Set this as your user.properties or global.properties script and press f11 to go fullscreen:

full.screen.hides.menu=1
minimize.to.tray=0
split.vertical=0
horizontal.scrollbar=0
error.select.line=1
tabbar.hide.one=1
#tabbar.multiline=0
toolbar.visible=0
#toolbar.detachable=1
#toolbar.usestockicons=1
#menubar.detachable=1
#undo.redo.lazy=1
statusbar.visible=0
#fileselector.width=800
#fileselector.height=600
#magnification=-1
#output.magnification=-1

# Sizes and visibility in edit pane
line.margin.visible=0
#line.margin.width=40
#margin.width=100
fold.margin.visible=0
fold.margin.width=10
fold.margin.colour=#000000
fold.margin.highlight.colour=#000000
blank.margin.left=100
blank.margin.right=100
buffered.draw=1
two.phase.draw=1
use.palette=0

# Element styles
#view.eol=1
#control.char.symbol=.
caret.period=000
view.whitespace=0
view.indentation.whitespace=0
view.indentation.guides=0
highlight.indentation.guides=0
view.fold.margin=0
caret.fore=#FF0000
caret.width=3
caret.line.back=#152520
#caret.line.back.alpha=90
#calltip.back=#FFF0FE
edge.column=0
edge.mode=0
#edge.colour=#F9F9F9
braces.check=1
braces.sloppy=1
selection.fore=#EEEEEE
# DADADA used as background because it yields standard silver C0C0C0
# on low colour displays and a reasonable light grey on higher bit depths
selection.back=#606060
#selection.alpha=30
#whitespace.fore=#FF0000
#whitespace.back=#FFF0F0
#error.marker.fore=#0000A0
#error.marker.back=#DADAFF
#bookmark.fore=#808000
#bookmark.back=#FFFFA0
#find.mark=#0000FF
#use.monospaced=1

# Checking
are.you.sure=1
#are.you.sure.for.build=1
#save.all.for.build=1
#quit.on.close.last=1
load.on.activate=1
#save.on.deactivate=1
are.you.sure.on.reload=1
reload.preserves.undo=1
check.if.already.open=1
default.file.ext=.txt
title.full.path=1
title.show.buffers=1
save.recent=1
save.session=1
save.position=1
open.dialog.in.file.directory=1
strip.trailing.spaces=1
ensure.final.line.end=1
ensure.consistent.line.ends=1
#save.deletes.first=1
buffers=5
buffers.zorder.switching=0
read.only=0
#max.file.size=1

# Indentation
tabsize=4
indent.size=4
use.tabs=1
indent.automatic=1
indent.opening=0
indent.closing=0
tab.indents=1
#backspace.unindents=0

# Wrapping of long lines
wrap=1
wrap.visual.flags=0
wrap.visual.flags.location=3
cache.layout=2
#output.wrap=1
#output.cache.layout=3
wrap.visual.startindent=0
wrap.indent.mode=1

# Folding
# enable folding, and show lines below when collapsed.
fold=1
fold.compact=1
fold.flags=16
fold.symbols=3
fold.on.open=0
fold.comment=1
fold.preprocessor=1

# Find and Replace
escapes.in.find.replace=1

# findstr is available on recent versions of Windows including 2000
#if PLAT_WIN
#  find.command=findstr /n /s $(find.what) $(find.files)
#find.input=$(find.what)
#if PLAT_GTK
#  find.command=grep --line-number "$(find.what)" $(find.files)
#find.files=
#find.in.files.close.on.find=0
#find.replace.matchcase=1
#find.replace.escapes=1
#find.replace.regexp=1
#find.replace.regexp.posix=1
#find.replace.wrap=0
#find.replacewith.focus=0
find.replace.advanced=1

# Behaviour
eol.mode=LF
eol.auto=1
clear.before.execute=1
#vc.home.key=1
wrap.aware.home.end.keys=1
autocompleteword.automatic=0
autocomplete.choose.single=0
caret.policy.xslop=1
caret.policy.width=20
caret.policy.xstrict=0
caret.policy.xeven=0
caret.policy.xjumps=0
caret.policy.yslop=1
caret.policy.lines=1
caret.policy.ystrict=1
caret.policy.yeven=1
caret.policy.yjumps=0
#visible.policy.strict=1
#visible.policy.slop=1
#visible.policy.lines=4
time.commands=1
#caret.sticky=1

