Everyone is Human

Even the most brilliant people can overlook the simple things.

All day yesterday, I was copied on an email discussion at work regarding a well-seasoned programmer that was unable to connect to a SQL Server database he had been able to access in the past. Multiple factors were at play including our friend being in a different part of the country, recent Active Directory migrations within the organization, DNS changes, and different versions of ODBC drivers.

This morning he contacted me (because we had worked together previously) and we ran through everything again. He sent me screen shots, we walked through the entire process, and I made sure everything was the same. Yet the results remained consistent: I could connect to the database and he couldn’t. After close to an hour and me at the very end of my rope, I very respectfully posed the following question.

“Are you sure you’re using the right password?”

On the other end of the phone, a vacuum of silence was all I could hear. Then a few keyboard clicks. Finally a very sober voice said “That was it. Thank you.”

I don’t work at the Help Desk at my job, but I think a good lesson here would be to not bypass those good folks just because you think the problem is beyond their expertise. Even the simplest solution can get the most complex problem unstuck.

Forsaking Bloglines (Partially)

I post comments on other people's blogs - a lot! Mainly to encourage them to "blog on" and then to throw in my $0.02. However, I have found that with most blogging platforms, the Bloglines RSS aggregator doesn't provide a direct way to post comments. This might just be a limitation of today's aggregator technology in general, but to click to their website, then click to the article to click to leave a comment - it's a slight hassle. To reduce the stress on my clicking finger, I'm putting my "Daily Read 'n' Respond" feeds into Firefox's Live Bookmarks. This is pretty cool, because each blog's RSS feed that I bookmark expands a submenu when the pointer hovers over it and can take you directly to the article where the comments interface is just waiting for input.

For my general technology, leadership and news feeds, I'll still use Bloglines.

"The Best Blogs...

... are the ones that are half professional and half personal."

- Brian Bailey quoting Robert Scoble on the BloggingChurch.com podcast

An Open Letter to The Spammers

Jim Walton at Church Tech Matters has a beef with The Spammer Family.

"Dear Mr/Ms Contact Form Spammer,

Please stop spamming my contact form for the following reasons..." [link to the article]

Really Want a PC in the Kitchen

For me and Lisa, email, reference, news, yellow pages, maps, blogs, etc. are things we do on the Internet at least once a day each. The central room in our home is the kitchen and also is the first room we enter from the garage. It would be so nice to have the Internet and our messages conveniently located on the countertop under the cupboards so that we could pop-in and out between the virtual world and reality without missing a beat. In contrast, I currently have to go into the Dining Room/Study to use the computer and, although not far away, it mentally detaches me from the rest of the house and its various goings-on. In addition, now that I've sat down, I have to make it worth my while, so I try to cram in a lot of 'Net Time' when I really don't have time.

Here's another reason a PC in the kitchen would be handy. Tonight, I arrived home and nobody was here because Lisa had decided to take the boys to LifeTime Fitness to play. So I made myself two quick bean 'n' cheese burritos and planned on catching up on email, the latest blog posts and some news. Now, If I had a PC in the kitchen, I could've done all of that surfing while the food was warming up, eating and cleaning up. But as it is, I had to transport the burritos, chips, hot sauce, sour cream and a drink all the way (14 daddy steps) to the "sit-down computer" where the remnants of my feast presently sit waiting to be transported back while I post this entry.

Alas, the only computer unit I've found to be aesthetically worthy of culinary display is the Sony PCV-W Series which Sony has discontinued. I really would like a kitchen PC some day and I'm going to pursue this matter - but carefully.

Such a Lovely Day!

It's 2:12p in Irving, Texas and I am taking a walk outside after lunch for the first time since May. Man, it's nice out. The sun is shining, humidity is low and the temp feels like the low 80's. Perfect!

Taking More Notes

I recently heard a sermon and the Pastor made mention of taking notes while studying the Bible, books and magazines. With regard to the Bible, I agree, I can relate, that's what I do and that's why it's called Bible Study. But books and magazines? Obviously this guy's literary diet has much more meat and veggies than mine. Well that was two weeks ago and since then, I happened to pick up two magazines (quite by chance) that are just dripping with gold nuggets of business wisdom, leadership and personal motivation. So much so, that I feel I'm missing what I've just read. I think it's time to take a more active approach to my reading, or rather STUDY. Now where's that legal pad?

