Category personal

Nov 25 2011

Cloud seems to complete shroud over the whole of the city of Jerusalem

We have had a lot of rain lately which has been great, in fact more rain in one week then I have ever seen before.

This is a bizarre sight I see sometimes, there is a cluster of clouds above right over Jerusalem, and its as if the clouds stop right on the outskirts of the city.

Today, this is what I saw out of my kitchen window.

On the way to work I was riding past the King David Citadel hotel and looking east towards the old city, and the mount of Olives, I saw again, the edge of cloud seems roughly parallel with the edge of Jerusalem.

At the risk of sounding overly romantic or like a New Age-esque thing, seeing clouds above the city is something I have seen quite often here: https://britinjerusalem.com/2011/05/23/glow-of-light-in-valley-in-jerusalem-during-day-of-rage/

Before it came a catch phrase in IT I quite like looking at clouds on a flight, especially when you hovering just above what seems to be a field of clouds.

Anyway it gave me a nice start to the day when I was waiting for my tea to boil. 🙂


Nov 25 2011

Laptop repair – replace keyboard on a 2006 model completely dead Macbook

You can skip this if you just want to read my writings in the holyland and are not a geek or want help fixing a portable computer.   I make these guides based on things I have learned from repair work I have done.  If its useful or you would like to ask me any questions feel free to do so at the bottom:

This was quite fun, first time I fixed an Apple laptop!

One of the worship team at my church had this Apple laptop which had accident involving a liquid spill, not too much, but enough to mean part of the keyboard was paralysed, and then the whole thing would no longer switch on.

Given the high cost of new Apple computers and servicing them requires a Genius bar (a specialist Apple centre with a silly name), so I thought I might be able to help.

Turns out there are quite a few damaged keyboards on ebay for Macbooks similar to this one, this one was made 2006.   Also the power switch is part of the keyboard assembly, so in the event the keyboard circuitry is defective the whole computer will not switch on.

So at the risk it might not completely fix the computer I asked if she wanted me to get a replacement keyboard, the price for the brand new part of US$60 from ebay from a seller in Singapore seemed good, just a 2 1/2 week wait for the parts to arrive.

The keyboard assembly comes as a whole plastic palm rest, keyboard and touch pad, including the power switch.   Strangely there only one cable that connects the whole thing to the Mac’s innards, your average Dell Inspiron has about 4 wires holding the keyboard, touchpad and power lights etc.   Also unusually, the Mac doesn’t have any lights for battery meter, power in, etc.

I took some time to look on Youtube and see how this 2006 Macbook comes apart, its quite different but pretty simple.

I used this 1 Shekel coin as pictured to twist the knob to allow the battery to be free.   Inside the gap where the battery was, is where we need to work next, you have to remove 3 screws holding an L shaped bracket, once this is off there are levers inside to remove the memory, there are more screws to come out, but taking all of them out is not necessary.

As its seems there was no moisture got into the body of the computer, it seemed hopeful, although there were some small broken bits of plastic where someone had been a bit rough with opening the case and broke innard pieces of the old keyboard palm rest whilst installing a bigger hard disk.

Really, by looking at the underside of the new keyboard assembly, there are metal chassis parts with holes in which are actually quite obvious which screws have to removed, including three more underneath and two by the DVD slot, and four on the back (note they are all different sizes) then with a spludger (plastic prising tool) you can lever the bad keyboard out and gently remove the cable.    The new one is just put in place with the keyboard attached, and then refit all the screws and fixings, and put the battery back in!

Pressed the power button and the screen lit up with the familiar ‘glong’ sound, its alive!  I have left the protective film on the palm rest.  The owner seemed pretty pleased to have it back working. 🙂

I would be happy to advise on laptop repair in exchange for tip or donations as I am a volunteer not paid doing IT systems admin and support for a Christian charity in Israel.   Feel to comment or ask if you would like some help. 🙂

Nov 24 2011

British rock stars tour in Israel, this time its Peter Hook of New Order

Hat tip to IGoogledIsrael blog: Darn it!! Peter Hook of Joy Division/New Order/Monaco fame did a gig in Tel Aviv, I am annoyed I didn’t know about this earlier!

http://igoogledisrael.com/2011/11/peter-hook-live-in-tel-aviv/

I saw Hooky play in ‘Monaco‘ at the Wedgewood Rooms in my home city of Portsmouth in 1996 🙂

Its good thats hes back playing again, the last I heard after playing in different turns in both New Order and Monaco was that hes started a new venture called Freebass, a band with three bass players, I guess this didn’t work out and now he has a different band again.   Respect to him to dodge any political pressures from Israel-haters which are all over the internet.   I think need to scour Amazon for cheap used CDs to fill the gaps in my collection now.