# Status Bar
statusbar.number=4
statusbar.text.1=\
li=$(LineNumber) co=$(ColumnNumber) $(OverType) ($(EOLMode)) $(FileAttr)
statusbar.text.2=\
$(BufferLength) chars in $(NbOfLines) lines. Sel: $(SelLength) chars.
statusbar.text.3=\
Now is: Date=$(CurrentDate) Time=$(CurrentTime)
statusbar.text.4=\
$(FileNameExt) : $(FileDate) ?$(FileTime) | $(FileAttr)

if PLAT_WIN
command.scite.help="file://$(SciteDefaultHome)\Scite4AutoIt3.chm"
command.scite.help.shortcut=Ctrl+F1
command.scite.help.subsystem=2
if PLAT_GTK
command.print.*=a2ps "$(FileNameExt)"
command.scite.help=netscape "file://$(SciteDefaultHome)/SciTEDoc.html"

# Internationalisation
# Japanese input code page 932 and ShiftJIS character set 128
#code.page=932
#character.set=128

# Unicode
code.page=65001
#character.set=204

# Required for Unicode to work on GTK+:
LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8
output.code.page=65001

# Export
#export.keep.ext=1
#export.html.wysiwyg=1
#export.html.tabs=1
#export.html.folding=1
#export.html.styleused=1
#export.html.title.fullpath=1
#export.rtf.tabs=1
#export.rtf.font.face=Arial
#export.rtf.font.size=9
#export.rtf.tabsize=8
# Magnification (added to default screen font size)
export.pdf.magnification=0
# Font: Courier, Helvetica or Times (Courier line-wraps)
export.pdf.font=Helvetica
# Page size (in points): width, height
# E.g. Letter 612,792; A4 595,842; maximum 14400,14400
export.pdf.pagesize=612,792
# Margins (in points): left, right, top, bottom
export.pdf.margins=72,72,72,72
export.xml.collapse.spaces=1
export.xml.collapse.lines=1

# Define values for use in the imported properties files
chars.alpha=abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
chars.numeric=0123456789
chars.accented=???`¡â????????????????????????????????
# This is a better set for Russian:
#chars.accented=`¡â??????????????????????????????

# The open.filter setting is only used on Windows where the file selector has a menu of filters to apply
# to the types of files seen when opening.
# There is a limit (possibly 256 characters) to the length of a filter,
# so not all source extensions can be in this setting.
source.files=*.asm;*.au3;*.c;*.cc;*.cpp;*.cxx;*.cs;*.h;*.hh;*.hxx;*.hpp;\
*.idl;*.odl;*.rc;*.rc2;*.dlg;*.def;\
*.vb;*.vbs;*.bas;*.frm;*.cls;*.ctl;\
*.java;*.js;*.py;*.pl;*.rb;*.cgi;*.lua;*.conf;\
make*;*.mak;*.txt;\
*.properties;*.html;*.xml;*.iface;*.bat;*.e

if PLAT_WIN
all.files=All Files (*.*)|*.*|
if PLAT_GTK
all.files=All Files (*)|*|Hidden Files (.*)|.*|
open.filter=\
$(all.files)\
All Source|$(source.files)|


# FONT SETTINGS
# Give symbolic names to the set of fonts used in the standard styles.
if PLAT_WIN
font.base=font:Segoe UI,size:12,$(font.override),back:#000000,fore:#99cc99
font.small=font:Verdana,size:9,$(font.override)
font.comment=font:Calibri,size:10,$(font.override)
font.code.comment.box=$(font.comment),$(font.override)
font.code.comment.line=$(font.comment),$(font.override)
font.code.comment.doc=$(font.comment),$(font.override)
font.text=font:Verdana,size:10,$(font.override)
font.text.comment=font:Verdana,size:10,$(font.override)
font.embedded.base=font:Verdana,size:10,$(font.override)
font.embedded.comment=font:Calibri,size:10,$(font.override)
font.vbs=font:Lucida Sans Unicode,size:10,$(font.override)
font.monospace=font:Consolas,size:10
#  font.override=$(font.monospace)
if PLAT_GTK
font.base=font:lucidatypewriter,size:12
font.small=font:lucidatypewriter,size:10
font.comment=font:new century schoolbook,size:12
font.code.comment.box=$(font.comment)
font.code.comment.line=$(font.comment)
font.code.comment.doc=$(font.comment)
font.text=font:times,size:14
font.text.comment=font:lucidatypewriter,size:10
font.embedded.base=font:lucidatypewriter,size:12
font.embedded.comment=font:lucidatypewriter,size:12
font.monospace=font:courier,size:12
font.vbs=font:new century schoolbook,size:12
font.js=$(font.comment)

