Deisha Tamar

October 16, 2011

The Jakarta Post

(as published here)

It’s a widely known fact that technology changes within the blink of an eye. Fashion also changes so quickly that it often turns fashionistas into fashion monsters while trying to keep up with all of the latest trends.

It was not until a few years ago that fashion bloggers appeared on the scene. Now all the people running fashion-themed blogs are proclaiming themselves fashion bloggers. 

Yes, even those who use fashion in all the wrong ways and make it look like a terrible disease are proudly announcing that they are “fashion bloggers”.

However, we can finally get answers to this mind-boggling question: “Will the real fashion bloggers please stand up?” At www.nowmanifest.com, we can distinguish between the true professionals and the self-proclaimed fashion bloggers.

NOWMANIFEST started up this year under the wing of Fashion Networks, a global platform for user-generated fashion media and e-commerce that’s been around since 2009. Based in Sweden, Fashion Networks produce three other fashion and beauty-related websites — Minoufit, Seconds and Freshnet — all in Swedish. NOWMANIFEST is its first English language site.

I found the website through Fashiontoast — a famous fashion blog by Rumi Neely — and noticed that her website domain had changed to run off of www.nowmanifest.com. In one click, I was swept away to NOWMANIFEST. With a simple yet chic and lustrous design, it is visually appealing.

What is NOWMANIFEST exactly? It is a premium fashion publishing platform uniting leading bloggers and collecting their creative power. The website gathers renowned worldwide fashion bloggers under the NOWMANIFEST umbrella, as their goals are to inspire and guide readers around the world through fashion and beauty. One of their other missions is to act as a diving-board for people aspiring to enter the world of modern fashion.

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Deisha Tamar

October 14, 2011

The Jakarta Post

(as published here)

 

What do you get when you mix fashion with blogs? The popular fashion blogs, created by novices and professionals alike, of course.

Meet Tavi Gevinson, a 15-year-old who has become an international sensation after starting her fashion blog back in March 2008, during her pre-teen years. The owner of www.thestylerookie.com who lives in Chicago, Illinois, US – has taken the world of fashion by storm with her quirky and out of the box style. 

Although she described her blog as just an online diary mixed with scrapbooks, she receives 35,000 visitors per day, according to www.glamour.com. She has also caught the eyes of international fashion designers such as Karl Lagerfeld and Rodarte. 

She was also invited to Fashion Weeks in New York and Paris and sat next to Anna Wintour, the infamous Vogue US editor, and has been featured in various media.

Tavi became interested in fashion after reading other fashion blogs in 2008 and decided to create one afterward. Her style might not be everyone’s cup of tea, and some people consider her not stylish at all – but that is what she is all about. 

As she wrote on her blog, “The general voice of my blog has been very much against the idea of those [or, in a way, any] standards for a long time, maybe not in so many words, but definitely in spirit.” 

Through those words she was describing her ideas of breaking standard beauty or sexy definitions, especially for a 15-year-old American girl, who would usually opt for sexier clothes trying to look mature.

Her blog takes us to view outside mainstream fashion, and more into Tavi’s personal eclectic style and likings. You will also be surprised by how well and mature her writings are for a 15-year-old – as she is able to express her thoughts deeply through her engaging and poetic words.

The next young fashion blogger prodigy is Evita Nuh, owner of the blog www.jellyjellybeans.blogspot.com. She is an Indonesian who is just three years younger than Tavi, but has an exceptional talent and passion for fashion. 

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Deisha Tamar

July 24, 2011

The Jakarta Post

(as published here)

 

There are several factors that make good movies, such as good acting, interesting locations, a meaningful storyline and last but not least an epic soundtrack. That is also the case with a TV series.

Indonesians have found there are few good TV series on local channels, so sometimes movie enthusiasts opt for international TV series, or more often Hollywood series.

If you are lucky enough to have cable at home, then the options for TV series are endless — but there are also DVDs of course, and even some well-known series are aired on our local channel.

While watching the films on TV, you may hear really cool songs that you like so much. But sometimes you might not be able to figure out what the title is or who the singer is.

It happened to me. I tried to find the name of a really good piece of music that I heard on the Parenthood series. It took me several weeks to finally track down the song I was looking for. And in the end I got my answer from www.heardontv.com. It really helps me search for good music that I have heard on TV.

The simple layout of the website looked rather unpromising at first, as I thought maybe it was just another bogus website, but all that changed when I found my song with the exact artist and title of the song.

