Monthly Archives: April 2010

Apr 6 2010

bike theft and modern day Samaritans

Later on Monday afternoon I went to meet up with a new friend who is Australian born but living in the the UK I got to know from my church, he is just a casual visitor here on holiday, and him together with some other (two Scots, one Aussie, one Danish) people from the hostel he was staying at, we got to do some Easter sightseeing.  A quick visit to the church of the Holy Septelcur, before meeting up with the other guys, some fairly random circles around the city seeing as the narrow streets get a bit disorientating sometimes.  Seeing the Via Delarosa, the street where Jesus carried his cross after being sentenced, then grabbing falafel and ice cream and just a lot of chatting.

Here this tourist lady has borrowed a cross to get a feel how Jesus would of carried, on the Via Delarosa.  His cross would of been much larger, and the fierce heat and the severe wounds from beatings before hand would of made this unbearable.

When I came back to where my bike was parked, I was horrified to see it in bits still locked to the railings opposite the Jaffa gate, I looked around hoping it was someone elses and mine was some distance away, no, I had been a victim of a crime.   I parked it here, as being such a big famous part of the city where thousands of people pass through a day, that it would be safe.  It was chained up, but because it has quick release levers for the wheels, someone had tried to steal the wheels, but then abandoned them.   After depressingly mumbling to myself and to the people next to me that this was not fair that had decided to take/damage something that wasn’t theres, the couple offered me a lift home, I turned around and the man operating the kiosk of fresh orange juice (they have boxes of fruit and mechnical press to sell drinks)  said he chased away someone who was trying to steal parts of my bike.   So they took my rear flasher light, the levers of the wheels, theres a spring and one the brakes had broken off, and noticed one of the spokes is bent, but its otherwise all there.

This put a really bad ending on what was a really nice weekend, but I had two different lots of people who were my good Samaritans, the couple (who were bike enthusiasts anyway) who let me strap my bike to there 4×4 which had two other bikes on there, and two Arab kids about 12 who quickly knew how to fix my rear wheel back on and got the chain in the right place, this meant I could carry the bike one handed on one wheel back to their car.   I gave the children a 10 shekel coin each I had in my pocket.  I also got approached by a man asking for money for food, as all my small change was gone, I told him I was take his number and see if Bridges for Peace’s food bank might be able to arrange something.   I also got to chat to the kind couple about the organisation I was working for, what I was doing in Israel so far.   Anyway I was also hugely grateful of them being able to get my home rather have to find a big enough taxi or walk home with the bike in bits for 5kms.

I took it back to the shop today, they are replacing the nuts and the brake pads which got damaged, this should be around 100 shekels which isnt too much, but this is an expense I could do without.   Anyway I am thankful the Lord provided some ways of making this situation less bad than it could of been.

Apr 6 2010

Easter weekend & Pesach

Spent Easter sunday and monday wandering around the old city.   On sunday there was an early morning worship service at the Garden Tomb. Some of my friends went to this, but it was 6am and I slept in, so I got there later in the afternoon only to find it shut (it doesn’t normally open sundays)  After the early morning service there done by my church (King of Kings Jerusalem)   there was several other services in French, Spanish, Swedish and Arabic by some other Christian organisations.  I then went to a conventional service at my church in their regular building.

Not to worry, I got to visit the tomb today (Easter Monday)  as its the last day of the Jewish holiday of Pesach as well.  Its really easy to forget as gentiles, but Jews wont eat anything with yeast in on this time, so going to the bakery near my work place was shut for the weekend, as any conventional form of bread, cake or pastries are not available.  At this time Jews eat Matzvah which looks like an oversized cracker bread instead.  So stick some hummus or jam on it, and its pretty good.

The tomb was quite busy today of course, with Christian visitors from all over there, the garden looked very pretty too.

Apr 4 2010

Easter is truly about the greatest story ever told

Is the story of Jesus relevant today to those who are not Christian?   I have been thinking about some well loved movies and these recent stories has some startlingly similar elements to them.

The Matrix

Thomas Anderson aka ‘Neo’ is picked by his new employers to save the world, aside from as a software developer he does not really have the means to be a slick, fast thinking and smart super agent.  However his mentor Morpheus soon get him trained up and running.  Here just like Jesus was tempted in the desert, Neo is searched at his work place and consequently arrested and offered to have criminal accusations dropped in return to cooperate with the demands of Smith and his secret police.

Rather than walking on water, Morpheus teaches Neo that he can do miracles if he just trusts he can do it, ie: leap off of buildings and jump huge heights to another location, and cheat death by bouncing off the road, or dodge bullets.

Of course here, one of the members of the team, Cypher is really a defector working for Agent Smith.  Judas in the bible had the responsibility of looking after finances, here Cypher has the responsibility of being the main IT systems administrator and to oversee possible security threats to his employer, in both circumstances these roles are abused.  Instead of pieces of silver, Cypher sits in a software-virtualised high class restaurant and is told he can have ‘anything you want!’ by Agent Smith if he traitorously turns over the secrets of his organisation.

