Fashion model Soraya taps Internet's benefits

JAKARTA (JP): Fashion model Soraya Haque says the Internet has become a useful tool in her profession, although she wouldn't let her children near it.

Through the Internet, Soraya said she obtains information on fashion, including schedules of fashion shows worldwide and lists of modeling agencies and schools, in a short time.

Before there was the Internet, obtaining such information could take weeks, she told a seminar Saturday on the uses of the Internet, attended mostly by business and office secretaries.

"I started learning the Internet three months ago. It wasn't difficult," said the owner of a modeling school named after her.

As a word of caution, she said anyone who intended to use the Internet must first know what they really want. "Otherwise, they're wasting their time and certainly their money," she said.

Soraya said the Internet was not something she would let her children use.

"I have two kids at home. I don't think it's wise to have the Internet with the kids around," she said, saying that the information was not only too broad but also "too open".

On one website on lingerie, for example, the models remove their clothes, she recalled. "That is hard to believe, even for a married woman like me. I can't imagine how it affects children."

The seminar on the Internet and the Secretary was attended by Tjahjono Soerjodibroto, president of PT Indosat, which is also an Internet service provider, and Dewi M. Margono, the chairwoman of the Association of Indonesian Secretaries.

Marcellus Ardiwinata, General Manager of PT Uninet Bhaktinusa, an Internet service provider, said that while the Internet has facilitated transactions like home shopping, people should be careful in giving out their credit card numbers.

There have been cases where people purchased items through the Internet using other people's credit card numbers, Marcellus said. "Credit card owners should be careful with the Internet."

Using the e-mail for transactions is a lot safer, he said.

State Minister of Population Haryono Suyono, in his keynote address, said the Internet and the e-mail facility that comes with it should help secretaries in their professions.

A secretary could, for example, pass on orders from her boss to others by the use of electronic mail instead of having to run around the office, Haryono said.

Since communication through the Internet and e-mail is impersonal, users should try to be courteous, he said.

"Although e-mail messages must be brief, it pays to begin your communication with courteous greetings," he said, adding that personal relationships remain important in the era of the computer. (ste)