Category clever

Aug 15 2010

Recycled rockets into gifts

Saw these souvenirs for sale a while back, which made me think about my trip to Sderot next to the Gaza Strip, although I have not seen them for sale in any markets in Jerusalem.

Some enterprising blacksmith from Sderot has taken spent rockets that have come over from Gaza and recycled them into works of art, from flowers to menorahs!!

http://www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com/christian-gifts-home-from-rockets-into-roses-p-1186.html

I was reading this bible passage the other day;

Isaiah 2:4 He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation,nor will they train for war anymore.

Not an exact glimpse of prophecy yet, but as some of these souviners have been given as a gift to the Palestinian Authority seems a really nice idea to convert a tool for death into something worthwhile.

Aug 13 2010

Preparing an old PC to go to local family

In between looking after systems at work and sometimes staff’s personal computers when I have a quiet day, in my workshop this week is an old Pentium 3 computer that is about 8/9 years old.   It came from our Japanese office (don’t ask how it got here)  and had Japanese Windows XP for our staff from Japan that volunteer here.   These days its never used as we have one computer for volunteers to upload their pictures, go on Facebook and do any personal web browsing and email, we have people from dozens of different countries and they all speak English, including recent Japanese volunteers.   Obviously its not really practical to maintain it, as I don’t speak Japanese, as all the text appears in Kanji text.

This computer only has 1Ghz processor, its old and redundant.   One of my colleagues who deals with food delivery to needy families asked if we had an old computer no longer needed..

When I sometimes have a quiet day, I often fix other volunteer’s personal laptops, and also have fixed a PC that belonged to a local Arab family.

So grabbing it from a dusty corner, I put it on my work bench and tested it out.  Looking through my boxes of spare bits, I now have 1Gb of memory and replaced the CD drive with a dodgy eject mechanism with a LG CD writer.  It doesn’t do DVDs, but another driver could be bought quite cheaply and easily fitted.

I put on a normal installation of English Windows XP Home edition.  There is no Windows licence sticker on it, and I have a spare licence code from another HP PC that had a bad motherboard, as the stickers are not easily removable, I hacksawed a square out of the case with the sticker, and put the rest of it in the bin.  I have saved licence codes from other computers in case someone wants to escape from the ghastly horrors of Windows Vista, I keep a library of CDs of all different versions of Windows XP, and despite XP’s 9 years on the market its easy to customise it to how you want and extra aesthetic features and functionality of Vista and 7 can be copied to some degree.

After setting up both English and Hebrew keyboard support and set all the region and language options to Hebrew and Israel.   I downloaded the Hebrew versions of Firefox and Open Office.  You can find all language versions of Firefox here.

Note, as Hebrew is a right to left language, icons and menus follow the same way.  Interestingly enough Open Office shows these little dots you put under Hebrew symbols, not so much done with modern Hebrew but often used on religious books.   Open Office is a good free alternative to Microsoft Office, as I don’t have a legal free licence I can give away.   For almost all regular writing and spreadsheet requirements this does a perfect job and costs nothing.   You can download it here. Versions for non-English users are here.   The Hebrew version is on a totally separate page here. There are versions for Mac and Linux computers as well.

Here in Israel I like the fact that more things get repaired here, ie: TVs, jewellery, shoes, etc, often this is not always the case of too much hassle to repair something, its a case that there isn’t enough skilled people to do it.   Jewish people seem to always have a knack for repairing and working with small precision objects such as jewellery, watches and such.  Skills that are passed down in generations I guess.

I think its daft in how people call this “recycling” of PCs.   Recycling is normally breaking something down to its component value for parts of for scrap materials.  If I buy a car that 8 years old, its not a recycled car, it just past through several owners, seeing as not everyone can buy goods for the original asking price and have to make do with something older at a fraction of the value.

Also this month I have virtualised an important system, for regulat non-IT folks this just means one computer pretends to be two or more computers having multiple versions of Windows simultaneously.   If the physical hardware breaks, a single file that contains the extra invisible PC can be quickly copied onto a another physical box, meaning less than hour of down time.  This saves our organisation in less hardware needed (One PC freed up for a spare unit for next member of staff)  and also electricity usage.

