About a year ago I switched away from my original host Bluehost.com. They were terrible. Roughly 1 in 3 times in attempting to access one of my websites the site would be unavailable. I was forced to change hosts.

So, I moved to the once excellent HostRocket.com. I stayed with them for a year during which time things were slow. Gradually the reliability of the host tanked. Speaking to support they assured me things were being resolved. While the people were friendly, they simply didn’t make good on their promises. Not to mention waiting for 10-15 minutes on hold every time something went wrong, and hearing the most obnoxious hold-music I’ve ever heard in my life. After my business site was down for nearly 36 hours over two separate occasions within a couple months I once again had no choice but to jump ship to another host.

As a business owner this is very, very frustrating. It consumes time that I don’t have and makes my business look unprofessional when customers attempt to find our site and are denied for one reason or another.

So, this time doing what I should have done quite some time ago, I got onto a webhosting forum and asked about reliable hosts. The community seemed agreed on a few hosts that one should feel comfortable trusting and so I took their recommendation and moved over.

This post is the first on the new host. So, wish me luck… again.

I am an occasional poster at a Christian site that will remain anonymous. I joined years ago then only recently began posting again. Upon my return, I’ve discovered something unsettling.

The ads. Here’s a few I’ve come by in one visit.

Now, I’m not one to to call out websites for no reason. In fact, this could even be construed as gossip. But I’m not so much talking about the website where I encountered these ads. I’m talking about the church that accepts them.

If the church is wherever believers meet, then displaying ads on a community website for Christians is, in effect, like putting these ads up in your church sanctuary.

Where is the church that she is okay with this?

I’ve created a website dedicated to my father’s beard in all of it’s glory. Pretty sweet, to say the least. There are 12 images which rotate randomly.

A friend posted this to Facebook.

It’s called I am Second. It’s mostly a collection of testimonies. It features some popular personalities, including Head from Korn and Jason Castro from American Idol.

Besides being a really well designed web site, it also looks really promising as a social tool. Although I only spent about 30 minutes browsing the site watching testimonies, I was encouraged. I think there’s a good bit of potential there.

Good website, good execution. Good idea. It’s worth checking out.

I feel like wefeelfine.org is one of the websites and most creative ideas I’ve seen in a long time.

I came across it because somehow I ended up with some blog traffic from the site. After learning something about the site, I doubt if I’ll ever know exactly where it came from.

Wefeelfine.org is a mass of thoughts and feelings zooming around the screen randomly, reacting to your cursors movements and constantly, constantly changing. At first I thought it was a creative site for micro-blogging, like twitter. But then, there seemed to be an awful lot of activity for a site I’d never even heard of. Plus, after about 20 minutes of browsing, I still couldn’t come across a place to submit my own entries.

Finally, I found my way out of the mess onto the page’s introduction. What I found was fascinating.

Since about 2005, wefeelfine.org has been automatically searching the vast ocean of blogs for statements containing “I feel” or some variation of that. Then, it collects the whole sentence up to the period and automatically posts it anonymously to wefeelfine.org. Through some other creative programming, it can often determine the gender of the writer, their location and other twisted info, like the weather at the time of posting.

From inside the mess, you won’t find links to the original post. Not that it matters. For the sake of the experiment, it works perfect.

It’s more than just cool and creative, it’s also really interesting. Here’s blip from their introduction:

“Using a series of playful interfaces, the feelings can be searched and sorted across a number of demographic slices, offering responses to specific questions like: do Europeans feel sad more often than Americans? Do women feel fat more often than men? Does rainy weather affect how we feel? What are the most representative feelings of female New Yorkers in their 20s? What do people feel right now in Baghdad? What were people feeling on Valentine’s Day? Which are the happiest cities in the world? The saddest? And so on.”

Of course, it’s not likely that the information is admissible as any kind of reliable study. However, it does make for some cool discussion. And, who knows, maybe it’s more accurate that I’m giving it credit for.

The artistry is really what I give it credit for though. It’s creative and well done. Here it is, in their own words:

“At its core, We Feel Fine is an artwork authored by everyone. It will grow and change as we grow and change, reflecting what’s on our blogs, what’s in our hearts, what’s in our minds. We hope it makes the world seem a little smaller, and we hope it helps people see beauty in the everyday ups and downs of life.”

It’s pretty cool. So check it out. And feel good about contributing. Whether you like it or not!

After about two months of long days and (seemingly) endless tweaking and troubleshooting, I’ve finally finished new website! I have to admit, I love WordPress & Zenphoto who provided such an excellent platform to build my website on!

I kept a familiar layout, but upgraded to a formal status with khaki colors! I also added a ton of new information. I now have a section for regular updates which I’ll use for introducing new albums and images. I also have a more robust section for pricing, as well as a fairly comprehensive FAQ section, answering a lot of questions people might have.

I’ve also tweaked the way that images display, making navigation easier, and hopefully accessible from lower screen resolutions.

