Category clever

Jan 16 2011

Jon’s IT predictions for 2011

In the old days you turned on the Telly and watched Tomorrow’s World for exciting new developments in technology. New gadgets, exciting products that would bring jobs and boost the economy, and revolutionary medicines and treatments for people in hospital.  Sadly a lot of things on TW never got anywhere, and it was a shame the BBC pulled the plug on this show in the 1990s. Pioneering British inventors like Sir Clive Sinclair, and Trevor Bayliss were often featured.

Heres my predictions for changes in the technology world this year:

Buying things online from a mobile device will start to take off, with extra versions of ecommerce sites available made for phones. I can see that you could go to a night club or live music events and buy songs from your mobile device and the venue could promote and take a percentage from buying songs.   Lots of people would be happy to spend on small impulse type purchased inspired by things they see on a billboard or whatever.

Location based mobile applications start to get much bigger.   Clocking in and out of work would be good by GPS.   How about a real life version of the ‘Tron’ lightcycle game (you may know this game as Snake on mobile phones from the 90s) where you can walk or drive around a location against a friend, hitting that invisible line made by your friend means you are dead. I think location based services have a lot of value for businesses to use a clock in type set up for seeing if employers have got in on time, and compliance with fire services. Because of this there are greater security problems with people being careless with keeping their day to day events online, just like there have been burglaries done after victim said they are away on Facebook.

Microsoft will gradually get businesses taking up Windows 7, but for most IT managers its a case of wait and see how someone else gets on, plus there are too many legacy apps that may not work correctly with XP emulation.

Tablet computers will quietly disappear again as they are just novelty devices for web browsing and little else, people will go back to using laptops, the means to use finger gestures to do actions is clever, but with no keyboard, and in the case of iPads with no USB or SD card slots for cheap flash storage, you can only ‘consume’ information and not create it.   Can you imagine people doing serious work that involve typing more than a few sentences?  Tablets would need to be set on a stand to angle them at comfotable angle.   Its really only half a laptop with no means to pivot the screen into a usable way that doesnt bring on neck or back ache.  I think interest in iPads from Apple fans but will start to wane as well.

Google and other search providers will promote statistics. I think people will want to more figures of what’s being searched for and current market trends. Go on Amazon and try and buy a book that out of print or a CD thats been deleted and you have options to buy a second hand one from a third party seller.   Information could be used to tell book publishers and record labels there is demand for certain things no longer available, and thus could justify a new print run.  In 2010 Google (I think) bought about 20-30 start up companies, they will continue to grow massively, they are already looking out for a bigger office for their Israel operations.

Google’s Chromium laptops get canned. There are not cheap enough, and there is too much competition, people are content with their current laptops, and not enough people are using cloud applications yet.   Its a good ideas but the public aren’t ready to give up using localised apps at the moment.  Dumb laptops for cloud only apps could make it in a few years though.

Mozilla, please market Firefox to grown ups like IT managers and persuade them to drop legacy browsers (Internet Explorer)  the current way Firefox is promoted is like a bunch of hippies in a VW bus selling organic soup or something.

Internet service providers should cut off people with severe malware or virus attacks, so should public hotspots, a feature to alert botnet activity or other activity I would expect could be built into enterprise grade wireless routers.

Digital watches with colour screens. Don’t know if they exist yet, but why not? Plug it into the PC and change the numbers fonts style, change the background, put a personal picture as a background screen, just like those LCD picture frames.  I think kids would love them.

Button MP3 players. Heard this on the radio the other day but also seen them online. A button type badge with a self contained MP3 player you pin on your jacket which you attach your headphones. You have a badge with the name of the band you can make a statement about and listen to the album of songs which are fixed on this simple music player. If these could be offered cheaply, they could be a nice way to buy and listen to music and lend them to friends without any legal problems, I think they would also become collectable as small run volumes of certain albums are produced.  Easy to lend them to friends also with no legal issues.  I think its a fab idea, something that would of been great in 1960s if mp3s where around then.