# Give symbolic names to the set of colours used in the standard styles.
colour.code.comment.box=fore:#009F00,back:#FEFEFE
colour.code.comment.line=fore:#009F00,back:#FEFEFE
colour.code.comment.doc=fore:#3F703F,back:#FEFEFE
colour.text.comment=fore:#0000FF,back:#D0F0D0
colour.text.comment=fore:#0000FF,back:#D0F0D0
colour.constant=fore:#607F00,back:#FEFEFE
colour.embedded.comment=back:#E0EEFF
colour.embedded.js=back:#F3F3F3
colour.notused=back:#FF0000

colour.number=fore:#007F7F
colour.keyword=fore:#00008F
colour.string=fore:#7F007F
colour.char=fore:#7F007F
colour.operator=fore:#000000
colour.preproc=fore:#7F7F00
colour.error=fore:#FFFF00,back:#FF0000

# Global default styles for all languages
# Default
style.*.32=$(font.base)
# Line number
style.*.33=fore:#ffffff,back:#000000,$(font.base)
# Brace highlight
style.*.34=fore:#FF0000,bold,back:#0000A0
# Brace incomplete highlight
style.*.35=fore::#009933,bold
# Control characters
style.*.36=
# Indentation guides
style.*.37=fore:#C0C0C0,back:#FFFFFF

# Printing - only works on Windows
if PLAT_WIN
print.colour.mode=2
print.magnification=-3
# Setup: left, right, top, bottom margins, in local units:
# hundredths of millimeters or thousandths of inches
print.margins=700,500,500,500
# Header/footer:
# && = &; &p = current page
# &f = file name; &F = full path
# &d = file date; &D = current date
# &t = file time; &T = full time
print.header.format=$(FileNameExt) ?Printed on $(CurrentDate), $(CurrentTime) ?Page $(CurrentPage)
print.footer.format=$(FilePath) ?File date: $(FileDate) ?File time: $(FileTime)
# Header/footer style
print.header.style=font:Arial,size:12,bold
print.footer.style=font:Arial Narrow,size:10,italics

# Warnings - only works on Windows and needs to be pointed at files on machine
#if PLAT_WIN
#  warning.findwrapped=100,E:\Windows\Media\SFX\Boing.wav
#  warning.notfound=0,Effect.wav
#  warning.wrongfile=0,Glass.wav
#  warning.executeok=0,Fanfare.wav
#  warning.executeko=100,GlassBreak.wav
#  warning.nootherbookmark=100,Boing2.wav

