June « 2011 « Hackers For Charity

Not sure I’ll make it to Defcon this year, bit i think it’s just as well.

It looks like flights from EBB to Las Vegas will be more than $4300. Combined with room and incidentals, that’s more than we’ve ever made fundraising at Defcon. It also looks like I won’t get a speaking slot despite rather heroic efforts from Defcon staff.

On top of that, I just got a bill for shipping charges on computer gear that was supposed to be used in the States. Now the gear is here and I’ll have to do my best to make it work. That bill is about $4500 so that tells the tale.. The exact amount I would have needed for Defcon.

Things have been going horribly lately, so this is just the icing on the cake. It’s one thing after another.

Our 501(c)3 is still stalled, the Ugandan government is nickel and diming us, those I trust turn on me no matter how mush I’ve poured into them and a couple weeks ago we got the biggest kick in the teeth yet. I’m still drafting the post on that one.

The whole thing just has me scratching my head..

You know, it really is (was) an insane concept and an even more insane move. I am obliterated and frankly I’m lacking the resources, stamina and heart to float the org any more.

“So ask for help,” you might say.

That’s good advice, but I’m terrible at delegating and have failed miserably at properly engaging the skills of the community. So it’s been the “Johnny show” for so long that now even the most basic requests seem to fall flat. I can’t blame anyone except myself.

So it’s probably best that I’m not going to make Defcon. I’ve got a lot of work to do. I have an f-ton of donated equipment I need to distribute and make the most of. I owe it to you, the donors, to stretch what you’ve given as far as possible before making any final decisions about the future.

It’s good timing for me to dig in with what we have because financially we can’t afford much more than that.

These words are sour for me to even read. Pre-Africa, in some previous revision of me, I’d like to think I would have been up in the face of these things, standing, fighting.

But right now I feel like I’m just fighting to make it through each day, to end up “on the right side of the grass” as my Shidoshi used to say, practically a lifetime ago.

I don’t know what it is about music, but I love working sound. I played violin for like 14 years or something, and my dad was a DJ for as long as I can remember, when he wasn’t busy hacking the crap out of some kind of electronic something or other. But for whatever reason, I love the tech and the music and enjoy slaving away for hours on end mastering tracks and video. Here’s a preview of tonight’s performance.

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Steeped in iPhones lately. I’ve spent the whole week, it seems with an iPhone on my desk. So many people are bringing them over here, and they all want to .. get this .. use them as phones.

I recently bought the Apple training material. It wasn’t cheap and it’s not easy, even with years of hands-on Apple experience. I am hoping to get certified by Apple to do in-warranty repairs, then I can train my techs and get them rolling with Apple repairs. That will hopefully lead to us opening an Apple certified repair center.

I say all this because for the first time ever I actually feel a twinge of guilt when I jailbreak and unlock an iPhone. That’s a first for me. I guess it has to do with the fact that on one hand I’m looking to legitimize our work by getting all our techs certified, while on the other hand I’m blatantly violating the warranties of some of our customer’s gear.

I’m not letting it bother me too much though because without a jailbreak and unlock, foreign iPhones are useless here, and those bought in country are ridiculously expensive and tethered to mind-blowingly expensive plans.

Plus, I realize how much an iDevice means in terms of productivity. I’m a terribly infrequent blogger, but thanks to my SANS-donated iPad it’s much easier to find the time wherever I am.

So I’m stopping the perpetual iPod-downgrade of all these iPhones and boosting the productivity of the organizations whose staff have come to rely on them.

That bit of masterful justification brought to you by the letter “A”.

Repairing seven laptops for Shepherds Heart International Ministry this week. They were really old machines, most Pentium IV, and they had written them off. So far Sparks has been able to restore five of the seven.

Tim Kettering visited with us today at the Computer Training Center. A former member of Geek Squad, Tim came to Jinja to work with Tukula.org, Ekisa and Amani. He heard about Hackers for Charity and wanted to help us any way he could. I thought first of our technicians, Gerald and Sparks who have been swamped with repair work lately.

Tim took time to ask the guys about their challenges with repairs and answered lots of questions. He offered lots of advice, steering them towards lots of tools and techniques. It was great having Tim with us today. It sounds like he’ll be back on Friday. Should be a great day.

Thanks, Tim!

Tim Kettering visited with us today at the Computer Training Center. A former member of Geek Squad, Tim came to Jinja to work with Tukula.org, Ekisa and Amani. He heard about Hackers for Charity and wanted to help us any way he could. I thought first of our technicians, Gerald and Sparks who have been swamped with repair work lately.