All posts in General

Heather is working today so she won’t be able to post until tomorrow. So I thought I’d take the opportunity to thank everyone at KCC for the gifts on Sunday.

Apparently, October is pastor appreciation month. I didn’t know such a thing existed until this Sunday. We got a big basket of household items (presented in a creative way by Debbie and Bethany). We also got a card signed by everyone and a boat load of cash inside. I mean a boat load.

You guys are giving well beyond what could be expected. Heather and I were deeply blessed by the whole thing.

Thank you!

In an ongoing effort to bring you both thought provoking articles and mind numbing entertainment, I’m compiling my short list of favorite blogs. I narrowed the list to blogs because I think that’s where the best content is on the web these days.

Why only five? Add to the list in the comments!

1. Challies.com — A christian blog that has been around since the beginning of blogging popularity. The site’s design ROCKS. And he is a very good writer and clear thinker. He writes a lot of book reviews as well as church life/general christianity stuff. The quality of his site and his writing is rare in the blogosphere.
2. Nathan’s Blog — Nathan Rice, to be specific. This is one of my favorite bloggers and I visit it almost daily. He alternates between articles on science (usually as it relates to Intelligent Design), politics, and Christianity/theology. His blogging is always open ended. He rarely comes to the conclusions himself, but just gives some info and poses a question to the readers. It makes the commenting integral to the content. Head on over and join in!
3. Tall Skinny Kiwi — one of the older christian blogs around and very popular. He’s tall, skinny, and he’s from New Zealand: hence the blog’s name. I think he was a house church planter for a while and has since gotten involved in the emerging church. From his About Page:
   

   I am the Project Director for the Boaz Project. We are developing a support structure for church in the emerging culture. My blog is about God, spirituality, new media and new expressions of church

   The content there ranges from personal posts to longer articles on church life, culture, book reviews, and theology. Great stuff.

4. The Resurgence — a ministry of Mars Hill Church. Lots of writers (Mark Driscoll, Ed Stetzer, Gary Shavey, sometimes John Piper, and others) writing on a wide range of topics, the most common being theology and missional church life. The articles are usually pretty deep and involved treatments of various subjects. It’s often not light reading, but a great resource. And Mark Driscoll is a little cranky so it makes it fun to read.
5. Lifehacker — a tech blog with multiple writers with content designed for non-techies. They post multiple times a day and rarely a day goes by that I don’t see something there that is helpful in my job or in my home office.

[tags]best blogs, list, top blogs, blogging, websites,[/tags]

Despite the fact that I’m a self-proclaimed Geek and I do it for a living, I don’t usually write much here about computing and technology. It’s just not what this blog is for. However, occasionally I like to bring in something that may be of use to The SoapBox readers.

Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch has done a nice comparison of the 3 major web mail services out there: Live Hotmail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. If you are still using MS Outlook or a similar email client to fetch your email, you really should look into switching to a service like one of these. If you already use webmail, take a look and see if you are getting the best that the web has to offer.

I personally use Gmail, and I LOVE it. Currently, you can only get Gmail by invitation (though there is word from Google that soon it will be opened up). I have several Gmail invites I can send out if you need one. Let me know in the Comments, and I’ll email it to you. First come, first serve.

TechCrunch WebMail Comparison Article

[tags]Gmail, Live Mail, Yahoo Mail, web mail, email, comparisons, reviews, TechCrunch, Michael Arrington, Gmail invites, Microsoft, Outlook[/tags]

Allow me to introduce to you one of my favorite websites of all time: Web Pages that Suck.

This site has been around for years. It’s run by a web usability/design afficianado named Vincent Flanders. They specialize in digging up the worst websites that the WWW has to offer. It’s lots of fun to visit regularly to check out the “Daily Sucker”.

He has just released his Top 10 Suckers of 2006. A LOT of these sites are from big companies that really ought to know better. Even if you know nothing about designing websites, you will be amazed (and humored) by how bad some of these websites are.

Enjoy!

Top 10 Suckers of 2006

[tags]Web Design, Top 10, usability,web pages that suck[/tags]

Windows Vista will be released at the end of this month. Vista is the new version of Microsoft Windows. There has been a lot of buzz (and waiting) for this operating system. The reviews I have read have been mixed. There are a lot of drastic changes both to the graphic interface (how it looks, and how you get things done) and the engine behind it. I’ve had the opportunity to test drive it in it’s Beta form several months ago and it is much more graphically impressive, but I wasn’t wowed by much else.

If you are planning (or considering) an upgrade, check out this article from extremetech.com before you make the leap. I found this article via one of my favorite “Technology for Normal People” websites: LifeHacker.

Upgrade from WindowXP to Vista

[tags]Microsoft, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows, Vista, Upgrade, Software[/tags]

This is a great website. They offer time-sensitive [tag]free giveaway[/tag]‘s of pay-software. The offers are only good for one day, so you have to keep up with it. That is the only catch. This is [tag]free software[/tag] that normally you would have to purchase. I’ve been keeping an eye on it for a while and haven’t seen any duds at all.

Since the [tag]downloads[/tag] are only [tag]free[/tag] for one day, I suggest that you go ahead and download it if it looks good even if you don’t need it right away. You can always delete it from your hard drive later.

I’m embedding a preview similar to the one below (but with more info) on the links page so that you can check back often.

I found this post through [tag]LifeHacker[/tag] and thought I would bring your attention to it.

It’s the best list of it’s kind that I have seen. If you are new to the world of [tag]open source[/tag] software… it’s a big subject that I may tackle in another post one day. Suffice to say, it’s all free, constantly improved software. Most of these are meant to be replacements of pay versions of the same kind.

The only change I would make to the list is #6 ClamWin [tag]antivirus[/tag]. It doesn’t have a resident scanner and doesn’t do automatic updates which is a deal breaker for me. I strongly suggest that you use [tag]AVG Antivirus Free[/tag] instead. I use it exclusively.

Give these a try. You may find that you don’t need to spend a fortune on software anymore!

Click here to view the article.

[tags]free software, downloads, free downloads, best downloads[/tags]