I laud you on your willingness to help others but first, I would like to ask you to take a minute and visit snopes.com. It is still the only website actively putting myths that circulate on the Internet into their places (fact, myth, unknown). They are kind of like Mythbusters but the only thing that gets blown up is your heart as you realize that the ten billion bottle caps you spent the last 3 months saving were all for naught or that the metal pull tabs you’ve been saving aren’t worth more than they can be recycled for, or whatever other form this particular myth takes.

It’s so hard to say no, or to even stop and think about the preposterous nature of the request. Over the years, though, I’ve had to do just that. It wasn’t easy, either. I used to pass on those emails and post them in other forums to get the word out because I wanted a hand in helping someone, anyone, that really needed the help. This is one of the areas I’ve had to discipline myself in because otherwise, I’d just get (more) jaded and cynical about real life.

I love the fact that I have friends and family who have big, huge hearts of gold, willing to help anyone out in a jam. Please, though, I implore you, when you get a request for help via email (or Facebook or Twitter) asking for help for an unnamed recipient in a manner that is just rather silly (bottle caps for chemo? pull tabs for dialysis?), go to Snopes, or Google, or wherever your favorite fact checking site is, and look for it (or something similar) there. Research this as much as possible. If you can’t find it or something related, try and track it back to the source. Who did you get it from? Who did they get it from? Can you verify it’s authenticity? Will saving pull tabs and plastic soda caps really help save someones life? Or will they just wind up collecting dust until you take them out to the trash?

Keep your heart of gold. If you want to help out a cancer patient or a dialysis patient and you don’t have any money, go visit them in the hospital and sit with them. Trust me, as a former cancer patient myself, just being there and lending your support in that way can do wonders for them even if you don’t know them personally. Be a friend to someone truly in need of a friend. Go see if your local hospital or treatment clinic could use some candy stripers (though they aren’t called that anymore for the most part). Your random and selfless act of kindness can just be the ray of sunshine someone was looking for.

Technorati Tags: life

What keeps us from being disciplined? More importantly, why do we allow ourselves so many times from being able to meet these deadlines? I could claim laziness is the issue here, but many of the people I know who have problems with time management are not lazy people. They just have trouble making and keeping to certain schedules.

Perhaps it is habit? I know this holds true for me. Keeping at a good habit (or putting a stop to bad ones) requires more discipline than I have. For me it’s a matter of changing the way I think of and look at problems. I know who to turn to, and I know how to ask for the help, so why don’t I? Partly, I imagine, it’s pride. I’ve been used to doing things on my own so long that just giving up any sort of control is extremely hard. It isn’t impossible though.

There is also at work here a lack of motivation despite knowing the benefits of being able to discipline myself in this way (yes, I’m focusing on myself here as I cannot and will not speak for anyone else, though if you’d like to chime in, I encourage you to comment). Knowing in the flesh the benefits of discipline in all forms is excellent. I have some semblance of this discipline when I’m at work, but when I’m on my own time? It is very telling as to what my motivator is, and that’s sad. I need to change my motivator from money to God in this issue, as I have for others. How I spend my personal time is just as important to Him as how I spend my time on the clock is to my employer (more so, really).

How do I change this? How do I bring in discipline and tune out distractions? In my current setup I do not see a way of doing this. My living space isn’t as private as it needs to be. I have no way of shutting out the rest of the household and devoting that time, without human distraction, to where it needs to be. Sure I could go into my nephew’s room while I work on my bible study and use it as a prayer closet, but that is only one thing I want to be able to discipline myself in. What about work? I do a lot of work from home (right now it’s all volunteer, but I’m hoping to start networking some on Facebook and Twitter to gain some paying work), but again, there is distraction (Facebook and Twitter, family, pets) everywhere!

How do you close out distractions at home to be able to do the work you need to do? I have one or two out options, but they aren’t entirely viable (at least not right now). For one, some of the projects I have taken on require me to remain available online and or by phone. So I need to be able to manage my distractions at home. I would rather not have to print up a schedule and make signs posted around my living space just so I can work in peace (even with them, I still wouldn’t get that peace).

Right now, for me, it comes to eliminating an ever changing array of distractions. With that would come with the discipline to continually manage those things. I just don’t know how to do it. Perhaps I’m not asking God the right question. Or perhaps I’m still not opening myself to that answer.

Well, it’s time to at least start my laundry. Perhaps there’s an answer somewhere in the laundry bag of dirty clothes as I sort through them and make sure I have something clean to wear for tomorrow (pondering getting a little dressed up, but haven’t finalized a decision).

Talk to me, friends. Tell me what you do to successfully manage your time? What are methods you have used to discipline yourself?

Technorati Tags: self

So is commenting your code just a mantra for C, C++, Perl, Ruby, Python, et al programmers? I say no. As a web developer I find websites that have even minimal comments in their code about what is supposed to go there, or why a particular structure exists, is infinitely more useful than a thousand tutorials on how to do the same thing. Conditional comments are even better. It lets you know that there is a problem with certain browsers displaying an element and shows you what the work around is. If you were to implement the work around without any head nod toward the issue (say you did it with a linked javascript, but you don’t give a reason for having it) than someone is likely to encounter the same thing and spend more time trying to reinvent the wheel instead of reusing your bit of code (or some modified version thereof; I don’t have anything to say on code reuse except to adhere to any copyright notices to original content and javascript where any such notice exists).

If at the very least you comment your code, you are allowing other web developers to learn from your own experiences without having to teach them directly and you are reminding yourself why you put that bit of code into the mix in the first place. It also allows you to remember why it’s there when you go back to edit it six months from now.

HTML obfuscation on the Internet is all but impossible. Did someone browse to your site? A copy of the page that they can open with a text editor lies in cache or Temporary Internet Files (or whatever Microsoft calls it these days). Did your page get spidered? A copy with any javascript "protection&qoute; disabled is available for viewing. So why fight against the inevitable. Even if no one else but you looks at your code, those comments can mean the difference between quick and painless updates or hours spent trying to figure out just what you were trying to do while simultaneously trying to update the site in such a way that it doesn’t completely break (I’ve done it before and I’m sure I’m not the only one).

Commenting your code isn’t just for programmers. It’s for anyone who lays down any sort of code whether it is HTML (rendered), Perl (interpreted), or C (compiled). So next time you go out and design your website, or even going back to edit an old one, don’t forget to include comments on what you are doing. Right now I’m working on a site for a client that is getting rather complex rather quick. If it weren’t for me even just commenting where certain div containers end and begin, I’d spend unnecessary time trying to find those end points. Since I started commenting from the beginning, while the page size is slightly bigger for it, I’m able to more quickly go from place to place without having to worry about closing out tags in the wrong div.

Technorati Tags: technology, computers, programming, web, html

Current Mood:  accomplished

I can honestly say I don’t. There was a time where I would have said, yes, I love everyone equally. That just isn’t true anymore, if it was ever true then. Should I love everyone equally? Yes. The Bible is very clear on the matter. Christ himself said that you should love your neighbor as yourself. Your neighbor, of course, isn’t just the person who lives next to you. As we see in the parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37), your neighbor is the person who is going to be there for you in your time of need. Christ called on the person who questioned him, once he had answered the question of who the neighbor was, to go and do the same (Luke 10:36-37).