# Define the Lexer menu,
# Each item contains three parts: menu string | file extension | key
# The only keys allowed currently are based on F-keys and alphabetic keys and look like
# [Ctrl+][Shift+][Fn|a] such as F12 or Ctrl+Shift+D.
# A '&' may be placed before a letter to be used as an accelerator. This does not work on GTK+.
menu.language=\
Text|txt|Shift+F11|\
#Ada|ads||\
#AutoIt3|au3|Shift+F12|\
#Apache Confi&g|conf||\
#Assembler|asm||\
#ASN.1|asn1||\
#Avenue|ave||\
#Baan|bc||\
#&Batch|bat||\
#Bullant|ant||\
#&C / C++|cpp||\
#C&#|cs||\
#Csound|orc||\
#CSS|css||\
#&Difference|diff||\
#&Eiffel|e||\
#Erlang|erl||\
#&Errorlist|err||\
#FlagShip|prg||\
#&Fortran|f90||\
#H&ypertext|html||\
#&Java|java||\
#Java&Script|js||\
#&Kix|kix||\
#TeX|tex||\
#Lisp|lisp||\
#Lot|lot||\
#Lout|lt||\
#Lu&a|lua||\
#Matlab|m.matlab||\
#&Makefile|mak||\
#MetaPost|mp||\
#MMIXAL|mms||\
#&nnCron crontab|tab||\
#NSIS|nsis||\
#Objective Caml|ml||\
#Octave|m.octave||\
#Pascal|pas||\
#Pe&rl|pl||\
#P&HP|php||\
#P&LSQL|spec||\
#&Properties|properties||\
#P&ostScript|ps||\
#P&OV-Ray SDL|pov||\
#Pytho&n|py||\
#Reso&urce|rc||\
#Ruby|rb||\
#Shell|sh||\
#S&QL|sql||\
#Specman|e||\
#&TCL|tcl||\
#&VB|vb||\
#VBScr&ipt|vbs||\
#Verilog|v||\
#VHDL|vhd||\
#&XML|xml||\
#&YAML|yaml||

# User defined key commands
user.shortcuts=\
Ctrl+Shift+V|IDM_PASTEANDDOWN|\
Ctrl+PageUp|IDM_PREVFILE|\
Ctrl+PageDown|IDM_NEXTFILE|\
KeypadPlus|IDM_EXPAND|\
KeypadMinus|IDM_BLOCK_COMMENT|\
Ctrl+F1|IDM_HELP_SCITE|

ext.lua.startup.script=wordcount.lua
command.name.1.*=Word Count
command.1.*=WordCount
;command.1.*=dofile c:\bin\editors\sci_room\wordcount.lua
command.subsystem.1.*=3
command.mode.1.*=savebefore:no
command.shortcut.1.*=Ctrl+i

command.name.2.*=Run Document as Lua Extension
command.2.*=dostring dostring(editor:GetText())
command.subsystem.2.*=3
command.mode.2.*=savebefore:no

# Import all the language specific properties files
import others

I used to use drupal way back in the early days of our church planting adventure and you can still see the remnants of it at http://thesouthsidechurch.org/main/ but I moved away from it because of frustrations with the platform.

Anyway, now that I know there are Drupal addicts here in town, I may take a second look at the platform and also make some friends in the process.

Looking forward to meeting you in person Elvis!

http://projects.nickblundell.org.uk/wikidbase

It’s a database… It’s a Wiki… It’s WikidBASE!

OpenStomp

http://www.openstomp.com/

It’s a multi-effects guitar pedal that runs on opensource software.

Since my voicemail gets emailed to me automatically, I wanted a quick way to just listen to it and have it be done without needing to open some bloated media player for one tiny WAV file.

If you want to use it, here it is…

tiny little wav audio player

On the printed front, we have been using Apple’s Pages for basic word processing and simple page design and Serif PagePlus 11 which is exponentially greater than anything else in its price range ($50 for features that easily surpass Microsoft Publisher and even rival PageMaker or Quark). However, that’s for another blog entry. On to what we do for video now and what our next steps are.

Video Presentation Hardware

• 15″ MacBook Pro 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo / 1GB RAM
• Draper Traveller portable projection screen with High Contrast Gray screen material.
• DLP Projector (I don’t remember the specs right now).

Software

• ProPresenter 3.3.8 by RenewedVision.
• Keynote 3

Description

ProPresenter is the best program we have found to display lyrics on the screen. It’s very easy to learn with only a few quirks that take getting used to. Together with the Mac, it is unbeatable in terms of visual quality of the text even with full motion high resolution video images in the background. On top of that, the programmers are very responsive to requests for improvements, and the software was designed from the ground up to meet the needs of touring worship bands like Chris Tomlin and David Crowder.

Keynote is the hands down winner in presentation software that understands the line between attention-getting and cheesy. Transitions, fades, and slide builds are unmatched in PowerPoint because Keynote does what it does with subtlety. It’s also much easier to work with once you learn a couple of its quirks.

Our current setup has us running ProPresenter and Keynote simultaneously on the MacBook Pro. ProPresenter takes over the projector screen and turns it black while waiting for us to begin. Navigation is done on the laptop screen, but lyrics and backgrounds are sent to the secondary display.