Worthwhile

I picked up a copy of Worthwhile magazine at Barnes and Noble the other day. What a great read! It’s a pretty new publication (about 5 issues old) targeting readers who desire more meaning, purpose and passion from their careers. Some articles highlight successful business leaders and regular individuals who have followed their hearts, done what’s right and thought little of personal gain, only to find that, in the process, they have created very profitable companies and real joy in loving what they do. On other pages you find with motivation and inspiration that make you want to take the leap in making your unconventional business ideas come alive. I know you’ve got at least one or two ideas.

Right now, it looks to be on a bi-monthly print schedule and is only $15 for a yearly subscription via their web site only. They have a good blog too!

Our Dating Scene

Most dates are dinner and a movie. Not for Lisa and me. We do dinner and Home Depot, dinner and the bookstore or dinner and grocery shopping. The point is not what we do, but that we are savoring the beauty of our “alone togetherness” for a few fleeting hours. Besides, we have fun together whatever we do. So if you’re in a grocery store late one weekend night and you see a 30-something guy going long for a Hail Mary pass of toilet paper, come and say “Hi”.

Oldies, But Goodies

Brian Burton was asking his readers “what’s on your iPod?” because he always has his ear to the ground in search of new and cool music. My response is “nothing new here!” Lisa and I made the decision to buy an iPod so that we could store the CDs up in the attic away from little fingers and have the convenience of carrying our entire music library on a small device. Now all (nearly 200) CDs we own takes up only half the space on the 30 GB iPod.

We expected and received convenience. We did not expect rediscovery. For the past 3 months, we have been going through our library, listening and enjoying once again music that we purchased together and uttering phrases like “Remember when we took that trip…”

So what’s on my iPod? Feed your nostalgia.

Live at the Acropolis – Yanni
Find me in these Fields:  Phil Keaggy
Rain Man Soundtrack
Nothing Like the Sun – Sting
We Don’t Get What We Deserve - World Wide Message Tribe
Enya, Enya, Enya
Unplugged - Eric Clapton

Blogger for Word Toolbar

Blogger for Word (BFW) is a toolbar that installs right into Microsoft Word and allows you to create, publish and edit blog posts right from, you guessed it, MS Word. For its size and unobtrusiveness, it’s a decent program; I’m posting with it right now. It lacks, however, the ability to post pictures. Also, I gather links to reference my sources using a tabbed browser, so the whole experience isn’t exactly “browser-less” – something I’d like to aspire to someday (maybe not). But hey it’s free, clean-looking, lightweight (my buzzword du jour), and you can compose your thoughts offline for one-click publishing later.

UPDATE: Word’s Spell Checker is way better than Blogger’s (

Blogger Comment Spam

I was reading a friend's blog (Blogger) and noticed that one of his posts had been spammed by an automated blog comment spammer. I knew that TypePad had this problem, but up until now, I hadn't seen any spam on Blogger. In searching on how to stop this new and annoying breed of spam, I came across this post at Blogcritics.org. In a nutshell, Blogger introduced three new features last week, one of which is designed to prevent comment spam. It's called "Show Word Verification for Comments" and uses CAPTCHA - the goofy picture of letters that Blogger and GMail uses to verify that you're a real human when you sign up for their services. If you wish, people who want to leave a comment on your blog will have to verify themselves using this technique. I slight pain I know, and your comment volume is likely to decrease, but if it can keep the kind of spam I witnessed out of my blog then I'm all for it.

To enable this feature in Blogger, go to your dashboard, click "Change Settings", then navigate to "Settings", "Comments" and click "Yes" to "Word Verification for Comments". Republish the blog and you're done. I hope this helps!

Google Talk

Google's Instant Message product hit the "shelves" earlier this morning for Windows only. There's no Linux or Mac client yet, but there are guides to connecting to the protocol on iChat, Gaim, and Trillian.

Neowin post:

Google Talk enables you to call or send instant messages to your friends for free–anytime, anywhere in the world. Google Talk is simple and intuitive to use. There's no clutter, no pop-ups, no unnecessary software to install. Talk also features some interesting VoIP features like Skype. Google Talk uses the Jabber protocol however instant messaging members of other clients doesn'’t appear to be supported.

So far, I love it! It's very lightweight and includes a newer GMail Notifier. Looks like you need to have a GMail account to use it, though. If you need a GMail invite to try the IM, I've got plenty - just send me your email address!

