Move to Feedburner

Ok, my feed-to-email provider has gone “bye-bye” so now I’m turning to FeedBurner to handle that for me which also gives me better information about how many are subscribing to this blog.

So if you are subscribed to receive this blog in your email and wondering why you haven’t heard from me in a while, this is why.  So please go ahead and re-signup by using the form on the right side.  If you’d like to receive blogs in your email every time I update, just use the form or if you use an RSS aggregator, click on the RSS feed also on the right.

Talk to you more soon.

Did you know? 3.0

Just some things to think about in a global world.

Open Source & Free software

Being the head geek with eDOT means that I have to try and figure out ways of doing things that are on the cheap side. We still want to do things that look and work very professionally but we just have very tight budgets being in the missions world. Therefore, I just wanted to share with you some of the different open source and/or free software we/I use:

• Moodle – a LMS (Learning Management System) that we use to develop and run courses in. We also use it for several internal discussion boards.
• WordPress – originally developed as a blogging system, it also is able to be used as a CMS (Content Management System). We use it for many of our websites that we develop for other groups.
• WordPressMU – a multi-user, multi-blog version of WordPress that we use for our eDOT Teams website where we create a location for each team that comes on a short term trip to train them and help with intra-team communication.
• VMWare Server – a Virtual Machine server that allows us to quickly put up testing and production areas without interferring with our other areas and not requiring us to go out and purchase more equipment.
• Deki Wiki – yes, they have a free version. You just have to really look through their site to find it. This is perhaps one of the easiest to use Wikis out there. It has a great user interface and some great ways of interacting with our other systems. We use this to maintain documentation about, well, everything from server configurations to how to load a piece of software to documenting the projects we are working on. Read more >>

What do you think when you see this?

Now you may be wondering what this is above these written words – well if you have a web enabled phone, go to the BeeTag website and get the free BeeTag reader. Once you get it loaded, use it to scan in (yes, you can use the camera on a cell phone or “handy” as a “bar code” scanner) and it will ask you if you want to download some information. That information is my vCard (virtual Business Card) and will automatically add it to your phone contact list. It’s like taking a picture to enter in a web address (no sitting there having to hit the same button multiple times just to get one letter). Sweet huh?

The business world is looking at this type of technology and saying, “How can we use this to get our message out, motivate people to purchase more, etc?” As you can see in this video (–> http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/index.php?cl=9281962), Ralph Lauren is going to be putting these types of tags on their merchandise, on their ads, everywhere! They want you to be able to purchase their stuff where ever you might be cuz you’ve always got your cell phone with you (that’s why Germans call them “handys”). We’re starting to see them on soda bottles to connect buyers to online promotions, on business cards to make sure its easy to get your info into your prospective clients phones, as a means of document management and workflow management, etc. The cell phone is becoming a larger part of people’s everyday lives.

Now when I see technology like this, I begin to wonder how it can be used to bring people closer to God. I look at the weird image above and wonder if we created a website made for cell phones about God’s love and grace, made stickers with the above type image and then plastered them all around town – would people respond to them? What if we used it to link to videos about helping people through depression, loneliness, addictions? It’s not about the technology. It’s about connecting people to God – just using technology to make the connection.

Needing Web Hosting?

Just throwing this out there but I have an open domain space in my web hosting package if any of you out there are looking for some web space and want to help me pay for my web addictions, um, my web space (I resell web space to pay for this website).

Here’s what I offer – normal package is on a Windows IIS web server that is backed up every night and has 99% uptime guaranteed. There’s support for PHP, ASP, ASP.net, ASP.net 2, Perl, PHP4, PHP5, Frontpage, Virtual Directories, Custom Error Pages, Password Protected directories, FTP accounts, subdomains, personal email accounts using SmarterMail (with good email filtering) that includes webmail access, SmarterStats for your website, a multitude of ASP components and much more. 400Mb web space with 20GB of bandwith starts at $10/month. MySQL databases or SQL databases are extra.

Let me know if you are interested.

Finally did it – Upgraded my WordPress

Well, after installing and working with WordPress >2.0 on several other people’s websites, I finally upgraded mine from WordPress 1.5.2 to the latest and greatest – WordPress 2.3.1 . Yeah!! I am so happy. I just finally got sick of all the comment spam that I was getting (they didn’t show up on the site because I have to approve all comments before they go live here). Today, I had 20 comment spams before lunch. I got fed up so I upgraded.

I didn’t even have an upgrade plan – I just downloaded the zip, unpacked it, deleted the files they told me to, uploaded the new ones, and ran the upgrade script for my database. I know, I should have backed up but it was a last minute thing anyways.

Well, it looks like the site on the whole is in good shape with the upgrade. And that was a big upgrade too so I really thought more things should have been broken but for the most part things are working.

I just gotta fix my blogroll and I think there may be a couple of other things but I just have to find them. I also need to update my theme (what makes this site look and feel the way that it does). Let me know if there’s something the matter with my site – I’d sure appreciate it!

Well, I’m back on the road again this next week. Should be able to do some posts from where I’m going and the best part of it – Alex and Krista get to go with me. I’ll try and get some good pictures in too.

Ouch, I’ve been Zapped! Please Pray!

Yes, we’ve been zapped. No, it doesn’t mean I’ve had an electrical shock. I’ve now created a new background (with our lovely faces) for people’s mobile phones using a new website that is in beta called GotZapp.com It really cool as this site allows you to create different graphics for your mobile phone. In our case, if you want to pray for us but keep forgetting – just load our Zapp (you can find it here) to your cell phone, mobile phone, or “Handy” (as they call them in Germany) and every time you use your phone, you’ll be reminded to pray for us.