Dec 31 2010

Hebrew children’s book has Coca Cola trucks removed for traffic violations

I was at music concert just before I left Israel to fly home, there was a book shop with something quite funny:

Normally on TV commercials and posters, the Coca Cola trucks are driving along snow covered highways delivering obesity, diabetes and dental problems, oops I mean Christmas cheer to western nations.

Now if I am not mistaken, this Hebrew children’s book appears to show the Coke truck being towed away!!!

Could any kind person please translate what this book’s cover says?

Reminds me of a trip to Tel Aviv last year where strictly enforced parking rules meant trucks were scooping up illegally parked vehicles from the beach side streets although with some forklift type lifting prongs and taking them to an impound.

Its worth noting, Coke’s biggest market is the middle east, as observant Muslims don’t drink alcohol.

Dec 26 2010

Handel’s Messiah played in Hebrew in Jerusalem

I missed the chance to go to this performance  last year, but sadly as I am back in the UK again for a break I didn’t get to see once more.   A real shame but I got to see a brief video of this sent via friend.

The famous classical piece, Handel’s Messiah was performed in Hebrew at King Of Kings congregation at the Clal shopping mall between Agrippas and Jaffa Street in Jerusalem.

Interesting enough, the 90 year old lady mentioned who dreamt up the idea to rework it in Hebrew was in tears after the performance, Handel was found in tears by his assistant after reporting being touched by God some 250 years ago.   See the video here:

Some musical friends I know got to play in this, thanks Teddy for the link 🙂

Dec 14 2010

Land of the bible room gets wireless

This week, one of many things I had been doing at work is put wireless internet connection in our teaching room to aid with presentations.

Here is the teaching room.   Its a place we have our devotions or worship in the morning and bible teaching and conferences happen here too.  The room has been modeled and furnished to look like something out of the time of Jesus.  The opposite side has a roll down screen to use with a projector.

Some of the awkward stuff is done, the chaps from the home repair team  (they fix houses of local Israelis who can’t afford to have repairs done themselves) did all the messy stuff of laying the cables under the floor of the flat above, we just needed to fasten the wiring to some sockets and configure the router 🙂

I got to learn a new skill, making network cables from scratch, using this special crimping tools to clamp on the connectors on the Cat5 network cables

In the top pictures I used this punchdown tool to fix wires the back on the network sockets which are carefully hidden behind some pillars.  My colleague Christopher used the laptop to configure the router, but had some similar problems to I had with getting IP address range correct, the router is hidden up above this bamboo ceiling, only visible up there by some faintly flickering lights.   All the technology runs transparently so our senior leadership can do presentations with a minimum of clutter.  Its not finished yet, we ran out of time to get the router settings correct.

Dec 14 2010

App store for free software?

General IT wishful thinking – skip this to next article if you are not an IT person.

Following Apple’s App store for the iPhone got rolled out also for the iPad and imitated for Android and Windows phones, it seems Apple want to adopt the same methods for people buying software for Macs as well.

I personally this is a great idea, some people will still want to buy software that arrives in a box with media and documentation that they can put on a shelf they can get to if support query or a reinstall becomes necessary, but I think it would good to give the customer a choice.   Just like music can be downloaded or its nice to have a tangible item, an actual CD with artists notes, lyrics etc.

Heres an idea, what would happen if the free/open source software movement could have a online software store?

Free software as alternative to popular commercial apps can be got from sites like www.alternativeto.net or www.osalt.com, but instead of downloading an executable file, you have an automated way of doing it using a simple browser plug in.  Why?

There is a quite a bit of usability aspect which is not always factored in on some software.  Some free software, the method of downloading the app can a bit confusing.  Anyone who has downloaded a Linux ISO image knows this, you get taken to an FTP site with a whole load of confusing files, which its not easy to tell which is the download that suits you.

A lot of consumer users don’t free software as they don’t know a lot of exists.  They use Internet Explorer as that was the browser that came with their computer, and they don’t want to change anything as they don’t feel confident to do it.   Joe Consumer may often not know how ZIP or RAR files are handled or what they are for.  As an IT pro I had never heard of Virtualbox, a free virtualisation client as an alternative to VMware and Microsoft’s Virtual PC until a work colleague told me about it.  I have yet to find a really good web site that announces new and exciting developments in free software thats not just geared to coders and developers.   So essentially a typical consumer goes out to a physical shop to buy software as its too confusing working out what software is free and what is a trial version and what comes bundles with spyware and other unwanted rubbish.