Blog silence

Last week's load was tougher than usual. The boys are back on a school routine and at their young age, they really responded well. We're so proud of them. In the plus column, bed times are getting earlier :)

One of my MAJOR systems at work decided to have its annual fit while "the world" was watching. 3 times I had to work in the middle of the night. Not fun, but thankfully, not frequent.

Here are 3 of my highlights of last week. Renting The Princess Bride and watching it for the very first time in my life;, cranking up another viewing of the Full-On Lord of the Rings trilogy (extended versions, of course); getting the mobile blog thing to work, which is how this post is being delivered (thanks, Brian).

Pay Day = Pei Wei

I'm seriously curbing my spending habits by taking my lunch to work with me, but a day like Pay Day is definitely cause for a little celebratory indulgence. My favorite lunchtime restaurant is Pei Wei. Although not quite like it's sister restaurant, P.F. Chang's, Pei Wei is the next best thing. The problem is, at lunch time it's packed - consistently. My routine is to call ahead and pickup before Noon, otherwise it can take 2 hrs to make your order (it's THAT busy!) `Scuse me - I have a date with some Kung Pao Shrimp on Brown Rice.

What a Vibe!

First day of school! I'm not a teacher, but I have 2 students (Kindergarten & 2nd Grade) and I maintain the IT at a Christian School in Arlington. I must say that I am definitely feeling the excitement. Late last night, I was making the rounds putting the last tweaks on teachers' computers and I was blown away by the effort that was put into decorating each class and each pupil's desk. The teachers' love and dedication to the students was evident even before the bell.

This morning, we took "first day" pictures outside of the house. We saw other parents and grandparents doing the same. At the school, it seemed that each child had their own paparazzi - video cameras digital cameras, parents, grandparents, tears (much more adult than child).

Can you remember the first day of a new school year when you were a kid? As an adult, I'm not sure who's more anxious - the kids or the teachers!

The Stone is Rolling

My friends over at Keystone Church are pumped this morning! They jumped from 280 to 380 in attendance in just one week! May God be praised for drawing people to this fellowship! Their website is killer. Check it out.

The Key Stoners: Brandon Thomas; Trey Kelley; Brian Burton.

Finished At Last!

All 17 motherboards at the school have been replaced and all computers freshly re-imaged. What a marathon. BTW, humidity was to blame for the blown capacitors. It turns out that the section of the building where the Computer Lab is inherited an old A/C unit which blows lots of humidity when not "conditioning". And since cool has been off for most of the summer, it got mighty tropical in there. Next year - remove all PCs and store them in the server room.

I Have Bulging Capacitors (don't laugh)

For the past three weeks, I have been working with a Christian Academy (K-9) to get their technology up to snuff for the new year. My final task tonight was to make a base PC image and Ghost it onto 19 identical Dell Optiplex machines in the school's Computer Lab. This was going to be 'no sweat' as the base image would take two hours to build and the 'Ghost-cast' could be done unattended overnight. No problem - that is until half of the machines wouldn't even turn on!!

After trying everything I knew to do, I called Dell Support and told them exactly what was happening. The very first thing my support person told me to do was open the case of one PC and look on the motherboard to see if any of the capacitors were bulging or leaking (!?!?) I don't mind saying that I really didn't know what a capacitor was or looked like (except for a Flux Capacitor), so for your enlightenment, they are the small vertical cylinders of assorted color randomly scattered on the motherboard.

Surely (and oddly) enough, I saw that most of the capacitor tops were rounded (bulging) and most of the bulges had corrosion on them like the terminal posts on a car battery. After checking all of the computers, 17 out of the 19 motherboards need to be replaced. The good news is that ALL of them are covered under Dell's warranty (woo-hoo!!). If they get here by Friday, it'll be a very busy weekend.

Thanks to Sam at SarcazaBlog and Carey Holzman for the capacitor pictures.
Thanks to Dr. Emmett Brown for the Flux Capacitor info.

The Little Chap Who Follows Me

I'm currently re-reading Dr. John C. Maxwell's book Developing the Leader Within You. In the first chapter, John talks about how we all have some measure of influence (good or bad) over others. Concerning fatherhood, he notes a poem called The Little Chap Who Follows Me.

A careful man I ought to be,
A little fellow follows me,
I do not dare to go astray
For fear he'll go the selfsame way.

I cannot once escape his eyes,
Whate'er he sees me do, he tries;
Like me, he says, he's going to be,
The little chap who follows me.

He thinks that I am good and fine,
Believes in every word of mine
The base in me he must not see,
The little chap who follows me.

