Sep 28 2010

Need software tools for network diagrams

IT stuff – skip below if this is not your thing.

This last week we got another volunteer in the IT department, its great to get some help, and also pool together ideas on we I can make IT support easier and plan for changes and improvements.

One of the projects for the future is re-do some documentation for our network.

The typical software application to do flow charts and diagrams is Microsoft’s Visio in places I have worked before.

Visio is quite expensive though and has a propriety file format, so all members of a team (and clients) need to have Visio to read the file.

I am thinking of what else I could use to do the job.   As well as cost, and there could be some free tools to do the job, there is the need for extreme simplicity, to making designing and altering diagrams easy and be able to hand over this role to future staff who will eventually replacement me.

I would like to ask my fellow IT peers, in systems admin, and those who do web design and programming, what their views are there on this.

When consulting, do you sketch out things on paper, then on chart modeling software of some kind?   Does complex projects need two or more people to work on a model before coding commences?   Or does a sketch of what’s needed get shown to the client, to check hes happy with the solution that is to be built?

I have largely ditched Microsoft’s Word and Excel in favour of Google Documents, as I like being able to get documentation on any computer, inside my network or indeed anywhere in the world with a web connection.   Plus documentation to rebuilt a server is no good, if it was saved on the one that went down due to a failed disk!!   This is an example of a cloud makes perfect sense here.

A lot of web designers are likely to be using Macs, so an app that’s on Mac and Windows, or a web based app that’s transparently usable on any darn OS/browser is good.

Now, if remember correctly Google now do a vector graphics as part of the Google Documents suite.  Having something cloud based is a huge plus, especially if there becomes a problem with a server that contains documentation.

This isn’t about knocking Microsoft or Adobe, but there is a wealth of free and open source apps, so please feel free to tell us what is the best tool for the job, and responses from fellow IT pros on your preference for ways to do this would be great. 🙂

Sep 27 2010

International Christian Embassy Jerusalem Feast of Tabernacles concert

Last week I want to the first event at the Feast of Tabernacles at the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) at a hotel here Jerusalem.   I personally know quite a few of the volunteers from this organisation and this is their busiest time as they put on a 5 day event for Christians supporting Israel and the Jewish people.

On the thursday we got our tickets and queued up, my friend John who came to visit me and two friends who are fellow volunteers at Bridges for Peace.

There is some really good speaking followed by a translator which was in surprise, Portuguese!  There were a lot of attendees from Brazil.   Actually there were people there from all over the world, with different groups of believers who got up on stage with flags representing their countries, not unlike the Olympics or Eurovision, there were even people from Egypt and Jordan there.   In the lobby outside I got chatting to some people from Finland who were waving their white and blue flags.

For anyone often thinking that Christian supporters of Israel = Nutters, well I support Israel, but number One – I love Jesus, and this land played a part in the events of the bible, there is still an important role in what the Lord has still for this country today and in the future.    Its important that Christians reject the common but completely bogus “replacement theology” doctrine which mistakenly gives the impression that the Israel mentioned in the bible is a metaphor for today’s church.   Check out Romans 11 : 1 which clears up this confusion.

The worship consists of a band with about 20 musicians and there are many dancers and acrobats.  I particularly liked the version of Paul Baloche’s Glorious (heres a Youtube clip of a version of this song)  which has become recently one of my favourite worship tracks.

During this event, there was a man from the Israeli government who came to show his thanks for the support (I forget his name)  as the Embassy has always had good relationships with government here, and they are now celebrating their 30th year here supporting this nation.   Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made an appearance, but via a recording on a TV screen at the beginning.

After the event, there was a variety of stands outside you can visit and get food, falafels, hotdogs etc and drinks whilst wandering around.   One of the stands I saw was the blacksmith who recycles rockets that hits Jewish towns close to the Gaza strip into a variety of table decorations and candlesticks, I blogged on recently.

This was a nice evening, the only downside was tickets for the whole week, and even for this one event was a lot, although I got a heavy discount being a Christian volunteer here.

Sep 26 2010

Caves in park in Yemin Moshe behind King David hotel

Behind King David Hotel is some more archeology.

Just realised this tomb has a circular stone rolled next to it.  Look hard and you can see this tomb has an iron door too, which is locked.