I believe that is the kind of love that is being spoken of in 1 Cor 13. Let’s examine the passage verse by verse.

1 Cor 13:1

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. (NKJV)

You could be full of any of the spiritual gifts, but if you are not teaching out of love you’re doing nothing more then committing recital of facts. In this verse, Paul is using exaggeration and symbolism (sounding brass or a clanging symbol were tools of the Corinthians former pagan worship) to make the following point: Those gifts are useless if there isn’t love. I don’t believe Paul to be talking about human love, but the love God showed us when he allowed his Son to become a sacrifice to wash our sins away. A love for his Creation that continues to stay his wrath at our sin. If you have love, than all that you do is blessed and those who receive from you are blessed.

1 Cor 13:2

And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, an though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

Here Paul alludes to Christ’s telling the disciples that if you even have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can tell the mountains to move and they will (Matthew 17:20). Can you imagine what could be done if you had all faith (and not just the faith the size of a mustard seed)? Yet Paul lets us know that without love, we are nothing.

1 Cor 13:3

And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

Here Paul is talking about charity, the gift of giving to others because God has blessed you with possessions. You can give what you have to feed or clothe others, you can make yourself a sacrifice for someone else, but if you do this without love what good is it? The next several verses show what love isn’t and go back to the first three verses as further illustration of why without love, whatever you do is of no value.

1 Cor 13:4-7

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in inequity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Long suffering, not envious, is not prideful, is not rude, is not self-important, isn’t angered, has no evil thoughts, only rejoices in truth and not in misfortune, has the strength to make it through any trial, is trusting, hopeful and enduring. That’s the kind of love Christ showed for us, the kind of love God and Christ are still showing for us every single moment of our lives. Maybe you don’t believe in God, or are angry at Him for some reason.That’s ok. He still loves you and wants you to be with Him in eternity. This is the kind of love Paul is talking about here.

1 Cor 13:8

Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, the will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.

Whoa. Hold on a minute. Aren’t those all gifts from God? Yes, they are. Eventually though, there will be no need for them. According to the NKJV Study Bible from Thomas Nelson, the Greek for will fail and will vanish are both translated as meaning something will happen to cause them to stop, while no external cause is indicated for the cessation of speaking in tongues. What does this all mean? Simply enough, while all other spiritual gifts will cease to be needed, love will always be needed so God himself made sure it would never cease. If you have a true, Godly love in your life, you can count on it always being there. Even past death. It was Christ’s love for God, and God’s love for Man, that allowed Christ to conquer death. I’m choked up just thinking about how powerful that sort of love is and how much I want all of that sort of love that He will give me.

1 Cor 13:9-10

For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

Here Paul gives us an explanation of the previous verse. We know in part and we prophesy in part. Yes, God gives us those gifts, but he only reveals as much as we need to know to grow closer to Him, to grow in faith. Paul also teaches that, when that which is perfect has come, when Christ comes again all that was only partial will be taken away because then all will be revealed and made known. Such partial knowledge will no longer be needed. We know that Christ will come again because He has already said so. We know that God, and in turn Christ, has kept all of his promises already. It is faith with which we trust in Him to continue to keep his promises and this is no different. Christ will come again. When that time comes, all that God had planned will be revealed to us in His perfect knowledge.

1 Cor 13:11

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

I believe this to be one of the more important passages in this short chapter. Here Paul is calling us, I believe, to stop acting like children and to start acting like adults, at least spiritually. When we were kids, it was okay to be naive, but as we mature into adults we need to start growing in understanding.

1 Cor 13:12

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

Verse 12 gives us further explanation on 11. Paul most likely is alluding to the Word of God when he speaks of seeing in a mirror while letting us know that it is only a pale reflection of full understanding (which comes when we meet God Himself). He reiterates in the next part of the verse. Right now even he (like us) knows only in part but when Christ comes again and we meet God face to face we will know as fully as God already knows us. All will be revealed.

1 Cor 13:13

And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

My favorite verse in this chapter, Paul tells us that we need all three to grow in God and that we should abide (or to stand fast; remain; go on being or to stay; reside (in or at)) in faith, hope, and love. They are all important. Without faith we wouldn’t have our relationship with Christ and God. Without hope, there would be nothing to look forward to. The reason for love is explained previously. His final remark on love is that it is indeed the greatest of those three. Without love there would be no faith. Without love there would be no hope. It doesn’t take faith to believe in evil. It doesn’t take hope to await destruction. Love overcomes evil. It overcomes even death. So what good is faith and hope without love? None at all. It is faith in God that saves, and love that enables us to imitate him.

Remember, God’s two greatest commandments were about love (You shall love the Lord Your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your being and you shall have no other gods before Him and you shall love your neighbor as yourself). Yet over 2,000 years after Christ’s ultimate act of love (which was several hundred years after the Ten Commandments were handed down) we still have trouble expressing this sort of love to each other (I’m just as guilty at times, after all, only Christ is perfect).

Technorati Tags: religion, hope, love

Current Mood:  accomplished

Client-to-Developer-to-Client Communication

It is extremely important that you have good communication skills for any sort of relationship, but especially if you’re looking to make money as an independent consultant. Without good communication skills you won’t be able to tactfully suggest new layouts or request more information. Tact is something that is good, but is hard to come by unless you have some naturally. Being blunt or demanding or impatient will get you nowhere with anyone, especially your client. For one it will put a bad taste in their mouth for any possible future relationships, especially with you and that client. The worse you are in those categories the less likely you’ll see repeat business (and the more likely they will consider cutting their losses and canceling your services).

A Hypothetical Situation

You’ve taken on a job and you’ve been in almost constant touch over the course of several weeks while you and the client discuss needs, abilities, and everything else that goes into finding out what it is exactly that they want. You have been given a good idea of what that is (could be a brand new website, could be a redesign of an existing one), you’ve created a mock-up that’s been approved and you begin work in earnest after a vague request for content. You have the expectation that the client knows exactly what it is you mean by content so you don’t bother to elaborate or even give it a second thought as you wait for them to deliver. After all, you can’t deliver the mock-up as a finished product and expect the client to know what to do with it.

Unfortunately therein lies mistake number one. You made a vague request for content, not defining what that is and therefore leaving it up to the client to not only define it, but to deliver upon their own definition. Content can be anything, though, and unless you specify you might wind up with very little of anything truly useful. Whose fault is that? Certainly not the client’s, as they delivered to you what they thought you needed based on your vague request.

A better way to have gotten what you need would have been to tactfully ask for every single bit of HTML they had if it is a redesign or to have asked for every ounce of literature they have so that you have a better idea of what you need to put up, at least initially, for the site’s content. Of course in a redesign, it probably is good to ask for the literature as well. You can never have too much information when it comes to making an top quality web site.

What to do now?