I replaced missing screws gave the case a clean too.  I have a spare 17″ CRT monitor and keyboard with English, Hebrew and Russian characters and a decent mouse too.  Some more parts scrounged from some cupboards means I have another similar spec system to put together when I have a quiet day some point soon.  Plus I have cleared the workshop of old parts.  Looking forward to going out and handing this over to a family this week as their first ever computer…. 🙂

Aug 12 2010

Guide to volunteering in doing overseas charity work. Part 1.

For Christians or non-Christians alike thinking of doing volunteer work I thought I would put together some ideas if you are thinking of getting out of the conventional work rat race and do something worth while for a bit, whether it be for weeks, months or even years.  For a single person like me its good to get into doing something new and worthwhile, especially as I am in my 30s and all my friends are married, it keeps you positive and focused.

  • Plan in advance to free yourself from any financial ties before you go.  Ideally pay off loans, sell or store your car, get rid of mobile phone contract/DVD rental/gym membership, etc.  Oh, and give enough time to quit renting your house before you go as well.
  • Aim to put together as much money as you can before you go.
  • Be able to promote yourself in what you are doing, speak at your church, get a web site or blog (You don’t have to have technical skills, you can get a template type job like WordPress or Blogger, so you can just do the writing and the site is all hosted for you) I found you have to do a LOT of selling yourself to show people you are serious about going overseas to do something like this.   I find conventional emails of updates often get little response sometimes, mainly because everyone has a lot of email and things get skipped ‘to be read later’ physical printed material is a good plan as well.  Don’t just aim to promote at just your own church, be prepared to speak anywhere and talk to as many people as you can at what you are planning.
  • Get online banking and familiarise yourself with it before you go.   As you know I am an IT sort of person, I would only trust my own or my workplace computer to do banking, and not one in an internet cafe or public computer.  You will want the ability to check your account regularly whilst you are away, as its generally a bit impractical to have family forward your bank statements that could take an age to get to you.  Some countries are more susceptible to fraud, or a legitimate transaction in another countries may be flagged up as suspicious which your bank might freeze your account if it thinks its unusual.
  • Take great care when writing things online on emails etc, to give a positive impression of your particular charity’s aim.
  • Credit cards, if used responsibly they come in handy for buying stuff without fees which you commonly get when using debt cards or ATM machines in other countries.  Most credit cards have freebies or incentives for you to join up or earn credits towards a flight or something.   Of course if ordered through cashback sites like topcashback, you can even get a nice bit of cash given to you as well which is nice.    Don’t forget credit card applications insist you are in full time in employment, so this should be done before you quit your job.  If you are a UK resident check out this article I wrote which explains how you could earn you some extra dosh.  Travel insurance companies also can be found on these sorts of sites.   Top cashback is also great for fans of ebay, lots of online music/DVD retailers like HMV and Play.com amongst hundreds of businesses are on there.
  • Get Skype, best way to call long distance.  Most laptops have a microphone hidden in the palm rest so you can just talk straight into it often without a headset.
  • Having an extra language is not essential but can be very useful.
  • Have a mobile phone that is unlocked to any network so you can get a SIM card put in it, again you may find a phone new cheaper before you go away, or just have a spare one not being used.
  • If you bring your own laptop, aim to make back ups of photos and important things onto bank CDs or DVDs, they are cheap and easily mailed home.   Or upload onto a free hosting site like Picasa or Microsoft’s Skydrive (all of these are free)   These don’t use up valuable luggage space.  A common type USB hard disk is ok, but hard disks can still break or get lost or stolen, so they shouldn’t be your sole source of important files.
  • Take electrical adapters necessary for your required country.   Laptops don’t need to have their voltage changed, the always work on anything between 110-240 volts.   Everything else won’t though, so it might be best to leave that hairdryer at home and get one in your chose country 🙂   In general:- Europe/Middle East/Australia = 220 or 240 volts.   US/Canada/Asia = 110 volts.
  • If you do some research in where to ride safely, a bicycle is a fun way to get around, an investment with mostly tiny running costs and saves a lot of money in bus and taxi fares.
  • Avoid wearing Tshirts with something political on them.  I have a bright yellow Tel Aviv basketball club shirt although it still occasionally gets me funny looks as there’s is a little bit (very minor) of rivalry between Tel Avivians and Jerusalemites. 🙂
  • Do bring Tshirts and other things that from your own country or favourite music etc, as these are good conversation pieces, especially when you make friends with people all over the world.
  • Work out what parts of town are not safe and figure out how to get home by bus or taxi.
  • When packing your case, you have to aim to be less than 20kg if you don’t want to pay nasty surprise charges to the airline, and its possible the security departments will want to look at absolutely everything in there of course.   A decent solid case with wheels makes life a lot easier to get around of course.
  • Get a new pair of trainers (Sneakers to Americans) before you go, if you like me you wear out your shoes a lot as you may pay more for new shoes than you would in your home country.
  • Hot countries require you drink a lot of water, make sure you always carry some, half a day outside means you need at the very least 2 litres of water.  You should certainly have some even when outside for half an hour.
  • When you are planning to finish volunteering bear in mind that December and January can be pretty quiet when looking for jobs.