Heard on TV is a user-generated website that helps you discover the music you have heard on your favorite TV shows. However, you cannot download songs from the website. you can only search for music — although they provide links as options for you to buy the song legally from Rhapsody, Amazon or iTunes store, or you can watch the video on YouTube.

When looking for a certain song from a series, it is best if you jot down the exact season and episode of the show — to make your search easier on the website. Another cool way that you can help yourself search is by uploading a sound clip of the song you are looking for other users to listen to and help you with your search — you can even add a personal note, like in what scene the song was played.

However, in order to do this, you must first sign up to be a member at Heard on TV. You can also add your favorite music or TV shows and rate or comment on them, once you have signed up as a member. Besides searching for songs, you can actually help other users identify the songs that they are looking for by suggesting a title of the song.

Currently, Heard on TV offers over 135 TV shows to choose from and most of them are Hollywood series. The website also caters to music searches for blockbuster movies, although the options are still limited. It also has a database of hundreds and hundreds of artists’ names.

If you can’t find the song or movie that you were looking for, you can make a request to the website so they can add the criteria of your search.

The website just recently added a new feature which identifies trends of popular songs according to tweets on Twitter, which reveals the singer and song title — so at least you can add some really hot music to your music library, all thanks to Heard on TV.

*i missed posting this article here which was published last Feb!*

 

Deisha Tamar

Feb 27, 2011

The Jakarta Post

(as published here)

 

Have you ever felt annoyed by someone, a stranger, your boss or your family where you wish you could tell of your problem with them to their face but you just didn’t have the guts? Well, perhaps now you can channel that annoyance through this website.

Dear Blank Please Blank — no, it is not a typo or a name of some indie band — it is an über website that truly makes my day every time I visit it. It all started when a friend tweeted, “Dear Facebook, Congratulations on becoming a verb. Welcome to the club. Sincerely, Google #dearblankplease”.

I became curious and tried to find out where those witty tweets came from and eventually it led towww.twitter.com. dearblankpleaseblank before I was led to www.dearblankpleaseblank.com.

The website was created by creative duo Jared Wunsch and Hans Jhonson based in Seattle, Washington, US. Why did they create such a website? They stated, “We had this idea for a website, mostly because Hans had a bad experience. So we built it, and now you’re here... Welcome.”

“Dear blank please blank was built by us, hand coded line by line, pixel by pixel. As a rule of thumb, If you can’t see it, Jared built it, if you can see it, Hans built it, if it sparkles, Edward built it,” referring to Edward Cullen, the vampire from Twilight movie, whose skin sparkles under the sunlight.  

And yes, every bit of the website is filled with witty words or comments that will definitely hit your funny bone or at least makes you grin a little.

So, what is Dear Blank Please Blank?

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Deisha Tamar

Sunday, 12 June 2011

The Jakarta Post

(as published here)

 

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to live life frequently moving from one country to another – while at the same time playing the roles of mother, wife and also art enthusiast? 

If you don’t know, read Kaho’s stories on her blog. The blog (www.ChuzaiLiving.wordpress.com) is run by Kahori Matsui or Kaho, who is a Japanese national and currently living in Indonesia. 

When she first started her blog in March last year, she was still living in Arlington, Virginia, before she moved to Jakarta in July. Kaho has also lived in Senegal, Japan, and Texas, the US.

“In Japanese, Chuzai means living overseas for an extended period of time due to an occupational assignment,” she writes on her blog. 

In short, Chuzai Living translates to Expat Living. Kaho’s husband has a job that requires them to move quite frequently every two to three years.

The mother of two, who comically refers to her daughters as “monkeys” for their active, playful ways, wrote that she wanted to have a place where she could document and share her family’s life overseas while exploring her interest in photography, design, fashion, traveling, food and parenting. 

“This blog is a place where I can become myself, away from the daily routine and hectic life as a parent of two small children. It stimulates me to be active and enjoy and gives me opportunity to appreciate my surroundings to a fuller extent,” she added. 

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Deisha Tamar

5 May 2011

The Jakarta Post

(as published here)

 

If you like spending your time creating accessories, jewelries, handicrafts or any other things, you should visit this website so that you can start sharing and selling your works to the world.

With a simple yet elegant design, www.etsy.com has been a place for users to sell or buy anything handmade or vintage. It is a haven for those who search for the unique and one-of-a-kind handmade creations.

Etsy allows personal online connections between makers and buyers, even if they live across the globe. It emphasizes handmade products. As founder Robert Kalin said, people want things that are unique and they can go to Etsy to find things they want that do not exist anywhere else in the world. 

