If penguins are cool ... why do I feel so hot?

Posterous

2010-05-14T16:40:00.001+01:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posterous

Very cool in that it will allow you to post to many online services at one time, including twitter and facebook. However, at least for me, the facebook posting does not work as advertised, but does work as an additional posterous tab in my facebook profile. Giving it a try, seeing how it works, fiddling while Rome burns.

Posted via email from dustypenguin pontifications

to facebook?

2010-05-13T21:33:00.001+01:00

does it work now?

Posted via email from dustypenguin pontifications

Going to give it a try.

2010-05-13T01:19:00.001+01:00

Will posterous indeed post to twitter and facebook as well?

Posted via email from dustypenguin's posterous

testing posterous to other blogs

2010-05-12T20:21:00.001+01:00

such as wordpress and blogger

Posted via email from dustypenguin's posterous

forty-six

2009-04-21T11:44:00.003+01:00

Well! What happened to the last 13 days? If you find them, you tell me! That is one of the problems with many ministries here, there are times when we just become too busy, and that is a danger to our communication with you and a potential foothold for Satan to distract us with that busyness.

Much of what we set out do do in our sweep through ministries to the east went well. I figure we got close to 90% of our scheduled tasks done, and a few that weren't scheduled. I my book, here, that's a good trip! I will try to give a better accounting in the near future at http://dustypenguin.com
A few days after returning to Niamey, we departed for Makalondi to set up the new machines at the ministry center there. I will have a fuller report of that on http://dustypenguin.com in the near future as well.
The same day we lost internet connectivity with the VSAT at 3 different stations using the satellite and also lost the internet connection at 3 other places that were using an unrelated local provider! The satellite issues continue, but at least we are back up at the office 4 days later.
Electrical power here has also been fluctuating, sometimes pretty wildly, as the power grid struggles to keep up with demand.
A small part of the backup plan was using my dogonay (slow, wireless) phone as an internet access point to at least get emails for the office when it was down, and now the school.

I will try to keep up again for a while ...!

33

2009-04-08T06:37:00.002+01:00

Pray in the Spirit at all times with every kind of prayer and request there is. For the same reason be alert with every kind of effort and request for all the saints. Pray also for me, so that, when I open my mouth, the right words will be given to me. Then I will boldly make known the secret of the gospel, for whose sake I am an ambassador in chains, desiring to declare it as boldly as I should - Ephesians 6:18-20

trente deux

2009-04-06T07:12:00.005+01:00

Up and at'em
Preparing a computer to be a backup computer for the files in Maradi
Back up computer was not on same workgroup
was using simple file sharing
needed to restrict access to backup folder to admin group only
Permissions issues on the old backups ... makes sense since we had to change from simple file sharing
After last test here I think we will be using Karen's replicator for the backups on the client machines. Pretty good set and forget functionality. Other problem with synctoy is its dependency on dotnet
New antivirus installed
Backup jobs loaded and going through initial run.
security on backup machine a bit harder since that is also the machine sharing its internet connection with the rest of the lan using a dogonay phone. Guest users do not seem to be able to automatially launch the dialer, so will probably have to create a limited user for guests and adjust software and permissions as needed.
kasum and coke for lunch ... @ 2:30!
Data is a mixed bag here ... needs to be streamlined, but we will not have time to do that and reeducate the users where things are. Will do some limited cleanup that will be possible with the unified backup.

31

2009-04-05T20:35:00.001+01:00

Sunday was church and then a travel day mostly

Got stuff gathered up to travel to Maradi
Went to church in Galmi
Went back to the hospital and prepared car to go. It did need 2 1/2 liters of water in the radiator which was a concern.
Picked Issiakou up in town and headed for Maradi
Stopped at a village where Issiakou's mom grew up, and met many relatives
Finally got to Maradi and met Issikou's parents and had a good visit with them
Went to evening service at Maradi
Visited with some missionaries here and set up logistics for tomorrow.
Took a look at X-Pup while I was texting Wanda back home.

thirty

2009-04-04T08:15:00.013+01:00

Hey! what happened to the last 10 days you might ask? Well as happens now and then, things just got too busy. I was reminded of that as we are just getting going good out of Niamey and Issiakou truned to me a said,"Hey, know what we forgot?" Yup, we had forgotten to pray before our journey had begun, because we were too busy getting things ready. Good for him to remind me! Yes, we stopped soon after and repaired our oversite!