Respect to Ashley (British chap) who runs IGoogledIsrael for his great mostly political-free site to music, entertainment and fun stuff that Israel has to offer.

Would of liked to go this gig.   Oh well.   I am going to see Hebrew/French speaking violinist reggae artist Michael Greilsammer play at the Yellow Sub in Jerusalem on Saturday with my good friend and fellow blogger Teddy Chadwick, I can’t wait 🙂

Nov 7 2011

Motorcycle club rides solidarity with Israel

I went over to the Kotel (Western Wall) after meeting up with some friends to practice Hebrew in a coffee shop and before heading to church on Sunday afternoon.

When going down some steps about to enter through a security gate through the south-west corner of the Kotel Plaza, I got a glimpse of this:-

Thats a lot of luxury model motorcycles mostly Harley Davidsons and Honda Goldwings, gleaming with chrome, leather and special paint jobs.

These men were doing a private prayer by the fence in front of the wall.   I couldn’t resist chatting to them, turns out a few of them were Israeli bikers but most were on holiday from the US, some were Jews and most were Christians, but all of them had come to show support for Israel and the Jewish people and were here on a road trip and had their precious bikes shipped over here.

A lot of them had these special printed leather jackets for the event, and patches, tattoos as well as beards in size rivalling the Orthodox Jews there.

This was a welcome change to see folk in their closeknit motorcycle club showing support for Israel as opposed to daft protesters in silly million dollar yachts off the coast of Gaza, who had gone from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and were riding to the Dead Sea the next day which sounds great fun considering the breathtaking views of the desert when you head down there.

This was a great surprise to see at the Kotel, and it also made today’s Jerusalem Post too.  I know the Israeli government have been trying to branch out to niche tourism, ie: health conscious people going the the Dead Sea, so maybe they could market the holy land to more bikers too.    A ride all the way down the Negev desert with a beer waiting on a beach side bar on the Red Sea resort of Eilat sounds good to me!   For the time being I have to make do with my push bike which I ride over about four different sets of hills 6km every day to work!

 

 

Nov 1 2011

Switching off and tune into God

My friend Jon Butler blogged a few months ago about escaping from technology to spend time with God here: http://jonbutler.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/time-to-hear-god-speak-as-ifast/  I think this is a great idea.

Often, for me; tasks at work may overflow into an evening or weekend as I am trying to research a particular software for projects I am doing at the moment, or using social media, or looking at comedy, news and other things the internet has to offer.

This often means some stuff get put aside by all the things the digital age has to offer.

I have been thinking, something I think helps with this, is a some sort of zone or isolated spot away from everyday routine.

Back in Portsmouth there’s a cemetery near my parents thats quiet for walking through, but also Old Portsmouth and its seafront makes a good place to pray and walk around.

This a really idyllic place to spend quiet time, this is Ashurst in the New Forest, its a small town on a main road, not much more than a few shops, couple of takeaways, a pub close and a hospital I used to work at, down this little lane on the left…

This is Ashurst’s camp site, a place I spent time camping as a teenager, during the winter its shut, and its used as a drive in Christmas tree store about this (beginning of November) time of the year, and certainly also it seems when Google took these pictures as these forest ranger chaps are busy (click to get a better view)  you just drive in the entrance, pick a tree and stuff it in your car. 🙂

The truly best part of this, is the woods you can walk around and places to pray in solitude during my lunch break back in the job I was doing in 2008.

Lately despite being last couple of years in Jerusalem, I find myself just indoors on Saturdays just wanting to relax, although its Shabbat (Saturday is day of rest for Jewish culture) and until a month ago, it gets fiercely hot during midday in a climate like this, I really need to get out and find places of quiet to contemplate and seek God I think…

This my balcony on my flat.  I really like it, I think from now on this is the perfect place to sit with some coffee and pray before leaving the house in the morning.  Actually my old room mate was a smoker so this part of his routine was being out here.

Would be interested from anyone on suggestions on how you cope with quiet places to spend time with the Lord…

Oct 19 2011

Double celebrations! Sukkot in Jerusalem and Gilad Schalit’s release

During Sukkot, there is a march through the city each year, usually people from different government organisations like the army, the Magon David ambulance, El-Al airlines etc as well as groups of Christians from all over the world with flags from their respective countries.

