What did you buy people for Christmas?

Interesting Question isn't it?
How often do we ask that?
I know for me by far the best part about Christmas is buying the presents and giving the presents.
What wouldn't you give to see your little sisters face light up as she unwraps your gift! Or how your mum cries as a
present just touches her heart...

Too often at Christmas we are focused on what we got, and how it compares to others.
How can we do this !
Christmas is the celebration of Christ's Gift to the world. Eternal Salvation.
Through his death we can have a life full of joy and happiness, because we are content and secure in his love.
And Its Free for the asking, all you have to do is turn from the things he doesn't want you to do, and agree to follow him.
Its not rocket science! But it does require a sacrifice, turning you life over to him.
(please email me if you want to talk about this : james@jambe.cjb.net)

But Getting back to the question I asked at the start,
I want it to do two things, firstly I want to ask that question to you. What did you get for your friends and family? In answering that question you should look at yourself.
What are you focused on? Do you care about the gifts you got them, or are you just hanging out to receive your own?

Secondly I suggest that we should all ask that to others, giving them the opportunity so share with you the joy they have received from giving.
They can tell you the stories of how they found each item, of the recipients face as they received it, etc.

Now isn't that better than asking each other what we got?
Choosing to focus on giving will also help you to enjoy receiving, because you can see the love that's gone into your grandma's jar of Jam she gives you, or the hand knitted sweater from your aunt. As you may have heard before, its the thought that counts. You will love the gift because the giver loves you!

Well that's my 2 cents on Christmas ...

Remember the Focus is Jesus not ourselves,
Remember the recipe for JOY:
J esus
O thers
Y ou

Have an amazing Christ-Centered holiday,

Blessings to all,

James

Are Books Dead and Gone?

This is a very interesting article about the history and future of books :
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/665/bo3.htm
Its a bit philosophical but I quite like that sort of stuff :)

Well worth a read,

The Back Pew - Christian Cartoons ( Student Prayer )

The Back Pew - Christian Cartoons ( Student Prayer )

This is a great image of how I feel at the moment :)
No not quite I studing so that this won't be me...

Processing at the speed of Light AND A great puzzle for you

Hey everyone,
Found so interesting reading for those of you who are bored, or avoiding studying like me :)

Optical DSP's developed in Israel!

The Watson Test - can you get it right?

Science Photo Competition

James Brunskill

Laser Weapons finally (sort of)

The Oakland Tribune Online has an interesting story about the current generation of laser weapons being developed. While we are still a ways off from seeing them on the battle field, they are getting closer and closer everyday.

One thing struck me though, they said that all the laser will be infrared, not visible light. This means that you would just see things blow up in the air for no apparent reason. It reminded me of the attack on Israel in Left Behind where airplanes, and bombs blew out of the sky for no reason. While I wouldn't want to take away from Gods place in that senario, A huge array of lasers places strategically could have the same effect.

Interesting to ponder anyway,

Have a Great Day

James

Jesux

Did you know that there is a Christian version of linux! Its called : Jesux I has features like auto blocking of dodgy sites, and bible verses when ever you open a shell window! These things are all relatively easy to add to any Linux distribution but its quite a cool idea :)

Read the about Jesux page if you are worried about the name or anything http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Node/4081/jesux.html

James

First And Follow Sets

I think it must be getting near to exam time, as A lot of people have been visiting my First And Follow Sets page
I just thought I would mention it, incase you too have an exam covering that topic.
Also I had one of my PCHelp Pages referenced on Experts-Exchange the other day!!!
Heres the link: http://www.experts-exchange.com/Security/Bugs_Alerts/Q_20647858.html

Well back to my essay,

James

Waikato ACM General Meeting

We just had our Waikato Student Chapter of the ACM AGM today, (Free Pizza if you missed it)
I have been replace as treasurer, as have all the rest of the Execs (bar secretary)
Check out the website http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/studentacm/
to see more, and get involved...

James

Can You Raed Tihs?

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteres are at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a tatol mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe.

Language (Can You Raed Tihs?)