Tried to get internet working at the place where I am staying at the hospital
Working on backup machine for Galmi Hospital.
Various problems 1-The bios (compaq) was set to economy mode, so the machine would go to sleep after a time, great for a workstation perhaps, but bad for a always on backup machine. 2-USB back up drive attached lost(?) its partition? 3-Supposed scheduled tasks were not turned on.
Getting internet access to work for me at admin
Power outage! Hopefully they will start the generator. Without elec, we are out of luck.
Gen on ... good deal
Starting new computer swap while waiting for backup drives to finish formating ....
The old Toshiba (EQ 7350s) is so slow... it is agonizing just getting data backed up. I can remember when we set them up on 2001 and we thought they were fast! (although they were win98 at the time)
Wow, the new Dell Optiplex 755 running XP is very quick
Starting a backup test on the newly formatted drives.
Few details emerging here as well ... backup scripts were not mailing a log file at the end, and the actual drive letters have changed now with the reconfigured drives
Backups now are working and reporting ... part of the problem is that we were so pressed for time last time we were here that there were mistakes in the scripts I wrote.
One computer is switched... need to see about what we can do at the pharmacy, and some lunch along the way...
STILL have not left for the pharmacy, the second computer we were going to switch here would not even start in the office we were in (still on generator, and that office has old wiring, so it is not getting full voltage.) Had to move it to another office and it started right up there. The pharmacy has reported the same issue there and we are finally on the way out.
3 and a half hours later and we are finally back. Pharmacy ended up to be a project, swapping UPS for the old one and getting a new one for the new workstation. We weren't going to put the old machine back on the network for various reasons, but decided to in the end for efficiencies sake.
The old computer, and the last one we are going to switch was still virus scanning when we returned ... It had not found anything so we stopped it were it was for now to proceed on. Hopefully we will be done by 7:30, 12 hours + since we started. Bad thing is we could still work here another 12 hours!

Changing batteries in UPS's

2009-03-25T20:40:00.001+01:00

Batteries are one of the things that do not last long in the heat of Niger

twenty!

2009-03-25T09:43:00.005+01:00

Did some more extensive tests on the problem UPS ... seems to be functioning properly now
Answered emails to the hospital out country and an agricultural station as well about issues that need to be addressed if we go out that way.
Continue to add the French application pack to the balance of the youth center computers
prep work on 2 more of the computers for the hospital.
Final config for the youth center computers is to have OpenOffice save as MS Office format by default. They are now all done and packed and ready to go

19

2009-03-24T13:33:00.004+01:00

Linux, Windows, Windows, Linux

The delay in the generator for the youth ministry out country has at least allowed me to find some additional free software for the machines. Was able to install some nice typing tutor programs that speak French, a couple of French language bible programs, OpenOffice in French, a free French dictionary, and a neat program that allows you to read the whole French (and other languages) wikipedia offline! So we installed these packages to the machines as well.
The first of the hospital computers are configured, and are really nice machines.
Found some lost files for an upcoming orientation
Installed a new battery in a UPS
Received M&M's that some nice people had packed for the Niger field missionaries in the container. And they were not melted! Great stuff.
Had a friendly discussion with the UPS vendor about why we are getting new UPS's with dead batteries!