Just before my message, we hit F1 in ProPresenter to black out the projection screen, switch to Keynote without closing ProPresenter (the projection screen stays black during and after the switch), and hit “Play” on my sermon Keynote file. Keynote takes over the projection screen with my slides and also displays a “Presenter View” on the laptop screen. We turn the laptop to face me, so I can see my current slide and my next slide without ever needing to look over my shoulder.

Next Steps

Now that we are meeting in the Long Center (a larger venue), we want to make some changes to our setup so we stay on the excellent side of things.

1. Replace our screen with a larger rear projection screen. We’re looking at the Draper Cinefold and Draper Ultimate series of screens for this.
2. Consider upgrading our projector depending on its performance with the new screen. Most likely, we will just need to buy a new bulb.
3. Purchase a new Mac to put in the sound booth. It needs to have dual external monitor capability, and the only Macs to have that now are Mac Pro computers or Psystar Open Computer Macintosh clones.
4. Split the monitor signal from each monitor out to drive four displays (1). The monitor in the sound booth, (2). the projector on stage, (3) One monitor in front row pointing to stage duplicating what’s on the projector screen. (4) One monitor in front row pointing to the stage duplicating what’s on the screen in the sound booth. That way, the stage-facing monitors will show what’s on the screen and also show the “Presenter View” that Keynote can display.
5. Use VGA cables or a VGA over CAT5e system to get video signal to the stage from the booth.

Final thoughts

If anyone is reading this post thinking that technology will save your bad presentations, think again. Websites like http://presentationzen.com are a great resource to help you rethink the how and the why of your presentations. Technology can make your presentations more effective, but it isn’t guaranteed to do so.

Our current website has been in shambles for a while now http://thesouthsidechurch.org and I haven’t taken the time to really fix it. However, there are a few things I want the site to accomplish:

1. Have an attractive, fast-loading initial page that communicates friendliness and “contemporary-ness”
2. Have an easy-access media player to watch video and listen to audio files.
3. Have an easy-to-use podcast system for downloading media files.
4. Provide a section for standard Church Marketing Documents.
5. Provide for blog-style news updates.

The current plan is to implement the site with the WordPress engine. The plan is a work in progress now, but here’s the technical stuff:

1. Create a WordPress compatible theme and overall design of the site.
2. Use WordPress pages to host specific content.
3. Use the blog post system for both media files and for news items. (“sermon” category with subcategories, “news” category, “articles” category, and use the built in tagging system for posts in those categories)
4. Use the “Podcasting” plugin to provide separate audio and video podcast feeds.
5. Modify the Email-Notification plugin to send out newsletters to our mailing list.

I plan to do this on a test site first to see how it will all work, and if you are interested in giving me ideas or suggestions, I’d love to take them. Here are a few other church websites that you can look at to give me some help.

• http://www.thechurchinwestridge.com
• http://heartlandchurch.tv
• http://www.elevationchurch.org
• http://www.rivervineyardchurch.org

If you have any other church website suggestions, post them in the comments!

If you have the time to watch it, post a comment about what you think about “creating and monetizing” a community.

NOTE: Unless you know Linux a little, this won’t make sense.

On my home server, I was running a web server (apache2) on port 80 and sshd on port 22. I had both of them open to the world so that I could access my home server from anywhere with an Internet connection. The only problem with the setup I know of is that when I installed mythtv, it created a user called mythtv and gave that user shell access.

(If you have any standard users on your linux system, make sure they are using non-standard passwords!)

So, this fellow from IP 86.122.48.37 logged into my computer via ssh as mythtv and I’m guessing the default password. Once in, he created a public_html directory in the mythtv home directory. All files in that directory would be accessible by the url http://[MY_IP]/~mythtv. (By the way, I got his IP address from my access logs, and I got his email address from his php scripts. His email is delablow@yahoo.com.)

Then, he copied two phishing sites into that directory (ebay and paypal) along with an instance of PHP-Mailer. I’m guessing that he sent out the scam emails from PHP-Mailer on December 10 (while I was in Chicago) and my access log shows people falling for the scam by December 11. I haven’t yet figured out how many people were scammed, but I got a LOT of hits on my server.

