Category me

Aug 25 2010

In Sepia: Holyland pictures collection part 1

Part 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7

I sometimes pretend to be creative.   Here are some pictures I have done of various parts of the holyland, I have dressed up a bit with sepia and some extra effects.  These are you to enjoy, download them, use them as backdrop for your computer or for any private purposes.

I have listed four today.   A few more will be regularly posted every now and then, so keep this site in your browser favourites.

If you wish to have copies without the branding for private or commercial use, you may do so, please contact me, I would like to ask for a donation as I am volunteering for a charity.  Note, don’t just nab them and use them commercially or cut the edges off, if you do, I reserve the right to expose and make fun of you.   So there. 🙂

Seriously though, a financial gift of some kind would go a long way to help me here as I do volunteer IT work here in Jerusalem.   I am looking at the possibly of after coming home for Christmas, of coming back from January to April-ish.   For this I need to raise at least £500 for flights and health insurance.   Any ideas for fund raising would be greatly appreciated.

Part 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7

Aug 23 2010

praying with a genuine heart or as a Pharisee

Read something interesting this week that asks Christians who are critical of Obama’s administration.  It may be about the Middle East conflict, the NY mosque or overhaul of the US healthcare system.

Obama has been rumoured to have Muslim background, as there is some uncertainty over his background and if he is even a US citizen or not.  To be honest I have seen all kinds of people in the media, even some of the British Royal family taking interest in Islam.

As a Christian I think this is more to do with a spiritual darkness that is blinding people from the true Messiah Jesus.

This week I read this very challenging article really drives it home if as Christians we are praying for our leaders who just wanting to be Pharisees wanting something to moan about.   The point about seeing  a wicked politician like Yasser Arafat changed really quite moved me.

http://www.ministrytodaymag.com/index.php/evangelical-essentials/18387-mind-your-prayer-language

In times of the bible, things happened to leaders of nations that changed their hearts, look at at Persian leader Cyrus the Great who took pity on the Jews, see Ezra 1 in the Bible.

I think our modern day leaders can easily change from good to bad or vice versa, for that reason prayer is needed for them whatever circumstances there could be.

Aug 23 2010

Computer and audio video cable rip offs

Expensive computer cables are a big extra upsell point for retailers, I have known this for a while since I was in retail in 2003.

Makers of audio, video and computer accessories have taken advantage of the naivety of audiophiles and movie buffs who are sitting ducks for cables that cost ten or twenty times what they should do.   Brands like ‘Monster’ who make video cables and funny phrases like ‘oxygen free’

Today I read the worse possible example of this when a so called audio expert mentioned on his blog that replacing the SATA hard disk cables in your PC would give you better quality audio.

http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/10/08/19/1916236/Calling-Shenanigans-On-Super-SATAs-Claimed-Audio-Qualities

The blog post was removed in a hurry, but you can see a mirror of the original post here.

Here all the 1s and 0s transfer around at the same fashion in any cable, any interference in this and your computer simply won’t work further than ‘non-system disk, press any key to boot’

I worked for a well known mail order computer store who sold USB cables for #7.99 (PC World charge #14.99)  the cost price for these from the wholesalers is 39p.  Cables with gold and funny coloured insulation don’t cost that much more to manufacture.  Sorry my keyboard doesn’t have a pound sign.  Grr.

As someone who has made cables for myself, my employers and to make a bit of beer money for friends, its high time the consumers realise they are being deceived by the retailers, with clever spiel with no truthful facts.

Some outrageously priced cables on Amazon here:

http://www.amazon.com/Denon-AKDL1-Dedicated-Link-Cable/dp/B000I1X6PM

$2499 or $999 refurbished.  Hmm, I wouldn’t want a used one, someone’s dog hairs could of got on those delicate pin connections could cause the brass ensemble at the Vienna Concert to lose its delicate clarity.   On the other hand on this item on Amazon are pretty darned funny actually.  Maybe audio enthusiasts should have their house rewired by electricians in sterile foil suits.