Eighteen

2009-03-23T20:20:00.003+01:00

Looked at a machine that had been sent in from another mission agency. It was typically dirty, and unfortunately the hard drive was beyond repair.
Another laptop of one of the nationals was unresponsive. Even five minutes after starting it was not responsive to mouse clicks, or even alt+ctrl+del. Turns out it was infected with viruses. Booted to safe mode, uninstalled the (two!) antivirus programs installed, pulled the drive and scanned it with NOD32 on another computer. Then reinstalled the drive and installed Kaspersky. Patient cured.
The reoccuring, returning, computer with the email issues and faultly USB ports, came back again. We finally convinced the owner to dump Windows Mail and use something sane, like Thunderbird. The USB ports are a mystery after trying many different things, the problem keeps returning. Can you say, "Upgrade to Windows XP?" (Actually, LinuxMint would really be the answer on this.) "Thunderbird gets the mail that Windows Mail cannot get." Good motto.
Tried to work on a spreadsheet for the guesthouse, so that the one they use to keep track of accounts is as much the same at what treasury uses so that information can be cut and past instead of having to retype information every month. Got close to done, but the other stuff got in the way of finishing.

seize et dix-sept

2009-03-22T19:03:00.001+01:00

Saturday a container arrived with materials from overseas. We spent most of the morning helping to unload. While there wasn't anything on this container for us personally, there were some computers for a hospital out country that we will need to do prep work before they go out. So yippee! more work!
Looked up some drivers for an HP printer. When did printer drivers become such huge downloads?
We need to get some pictures to our home church for our sons graduation. They have been kind enough to include him in their graduation presentation. So we spent quite a bit of time trying to narrow some down for them ... and wondering where the time went.

quatorze et quinze

2009-03-20T10:46:00.006+01:00

Good that these are together since I still get them mixed up occasionally!
The machine with the amazing disappearing ports came back ... After more research I think I have it fixed. (See Sabre's comment at that site, his was what seemed to work so far. Some of the comments do have bad language :-( )
The computer with the bad fan was a bit of an adventure. The fan that was sent out was still not the right one. We had to totally disassemble the fan enclosure itself and exchanged the internal small fan motor and blades to the old enclosure. During reassembly two pins that go into the monitor cable socket got bent causing the machine not to boot. We had quite a time trying to figure out why it would not work. After some fine work straightening the pins, it boots and the fan keeps it cool so it will continue to run.
Catching up on documentation today. Part of the process for our departure is for me to leave good descriptions and potential fixes for the system. This is always the most tedious and time consuming task, which is why for many systems it does not get done, or get done well. Unfortunately, I also have the unenviable task of doing that for other locations we service as well. It is a task I have imposed on myself, but in my absence I do think it is an imperative.

treize

2009-03-18T19:36:00.005+01:00

The youth center machines are basically finished. They just need to be packed up and taken to their new home .... maybe next week sometime if everything comes together.
Another laptop came in with a broken fan ... had this one apart about 4 months ago to diagnose the problem, but at that time it was just making noise. So now it has finally stopped and the computer quits so it overheats. Have the repair slated for tomorrow.
The person with the email problem had other issues today. One the email configuration we did yesterday disappeared (?), and now the USB ports did not work... any of them, even through restarts. Brand new HP Vista 64 machine not 2 months in Niger. Re-configured email, got that working. Then had to uninstall every instance of USB ports and hubs in device manager (one at a time), reboot Vista. Let Vista chug for about 10 minutes while it found and reinstalled all the USB hardware. Seemed to work when we got done, but we will see tomorrow.
Did a little research for someone who used to be out here, who used to help me from a distance in the east of the country. Vista again, BOSD at boot time. From the stop errors found a Microsoft patch that is supposed to fix it, but have yet to figure out how to install the patch IF THE MACHINE WON"T BOOT!!! In these sorts of cases it is almost always more time efficient to boot with a Puppy Linux cd, stick in a usb drive, back up the data, and reinstall.
I noticed this morning that a power surge must have taken out the power supply of my Ulteo desktop server. Such are the problems with computers here. 'Spose I'll be taking that apart again too.
On the home front basic food items have taken quite a hike in the last month or so. For example flour is up 30% from 4-6 weeks ago.
Got a call from another station we had visited a few months ago to install new servers, and it seems that someone was working in the attic of the admin building, fell into the room where the servers were. He's ok, but the servers were full of plaster, wood shavings and asbestos. They were moved to a different room, and the call was just to make sure they got hooked up correctly again. No call back so I'm assuming all is well.
Put a post on dustypenguin.com

