Philip and Jenny Cain: InspiredMumblings

I’m disabling the comment moderation feature. This means first-time commenters should be able leave a comment and it will appear instantly. I had been policing the comments because of a recent spam outbreak, but I think it’s under control now. So, no more waiting a few hours for me to check my email and see that you’ve left a comment!

Also, with the upgrade to WordPress 2.5, we now support gravatars in the comments. See their website for more details on how to have the same avatar display on all gravatar enabled sites.

I just found a fun site that shows real-time geolocated Twitter updates on a 3D globe. Says TechCrunch’s Jason Kincaid:

TwittEarth, is eye-candy at its finest - a mesmerizing and mostly useless diversion that sticks you in space and whips you around the globe to see a new geo-located tweet every ten seconds. Tweets are accompanied by small, goofy icons that remain static on the map, eventually providing an interesting representation of usage distribution.

And I must say, mesmerizing is the keyword. What gives it the global chatroom feel is the ability to sign in and post your own geolocated tweets from within TwittEarth. Within seconds, you’ll (and any other poor soul wasting his time watching this stuff) will see your tweet popup from your location on Earth.

via TechCrunch

Click the image to see the full version. It’s easiest to do the “Magic Eye” thing when the image is in the center of your screen. I’ve seen pictures on patterns, and pictures on text, but I’ve never seen text on text. So simple yet so amazing.

HINT: If you have trouble seeing it, try to relax your eyes. Let your eyes start to go out of focus.

Should companies be immune from complaints? Cory Doctorow put together an answer to that question. Cory is one of my new heroes, I think.

I’m always astounded by this reaction. Companies aren’t charities. They’re businesses. It doesn’t matter why they’re offering an unacceptable product — all that matters is that the product is unacceptable. Companies aren’t five-year-olds bringing their fingerpaintings home from kindergarten. We don’t have to put on a brave smile and tell them, “that’s just lovely dear,” and display their wares proudly on the fridge. I don’t care if Apple adds DRM because Lars from Metallica has incriminating photos of Steve Jobs, I don’t care if Sony BMG put a rootkit on its CDs because they were duped into it by a trickster spirit that appeared to their technologists in a dream. I care whether their product is worth my money. It’s the market — there’s no A for Effort.

Even weirder is the idea that companies shouldn’t be criticized because in a market, you should just take your business elsewhere. Free markets thrive on good information. For a market to function, customers need to have good information about which goods are worth buying and which ones should be avoided — that’s why we complain in public, to help companies make better decisions.

Link to article (via BoingBoing)

Obligatory Apology
(thanks to Matt, btw, for the update post format I’ve borrowed)
Wow, I’ve become fantastically awful at blogging regularly. I hear that the less you blog, the more likely your friends will remove you from their blogrolls and feedreaders. Hey, at least we’ve seen some pic postings from Jenny at various big events that happened in the last few months!

*———-=====-

Grr, sorry about that, Lili decided that my keyboard was the best place to get my attention (and she’s actually right - cats are too smart).

Decorating is for the SWEDISH and their IKEA oddities
In case you’re interested, Jenny and I are doing well. Jenny’s house decorating progress is 3/7 (office, bedroom, living room) and she’s planning to tackle the bathroom next. I try to stay out of the way; I have an opinion about everything, which is decidedly less helpful than a simple “looks great!” Besides, I’ve determined that my “home improvement” efforts are better spent outside the house. The rafters and a few walls could use a repaint/reseal and that’s something that actually bothers me. That’s not to say that painting a house would be in my top 10 list of fun things to do while bored, though.

World of Warcraft
We’ve adjusted our TV time in the evenings to playing World of Warcraft instead. Jenny’s Blood Elf hunter Jenivya finally hit level 70 (alongside my second level 70, Avastus the plays-with-fire mage). We both play a decent amount but I suppose you could consider us casual players, as neither of us are really into the end-game raiding content. We did join Resurgence, a raiding guild, just for fun. Jimmy, Christy, Tristan and Katie are to blame for that. Okay, enough about WoW. Hopefully it’s not as controversial as politics or as mind-numbing as Linux.