Founded in 2005, Etsy is now a growing community with buyers and sellers coming from 150 countries. Even some Indonesians have started to join this online community to sell or buy handmade goods. 

It has now more than an online marketing site. It also provides Etsy Labs, where the Etsy team hosts a weekly public craft night in Brooklyn, New York, and now in Berlin, Germany. Etsy Labs offers business development workshops, craft workshops and also gives knowledge on how people can start their business using Etsy and be successful. 

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Deisha Tamar

May 1 2011

The Jakarta Post

(as published here)

Are you getting bored with your daily routine? Are you tired of what the Internet has offered so far? Are you sick of all that bad news circulating everyday? Do you wish to just get away for a moment and laugh it all out?

Well, now you can do that. Now, you can laugh while surfing the Internet with Funny or Die.

Of course, this is not a matter of life and death — it is in fact a matter of rating a video that you think is funny, or not (if it is not funny it is categorized as “die”). The website www.funnyordie.com was created by funny man Will Ferrell, who has starred in comedy films including Elf, Anchorman and The Other Guys, along with Gary Sanchez Productions.

As a comedy video website, Funny or Die combines user-generated content with original and exclusive content. It allows celebrities, up-and-coming comedians and ordinary users to upload things they consider funny.

The website is said to have offices in Japan, Madagascar and Bahn, nine full time lobbyists in Washington, plus security forces of four hundred soldiers and six attack helicopters — although you can believe that at your own risk.

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Deisha Tamar Manuhutu

The Jakarta Post

April 10, 2011

(as published here)

 

 

It wasn’t until late last year that I finally bought myself a BlackBerry. I was certain that after almost 12 years being a devoted Nokia user, it would take a while to really master the gadget — with a lot of help from the Internet of course.

It really doesn’t matter if you use a BlackBerry or not, www.berryindo.com is one of the many tech websites out there that will help you gain more knowledge about the device. The website claims itself to be a portal for Indonesia’s BlackBerry community.

For a newbie, this website is really helpful. From finding news about the latest BlackBerry applications to successfully upgrading and downgrading BlackBerry software, using this site I was able to do it all by myself.

The website is in Indonesian and might not be the best looking website on the World Wide Web, but I consider it user friendly as I was able to navigate through its pages smoothly  on my first visit.

However, prepare yourself for what I consider to be a “nuisance”, which is the 15 seconds ad that will appear on the bottom of your screen offering you the chance to register your email, name and city to get free updates from BerryIndo.

I did get the updates through my email address — they were quite helpful as they usually send the latest updates on everything about BlackBerry, and they haven’t spammed me either.

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Deisha Tamar Manuhutu

The Jakarta Post

March 13 2011

(as published here)

Despite the boom of Twitter and Facebook, Ndoro Kakung, one of Indonesia’s noted bloggers, said the growth of blogs in the country is still relatively small.

But Benazio Rizki Putra, or best known as Bena, may reverse the trend, rising to fame by his blog www.benablog.com. 

For a while, his blog reminds people of Raditya Dika, as they offer wittiness and quirkiness on both of their blogs, and of course, due to the fact that Bena’s inspiration is Raditya Dika himself.

When having a bad day, it is a good thing to read Bena’s blog as he entertains you through his witty and comical style of writing and hilarious pictures. 

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Deisha Tamar Manuhutu

The Jakarta Post

February 6, 2011

(as published here)

“One person’s trash is becoming my treasure this year. 365 days. 365 items of clothing. 365 dollars. And the blogging begins…”

That’s how Marisa Lynch, creator of New Dress a Day (www.newdressaday.com), sums up her journey that led her to start the blog. It is not just another fashion blog, or another webstore for clothing or accessories. It is a fashion blog with a twist.

Marisa is unlike most other people. Normally, people mourn and find it difficult to get back on their feet again after being laid-off from a job. Most usually end up obsessing over what was wrong with their performances.

But that is not the case with Marisa.

Based in Los Angeles, she was laid-off from her job in the summer of 2009. Instead of looking for another job, this woman, nearly 30-years-old, who described herself as “having a personal-creative-funk-crisis”, decided to create a blog.

Marisa created the blog to challenge herself -- and her audience as well -- to turn any used or vintage clothing item worth no more than $1 into a brand-new and wearable piece of clothing. Here’s the catch: she would do it for one year, for 365 days. Calculations indicate there would be 365 dresses for $365 in 365 days.

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