The Intersection of
Life, Faith, Technology, & Science

This afternoon, I asked where the GeoTags went? I really wanted to discuss some application of the GeoTags concept, but I had to leave for a fifth Sunday rally at one of our sister churches.

The application I am wanting to use GeoTagging for is two sites: the one for my church (I am working on designing their site) and the one for the church camp (I am working on redesigning that site) that my church is involved with. If someone with a GPS reciever gave me the coordinates from the front porch of the church and from the main building at camp, then these could be GeoTagged into the web site. With the GeoTagged web sites, people could see exactly where these community resources are.

I think churches should definitely be GeoTagging their sites with very precise coordinates. While I can see why a personal site might not want precise coordinates (to prevent cyber-stalking, etc. In fact, the GeoTags on my blog and resume point to the center of town, and I don't live in the center of town.), a church wants to be found. Why not make it easy for web-savvy seekers to find you?

As I wrote that last paragraph, I thought of something. GeoTags should NOT take the place of a page with well-written directions and a well drawn map. While GeoTags can help locate your site on a search engine's map (not Google's Local Search, and I don't know why not), they will not take the place of showing your web site visitors where you are located on your site.

What ever happened to GeoURL.com and GeoTags.com?

For those of you who don't know, you could post some META tags in your HTML document, add URLs at those sites, and boom, geographic search engine (including click on the map and see sites on the map).

However, they seem to be dormant. GeoURL states "We are down for renovations. Check back soon!" GeoTags appears to be functional, but adding a URL produces an error. There is a Linux Journal article that talks about GeoTagging. It mentions that A2B and MultiMap read and index GeoTags and GeoTagged sites. I submitted to A2B through PingOMatic, but I haven't submitted to MultiMap yet (they apparently require a reciporical link).

Is someone going to pick up the ball on this, so that we can see where sites are located on this terrestrial ball (or over, if you can blog from the ISS).

Dear Heavenly Father,

I come to you this morning admitting that I am a procrastinator. Please forgive me of this, and please use the Holy Spirit to change me and to encourage me to make better use of my time.

Help me to focus. Help me to complete the task at hand, and help me to get it done in a timely manner.

Father, I want to glorify you, and I pray that by your grace and your mercy, I can do that.

I pray this in the mighty and holy name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Since Christmas, I have made two changes to our computer setup.

First, I installed a Linksys LNE100TX network card. Our DSL connection was running fine on USB, but I got a SanDisk 512 MB Cruzer Micro USB Flash Drive (it's pretty cool, but form-wise, it's not the Swiss Army USB Flash Drive. However, mine's 512 MB, and you can't get that Swiss Army style.). Anyways, plugging the USB Flash Drive in caused our DSL connection to drop. Ergo, fix that problem by replacing USB connection with Ethernet.

Second, I noticed on our ISP had a firmware download for our DSL modem that would allow us to operate without the DSL software installed on our computer. Since our computer is older, slower, and a little deficient in the memory department, I tried it (it didn't work until the ISP sent me a new modem).

The result: a connection to the internet that I don't have to click on an icon to establish. Always on....which means, I am always distracted. Since I am now more distracted, I get less done.

Glen Burnie Evangelical Presbyterian Church is perhaps the first blog-based church web site I have seen.

Interesting. As a webmaster, I've thought about the inclusion of blogs into church/ministry web sites, but doing the whole thing as a blog. Yeah, that could work.

You may tire of reading about this (also this article), but this is my soapbox and I'm standing on it.

Blogger wrote on 25 January 2005 A.D. (I know this is several days later, but I was unable to blog or e-mail a couple days this week):

Thanks for letting us know about this validation issue. However, unless it is actually breaking functionality somewhere in Blogger or causing true accessibility issues, it will likely be treated with a low-priority.

Blogger has spoken. This is a low priority problem according to Blogger. So the question is, do I transition the blog back to HTML 4.01 where it will validate, or do I keep it XHTML 1.0 and wait for Blogger to fix it.

Comments still aren't a go on the blog, so if you want to tell me what you think, this is the place to do it.

In a note to myself Sunday, I noted several things I wanted to do with this blog:

1. Edit the CSS so long titles have a hanging indent.
2. Edit the CSS so the date appears in a different color.
3. Look at editing the template so that a horizontal rule appears between posts (possibly 50% width).
4. Find logo icons for RSS 2.0 and Atom feeds.
5. Use icons found in step 4 to advertise feeds.
6. Modify footer to give credit to FeedBurner for the feeds (yes, I know Blogger supports an Atom feed, but it doesn't give stats like FeedBurner. Blogger's Atom feed for this site feeds FeedBurner.).

All but #4 are done now. I didn't find any logos I liked. So text links will do for now. The titles do look better (more separated) with the hanging indent. Having the date in the teal makes it stand out a little better. The Horizontal Rule divides the posts a little more, and the site feed links let people know what is here. Also, in the spirit of "giving credit where credit is due", FeedBurner is linked in the footer.