The Bible calls Satan the Father of all lies, and here in the Matrix, Agent Smith can easily clone himself or morph himself or his minions into any kind of person to his deceptive advantage.

Fact:
1) Egypt banned the Matrix film because it contained the word ‘Zion’
2) The ship the Nebuchadnezzar has an inscription that reads “Mark III No. 11 made in the USA year 2069.” Mark 3:11 reads “And whenever those possessed by evil spirits caught sight of him, they would fall down in front of him shrieking, ‘You are the Son of God!'” – quoted from Wikipedia

Star Wars

Here as an enthusiastic young man who group up an ordinary background wanting to become part of the rebel alliance, Luke Skywalker has two mentors Obi Wan Kanobi and Yoda, both of these well respected individuals die, well they actually just seem to suddenly fade away, but only to be still around in spirit offering help when Luke goes through tough decisions.

Later on when Luke has a showdown with the Emperor, he is tempted by ‘I am unarmed, strike me down’ encouraging Luke to be more angry and resentful, seeing as he made his father turn away from good to evil.   Of course Luke after getting caught in this mistake before, he knows this is a trap and that the Emperor gets more powerful from absorbing hate, and uses talk of good things to ultimately defeat this particular character of Satan.

Of course, I do also like the building and scenery from Star Wars with white stone buildings although in a futuristic setting, and not a million miles away from the ancient buildings I see around in Jerusalem.

Fact: Endor, the home of the Ewoks tree top village, is also a place in the Bible.  See Joshua 17 1-12

Red Dwarf

In one episode, the four members of the ship Starbug, are looking for an essential spare part on a seemingly empty planet until a strange entity suddenly appears (voiced by actor Stephen Fry)  who announces himself as ‘My name is Legion, for we are many’  here there is an exact reference to a demon that spoke in Mark 5 : 10.

The Lion Witch & the Wardrobe.

Where as CS Lewis was a Christian, this probably has to be as a fictional story, the most closest set of ideas with Aslan the lion who mimics the death and resurrection of Jesus and with Eustace who betrayed Aslan for some Turkish Delight, albeit with a smaller (4 I think?) number of followers that the original 12.

Here, I think even the most hardened atheist should agree that the story of Jesus’s birth, ministry work, death and resurrection has had elements imitated in most probably thousands of books and movies ever since, we should be thankful for that the story this Easter really is part of the Greatest story ever told. 🙂

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Apr 1 2010

Rebuilding an Arabic PC

Work today was good, got quite a lots done, a computer came in from a friend of staff member, an Arab family who the computer is used by their son.  A very badly dented case with the drive bay covers partly fallen off and a CD drive that was stuck.  Windows XP would not boot, and safe mode, and last known good configuration, and even a repair install from my XP CD would not get it working.

Tried some new tactics which worked quite well to rescue this reasonable spec Athlon 64 PC to remove it from an impossibly tangled up operating system which rendered it completely useless.

Using one of my favourite tools, Hirens boot CD (currently on version 10.2) is my preferred Swiss army knife of dozens of software tools to do all kinds of fixing work.  Some of these apps boot from DOS or from a live version of Windows which starts without touching any of the files of the hard disk of the computer on the bench being tested.  Here I used a tool which scans the hard disk for licence keys for Windows and Microsoft Office.  Here I could find these and write them down on a bit of paper.  Here in the middle east software and DVD piracy is rampant but its not my place to accuse someone breaching a licence of software.  Here this process lets me find the key of the software off the non-bootable hard disk of the computer and keep it safe for re-installation using my own set of media, using their key.

I took a spare 80gb hard disk off my shelf of spare parts, and disconnected the drive from the computer and rested the spare drive on the sideways-turned tower unit of the PC, and set about a fresh install of Windows.  Here I am using XP with Service Pack 3 merged in, after the usual 45 minutes, XP is running and I get the hardware drivers of the web site of the PC board manufacturer.  Then (with no live connection to the internet yet) I put on IE8, and Adobe Acrobat reader, I put in the network connection and put on the free AVG 9 antivirus.  Then I go about putting on all the Windows updates, theres a lot of them, so I can leave it for an hour and continue closing some helpdesk calls, fixing a loud fan on my Talpiyot office PC, checking the network, and also doing face to face support with the users at this site.

Later on, I set up the original (only 10gb) hard disk as a secondary drive and search it for viruses and spyware.  It came up completely clean. Office 2003 got installed with the previously written down licence key.

Next was to copy each of the files of the three user profiles onto the new install of XP from the old installation, all office files, photos and music, browser favourites, etc.  I have done this quite a bit in my old job and is quite easy.  However the profile names are in Arabic which I don’t speak.  But I can use F2 to rename it, but instead of renaming, I copied the highlighted Arabic script to make some new profile names.   Under the language set up in Windows XP I already have Hebrew and Arabic as well as US English, so its easy to change the keyboard layout to either of these three.

Incidentally a new challenge I found was Windows XP language set up shows multiple variations of Arabic, for various nations such as Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, etc, as there is no option for Israeli or Palestinian Arabic, I chose Jordanian Arabic I guess would be the closest.