Aug 20 2010

Jerusalem Beer festival

Wasn’t planning to go to this initially, but saw it on my way home from church worship event on thursday night, so I thought why not. 🙂

I was going to go to the beer event last year but after queueing for an hour, the gates were locked and they wouldn’t let us in.   Something to do with a legal issue about serving alcohol which the government people were discussing with the event organisers.   We ended going a usual local instead.

This time the event was in the old Jerusalem railway station, behind the Lab bar.

Not a bad event, but I didn’t get to see any live bands as I was there about 10.30pm and I guess they had stopped playing.   There were very long waits at the bars, and even waiting at the largest one for 10 minutes, I almost got bored of waiting.  Something to do with lack of normal queueing, instead requires a bit of assertiveness and force to get the barman’s attention.

All the beers offered and promoted at this event were all European brands.   Its a shame there wasn’t Goldstar or Macabee there but I guess this was an event for local Israelis rather foreigners who wanted to try something else other than the familiar Israeli beer.  There were quite a few tshirt shops and craft stands.

Good to see none of this ‘my <low_volume_ale_with_daft_name> is better than your <mass_produced_beer_with_big_marketing_campaign>’ snobbery nonsense, there was all kinds of booze offered including some special Israeli vodka I had not seen before.

This maybe down to some good security and police outside, but compared to how an event like this would probably turn out in the UK, I think I only spotted one person you can say had ‘over done it’  a little.

I like the fact that Israelis are neither prude not excessive, and this was a good party event I think, that shows the fun side of this place and the outgoing nature of most Israelis.

Aug 19 2010

Donated laptop for Hebrew/Russian user

More fun at work setting up computers as gifts to local people.

Today in between usual jobs I have to do at work as the IT systems admin of a charity here in Jerusalem, I was setting up this Compaq Presario 2100 laptop I blogged on previously on replacing the DVD drive. This same computer came into my workshop as the staff member replaced it with a newer Toshiba, and this machine is to be a gift for our cleaning lady who is originally from Russia.

This lady hasn’t got her own PC, and told us she had been praying she could get a computer given to her somehow.  So we are looking forward to surprising her later this week. 🙂

To start with I needed to take a Ghost image of this system in case any files got lost.   It turned itself off part way.  Bah.   Turned out it had overheated.   I stripped it down and found that the fan inside was clogged up with dust, there was a wall of fluff so the fan was turning but no air could escape out of the system. After pulling out the heatsink and fan assembly and blasting some canned air into it, some big balls of fluff came out of it, and once clean I put it back together.  I managed to do a full back up off everything on the hard disk.   This computer is pretty old now being a 2004 model, but it has a 2800 AMD Athlon processor, so performance is quite good actually.

Next was to install Windows.   I found a copy of Windows XP home Hebrew edition in a drawer, I made a duplicate of the CD and merged in Service Pack 3 for XP into it and burned a new copy of the CD.  I used the normal XP home licence code on the sticker on the bottom of the Compaq.

This is interesting as our cleaning lady doesn’t speak much English, she speaks Russian and Hebrew only.   For me installing XP hebrew version is a little interesting.   After formatting the hard disk etc, everything seems to be like normal Windows XP in English, once the computer does its first reboot, it will show the “35 minutes left to install” in Hebrew.  The rest of the install I can do from memory as I have installed XP enough times to know roughly which menu features do what.

Once installed, up comes the familiar desktop with the grassy hill background, but with the Start button on the right.   Everything is back to front as Hebrew is a right to left language.   I am doing everything else from memory here,  I put on all the Windows updates which took about an hour.   All the drivers go on after this.

Laptop pimpin’

This particular type work I do is quite fun as I get to use creativity in setting up the equipment for user so they can work with no hassle.

