Those of you that have been reading this blog awhile may have noticed that my suggestions tab disappeared.

Two main reasons – it never saw any action and I forgot to re-apply the code when I changed my theme. However, I was reminded today by an email from the founder of Skribit that I’d lost my connection.

But who & what is skribit? Well if like me you tend to hide under a rock and pop up occasionally you may have missed the launch of this some 18 months back. However since then it has effectively been in active development and although their about page still claims this is the case the email also reminded me that they are now ready for ‘showtime’.

In short they’re coming out of their beta phase and are ready for more. Anyway, they are a group of bloggers and internet entrepreneurs who, like me, want to blog more but get stuck for ideas.So along comes a way to utilise your audience to provide insights, ideas, etc for you to blog about.

So skribit, essentially “cures writer’s block by tapping your blog’s readership for post suggestions“.

This is done by clicking on the skribit “Suggestion” tab that appears (hopefully) on every page you visit – so whether you land on my home page or on a sub-page you should be able to click it and add your suggestions. As a suggestee you can even create your own skirbit account to track your suggestions and receive notification when it has been blogged about.

I think it’s a great tool for bloggers like myself who struggle with ideas and getting input from readers is always the aim of any blog. If this is one way for the reader to get an idea blogged about then great. If it encourages folks to read or use the site more, then even better.

However, I feel it’s one major drawback will be the reader themselves. I don’t know why and certainly don’t understand but some blogs just get more commenter’s than others and those that do will find skribit used whereas those that don’t will find that it is likely that their skribit button doesn’t get touched.

C’est la vie I guess – but anyway, it is back and here’s to seeing your ideas and suggestions as to topics you’d like to see covered.

I got this email yesterday:

Over the past couple of days I’ve been thinking about Wi-Fi being provided free (secure and filtered) by churches and Christians. The idea came to me when I noticed a guy outside of my house in the cold, winter weather accessing my wireless with some kind of hand held device. I was thinking that it would be cool if people were able to access a connection for free BUT there would always be one pop-up at the beginning of the access…sort of a “provided by” message along with some other message. like info about a church or group or the gospel message for that matter, or maybe a link with info on donating to specific charities or disaster relief. I would think that would be only a minor inconvenience if one was able to access the internet for free. What are you’re thoughts on that?

I confess my first thought would not have been a charitable one if I’d seen someone outside my house trying to access my wifi. First I’d think best of luck and then I’d instantly change my pre-shared key . Me, paranoid?

But to answer the question the answer I gave was “I love the idea” … Read the rest of this entry »

What has life taught you?

I find at the very young age of 46 that I’m not as young as I once was but I’m not referring to physical age here but rather the fact that me being the age I am has made me understand / realise / learn things that otherwise would never have been. Confused, well let me launch right in and see if I can untangle that … and so without further ado let me bring you “stuff life has taught me” …

• Your self belief is stronger than anyone or anything else.
  Let’s face it. If you have an idea for extra money or some hair brained scheme Read the rest of this entry »

I love this … “God Mode” in Windows 7.

This tip has appeared in a number of places including here and here. The basic idea being that this gives you access to many (but not all) of Windows 7 tools, utilities, etc in one ‘global’ control panel.

Simply create a new folder anywhere you want, then rename that folder to:

GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

As soon as you do that you will see the folder icon disappear to be replaced with the following icon:

And that’s it … browse the contents to your hearts desire.

I’ve been talking with friends and a discussion reminded me….

Some hate the ‘click here‘ to read more on blogs, I see it as valuable in keeping my front page looking fairly accessible, concise and pretty and I don’t really like to see loads of text on a blog entry page. Equally, whenever I tweet about a post it is always to the full post so I don’t see it as an issue. Furthermore, if you’re accessing this via RSS then your client may also be affecting the ‘click here‘ to read more process.

On Saturday my brother in law and sister (Paul & Anne) arrive in the UK then on Sunday he enters hospital in prepartion for a 10hr operation on Tuesday.

He has “pseudomyxoma peritonei” (link) which is so rare (I’m told) that he is the first where he lives to get it / suffer it? Treatment has been going well but all along they’ve needed to consult with specialists, mostly in America.

Anyway, the long and short is that he has responded well to treatment to date and the operation is to de-mucus him, remove what is left of the tumour(s) and other organs. One of the side effects of the cancer is that it coats the internal organs with a mucus which if not removed can cause complications down the road. If you follow the link above Paul will be undergoing the “Sugarbaker technique” which includes removal of sections of his bowel, his spleen and gall bladder as well as removal of the mucus. As well as all this he will be undergoing a form or chemotherapy during the operation.

Paul describes it as akin to taking a bag of vegetables out of his insides, removing the skins and then replacing as much as possible.

Anyway, the reason for my post is to ask for your prayers.

Specifically:

• that the surgery goes well
• that the after effects are minimal
• that he is one of the 7 in 10 who respond well to surgery
• that his recovery is speedy and subsequent return home.
• for my sister, Anne, who will be in the UK throughout to support him
• for their son, Max, who has been left back home
• for myself who will spend the day with my sister during the operation.

From the very bottom of my heart, thank you.

Do the cheesy grins (aka Hollywood Smiles) on Church publicity annoy you? Do you think there’s a place for this type of picture? Well here’s a link to a post I wrote as a guest blogger on ChurchTechMatters.

It touches on usage of stock photos and whether or not we (as ministries) should use them or not. It then goes into a little bit of detail on my personal favourite sites for finding stock photos.

Would love to hear your opinions either as a comment here, to the post itself or on the associated forum – here.

I acquired a new follower on twitter today and they appeared just after I’d tweeted wanting to know if anybody wanted an independent review of hardware or software. Now the two may not be linked but shortly after Tim Cool (great name by the way) of Cool Solutions Group asked me to supply my ‘unbiased thoughts‘ on ministrEspace.

I was happy to oblige as anything that gives me something to write about is good for the blog and good for me as it keeps my creative juices flowing.

So just what is ministrEspace? Well in their own words it is “the low cost, web-based software solution for all your ministry space scheduling needs“. Read the rest of this entry »