The event was just over as I took this stretched picture, but people were sitting on hotel balconies and out in the street with armed guards and buses parked sideways in the roads as make shift barricades.

I heard on the news about the real possibility of abducted soldier Gilad Schalit and thought I would believe it when I see it, knowing that terrorist organisations should be not be trusted with any kind of deal.   It amazes me to think that a swap of 1,000 Palestinian terrorists for one soldier has not been condemned as wrong or immoral by the UN, Red Cross, any moderate Islamic organisations or indeed any nation at all.   A large number of these Palestinians were jailed for suicide bombings and other appalling tragedies.   Nevertheless this shows the people of Israel’s value of human life, I think Yeshua’s story about the lost sheep is quite relevant here: Luke 15 : 3-7

I had to run some errands for some people at work which involved taking a 8 mile or so ride in a car to drop off some food for a staff meeting.  On the way was a helicopter close to a main road that had either just landed or about take off next to a police station. Quite possibly part of the process of releasing the prisoners.

I have been praying for Gilad and written some updates here as I used to pass tents campaigning for his release every day.

https://britinjerusalem.com/2009/10/02/succot-and-gilat-shalit-video/

https://britinjerusalem.com/2010/08/18/kidnapped-gilad-shalit-4-years-on 

Later on I went to a convenience store to get something for lunch to see a 5 second video of Gilad drinking a bottle of water next to a helicopter and smiling, so this was proof Gilad was coming home and so desperately what the people of this nation wanted to see, although there was understandable anguish from families who had lost loved ones to terrorism.

If you see the tall overhead traffic light in the above picture, if you turn right, this heads down Berlin Street, just a few yards down there is the Gilad Schalit tent which I have visited before.   This place is a kind of protest structure and shrine to this young man locked up for 5 years.

Outside this spot, there isn’t as many people as I thought, but the atmosphere is still buzzing!!

Here, I got to watch the TV on a projector as they showed Gilad in a car been taken to his parents house in the upper Galilee, there is a emotional sense of satisfaction as it shows the front door of his family’s home shut giving him some much needed privacy and he looked clearly pale and disoriented when on the TV.

This was a really good to be in this city when this history making event happened.

I think we need thanks for our loving Father in heaven that has been a happy ending to this ordeal, and I hope everyone in Israel and overseas who has been watching this does too.

Part of the quirky nature of Jerusalem means I often see friends, Christian, Jewish and Arab, natives, immigrants and foreigners accidentally in different parts of the city, I hope to one day see Gilad here and shake his hand when hes in a fit state to get around. 🙂   I expect hes going to want to know what a Facebook is and amazed at the amount of publicity there has been to get him free.

A few days ago, a friend from my church pointed out some interesting scripture about Sukkot and foreign Christians gentiles visiting…  more soon!

Oct 14 2011

September back in UK and back in time for Rosh Hashana

I mentioned that I took some time back in the UK to see family, this was good to have a break, as I had been particular busy at work, and have new servers and network equipment to install quite soon, some of this will mean some weekend work maybe.   I hadn’t been back home since January so this was a good chance to relax for a bit.

Back in the UK, I decided to take a trip to London on a National Express coach to attend a prayer and demonstration outside of the House of Commons buildings in London, to stop Israel from being divided, and the very real threat of violence and war as a result of this.

There was about 300 people outside here, some of the banners were also in Hebrew as there were a few Messianic Jews and Hebrew speaking Christians there.   This was organised by Christian Middle East Watch, a ministry I haven’t heard of before, but was impressed at what the had to say.   The only thing that worries me, is that most British Christians that support Israel tend to be over retirement age, I wish there was more of all ages of people involved, for people praying, promoting and visiting Israel into the future.

Back in Portsmouth, I got a chance to have a decent roast dinner and beer for £6.50 (wow bargain!) with friends from church for lunch at a new Wetherspoons pub.   I also got to go blackberry picking with my family including my 1 year old niece by some bushes next to a golf course.   It was a bit of a shame I only got to see a fraction of the friends I wanted to see in the two weeks though.

I took a train to Wales to visit the UK office of the charity I work for, to roll out some necessary new equipment and antivirus software.  I didn’t manage to get everything done, but I have remote software to do some updates, the 2 hour time zone difference gives me an advantage that I can make some changes without disturbing the users from working.  Working at this site isn’t part of my official responsibility but I really wanted to do some preventative maintenance to ensure they are less likely to hit problems in the future.