So you’ve made the mistake, but you really didn’t realize it until you have begun work on the site and have reached the point where either:

• a) you’ve copy/pasted everything you could from the old site, or
• b) you’ve exhausted the small amount of literature you initially got for useful information to put on the site

In either case, your vague request has brought you to this impasse and now you have to go back to the client and request even more information. This time, though, you’re sure to be very specific. This could be a panic moment if you’re on a deadline. Even if you aren’t, you should be concerned about the delay this is causing you. Timely service for any project is a must. Even if the client doesn’t set a deadline, you need to set one for yourself. Don’t sacrifice quality, either. If you have to work more then 8 hours a day to get the job done on time, it’s time to pull out the energy drinks and the Fritos.

Is That It?

While this is a rather mild example, some of the problems with bad communication are much, much worse and could lead in the end to complete redesign of the entire project costing you dearly in terms of time, money and reputation.

Worst case scenario if you don’t practice good communication skills with your client:

You never get hired by them again.

Best case scenario if you don’t practice good communication skills with your client:

You get hired again, but for a more menial (and lower paying) job that isn’t befitting your technical expertise.

Conclusion

Choose from the beginning to be a good communicator. If anything seems vague, immediately expound and define. Do not let the client define anything they don’t have to otherwise you’ll be constantly bothering them with requests for more information (and or more time) when both you and they have better things to do then spending your time on this now (possibly) overdue project.

Technorati Tags: computers, technology

I have a sneaking suspicion that these users fall into one of two categories.

Category B-One: The n00b

These are the users that buy a computer, are told amazing things about their capabilities, and when they get home they expect the computer to do everything include making the coffee. Even after many years of computer use, the n00b never gets out of this mode of thinking and often runs into problems with the most basic of tasks if for some reason something doesn’t go as expected. This type of user exists everywhere. Usenet. Forums. Mailing lists. You might even have some n00bs in your own home! Of course I do not use this term in the pejorative (although n00bs definitely task my patience more often than not) but only to describe a type of computer user.

Category B-Two: The neophyte

The neophyte, or newb (note difference in spelling), is someone who just bought a computer, has been told all the wonderful things their computer can do (and probably only believes half of those claims (and rightly so, making coffee is a non-standard feature folks!)), get home and begin using it. They initially have the same amount of problems as the n00b, but over time they actually learn how to use their computer and soon progress to asking questions only when there are problems in special cases (like they are trying to work with a large spreadsheet that is doing multiple calculations and are trying to split it up between multiple sheets while keeping the calculations linked) or they cannot find a solution anywhere on the net.

For category one users, there is nothing to be done accept to have patience with them. They are never going to learn because they think or have been told they don’t have to learn. They have been trained and told so many times that their computer can do everything for them without thinking that when they sit in front of the computer, they stop thinking.

For category two users (the category I think most regulars on a support list wish everyone would become), there definitely still has to be patience for their neophyte age, but a warm welcome to the club once they have reached that plateau where they are ready and willing to help others. Of course upon reaching that plateau, we also hope that they do not become so enamored with their accomplishment that they become one of the next two categories of users.

Category C-One: 31337 h4×0rz

Someone who has become so enamored with their own successes and the ease with which they came, forget where they started and that everyone starts out there. They are haughty, often given to dreaming up of form flames for those who seem too dense to learn anything, and have no care for lesser beings. This kind of behavior is a gateway for the next category.

Category C-Two: The troll

The troll generally has no problems, and if he is a regular on the list generally sticks around only to point out others mistakes (no matter how insignificant or inconsequential they may be), have ardent beliefs about certain things that they think everyone should stick to (and will start and continue discussions on those points) such as what should and should not appear in someone else’s signature line, the use of url shorten-ers, or the benefits of in-line vs. bottom or top posting (I’ve been involved in the latter, but hopefully in a non-confrontational manner while the troll is all about confrontation). Those are just some of the topics a troll will continually bellow about. The best thing to do for a troll is to ignore them and hope they go away or learn to tolerate them.

Neither of the above two categories are very helpful to the first two categories. They cause skewed expectations for users so they are now afraid to join other support lists because of the abuse they received at the hands (indirectly or otherwise, anyone who opens a flame is abused, not just the recipient) of 31337 h4×0rz and trolls.

The most prized of all help on a mailing list, and those who have realistic expectations of what a computer can and cannot do, are those who fall into the following two categories.

Category A-One: The developer

The developer is someone who has major amounts of time providing code to a software project and is considered to be one of the sources of information for the complete ins and outs of any particular piece of software. Often haughty, they do sometimes try to have a humble attitude toward both n00bs and neophytes, while despising (rightly so) the h4×0r and troll. While the view that they now the piece of software like the back of their hand is often unrealistic — they may just work on one particular piece of the entire project — they know where to do for the answer. If you can find humble developers, you’ve truly found people worth emulating and a project worth supporting.

Category A-Two: The expert

While this category of user might not be an actual expert, they have enough experience using whatever software your asking for help with that if they don’t know the answer, they know where to point you. Sometimes they can also seem haughty and intimidating as their first response is to RTFM, a suggestion to read the actual documentation (if the question is about basic features) is quite common because it can not only be illuminating about the issue at hand, but others that might crop up (and now probably won’t because you’ve read the documentation) in the future. This is the type of user that every developer hopes that the neophyte will become, and even has the vague hope that a n00b will someday reach this level too.

What all does this have to do with expectations? A lot, unfortunately.

n00bs expect everything to work automagically with minimal intervention and learning on their part. Life just isn’t like that. It’s a continuous learning experience no matter what you’ve been told. When you download an installation file, it requires you to at the very least click on icons representing the file and to follow instructions printed on your screen. You have to make choices, even if you leave things at the default (there is no such thing as not making a choice). Unfortunately, too many people have the misconception that computers are magical work devices so ingrained to them that it is all but impossible to remove. The C- category of computer users are also in the pickle of having what is unacceptable behavior so ingrained that they do not know any other way of being. I think I fall somewhere outside of all those categories, because I have moments where I’m all of them (except developer, I am not a hacker (in the sense of being a clever programmer)), as much as I hate to admit it.

Computers don’t “just work”. They need input, whether from a human in the form of clicking on a mouse and typing at a keyboard or in the form of a program (which was created by someone most likely typing at a keyboard and/or clicking on a mouse). There also needs to be responsibility for ones actions at all levels. The n00b and neophyte both need to understand that their actions have all sorts of consequences (including unintended ones) whether they are negative or positive. h4×0rz and trolls understand that and try to use it to their own advantage (extended flame wars without them trying and the like). That is simply a lack of morals. Good moral behavior excludes trolling. It excludes the haughty behavior of the so-called h4×0r. The developer and the expert just need to continue working on their patience and thick skins since, unfortunately, the whole world will not become one of them. In reality only a tiny minority will ever actually make it to that level. For those on the way, that simply means we need to positively reinforce them, even if it’s with a small, off-list thank-you for the help they have provided. The n00bs and neophytes of the world make up a majority of all users out there. There is constantly new software in development and new people trying it out.

