Stupid Internet Service Providers….

Bah!

I installed an exchange machine at home a couple of weeks ago. It was working just tickety boo until this week Rogers (in their ever growing wisdom) decided to changes some setting somewhere and now I cannot send email from my server. bah humbug!!!

I am frustrated by these guys! I am not sure what they are trying to do, but they sure are bugging me. I have a friend who spent 6 hours (unsuccessfully I might add) on this very problem the other day, and Rogers swears that they have not changed anything.

If it is not resolved in the next couple of days, I will be be putting in a dry loop dsl circuit at the house as we have no standard phone line in the house anymore. Oh the joys….

quick updates

I have been remiss in not blogging much lately.
Here are a few highlights.
I will try better…. honest.

Will’s is making progress with walking better. The chiropractor is only seeing him every 2 weeks now and wants Nan and I to let him go and be a kid.. thank goodness.

My bike is in the shop having the front fork seals redone. I did not particularly want to do this until next year, but oh well. Such is life. Once it is done, I should be good to ride for the rest of the season I think.

We were able to get some new furniture this last week on trade. Lovely new black leather set for the family room. very nice.

Taffy the dog continues to grow into our family more and more. She is adorable and loves nothing more than to just be with the family.

I installed with the help of my good friend Rich, a Small Business Server with Blackberry Enterprise Server on it last week. For those of you who know what that is, rejoice with me…. I have shared calendars and am consistently getting my mail!

Nan and I are going away for our 15th anniversary for a weekend to Stratford in a couple of weeks.

My wife is the best.

Work has been crazy with thinking of new code and trying to drive more business through the door.

My dad is now retired! Actually, he is on vacation for the next 4 weeks technically and then he is retired, but he is lovin’ it.. I can’t say I blame him.

I am fighting a sinus infection. Most of the infection is gone I think but my left ear is still blocked and I have a hard time hearing out of it. So, if I twist around when I am talking to you, it is because I am just trying to hear you better.

Our annual meeting at the church is tonight.

I think that is it. It’s enough though.

New sidebar item

Funny, I have never added a flickr account sidebar widget to the blog.
I now see the benefit to having one as it is so easy to send things to flickr….

took me long enough..

you can see it on the side.

PC vs. Mac

When I went to the Internet Ministry Conference a couple of weeks ago, I was astounded by the number of MACs there. The percentage had to be close to 50. So it got me to thinking about the whole debate again and whether I needed to make a change.
Here are the conclusions I have come up with…

1. I do not feel that I want to buy another computer right now. Much less an expensive one. I know that the life cycle on the MAC may be longer but the upfront investment is certainly greater as well.
2. I do NOT want to have to think about repurchasing my software for MAC! Holy smokes that would be expensive.
3. I work in a PC world. None of my clients run MAC that I know of and the lion’s share of my business is done on PC
4. I am so used to PC that I think the change might be difficult for me. ( you know, hard to teach an old dog…..)
5. I do not have time to learn a new operating system. I tried to do this with Linux last year and it was a bust. I did not have the time to dedicate to getting used to it and I do not have any more time now.

So, I will stick with PC for now. You know, if my ship came in, I would probably get one to tinker with, but I do not see that happening any time soon.
But I will say this for MAC. They have created a good niche in the market. They are REALLY cool. That is for sure. They are ROCK solid. But so is Linux.

If it weren’t for the fact that I am so ingrained into Microsoft’s way of doing things, I would change in a heartbeat I think.

The long ride home.

I am in my last session at Gospelcom.
I am undecided about whether I would come back or not.
I think I would to network and reconnect. I would not come for training in any technology unless I came to the bootcamp. In talking to Topher, he let me know that the group that did the training were incredible!

We are going to have dinner here in half an hour or so and then we will be making our way home to London.
I am looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight.
Off to Blythe with Gramma, Aunt Nan, mommy and the boy to visit Taffy the pup tomorrow.
Should be fun.

Drupal

Sitting in session with Rod Martin about Drupal….
Well, it is similar to Joomla! but the power behind it is much bigger and stronger.
This would be a fantastic candidate if you really want to hack into your cms.

I think that I better learn Joomla! first.

Joomla!