Now all the files salvageable were on the new build of the computer.   There were some games and language translation software but without the media these would need to be reinstalled by the user.  I decided to clone using Norton Ghost the contents of the hard disk that was property of my work to the original drive inside the computer.   The files copied across perfectly but again Windows crashed when starting.   It was here I decided the original 10gb drive was defective, so I put it in the bin, and my manager was happy to give this old drive as a gift to this user, as I had plenty of spares.

As the case on this PC looks battered and damaged, I took the chance to transplant over the whole innards to the now empty chassis of another clone PC which looks a lot nicer, plus there’s a replacement CD drive in it (I tend to throw old CD drives away as all PCs used by volunteers and staff have new DVD writers.  I wrote a letter and taped it to the computer to explain the work I had done and hope they enjoy the completely overhauled machine.

Jonathan is well conversed in doing helpdesk and support across several countries and continents for this current role and my previous regular paid jobs.  He is looking for sources of financial help as I provide the backbone of IT assistance to a busy charity in the holyland, both face to face, using remote software, or even ‘blind’ by talking through users through using icons, menus or commands from memory. If you would like consulting or support of any kind of IT challenge for your home or business PC or laptop in exchange for a small financial gift please do get in touch. :o)

Apr 1 2010

Why Twitter = Twaddle

Some people who know me know I don’t like Twitter.

I have an account and its really only to promote this site, on some people I follow occasionally something could be interesting on IT, the middle east and various other topics that interest me.   Often Twitter is used as a casual way of running commentary of your life, as below:

MrXYZ – The number 7 bus is 6 minutes and 24.54 seconds late
about 2 hours ago
On my Texas Instruments scientific calculator

MrXYZ – I am putting on some trousers
about 3 hours ago
On the web

You also have people following VIPs, with people such as Stephen Fry who are the most followed people.  Stephen is absolutely brilliant man and a genius of acting, speaking and writing, one of the absolute legends of Britishness.  Its no secret he suffers from depression, but I think if you are going through something like this, its better to phone up or see a close friend and spill out what’s troubling you rather than write it online, like what happened recently when he ceased using Twitter for a short while due to he perceived as being people mocking or being unkind about something that was troubling him.

Gowala is one of the pointless add ons I see with iPhone users I see, “I am in blahblah pub” or such and such a place, as if anyone would ever care.

I don’t have an iPhone I only have a fairly simple clamshell type handset, mainly because where as I just need to make calls, I used to like the Voice notes feature which used to be on almost Motorola handsets in the last 10 years or so, press the side button where you can record your voice (including in a call)  and then set it to a alarm message, which was a brilliantly simple feature which needs a minimum of button pressing to keep something an important reminder, sadly my current now two year old V8 phone doesn’t have this.   I would quite like to have some simple version of Google documents and Gmail, seeing as I like to type notes and access to brief writings of things to do on any computer anywhere on the internet, with this I have more or less dumped my need to use Microsoft Office or Open Office now, or remember which of my work or home PCs or USB sticks I saved something on.  For this reason I might opt for Android phone at some point in the future.  The iPhone is a very slick and well designed piece of kit, I am not knocking it, its just I don’t want to pay £600 for 18 months worth of ownership for a phone, be it, by a contract or pay as you go.

Because of the portable, update from on the toilet or anywhere nature of Twitter, people may write things when they are angry, emotionally damaged or drunk, this could lead to writing things you later regret and at worse could cost a relationship or career.

I quite like blogging.  Twitter has meant a few people I have seen that used to blog, don’t bother any more and only put small snippets of the things that interest them on Twitter instead which is sad.   One of the things I like blogging as articles stay there on the internet indefinitely, so a helpful how-to on doing something I have learnt or want to share with the rest of the world, the ethic the internet should be; sharing what you know and learn what you don’t.  With articles of Twitter no one cares what you wrote yesterday, and I am not even sure if old tweets can be found with Google.

Like Facebook its often a vehicle to spread rumors and weighs on peoples naivety with the huge potential to spread scams and spam.   For instance today, as its April fool’s day, apparently numerous fake stories ended up on some newspapers as fact.  I also sometimes worry about those short URL type sites that condense web addresses into something brief that make it fit into the limited amount of space for a tweet, this could send you to something quite unsavoury or dangerous.

I think its likely the Twitter will get replaced by something better and will probably fade away after a couple of years or so.

Maybe an analogue version of Twitter would be to wear a hat and put some velcro letters on about what you are upto?

The only thing I do like about is purely to point people towards a more detailed writing about something, a free taste of a more detailed piece of information.

Using WordPress is a template for my blog I have mixed opinions on.  Its great that its free and has many different features to edit and change things how you like it, its not at all standards compliant, and changing the the layout of your blog often makes formatting go screwy, what’s in the draft layout is not always what you get in the final published result.  There’s also Blogger (owned by Google) and some other ones which are also free, and good as a ready to run way to blog without needing web developer background.  I like to call this freeze dried web design.  You use your own creative knowhow to write the content and there is a pre-fabricated template to put it all together.

I like and deeply hate Facebook at the same time as well, but that’s for article another day.