I must remember as I go,
Through summer's fun and winter's snow,
In building for the years to be
The little chap who follows me!

The evidence of this poem came to life with my older son, Ian, last week and this morning. I love to drink San Pellegrino sparkling mineral water. I love it so much that we stock it by the case in our refrigerator. So last week, I come home and Lisa is playing in the driveway with the boys. Everyone's happy to see each other and Ian very politely offers to get a drink for me and asks "Do you want regular water or San Pellegrino." Naturally, I go for the effervescent beverage in the cool green bottle from Terme, Italy. A moment later, my "little chap" returns with 2 bottles and we sit on the concrete swigging our refreshments and talking about our day like adults :)

This morning, Ian and Trevor both woke up early (practice for school) and wanted to go with me on my morning walk. On the way back home, we strolled by a creek that runs alongside of our neighborhood. It's lined with towering trees - the kind you'd expect to see when you think of the trees planted by streams of water in Psalm 1. Trevor asks why the trees were so tall and I told him about the water giving constant nourishment. Now, because it was so early and not being a "morning person", Ian scolded me and said, "Everyone knows that, Dad. I don't know why you even had to say that!" I explained to him that not everyone knows everything and that's why we read books and go to school so we can learn new things. I further told him that when I read a book, I always learn new things. Still not particularly happy with my answer, Ian says "Oh, Yeah?, But you only read the the BIBLE!!"

Praise God! :) :)

Happy New (school) Year!

One week until the new school year starts - Time to Redefine. Over the weekend we moved furniture, cleaned carpets, converted the "study" into a bedroom and moved each brother (ages 7, 5 & 3) into their own space. The excitement of the new year is definitely building in our home (and parent's hearts)! I'm also mulling over ideas to redefine and refocus this blog.

Movie Product Placement

This past weekend, my wife and I had a "date afternoon" and we decided to watch a movie - truly a rare treat. We both thought the movie was awesome, but we laughed after the show about how blatant and littered the product placement was. Now, don't misunderstand, it was neither cheesy nor did it spoil the experience for us - it was just there and a lot of it. Some of the products included (see if you can guess the movie) - Answer: The Island

Puma - Cadillac - Ben & Jerry's - MSN Search - Aquafina - Amtrak - Cisco - XBox - Nokia - Mack Truck - Michelob - Calvin Klien

I don't know how the movie business works, but is this the de facto way to raise funds? How much does a company a pay to have their logo and futuristic versions of today's products peddled in a movie? And does a Cisco pay more for having their logo displayed and their name voiced on-screen rather than Puma who just had a silent quick-shot?

The first time I was aware of product placement was the O.J. Simpson Trial in 1994 - remember?

When vendors observed that Judge Ito was using a notebook, they made numerous offers of free notebooks. The winner was IBM and its ThinkPad. For some strange reason the IBM logo on the cover was twice the normal size. (InformationWeek, 2/6/95)

Quote courtesy of Thomas R. Fasulo

Funny world we live in, eh?

iPod Newbie: Major Discovery of the Day

Call me easily impressed, but I think this is a very thoughtful feature. On my morning walk today, the earbuds cord on my iPod was twisted pretty bad and was bugging me. So I yanked it out of the socket, quickly straightened it out and plugged it swiftly back in only to find that there was no sound (??) Had I broken something? Did I hit Pause by mistake? No, I had the hold switch engaged. Then what? Upon further investigation and a couple of tests, I discovered that this brilliant little machine knows when you've unplugged the phones and pauses the song. If that ain't isn't cool, then it's definitely considerate. It's these little things in life that make me happy :)

I Just Hit 10 Subscribers!!

Starbucks drinks are on me!

Unfinished...

YIKES! I recently looked on my Blogger posting page and noticed how many posts I had partially drafted and not yet posted - it's pushing 20. When an idea for a topic comes to mind, I quickly capture it in Blogger so that I can expound, polish and publish later. The trouble is that my draft-to-publish ratio is about 6-to-2.

What about you - how many unfinished posts do you have? As you look over you list, do they have the same sparkle as when you first penned them? Do they seem silly after sitting for a few days? Dull or dumb, the beauty of a blog is it simply doesn't matter! All of our unfinished efforts have the potential to help, encourage or inspire somebody to greatness IF we can only release them.