If you remember the TV show ‘pimp my ride’ where car modification specialists adapt and improve and tired and shabby vehicle of a viewer of the show, they write in complaining their car is old and jaded and would like to be considered to be the subject of the show.  Usually around $30,000 is spent on a car worth virtually nothing to start with. Part of the charm of the show is the outlandish over the top extras done such as 8 TV screens set into the interior.  Of course this particular business that has the team of vehicle technicians do actually have customers in posh parts of California with vast amounts of disposable income purely for aesthetic make overs for their cars.

Here in my workshop I enjoy pimping out  old computers, generally tune and tweak things for performance and usability.   I also try and reuse second hand parts where possible, usually I prefer to buy new parts such as cooling fans and batteries as used versions of these components are never any good, so everything can be done as cost effective as possible.  I always use a lot of open source software which is free and doesn’t have unreasonable and complex licence agreements.

This particular system I have worked on is based around this lady’s background, and as Russian is her mother tongue, I put on the Hebrew version of Firefox, and also installed a Russian version of ‘portable’ Firefox.   This particular version of this popular browser (70+ languages are supported) is meant to be installed on a USB stick.   This means two versions can be put on together.  There is also two versions of OpenOffice, using a standard version and portable version.

Hebrew Firefox with Lion of tribe of Judah theme!!!

Russian Firefox with Tetris type church theme 🙂

Sadly it doesn’t seem both apps can be run at the same time, but don’t think this is too much of an issue.

As well as a simple Compaq wallpaper from the internet, I set the Firefox background themes to fit in nicely for each version of the browser 🙂

Software installed:- Windows XP home with Service Pack 3, Internet Explorer 8 (as not a great browser its just on for security updates) Media Player 11, VLC player 1.12, Mozilla Firefox 3.6.8 Hebrew version, Mozilla Firefox 3.6.8 Portable Russian version, Open Office 3.2 Hebrew version, Open Office 3.2 Portable Russian version, Adobe Acrobat 9.3, Google Earth, Free AVG 9.0, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and lastly Infrarecorder CD/DVD burning app which has support for Hebrew language.

Of course all the security is tightened up with Internet Explorer icons removed, all Windows updates on, AVG 9 does the job nicely and Malwarebytes is good for scanning for more complex threats – albeit has the to be run manually once in a while.

All software installed is legally licenced and has cost the grand total of zero. 🙂

Only slight negative points of this computer is the silver paint on the palm rest is a little scratched, the battery doesn’t work for more than 5 minutes and there is no onboard wireless card.   I think I will go with a cheap USB wireless stick if she needs this access.

Now just need to give this computer a clean and could benefit from some Hebrew/Russian keyboard stickers for its new owner.

Aug 18 2010

Kidnapped Gilad Shalit – 4 years on

Last Sunday I had a relaxing morning, went out to the old city, I wanted to visit the recently built big synagogue built on the site of a famous one destroyed in wars from long ago, but it was shut so this is for another day.  King of Kings Church was really good, great teaching as usual from Wayne Hilsden and some great worship music too.

After church, I went with my Arab believer friend as he said there was some special event happening at the Gilad Shalit tent.   There is a tent usually manned by two people with various pictures and news stories about the young soldier currently being held captive somewhere in the Gaza strip.   These days this street corner has got bigger as news last year confirmed that Gilad is still alive, verified by a videotape of him with a recent newspaper last year.

This sunday evening was extra special, there was a TV interview being held with Gilad’s parents and brother and a famous basketball player (I didn’t get his name) who came to show his support.   The tent is positioned close to some government buildings.

Anyway I am not sure exactly what is said as there was no English posters or spoken announcements.  But it is quite sobering to see something to see events shown on worldwide television and being actually there.

There are several very very long posters signed in a mixture of Hebrew and English there.

There were people opposed to event.  I am not sure what was said but someone stopped outside in a small Hyundai hatchback and yelled something probably abusive.   Across the road was another protest which someone told me was to stop the government making a deal to let out I think something like 1,000 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails in exchange for this one solider.

