Iteration | The Blog of Steve

Savin Da Trees (well sort of)

With all this rain that Brisbane has been getting over the last few days, our shiny(ish) new rain tank + system has gotten its first real use since about February this year. The biggest shame was that it only took about 1 day for the tank to full itself completely but it then took about 10 days to run itself dry. It will be interesting to see how much of an impact this has on the overall water usage for the quarter when that bill comes, given that our usage was effectively zero during the 10 days where the tank was full.

The tank + Rainbank system has so far worked really well, automatically switching itself on and off as there is water available in the tank. The UV steriliser + other filters should also keep the water all nice and clean.

14062007015

14062007017

Would be interesting to see how many of these systems the government could deploy into homes for the same price as it costs to build one dam….

Blog | Iteration 18/06/2007 | Comments (0)

MTU Settings under Vista

I recently started using Vista Ultimate on my laptop. So far, I am very happy with its performance but there has been an ongoing issue that I have been experiencing with it while using it at uni.

This problem was that certain web sites or network resources would not load correctly over the wireless connection while at QUT (eg: pages like <a href="http://www.whirlpool.net.au/">www.whirlpool.net.au</a> would half load and then hang). It worked fine at home and on other wireless networks. I had seen similar problems at work and they were generally MTU related. The issue was however that the Vista uses path discovery to discover the required MTU settings.
I believe however something to do with the QUT network (possibly the use a transparent proxy ) was somehow stopping this from working correctly.
 
The reason why this issue has never manifested itself until now is because the installation of the Cisco VPN client forces the MTU of all network adapters to 1300 upon installation.

The issue that was then found was that Vista doesn't allow you to edit the registry in the same way as XP did. However, after a bit of searching on the net, I came across the following commands that will allow you to set MTU under vista.

To view the status of your network adapters
(ie: to view the MTU) you use the following command:

netsh interface ipv4 show subinterfaces

And to set the MTU of the desired interface:
(setting my wireless adapter to 1470 in this case, this max MTU was found by performing a ping with the do not fragment flag set and finding the max packet size, eg: ping -f -l 1470 www.qut.com)

The following was run in an a command prompt that was run as administrator.

netsh interface ipv4 set subinterface "Wireless Network Connection" mtu=1470 store=persistent

After setting this, I found that everything worked fine. Happy days..

Hope that this can be helpful.

Blog | Iteration 24/05/2007 | Comments (0)

Post Synod Thoughts

Well after 5 days away up at the Alexandra Headlands camping and conference centre, Synod is over for another 18 months… well… sort of… I will get to that later. Either way, I am back and it is back to life as usual.
After attending the 11th Assembly last July, I thought that I knew approximately what I was going to be in for. This was found to be the case in some ways, but in others this was a very different experience to that had less than 12 months at Assembly. One major difference that was apparent almost immediately was that it would appear that the average age of those at Synod was significantly lower than what was present at Assembly; with far more under 40’s attending. The way in which proposals were brought to the Synod also seemed to be quite different to the way in which they were handled at Assembly, with those at Synod being much more report orientated.
I also found that another really great thing about Synod was that it was a great opportunity to catch up with others from throughout the state who I have met on various other Church events over the last year or so. In addition to this, it was good to meet others that I had not previously met.
One part of the Synod which was particularly good was the recognition of those ministers who had retired since the previous Synod meeting. I thought that this was really good to recognise those who had been preaching the word for multiples of my lifetime. At the same time, it was great to meet and talk to some of the ministry candidates and people starting doing ministry traineeships. It would have been a good lesion in Church Government for them but at the same time I thought that it was really good to recognise those who had come to the end of their ministry, while at the same time being able to see the next generation who are just starting out (or just about to). Very encouraging.
There was also significant time to be spent getting to know other ministers from throughout the state depending on which table you happened to find yourself at on any given day. I was lucky enough to sit down with two very interesting people, one a Minister of the Word and the other a Lay leader of a faith community (who happened to be sleeping in the same dorm as me too). This was an extremely valuable time as we shared about our local ministries and they offered their wisdom. I have to say that this would be easily the most significant thing gained from attending larger scale church meetings (ie: Synod and Assembly) because it is not often that you get to spend 5 days living in the company of so many in Gods ministry with such a broad range of experience and backgrounds. Spending this time sharing with such people and seeing what God is doing all over the state and country is a really significant blessing.
Getting back to that comment about no more Synod for 18 months. It is not entirely correct. Due to some of the decisions made, we will actually have to get back together for a Special Synod sometime in the next few months, which could be quite interesting in itself.
Either way, I thoroughly enjoyed the time spent at Synod. I found it to be extremely edifying and am thankful for the privilege of being able to experience it (and Assembly) and are thankful for that. Being under 25 though, there should be no issue attending the next Synod either.
In the mean time, might have to look into a period of discernment…

Blog | Iteration 23/05/2007 | Comments (0)

Funny find in Uni notes

While studying for an exam at Uni, we came across the following in the lecture slides…

Spot what is wrong with this slide.

lol

What makes this even funnier is that the lecturer insisted that this was correct. Furthermore, after a quick look on the net, it would appear that, according to this slide, our Sun emits less than 1dBw…

hehe..