Even the Bible is clear on this subject:

Whoever loves instruction loves knowledge, But he who hates correction is stupid. Proverbs 12:1 (NKJV, the RefTagger might display the NIV version, which replaces instruction with discipline).

So it is with computers. Those who love instruction eventually become experts or developers. Those who hate correction are doomed to be n00bs (and even possibly trollish n00bs). Just don’t forget who the source of all knowledge is.

Current Mood:  accomplished

As a Christian, I find the notion of declaring any such copyright to be antithetical to the very precepts set forth in the document the copyright is being applied to. Christ did not tell the disciples to go forth and be tight-fisted with your teachings, restricting new brethren in what can and cannot be used by them. No, in Matthew 28:18-20 he tells His disciples first that All authority has been given to Him both on heaven and on earth, and that the disciples are to go forth and make disciples of all nations. He concludes that they are to teach them to observe all things that have been commanded to that group of disciples (the one he is sending forth). No where in there does Christ stamp down his copyright on the material. God wants to reach everyone. By making disciples of all nations, those new disciples are to follow in the original disciple’s commission to go forth.

The whole concept of copyright, especially as it is abused today, is about ownership of the work. It has nothing to do with making money or recouping costs (neither of which are outright sinful in and of themselves, if proper focus is maintained). It’s human ego, pure and simple, with perhaps a touch of greed. Current copyright law says that copyright is maintained for life of the owner plus 25 years for an individual, or in the case of corporate ownership, life of the individual plus 99 years.

Really? Yes, really.

So who owns the Word of God? I maintain that God owns his own Word and that it was shared with us via scripture for the express purpose of being freely shared without restriction. Copyright puts on many, many restrictions that, viewed in this light, are extremely antithetical and produce a hindrance that should not be there. Does that man scholars or companies should not be credited with producing accurate, inspired translations? Not at all. They should receive due credit for the work they put in, but if it were not for their God-given skills and abilities, they wouldn’t be able to do it in the first place. If it wasn’t for God speaking through the prophets and apostles and saints (as used in the bible). Who are we to claim His word as our own work?

My response to this is something that has been working in me for a while, and even more so since I came to learn about a policy and frame of mind that has cropped up during the Open Source Revolution. It is the concept of CopyFree. A work that is CopyFree licensed has no restrictions placed on its use with only one request. Proper credit be given. Can money be made with CopyFree licensed works? I argue that yes, it can be. Costs can be recouped and possibly even a profit, for the profit motivated, can be had with CopyFree license. Of course those who put out the best version of a CopyFree work will make the most money. It encourages diligence, hard work, thought (and in this case prayer), and a desire to be as free from flaw as humanly possible (and with God, anything is possible).

So where does that leave us? Right now, holding on to a bible that possibly has such draconian restrictions as how many concurrent verses you can use, how much of the total work can be used, etc without further special and written permission (possibly at the monetary expense of a further license granting a loosening of restrictions). Hindrances! CopyFree gets rid of that hindrance. Even a weak CopyLeft does away with it for the most part.

Many people do not really think about copyright issues when developing materials for spiritual growth, because the prevailing thought is “Who would sue Christians using the Bible to fulfill Christ’s great commission?”

Zondervan would. Thomas Nelson would. In their copyright notices (produced in full below from a scan, text links to full size images) they say as much. What does the copyright notice in your bible say about how you can use that copy of God’s word?

I’m willing to put forth all my limited resources in time, skills and other resources to see a CopyFree bible, translated from the original texts, come to fruition. What are you willing to do to see the removal of all hindrances on using God’s Word?

Zondervan NIV Copyright notice (699KB)
Thomas Nelson NKJV Copyright notice (829KB)

Technorati Tags: copyright

Current Mood:  accomplished

Over time our friends change as we grow older and mature. Our older friends get relegated to acquaintances, while our newer friends start to take more of our time as we get to know them better. Sometimes, we can even find someone with whom we connect on a level that goes much deeper than just friends. Those are our best friends. Most of us are lucky to ever find even one best friend. Those of us truly blessed find two best friends. One of those, hopefully, will become our spouse. The problem I’ve had in all my past relationships was that we weren’t best friends. Sure we said we loved each other and had a strong friendship, but we weren’t best friends. We weren’t willing to put aside those things that were keeping us apart and instead of drawing closer we faded away (sometimes very angrily). It didn’t help that God wasn’t in the relationship. He couldn’t be, really. Until recently I can’t really say I ever was Christian. I was a church-goer. I had a head knowledge of Christ and God. I didn’t have a personal relationship with Him and that’s what it’s all about. I didn’t know how to be a friend and partner at the same time because I wasn’t allowing God to be my friend and partner. I wasn’t allowing Him to show me how I needed to be.

Even now I’m having trouble with that. I think it’s a good thing that He has prevented me from entering into any relationships before I am ready. I still have so much to learn. Do I like being without someone that I can hope to be my spouse someday? Not at all, but there is a lesson to be learned here. I know God has already found a wife for me, someone who will compliment me in the ways I need to be complimented (and what I mean by complimented, is completed, has qualities that I don’t have but need). I just need to let God work in me and show me what it means to be a Godly spouse. I should be a Godly spouse in deed before I am one in name. I am, though, only human. I will continue to stumble and fall, but I will just have to keep on trusting in the Lord to help me up and show me back onto the straight and narrow. There are no stumbling blocks on the path to righteousness except what we ourselves put in our own paths.

Might I have friends without God? What about a spouse?

I hate to say it, but sure you can. People do it all the time. People also get divorced. Last night on WTVF News Channel 5 Nashville, TN, they were bragging about how much lower the divorce rate in Nashville was because of the slow economy. The biggest reason for the slow down? Not because people suddenly got a heart for reconciliation and repentance, although that would have been nice. It wasn’t because they had asked God to bless and heal their marriage. It wasn’t even because people were working things out on their own. It was because they couldn’t afford to get a divorce. In the intervening time it would have been nice if they had accepted Christ not only into their individual lives but asked him to come into their marriage. I’m sure some might have tried that. It would have been nice if they suddenly received a heart for reconciliation and repentance. I’m sure some even felt that they did and tried that, but as soon as the economy started getting better, the divorce rate went up (by the way, the divorce rate changed by less then a percent, by my estimate, seeing as how it only dropped by 200-300 divorces).

Without knowing a thing about their state reasons for divorce, I can tell you the number one reason why they got divorced: They weren’t best friends. Not with each other or with Christ. I’m blessed that God has kept me from marrying, especially when I was so close to doing it. It wasn’t just that I was with the wrong person. It was that I wasn’t with the right person. I didn’t have Christ in my life to intercede with God on my behalf. I didn’t have the friendship with Christ and God that is required of me and I am still working toward that, blessed as I am today, there is still more for me to learn to let go of.

I used to use t he term “friend” loosely. Now I aim to use it with more and more reservation. That doesn’t change the status of those I call friend now, not all of them anyway. There are some who really were acquaintances, and some who were friends. I just ask God to bless me with the discernment to know who my acquaintances are, who my friends are, and who my best friends are.