Years ago, I heard Zig Ziglar quote Oliver Wendell Holmes in an audio book. He said, "Most of us go to our grave with our music still inside us." I'm going to find some time soon to cleanup my outbox. Thanks to The King's eHighway for the exact quote.

Meet My Friend, Brian Burton

Brian is the Worship Leader and Communications Director at Keystone Church in Keller. You can find his blog at jbrianburton.blogspot.com. Brian is a true worshipper and he's focused on pleasing the Lord. You can tell when he's leading that there's no place he'd rather be than bringing the whole gang into God's presence. His favorite food is Chick-fil-A. Brian also loves technology and is constantly searching for new innovations to reach out and get today's community connected with God's people at Keystone. Brian, Trey and their pastor, Brandon Thomas, are the strategists behind Keystone's website.

On a personal note, I've known Brian for years. We used to work at the same church; he was the Worship Coordinator/Media Director and I was the Systems Administrator. I hadn't talked to him in months since he followed the Lord's calling to help plant the new church, but one day he posted a comment on my weblog, told me what he was up to and what the Lord was doing at Keystone. Connecting with Brian again this past weekend at Keystone was a real joy.

Brian's a total nut - I love him! Go visit his blog, he's got really good stuff to share.

Online Giving

Thanks to Tim Bednar for providing some interesting statistics on tithing and the increase of online giving by Americans in 2004. But while online giving to churches reached $3 billion last year, Kevin at Church Marketing Sucks points to a news article that states many denominations and churches struggle with declining overall offerings. Could the focus on giving through a church's web site be supplanting the message of stewardship from the pulpit?

Without getting into that debate, I personally like the idea of giving online. Never having tithed online, I can see how the worship aspect could be preserved through conscious giving each week as opposed to automatic bank drafts. Also the giving is done completely in private and seen only by the Lord.

I know a couple of churches that want to implement this feature on their websites, but are still trying to decide which secure transaction service to use. Always willing to take the baton of tech research and run with it, I did an initial Google search on church "online giving" to see what popped up first among churches that use secure payment services. Out of 10 churches or ministries:

Update: as I get comments from this topic, I'll change the tally :)

3 use PayPal (thanks, Gary)
2 use FellowshipOne
1 uses CyberSource (thanks, DJ)
1 uses Thawte
1 uses jetCHEX
1 uses TransactU by ServiceU
1 uses iServe (New Zealand)
1 uses GroundSpring
1 uses Verisign

And I thought this was going to be a slam dunk. I'll let you know what I find out about each in the days to come.

Who Gets Props in Blog Posts?

At the risk of over-analyzing the Blog Echo Chamber, I am faced with an interesting netiquette problem. I'm preparing a blog post and my research takes me to Blog X that has written content I'd like to use. So I link to it. But I discover that this prized piece of info was actually linked from Blog Y... that was linked from Blog Z, that ultimately came from an online news article. Each blogger along the chain did an excellent job of linking which I followed in proper sequence back to the source without skipping.

In reading over what I've just written, it seems very logical and socially proper to give credit to Blog X by linkg back to them. Butwhat if I want to provide the most accurate interpretation of the content and just like a story that gets passed from person to person, the interpretation is changed or the meaning is completely lost? I would certainly want to link directly to the source, but the chain of bloggers don't get any credit.

What's right here? Is it really about giving or receiving credit or ?

Hacking HTML

The inner programmer (or hacker) in me was unleashed for about an hour. I was asked to make a modification to a High Point Church's cell group web site that interfaces with a backend database application called Excellerate. My work with churches mostly has me doing System Administration or Desktop Support tasks, so I'll grab any opportunity to do a little coding that I can. I think I may have actually burned a few (cerebral) calories - whew, that was fun!

Oh, hey, if anyone has a review or testimonial to share about Excellerate, I'd love to learn more. It seems like the major Church Management Systems (ACS, Shelbyy, FellowshipOne) are focusing heavily on small/cell/affinity groups these days. It's good to know what actually works the best.

Keystone Church

For the past month, our family has been seeking God's leadership in finding a new church home. Today (technically yesterday), we visited Keystone Church in Keller, Texas. It's been in existence for about 10 months, has upwards of 250 members and meets in Hillwood Middle School. Since we just left a well-established church after 15 years, a brand new "church upstart" on the innovative edge and in the middle of exploding suburban developments is really something to behold. There is a fresh energy, exciting worship, and Biblical preaching by Pastor Dr. Brandon Thomas that is so relevant to the young married couples and families who attend. This place is definitely worth a second look.