This one is nearby, different to the one shown in the above three pics.  Doesn’t have an obvious entrance.

Not sure who these tombs belonged to, or how old they are.   Suggestions please?

Sep 23 2010

Wasteland in the Armenian quarter inside Jerusalem’s old city walls

Before Yom Kippur I went walking on some walls with John on the old city again.  You get to peek into the yards of Christian, Jewish and Arab people’s houses.  For obvious reasons its not possible to go completely 360 degrees around because of the Al Asqa mosque is at the back and this part of the wall is not open there.

Still I got to see a few more things I had not previously seen.

Peaking over this side, this is the back of police station, there is a few horses with stable and exercise yard.

This is interesting.   This is a panaromic shot, so these two walls actually join at a right angle where I am standing.   This is the Armenian quarter of the old city.  Ahead is the Armenian church and a car park, but lots of scruffy looking ground just going to waste.   I thought this is odd as surely land within the old city must be very expensive and sort after, must be worth a million dollars maybe.  I guess even a small square of land big enough to put an ice cream kiosk would be expensive to rent.  Its blacked by fire as it appears someone has burnt all the weeds that are growing here.    A hotel or some nice flats could maybe be built here.   Some people who were with me on the tour think that its inevitable if you dug up this ground there would be plenty of archeology here.  For some reason the Armenians would rather let the ground go to waste than sell it, or have it landscaped or develop something on it.

Sep 23 2010

Yom Kippur in and around Jerusalem

This week I had my Christian friend John come to visit, John is an older gent also from Portsmouth UK, but originally from Malta.  He has Jewish roots, and his family came from Armenia.

He is here to see the Feast of Tabernacles which is coming up soon which is hosted by the ICEJ, International Christian Embassy of Jerusalem.

So I got to show him a lot of sites around here, a few days ago it was Yom Kippur, a holiday, in which Jews fast for a day.

We went around the UN headquarters at the end of my street and around the forest overlooking the city, then made our way into town.

There are no cars around the centre of town.   None at all.   I might see a police car once an hour or so.  This is normally a busy street.

This was unusual.   There were a lot of Arab families in the park picking some of the wild olives.   This man and his son was smarter than the others, as a large tarrapaulin was laid out to catch the dropped ones.  Funny as in the year I have been here, I have never seen anyone pick fruit from trees in public places here.


The world famous King David hotel.   Top right. This nice wooden counter just had one Arab chap manning the desk, as everyone is observing Yom Kippur.  As well as the beautiful decor here, there is a Sukkot (tent/shed type structure.  Bottom right. Some of the staff from the kitchen are taking a break chatting on the tables as no-one will be eating until about 6.30pm.

John got chatting to a elderly Canadian couple there, who have lived in Jerusalem for 30 years now.  This chap was talking about a nearby building called ‘Yimcer’   then I realised he meant the YMCA, which is opposite the King David 🙂    He told me off as I was drinking some water from a bottle, I didn’t realise the fast included water from then!   oops.   For me as a foreigner I think its unwise to fast from water, as the extreme heat can make you feel very unwell if you do.   But I did use this day to do some praying and abstain from food from darkness Wednesday till Thursday.  I had a whole chicken in a slow cooker for when we came back home to my flat.   I am a recent convert to slow cookers, just the thing when you want to come home and have dinner more or less ready. 🙂

Leviticus 23 : 27 says more about this event.

The outside of the YMCA.   Although the ‘Y’ is a Christian organisation and originally a Youth Hostel.  Its now a proper hotel and owned by Muslim, but still known as the Jerusalem YMCA.  Sadly I didn’t see anyone do any comedy dancing either.  Not that it would be a appropriate with most people fasting that day. 🙂

Walking along the walls with Dutch Christian couple who mentioned on earlier post ‘never be silent’.

The really interesting thing about John’s Armenian Jewish and Maltese background is the Maltese language is a mixture of mostly Arabic and some Hebrew and Italian, so this meant he could converse with the Arab taxi driver who took us home later. 🙂

The Jews have a generous amount of feasts and holidays in their calenders, next one is Sukkot, a kind of religious campsite outside your house, more soon….

Sep 20 2010

Odd tat for sale in markets in Jerusalem

This ex-Army and outdoor store has various odd things for sale in the this glass cabinet, but one thing caught my eye.