I use and recommend Infrarecorder to burn CDs and DVDs on Windows PC rather than the more common commercial Nero burning suite which has got so over complicated and comes with many annoying unwanted extras which have caused crashes and stability problems in previous places I have worked for.   Infrarecorder is great as it does everything you want burning discs easily without any fuss.

You could:

1/ Have a simple way to deploy top quality free software for all type of people, via a portal which makes installing onto your computer in a standard uniform way (Windows/Mac/Linux)

2/ An option to pay some money for software thats normally free but get a support package, ie: printed manuals or training or X number of tickets or hours or professional telephone or email support with a specialist who know a lot about this app.    Or, sell extra tools to deploy apps in a large network environment, like with SMS that rolll out apps silently to each workstation.

A check box would be default only search the free software store for fullly completed release apps, unchecking the box would should beta test versions of software with a usual disclaimer that this software is not production ready yet.

More and more free software is multiple languages as well, a search engine could be customised for all languages or English only.

The software store would only have applications that follow the GNU general public licence for free software,  ie: this means nothing with spyware, bundled toolbars or other tat.   No trial versions commercial applications either.

I think this would give the open source software movement more audience from all kinds of PC users of all platforms, all abilities, consumers and businesses alike.

Dec 11 2010

St Peter’s church in Gallicantu

After visiting the possible location of the last supper, me and my friend Dave took a look around this section of the old city.

This is the famous French Catholic church St Peter of Gallicantu, its at the south west section of the old city, close to the walls.   Like most of Jerusalem, this place has been destroyed and rebuild many  times over, so the building you are seeing now was built in the 1920s and repaired quite a few times since then.

The images set into the walls of the inside of the church are certainly striking and beautiful as well as the outside and pictures set into the windows.  There is Jesus at the last supper and there is Peter and Jesus on the other picture, if you look closely you can see Roman soldiers warming themselves around a fire.  The text is in French.

There is three main floors to the church, you can get to another hall below, and a basement underneath that.

This plaque hints at that visions have been seen in the natural pattern on the stone here, I didn’t go looking around to see if this claims have any truth to them though.

There is large amounts of archeological remains in the yard outside.

Left: under this canopy there is a complete model of the old city you can see.  Right: St Peter’s from a distance with an interesting block of flats overlooking it and the Arab part of the city and the Mount of Olives.

Atop of the church is a symbol of a cock, a sign of when Peter denied Jesus three times, because of the cock that crowed, as told in Matthew 26.

Dec 6 2010

Thank you Lord for rain :o) תודה לאל על הגשם

Heading out to work this morning seems much colder than its ever been before, although winter here feels like late September in the UK.

When passing the Haas Promenade, a car park a view across the city, a common place for Jews and Arabs to have picnics, walk their dogs, as well tourists rolling around on rented Segway vehicles, I noticed something, now in most countries you would think this is the start of a horrible miserable day…

But these big black clouds provided a much need burst of rain.   The last few weeks, Jews and Christians have been praying and fasting for rain here….

Dec 5 2010

Hannukah 2010

December is upon us, and often two holidays run almost parallel with each other. Christmas and Hannukah.

Orthodox Jews light the lamps for Hannukah, at the Shuk (the Mahane Yehuda market)

Apparently some traditions insist doing this left to right, and some right to left.   Kind of like writing varies from left to right (English & European languages) or right to left (Hebrew and Arabic)

Something new appeared to the right of the men’s side of the Kotel (Western Wall) today (friday) when I went after work…

Firstly, it seemed quite quiet.  A stand has been erected with a large bronze Menorah.  This has 9 candles on it.

These two doves appeared before a Rabbi came and did the prayer and lit the candles.  After which there were a lot of people grouped around to sing and dance in which I joined in.

Of course, there are candlabras all over Jerusalem, including on top of the Kotel Plaza roof here.