Hope this helpful, I would be happy to give personal help to anyone with questions.

I will add a part two to this with with some more things soon, more specific to Israel.


Aug 11 2010

A glimpse of Israel’s brief car industry

Saw this ancient possibly Eastern European looking automobile at the weekend.

Appears have a fibreglass body, not a particularly pretty car, but noticed the chrome badge on the back looked like Hebrew.

There was elderly gent sitting in the car asleep and it was parked in a rather dangerous part of King George Street, a busy main road.

Like a lot of other Mediterranean and Middle East countries, there are quite a few ancient cars around especially old Fiats, unlike a rainy country, rust seems to be less of a problem.

This wiki article on the Sabra / Autocars business of Haifa is worth a read.  Seems these cars were nothing special and were not able to keep up with more established makers.

Nowadays a small number of military vehicles are built in Israel are still made today.

Aug 10 2010

Computers translate ancient extinct Ugaritic semitic language

Read this recently.  Some people had used software to read some biblical extinct language.   Seems pretty exciting even if there is no explanation yet given.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/07/100719-science-technology-computers-lost-languages-translate-bible-hebrew/?source=link_fb07192010c

Aug 9 2010

Jerusalem Segway tours

Something funny I see sometimes on the promenade of the Peace Forest about 1km from my house.

People doing tours of Jerusalem on Segways. These funny looking upright two wheel scooters can be rented on organised tours which let you whizz about in convoy around the outer parts of the city.    I have always wondered how these things work, staff at Disney world have them and so do some police forces around the world, you balance on two wheels only as there are some gyroscopes and nifty electronics that keep you perfectly upright, steering and changing speed by the rider is done but just tilting the handlebars forward or back and left and right.

Riders on these tours have helmets and wear pads on their knees.   Remains to be seen if you get a Segway (I think they are extremely expensive)  if the tyres can be changed over between road use or more rougher terrains.  Looks fun though.

www.segway-jerusalem.co.il

Aug 4 2010

The modern Shepherd

Found these pictures from last year.

This was a nice way of a glimpse of something around in biblical times that hasn’t changed much today.

I got a glimpse of a shepherd and his flock of goats just off a main road towards the Arab part of the city.  A good way of visualising life like by Yeshua (Jesus) himself.  Especially with the backdrop of hills in every direction, rocky desert like ground with olive trees and white stone buildings.

Here after getting some pictures, the Shepherd asked if I had some money as a token in getting pictures of his flock, I pulled out about 3 shekels, but he said in a mixture of basic English and hand gestures he was wanting 10 shekels to get some cigarettes.   This was a young Arab man of about 20.

I think today’s shepherds mostly tend to be Arab Bedouins in open spaces often seen on the side of highways living in tents.