All in all, I’m pleased with the new website. I hope you’ll take a few minutes to check it out and maybe drop me some feedback!

I was keyed into an interesting online bible resource project, YouVersion, by a good friend. I’ve spent much of the day in and out of the software, tinkering with different features and just spending a little bit of time with the currently available “beta” version. After getting a little exposure, I decided it was worth writing a little about.

In short, YouVersion is an online bible and study resource with a focus on community and various types of media contributions. The site is currently being developed by LifeChurch.tv, an online church community. Besides having some reservations about gathering for church meetings online, I am always a proponent of enhancing free bible study tools in order to help all people grow deeper in their faith. Unfortunately, based on what is currently available, it appears the project is walking a dangerous line between relativism and truth. In any case, explore this with me for a bit if you will.

At my absolute first impression, I really hate the name. “YouVersion” smacks of a self-centeredness that people already have a hard enough time shaking, it certainly doesn’t need to be encouraged during their bible study. However, my hunch is that the “You” in the title, is echoing the YouTube generation’s desire to contribute and incorporate their own ideas and efforts into things and so in that sense, the title is apt.

Much like the LifeChurch.tv website, the design is slick. It’s easy to navigate and clearly laid out. You won’t find much in the way of clutter, although due to it’s early development, you might stumble across some bugs. I’m sure they’ll be ironing those out in coming releases.

The site is laid out in two columns. The left column displays the bible text. You can navigate the bible with a collapsible panel on the left, or switch between an array of different translations. Most of the popular translations are available (NIV, ESV, NASB, N/KJV, etc.), as well as some Spanish translations. Switching between them is easy enough and any highlights or notations you’ve made in one translation carry over to others. On the right hand side you’ll find all the extra-biblical content. It’s broken into three tabs: Community, My Content and My Journal. The journal section will allow you to quickly jot down thoughts, although the entries will not be associated with any specific verse. Under the “My Content” heading, you’ll have the opportunity to add your own notations, or link all kinds of various media to specific verses or sets of verses. You’re able to pull in videos from YouTube, images from Flikr, or links to external resources. It appears that eventually, the opportunity to link in your web cam and your own audio will also be possible.

Under the “Community” heading is where things become interesting. Highlight any specific verse in the bible text and you’ll find under the community heading a slew of user submitted information and media. Any time that someone makes a notation or submits a piece of media and marks it public, there it shows up for everyone to see. While sifting through different submissions associated with Genesis chapter one, I came across a Chris Tomlin video, a Matthew Henry and Scofield commentaries and a handful of perplexed bible reader’s thoughts. Also, as of right now, some parts of the bible are extremely scarce as far as user input is concerned. For example, associated with John 3:16, you’ll find a couple dozen entries. But associated with Romans 8:3 you’ll only find a few. This will certainly change in time.

The community section will also allow you to save other people’s comments and submissions for quick reference under you “My Content” section. There is a rating system for comments, as well as a “is this post relevant” link, although it’s not entirely clear what they actually do.

Toward the top of the page, you’ll find some ordinary links: profile, invite, help, and sign out. They’re all self explanatory, but the profile link I believe deserves mentioning. If you click on profile, you’ll find a quick snapshot of your activity as well as six tabs: profile, following, followers, contributions, tagged and starred. Things becoming notably hairy between tabs two and three. Following and followers essentially just mean “folks your watching,” and “folks who are watching you.” However, in the current church climate of widely accepted heresy, there’s something ominously foreshadowing about labeling them “following” and “followers”.

At the very top of the page, you’ll find other sections of the site: bible reader, favorites, contacts, history and groups. None but “bible reader” is currently available for use.

Last year, Bobby Gruenewald, a pastor with LifeChurch.tv, described the project as “[providing] a platform to learn from the experiences and perspectives of others from around the world in a non-threatening and easily navigated environment.” This may very well be the greatest danger of this software. Gruenewald explains that “the application can be used both as a personal study tool and a public expression of user-generated commentary.” While the possibilities really are extraordinary and the idea relatively innovative, man’s heart is desperately wicked and with no actual accountability, the project may simply be a minefield for folks trying to navigate biblical waters.

Truth is not decided by democracy. There are plenty of biblical examples of times when the majority was just dead wrong and often, they paid for it.

I think that the software behind this project has some incredible potential in terms of bible study resources. Perhaps with a qualified staff of content editors or with a huge database of classic and contemporary resources from the well trained saints, it could not only be highly useful but also highly trustworthy. The notations and media linking is clever, even privately useful, but publicly, I believe probably a novelty at best and possibly a dangerous one. We are not dealing with humorous YouTube videos here. We’re not trying to figure out the best way to spackle dry-wall. We’re talking about the word of God and it must be honored.

Only time will tell where this is going to go. Because of the massive emphasis on similar online communities, the potential here is enormous. But will it be a blessing, or a curse? Go ahead and sign up. It’ll only take a few minutes. Maybe you’ll find a very useful tool for your study, or maybe you’ll find a vein of study you really need to stay away from.