My brother upon looking at my blog said:

Get some color into that site! :)

I think I like the color scheme as is, unless I can go to something like this (the earth may be a bit much, but the transparent blue and the starfield is pretty cool).

The other day, I wrote that this site wasn't Valid XHTML because Blogger wasn't encoding ampersand (&) characters. Well, it's not just blogger. I tried re-validating today only to find that I had missed some too.

Just because HTML let it slip by, that doesn't make it right in XHTML.

Note to Readers:  I edited this post because I didn't like how the hyperlink looked in the title. The hyperlink has been moved to "this week's question."

At the Great Church Websites forum (Edit: 30 Jan. 2005 A.D. 06:30: David Gillaspey who runs GCW and the forum pointed out that I typed .com instead of .org in that URL. I have corrected it. Sorry, David.), the moderator posts a Question of the Week. This week's question asks:

How is your church using blogging to help fulfill the Great Commission?

I felt it appropriate to answer this question in my blog, and then post the Permanent Link to the forum. So here is my answer.

First of all, I wrote an article the other day about how blogging can help us to prepare a defense for the hope that is in us as we are called to do in I Peter 3:15. The post was designed to provoke thought. However, I believe that writing can help foster spiritual development, and I agree with some of the remarks made by Tim Bednar in an article called We Know More than Our Pastors (PDF, 601 kB). Bednar postulates that blogging can foster spiritual development by making the blogger think about what he/she believes, and providing feedback (through the blogging commentary, which unfortunately is not yet enabled on this blog) helps this development process by challenging the thought process more. Now this may seem that I have gone off topic, but I think that more mature Christians that are more secure in what they believe are more ready to share the gospel with others (in otherwords, fulfill the Great Commission: "Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations...")

However, I think the blog is more powerful than that in terms of fulfilling the Great Commission because the blog gives someone a voice. With very little knowledge of XHTML, HTML, and/or CSS, a person can be set up on a blog. There are a number of pre-defined templates out there, and there are a number of services that make it easy to blog. With the help of a church's IT staff, a very good blog can be set up in little time at all. In fact, the custom template for this blog, although not finished, is functional, and was done in under 3½ hours. By giving these people a voice, they are then enabled to share their testimony with a wider audience than they may have access to on a normal basis. They can also discuss the testimony through the comment area of their blog, as a seeker might post questions there.

Finally, a blog can encourage others to carry out the Great Commission. A prime example of this is e-Vangelism.com, which is the site of Andrew Careaga, who wrote a book by the title of E-vangelism: Sharing the Gospel in Cyberspace (1999. Lafayette, LA: Vital Issues Press.). When I purchased the book, the site (as I recall it) was a collection of links. In fact, the book didn't even include the term "blog" in the glossary. However, today, Andrew posts relavent information about Christianity on and off the net (from American Idol to U2 to Yahoo!).

In summary, blogs can help churches carry out the Great Commission in three ways:

1. By encouraging spiritual development, giving church members the courage and maturity to evangelize.
2. By giving church members a voice and "expanding their territory."
3. By encouraging church members to evangelize, both on the internet and off.

I am at the FSU Dirac Science Library posting. I can report that Blogger does not play as well with Mozilla 1.1 as it does with Firefox 1.0.

The compose tab doesn't work, so I am forced to write in HTML mode, which doesn't overly bother me, and previewing posts is iffy.

Therefore, libraries should provide computers with front panel USB ports so that users can run Firefox from their USB Drive (not to mention to allow them to access their documents they have stored there).

Further Evidence: Blogger spammed my blog with multiple copies of this post when I published it before. They are now gone. Sorry about that to those of you who saw it.

I found this article late this evening as I was surfing the web (namely from the OSMinistry.com forums to Terry Storch's blog (entry about riding a Segway) to the BMC Website), and I noticed the this article ("When Less Is More") on BMC's web site (I'd never heard of BMC until I saw the mention on Storch's blog).

You know, it makes me think. Is less more on web sites? With all the Shockwave Flash, Java, and stuff out there, should we really be going for more simplicity in web sites? Personally, I've never been a graphics heavy designer. I do understand the arguments for Flash and Java and animation and the rest, but do we needlessly complicate things when we require people to download a program just to view our home pages?

Perhaps so. After all, BMC makes a good point. There's a number of Bibles (inluding most of the ones on my bookshelf and the one I use most for preaching) that are just black text on white pages with a a simple cover. Some have some red text to make the words of our Lord and Saviour (I like the British spelling of that word, and I don't know why) stand out from the rest, but generally, they are pretty plain. Last I heard, it was still the best selling book in the world. So maybe less is more.

1. Edit the CSS so long titles have a hanging indent.
2. Edit the CSS so the date appears in a different color.
3. Look at editing the template so that a horizontal rule appears between posts (possibly 50% width).
4. Find logo icons for RSS 2.0 and Atom feeds.
5. Use icons found in step 4 to advertise feeds.
6. Modify footer to give credit to FeedBurner for the feeds (yes, I know Blogger supports an Atom feed, but it doesn't give stats like FeedBurner. Blogger's Atom feed for this site feeds FeedBurner.).