Aug 2 2010

Saturday afternoon cycling and robots

When I was a child, I had this dream where I was in a playground and all the other children had run off out of the school, I wasn’t sure what they worried about, I turn around and there is an evil robot coming towards me.  It was a weird nightmare I had a few times…

Today I decided to take a ride around my neighbourhood of East Talpiyot in other direction away from Jerusalem city centre.  I head to a convenience store and get a bottle of Fanta and ride back along the main road, towards the food bank which I work there typically one day a week. Anyway I am riding my bike across a junction where there are some traffic lights and I see a policeman stopping a coach and talking to the driver, he doesn’t see me and I ride past him, in the corner of my eye there is a policewoman and a police Ford Focus stopped diagonally at the traffic…    Then someone yells at me STOP three times….  At the same time I hit the brakes when I see what is ahead of me… If you can’t see anything, look closer at the taller white railings.  There is a garbage bin with usual piles of old clothes spilling out like I see on most street corners and about 15 metres ahead is a bomb disposal robot with caterpillar tracks and a single arm is analysing the piles of clothes…. I turn around and head to the opposite side of the road, the police don’t seem to be cross that I didn’t notice this road block. I get some pictures.   The robot is partially concealed by the barriers in the road. Apart from my childhood nightmare turning into a reality, this experience didn’t worry me too much, there are all kinds of circumstances where items abandoned in odd places start a security concern and procedures have to done to see if there is a genuine threat.   Its just I often see piles of rubbish falling out in bins like this. I talk briefly to two men sitting on a bench, its seems quite funny.   I take a detour to another street to go south towards out of Talpiyot. Another 5kms or so down the road, and this is a nice view of a very new housing estate, my maps tell me this is called Homat Shmuel. A little bit further and now I am completely out Jerusalem and I can see the border with the West Bank.

Border controls.  I take a U turn and head back on the main road.

This sign seems interesting.  This is pointing the another biblical place, seemingly named after a king who was famous for killing babies.  This adventure is for another day as I have no water left and ought to get back.

Just before going home, I did see these ruins which look Roman looking, from standing in Derech Hevron Street.

Jul 30 2010

Apostle Paul on twitter

Was thinking the other day, about Twitter the hugely popular way of making a commentary of life events, things in the media and often how celebrities get followed and current news events get shown.  I was perhaps a bit mean with my earlier writings thinking it was a bit naff, but lately I was thinking about someone who told me that maybe the Apostle Paul in the bible was the world’s first blogger, so imagine in Paul was on Twitter too, it would be interesting to see as one of the first followers of Jesus who brought Christianity to the gentiles, travelled around various corners of the Mediterranean and got put in prison a few times, how his tweets would of looked like….

SaulOfTarsius I’m outside the Sanhedrin with my fellow Pharisees.  Today we are stoning some guy called Stephen.  #MyBenjaminTribe #MyRomanHomies

SaulOfTarsius Feel the urge that I need to do some writing for some reason.
sent via Papyrus

SaulOfTarsius Sorry not been online for a while, crazy week.  Only just got my eyesight back

SaulOfTarsius Had serious meeting with the boss.  Put me straight about some things.  #Salvation #FoundMoshiach

SaulOfTarsius Thanks everyone in coming to my baptism, it was a nice day

SaulOfTarsius PS YHWH told me to change my name from Saul to Paul.

SaulOfTarsius @Ananias, thanks for relaying what I needed to hear.

SaulOfTarsius Follow my new active account at @ApostlePaul

ApostlePaul Now in Damacsus.  Had some help to get there whilst my sight returned #Damasq #Asyria

ApostlePaul Praying with my new friends @SimonPeter and @James #Apostles

ApostlePaul Writing a book, I am going to call it Acts. Got a feeling, it will be one of many.