Got to watch a brief bit of TV in Wales at our UK director’s house of the UN conference with Benjamin Netanyahu speaking, which he did brilliantly, with difficult decisions ahead with more determined plans for a Palestinian state being presented.

Slightly humourous moment on the plane back to Israel, I was flying on a Saturday so there weren’t any religious Israelis on the plane, but when using the toilet on the plane, someone had eaten some bacon flavoured crisps and left the empty packet behind on the floor!

Now back in Israel again, just at the right time before Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year), so I got only work half a week, and spend 2 1/2 days relaxing, actually had to 3 hours of important work from home due a server that broke just before leaving.  Its funny when celebrating the New Year (5772)  people aren’t actually waiting for a special change of a clock or anything like that, just good food and company of friends.

I am also fixing two other volunteer’s laptops, setting up a wireless router in a neighbour’s home which the current one won’t work with the HOT supplied cable modem for some reason, enjoying church, friend’s birthday evening out at a waffle restaurant today.

Oct 9 2011

Tunnel bike ride on Yom Kippur

The 8th of October is Yom Kippur or day of atonement, one of the most significant events in the Jewish calender, its a holiday where everything shuts down completely, people fast, stay at home and huge numbers of people visit the Kotel (Western Wall)

Me and some friends decided to do some spontaneous craziness, there is a big tunnel that passes under the front of the Jaffa gate, its part of a big dual carriage highway that acts as a important traffic artery that winds its way hidden under the famous gate so not to spoil the historical look of the old city.   This road is very busy, and there is only one day where its empty…

I am riding up with my friend Yossi who lives quite near me, bizarrely all the traffic lights around Jerusalem are permanently flashing amber.

Heading towards the tunnel, oh wait, drat – its shut!!  Bah.

Waiting for the other guys to show up, one of them was still in bed!   Slackers. 🙂

 

Ok, we are all set….

The tunnel is shut – as in there is a barrier over one side of the ride to stop cars going in, easy to dodge this on a bike though 🙂

One of my other friends got some videos of this, maybe try and put this on Youtube later…

Ok, this is one way back, the road is a steep, not that obvious, but you give up riding 1/3 of the way back!

Stopping for ice cream at German Monastery in Old City.

Some general randomness and goofing off all around the city, including going up some steps reveals some bike-friendly and a skateboarder’s paradise of slopes and interesting corners to ride around….

 

Certain bits of the old city gives you hidden rooftop views of the markets below..

After this epic ride around a few of us went to the Kotel (Western Wall) and got some pizza.   Good day I think with my Christian, Jewish and Arab buddies. 🙂

Sep 27 2011

Visit back to the UK – Hindhead tunnel opens

Well, after the end of the summer it was time to have a break and fly back home to the UK It It was time for a well needed break to fly home and see family and church.

Seems quite a bit has changed whilst I have been away, quite a few shops have come and gone, and bits of Portsmouth looked little different in two years I have been mostly away.

On the way home from Luton airport, I saw this:

This was quite exciting, the new tunnel in Hindhead was now open!

Later on, I passed this place a week later, as I was getting a bus up to London.   The usual trip of going from Portsmouth to London Victoria the quickest route is normally 2 hours and 15 minutes, now its 1 hour and 45!

I remember this tunnel was rumoured in the early 1990s, now after something like at least 4 years of construction and £370m later its now working!  Heck in 2003, I did a sales job selling products to people in construction, and this was a juicy deal we wanted to get.

However, the old method of driving through Hindhead has a lot of memories.

One of my close friends lives in Hindhead which is only a few minutes drive east of this junction.

The new tunnel is certainly quicker and convenient, having said that, I quite like driving to the Devil’s Punchbowl in Hindhead.  Its a place I have been walking with my grandparents, there’s some interesting antiques shops by the traffic lights and businesses selling ride on lawnmowers and jacuzzis, and you can stop there to get petrol, so it makes a good halfway point when going to London.  Sadly the Little Chef got flattened and replaced with flats around the late 90s,  the Punchbowl has a place for some epic walks which I have done a few times.

This petrol station is the one and only place where I picked up a hitchhiker who told me he was driving a bus to Glastonbury (or another similar music event) as he worked there with the music industry, and the bus broke down getting him stranded so drove him to Havant.  I kicked myself later for not asking if I could cheekily get some free tickets for an event of some kind.