I didn't have any trouble reading it, but I am slightly dyslexic...
Interesting concept though, we don't really need all of the letters in a word, if the whole world agreed then English could be shortened and writing might be far more efficient. Altogether if people misspelled words, then it would be much harder to work out what they actually wanted to say.
Well, that's what we are all about here, Rambling :)
Seeya again soon

James

Log Based Files Systems Presentation

Today I did a presentation to a class on the paper "The Design And Implementation of a Log Structured File System" by Mendel Roseblum and John K. Ousterhout. Their paper describes a new type of structure for Files systems. (as of 1991)
CiteSeer's page about the paper - visit this site to download the original

Well, this being done my work load has settled down a bit, and I will try to get a little bit of work down at sourceforge (I have just started a project there) you can see the page by going to http://jhtmlmanager.sourceforge.net/

Well that's it for now, I will keep you posted though....

James

Blogger Pro!!!

Well I am sure that blogger must have a huge spike in number of posts right as they just anounced that the previously $34/year blogger pro is now free for everyone. So I will be able to take advantage of all the new features...

I am also working almost etirely out of linux now (having installed SUSE) I managed to get everything going for the first time!!! Every other attempt to install linux has failed to atleast have no workin sound, and they have all only suported my video card at low resolutions. I am now running at 1280X1024 which is higher than widows will run...

I love the command line.


See you all again soon

James

TestDisk - Life Saver

Tonight I decided to install linux, (as you do from time to time) and Managed to stuff up my partition table. I lost all my files, and windows stuff. I was scared stiff! Luckly I found this site.

Test Disk Data recovery

It is truely amazing, It managed to find and mount an old windows partition that I hadn't seen for years. It isn't the easiest thing to use, and in certainly doesn't hold your hand. But its free and it works. File this url away for next time you stuff up your partition table!!! Now, how do I get linux to install...

Have a great day,
James

The police state - BEES

This article might interest you...
It is interesting that every few months another article appears about bee society. People are starting to understand, not only their dance like speach, but now their politics...
Natures - The police state

Lessons in Failure - The Top 10 Ways to Ensure Your Search Marketing Strategy Sucks

Lessons in Failure - The Top 10 Ways to Ensure Your Search Marketing Strategy Sucks
- interesting article for webmasters, I don't agree with every thing they say though. Or at least I could quible over how they say it. For example they say that link programs will hurt your ranking, form what I have discovered this is not true. Otherwise you could bring down a site by signing it up to such a program. However I agree with that you probably shouldn't sign up for them, as they probably bring little traffic to the site, and unnessisarily clutter it.
Anyway I won't go on.
It's a good Article,

James

Richard Feynman streamed video Lectures

Another link that I just picked up from the Simon Singh Newsletter is this : Richard Feynman : "A theory of Everything"??? : Streamed video
The lecture topic itself is quite technical, but he is a brillient speaker and even if you just listen to the preamble I am sure you will enjoy it. (well maybe you need a touch of nerd) If you are somebody who wants to teach or is a teacher (in the truer sense of the word) then It might be interesting to watch as an example of someone who can make what could be very boring, both interesting and humorus. And he does so with out fancy slides, or live experiments.

I am probably raving far too much, and overhyping it but If you have some time to spare,
Why not check it out?

I don't have sufficent scientific knowlege to tell you how upto date or how relevant the topic is, as it was published (I think) in 1978.


James

Aventis Prize Won

BBC News on the Aventis Prize 2003 (the prize is for the best science publication for the year.) This year it went to "Right Hand, Left Hand" by Chris McManus. It sounds like an interesting book, but even if you aren't about to rush off and buy the book, the above page is worth a read.

I subscribe to few (very few) carefully selected newsletters, one of them is Simon Singhs News Letter In the latest issue he talkd of the aventus prize, and he offers a oppertunity to win a book if you can answer this question.
If there are 23 people in a room, then there is a 50/50 chance of a shared birthday, which
seems surprisingly high. The question is this: how many people do you need in the room for a 90% chance of a shared birthday?
If you are interested, here is a site that all but walks you through it: http://www.maa.org/mathland/mathtrek_11_23_98.html

I beleve the answer is 33 people. ie. 1 -(365/365*364/365....332/365) = 0.2047

Well thats about it for now,

Untill next time,

James

BLOGWISE - Blog Directory and Weblog Research

I have just had this site listed on BLOGWISE
So expect to see this link floating around a bit....




I have been really busy lately as usual, but I have lots of cool ideas to do some day. So keep checking back for new anouncements and stuff.

James

Mortgages

I heard an interesting thing the other day.
In Latin the root 'Mort' means Death (ie Mortal)
And the root 'Gage' meands "Grip" or "Grasp" ie (John went outside to gage the extent of the damage.)
Putting this together means the Mortgage means "Death Grip"....

