Feedly: The Google Reader Replacement

I'm very much a creature of habit. Once I get into a routine, I'm hard to shift from it. I don't like change! It manifests itself in lots of little things, but one in particular is my consumption of websites and blogs. For about seven years, I've been using Google Reader as my feed reader. It's always been good, simple, and efficient - all the updates are fed straight to your reader without you having to visit each individual blog to check for updates. But then came the news of Google Reader's pending doom. What to do now?

With various options, I've decided to opt for Feedly. At the start, it seemed clunky, strange to use, and not as familiar as Google Reader. Having trialled it for a month or two, I'm not sure why I didn't change much sooner! Feedly provide a dedicated app for smart phones as well as a desktop reader for, well, desktops! The iPhone app is the version that I've been using the most, and it's well built, much more efficient and reliable than reader, and perfect for the purpose of reading blogs. The easy access to click through to the actual website is very useful, and the whole app doesn't have to reload any time you return to the feed (unlike the old Google Reader mobile site). If you're wanting to be kept up to date with blogs, it's definitely the app/site to use. You'll pick it up in no time, and adding in subscriptions is also very handy.

one slight criticism is that sometimes, the Feedly iPhone app freezes or times out, with the result that you occasionally see the same news items several times before it realises you've read them. Although that could be my phone being jam packed with stuff and not having the necessary RAM.

Mum Playing X-Box: Funny!

My brother got an XBox 360 for Christmas, with Formula 1 2010 and a steering wheel. We persuaded mum to have a go, and here's the hilarious result...

The Forbidden Fruit

Over the past few months, I've enjoyed reading Clients From Hell in Google Reader. The premise is simple. Anonymous web designers and other creatives share some of the weird, scary, or downright funny things their clients say as they commission and oversee design projects. The other day, they had a religiously themed post - perhaps all those Apple Geek minsters and youth workers should take note and repent...

Even more interestingly, given the convictions expressed over there, it is Apple's Steve Jobs who has been anti-pornography in the app market.

Internet: Isolation or Inclusion?

Does the Internet draw people together or separate people? Most folk seem to think that the upcoming generations are becoming withdrawn, only interacting through the medium of a computer monitor or mobile phone text message. The interweb must be a bad thing and people need to re-learn how to interact in 'real' life.

Even when communicating through msn messenger or google talk, everyone sits in their own house in front of their own computer, being isolated. Perhaps it's just becoming normal. For example, Facebook tries to be helpful by suggesting friends of friends you may like to add as your own friend too. Fair enough, but now it's going a stage further by bringing up the wee box with suggestions of friends to reconnect with. The other day I was sitting and in the suggestions box there was one of the ladies from church. You haven't spoken to Ruth on Facebook recently, why not write on her wall? Well, why would I talk on facebook when I've seen her at church meetings and events and talked to her there???

An example of the Internet bringing people together is the Flickrmeet. The what? The Flickrmeet. It's a group of photography enthusiasts who use the website Flickr and meet up to go on a photowalk. We had one last week in Belfast, around the Christmas Continental Market at the City Hall and on to Victoria Square to get some photos of the dome. A great night with some good friends. Plenty of laughs, some new knowledge and tips for the camera, and a couple of good shots.


Say hi to Clair, Bernie, Faye, Steve and Jonny!

Guitar Praise

Following on from Sunday School Musical, the latest in the line of Christian copy-cat products is Guitar Praise*. Based on the highly successful console game Guitar Hero, you can play along to all your favourite Rock praise artists. However, it isn't available on the Wii, PS3, Gamecube or Commodore C64. It runs on either Windows or Mac.

With thanks to Scrabo Power for his mention of it. On that page he also writes about Praise Band: The Movie - which tells the story of a traditional church and how it changes when the pastors starts a praise band.

Are these products about changing our culture for the good, or simply promoting the Christian sub-culture bubble which has no impact on wider society? It seems like we may be staying in the salt cellar (or the salt-shaker) rather than being the salt of the world. It seems like we're keeping the light in our wee corner rather than shining it into all the world. How can we impact culture by ignoring and copying it with products only aimed at Christians?

* Following that link will immediately start a very loud sample of one of the songs you can play on Guitar Praise. You have been warned!

Who's Got The Whole World In Their Hands?

I saw a shortened version of this advert on the TV this evening. The tune seems very familiar, but the words are a terrible parody of the original chorus. Rather than 'He's got the whole world in His hands', it becomes 'You've got the whole world in your hand'. All because of the acquisition of a PSP (PlayStation Portable).



Once again, the invitation is made for individuals to become the centre of the universe, to take the place of God.

Internot :(

Very quick posting. Got home safe from Romania, only to discover that my internet wasn't working... Have just got it working again, which I am pleased about, but it is late at night and I am tired, so more updates will follow in due course!

Surfing without wires

It is with great delight that I report that we're now wirelessly connected at home. For almost a year, I had been on broadband at home - connected through a USB cable, and it was fine. But then Neil got a laptop for his birthday last week, and he wanted in on the action too. And so we had to upgrade our Orange broadband to the Unlimited wireless one.

It had arrived last week, but without anyone to sign for it and me in Scotland, it was only today that we got the Livebox. So from 12 noon until now, I've been trying to get it set up... Part of the problem was that the installation CD wouldn't work on my laptop, then Neil's new laptop was Vista, then we had signal but no connection, then we had connection but no pages coming up.

But eventually, and thankfully, we have both signal and connection and internet! I'm now able to enjoy freedom in the house when it comes to the internet... no wires - except the power cable as my battery has been run down so much! Neil's so far only on the ethernet cable, but hopefully I'll get his wireless set up soon!

The new toy

Just a quick posting from my new PDA! It's an ACER n 50 with integrated wireless. A whole bunch of us bought them together and are now having the fun of trying to get them to work!

Just one more distraction from the essays that are piling up!

Resuming the service

So here we are - I think I might be back on the internet... not entirely properly yet, but it's getting there. It seems that I can't have two internet explorer windows open at the same time - an error is reported almost straight away. I normally have three or so windows open to blog / email / forum etc at the same time (and who said blokes can't multi-task?), but not now!

So let's hope that later on I'll be able to do some blogging. I'm also planning to read (pronounced red) out my room to create a bit more space, so we'll see what I can blog about!

InterNOT

Well folks, my internet woes continue now that I'm home again... hence the title of internot... I can get about three minutes of internet explorer, and then some sort of error happens, or the whole thing just freezes... sooooo annoying! Let's hope this makes it through the system and onto the blog.

I must apologise though, that my last few postings have been complaining ones... If the internet holds up, I have a few more thoughts ready on Lamentations to post. Here's hoping!