. If you have newer (or even newest) version, let me know.

Try it, guys .. You won' t regret this tool .. :)

How can I increase my traffic?

2007-06-05T03:16:00.000-07:00

Before I give lessons about creating blog and increasing traffic, one more thing I want to share with you. In fact, this is the basic idea about going online. It's about the philosophy, it's about the meaning of being online.

By reading Everyone's An Expert, once again written by Seth Godin, you'll know that big thing. You will fully understand the things, the values behind being online, behind your blog, behind your web site, behind Google, and so on.

After you understand these basic things, it's not even hard for you to increase traffic to your blog. You will be relax and easy in creating your blog, need only very small effort. And in the same time, people are chasing for your blog. Interesting, isn't it? :)

What are you looking at? Download Everyone's An Expert now! Read it, feel it. When I say "feel it", I mean it by saying that words. We must grab the ideas behind those inspiring ebooks. Don't just read. Feel it, and understand it.

Feel the ideas. Feel the spirit. Get the concept. Imagine the system's model. Understand these ebooks I gave you. By the time I give lessons about creating blog, it will be easy. And when I give tips about increasing traffics, it will only be a small thing. You won't be bothered about traffic, because people are looking for you! :)

Cheers and happy reading, guys! :)

Blog means ... MONEY!

2007-06-04T00:21:00.001-07:00

Yes, it's true. We can get money easily, just by creating a blog. Now, how can it be? Who will give me the money? I don't have anything to sell.

The answer is .. Google! Yes, Google doesn't only have all the answers you ask. It will also give you money, if you want to. All you have to do is create a blog, drive as much traffic as you can to it. Then, voila! Dollars! *Slurp*

Now, how can we get some money from Google. Well, it's easy. All you have to do is read Seth Godin's ebook: Who's there? That's it. Read it, and then you will understand why do people rushing in creating blogs. After you understand their reason, I bet you will also join them to rush for the money .. :)

Reading the book is not enough, you will need to know how to create blog. Just wait, and keep reading this blog. I will give you the lesson in creating a blog .. for free!

Now get the Who's there? book, and read it first. And also read Seth's other free ebook: Knock Knock. It's not about blog, it's about web. But it has correlation with creating your blog. Just read it, you'll know what I'm saying.

Now, wait up until I give you the lesson about creating you first blog .. for free! Happy reading, guys .. :)

Bootstrapper's Bible

2007-06-03T21:23:00.001-07:00

Hi Guys! This is what you really need. If you want to start a business with only a very few amount of money, Bootstrapping is the answer. Now, what the hell is Bootstrapping anyway?

It's a very simple concept about how to start a small business. It's about our values that we have to start our own business, but we don't know about it. It's about the steps that is proven about how to create and develop our business from scratch. It's about the tips to generate money with a very simple way.

Interested? Download it right now, Bootstrapper's Bible, by Seth Godin. Read it, feel it. You will notice that it is so easy to start a business. It's only a few pages, but will change your life!

Want some more free ebooks about business from Seth Godin? Go to http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2004/11/free_godin_eboo.html.

Have fun, and change your life with Bootstrapper's Bible free ebook .. :)

Is there any accounting/financial solution for online webstore?

2007-05-28T17:17:00.000-07:00

Question:

Is there any accounting/financial solution for online web store?
Any Indonesian version?

Answer:

Accounting softwares are plenty, from open source, free, to licensed ones. Indonesian versions are also plenty. But currently, until this post is made, there is no such thing as accounting nor financial solution for any web store.

Now other question arises, how could it be? Isn't there any body need such thing? The answer is yes, so many people need it badly. But if we are finding any accounting system that is ready to be plugged into any web site, that is so scarce.

People that have accounting system in their web store don't find it, they build it so the accounting system is able to be used in harmony with their web store. The web store it self has its own system or behavior, and so has the accounting system. It's quite complex to put this independent systems to work together as a whole, as an bigger integrated system.

It wouldn't be any problem for a big company to make this integration into real world. It's possible, for sure. But it also takes resource to make it happen. It costs time, money, and so on. But sometimes we need the most fast and cheap solution, right?

Solution:

Now, how should we cope with your problem? My solution is do it step by step. First, find a very powerful accounting system available on the net, and it got to be free too. The accounting system must be able to give us features that we mostly needed in accounting, such as graph reporting, printing, book keeping, and many other things. Don't rush with integration with web store, not yet. Simplest and easiest thing first.

GnuCash is the best for your need. Download it at http://www.gnucash.org/, and have it installed in your computer. You can use it for every need of accounting, it's all there. Put every transaction in your web store into GnuCash, that's it. GnuCash will do all the accounting matters for you.

After you quite experienced with GnuCash and your web store system, sooner or later, you will need faster and automated work on this. Now we can do this in several ways, but I will focus on one simplest solution.

Make your web store put every transaction in a plain text file. The next is, make a small code program that entry the saved transaction into GnuCash. That it. Now you have the whole system running.

But, it's not real time. True. It's only a matter of scale. How many transaction will you have within a single day? Are all the transactions automated, the good auto sent to customer and the money auto transfered to your bank account?

If you have more than 100 automated transactions a day, now it's worth it for you to ask a consultant to make an integration module to you web store, so that it can "communicate" directly with GnuCash. If your transactions is less than 100, and not so automated, than it would be such a waste to make that integration. Integration requires so many things to be discussed, it also takes a lot of resources.

We all have software problem.

2007-05-28T01:53:00.001-07:00

We have some problems about software sometimes. Either we can't find any software of our needs, or even we can't figure out about what is our need. Or, sometimes we just don't know where to start, we are clueless.

Don't wait. Share your problem with me. First of all, you ask. That is one big step to figure out what the solution is. The second step is then I'll try to give my solution. Keep asking, and I'll keep answer. Until you are informed enough about the problem and the solution.

Now, how can you ask me? Below this post, there is a link named "comments". Just click on it, it will send me an email about your question. It won't be published, but I will make your question to be a post in this site, along with my solution. So everybody will able to read and get advantage of your question and my solution.

Please, describe as much as you can. Don't make your question too long, but don't make it too short too. Be as informative as you can be. If you think you have too much to ask, so you must send me some files or images, do so. Just tell me your email address, I will send my email address to you, so you can send me an email about your question along with your files or images as attachments.

So .. please, ask me :)