Of course they were probably talking about it being something that has a grip on you untill it dies. But it's quite funny to think of it as something that has you in its grip untill you die :)

Anyway as can tell I am still alive, and I am working on the next version of JWT. It will be implemented in JAVA so if you don't already have Java installed on your computer you will have to download Java to run it. It think it is something like 5Mb. The actual JWT download should be relatively small. You will hear more about it soon enough.
The old version is still avaliable here if you are interested, or don't know what on earth I am talking about.

FTC steps in to help prevent 'Phishing' Scam's

How Not to Get Hooked by a 'Phishing' Scam

The FTC has just released this ?warning? or public notice about so called 'Phishing' Scam's. Basicly these people send emails that appear to come from some reputable source and trick you into inputing your credit card number and other personal details. Never ever give out that information, over the internet or phone or anywhere, if you didn't initiate the exchange. IE. if you are shopping at a reputable online shop (ie Amazon.com) you can safely give your credit card number and expect to recieve the product in the mail. If you get an email from "amazon.com" telling you to update your credit card details or something, It is probably a spammer trying trying to to trick you into giving them your credit card details. Anyway I won't go on just read the article from the FTC.

Google Toolbar - the best popup stopper

Google's Toolbar 2 is still in beta, but it is great! The best thing about it is the popup stopper. So far every popup stopper I have tried has either not worked or blocked the "open in new window" button as well. So far google has worked perfectly! It also interfaces with Blogger so if you have an account like this you should try it.

A Way to Pray

I was reading 1 Timothy the other day, and came accross this verse,
To Timothy my true son in the faith: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

It struck me that those three things would be good things to pray for each day, peace so that we can enjoy our day, and be refreshed and revitalised. Mercy that God would continue to bestow his mercy on us that inspite of our sins, and grace to recieve that which we don't deserve, in accordance to His will.

Anyway It's a thought,

James

Adjustments

The New version of blogger now released allows you to have Titles, and more readable archive names etc. So I have updated the format a little, Hopefull it should be a little more clear now...

I am sure you have all heard of Project Gutenberg, which is taking all the books it can find in the public domain, and converting them into digital format. So that they can be searched, and easily read by anyone. What you may not know is that you can be involved. If you visit http://www.pgdp.net/c/default.php you can sign up to be a proof reader. How it works is they give you a scaned image of a page, and the text it tried to take from the page. You just look for errors, add in missing formating etc. Their Documentation tells you all you need to know and a whole lot more....

If you are interested in books, or engish or just bored, why not sign up and have a go.


I also should tell you that Tiny Tiger Studios have released their first game called "track trouble", download the demo at http://tinytigerstudios.com/

well I guess thats about it for now

James

If you have ever heard of Adventures in Odyssey, (A kids radio show)the you might be interested to know that one of the AIO forums they are holding elections for mayor. I am running... Here is the Brunskill Election Site. For those of you who think that something may have gone wrong with the site, you might like to visit Jareds first. http://www.odysseyscoop.com/jaredwalczak/campaign/ Hopefully you will then find my site a whole lot funnier :)

Are you bored? Guess the Dictator or Sit-Com Character is a great time waster :) basicly you answer yes and no questions about a tv character and it finally guesses who you were. Very cool! If it doesn't get your chatacter you can add your own question and person.
Anyway in a week or so things should start happening again, as the semester ends.

I am in the middle of doing an assignment, but I just thought I have to tell you about Karl's Online Calculator:" It is great, it lets you do base2 logs and everything. If you need to do complex calculations try it.

If you are into trains, or you like games where you build stuff check out Tiny Tiger Studios 1 of my friends has just started this company. I haven't tried the game yet but I will be sure to tell you about it as soon as I do, and tell you as soon as a public release can be downloaded.

James

I have just had a historic occasion. For the first time in my websites history someone has bothered to tell me that they do not like my site :)JAMBE GuestBook - Check it out guest 13

I hope doesn't send you all away :)


James

If you missed yesterdays post go read it before you read this :)

<Continue Story>


My website really took of, when I realised that you needed to submit your website to search engines. I started with Yahoo! and then found some "submiter" sites. I started geting hits. However the hits were very few and far between, Wondering if anything could be done I read some articles on how to get more. This involved, making meta tags, adding keywords to your pages etc. None of this was very successful, then I stumbled across the most important aspect of all. In order for people to find your site you need something that they will be looking for. So I started writing stuff, I wrote the Project X.16 page, and a short look at evolution. This increased hit significantly. Then the webpromotion world went nuts as google apeared on the scene. I was amazed how easily I found pages using google and investigated into how it worked. As you probably know google ranks sites according to how many links are pointing to it. Armed with this knowlege I started to find people to exchange links with, this definately increases the hits you get! Anyway I think I was side tracked there :) if you want to read more about promoting your site of want to exchange links the best thing to do is to go to my web promotion page (which needs an update) and read it.