Apologies for the pic being shaky.   Apparently this is a stun gun, in James Bond style its disguised as a popular model Nokia phone.   I didn’t ask the man on the counter if a licence is needed for this kind of thing.

The old British favourite Marmite, can be bought specially imported, albeit with a Hebrew label slapped on.   Its kosher and vegetarian after all.   Its a bit pricey at 30 Shekels (About a fiver for a small jar) though.

A lot of computer and stationary shops sell stickers for your keyboard, some laptops and PC keyboards are available with local keyboard type (plain Hebrew, Hebrew and Arabic or Hebrew and Russian)   if not, you can get stickers to put on.  These Hebrew keyboard stickers are aimed at teenage girls.

The local quack in the Arab market has these magical tea bags that cure everything.  As well these in the pic there are plenty of more boxes for every ailment you can think of.

Sep 19 2010

King David harp bridge

This is the King David Harp bridge, which is almost finished.

When I say its almost finished, the bridge carries the lightrail train which is very behind schedule.  The structure of the bridge is all fine, just the rails and the overhead electric system is not operational.  You can see  that the trains curve around this house on the right then up over another busy main road.

I was past here  the other day as I was with a colleague dropping of food packages to some needy local people in apartments around the corner from here, mostly elderly holocaust survivors.

Its a unique and interesting idea.  I am wondering if the wires have to be tightened or adjusted sometimes.   Who remembers the problems with the wire bridge that goes across the Thames in London? 🙂

More interesting information on this modern Jerusalem monument here.

Sep 14 2010

Strikes in Tel Aviv Ben Gurion airport & Jesus the blue collar worker

Strikes.

Us British and the French are probably the world leaders at it.   French truck drivers block ferry ports every so often, I had a one day trip to Bayeaux messed up by truckers making Cherbourg traffic come to a standstill.   The British did it a lot, quite often with the car industry, which probably made quality control in the 70s/80s with cars go awry sometimes.

Usual thing: stick an oil drum out in the car park and dress up warm as its winter in some gloomy West Midlands factory estate and make a fire and have plenty of logs and banners and make as much fuss possible when you have a fall out with your employers.  I am sure there are times where management does things which are unfair or take advantage of staff and something has to be done sometimes.

But this week quite big surprise with Israel’s main Tel Aviv Ben Gurion airport on strike this week, over rows on pensions.

http://www.jpost.com/VideoArticles/Article.aspx?id=187966

The BBC are planning to go on strike too: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11281410

This made me think of some things of late.

Yeshua (Jesus) was a blue collar worker.

He was a carpenter, I guess his pre-ministry secular work probably just consisted of a team of him and his step father Yosef.    The scriptures don’t say much about his pre-ministry career which must of been between after Bar Mitzvah (13) until his was 30.  Of course there was times he spent his teenage years in a synagogue preaching quite often.   As my grandad was a carpenter, I think it would of been great to of been a fly on the wall at the carpentry shop and see what went on in early days.

“Need to pop out and get new blades for the plane, some bits of Two-B’four, nice set of occasional tables for the palace to be done by thursday week, they specified top notch finish with dove-tailing and pale olive coloured teak staining.  Today garden trellis to be done for Mrs Cohen round the corner.  Busy at the end of the month, go on site and fit window frames for the Romans, they are having an extra sauna house put in…”

I would bet Yeshua would of been a good person to have around if there was some kind of industrial action.  Rather when floor workers grumble about their bosses as making conversation in the staff lounge or on the way home, Yeshua was a man of substance in getting things done and resolving conflict.  If Yosef’s carpentry Ltd was with a bunch of other chippies * and builders doing a contract for a major house build in Capernaum, and they thought their bosses were pulling a fast one *, Yeshua would be standing in between the middle of the picnic benches during a lunch time with the other workers not happy in a circle around, put his cup of tea on a table, and with pencil behind ear would of directed the workforce into praying for their employers, given advice to the whole team (and a quiet word to the bosses) over how to make work tolerable again.   Being an Israeli, talking loud and waving your arms a bit helps getting attention.   He would of shown kindness and empathy with those given the crushingly hard news of a redundancy.