ApostlePaul Oyvavoy… Has it been ten years I have been speaking the good news in Damascus now?
via carrier pigeon

ApostlePaul @Barnabus thanks for the invite to Shabbat, look forward to helping your congregation in Tarsius.  #Tarsius #Nicetobehome

ApostlePaul Went and rebuked Elymas the sorcerer whilst staying Cyprus.  Also got a Roman soldier following Christ.  #Paphos #Κύπρος #Cyprus

ApostlePaul Leaving Cyprus to go on a mission trip to Asia Minor tomorrow, looking forward to it. #AsiaMinor

ApostlePaul Was a pleasure to stay with you #Lydia G-d bless.

ApostlePaul Myself and @Barnabus are off to Jerusalem meet new Christians #Judea #ישראל

ApostlePaul Spending 18 months working in Corinth with @Silas and @Timothy #Κόρινθος #Greece plan to see Ephesus some point soon.
via Greek post office AD52

ApostlePaul In Jerusalem in prison.  At least I escaped from being killed in the temple.   #depressed #WhatAboutRightsOfRomanCitizens #CaesareaJail

ApostlePaul said to the soldier today ‘is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who hasn’t even been found guilty?’ I’ll put that in Acts 22.

ApostlePaul Out of Jail.  Roman bureaucracy takes a long time, its only taken 18 months.. But Governor Felix has let me out today.

ApostlePaul Off to Malta.  The Lord told me this ship really isn’t safe and I dont like the look of those clouds, or how choppy the sea is. 😦

ApostlePaul Ship got wrecked.  Oh well, Maltese people offer unusual kindness though. #Malta

Please note, biblical extracts are very approximate and locations are probably not in chronological order.

Jul 25 2010

July 2010 and IT work in Jerusalem

At work I have been setting up a back up system for all three of our offices as the current system wasn’t working well or flexible for our needs, so I have deployed Cobian (which I really like as its free, open source and easy to configure with support for compression and encryption and reporting) and its crucially important as an IT administrator to be well rehearsed for a worse case scenario.   I am also thinking my job has some different slants, in terms of do IT people prepare for possible war.   One example is if our staff have to go into a bomb shelter (most houses, businesses and public places have one)   how we get announcements of what is happening.   I don’t think mobile phones work in heavy concrete shelters, and neither do laptops or smart phones using wireless internet either.   I have been told the government uses radio announcements for this kind of scenario, but then again I am not sure if they have these repeated in Hebrew, Arabic, English and Russian languages, all widely used here.   I thought one theory would be to put a wireless router (in a locked enclosure, so no unauthorised person can plug in a network cable or tamper with it)  in the shelter in one office, but then again that particular office has a shelter shared between 3 other businesses, so it doesn’t belong to us nor is it possible to drill holes or wire cables through a wall.

This week, there are announcements that significant numbers of Israelis have had details hacked by Turkish hackers see this news story.   Seems to be more common people deface web sites or illegally get personal information as a political statement.   I think I need to think about making sure all our servers and critical systems are fully patched.  Last year I saw a public presentation by the IDF who had an IBM Thinkpad laptop still with XP SP1 (I can tell as Service Pack 2 and later no longer shows the words ‘home’ or ‘professional’ upon booting up.) Microsoft stopped supporting XP without service pack 3 sometime ago now and the update isn’t that difficult, and apart from needing new wireless drivers for sometime laptops there is little possibility for this update to cause a problem, testing would need to be done with specialised apps but I have not seen any real issues.   I merged Service Pack 3 with our CD of our volume licence version of XP (do a google search for ‘slipstreaming’ if you want to learn to do this) so this is done transparently when I do rebuilds of PCs at work, saving me a lot of time.   I don’t think complacent in IT security is any worse here in Israel, as many of my previous employers were years behind on installing service packs, using an outdated web browser or had cut corners on inadequate antivirus apps that were not upto scratch.

If you have done IT administration or know articles for places where people may face danger, do feel free to comment.   I am not interested in anything political, just ideals for sensible practical plans for technology to keep people safe and work in times of uncertainty.

I have tidied up my blog and should get my original domain name back soon, I have removed some people from the links on the side, hope no one is offended, but I got rid of some dead links and blogs that had not been updated in a while.