I Peter 3:15 (NASB) says:

but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence

Peter rights writes (Edit, 01 Feb 2005: Brain confused the homophones. Thanks to Chris for catching my slipup.) here that we should always be ready to defend the hope that is in us as Christians, the hope that Jesus Christ gave us when he saved us from our rebellion against God. Some translations (the King James among them) translate defense as "answer", but the point is the same. As Christians, when someone asks why we believe what we believe, we need to be ready to give an answer.

Being ready requires preparation. It requires us to think about what we believe. It requires us to think about what brought us to that belief.

The other day I was reading We Know More than Our Pastors (PDF, 601 kB) from e-Church.com (don't loose that hyphen, the non-hyphenated site is a consulting firm). This essay by Tim Bednar discusses the power of blogging Christians as a "ministry of all believers" (which Bednar credits to Martin Luther, but I credit to I Peter 2:9-10). He talks about the power of the blog in spiritual development because you have to think about what your writing about. Which brings me back to my point:
Can blogs help us to improve our ability "to give a defense for the hope that is in us"?

I think the answer is yes, because I think if we journal about our walk with Christ, we will think about it more. Thinking about it more, I believe, improves our ability "to give a defense for the hope that is in us".

OK, This is the post I should have written before the Mac Mini Post.

Most blogs have the about me link or text in the side bar, but I have decided to forgo that for a post and a link to the home page.

I am the preaching minister at a small church in Southwest Georgia or the Southwestern Corner (note that all of Georgia is on Eastern Time, so all the posts here are dated as Eastern Time unless noted) as the chief meteorologist the Albany, GA NBC affiliate calls it. I used to work for the Bureau of Laboratories at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, but I left to try to move my nets closer to my ministry (in other words, move my secular employment closer to my church).

I've been out of work since August 2004, and I am looking for a computer job in Cairo, Thomasville, Bainbridge, or Tallahassee. If you are interested in hiring me, you might want to look at my resume.

I'm 30-something and married to a wonderful woman. While on the web, I enjoy the forums at OSMinistry.com and Christian Web Masters. Also up and coming on the forum list is Great ChurchWebSites.org. I also enjoy a good game of WinBolo, but I am not very good.

I may link this into the side bar later.

Apple's Mac Mini

Steve Jobs introduced the Mac Mini at the MacWorld Expo in San Francisco the other day (I'm not sure of the exact day because I am not a religious follower of all things Apple).

The computer is getting discussion on two of the forums I visit and post at: OSMinistry Forums and Christian Web Masters Forums. I've posted some thoughts on the new Mac on these forums, but I wanted to consildate my thoughts here.

1. Why are there no front panel ports? Yes, the thing is stylish, but I have to turn it around to plug in my USB Flash Drive, my FireWire/IEEE 1394 device (of which I own none, but I know they are meant to be hot-swappable. Also, I have seen computers with front panel FireWire/IEEE 1394 ports), or my headphones. That just seems like a bad design move. I was at Roddenberry Memorial Library the other day, and it was very nice to plug my SanDisk 512MB Cruzer Micro into the front of the HP computers they had there. Why didn't Apple include that kind of convenience?

2. BYODKM: That looks like gibberish, but it's Apples Acronym for Bring Your Own Display, Keyboard, and Mouse. So I shell out $499 (or more) for this bright shiney new computer, which is supposed to be really cheap, right? Wrong. I currently have two keyboards, neither of which are USB. So that's another $10-$30. I currently have two mice, one of which is USB, but I am not taking from my wife: another $15-$30. Or you can go with the Apple Wireless Keyboard and Mouse set (with the single mouse button) for another $99. Then I need a display, errr, a monitor. Now back when I last bought a computer, you bought a CRT. You know the type, big boxy job that shoots electrons at a screen causing little dots called pixels to fluoresce red, green, or blue. Much like your old school television. These days, it's an LCD, and knowing what I know, I am going to go 19 inch. Apple's 20 inch LCD display is $999. ViewSonic has a 20 inch display for $909. Suddenly, the old 15" CRT hooked up to my old computer starts sounding good. Luckily, Apple threw in a DVI to VGA converter. So without the monitor, we are looking at $499+$10+$15 to $499+$30+$30=$524 to $559. Throwing in one of the two aforementioned displays kicks it up to $1433 to $1558. Perhaps Apple will introduce a package that brings that down.

I didn't mean to be so long-winded (or long-fingered, since it is a blog), but my point is: I have no desire to buy the Mac Mini. However, a gift wouldn't be rejected as I've been curious about the UNIX based Mac OS X.

Validation Results

As you can see, the only reason this site isn't Valid XHTML 1.0 is because the Blogger inserted hyperlinks aren't properly encoded. I placed a report with Blogger support about this, and we will see where it goes.