Left: Last week I saw this Jerusalem municipality truck with workman putting up decorations on the streetlights.  Right: Lastly with the huge amounts of Sufganiyot (doughtnuts) being sold in the too-numerous bakeries I see here, I spotted this clever machine, the doughnuts were being made and this man was doing the finishing touches to them, by impaling them on this spike and pushing on a lever to inject the jam into them.

Nov 30 2010

Jerry rigged IT and network bodging

As all IT systems admin people know, all policies, procedures should be documented, and correct stocks of tools, software, spare parts and test equipment should always be on hand.

Some call it bodging, kludging or jerry rigging, I sometimes call it redneck IT.  Just like every other trade, often you find you have to make temporary fixes or make do with some crude repairs to make some workable to get the job done, until budgets and resources allow for a better method.

Actually me and the rest of the team have done a lot of work to avoid spaghetti cabling, PCs that were falling apart and introduce safer and better methods but every now and then, you can may have to use some eccentric ways of working..


1. Power supply kludge. This USB external hard disk had its power supply lost.  I looked everyone to find it, I needed to get some work done in a hurry, so you can reuse a normal ATX PC power supply as a power supply to run anything that needs 5 or 12 volts.  To do this I used a piece of cable with barrel connector off another adapter which was not compatible.  The wires are pushed into these 4 pin disk drive connector.   Next the block connector that normally connects to a motherboard has the black and green pins shorted together with a small piece of wire to act as an on switch.   At the moment I am not using this external drive for anything important, just for backing up the contents of the below Toshiba laptop that belongs to a friend.

2. Tuna fish projector stand. (No picture) Once a month, in our foodbank we have some teaching, music and worship with all the staff and volunteers.   To make the projector display at the right angle, I normally have to grab several tins of tuna underneath to get the projector to display at the correct angle.

3. Reusing Windows licence key. This is my favourite IT bodge of late.  Sawing bits of plastic out of dead computers to reuse Windows licence keys.  This Toshiba laptop belongs to another volunteer and is running Vista, and is doing some odd things which Vista PCs often do and its horribly slow.   I used a recycled Windows XP licence key from another wrecked Toshiba laptop I fished out of a garbage bin last year, this just means a square piece of plastic has to be sawn out of the bottom of the scrap system.   I then tape this onto a CD case and install a genuine copy of Windows XP Pro from the CD in my collection and restore a back up of my friend’s files, along with Open Office and Firefox and some other useful apps.   Everything is much much faster and smoother now.   The recycled licence key works perfect and so does the online genuine advantage checks.   This build took a long time as Toshiba don’t offer XP drivers for this computer and took hours of Google searching to get all the right ones.

The unusual red symbols on the keyboard is because this as a Canadian keyboard and has some French specific keys.   Yes this violates the Windows licence agreement, but you can’t easily buy a new copy of Windows XP anyway.

Bye bye Compaq laptop, you served me nearly 3 years (after being retired from me previous employer) until the video card fried itself.  I have a kind person who is giving me a replacement laptop which needs some minor fixing when I get back to the UK, and most of the remains of my Compaq went to Russia, Greece, Ukraine and Czech Republic via ebay. 🙂

Of course if you have old broken laptops or PCs (in the UK or Israel) which are not worth fixing or going to get thrown out or are just sitting in a cupboard, I can make use of the parts and raise some support for my charity work in the Middle east.   Please message me if you want to help this way.  I can also rescue files off systems that won’t start in most cases and make sure all data is securely wiped.

I saw this picture on a humour site today, which made me laugh.   Reason being we actually we have a server room which is also a converted from a toilet.   It doesn’t have the pan still there, but there are still the tiles though.

What do you do when a once hugely expensive Macintosh G5 tower system at work breaks and a new motherboard costs a bazillion shekels and has to be imported from somewhere?

Well, after reusing the memory, hard disk and other pieces I was wondering what to do with it.   You can be completely heretical and build a new PC into the chassis of the Mac like here, but this takes a lot of craftsmanship skill to cut and file the insides to fit.   The shiny, precision made aluminum case is too pretty to throw in a bin, but my boss says it most go.   I decided to put in out on the street with a piece of paper, with ‘Free – please take!’ in the end.  When I went home from work it was gone…..