Blog | Iteration 19/04/2007 | Comments (0)

Post Easter Mail Spam

Aren't large groups of public holidays great? Come Tuesday, I come home and there was a mountain of mail waiting for me… I swear that I must just about keep Australia Post in business by myself sometimes.

Anyway, waiting for me was not one package of stuff for the upcoming <a href="http://www.ucaqld.com.au/">Synod</a> info, but two. Apparently I am so special that my name was on the roll twice…maybe …. or something to that effect….

I look forward to reading through it all before Synod.. Well not really, but I have to read it anyway. I do however look forward to the Synod meeting itself, being an extremely good place to meet and talk to other people (both Ordained ministers and laypeople) who have lots of varied experience, wisdom, and are generally interesting to talk too. Will miss a day or two of uni, but such is life.

Also waiting for me was the new Youth resource from Julie Moser (the green one, showed with the previous orange edition) of excellent Youth Bible studies. They are extremely well prepared and thought out, and are not just fluff and tie in well with the Growing Apostles philosophy from <a href="http://www.yacmu.com.au">YACMU</a>.

They also included a whole heap of flyer for <a href="http://www.youthsurge.com.au/">YouthSurge</a> , though I have yet to actually go along to one of their events.

And just because they look so cool layed out..
<img width="500" height="375" alt="" src="/Portals/0/blog/synodstuff.jpg" />

Blog | Iteration 14/04/2007 | Comments (0)

Post AGMF Thoughts

It is about that time of the year (Easter just in case I need to be specific) which also means that it is AGMF time again. After going last year I thought that it wasn't such a bad event. Furthermore people I know were going to be doing stuff, so going to see them is kinda a half decent thing to do.

AGMF info here: <a href="http://www.agmf.com.au" target="_blank">http://www.agmf.com.au</a>

Anyway.

As far as the actual event goes, I felt that their line-up was not as strong as last year. The format was very similar and one point worth laughing about was the presence of Optus and Telstra who were flogging phones in amongst the other shops. Funny.

As a bonus, they had cheap copies of Lee Strobels books, "The Case for Christ", "The Case for a Creator" and "The Case for Faith" going cheap with the mass market editions. A recommended read for any Christian living in the present day.

One other event that we went to was a performance of Bach's St John passion. It has to be said that we really had no idea what we were getting ourselves in to, but I guess it was at least a good bit of historical education. It did tend to drag on a bit though..

Info here: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Passion" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Passion</a>

We decided to attend a local non-UCA church for a bit of a change on Easter Sunday (not as much of a change as to go to a Penticostal but anyway) and went along to living grace community Lutheran church, which is attached to Concordia Collage. It was a great service with a very nice worship and atmosphere, with well thought out songs and a clear scriptural preaching. Well worth going back to for future visits to Toowoomba.

There was only one thing that I found mildly interesting theologically and that was the punch line that Hillsong were pushing for their theological training (there were many other groups selling their courses too) which was "Training for a life of Significance". The impression from the sign and those selling it was really that the implications of such a statement are that the only vocation of real eternal significance is full time ministry, which is then up to an individual to choose, which doesn't really sit well with any doctrine of Providence. Quite simply though, this does make sense when their general <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arminianism" target="_blank">Arminian</a> theology is considered.

Either way, it was a good weekend away and a nice break for Easter.

Blog | Iteration 11/04/2007 | Comments (0)

Time for a new Phone

After providing me with almost two years of solid service and excellent functionality, the time has come to retire my Sony Ericsson Z800i (aka V800). For a two year old phone, it has really aged quite well, still providing data for my laptop via Bluetooth, taking photos, playing mp3’s etc. Pretty much the standard functionality present today, from an early 2005 phone, it just happens to be fairly bulky compared to its modern counterparts.
While looking for a replacement handset, Three (Hutchinson Telecom’s Australian branch) launched their “X-Series”, a set of plans which are geared more towards data and multimedia than voice. After looking at handsets that are available for this service, I decided to go with the Nokia e65 due mainly to the price and Wireless LAN functionality.
There were a number of things which I have had to work through with this phone so far which are of interest.

