Second Post from Uganda

So finally a little farther a long in some computer work I have been asked to do. Its been really great to help people out here, down side is not enough time as I would like to do all the stuff they have asked. We have done so much and there has been so little time.

Being here has really made me miss Zimbabwe and how things were there. Undoughtedly things have changed becaue of poor leadership. I still can't get over the roads. I have been told now that roads are to be improved because of the meeting of the British Common Wealth nations. Supposidly the Queen is going to donate the funds as well as other countries will donate funds to improve various things in this country. The meeting is at the end of the year and they hope to have repaved a good chunk of the road system there.

People here are really friendly, they always ask what places we have seen of Uganda. We visited Murchison Falls(sp?) this weekend, it one of the places that flows into the Nile river. I have some really cool pictures of that place, very incredible view and scene.

One of the downsides to my trip is that I will not be able to experience church here. I am really kind of bummed, I really wanted to see how it compared to Zimbabwe way of doing church. I have been thinking quite a bit about church here. Some of it is western influenced, but a good chunk of it is there own. I keep thinking about Acts and the early church in this context. Unfortunatley, I don't know much about the culture here to really be able to answer questions I have. I wish I were to be here longer.

More to come.....

Update: So I added comments, feel free to give them a try. Email me if they don't work.

First update from Uganda

So I made it to Uganda, some of you may not know, I am in Uganda, here to visit my parents. This is the first time I have had a chance to post anything about my two week trip. I have so many pics of the trip, that its just not worth posting them yet. The internet connection is very slow(1 line-768kbps and 1 line-512kbps upload and 256kbps down). Man so much has happened. I will try and post more when I have time. But to give a quick summary....
Got here saftely, very tired, but in one piece. The flights were uneventful, luggage and customs were very easy in all countries. We got here at night and I got to experience the road system here. I wouldn't say they have so much as law and order to roads, just ways of letting people know how they are driving. We have almost seriously hit at least 3-5 motorcycleists here. I would never want to ride here... its insane!!! That weekend we went to a resort on Lake Victoria, got to see the the beggening of the Nile river(The White Nile). Very cool!!! We came back and I had a day on Uganda Christian University(UCU)campus, I got to see there very small network. Then the next day we were off to a Safari in northern Uganda. Was very fun, we had a bunch of Bethel students here who joined us for the Safari, met lots of new people, very interesting and fun weekend. Now I am back, I will be working on some computer problems of staff(nursing in particular) at UCU. Should be fun. I will be posting more later in the week.

I guess Microsoft knows security

So I was talking to some people the other day about security, according to them Microsoft products can easily be made as secure as *nix(Unix, Mac, linux, etc.) products. Alas there is not time or space for me to discuss all the things that are wrong with that last statement, but I do want to bring up a point. As many of my readers may know Microsoft has many times received warnings about security problems, but instead of admiting/fixing these problems, they just deny the existence of any such problem. In most cases they usually end up shooting themselves in the foot. Now I ask you, how can you possibly setup a windows box and make it more secure than a *nix box, when the company often chooses to deny the existence of bugs?

Now on to my actual reason for this blog. This same aformentioned company now is trying to tell Apple how to handle security issues in their OS. I have not kept up to date on how well Apple has responded to security issues, but my general impressions seems to suggest they are no where NEAR as bad as Microsoft in responding to security issues.

Wireless 802.11n stuff

This morning when I got in I helped my boss write a brief summary on some 802.11n problems. Check it out, its a short interesting read. For those if you who don't know what 802.11n is, its a new way of doing wireless, due out who knows when. Warning, its kinda technical, so if you don't like that stuff or have no interest... you may go back to your regularly scheduled program.

This makes me sad

Jeff posted a blog entry that just makes any car enthusiast sad. Here is a video that will do the same thing. The video mentions he has an Enzo as well, wonder what kinda shape its in?