Driving past this point go round the steep bends is a little scary but fun, there has been quite a few accidents, which means sitting in long traffic sometimes, the sharpness of the bends further on meaning you are constantly changing between 2nd and 3rd gear, and makes it demanding and hard work but enjoyable driving especially with some good tunes in the car.

Photos date from 2009.  Silly Google, why didn’t you get your cars to overtake the blue truck which blocks the whole view of the road? 😀

Just like car ownership hasn’t completely eliminated people like riding horses, in post-volunteering life, when I get a car again and need to go this route, I think I will opt to alternate between the new and the old ways of driving. 🙂

Driving through the town of Hindhead and the old main road with its tight bends and hills is truly made of the stuff good road trips are all about I think 🙂   But heck, the new tunnel may become a legend in its own right, apparently the 1.9 mile stretch is used for people in high performance cars to race at night!

Sep 26 2011

IT support in Israel – replacing fans in PCs

Skip this if you don’t want to read IT repair work,  this is just an example of things I do at my work, that saves us money and time and keeps equipment running longer.

We had this PC that was spare I was going to set up for our personal department, I spend hours getting it ready with Windows XP plus 100+ updates, Adobe Writer, database and another 10 or so specialist apps only to find I got some strange errors when booting it mentioning it had a fan problem.

To my surprise there was actually 4 different fan faults!

  1. The fan in the power supply was wearing out, so for the first 30 minutes until it warms up when you use the computer it sounds like an elderly blender!
  2. On top of the main processor (which is an AMD Athlon 64 3000 chip)   the fan appears to be spinning slower than normal, this is was giving the error upon boot up
  3. Also, the chipset fan, which is a little fan that is integrated into the motherboard was completely dead, not spinning at all.  This was probably causing it to freeze in Windows as well.
  4. Lastly, there is meant to be fan on the back chassis of the PC, this was missing.

I bought this from a local computer shop.  Actually this is the bad one, but you can see this fan has a 4 pin drive connector on these.  I don’t like these at all, this makes the voltage supply to the PC’s hard drive unstable and can cause the hard disk to malfunction, its better to use a fan with a 3 pin connector that plugs into the motherboard, on this one there are two connectors on this PC for this purpose.   I had to look in 4 computer shops around Jerusalem to get these fans, as they had none, or only 1 or 2 in stock!

So, the last standard ATX power supply I bought to fix another PC recently cost us 200 Shekels which I thought was a bit expensive, as it was just a fan failing, I opened up the metal casing of the power supply and snipped the wires on the fan, and as this fan was just an 88mm type unit I snipped the wires on this and twist the wires together and sealed it up with tape – no more grinding from back of this computer.

Now normally the heatsink and fan on top of the AMD Athlon 64 754 type processor you buy as a set, but this type of AMD chip is obsolete and not been made in about 5 years so finding this part could be difficult.   Actually it was easy as the fan was also just an 88mm unit, so just needed to take 4 philips screws out to replace this part.

The motherboard chipset fan was more tricky.   I had to get this part from ebay as its manufactured directly for Asus, the board manufacturer.

As you can see this fan has the plastic fastening bolts off centre and a small two pin wire that feeds back to the main board.

Lastly, I fitted one more 88mm fan on the back panel of the PC.

This is what I got, which was about US$10/£6.50, this meant I had to completely gut the PC and remove all cards and wiring, flip the whole motherboard assembly upside down and squeeze two plastic lugs to free this little fan and fit this new one.

Lastly, the front USB ports had broken off and come loose inside the PC, this happens a lot on poor quality clone PCs, this case I think was one of the ‘medium’ quality ones I have used though.   I used a glue gun (one of those things you push glue sticks in the back)  to fix this back on the inside of the front plastic fascia.   I don’t know how much structural strength this has now, but seem ok at the moment.

All these little repairs have saved me from having to throw the PC out or buy drastically more expensive parts.

For some reason, doing IT support in a hot desert like country like Israel, means with the high amount of dust around, I am often replacing fans on computers of all kinds.   It seems the oil in the motor bearings solidifies causing friction noise when spinning up, this is especially true when a PC hasn’t been switched on in months when introducing a new staff member.

On a typical day I am normally answering calls to the helpdesk, researching on new IT solutions for the future, managing backups, setting up new staff on the servers, fixing staff’s own laptops as well as repairing or replacing failing hardware.