2004-12-03 · 14:25

Kids in sacrament meeting

Excerpted from a long discussion of kids’ behavior in church, and why we believe it’s important to keep kids in sacrament meeting instead of corraling them in a separate nursery. I couldn’t have said it better myself:

I think it is helpful to share methods that have helped with children in church, but it is also helpful for parents to know that it’s normal for kids to struggle with spending more than an hour sitting quietly in a meeting that they don’t understand and even adults can find boring at times and also normal for their parents to struggle with what that does to their ability to enjoy a peaceful and spiritual sacrament meeting. You notice that when Jesus was having all the children come unto him, he was not in sacrament meeting, or even in chapel, and he still had to use the word suffer.

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Filed under Spiritual Nourishment

2004-12-01 · 16:37

Word of the day

What do you call a hotfix that doesn’t actually fix the problem it’s supposed to cure?

I vote for notfix, but I welcome your suggestions. The best suggestion posted as a comment here by December 15th wins… uh… something cool. Yeah, that’s it– your choice of a signed copy of one of my books or a $25 donation to the charity of your choice. Get those creative juices flowing.

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Filed under General Stuff, Musings

2004-12-01 · 06:45

Getting started with Workplace

So, here’s a question for Ed and any other Lotus-Knowledgeable readers out there. What’s the best way to start learning about Workplace Messaging? So far I’ve learned some peripheral facts, like that it has outrageous system requirements (quad 2GHz procs + 2 GB of RAM), that it’s licensed per-processor (so you need 4 server licenses for that 4-proc machine), and that every initial license includes 12 months of maintenance. However, I haven’t found a clear, comprehensive source of getting-started information, apart from this tutorial. That’s probably just because I don’t know where on IBM’s gargantuan web site to look, hence this post. If you do know, please share.

Update: I just spoke to a friendly IBM sales rep who made it very clear that Workplace products are not licensed per-server or per-CPU, but per-user. My earlier post was based on something I saw at vowe.net. Caveat lector.

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Filed under General Stuff, Musings

2004-12-01 · 06:26

Turning over a new leaf

I went to go see the doctor last month, and he ordered an impressive panel of lab tests. The results came back, and they were mixed. Good news: my LDL cholesterol is low (119). Bad news: my HDL is 18, with a minimum recommended level of 40. So, that means I need to eat lots of oatmeal and get off my butt for some regular aerobic exercise. This morning, being that it’s the start of a new month, I hit the treadmill and then lifted some weights. My goal is to do this 3-4 times a week, consistently, so I don’t have to face Dr Schwartz’ scorn at Rotary meetings. Go me!

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Filed under Musings

2004-11-30 · 12:04

Testosterone Inc (Byron)

Subtitled “Tales of CEOs Gone Wild”, this book should really have had a different subtitle– maybe “Poorly Written Character Assassination” would have better captured the flavor. Bryon proposes to relate the career and personal mishaps of Jack Welch (GE), Dennis Kozlowski (Tyco), Al Dunlap (Sunbeam, among others), and Ron Perelman (Revlon and others). Unfortunately, he wastes most of the book on unsupported pop-psych theories (Welch was an aggressive CEO because his mom called him a “punk”), with the underlying theme being that an excess of testosterone caused all four of these men to eventually self-destruct. No one’s portrayed in a flattering light here, but Welch comes in for special treatment, despite the fact that he was the only one of these CEOs to actually accomplish any meaningful creation of lasting value. Byron’s writing is annoying as all get-out, too; he uses footnotes to excess to explain simple things (who’s Lilith?) that I suspect most readers would already know and makes sloppy errors (like talking about Welch’s “neck waddle”) that bespeak a lack of editing– which in turn makes me doubt the veracity of some of what he reports.

Not only do I not recommend this book, I’m sorry my local library spent the money to buy it. Awful.

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Filed under Reviews

2004-11-29 · 14:25

Motorola embraces EAS

Now this is interesting: Motorola has announced that they’ve licensed Exchange ActiveSync and will start supporting it when they release the A780 phone next year. That means that Exchange ActiveSync will be available on a Linux-based device, along with the PalmOS-based Treo 650. While this might seem like the kind of thing to give the Windows Mobile apoplexy, Motorola sees (and has labeled) the A780 as a midtier device that doesn’t compete with the feature-rich(er) Windows Mobile devices now on the market. EAS will be integrated with Motorola’s propietary MOTOSYNC protocol; it’s too early for me to tell what form the integration might take.