<li>
<div class="MsoNormal">Setting up the Wireless LAN to work on the QUT wireless</div>

I found that the phone cannot properly auto-configure wireless networks that make use of non-PSK WPA.
The following needed to be set manually under “WPA Security Settings”
<!–[endif]–>Set WPA/WPA2 to EAP
<!–[endif]–>Under EAP-Plugin settings, un-tick all bar “EAP-PEAP”, and move it to the top.
Then in Configure EAP-PEAP
 <!–[endif]–>User certificate set to “not defined”
<!–[endif]–>Set the CA certificate in the to “RSA Data Security” certificate that came on the phone.
<!–[endif]–>User name in use set to “user-configured”
<!–[endif]–>Username set to QUT username
<!–[endif]–>Realm in use “User configured”
<!–[endif]–>Realm: QUTAD
<!–[endif]–>Allow PEAPv0, v1, v2 = Yes
Under the EAP tab<o:p></o:p>
<!–[if !supportLists]–>·         <!–[endif]–>Untick all bar EAP-MSCHAPv2
Edit MSCHAPv2<o:p></o:p>
<!–[if !supportLists]–>·         <!–[endif]–>Set username to student number
 Prompt password = no
<!–[if !supportLists]–><!–[endif]–>     Password set to student password.

<li>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="TEXT-INDENT: -18pt">Setting up VOIP so that I can make SIP calls</div>

One of the features of the e65 that grabbed my eye was the built in SIP functionality, through making use of this I should be able to make cheap calls while in wireless coverage and theoretically also make VoIP calls over 3’s network using some of the X-series data allocation.
Configuration information can be found here (substituting relevant VSP details)
<a href="http://forum.voxalot.com/voxalot-support/427-nokia-eseries-support.html">http://forum.voxalot.com/voxalot-support/427-nokia-eseries-support.html</a>
It should also be noted that there may be issues with NAT traversal and there server end requirements for the Nokia STUN implementation. (Mentioned in above thread)
As for getting VoIP to operate over the UMTS connection, I found that you need to select the correct connection profile (Mobile broadband, APN 3netaccess on Three) and ensure that registration set to “when needed”.  (if you have it set to always register when used with UMTS, it will not work)
It should be noted that the latency of VoIP over UMTS will vary depending on your geographic location, I have however found that it works quite well in inner Brisbane.
As far as data usage goes, it appears to use approximately 1mb/minute (when both up and downstream data is counted) which equates to a cost of roughly 4c/minute (when you consider the $20, 500mb X-series allowance), on top of which you will need to add VSP costs.
Still cheaper than the normal mobile rates, especially when combined with services like Voxalot.

<li>
<div>Setting up wireless on home WLAN</div>

Just a short point here but I found out the hard way that the phone will not allow you to enter a WPA key that has the character ` . Bit of bad luck there….
Useful features of interest

<li>
<div>GPS Functionality</div>

One feature which caught my eye after using the phone for a bit was the built in navigation software. After a quick search on Google I found that Nokia have made an excellent little tool called “Maps” (formally Smart2go) which is street navigation software. It can be combined with a tool called “Maploader” (also from Nokia) which allows you to preload the maps of a given region onto a MicroSD card (the 256mb one that was included was more than enough to fit the maps for Australia). In addition to this, you can download the voice navigation features.
But it is when combined with a Bluetooth GPS that this software really becomes useful, basically giving the user full GPS street navigation software. I grabbed a cheap 16 channel Bluetooth GPS off eBay (found here: <a href="http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=005&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWN%3AIT&viewitem=&item=150106167777&rd=1&rd=1">http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=005&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWN%3AIT&viewitem=&item=150106167777&rd=1&rd=1</a>, model GPS38, which also came with a USB charging lead and car charger that are compatible with the e65)
One MAJOR fault that I found with the Bluetooth receiver is that it is very poorly designed. Basically you can be sure that any drop from more than 30cm onto a hard service will render it inoperable. (Which I did)
Upon opening the device it was found that the problem was the main antenna for the GPS module was mounted onto the PCB by a single solder joint and not held firmly in place by the plastic casing. To complicate the issue, the pad was pulled off the board by the drop, making it a fiddly job.
After half a day of fixing, the receiver lives again. One modification may be done to the device is to solder the antenna onto some shielding which is it is located on top of, this would at least spread the load of the antenna over multiple locations and off the solder joint.
Smart2go can be found here: <a href="http://www.smart2go.com/en/">http://www.smart2go.com/en/</a>
I have so far found a few funny programs like 3dTracker (<a href="http://free.3dtracking.net/">http://free.3dtracking.net</a> ) which allow you to use the GPS to log you travel to a web site in real time, which others can then log in and view on Google Maps.
Overall, very happy so far.
Oh, and it wouldn’t be complete without some photo comparisons.
<img height="400" alt="" width="500" src="/Portals/0/blog/i2.jpg" />