onze et douze

2009-03-17T14:55:00.006+01:00

Time flies when you are having fun! The last couple of days have been dominated by getting the computers ready for the youth ministry center. We are almost done today.
We will really not be able to take them to their new home until the electrical generator gets fixed there. A missionary went there today to see about that.
Besides that we have been preparing for allowing some remote access for some people who will be gone for a few days, but still need to have occasional access.
Worked on email issues for someone who had a backlog of all most 600 messages and was having a hard time slugging them through our flaky connection.
Other things piling up are a UPS needing a battery, a desktop computer that boots into a screen that is a cool shade of blue, and the dead printer from the bible school :-(
The ulteo desktop experiment continues, with better results this time. Installing both servers on one physical machine is a much better option. The desktop is noticeably faster. Now if I can figure out the active directory sync feature .... This is really a great option that should be looked at by any place that wants to lock down a desktop for certain users. Brilliant idea.
I really need to write my beta report for that

Ten

2009-03-15T11:34:00.004+01:00

Moving all my data to one machine and then going to sell out to the bare walls, getting rid of excess computers I have collected over a couple of years here.
Listened to Louie Giglio DVD "Hope: When Life Hurts Most".

Nine

2009-03-14T15:52:00.000+01:00

Kind of a slug today ... did some cataloging of the received machines for the youth center, but othewise really just did some research and personal surfing.

"We exist to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples." -- John Piper

Eight

2009-03-13T15:00:00.000+01:00

Changed keyboard in missionaries computer. The picture above is of the dust being blown out of that machine. If we have a computer in for repair we try to blow the dust out of it; especially if we have it disassembled already.
Put the original Ulteo virtual desktop test to bed for now ... pulling the virtual machines off. As a proof of concept idea it is a great idea. A way to leverage relatively cheap hardware into multiple workstations. Part of the problem I had with the original test was that it tied up two machines which I could only do for a short time. 2nd the virtual desktops seemed somewhat slow even on the local network. There is another option that became available after I had started the original beta test that I may persue later.
The rest of the computers for a youth ministry center arrived, so we started the process of installing the operating system and applications ... a similar process as the bible school computers, except x 7.
We needed to find and download drivers for these machines as well. With our rather slow connection, this can prove to be a pretty long process.
Pulled one of the beta test machines and continued the process of installing the applications needed to convert it to a workstation. This machine will feature a wubi install of Ubuntu as well since a third person in the office is interested in using linux.
The second beta test machine will likely be used for a second round with Ulteo, but installing both servers on one machine, and NOT using virtualization

Seven

2009-03-12T19:32:00.006+01:00

The Virtual Desktop finally works. Most of the problems I had were of my own doing trying to prepare the VMs at home and move them to other machines with dissimilar network settings. The picture above is a screen shot of Ulteo running in a browser on my workstation desktop.
I finalized the setup of the missionary computer with the transplanted hard drive. I installed some nice free software to get them started to like Openoffice, Irfanview, Firefox, Tugzip, Infrarecorder, and Antivir as antivirus.
We took the last computer we fixed for the bible school back. When we got there we found out that the students could not print any more. Unfortunately, after some troubleshooting we found the problem was with the printer itself, not any configuration issue. This is a problem since we have had a hard time finding a printer repair person here that is reasonably priced, reliable and prompt. Tomorrow we go printer repair hunting!
Verses for the day: Acts 13:2-3 - ²While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.

Day Six

2009-03-11T19:12:00.005+01:00

The picture today is a frame from one of Justin's lego epics
Worked more on the virtual desktop software. Long story short, installing in the virtual machine on my home network made me install the software with certain settings that were no longer valid after they were moved to the office. After great advice from Ulteo support I was able to isolate the problem and fix it. We should be able to have some users try it out tomorrow.
Installed the hard drive, operating system, drivers patches and some software on the missionaries computer that needed the hard drive. With XP that process takes up the better part of 3 hours. With Linux, that same machine would be ready to go (with applications, which you mostly do not get with the Windows install) in 45 minutes.
Since I was looking for laptop harddrives to put in the computer, I thought I would test my small collection of drives and weed out the bad ones.
Listened to Christopher's testimony give during chapel at Sahel. He did a good job, and you could tell he put alot of work into it.
We looked for new UPS batteries today, but our usual supplier's batteries looked ... old. We passed on them and got a sample for a few more CFA at another place. These looked factory fresh, and if the test one is good we will finish our order with him.

