January « 2011 « Hackers For Charity

Shmoocon was really incredible this year. I’m so encouraged by aLL the support. Thank you everyone for making it a great show. I fel like HFC turned a corner this week, and I’m encouraged to keep working hard to be worthy of all the support.

This is going to be a REALLY long couple of weeks for me while I’m in the US. I’m really struggling with some pretty big things, so those of you that pray, pray for me. These could easily be the longest two weeks of my life. I’m a bit of a wreck.

I’m working on my Shmoocon video and I’ll post it soon.

Thanks everyone..

..

I’ve been in a bad place for a long time. Most of you noticed that I stopped blogging. Most of you remember one of my posts more than all the rest: worst day. Here’s a small quote from that post:

but once again I found myself asking why, exactly I felt the need to leave everything and drag my family to this God-forsaken place. This time, no answer came..

Here at Shmoocon, I’ve gotten some answers. I’ve been encouraged and re-embraced by the community. I’ve been gone, but not forgotten. But more importantly, I discovered that Hackers For Charity is no longer a crazy idea that exists in my head. It’s become a movement that’s embraced by the community. And I needed to see that. I’m obviously meant to keep plugging away at this. If I quit, then I’m a fool. If I give up, I’ve given up everything for nothing and proven that this really was a harebrained idea..

So thanks to the community, I’m back in action. I’m still struggling with so many things though. My life really is a mess and I’m not entirely sure that I will ever get it completely straightened out, but I am encouraged quite a bit that the labor is not in vain..

Thank you everyone. I really appreciate the boost and the encouragement. Now, go and volunteer. We’ve got work to do. =) ..

Hey everyone! I’m heading to the US for two weeks starting this Friday (Jan 27-Feb 12) and I’m hoping to get some donated equipment to take back on my return trip. We have some real basic needs, and I’m hoping some of you might be able to help by sending some things to an address (I’ll supply) in Maryland. These donations really help us out because we’re operating on such a small budget.

–Computer Equipment–

We need computer equipment for our training centers and our computer repair work. The training centers are 100% community projects (no real income to speak of) but our repair work brings in a lot of money that helps us run the centers. We’re hoping you can help us by donating the following:

- Computer Repair tools and toolkits
- PC diagnostic tools, books and training manuals. Help us train our guys and provide them the most modern tools and info for repair
- Apple parts and accessories (including but not limited to: power supplies, diagnostic software and books, Apple-specific tools, accessory cables like ipod chargers, etc). We are the only place in town that does Apple repair, and I want to see us improve in that offering. All info and gear welcome. Modern stuff only. Keep us on the edge.
- USB drives and enclosures
- Flash drives

–Music-Related items–

Music is part of the lifeblood of African culture. Many young artists are learning about how to take their talents to the next level by learning their way around the studio. They are learning about mixing and editing, post production and more. The problem is that most of the local instructors are stuck on keyboards, drum kits and subpar techniques that makes the final product flat, lifeless and predictable.

We’ve teamed up with CEPAC (The Center for Performing Arts and Culture) to help improve this situation. CEPAC has a great basic studio (housed in the basement of The Keep). Our plan is to start giving high-quality (one-of-a-kind) lessons to local musicians and sound engineers using this space to help the artists excel. We would love to see these young artists become self-sufficient using their gifts and skills.

We’re also running a weekly music night at The Keep. As you know, the cafe is designed to be a fundraiser for our personal support and our community work. Thanks to Keith’s donation, we have the best sound system in Jinja. Amazing speakers, a GREAT mixer, and … we’re missing the rest. We’re attracting some great acts because of the original venue and our heart for the community, and I’d like to continue to improve the quality of the sound and the venue for young artists. Some of our artists come from very far away (our traditional group, especially) and we’re moving in the right direction, but the gear we’re missing is really hurting the quality of the sound, and eventually will effect how many customers we keep coming back. Right now we’re limping by with local cables and mics, but we really can’t afford to buy better gear. We’re hoping you can donate the following:

XLR Microphone cables (20 foot and longer)
1/4″ to 1/4″ Instrument cables (20 foot and longer)
1/4″ to 1/4″ speaker cables (30 foot and longer)
Acoustic Guitar Pickups
XLR  /  1/4″  cable tester
Powered stage monitor
Decent performance microphones (all types, wireless, wired, dynamic, condenser, instrument, vocal, lavs, etc)

Karaoke CD’s / Hard Drives loaded with CD+G music (please only decent stuff… not the crappy MIDI crud). Karaoke is a hit. A surprise hit, but it is. We’ll use Karaoke on Fridays when we don’t have acts booked.

