Suharto suddenly becomes gravely ill. You need to know Indonesian reactions. From Sabang to Merauke. Fast. What do you do?

The answers are in the much-maligned Indonesian daily newspapers on the Web. But you're a near total newbie (Internet oaf, newcomer) and don't know how to find them.

Fortunately, you have two secret weapons: a reading knowledge of Indonesian, and the URL (net address) of one of the dozen-plus Indonesian super-directory sites. Let's say it's Jendela: http://www.iit.edu/~syafsya (yes, that's a real tilde and there really is one on your keyboard).

Should you get the dreaded '404' error message, meaning Jendela is (perhaps temporarily) gone, don't panic. Just type the keyword 'jendela' in almost any Web search engine. You'll find mirror sites (alternative addresses with identical content) in short order, like http://www.airland.co m/id/jendela or http://www .geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/3699. It is hard these days to get marooned in cyberspace.

Jendela itself even graciously serves up a list of competing Indonesian directory sites at http: //www.ece.iit.edu/~mmarwali/indirektori.html. And other goodies, such as homepages of ISPs (Internet service providers) in Indonesia should you want to sign up during an extended visit. Even a 9,000+ word dictionary (downloadable) to help you with your Indonesian reading.

Elegant

A lot of work has gone into making Jendela incredibly user-friendly. One important example: Jendela will let you use the very fast text-based Lynx browser - though not all the newspapers to which Jendela sends you will be so Lynx-tolerant.

All right. Suharto is gravely ill. You connect to Jendela which welcomes you as its 400,000th or so visitor (and big-brotherly tells you how many times you have previously logged on and the last such date).

The main page loads (appears on your screen). It's designed with wonderfully elegant simplicity.

The first thing you see (with a graphical browser such as Netscape) is a huge box of names of Indonesian newspapers with Web sites. Jendela does a better job than most directory sites in keeping up-to-date the URL links hidden behind the newspaper names, and adding new ones. And in a nice touch, it kindly provides single link access to the online archives of past articles for those Indonesian newspapers which offer this useful resource.

Oke. Suharto's illness. From Sabang to Merauke. Just click on the newspaper's name and you're taken there.

Here are the newspapers you can now reach from Jendela's first panel (a second panel covers magazines, and a third, an artful collection called 'journals').

New medium

At yearend 1996 all Indonesia had 86 officially registered dailies. Of these, 30 are already on the Web in whole or part, or soon will be. Some have slow connections, but this is still quite a show for a new medium. And I may have missed a few (as of August 4, 1997)

SUMATRA - Riau Pos (Pekanbaru), Waspada (Medan), Serambi Indonesia (Banda Aceh), Singgalang (Padang), Sriwijaya Post (Palembang)

JAKARTA - *Angkatan Bersenjata (on Hankam's site, http://www.hankam.go.id), Antara (official news service widely quoted in other papers), Bisnis Indonesia, **Indonesian Observer, **Indonesia Times, *Jakarta Post (only available online by commercial arrangement, some articles available free from 'Industry News' section of the Infoseek search engine http://www.infoseek.com), Kompas, Media Indonesia, Republika, Suara Pembaruan.

OTHER JAVA - Bernas (Yogyakarta), Jawa Pos (Surabaya), Pikiran Rakyat (Bandung), Suara Merdeka (Semarang), Surabaya Post (Surabaya), **Surya (Yogyakarta).

KALIMANTAN - *Akcaya (Pontianak), Banjarmasin Post (Banjarmasin), Suara Kaltim (Samarinda).

EASTERN INDONESIA - Bali Post (Denpasar), **Manado Post (Manado), Pos Kupang (Kupang), **Pos Maluku (Ambon), **Suara Timor Timur (Dili), **Tifa Irian (Jayapura).

Key:
** New site under construction, or being repaired/ revamped.
*Can be reached from search engines on Jendela.

A bit overwhelming? One way out: send a blank email to lists@indopubs.com, read the automated reply, and then arrange news delivery (for a fee) to your personal email address.

John A. MacDougall
apakabar@clark.net



New
All sites mentioned in the Indonesia on the Net columns can now be reached from our new, regularly updated, Springboard.