Then, someone told ebay, ebay told Insight, and yesterday, my modem was blocked. I didn’t hear any details until I called them this morning and they told me there was a phishing server running on my IP address.

Well, I’m pretty irritated at myself for leaving my system so open, glad that the hacker wasn’t able to compromise my own system, but mad that many people got scammed.

I’ve closed down my system for now, and I don’t know if I’ll open up the ports again.

I hope no one loses any money on this.

The Server

The core to this system is a PC that I built back in 2000 while Jen and I were still at Denver Seminary. I originally built it to run Windows 98, but of course, it has matured a lot since then. Here are the specs:

Hardware

• Pentium III 600 MHz, 384 MB RAM, Drive 1: 120GB, Drive 2: 30GB
• 3Dfx Interactive, Inc. Voodoo 3 (rev 01) — but there’s no monitor attached
• C-Media Electronics Inc CM8738 (rev 10) — but no speakers attached
• Cheap Ethernet PCI card (National Semiconductor Corporation DP83815 [MacPhyter] Ethernet Controller)
• Motorola Brand WLAN controller (Broadcom Corporation BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 03)) — usable with ndiswrapper but not currently in use.
• Hauppauge PVR-150 MCE (purchased OEM version from NewEgg)

Software

(I’m not going to put version numbers here, because I’ll update them before I update this!)

• Arch Linux (Linux adam 2.6.17-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Sun Jul 16 09:29:38 CEST 2006 i686 Pentium III (Coppermine) GenuineIntel GNU/Linux)
• MythTV
• SlimServer

Set Top Box

• MediaMVP running mvpmc

How It Works

I have the computer underneath our stairs connected by Ethernet wire to my office, our living room, and the game room upstairs. I have a wireless router in the mix that provides connectivity to our laptop.

I’m thinking that I’ll put up a HOWTO for those who are interested, but who knows if I’ll ever get the time for that.

• MythTV on the server records TV programs to mpeg2 files according to a schedule I’ve set up. Then, it processes the file and removes commercials. I also have the option to convert it to a format that’s playable on my Palm Pilot PDA (Tungsten T2).
• SlimServer on the server uses an iTunes database to stream our music library to any Internet Connected PC (currently, though, it’s only enabled for our home computers).
• MediaMVP (a little box that sits on top of our DVD player) runs a program called mvpmc that automatically connects to MythTV and SlimServer and plays music, videos, and recorded shows on our TV.

The whole system really works well, and I can’t tell you how cool it is to watch an hour long show in 40 minutes because all the commercials are magically missing! The only problem is that I miss a lot of “culture news” like upcoming movies and whatnot because I don’t see commercials anymore!

If you are interested in doing something like this yourself, I’ll try to put up a HOWTO sometime soon.

This site was started to encourage people to share their testimony about how they came to have faith in Christ. It is also meant to inspire people to grow in their relationship with God, by seeing how God has worked in the lives of people across the world. My hope is that every Christian who visits this site will share their testimony, because everyone who accepts Christ as their savior has an incredible story to share with the world.

What do you think?

http://www.nfb.ca/animation/objanim/en/index.php

• Urban Fonts
• dafont

Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity.

As a pastor who’s got a blog, I’ve been thinking about how this verse relates to blogging. I’ve been blogging for over a year, and I don’t yet have a “manifesto” like this guy on what my blogging policy should be. However, I’ve been prompted this week by some friends to consider it, so I’m thinking through the issues.

As I see it, there are three ways for a pastor (or anyone for that matter) to do a blog.

1. Use the blog as a personal journal where you “get naked” (according to a book on blogging by Robert Scoble the guy I linked to above.) in front of your virtual audience and basically share anything and everything. Of course, there is some room for discretion, but in general, it’s your personal journal viewable by the world.
2. Use the blog as a “content management system” which basically means you maintain your own online magazine with articles essays and whatnot and use a blog mechanism to manage your content and people’s comments on your content. One example of that is The Resurgence.
3. Use the blog as a hodge-podge mix of the two—blogging about whatever seems to come to mind. (I’m not sure it fits, but I’ll link to it anyway.) See Tim Challies’ blog for an example of a blog that attempts to be personal & academic though it weighs more toward the academic side.