To answer the question "why did I make this site?", I started this site as an learning exercise and it hasn't stopped since :)


< end story >




Thats one of your questions answered.


If you have question you would like to ask me, please email me and I will do my best to answer it.
And I love it when people sign my guestbook so if you enjoyed any part of my site please go here and sign it.

James Brunskill

Well, this blog is now listed on Blogs4God.com and I have linked to it from my main page. All of which means that people are actually comming here! So I thought I have better do a little update.
I got this great guestbook entry today

---

What is your name? Mercedes
How did you find this Web Site? Searching for information on Proverbs 4
Are you glad you found it? Yes...you remind me of a friend I know...always conscious of his 'rambling' which really isn't rambling at all. [:D]
Did you find what you wanted? No. Like I said I was looking for information about Prov 4, but more specifically verses 23 - 27.
will you come back? Since you asked, and I see no reason not to, YES.
Do you have any comments? I am impressed by your website and wondered what made you decided to create it?

---

Well Mercedes, I am glad you don't consider my rambling "rambling". Maybe rambling has something to do with greatness,,,


Anyhow, you raised the question "why did I create this site"? well...


<begin story>
Firstly I started creating a webpage because I wanted to find out how to do it. I made one about my family, with prayer requests information etc. however this soon became boring so I created my own personal website (with frames and everything!) It didn't really have much, links page to my favorite websites, the Online KJV Bible (much the same as today), and a "did you know" page. Of course basicly no one came to this page,but it was fun making it though.
<end story>

Well thats how I got started, hopefully I will finish the story tommorow, so check back then if it isn't allready here :)


James

blogs4God - a Semi-Definitive List of Christian Blogs here is a list of blogs with a christian base? I am not really sure but I thought I would post here to remind my self more than anything :)

I have just read this article "Oil From anything" it is talking about a new process for refining waste products into oil! well worth a read...

Hit Monger This is another *new* idea to get hits. It isn't really that great but it does force people who want to sign up to view all the sites...

BBC Radio's 5 Numbers If you are at all interested in cryptography, math or even if you aren't you might be interested in listening to this series. I have found it amazing, restoring a love of mathematics i don't think I ever had :) Of course these numbers aren't your average numbers but at least we can enjoy the interesting ones...

WLUG-Wiki - James Brunskill - Have joined? the waikato linux user club, and in doing so you seem to get a free page :) I have taken advantage of this...

PCHelp JAMBE's Computer problem/solution page - if you haven't checked out this section of the site yet, then you should :) I have just emailed a couple of other sites about linking to it... hopefully it will get better if It gets more hits.

have a great day!

I found a good site today it is called the Berean Notepad. It has articles about God and the bible etc. I really enjoyed this "outline" on Discipleship

Jobs4Grads.net
- If you are a NZ grad, or are soon to be, then you should check this site out!

Just today I was getting sick of waiting for my WCW Startpage to load every time I started my browser. I have just created a personal startpage for myself, with links to my favorite pages, as well links to wcw startpage, and this blog. Now If I could just get it to automaticly update with my most often visted sites....

James

www.odysseyscoop.com Has just updated it's Fan List If you are also a odyssey fan you should sign it too,

James

On the 18th I had an article published in www.thischristianlife.com which is an excelent online christian magazine. You can read the article here http://www.thischristianlife.com/base/edit/internet0303b.html Thanks to Pat for publishing it. Any questions you have about it can be sent direct to my normal email (which you can find at the bottom of this page.

For a while I have been Neglecting to talk about this, How does one say JAMBE?

It is an actually the french word for leg, as you will see if you look at the ramble archives. But as I am not french and didn't even know that it was a french word, I like to say it as Jam (the stuff you might spread on bread) Bee (the little flying stinging insect). JAMBE...

I found this verse the other day so I thought I would share it with you.

Hebrews 10:24 - And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.

I like the way it says to stir-up we shouldn't just be doing good ourselves but encouraging others to do the same.

Incase you didn't know our webpage is found at www.jambe.cjb.net

James