One day I’ll revisit this topic and perhaps than I’ll be able to tell you that I’ve found my second Earthly best friend. On that day a shout will go up to the Lord praising Him for what He has shown and given me on that day. From today on, I will be praising him at least once a day (if not more) for those friends I have that are truly friends. I will praise him for those who have been in my life, one way or another, because without them my eyes wouldn’t be open to certain realities.

Please pray with me, friends and acquaintances old and new, as I ask God for those blessings that will cause me to be a better man, to be a Godly man and a Godly spouse without a wife. Praise to you, Lord Jesus and God on high, for You are wise and mighty in all Your ways!

Technorati Tags: friends

Current Mood:  cheerful

O! ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth! Every sport of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been haunted round the globe. Asia, and Africa, had long expelled her, Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.
– Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine would be dying of despair if he were alive now, for now even America is treating her like a stranger and the rest of the world, for the most part, has forced her to flee. If ever we needed a renaissance, now would be the time. If ever we needed a return to our roots, now would be the time.

Technorati Tags: books

What bothers me is the whole concept of Valentine’s Day itself (and the extreme commercialism that now surrounds it, like every other holiday). Why only have one day dedicated to romance and love? What is romance anyway? Is it flowers and candy and dinner out at the most expensive place you can afford? What about intimacy, and tenderness, and caring? What about listening and understanding and compassion? What about, for married men, giving your life (or even being willing to give your life) for your spouse if the need ever arose?

How does flowers, candy and an expensive dinner once a year express all those important things?

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia:

The popular customs associated with Saint Valentine’s Day undoubtedly had their origin in a conventional belief generally received in England and France during the Middle Ages, that on 14 February, i.e. half way through the second month of the year, the birds began to pair.

I have no clue when birds begin their mating season, nor do I care to look it up. Leave bird mating habits to the birds, I say. The Encyclopedia goes on to say, however:

For this reason the day was looked upon as specially consecrated to lovers and as a proper occasion for writing love letters and sending lovers’ tokens. Both the French and English literature of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries contain allusions to the practice.

So, because popular belief was that birds began pairing up on that day, it was a good day to write mushy letters and send lovers’ tokens. How about we do stuff like that more then once a year and save Valentine’s Day (if you choose to celebrate it) for an extra-special day of pampering?

Still, either way I’m not celebrating this year and possibly not even next year. I see no need to make a fool of myself, and if I could I would avoid all unnecessary human contact that day. Since it is a Sunday, though, you will still find me at church and my life group. Just don’t expect me to be in “the spirit” of the day. I’d rather be in The Spirit, truth be told.

Current Mood:  annoyed

Technorati Tags: linklove

Current Mood:  accomplished

First from Wikipedia:

.ly is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Libya.

Bitly Builds Business on Libyan Domain

So far, the news coverage I’ve read about Bit.ly has neglected an unusual aspect of the startup: It’s one of the only prominent online ventures using a domain name in the .LY namespace, which is controlled by Libya.

Think again about who is benefiting from .ly sales.

Update: For corroboration of the Wikipedia entry:
IANA – Root Zone Database.
.ly Domain Delegation Data

Thanks to @gscottoliver for the link to the IANA root zone database.

Technorati Tags: technology

Current Mood:  accomplished

For as long as email has been around, it’s always been seen as an open, non-private means of communicating with others. Passwords are generally transferred in plain text for both sending and retrieval (smtp and pop3) or without an encrypted connection (https) to the net (in the olden days at least, now-a-days most if not all good providers use https for their web login). So how can you secure your email communications? First, you can start by changing your password on a regular basis (once every six months should suffice) or have a sufficiently strong password (if allowed, such would included mixed case, punctuation, and numbers) to change once a year.

If you are on a multi-user computer and you value your password enough not to share with other users of the computer, why would you share your email password with every server on the net that your data passes through? The answer is you probably wouldn’t, and you shouldn’t. If you have a decent mail host you should able to connect via SSL or TLS. Both are accepted means of transmitting your user name and password and email (at least to your mail server) in a secure manner. If you’re mail host doesn’t provide such connections, I urge you to petition them to do so or find another mail host. There are plenty of them out there that respect your privacy enough to provide such secure options (disclosure: My own web host, Blue Host, provides TLS connections).

Now that is all well and good for getting your email to and from your mail host, but what about around the rest of the web? How do you let people know that the mail is from who it says it is? How do you provide them with the security that there isn’t someone else intercepting your email?

That is where tools like GnuPG come in. Coupled with a good MUA such as Mozilla Thunderbird with a plugin like Enigmail (GnuPG is a pre-requisite for using Enigmail) to digitally sign your email. Of course that’s only the last step in this process. There are probably plugins for your particular MUA, most are listed here. My own experience is with Thunderbird and Enigmail currently. I’ll be getting to Microsoft Outlook and one of the plugins for it in the coming weeks. Otherwise, feel free to submit your own setup instructions and screen shots for your particular MUA in the comments for inclusion in an updated security how to. To begin with, after you have GnuPG and Enigmail installed, you first need to generate your first key pair.

Identifying Yourself And Securing That Identity

So we’ve got GnuPG command line client installed. Maybe we even installed the GnuPG Shell to go with it. We have Thunderbird ready with the Enigmail plugin. Where do we go from here? Notice: All instructions are for Thunderbird 3.0 and Enigmail on Windows XP SP3. Your mileage may vary. Instructions for other clients and on other OSes will be addressed in a future web site feature combining this series into one document.

First lets open up Enigmail from the menu in Thunderbird. The menu entry will read OpenPGP and can be reached with alt+n or the mouse.

Next we want to select the Key Management option.

Now, if you haven’t received any email that was PGP signed to verify, your key management window will be empty. We will fix that by selecting the the “Generate” menu option, selecting “New Key Pair” from the drop down.

For most users the default, basic options will suffice. Follow the resulting instructions (doing lots of disk intensive operations during key generation is not only recommended, it should be mandatory). Put in a passphrase (not using one really defeats the purpose of securing your identity in email communications. If you have more then one email account setup in Thunderbird, you can generate a separate key pair for each account. Just keep your pass phrases secure, if you forget it you won’t be able to use the key you just created! For more advanced users, click on the advanced tab for some more options.

As you can see, you can select the key size (bigger is always better in this case, although it is also slower) as well as the algorithm to be used (I suggest researching on your own the differences between the two different options, although I will go into a discussion about them sometime in the coming weeks). Once you have your pass phrase typed in (twice), you’ve checked the option to have the key used with the identity selected, click generate and start doing as many disk intensive operations as you can. Open and close large programs as much as you can (without making the system unstable, of course). Open and close large files. Do everything you can to help add to the randomness of the key generation. The more random data that can be collected during key creation the better off the key will be.

When you’re done with that, your key management window will have your new key listed. You still have one more step to go, though, before you’ll be fully ready to use your key (and let other people verify it). You need to upload your key to a key server.

You’ll just need to highlight (select) your key, and then select the upload key to public server option.

