Daily Archives: 27/12/2009

Dec 27 2009

Time to go home :o(

My 6 months volunteer in Israel is up in less than two weeks.

My flight home is 9th of January, which means I need to go and get a new job.   This isn’t a particularly good time to find employment at the moment and I havent had any response to any applications I have sent in so far.

I am look forward to meeting up with friends and family but I am sure I am going to pine for warmer temperatures, stony hills, rocky clad biblical looking buildings and somewhat faster, frenetic, unpredictable and often a little chaotic atmosphere that is Jerusalem.

At home I really would need an all new challenge of some kind, partly because I am approaching my mid 30s and am single, and fit awkwardly between youth & students and the married couples which most of my friends are these days.   That’s not to say I mope around all the time wanting to get married, if it something I said I don’t think about regularly I would be lying.   But I am passionate about seeing God becoming accessible to ordinary people and I am seeking some kind of challenge.  Being single of course does give me a lot flexibility to things that would otherwise be impossible, so I am making the most of that time, whatever period that may be.

This could be back in the regular work place doing IT support, my job of doing support technical issues with staff in businesses, is something the fits be perfectly not just because of my computer skills I have used in the workplace, but more also with the fact God has placed my in several normal secular companies with other Christians where we can meet up and pray and encourage each other, one of these three groups was one I set up myself.   I don’t go about pushing my faith in peoples faces, its more of case I just try and do my work well and be discrete, polite and professional in my manner and my faith in Jesus seems to rub off on people it seems.  I could be in a different town perhaps.

I could go back.   With flights to Israel are a hundred quid or so (providing they don’t charge extra for baggage, using the toilet or breathing, as some budget airlines have shown to do)  I could continue my role here, my visa runs until May (my sister has a baby this time and I am going to a close friends wedding in Spain then as well)  and there is no replacement for me at BFP.   For me to stay I would need to get some proper sponsorship and I have had some kind people donate me funds but its not always been consistent, and I have been living off my last two pay cheques from my last paid job, the refund of my unused car insurance and a few other (got paid to fix other volunteers laptops) things.  My time here hasnt been a holiday, it has been stressful often, and requires a lot of prayer which God has been amazingly faithful, even with some things happened this week.  I have got to stay in a town frequently threatened by terrorism and see Arab people turn replace Islam with the love and acceptance of Jesus, things you would never experience on a tour or see accurately portrayed in television.

If you are a believer whether you know me as a friend or just bumped into this page somehow, I would like to ask if you can pray.

Please pray God can provide me with the right steps of what to do next.  The Lord has pointed me in the direction of doing this volunteer work in terms of lots of different steps and has provided for me faithfully each way.

I am tired of guesswork, I need God to give me a very clear answer what to do next.

Yes I should listen to the quiet voice God mentions in the bible.   I have a rubbish attention span and get things lost on all my imagination and plenty of other distractions.  Even if I try and sit on the Mount of Olives my mind will wander, its why I spend a lot of time walking both here in Israel and back at home.  Therefore I really need something explicitly clear of what to do next.

Its a case of if I should get a normal paid job or stick to being here a bit longer.   In all honesty, there’s places (more of Galilee, Megido, Nazareth, Golan Heights, etc) I still want to visit here in Israel and have some great friendships with people which have matured to the point where its going to be painful to say goodbye.

Thanks for your time.

Dec 27 2009

I need online browser favourites/bookmarks feature for Firefox

My personal laptop I took with me to Israel was set up a few months ago to dual boot into Windows XP and Windows 7 (RC1 release)  so could test drive Microsoft’s newest OS.   Also I set up my work PC to do the same thing just for training purposes.

Often I get home and I find some web site I find interesting I find I saved on my browser favourites which was at work, and now I cant find it.  The same when using Windows 7 and not being able to find the site saved on the browser of XP.

I use Firefox and have done since the first release 5 years ago, and am gradually getting people at work to completely phase out Internet Explorer and provide them with training to learn any differences in using it.  Normally they take to it pretty quickly.

One thing I really could do with and that is the means to keep my browser favourites on line, so I could just get at a particular site no matter where I am.  I think the Opera browser has this feature (tried Opera once but didnt really like it)

At work, my users might often have to sit at another desk, either to cover for another member of staff, or if their PC develops a fault and needs to be fixed or replaced.   Likewise we also have Macs for publishing, audio and video development work, and Windows PCs for regular administration as its cheap and more familiar to many users.   Now, without getting into a debate of what’s better, Firefox is perfect choice for me as the Windows and Macs versions are similar and consistent in use and some of the extensions are usable on both systems.   I just need a way to get at my favourites from any darn type of computer anywhere.

Multiple sets of browser favourites that could be used with a log on and password, for an individual member of staff or for a department would be good.

Its not as if browser favourites should be a big file, so bandwidth is not going to be an issue here.

The RSS feed feature is nice for reading news but don’t think its that widely used for anything else.

I think there are dedicated Firefox extensions for live bookmarks but they are not widely used by any of my fellow IT professionals I know.

Does this sound like a much needed new feature that a lot of other people, be it regular administration staff or IT professionals should have.   Of course this could be used on handheld devices with web access as well.

Please do comment.