Day Five

2009-03-10T18:08:00.004+01:00

The picture above is from a lutte match we were able to see a few weeks ago.
Whew! One of those days where you get so busy you can hardly remember what you did.
The transfer of the Virtualbox images was not as trouble free as I had thought. It turned out not to be so much an issue with the moving of the image, but the way that Ubuntu dealt with the (virtual) change of cards. The solution is here.
There seems to be a DNS issue yet since the session server still not adding the application server in the Ulteo Virtual Desktop. After some tinkering, had to leave it to look after other things
Helped a missionary fix several problems with their email client.
Helped the same missionary with some ideas to perform backups. After looking at a utility provided by one of the external drives they got, I decided I could pretty easily write something simpler, less confusing and more powerful using xxcopy.
That same missionary has expressed an interest in switching to Linux. We will revisit that in a couple of weeks.
Tested several used drives to see if they were usable for the laptop mentioned a couple of days ago. Think we found one that will work.
Just a last note from yesterday, not that it is anything earth shattering, but it does give a little insight to how things always seem to go here. Bulb (florescent) in the bathroom seems burnt out. In the US go to the store, get a bulb and your done. Here, go to the store, they do not have one there, go to the next one and you get one. Climb up the ladder to change the bulb, and as you pull the bulb out of the cardboard sleeve you get suspicious because in the center of the light is a dried drop of paint, but who knows? Slip it into the socket and it just flickers. Fiddle with it and it does come on. Hmmm, maybe the starter is bad. Starters you happen to have some of. Get down off the ladder (thanking God for the missionary next door who had the foresight to bring such a nice ladder back across the ocean), get a new starter. Climb up the ladder, turn the starter... and the socket the starter goes into breaks, so that you need to take the bulb out, disassemble the outer sheild and figure out a way to cooble the socket together. After a few strands of electrical tape, it seems secure. Pop the starter in, cram the wires into the fixture and cover it up. Insert the bulb. It flickers. Fiddle. Flicker. Fiddle. It stays on. You get off the ladder and leave it on, convinced that it will never come on in the morning. Next day? Works like a champ! So who knows!?!?!?
Mark 9:5 Commentary from here. "There are those whose understanding of the Bible has never grown beyond the notion that is something like a fortune cookie, a magic talisman which can be cracked open anywhere to reveal God's word for the day. In our culture, we are all guilty sometimes. We like things "the way they were," not realizing that God may be calling us upward and outward toward something newer and better."

Day4

2009-03-09T13:39:00.002+01:00

Today is Mawlid or Muhammad's birthday. As such is it a holiday here. Since the office is officially closed, I decided to do some light work at home. Pictured above is my work area for the day.
I contacted some financial partners by email thanking them for allowing us to minister here.
I sent some initial information to other stations for a tech support trip in the future. Giving some organization to that trip.
Since the power was off at 3am, and the generator was not started until 6:30 I started my day using the dogonay phone (battery powered) until the VSAT came back on line. Normal line power was back about 10 am.
Talked to one of the office staff concerning UPS batteries for his home computer ... need to get some of those for the office too. Need to see if we can get a bunch of them from the Grande Marche this week.
Added and entry to http://dustypenguin.com/techpenguin/ concerning squash!
Worked on the background gathering information sources for an internet privacy email to be sent to the field soon.