Its crazy the rest of the world doesn’t have the courage to speak out why there is something seriously wrong with why one soldier should be a traded for a couple of hundred known terrorists responsible for the deaths of Israeli civilians in past tragedies

In the past, criminals have been traded for the bodies of dead Israelis who fell in foreign ground.   This is not a new thing, when you consider when King Saul, Jonathan and his two brothers Ishvi and Malki-Shua (funny these names aren’t as popular as Jonathan today 🙂 ) were killed by the Philistines, and much later their remains were found and brought home, check out 2 Samuel 21

If you are reading this, doesn’t matter if you are Jewish, Christian or whatever, please consider praying that this young soldier gets released without any negotiations to release terrorists. By not negotiating with these kind of deals this halts the incentive for future possible kidnappings.

In the past some people like Terry Waite, a British Christian author and humanitarian was free after over four years in jail in Lebanon, and a similar thing also happened John Macarthy so I think there is hope.

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 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 7 2010

Dead Sea Odyssey 422 metres below sea level – 4: Ein Gedi springs

( 1 ) – ( 2 ) – ( 3 ) – ( 4 ) – more soon….

Ein Gedi is an interesting phenomenon, its a little oasis just on the other side of main road from the Dead Sea.

Its odd that a body of water completely sterile of life has a stunningly attractive beauty spot a few hundred metres away.  Here at Ein Gedi you walk along twisty paths around large boulders and streams, see unusual animals not seen in Europe, and follow your way around streams that twist around rocks and paths up to a big waterfall.  Ein Gedi served as a water source during biblical times.  Joshua 15 : 62 and 1 Samuel 24 : 1-2 feature this place.  The Bible  records that 3,000 years ago hid from King Saul at Ein Gedi. When David surprised the King and spared his life after finding him unarmed, Saul said David would succeed him on the throne.

Not far from Ein Gedi, is Qumran one of the most significant archaeological sites here in Israel as the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.

There are more unusual animals, in this case its these little critters, Rock Badgers,  officially called Hyrax, large rodents that seems to dwell around mountainous places with sources of water.

When I came here before in 2006, some people on the tour chose to get baptised here.  Often the river Jordan is the main choice for that amongst Christian pilgrims here, but Ein Gedi is just as good. 🙂

( 1 ) – ( 2 ) – ( 3 ) – ( 4 ) – more soon….

Aug 7 2010

Power cut in Talpiyot

On wednesday when working at our food bank warehouse in Talpiyot we had a power cut.

Quite sudden, I was working on setting up a server on my work bench which suddenly went off.  It wasn’t running anything important.  A repeated beeping came on from the various UPS (battery back up) units around the building.   One of them I rebuilt myself as the batteries were old and no longer functioning, each of the cells has a life span of 3 years or so.   I am glad I did now.

With multiple circuits around the building, with the sockets labeled for computer use, it seems everything went to plan, apart from the lights going off in my workshop (one of the only rooms with no natural light)  and the video intercom system on the front door.  I had to manually power down the servers and tell everyone to quickly save their work and shut down their PCs.  Meanwhile our giant walk in freezer had its own battery system, so no food that was to be supplied to the poor got spoiled.

After the utility company was called, we were told there could be a wait of 2 hours.  I think the power outage ran for about 45 minutes, this meant the electric water heater built into a water bottle dispenser was still hot enough to get two cups of tea each.   Once the power came back on, I manually powered on four PCs in my workshop and the two servers and all seems to be fine.    Oddly enough, some switches and routers were still blinking away protected with a shoebox sized UPS but we had no internet connection, although I could ping our router.  It seems during the hotter months, more people have their air conditioning on and the electricity supplier may not be able to cope.   It seems all companies I have seen in Israel all have UPSes on PCs and critical equipment, often see them underneath a cash register in a shop.   If this sounds like a big concern, now that I have been here a year, this is the first time I have seen a power cut at one of our offices.

I want to look at means of monitoring our bigger UPS units remotely, we have some APC and some lesser brand units, so I can see sources of problems from my main desk.