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Filed under General Stuff, Musings

2004-11-29 · 06:22

Interfaith Nativity Festival

I’m really excited about this! Y’all are all invited to the first annual Interfaith Nativity Festival, a collection of more than 300 nativity scenes from around the world. The collection is set up for browsing, so you can walk around and examine them close up. There’s a live nativity, too, as well as choral performance from several local church choirs. Admission is free. Some details:

  • All nativities come from members of the community throughout northwest Ohio
  • A children’s activity room will be provided
  • Local choirs will be performing
  • Light refreshments will be served (including some truly outstanding cookies baked by my son’s Sunday school teacher)

The Festival is happening December 4th (9am-9pm) and 5th (2pm-6pm); the live nativity is Saturday the 4th from 5pm- 8pm. Choral performances are scheduled for:

  • 11am Saturday: the children’s choir from First Presbyterian Church of Maumee
  • 2pm Saturday: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints adult choir
  • 4pm Saturday: the Bell Choir from Zoar Lutheran Church
  • 5:45pm Sunday: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Bowling Green State University Choir

I want to emphasize that this is not a missionary program. In fact, our world-famous missionaries won’t even be there. It’s a multi-church, interfaith way for us to share some beautiful reminders of the real reason behind this holiday season. All are welcome.

At about 7pm on Sunday, national radio personality Glenn Beck will be speaking, too. He’s in town for his “Real American Christmas Tour“, but he won’t be doing his usual political material; instead, he’s going to talk about his faith in Jesus Christ. This event is open to anyone, but unlike the Nativity Festival, you should expect to see the missionaries there. As if the preceding weren’t enough, at 8pm, we’ll be showing the annual Christmas devotional broadcast from Temple Square in Salt Lake City, featuring the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

All of this goodness is taking place at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints building on 795 in Perrysburg– 3/4mi west of I-75. (If you have questions or want more information, email me or call 419-874-5636).

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Filed under Spiritual Nourishment

2004-11-28 · 06:42

Bananaguard

Thomas doesn’t eat lunch at school until 1:30, so his class has snack time about 11:00. He’s been taking bananas, but recently decided that he didn’t want to because they sometimes get squashed in his backpack. The natural solution: I’m getting him a Bananaguard for Christmas. Those wacky Canadians!

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Filed under Friends & Family

2004-11-28 · 06:37

Exchange ActiveSync troubleshooting

I’m working on an article on Exchange ActiveSync for the magazine. Unfortunately, I don’t have it working for my device yet– John’s iPaq 6315 works on 3sharp’s server, but something is funny with my server here at home, and I’m going to be troubleshooting it this week. A couple of resources that look useful: this extremely detailed TechNet webcast and Chris De Herrera’s troubleshooting guide (which mostly covers “regular” ActiveSync) on CEWindows.net.

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Filed under General Stuff, Musings

2004-11-24 · 15:33

Cooking for Engineers

A simple idea, brilliantly executed: Cooking for Engineers. (Special for Julie: the lead article at the moment is a test recipe for giblet-pan gravy. Mmmm, giblets….) The preparation diagrams are very, very useful, at least to a cooking n00b like me.

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Filed under General Tech Stuff

2004-11-24 · 15:30

Best Computer Books of 2004? Not so much

Amazon released their 2004 list of the best computer books, and once again Secure Messaging with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 wasn’t on it. Dang! I was all set to be depressed, but then I saw this great post from fellow author Ed Bott, with whom I agree totally:

Nothing on Windows XP or Windows Server 2003. Nothing on Linux or Mac OS X or cascading style sheets or PHP or Adobe Photoshop or computer security or digital music or photography. You know, topics that lots of people might actually be interested in.
From all of us computer book authors, thanks for the support, Amazon. (Not.)

Of course, if you want a really good computer book, I have just the thing 🙂

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Filed under Smackdown!

2004-11-24 · 15:13

Comments re-enabled

I have re-enabled comments, with the added requirement that you use TypeKey (which, fortunately, is free). As soon as I can get MT-Blacklist to work properly, I’ll enable unregistered comments, but for now you’ll need to sign in before commenting. Sorry about the inconvenience.

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Filed under General Stuff, Musings

2004-11-24 · 15:11

Comment registration fixed

I have re-enabled comments, with the added requirement that you use TypeKey (which, fortunately, is free). As soon as I can get MT-Blacklist to work properly, I’ll enable unregistered comments, but for now you’ll need to sign in before commenting. Sorry about the inconvenience.

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Filed under General Tech Stuff

2004-11-23 · 05:44

Adopt-a-Sniper

Looking for a really unique way to show support for US troops? How about adopting a sniper? You can donate anything from rifle scopes and stocks to powdered hot chocolate and ramen noodles. These men do one of the most difficult, and dangerous, jobs in the military; they provide overwatch support to protect other troops in the field and at fixed locations like airbases. They operate in one- or two-man teams, and although they’re highly valued by the troops they protect, not every unit is able to support them with the equipment they need– they need, and use, a lot of special-purpose and unique gear. I’m going to box up a big load of baby wipes, protein bars, and ramen and ship it out this week.

Update: the boys and I went shopping on Friday; we ended up with about 30 lbs of stuff, including some big fluffy towels (steel gray, so they won’t show dirt), a football with a built-in pump, a case of ramen, a bunch of peppered beef jerky, and so on. It’ll go out via UPS tomorrow.

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Filed under Musings

2004-11-17 · 14:48

Moved from Pair

Well, the move isn’t 100% complete; I still have to install MT-Blacklist, tweak the CSS, and do a few other things of that nature. However, I’m well on schedule to give pair the boot by month’s end.

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Filed under General Tech Stuff