This equipment will not only serve us at The Keep to help our local artists really shine, but the equipment will be used in the downstairs studio and for live charity events we’ll be holding behind The Keep.

So please help us out.. spread this email around to any musicians you might know that have some excess or older gear. We could really use it.

For more information, see our website at http://www.hfc-uganda.org.

In preparation for Shmoocon, I’ve designed a new shirt to help us raise some much-needed capital. I designed it based on the Shmoocon website design. This is the back design. The front will sport the typical “i hack charities” slogan. I’ve taken a real gamble on these shirts by ordering 400. I need to sell 100 of them to break even. Here’s hoping.

Click for Larger Version

It’s been a busy week. I did home internet installations for two clients who have recently relocated to Uganda. One is supporting the Uganda Baptist Seminary and the other is supporting the UAPO. These were relatively small projects, just hooking up 3G routers and antennas for their small home network. It’s simple work, but so necessary. It’s amazing how many people come here and have no idea how to get fast Internet. Both clients came in through word-of-mouth. The other relatively big job was hooking up Internet and an nComputing cluster for Water Missions, International. This was a bit more involved as we’re load balancing multiple 3G connections and extending some of their desktop machines to support multiple users with nComputing. Here are some photos of that installation:

One Shot of the nComputing Install

Another shot of the install

The 3G Router setup

Here are a few more photos of the outside of Water Missions:

Water Missions Uganda's new home!

Fred sporting his backtrack shirt outside Water Missions!

The rest of the week was a bit ordinary. I worked on a few laptops for various non-profits, worked on a logo for the new HFC T-Shirts in preparation for Shmoocon, worked on the end-of-year finances and worked the sound for music night at The Keep. Since we were in an off-week, we had a Karaoke night, which was only lightly attended but was a real blast. I even got into the act with Jailhouse Rock (Elvis), House of the Rising Sun (The Animals), I’m a Believer (The Monkees) and Chantilly Lace (Big Bopper). I have my dad to thank for even knowing what those songs are. According to field reports, I do a mean Elvis and and equally mean Big Bopper. If anyone asks me to do it at Shmoocon, I won’t… unless of course I’m taunted with a charitable donation. =)

It was a decent week. It’s good to be busy again.

More soon.

I’ve been back from vacation for a while. Then I was in Beijing speaking at a conference. Then I was back to Jinja to…life. Sorry I haven’t blogged in a while. Truth is, I was “lost” as the Ugandans like to say. I’d like to say I am “found” but all I can say is that I’m back. There’s work to be done, and at least I have my head on my shoulders well enough to get some work done.

Today was interesting. I was up at 3:45am to open The Keep for the NCAA BCS Championship game live on ESPN. I’ve never been a sports fan, but because of the fact that we run an “American” place and we have ESPN on DSTV Africa, customers are asking for American sports. So we’re showing the NFL playoffs, and the XGames, and the BCS Championship.

Because of the 8-hour time difference, we’re up pretty early to catch the live games and it’s been pretty fun. The game was amazing this morning (sorry, Oregon) but it was even more exciting because at halftime, power went out all over town. So I scrambled to get a UPS in place, and an hour later, we scrambled for a generator. I’m glad we went through the effort. The game had an amazing finish.

We watched the Seahawks upset a few nights ago and that was pretty intense also.

I know, it doesn’t sound like work, but I was the barista and the waitress and the hostess for the morning. I rather enjoyed being behind the espresso machine again. It’s been so long since I’ve done anything besides computer work at The Keep, and I realized I missed it.

I’ve been looking in from the outside for too long. This restaurant, along with the (dwindling) donations from the States and the far-too-sporatic speaking gig are our bread and butter… our livelihood. I’m trying to focus on it a bit more.

So I’ll open before dawn for football, pull shots, run the soundboard for our musicians and even slog through the decidedly non-glamorous laptop repair when I need to.

It’s still better than the 9-5 in the US. I’m still pretty sure about that.

Speaking of the US, I’ll be at Shmoocon in DC! SANS is flying me out and I’m not sure exactly what I’ll speak about, but I have twenty minutes. Should be interesting. I’m excited to see everyone again!