Once your key is uploaded, you are now ready to sign your email, letting people around the world (who use PGP/OpenPGP/GnuPG) know you are who you say you are. Of course there is the issue of verification. It gets harder, though, the less you know a person. Ideally the best way to verify you are who you say you are is to not only exchange keys in person, but to sign each others keys in person as well. That is the only 100% way to achieve verification of the other person. With less reliable methods, you can only at best be marginally sure that you are talking to who you think you are talking with.

Two rules of thumb to remember when using GPG (or any other public/private key pair identity system):

1. Never, ever share your pass phrase with anyone.
2. Never, ever lose track of your private key. Without it your public key is useless.

There is tons of documentation out there for the use of Enigmail and GnuPG, especially on their respective sites. If you are new to using either of them, I highly recommend reading up on the documentation. In a world where personal security and identity protection is essential, you can never have too much information on the tools you are using.

Providing Yourself Anonymity: Anonymous Proxy Relay – Tor Settings

The next step in providing yourself with privacy is setting up Thunderbird 3 (as with GnuPG, other clients/platforms will be included when all this gets combined onto a static website) to use Tor for anonymous proxy relay. You will most likely also have to adjust time-outs accordingly (which will be discussed here).

The settings will be just like for Firefox. The reason for the connection time out change is because it can sometimes take longer then normal to establish a circuit to and from your mail server (if you are running a local mail server, this might not apply, see your mail server’s documentation for passing it through a proxy once it’s outside your local network if you wish for this additional layer of privacy).

This takes care of your proxy settings. If you connect to any mail server over an unsecured connection (port 110), Tor will warn you about this potential security hazard. If you absolutely cannot use SSL or TLS with that server, all you can do is ignore it, but this means that anyone who intercepts your packets to the entry router or from the exit router will be able to read your login and password details.

To adjust your proxy timeout settings in Thunderbird, you will need to hit ok on the connection settings and open the config manager. Take heed of the warning! If you are not entirely comfortable messing with these settings, I recommend that you find a trusted friend who is and ask them to do this for you. I make no guarantees about the continued stability of Thunderbird if you mess with any of the settings past what I’m showing.

From here we want to search for timeout settings.

I use 1800 seconds (yes, that is measured in seconds) because it provides a sufficiently long enough time for a circuit to be created. I’ve had great success with those settings. If you use Thunderbird for NNTP, set the mailnews.tcptimeout to 1800 seconds as well.

You might have some issues with RSS polling if you use Thunderbird as your news reader as well. I highly recommend moving to a stand along application for reading your news feeds.

That about covers securing your privacy and identity within Thunderbird. I’ll have one more article concerning encryption of your IMs in the coming weeks as well as everything else I’ve mentioned. That will be my last article in this series before I move everything to a static website.

If any of these articles have helped you, please leave a comment. Also please leave a comment if you have suggestions or updates or corrections to anything I’ve posted.

Technorati Tags: technology, computers, email, security

While there are many sites employing P2P for illegitimate uses, there are just as many sites using it for the legitimate distribution of large files. Generally they do tend to be single program sites such as FreeBSD.org, Gentoo.org, Fedora Project, OpenOffice.org among many, many others. Not all uses are for large pieces of software, either. According to “BitTorrent and the Legitimate Use of P2P” by Joe Stewart, GCIH, there are more then a few bands that not only allow live tapping of their shows, but encourage the sharing of those recordings on bittorrent. Etree.org is one such site where such people gather to share their recordings and legitimately share these files.

The use of the technology has matured past the point of just downloading copyrighted material without permission of the copyright holders. Work in a company that needs to share large documents or files regularly but don’t want to choke up the server with a few users directly downloading a 200+MB file that everyone needs? Torrent it! A private, intranet-facing, torrent server will take care of that need. When the file(s) is updated, provide a new link to the torrent (or email the .torrent file, which is relatively tiny) to your department heads so they can distribute the information on the newly updated information to their minions subordinates. When everyone downloads a torrent, they also begin seeding the parts of the (up to and including the whole) file that they are needing. As more people download it, the more distributed it becomes and less resources are needed from any single user.

Embrace this technology which has matured since first introduced. Take advantage of the legitimate uses this wonderful technology provides. There are tons of clients available (I highly recommend µtorrent, an extremely lightweight, full-featured client for Windows, find a LUG near you for one for your particular OS, feel free to comment with your own recommendations).

Of course there are more legitimate uses then what I’ve already mentioned here, but they are up to you to find. Don’t demonize a technology so imminently useful because some choose to use it for something that is considered illegal. Don’t be afraid to embrace a technology that can significantly lighten the load on any single user when providing large documents.

Go, install a client and begin to enjoy the many legitimate uses that this technology offers. Even if you don’t actively use it on a daily basis, you can be part of a large group of users helping to legitimately share files all across the world.

Technorati Tags: technology, bittorrent, web

Current Mood:  accomplished

I ask that because, as I was looking up information on this change, I discovered at least two articles (here and here) that are over a year old, posted 14 May 2008 and 17 January 2008 respectively. The only recent piece about this is relatively low on details by comparison.

So what does this mean for AOL (owners of ICQ and AIM), Yahoo and MSN? Probably not too much as more then a trickle of their users have been using XMPP to connect to those services (via transport gateways in XMPP, enabled only on certain servers) for years. I personally have known about jabber servers offering transport gateways for at least 5 years, if not more. What this does mean, though, is that XMPP, with the addition of 70+ million users from Facebook, will become the de facto king of the IM protocols overnight. Just as soon as Facebook goes live with their server.

The server is there, and it does respond, but currently trying to connect to it returns, for me at least, a 503 service unavailable error with my client, Pidgin. Also, the server requires a plaintext authorization at the moment (bad Facebook, do you want your users having their login names and passwords sniffed on demand?) so I do not recommend any current Facebook users to try and use it unless you’ve created a throwaway account.

UPDATE: The creator of the Facebook Chat plugin for Pidgin made a post on 4 November 2009 here. Apparently FB is testing out a few things, which is good. Extended beta programs ensure a more solid product release which would be important for an immediate move over of over 70 million users.

Technorati Tags: technology

Current Mood:  accomplished

You have finally decided to get serious about your security, privacy and anonymity online but you haven’t a clue where to turn or, when you get there, how to set up your programs to use these tools in an effective manner (ineffectively using any of these tools pretty much negates their use at all). The first tool I want to talk about is called Tor and it uses onion routing to provide an anonymous proxy relay service with a minimum of 3 relays. While they have some great tools to help you use this service (I recommend the Vidalia bundle), their documentation is scattered and leaves something to be desired, at least in my opinion. Since I, and so many other new users, have had so much trouble in getting it set up and so many technical questions about setting up programs to use Tor, I thought I would write this.

Lets first start with Firefox. While I’m using 3.6b4, they have recently developed a bundle that uses 3.5.6 and I can assure you that the settings are the same. I cannot say the same about the security of the code base (while the Tor project has given 3.5.6 a pass, I doubt they are testing a beta release) and other security conscious settings that help make Tor that much more effective.

