June 2008

Monthly Archive

This Week’s Poll: Adopting Technology

Posted by on 27 Jun 2008 | Tagged as: polls

How quickly do you adopt new technology?

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What are your experiences with adopting technology? Do you wait as long as possible, or are you a quick adopter?
What influences your decision on when (and what) to adopt?

Small Batch Coffee

Posted by on 27 Jun 2008 | Tagged as: coffee, my life.

Last night I drank my first cup of coffee roasted from a local small batch coffee roaster, whose site I’m helping give a major overhaul.
Oh man…talk about good coffee! Very nice.
The coffee arrived on June 26, and was roasted on June 25. Seriously fresh coffee!
You should check out one of the best small batch roasters around, Utopian Coffee Company at utopiancoffee.com (obviously, the current site is the old one that’s getting replaced).

If you’re a serious coffee drinker, you’ll appreciate Utopian. (And if you think Maxwell House is great, don’t bother.)

Dealing with Change

Posted by on 25 Jun 2008 | Tagged as: my life.

Earlier today, Guy Kawasaki twittered a link to an interview he did with The First Thirty Days founder Ariane de Bonvoisin. I had never heard of Bonvoisin or her company, which specializes in helping people adjust to change. (Read the Interview)

In the interview, Bonvoisin shares several insights, including offering nine principles that those who adapt to change well seem to follow:

1. They have a positive belief about change and are generally optimistic. I call these people “change optimists.”
2. They believe in the change guarantee: that something good always comes from change.
3. They know that they possess a “change muscle”–that they are strong, capable, powerful, and intuitive enough to handle any change that comes into their lives or that they want to initiate.
4. They refuse to become paralyzed by “change demons”–negative emotions that arise during change.
5. They don’t resist change–choosing instead to accept the reality of their situation.
6. They understand that their thoughts, the words they say and the feelings they allow themselves to experience during change have a direct affect on how easily they move through the transition.
7. They believe that life has a deeper meaning than what can easily be seen or felt, that something greater is at play, and that no change is arbitrary.
8. They surround themselves with a support team to help them move through change.
9. They refuse to get stuck during change. They keep moving and take care of themselves mentally, physically, and emotionally.

This kinda hit home, this is generally me–this is why I like change and welcome change (normally!). And in most cases, I am frustrated (not paralyzed, see principle 4) by the lack of willingness of others to move forward with change at my speed.

I do encourage you to take a look at First30days.com and start changing! Embrace it, baby!

What I’ve been Coding Lately…

Posted by on 25 Jun 2008 | Tagged as: my life., New Hope stuff., Tech Stuff.

Through the launch of the new NewHope.in website, I needed to hack several site addons to make them validate code properly.
One of them was the Content 1pixeloutplayer port for Joomla!.

The fix was adopted and was part of the new minor release which was released this morning. Check it out (I even got mentioned in this link!)

Honoring the Enema

Posted by on 20 Jun 2008 | Tagged as: random.

Recently in Russia, a monument honoring the enema was unveiled. (Read USA Today article.)

Apparently, Russian officials are preparing for a pro-enema campaign, offering free colon-cleansings in an effort to promote clean colon.

The Joy of Quietness

Posted by on 19 Jun 2008 | Tagged as: my life., New Hope stuff., random.

This week has been especially quiet around the office. One pastor is on vacation, another is out of the country, and another is at school this week. One of our secretaries is on vacation, and one guy on maintenance wasn’t feel week the beginning of this week.
So it’s been really quiet this week. The quietness has allowed me to have extended periods of uninterrupted time, which I’ve been able to dive deep into coding issues I didn’t think I would be able to get some of the coding completed for several weeks–possibly months.

This week’s experience has reminded me how much I enjoy quietness. I’m by no means anti-social, it’s just that in the quiet times, I can accomplish so much more than when it’s busy and I get asked questions every 10 minutes or so.

How much more rewarding are our quiet times when we spend uninterrupted time with God, eh?

Cornhole

Posted by on 17 Jun 2008 | Tagged as: random.

Here’s a great video from Rhett & Link. Check it out and enjoy. You must watch with sound. Seriously, you won’t want to miss this one.
This particularly reminds me of cornhole in the Clay backyard….

Have you ever played cornhole?

A Day of Coding

Posted by on 17 Jun 2008 | Tagged as: my life., Tech Stuff.

I’ve got the opportunity today to do some coding, and boy oh boy do I love it. I miss coding and need to get back into doing more of it…
I’m currently working in php, css and a bit of html, in case your technical prowess wonders…

Seriously, it’s a lot of fun to combine the technical with the creative juices…you should try it sometime, seriously a blast!

Priorities

Posted by on 17 Jun 2008 | Tagged as: my life., New Hope stuff., random., Tech Stuff.

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I recently launched a new NewHope.in website.
It has been a lot of work, but it’s been all worth it.

One of the reasons it’s been a lot of work is that I have placed an extreme importance on valid page code. This means, my desire is to have the NewHope.in website 100% standards-compliant.
This is not always (ever) an easy thing to do, but for someone who is blind, this is imperative.

Target got sued by a blind person because the blind person can’t use their site. (Just look at the validation report!). Check out NewHope.in‘s validation report.

I’ve found that most companies–even web companies who produce products for the web really don’t care much about validation. NewHope.in completely validates, except for our calendar integration, which we have no control over the code. I’m still deciding what to do with this. There are work-arounds, just not easy ones, but perhaps some day…

So why is this important?
Do you think spending extra time on valid code is important, or does it not really matter?

Vacationing

Posted by on 12 Jun 2008 | Tagged as: my life.

Today my beautiful wife and I are enjoying a little mini-vacation. Vacation from work and responsibilities, vacation from life, and just enjoying each other.

I hope you have a great rest of your week and into the weekend. Take a moment to enjoy life, and be sure to take plenty of deep breaths.

This Weekend Will be Off the Hook!

Posted by on 11 Jun 2008 | Tagged as: my life., New Hope stuff.

I’m really geeked up about this weekend’s message, Make Us One.
Don’t miss this guys, seriously. Come to any of the three services, Saturday at 6, Sunday at 9 & 10:30. I’ll be at the 9 on Sunday, if you want to say hey!

www.oneprayer.com

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