Day Three

2009-03-08T16:16:00.004+01:00

Sunday! Down day. Day of rest. One of the things we do as a family on Sunday is have an extended time of discussion. Lately we have been discussing the book Re-Entry by Peter Jordan
Always things to learn though. I'm trying out Epiphany.
This evening Chris has sound board duty for the English language church service.
Are we weak enough to be used of the Lord? 2 Corinthians 4:7-10

Day Two

2009-03-07T11:50:00.010+01:00

This morning one of the boys had a 3 on 3 basketball tournament put on by the American School in Niamey. For the second consecutive year Noah's team won their class.
Later in the day I went as far as I could go at home setting up the two servers for the beta test of the Ulteo Open Virtual Desktop. The software will be running in Virtualbox VMs. Part of the process was moving the VMs from the Linux machine they were created on to the MS Windows based hosts they will be running on in the office. This proved to be even easier than moving Virtual PC created machines we have used before.
In the afternoon the boys played softball at the Rec Center. I did some application installation on my traveling Linux laptop and some news web surfing using the dogonay phone.

Day One

2009-03-06T10:32:00.009+01:00

Installed battery in two UPS's
Installed operating system and office suite (and associated service packs) to a computer for the bible school.
Discussed changes to computer acceptable use policy for the field.
Got paperwork ready for a stamp for our car.
Talked to someone about adding some users to the internet system at the bible school.
Troubleshoot an antivirus update problem
Read a DVD in Linux and transfered files enclosed to a USB stick ... disk would not read in Microsoft Vista
Researching a possible automatic (or pretty simple) backup / synchronizing tool to sync XP and Vista laptops connecting to a network
It looks like the easy answer is Windows offline files feature. However, I have seen it fail before so I am leery!
Finishing up bible school computer. This entailed the aforementioned operating system and office suite, but also the French language packs for both of those things, the latest service packs for each of those things AND the latest service packs for the language packs!!! God Bless Microsoft (sarcasm).
Consulted with another missionary on what do do with his now disabled laptop (bad hard drive)
The evening project today is setting up a couple of decent powered XP machines (They are the old servers that need to be reconfigured to workstations anyway), to play host to a couple of virtual machines for a couple of proof of concept ideas. The first is a beta test we have been invited to participate in of the Ulteo Open Virtual Desktop. The second project has to do with setting up a virtual SME server for a university ministry here for their computer room.

90 Days

2009-03-06T08:51:00.004+01:00

I thought I would resurrect this old blog to try an exercise in daily entries for the last 90 (or so) days we are in Niger before going home. We go home in June, with no solid plans on when we would return to Niger. One of the problems we have come across is trying to explain to people what we do here. There are so many things that it is hard to explain, especially in the 3-5 minute chunks that many churches prefer nowadays. I thought this might go a long ways towards rectifying that.

These posts will be as "stream of conscious" as I can make it (I know, like the 'net needs more of that!). So there will be the occasional typo, grammar mistakes and such, but I wanted this thing to be quick, low maintenance, and low workload, while still sharing some of our experiences with you.

I will also try to include a picture to each post, but it is possible that the pics may lag for a few days as internet connections can be variable here.

The Pause That Refreshes

2005-12-16T15:27:00.000+01:00

Where else but in Niger can you go to what passes for a fine resturant and be served coka-cola in a 30cc glass bottles? But let's get back to that.

By far our favorite meal if we "go out", is "brochettes and frits". Just to give you an idea how many times we "go out", we've had "brochettes and frits" once so far in our 2 months here.

"Brochettes" are bite sized pieces of beef, alternating with vegetables on a skewer and grilled over an open fire. The vegetables are variable according to what is in season, usually onions, sometimes peppers, sometimes tomatoes ... you get the picture.

"Frits" are fries. Home cut, but still thin and fried until a little greasy, served with catsup, tangy mustard and a hot sauce that is very good with the brochettes.

All this is served on an open patio, with steel furniture. Sometimes with cemented or stepping stone areas, but always with sand underfoot, and straggly trees yeilding imperfect shade. Which is one of the reasons one tends to go at dusk.

But the part that always makes me smile is the waiter, dressed in a black, or at least a dark pair of pants and a white shirt, who comes around before the meal is served with the glasses. And the still sealed bottles of coke. He puts the glass down, picks up a bottle and with a flourish (or as much of a flourish as you'll get in Niger), takes a bottle opener and opens the bottle in front of you. He wants you to hear the hiss of the carbonation escaping as he opens it to prove that it is factory fresh and not pre-opened and thus perhaps contaminated or flat.