Visual Studio

So I came across a solution to a problem I have had with Visual Studio for years. Many times while trying to find some text in the project I was working on I would get this error msg "No files were found to look in.Find was stopped in progress." To say the least, this has only added to my dislike of Visual Studio. I finally found a solution that works and doesn't involve reinstall VS or rebooting my machine. Ctrl + Scroll Lock fixes the problem. Someone suggested that it might have been an easter egg gone bad.... Well Mircosoft FIX my $1K Visual Studio!!!! Ok enough of my rants, hope this helps someone.

Little kids are funny and other random thoughts

So I had the opportunity to see one of my friends daughters this morning. What made my morning was when my friends daughter introduced me to her baby doll named Bear. Mom claims that one day she asked her daughter what the baby's name was and she replied "Bear". To all my friends about to have kids, this is what you get to look forward to when they reach 2 years old :).

So I have read and heard so many reports on how bad are economy is. Businesses are having a much harder time staying afloat than during the dotcom era. But at the same time when I see Ferrari posting records sales of cars(5400+ cars) it really makes me wonder. The US is by far there top consumer, so how bad are we doing? Is it that the rich are getting richer(like in many poor countries)? Oh and by the way, Ferrari had 1.55 billion dollars in sales, thats a lot of money.

Too much time...

Every morning I get into work, check the email, check bloglines.com for news. And everyday there is always some link showing how much free time some people have... Today's seemed to top all the other that I have seen this year. Meet Dr. Toast. Dr. Toast likes to do some really weird things with toast. Nuf said.

UI Design

So yeah I know it has been a while, but I found this article and thought it interesting. Joel makes some good points, I think Sony should read this. They have about the worst UI for phones I have seen. Samsungs is pretty bad as well. Oh and my favorite cell company Nokia also needs some help with its buttons. Any others?

Yet Another quiz

Numenorean


To which race of Middle Earth do you belong?
brought to you by Quizilla


Update: Numenorean, for those of you who don't know who they are and where they came from.

Is MS Windows ready for the desktop?

Written by a European gentoo user, funny commentary about windows!!!

My name in Japanese(last, first)

My japanese name is 藤原 Fujiwara (wisteria fields) 拓海 Takumi (open sea).
Take your real japanese name generator! today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Name Generator Generator.

Smaller cars

In an effort to cut down on fuel consumption, GM has decided to make compact versions of the Corvette.

Alternative fuel sources

So recently with high gas prices the way they are I have been looking at other forms of fuel. It all started the other day when I happened on a TV show called Trucks!, which I had seen before but something caught my eye. The host was talking about biodiesel and how to make biodiesel at home. Since then I have talked to numerous friends and family about diesel engines. It turns out that I am not the only one curious about this and many are interested in joining a coop or willing to pitch in and split on a setup to create our own diesel. So over the next couple weeks you will probably see an increase in diesel engine/car/fuel related info. I have quite an interest in this now due to the fact that I drive almost 60+ miles a day to work and home. If you have interesting links or are curious about something, feel free to email me and I will post stuff you find or the questions you have.

Diesel motorcycle

Because of recent high prices in gasoline in the US, I have been doing a lot of research in to diesel engines and various alternatives to diesel fuel(ie. biodiesel). I came across this diesel motorcycle, which I had seen before. It comes from a company in Sweden called Star Twin. Check out these pictures, pretty cool looking sport bike to me, and its got power. Supposidly it has 150 bhp with 250 foot pounds torque with a couple small changes to the engine management software, and it only ways 450 lbs. not great, but not bad for a 1200cc bike.

Motorcycle heaven

999 by the Ocean

Cyborg name generator

So...

your wife says to you, "honey we are having kids now and I don't want to give up driving my Ferrari 456GT. We need space to carry the kids and the family dog, and the 456GT just won't cut it." Well I have a solution for you, with enough money Ferrari will do anything for you.

Best cars for college kids

So this list is rather interesting. As Autoblog said it looks like most of this list was choosen by parents. My favorite car on the list of course was the A4, but don't let that base price of $28k fool you, there is no chance you will ever walk out of an Audi dealer spending $28k for an 2005+ A4.

Update quote from GermanCarBlog: "I hope they(Forbes) will realize someday not to write about cars anymore in future ...."

Some will work for food, others, well....