The first thing we need to do is install the Vidalia bundle along with the TorButton for Firefox. This button allows you tell Firefox to use/not use Tor while surfing. The only advantage to not using Tor is that you’ll have access to video and flash content and your page loads will be quicker. If you aren’t concerned by such things, still keep the button handy. Some sites do not allow Tor users to connect to them (although you could tunnel through another proxy server to hide that you are using Tor). For the best use of Tor, you’ll want the following proxy settings (should be put in by Tor button, but it’s always best to double check):

These settings will get you off and running with Tor on Firefox.

Next to set up will be Pidgin, a multi-protocol instant messenger client. You can set up proxy service either per account or client wide. I have chosen (and recommend) to set it up client wide so that all the protocol connections have to travel through Tor. It’s a little bit slower to connect and there are still some issues but once you’re connected there isn’t any difference in IM response. Messages are still instant, they are just a little more secure now.

With those settings, you’ll be safely on the Tor relay network with packets pinging around the world in an attempt to prevent anything to be traced back to your computer.

Tor has some wonderful documentation, I just find it all to much for a beginner who is just starting on their way to becoming security conscious while on the Internet. In that manner, I hope that this (relatively) short article helps you get going.

If you have an tips or corrections to share, please leave a comment here at Ameriliorations 1.0 – Getting Serious about Security. As long as it isn’t spam it will be displayed.

Technorati Tags: technology, computers, security, web

So what can the average, every day, freedom-loving, privacy-advocating, red-blooded American (or any other nationality) do? There are several things that can make at least your online experience that much safer and more secure. Here are a few of the ones I’ve implemented.

The first is simple enough, but might be a bit insulting. Buy a clue, people! How far down the road do we have to go before the clue-bat of liberty smacks you hard enough for you to realize that what is going on in Washington, DC (and even in Copenhagen and at other treaty summits we are party to) effects you and I in a very real, every day sort of way?! Don’t think you or your parents will get taken away? Think again. Even Roman citizens in Christ’s time had access to due process under Roman law. Once you have the clue you need and decide to get serious about security, safety and your privacy, here are a few tools that — when implemented intelligently — will give you some modicum of privacy, verification of who you are talking to, and security in knowing that what you sent cannot be read by someone you don’t intend it to.

Of course there are ways to circumvent and compromise every tool I’m going to mention here, but in combination it should be enough to provide some of the basics. Once you get more serious about security and anonymity, you’ll know where to look for more advanced tools.

The Tools of the Trade

Search Engines

Believe it or not, despite any privacy policy a company may have, most search engine companies keep a complete log of what you are looking for, when you looked for it, and what links you followed away from them. They then sell that data to ad companies like Doubleclick.net (a Google property to boot) so as to allow them to better follow you and tailor ads to you. While I’m all for using ads to generate business and make some money, they can do so without my personally identifiable information. So the first tool requires the biggest change of all and will help you make the other changes much easier. Startpage is a search engine of a different breed. They do not log your IP address nor pass it along to anyone else. They have ads based on search results alone if you’re concerned about that and seem to take care of their own advertising. They also, via the link above, provide bank-grade encrypted connection to their servers so that no one in the middle can see what you are doing. They are more along the lines of a search provider then a search engine.

What they do, in essence, is take your search term and submit it to 11 different popular engines (Google being noticeably absent), then return those results to you without you having to go to the other sites. They provide private, anonymous searching for free. They provide a search plugin for Firefox and IE (so if you choose to continue to use IE, for whatever reason, you can enjoy private searching with it too).

Web Surfing

Web surfing is probably the least private thing anyone does. Tracking cookies, referrer logs, and the like. Browsing the Internets is generally insecure and completely public. Anyone can sniff your connection. Anyone can intervene themselves into your session and capture, track, log and even divert your session. In general they can recreate every byte of data being sent out, modify it, and resend it somewhere else. They can see your passwords, your login names, and if you’re using a shopping site that doesn’t have a valid SSL certificate, credit card information. Phising sites use social engineering to capture all of these without directly engaging in any sort of hacking. All they have to do is successfully recreate the site whose users they want to scam, mask their URL into something believable, and have you provide all the information to them voluntarily.

So is there anyway to truly protect your data? Yes. Pay attention to the URLs you are visiting, if your browser is telling you that a site’s security certificate is suspect, invalid or expired, be wary. It could just be lazy (or cheap) admins, or it could be something more malicious.

So what tool(s) are there for surfing more safer? Aside from the using your brain more bit, there is anonymous relay proxies. It is a bit slower then what you’re generally used to, but the security provided is of immense benefit to those who value their privacy. Granted, it does have some limitations, but there are work-arounds to that if you’re willing to give up anonymity in the process. I won’t go into how this works, the linked site provides a better explanation then I ever could.

There are other proxy tools available, but this is the one I’ve found that even works. Eventually I’m sure I can find better solutions, but until then I’m happy with Tor.

Instant Messaging

Instant messaging, that ubiquitous tool that has been with us for a very long time now. They’ve become more highly evolved (voice and video chats, once thought the domain of of the telcos and their dreams of a video-phone (which they do have), are a prime example of the evolution of IM) since their initial inception as simple senders of quick text messages. Some clients can even send SMS messages.

Most people, though, don’t give a second thought to IM security though they might use it for business purposes, or even governmental uses. So what can we do for IM to make it more secure? First there is the same proxy servers we used for web browsing that we can use to connect our clients through (Pidgin, among others, supports connections to proxy servers). Then there are plugins such as Off-the-Record messaging, which allow for encrypted chats. Of course that’s only as good for how much you can verify the person sitting on the other end. The more means you have of contacting them and verifying the person you are IMing is the same person you think it is, the better off you’ll be using OTR. This will lead into our final section, as well.

Email Security

Think your SSL or TLS connection is secure? Don’t even kid yourself about your connection to port 110. That’s pure plain text. Anyone who can intercept your connection will be able to read your login and password on that port. It’s more difficult with SSL and TLS. The best way of preventing that is, again, with an anonymous relay proxy server. We can use the same one we’re using for browsing and IM. Different pathways for different connections. It’s just that good. There is also encrypted or digitally signed email. Like with OTR, though, it’s only as good as far as you can truly verify the person you’re talking to is who they say they are.

General Encryption and Digital Signing

SSL works by the web site providing you, via the browser, a certificate claiming that the website is who it says it is and that your information is safe as long as you are connected to them. Again, though, there is that matter of trust. Do you trust the issuing/signing authority? Do you trust the website you are connecting to to begin with? Be wary of the trojan horse. Since there really isn’t anything more you can do once you’ve anonymized your surfing, IM and email clients connections to the Internet, and even https (the protocol used for SSL connections), what else is there?

Encryption and self-signing of documents via tools like GNU Privacy Guard (a free, open-source implementation of PGP) is a start. For email clients like Thunderbird, there is Enigmail (you will need GPG installed to use Enigmail). It allows you to sign and/or encrypt your email messages so only the intended recipients can open them.

Paranoid yet? You should be.

Even with all these precautions there is still the chance a session can be tracked back to you, there is still the chance that your encryption can be compromised and broken, there is still the chance that any number of malicious things can still happen with your data. Nothing we create is perfect. These are steps, though, that when properly implemented and routinely use will highly increase your security, anonymity, and privacy while you are online.

