Bill Schrull
 Freshly re-imaged Andriod Tablet |
Today was an DWT office day. Canon Mafumbi, who heads up the financial offices for the Diocese wanted to have network file and print sharing setup with their three laptop computers; his computer, the accounts and the cashier computer. It took a little while for me to get that going as I’m normally used to Active Directory domain computers to configure rather than a small work group. Never the less, I got them working together sharing files and sharing Mafumbi’s printer.
After this I worked a bit more on the DWT compound wireless network setting two repeaters they can use to extend the network into the new house and hostel rooms when they have guests visiting. The units are small and portable so the can be plugged into any electrical outlet.
I also fixed an Android tablet that I left here on our last trip. It gave it to Emmanuel Bwatta to use and experiment with as a trial unit for the 20 tablets we brought with us on this trip. The only problem was I had played around with the operating system before hand. Apparently when an OS update came through, the changes I made caused the boot up to fail. Fortunately I was able to download some tools to re-image the unit back to it’s factory installation state. So it is back up and running. I passed it back to Emmanuel. Hopefully he will have no further trouble with it.
 Good Shepherd Church |
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Later today we were invited to visit Mchungaji Mwema (Good Shepherd) Church, which is the Marusi district of Kasulu. Cathy and I have visited the parish before. It was good to see the progress they have made with purchasing surrounding property so that they can work towards building a more lasting building for worship. We had dinner with Paster Ndenza and then traveled back to the compound for the evening. As you can see from the pictures, the current church building is nothing more than a wood post and frame structure with reed matting for the sides with tarps to keep the rain out and a corrugated metal roof. My hope is that my home church, St. Paul’s will step up to help Good Shepherd with their fund raising to build a permanent building. I guess I’ll be talking to them when I get back from our trip.
Tonight we are enjoying a quiet time at home, writing in our blogs and drinking Chai Bora tea, a favorite here in Tanzania. By the way, if you’ve noticed that my blog posts have been somewhat short, it’s because my Bluetooth keyboard decided to quit working just before we left the USA. So I’ve been typing on the screen keyboard. It actually works pretty good, but it’s definitely slower than a regular keyboard. So please forgive any typo’s.
I give thanks to the Lord for the time we have been here. We had a wonderful time so far with more blessings to look forward to. I’m especially looking forward to this weekend when we worship at St. Michaels Church in Kigoma. I’ll say more about that in a later post. For now, just taking in the moment we are in is good enough for me.
Peace be with you friends,
Canon Bill
 Dual Mac Mini server setup |
For me the day was spent working at LTC, trying some various network configurations in the hopes to simplify their setup. I also configure the second Windows server with MS Office 2007, which is the version of Office they need for training purposes. I was able to configure the two server connections on the thin client computers so they can choose which server to log into at boot time. The only thing left to do at LTC is to document the changes so we have a network map to work with. We need that because they expect to get a new Internet router/modem from Halotel soon which will require that we make some changes to the networking addresses on there systems. This should not be a problem to do, even if I have to help them remotely, since the modem won’t be available while I am here.
Today I also helped my friend Festus with the setup of an iPad. He plans to use it with an application that works with his Prosonus rack mount mixer so he can remotely control it via a wireless network. It’s similar to what we do at home a St. Paul’s Church with our Presonus mixing console. The setup of the iPad went pretty well after answering about 20 questions that Apple asks during the initial iPad setup.
 Thin Client Workstations |
It’s something you don’t notice so much at home in the USA, but when you are dealing with slower bandwidth, typing in your iTunes ID and password over and over again gets a bit old. Never the less, we got him configure with his Apple ID and downloaded the Presonus application. I’m looking forward to hearing how he made out this evening with the setup.
Today was also our most “independent” day as far as food goes. We handled our own breakfast and lunch, and since we were not scheduled to have dinner at someone’s home tonight, we went out to dinner at the Kasulu Motel. It was very good food and it was also nice for Cathy and I to spend the night out together by ourselves.
Kasulu has change so much in the 11 years I’ve been coming here. During my first few trips, there was nothing as far as electric power, except that which was generated by diesel during the hours of 7 pm to 11 pm. Cell service was spotty at best, and there was NO internet accept that which we installed at the bible college via Satellite. Now there are multiple choices for Internet which you can have with you via mobile technology and electric power is available all over Kasulu. It’s really made communications much better.
 Car from the Diocese we are using |
Again I thank you for your prayers of support. Keep them coming. We are truly blessed by them and the many friends back home who offer than on our behalf.
Until tomorrow, Kwa heri!
Bill