Yeshua was quite blunt.   He got cross and said “Why have you turned my father’s house into a market?” –  John 2 : 16 He gave the Pharisees a good telling off when they told him he couldn’t heal a sick man on Shabbos.  Matthew 12 : 2

Yeshua was kind with those timid or not so popular.   Like Zacchaeus whose short height gave him difficulty being able to see the Lord speaking had to climb a tree.   See Luke 19 – 1:10 Christ told him to come forward in a gentle and encouraging way.

He ate with tax collectors and sinners: – Matthew 9 : 11 The workers who awkwardly sit on their own in the corner of the cafeteria, not fitting in with the cliques of the more established teams, Yeshua went and had fellowship with.

He was kind and compassionate.   He did miracles too. – Matthew 9 : 6

'Then he said to the paralytic, "Get up, take your mat and go home." And the man got up and went home. When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe; and they praised God, who had given such authority to men.'

Incidentally: I see this gent often on crutches begging in the middle of the Shuk open market here in Jerusalem.   He always makes me think of this verse.

If Yosef’s carpentry shop Ltd didn’t get their invoices settled on time from the local municipality, because the woman who does the cheque writing was off on holiday and the management were too disorganised to have someone to sort it out in the interim, I think Yeshua would find away to politely get the payments paid pronto.  He would of calmed down the factory floor and sorted out fall outs between the teams and no ‘them-and-us’ type shenanigans between the different ranks.

* I have used some localised English slang.  For the benefit of my non-English friends please click the link for an explanation 🙂


Sep 13 2010

This week Rosh HaShana, happy 5771!

Rosh HaShana is a festival celebrating Jewish New Year and gives us 2 1/2 days off work, hooray!

I went to a Messianic congregation (a synagogue with Jews that believe in Jesus)  with some friends.  The service is in Hebrew, so I didn’t understand much as I know about 15-20 words but its nice to see the Shofar being blown and join in with the worship (well hum along at least 🙂 )  and chat to some of regular people there.

The next day, on the way out to town, I decided to do some fruit picking.  Grabbing some Pomegranates.  There is some in a row of trees between the two lanes of traffic in a main road near my house.   These ones in a outskirts of a car park near the Zion Hotel.

The fruits I got were nothing special, they were quite small and not that sweet.  There were some bigger, more red pomegranates on the other bushes but most of them were rotten.

I think all the pomegranates I see in the UK for sale in say, Tesco are all imported from from Israel and cost about 1.50 each.

Near the abandoned railway station there is a path that goes between roads, its marked up Bible Hill.

At the top of the hill looking back onto the abandoned station, there are some ruins of a house there.   There is a couple of houses, one of them as lots of junk outside including this wrecked car which looks like an early 1980s Alfa Romeo.  Strange place to find it, as I don’t think a working car could easily get up this steep hill.

I went to the Kotel with my friend Donald from Scotland as its his last day before he goes home.   We took a shortcut through the Damascus gate, as it then around 8pm, its incredibly quiet around the old city as it is both Jewish New Year and also the end of Muslim festival of Ramadan.  From the picture you can see the strings of lights here for Ramadan, not many places are open and its quiet.

The Kotel (Western Wall) is fairly busy as well there.

Lastly, this poster seen in the Arab quarter was quite interesting on the way home.   Issa is Arabic for Jesus (Yeshua in Hebrew)  I think its quite common and doesn’t have much significance to most Arabs though.

Sep 9 2010

The Hurva Synagogue

Last week I was in the old city and I went past the famous Hurva Synagogue.

This building was rebuilt and finished in March 2010.   I wanted to go inside, but its only open to the public in the mornings with a groups with a guide.

Following the destruction of this building in the 1948, initial plans for this current synagogue were drawn up in 2000 but the building was not finished until this year in March, about the same week I arrived to do my second season of volunteer work here.   Looking at pictures of the previous synagogue (its been destroyed and rebuilt quite a few times now)  it looks a pretty close copy of the original.

There was a lot worry from possible attacks from Arabs thinking that this a starting point towards building the third temple.   Frequent amounts of history revisionism tries to hide a lot of what has been in this country from the past.  You can click on this photo of a plaque to see this closer.   I think this is a nice icon of the determination of the Jewish people to protect their capital.