As I’ve been around the net a while, it seems to me that the majority of “Gen X” church planters who blog opt for version 3 with a heavy leaning on option 1.

I’ve been using this site as mostly #3 so far. As you can see from my categories on the sidebar, I’ve got sermons, Bible studies, personal journal entries, exposing my own spiritual life, computer issues, and even some posts on internet fraud. You can see it is all over the map like a Christmas tree with every kind of ornament ever invented showing up on it.

In fact, it seems that my posts on self examination and internet fraud are my most popular. Are people even reading my blog to grow spiritually?

So the question I’m asking myself now is this: What kind of web presence should I have? If you have any comments on this, I’d like to read them. Or you can give me a call on my cell at 765-404-0807 to tell me what you think personally. If you want to think this through with me, check out the links I placed above or my links in the sidebar of my .

Where would the X fall for you?

Web applications have become really hip and not without reason. The things you can do online these days makes purchasing office applications a thing of the past:

Google has a corner on the market for many of these web apps.

• gmail
• google spreadsheets
• google calendar
• more from google

One of the hippest companies out there is 37 signals. They have put together some incredible offerings. One of them is called backpack.

Bob Hyatt over at pastorhacks.net has been singing the praises of backpack for quite some time. Backpack was put together by the guys who did Ruby on Rails (if you know what that is) and it is a simple tool for putting todo lists, notes, and all kinds of other personal “stuff” in a web hosted database that looks really cool and is really easy to use.

Well, today, I stumbled across a suite of tools that looks to beat out all the other offerings. It’s called Zoho. They offer web-based applications that don’t look as good on the screen as the others, but they offer more features, and they are free!

• zohoshow — put together PowerPoint like presentations online!
• zohowriter — throw out Word. Write your stuff online, blog with it, version track with it, collaborate with it!
• zohosheet — Just like Excel but through your browser.
• zohocreator — Put together your own web apps and web-powered databases for free!
• zohoplanner — does whatever backpack does but free.

Check these out if you are interested in online collaboration or working with teams.

Oh, and if you really like web apps. You might also want to check out ning.com which allows you to create your own social network kind of web applications for free as well.

Other web apps:

• ning
• wufoo

I’ve been a Palm Pilot PDA user since my mom bought me one when I graduated from seminary. (Palm Vx, and awesome tool!)

The best feature of the Palm is the ability to have my contacts and calendar on my computer at home and also on a device in my pocket. Being able to sync to the Palm Desktop has always been a valuable tool for me.

But my contacts are not my own anymore—neither is my calendar. As a church planter, I’m facing a need to have my personal contacts synchronized with our church contacts and having my personal calendar sync with my church calendar. But there is just nothing out there to do both of those and sync with my Palm. I need a centralized database that is…

• Contacts & Calendars
• Updatable by members of our congregation
• Shareable with permission-based access control.
• Web-accessible
• pilot-sync-able

I’ve been looking for this for a long time and have had no luck. Actually, the only viable option I can find is to have an Exchange server paired with Outlook. Of course, that’s a hefty Microsoft tax that I don’t want to pay, and I don’t think it can be updated by users.

Here are some options I’m considering.

• ical exchange — allows for publishing public and private calendars from any ical capable calendar for others to subscribe to or view them online through a browser.

Any ideas?

It’s late at night and my wife is asleep on the couch, but I just have to post this before I go to bed. Tonight at the Skylight Coffeehouse in Lafayette, I went to the open mic night as I usually do on Thursdays. Tonight, however, I was actually hosting, and I performed a little bit myself, but we were graced at the end with an act that was just so cool.

The band is called POPPLE, and you have to visit their websites:

• POPPLE’s main site
• Downloads, Demos, and Videos

You need to watch some of those videos and then come back here to leave a comment.

(Oh, and they are actually doing their music as a Christian Ministry.)

I hope they don’t mind my posting of this rip. (The live version was better.)

Contra by Popple

• www.armorgames.com — flash games
• jayisgames.com — a blog site reviewing games.
• Dumb: The Game — test how dumb you are.
• Room Escape — post a comment if you can escape from this room!
• The Python Challenge — learn the Python programming language by playing this online game (Hint: Always view the source of each page)