Sat in on Rod’s session on Joomla! this morning..
It was interesting. I really really really wish that I had a month to dedicate to learning a CMS front to back!!
I think that this is where most web design is going to go. I really do. The proliferation of websites is simply astounding.
It is getting quite tiring really to come up with the code for each site. You know, the code will sometimes be changed just a bit, but it takes time to do that. Joomla may allow me to start creating some great sites, add in some fantastic content and components that would take me days to integrate and they are all there.

I am going to put a site up in Joomla! and see what I can do with it…

Thoughts after a long night.

Nan needs her sleep. Being in a hotel room I did not feel that I could keep her up until the wee hours of the morning while I watched TV. So, I went to bed fairly early in my terms. I think I was asleep by 11 or something. So by 5:30 this morning I was wide awake and ready to go.
I did not get up then, I waited until 6. heh

I did some more thinking about the sessions I went to yesterday at the Internet Ministry Conference. I came to the realization that the vast majority of the people at this conference are trying to be on the cusp of what is happening digitally. Case in point? I would hazard a guess to say that the percentage of mac to pc to linux users here is approximately 40% / 50% / 5%. Man, everywhere I turn there is that darned cute little apple logo!
Macs are notoriously known for their creative users and this conference is no exception. Here is the second example. This is NOT a business conference. The people who are presenting might be dressed in jeans, t-shirts, shorts. Whatever struck their fancy after shaving this morning before having their half-whip, non-fat, extra-hot, one pump vanilla latte from Fourbucks…… These guys are VERY eccentric.

I like it. They are cutting edge. Sometimes a few of them come off as very cocky and arrogant. I am coming to the realization that they might have to seem that way because of the media that they are dealing with. There is so much competition out there for “digital time” that in order to be seen, read, heard, or interacted with they need to have a digital presence that is, well bold to say the very least.

Wow, so where does one go from here? I think I have decided that some of the ministry that I am involved in could use some of the technologies that I have seen this week. Wordpress for example. You can do so much more with it than I knew. Is that not always the way????

At Forest City Bible Church, we are involved with the youth work there. In discussion with the group, we have decided to set up a Facebook group for them specifically. One of the questions I have about facebook revolves around whether it is the best vehicle for doing the ministry that we are? I am not so sure. It is a great interface for social networking, but I am looking to push these teens a little bit and not just have flimsy discussions with them. I have no issue with flimsy discussions, I just want to use my time wisely with them.

I was thinking that I need to get to know Facebook a little better before I make that judgement I suppose. I know little about it. Christine, you are going to have to help me on this one!

The other one that I have been thinking about is CMSs. Content Management Systems. Our church could use something like that where updates can be made quickly and we can have a few collaborators that would be able to contribute.

So, as I sit here in the armchair in my hotel room, I am doing a lot more thinking. How does this technology or how could this technology affect my little corner of London Ontario? How can that affect then be pushed further outward to affect others? Do I have something that would affect others?
I am not sure.

Second day continued…

Today was our first full day of seminars.
We started out with James Watkins on how to write for Goldfish. His point is that society in general read and interact with websites at the level of a Goldfish…. heh, that’s kinda funny. true but funny. I know, not all people are that sad, but I am!

Snack break. Yummy cookies, muffins, coffee, and juice. Very good.

Secondly, I went to a session on javascript. I did not learn anything new in that session but did hook up with the session speaker afterward and walked through a couple of issues I had and was happy happy joy joy…

Lunch. you should see the meals they are serving us here. mucho bueno…

Then I was going to go to a session on email deliverability. Nope, it did not happen. I went over my notes from the last two sessions and researched a bit more of the deeper links they gave us.

Snack break (yes again…) soft pretzels, pop, water and cookies!

Next onto Rod Martin’s session on Wordpress. What is it? Wordpress is the blogging software that I use for this blog. The new version came out just 3 days ago and it looks pretty sweet from an administrative point of view. I think I will have to upgrade.

Dinner. Did I mention the meals they are serving us here?

Lastly, the evening speaker for the day. Brian Atkinson. He said some interesting things. Some I agree with, some I don’t. Well, not everyone should have to agree with me.

Then we went out to the lobby and chilled with Theresa, Topher and Cate. Rod was in his room getting ready for tomorrow by then.

Good day. busy but good.

Second day of Gospelcom

Phew! It is busy. I might blog a bit more tonight when we are back at the hotel, but I wanted to post these two pictures.

Me and my baby. and me and my homey.
That’s Topher1Kenobe boys.