Blog | Iteration 05/04/2007 | Comments (0)

Post YACMU Young Adults retreat thoughts

I recently returned from a Young adults retreat (basically anyone out of school but not yet 30) which was run by <a href="http://www.yacmu.com.au/">YACMU</a>. The weekend focused around a ministry philosophy and long term plan which they have called <a href="http://www.yacmu.com.au/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=21">Growing Apostles</a>, a resource called <a href="http://www.yacmu.com.au/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=21&page=5">The Fridge</a>.

It was an excellent weekend of reflection and self critique and also a great chance to network with other young people throughout the synod, and also others from different denominations… Not to mention that it was a nice site at Alexandra Headlands at which to relax, shame that the surf wasn't much chop.

There is a blog running which sort of takes small parts from the Fridge and makes them avalible in the form of a Blog, it is avaliable <a href="http://bumpingintogod.blogspot.com/">HERE</a>.

Either way it was an excellent weekend.

Blog | Iteration 06/03/2007 | Comments (0)

Mobile Phone Lives Again

Just after my z800i's first birthday, the unthinkable happened.

Basically the phone would no longer receive  any signal while it was it was closed. Upon opening the phone.

Guide found <a href="http://www.lovehopefaith.com/V800_guide.htm" target="_blank">HERE </a>

I found that the internal antenna was broken.. Oh noes..

Fortunately  I found a new antenna cable on Ebay for $20.

After a long wait for the components to arrive I finally got around to installing the new antenna.. Happy days… Now time to wade through all those messages and missed calls from the last month..

Oh and life was just getting so peaceful without people being able to bother me while I was away from home or a PC

Anyway, Back to reality.

Blog | Iteration 07/11/2006 | Comments (0)

Workin

I recently made an interesting observation of a few people both at work and at Uni in that it would seem that there has been a shift in the way that people look at their career in light of their Christian life. It would seem that many people within the church simply view their work, their career as a means to an ends, operating independently on their faith journey and calling on their life.

One other way in which I have seen this attitude exemplified is the way in which the word "Vocation" has changed in use in more recent times. I recently told a friend who was completing their study that it was great that they were about to set out and begin their vocation, only to get a blank stare. It would seem that now, when people are talking about a calling to a career, they are only referring to full time ministry.

I suppose that my thesis here is that I think it is important for people to see their particular vocation as no less of a calling than those who go into the ordained ministries.

Another element to this is that it would seem that people also seem to spend quite a lot of time worrying about "How will I know what I am called to do, what gifts do I have?” I think this has quite a bit to do with a highly questionable doctrine that has permeated the Church in that people seem to think that everyone should receive direct communication from God on all manner of topics and, if this is not the case, that there is something wrong.

My thoughts on the matter are quite simple in that people will know how they are gifted and what they are called to do by what they are good at, and the way to find this out is to ask other people. If you are in a particular career in which you are particularly gifted, simply becoming a Christian does not mean you will need to change jobs straight away (well, depending on your job maybe it will) and ask God what you should be doing in your life. God does not require everyone to be in a position of ordained ministry to make use of him or her, to bring about his will, and he clearly does not work that way anyway.

Just to clarify though, I am in no way suggesting that God does not give direct revelation on occasion, I just think that this is the exception rather than the rule. People in the Church today seem to have a habit of raising every second person to the status of a prophet, but that is not what I am seeking to discuss here.

I think this is summed up in a quote from Martin Luther – "The Christian shoemaker does his Christian duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship."

I think that if we look to scripture on the matter we find considerable support for this if we just look at the life of Joseph and Daniel in the Old Testament.

Even the most minimal way that someone can look at this is to ensure that they conduct themselves in a manner that brings honor to God while in the workplace. The example of someone living out in a Christian life every day in the work place, reflected through their work ethic and interactions with other staff members can be in an of itself a powerful witness to those with whom you work everyday.

The main thing to remember is that, whether we like it or not, we are all ambassadors for Christ, no matter what we are doing.

Blog | Iteration 02/11/2006 | Comments (0)

Categories
- Blog (49)
May 2012

S M T W T F S

« Oct

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26

27 28 29 30 31
Archives
Links
- Burningsilicon Home
Meta

May 2012
S	M	T	W	T	F	S
« Oct
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31

Ponderings and Rants others stuff from Steve

Categories

Archives

Links

Meta