*pauses briefly to smack Lili off the keys again*

I Control All You See and Hear
My role at work got shifted around a bit. To make room for a full-time pastor for Pantano’s “elements” service, I left the team and took up the Audio/Visual Ministry full time. I’m now responsible for pretty much all technical equipment owned by Pantano, with the exception of the theatrical/intelligent lighting system. I supposedly manage a team of sound volunteers, but we’ll see how that goes as I’m actually better at communicating with machines than people. I also took on an expanded role as Chief Web Ninja, aka the Website Lead Engineer, aka the guy who does all the coding. Here’s my shameless plug for the recent (Jan ‘08) overhaul/update of pccwired.org. And yes, if you find it, I’m using a Simpsons Avatar on my church staff profile page. The perks of being a Web Ninja.

Speaking of web updates, InspiredMumblings is due (like two years ago) for a design update. I think I have some time in the next few weeks to work on it. I’ve been picturing some sort of circular layout, done completely in CSS. It’s probably never been done before (which is the real appeal). I’ll definitely head back to the garden for creative inspiration.

Church Management Software
Does anybody know of a really good church management software solution? Pantano uses ACS, Fellowship One is way out of our budget, and we’re eyeballing another system (which I won’t name since we’re still considering it). My compulsive, interface perfectionist side is whispering things to me about the usability of this system. You don’t need training to use Google Docs or Google Groups or Facebook. Why can’t someone just design a small group manager as bonehead easy-to-use as Facebook Groups? IT’S NOT THAT HARD FOLKS and I’d do it myself if I had time. Honestly, it’s surprising to see how many web-based software companies are still living in the Internet stone age.

Yes, we want anyone to have the power to create new groups. Yes, people should be able to join groups without moderation or intervention. And no, privacy is not an issue, except for with those paranoid tin-foil-hatters. So please, ChMS designers, give us more social networking options. Where’s the Web 2.0 in ChMS? Maybe tucked away somewhere between the extended training sessions and the “consulting” fees…

All your church are belong to us. /endrant

DISCLAIMER: Although I have seen and used the interfaces of many ChMS systems, I haven’t ever had the chance to play with Fellowship One. So if you or your church is considering a move to Fellowship One, try not to take my criticism out of context. You’ll note that the above rant is specifically directed towards the “unnamed” system we’re considering (not Fellowship One). Of the systems I have had the chance to use and see, I firmly believe they don’t have a grasp on what software usability means. Of course, who am I but a lowly self-appointed software critic?

That, my friends, is not a pretty site (pun intended). Google Docs and a 404 error. As of this post, I still can’t load it up.

I hate the Internet on April Fools.

In other news, Blizzard has released a Tinfoil Hat item in the WoW Armory, wireless power is now available, Google has released Gmail Paper, The Pirate Bay found a permanent location (the North Korean embassy in Stockholm, Sweden), and Julianne Moore is set to play Dana Scully in an upcoming X-Files movie.

I use Google Reader as my primary feed reader, and I read a lot of feeds. I like to see every item that comes down the pipe from news sites such as Slashdot, Digg, and BoingBoing. Recently I discovered a way to tag individual items (stories) in Google Reader, and I also figured out that I can share any given tag with the public.

So, without further ado,
Items marked “bigbrother” via Philip (RSS feed)

Now you can join me in my paranoia of the Big Brother State.

Have you ever found yourself browsing with Firefox, only to find that you have WAY too many tabs open? I found an extension to relieve the tabbed thought processes a bit.

Split Browser does just what it says - it lets you split the browser window in to several panes. A right-left pane works really well on widescreen monitors, but you can also do top-bottom splits and even split the splits (say that five times fast).

In my screenshot example, I have several Digg stories open in tabs on the left, and when a story sounds interesting, I drag the link to the right pane. That way, my Digg tabs stay organized and I don’t lose focus while reading an article.

Jenny and I are trying an experiment - combining our blogs. I imported as much as I could from her Xanga site. We’ll probably also be working on a new theme that fits the new site name - Philip and Jenny Cain: InspiredMumblings. (Hopefully it means I’ll stop ranting about politics)

Everyone should benefit - my friends will see a lot more photoblogging, and Jenny’s friends will be enlightened to the inner workings of Linux.

Also, since Jenny had a “Currently Listening/Reading/Watching” option in Xanga, I’m in the process of re-writing a plugin to have a similar function. For now:

Currently Listening
I Am the Fun Blame Monster!
By Menomena