Blog/November 2011/Nov 11th

Nov 11th (sorry, no devar torah this week)

Hi, again!

No devar torah this week, because I've unfortunately had to work fixing Esther's computer. Work ended, work has begun -- long live work! Pathetic restaurant. Sarah's impending trip overseas is fast upon us. Happy birthday to my nephew!

We've had to get ready to be all alone for two weeks while Sarah takes a vacation amongst her friends and family in the US. But we're not ready, not really; and we'll miss her while she's away. In any event, she'll be visiting Daniela in Manhattan, her friends in the Philadelphia area, and friends and family in the Seattle area. We wish her a safe and enjoyable trip! She'll miss our upcoming wintry weather, but it's fair to say she'll see plenty of it where she's going.

We were pressed for time yesterday, so we decided to try a new (well, new for us) dairy restaurant here in Maale Adummim. We went to pick up some "take out", and I ordered a "lasagna". It was very small, not cheap, and burnt -- but it did have a good flavor at least. Note to my fellow M"A residents: don't bother going to the Castel Museum cafe ... definitely not worth it.

Yesterday was my last official day at work, and I have to say my mood was quite good all week! I was surprised by a small "going away" party thrown by my co-workers, and was suitably embarrassed by words of praise. Had they been willing to back up those words with actions, I might still be working there! In any case, I start work at the "new place" this coming Sunday -- so no "time off" for good behavior. I figured I could use the "vacation pay" more than actual vacation time, and it looks like that was a good decision. Next week, I'll tell you what the "new place" is like, and what I'm going to be working on.

<sigh> Windows. </sigh>

One day this week Esther noticed her computer was very slow. As in glacially slow. After some investigation, we found it had been infected by a couple viruses, and I was unable to get it properly functioning again even after many hours of work. Since it's the third time I had to "disinfect" her machine, I suggested (only suggested!) that it was time to abandon Windows XP (since it is no longer supported by MS), and put Kubuntu (linux) on it. I was willing to put Windows 7 on, but the machine is a fairly old one and not fast -- so Win7 is not a great choice.

So I rebooted the machine into a recovery version of linux, and copied her entire hard-disk onto an external disk so the data would be preserved. Then I rebooted into Kubuntu, and installed it (wiping the hard-disk in the process). Everything seems to work nicely, but now I have to get her set up to do the same things she was able to do before (Quicken for example). If I don't get her back to the same level of functionality, I won't hear the end of it ...

Here's a start of a "how-to" set up a secure machine:

1. Download Kubuntu, and make a CD so you can then
2. Install Kubuntu on the machine (best is to wipe the disk, but you can also do a 'side-by-side' install if you don't want to get rid of Windows on the machine)
3. When installing, you should opt for an "encrypted home directory". This will make sure that should someone steal your machine (or its hard disk), they won't be able to recover the data from it.
4. After installing, you should install "ufw", which helps manage the 'firewall'; once you've done that, open a "konsole" window and type "sudo ufw enable; sudo ufw default deny incoming". This will turn on the firewall, and make sure nobody can "connect" to your machine at all.

Next week, B"H, I'll give some more detail (and answer any questions you will have asked in the meantime).

Sarah's friend Shoshi will be staying with us this week. We will lunch at our friends, the Casden's, house. Our menu will contain among other things: stuffed artichokes, ḥummus, teḥina, half-eggplants with teḥina, guacamole, cabbage salad, vegetable soup, stir-fry chicken, brown rice, stir-fry vegetables, lamb chops, cookies, cake, fruit

Until next week,
shabbat shalom!

---

Top: Blog

Prev: Nov 4th

Next: Nov 18th

---