Technorati Tags: technology, browsers, security, web

When I make a friend, I like to think it’s for life, but it usually isn’t and mostly it really is my fault. I get aggressive about something and then I either jump the shark — I reach my best in the relationship and then backslide — or so radically change my stand on something as to put them in shock. I remember one friendship in particular I was getting into that I started to vie for something more and just when she started to warm to the idea, I panicked and withdrew so quickly as to leave her head (and her heart) spinning.

Here lately I’ve started losing touch with more friends, for various reasons, and it’s really bothering me because I’m actively trying to stop it but it seems like it’s the inevitable result of current events beyond my control. It started being in my control, and now it isn’t. I guess I just don’t like losing control of a situation, or a relationship.

That’s been one of my hardest things in my walk with God. Letting go has always been so difficult for me. I try to hang onto things that I really should just let go of and it only seems to make things worse. I think God is trying to teach me how to let go and I’m just being stubborn, but can you blame me? Who wants to let go of any relationship that one values? Although I can see how it might seem that I didn’t value this one in particular. Almost six months of minimal contact and then all of a sudden I want to be best friends again. So now I’m being told to just let it go and it’s about to bring me to tears.

I really did value the relationship. The camaraderie. One of the few friendships that I had that I felt like was just right. I’m trying to focus on the present now, though. It’s hard. Instead of healthily dealing with this ending I seem to be just trying to fill the void now and that never works if God isn’t in it.

Please pray, friends, that I allow myself to be carried by God through this because I definitely cannot handle this one by myself.

Technorati Tags: relationships, friends

Current Mood:  crushed

Well then I have a tip for you that will help you get a handle on what sites are loaded in your browser. For this example we are going to block Yahoo. How to block it is really simple.

First, you need to find a file simply called hosts. On most versions of Windows this should be in

C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc

The file has no extension but it’s a plain text file so you can use notepad without any problems. Once you have the file open, you should see something like this at the top:

# Copyright (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
# For example:
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host

Pretty much telling you exactly how to do it with one entry defined:

127.0.0.1 localhost

You do not want to change that entry. It’s how the computer recognizes itself as home and how network services “connect” to a network without there actually being a connection to the Internet or any other network.

To block a website, Yahoo in this example, you’ll want to add another entry that looks like this:

127.0.0.1 yahoo.com

Once you restart your network connection (do it however you like), yahoo should be completely blocked.

Now this only works on the top level Yahoo domain. Any sub-domains might still be available. To block any sub-domains, you’ll have to block them one at a time following the same format.

There are programs out there that automatically generate a list of known harmful websites (pornography, sites that distribute malware, etc.) that also allows for easy editing of the hosts files. If I only had to recommend one, I would recommend Spybot – Search & Destroy. It’s free, it searches for malware on your computer (mostly software that tracks your usage of the Internet (aka spyware)), allows for the editing of your hosts file, and is free and fairly simple to use.

Of course I like doing things without having to install any software and the above mentioned method for blocking websites is by far the easiest. You don’t have to be a computer guru to edit the file, just remember the changes you’ve made. If you ever want to undo them, just delete the entry in question and restart your network connection. Another bonus is that while you have to do a little more monitoring yourself, in the end you don’t have to pay someone else to block the sites for you.

Update: One thing I failed to mention, when you save the edited file, you’ll have to delete the original and rename the file you saved from hosts.txt to just hosts, otherwise it won’t work. For some reason notepad won’t save this file without the extension. Don’t worry about the warning about removing the file extension. In this case it isn’t needed.

Technorati Tags: technology, computers

Current Mood:  accomplished

Guess what folks, all fighting does is keep us apart. Instead of being like brothers and sisters to each other we are all like two warring factions of insects. We fight for territory because we believe more territory will make us better and happier. We fight for women because we believe having the most beautiful women will make us better and happier. We fight for money because we believe more money will make us better and happier. None of that stuff matters! Not a lick of it matters. We are born, live and die in a short matter of time.

1 Thessalonians 5:15 “See that no one renders evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all.”

Such a simple teaching from God through the apostle Paul, yet all around me I see people not heeding it. Perhaps they don’t understand it? Perhaps they don’t have know what’s in store for them?

I just recently finished reading a book called Tortured for Christ by Richard Wurmbrand (founder of Voice of the Martyrs) in which we are presented with the ultimate representation of the evil one’s power in this world, Communism. The destroyer of freedom, the destroyer of individualism, the destroyer of hope, the destroyer of light, the destroyer of prosperity. Or so he thinks. In Tortured for Christ we find hope, light, prosperity (but not as we think of it), individualism and freedom (in Christ). Unfortunately the evil one isn’t only at work in the Communistic nations of the world. He’s at work in the prosperous West as well. In this country, in America, we are inundated with the love of money, the love of beauty, the love of sex, the love of <insert-non-God-thing-here> and he’s winning! He’s losing in Communist Cuba and Communist China and all the persecuted bodies in the captive nations, but he’s winning here! Pastor Wurmbrand was rejected by many of the churches in this country because the church has been deceived and they have bought into the deception! Satan is alive and well throughout the world and he is most active here because he’s found in our prosperity and liberty a way to keep us from God without even showing his hand directly! In this country it’s not a clever quip or useful feature that sells a product. It’s not great taste or awesome value for the money. It’s not healthy living or being modest that represents our values. Almost everything is about sex. Teens in adult situations, wearing adult outfits. It’s beauty pageants where little girls are expected to dress up as adult women almost 4-10 times their age! It’s in almost all the make-up commercials and beauty magazines. Sex is in the tabloids. But where is the outcry for the persecuted church in a nation founded by Christians and puritans and Amish and diests? Almost every one of the founding fathers (not just the most famous ones) had some sort of Christian background (there were a few atheists I’m sure). Our Constitution is based on Christian morality. Even our most sacred laws (don’t kill, don’t rape, don’t steal) are based on entirely Christian principles. Yet we send foreign aid to terrorists, we buy from Communists, we fund corrupt governments and violent insurrections. We sell weapons to our enemies and then wonder how they were able to wound us. All for the love of money, or sex, or whatever motivates the people in power. Where is the support for the persecuted church while we’re sending out billions of dollars in aid to the non-believers (and I’m not talking about government aid, I’m talking about personal dollars directly donated to charity)? I’m not saying we shouldn’t feed and house the homeless and the poor, I am saying that our first duty as believers is to help fellow believers. We need to be funding them with money and materials and prayer. Yet most of us just turn a blind eye to it all. I am so disgusted by it all, yet all I can do is pray for I have no influence, no authority. I do pray for those in positions of authority. For while God pre-ordained our leaders, they still have free will to enter into righteousness with Him or into sin with Satan. Follow our leaders, but do not let them lead you into sin. Pray for them all that they may be moved by Christ Jesus to do great things in His name. Pray for them all that they may lead this and other nations into harmony with each other. May we all be of one mind and one accord for Christ Jesus and God the Father.

In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.