How I got PHP Eclipse running in Ubuntu 8.10 The Intrepid Ibex

First off, PHP Eclipse is awesome. (That's probably why Zend is repackaging it and selling it with all kinds of extra features.) Aside from code coloring, collapsing, and function assistance (which gPHPedit does great at as well), it also does some pretty awesome code completion and custom code tips based on your own code!

Basically if you are working on a project with custom classes, it will intelligently recognize your custom class's methods and variables, and will give tool-tips based on them if you have been adding comment blocks.

So, now that I've made you want PHP Eclipse (and I've already made you want Ubuntu 8.10), let's get to installing!

1. Open Add/Remove under the "Applications" Menu
2. Change the "Show" drop down to "All Available Applications"
3. Type "Sun" in the search box
4. Check Sun Java 6 Runtime
5. Click "Apply Changes"
6. When it finishes downloading and installing, click "Close"
7. Head over to the Eclipse website and download the latest version of Eclipse.
8. Extract it to a folder somewhere, then double click the eclipse script. (it should immediately run Eclipse.
9. Click Help>Software Updates
10. Click Add Site, and add the PHPEclipse 3.3-3.4 or 3.2 Repository
11. Check the box next to the new PHP Eclipse Repo and install any available software from it. (Accepting the license agreement, of course)
12. Close and restart Eclipse.
13. Open the PHP Eclipse IDE by going to Window>Open Perspective>Other and then selecting "PHP"
14. That's it!

Troubleshooting:
If you get some obscure message like "An error has occurred. See error log for more details.", that's probably because you are using gcj (an open source Java runtime) or an old version of Eclipse.

My solution to this was to totally uninstall anything gcj related via synaptic, and make sure I was launching the version of Eclipse I downloaded from their site.

If all else fails, you can always purchase and download Zend Studio for Eclipse. It works great and has a few polished finishing touches that makes it worth it for the avid PHP devloper. (I've downloaded it since I purchased it a while back, but I'm going to see how far I get on straght PHP Eclipse)

Rock on, Razzle Dazzle, and enjoy PHP Eclipse!

Jumping back to Ubuntu

Well, I'm making the jump again, back to the Ubuntu flavour of Gnu Linux. First thing I've noticed that I really like, is the British English, apparently flavor is a misspelling of flavour!

Actually, the first thing I noticed that I loved was how easy it was to install. As an IT Administrator that has installed numerous Windows Server 2003 instances (physical and virtual), along with way too many Windows XP and OS X Leopard installs, I'd say my experience with Ubuntu is somewhere in-between. (Unless you count Wubi, but that requires a working Windows install.)

Leopard has by far the simplest install, but then again it also has the least amount of hardware to deal with. (Kind of like getting things right 100% of the time at math, but only attempting addition and subtraction.) Don't get me wrong, OS X is a beautiful, simple, and reliable OS. I'm just the type of guy that would rather make his own coffee than buy it from starbucks. (eww, flash-roasted bulk-batches of coffee... it's like the McDonalds of coffee, seriously... local roasts in a French Press beats any espress drink from a chain any day)

Anyway, I digress.

I like OS X, I like Windows (there, I said it!), in fact I am still dual-booting because Gnu Linux doesn't meet all my needs!

I will point out a few things that blew me away, first the Con's (because I want to leave you with the Pro's)

Cons:

• Audio processing is misconfigured at fresh install, you have to tweak some settings to get it working decently.
• Skype was a little difficult to get configured as well, since it isn't set to use PulseAudio as a default playback device.
• The partitioning portion of the install was a bit ambiguous. According to the shiny graphic, after I chose "Largest contiguous free space" the graphic changed to say it was going to take up 100% of the partition, rather than showing the 2 Windows partitions already on the drive. (It installed properly, leaving my system and data volumes safe)
• DVD playback is still illegal in the United States (fair use rights are still a little blurry to congress)

Now for the stuff I actually liked about Ubuntu 8.10

Pros:

• The online Ubuntu community (already got help tweaking some stuff for my specific needs)
• When I clicked on an audio file in Firefox, it told me I needed a new codec (boo) then it asked if I wanted to install it, and when I said "Yes" it actually downloaded it, installed it, and began playing the media! When was the last time Windows Media Player actually downloaded the proper codec rather than just informing you that you didn't have it?!
• This is FAST! I have 3d effects cranked up, shiny semi-transparent reflections, and tons of stuff open at the same time, and I still use only about 25% CPU!
• This is FAST! Once again, I can throw in multiple views in blender and quickly change the lighting to see real-time results (even with textures enabled in all views!)
• This is FAST! Seriously, I click on Firefox, and my wife comments on how quickly it just pops up and displays my homepage.
• Networking and audio worked on first boot, video worked great with hardware accelleration after I enabled the restricted drivers (which it prompted me for, I didn't have to go searching)
• Installing additional software is rediculously easy, especially since I've trained myself to stick with predominantly open source software.
• Not only did the install leave my existing Windows data in tact, it is accessibile easily in Ubuntu so I can copy over files and continue working on them.
• The bootloader works great and lets me quickly jump into Windows whenever the need arises.
• Chicks dig linux (by that, I mean my wife puts up with me talking about linux)

Since I appear to really like bulleted lists, here's another one, that describes the software I've installed (in the order of installation... as well as I remember it) now that I've been using Gnu Linux again for about an hour:

• Inkscape (seriously, how can anyone use a computer without this?)
• Audacity (did I mention I record a weekly Christian technology podcast?)
• IRSSI (the best IRC client EVER)
  
• Blender
  
• gPHPedit (much cooler than I expected)
• RapidSVN
• Skype (A little difficult to set up, but works beautifully so far)
• CompizConfig Settings Manager (for all the cool 3d effects)
  
• PHP Eclipse (so easy, just installed Eclipse then added the proper Eclipse update site and installed PHPEclipse)
• Apache2
• PHP5
• MySQL5
• Amarok (one of the best media libraries and players I've ever used)

And that's it for now, then again I haven't used it much yet, but what I have done, I've thoroughly enjoyed. I'm of the mindset you find a tool for the job, you don't get the tool because everyone else has it. By that, I mean I have no problem running my business off of Inkscape, the GIMP, and Scribus (ooh, I should install Scribus, I forgot about that). The GIMP doesn't come close to replacing Photoshop in many areas, but then again, I want some more tea. (I didn't know how to finish that sentence, seriously, the GIMP isn't a Photoshop replacement, then again I don't need a Photoshop replacement since I have Inkscape.)

After many years of using the Adobe Creative Suite, Windows XP, OS X, and a little bit of Windows Vista, I can honestly say that I'm glad I don't have to choose. I like 'em all and will continue to use them all. They are all great pieces of code, regardless of what the Linux/Mac/Windows fanboys try to tell you. Seriously, Christ is worth following, but code isn't, so snap out of it! :)

Much love and a funny hat,

--
Chris "OneSeventeen" Adams
did I mention my awesome technology podcast?

Secret Santa: Likes & Dislikes

So our office has started their annual Secret-Santa gift exchange. The concept is simple: a small gift every day or so and a $15 gift at the end. I got a $24 gift on sale for $10, so I'm just putting free pamphlets and business cards in my person's stocking and blowing them away with the awesome gift in the end so they forgive me for cheesy gifts throughout the month. I may have to print out a label that says $24 for this to work though. No wait, MSRP is right there above the barcode!

Now, to make sure we don't all get horrible gifts (the spirit of the season after all is only getting what you want) an email was sent out requesting that everyone reply back with likes and dislikes, so the mediator can pass that information along to the appropriate people.

Because we want to only give small gifts, I wanted to make sure my secret santa didn't feel obligated to get me lots of high-dollar gifts, as people normally should feel compelled to do. Instead, I provided a simple list of likes and dislikes that I hope will result in avoiding "junky gifts for the office". Seriously, who needs a lightup snowman that holds paper-clips, I mean the winter is the worst time to require people to use their hands to remove small pieces of metal in order to read a document. (Plus you never know when a paperclip is going to come to life and start giving you advice on your current office document.)

So here's the list:

Likes:

• Un-ruled notebooks
• Pens
• Pencils
• Sticky-note pads
• Coffee/coffee related paraphernalia
• Stuff to make coffee breath go away
• Loving emails to the helpdesk requesting IT help
• Confirmation emails of canceled MySpace pages.

Dislikes:

• Sugar
• iTunes music (Amazon MP3’s rock, and are cheaper too)
• Stuff that takes up room on my desk (other than sticky-note pads and coffee cups)
• Computer-related stuff
• Unloving emails to the helpdesk
• MySpace
• The fact that the mediator now knows everything about everybody, and can use this to plot against us and gain unmerited favor from supervisors and eventually take over the company and fire us all, only to replace us with her friends that have similar Likes and Dislikes as herself so our office can finally have an annual superhero convention that previous office staff are not invited to with too high of an entry fee now that we no longer have jobs.

It should probably be mentioned that we do not have evidence (other than the superhero paraphernalia in her office) to lead to the final item on my Dislikes list. Then again, we have no evidence against this either.

GBB #69: Using PHP from the command line for fun and Profit!

Geek Brown Bag #69: Using PHP from the command line for fun and Profit!

Devo: Choosing your master

Matthew 6:24 tells us we cannot serve two masters, and gives us the example of serving God and Money, but there are tons of other masters we serve regularly. I'm going to take this a bit further and say you must serve a master. We are not built for spiritual independence, we have a need for God and our spiritual nature will not let us go without some sort of dependence.

We may choose to serve God, money, pleasure, entertainment, philanthropy, culture, etc. As geeks it is easy to slip into serving and worshiping the geek culture that oftentimes ties us together and builds our friendships. What we should be doing is taking a step back and asking how much are we serving our God, and how much are we serving our culture.

God, money, pleasure, entertainment, culture, twitter, etc. are not bad things, but we've got to prevent ourselves from serving and worshiping anything or anyone other than God.

A good way to determine if you are serving another master is to ask yourself how your thoughts, words, and actions are glorifying God. If they aren't, odds are you are serving someone or something else.

Romans 6:1-11 describes the fact that we should not continue sinning just so "grace may increase" because we have died to sin. We are no longer slaves to sin, because we share in Christ's death and resurrection, and anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

The rest of Romans 6 describes that just because we are free from sin doesn't mean we are no longer slaves, just that we are now slaves to righteousness. Even though we are under God's grace, that doesn't mean we should sin, because when we accepted His grace, we offered ourselves to Him. We are slaves to who we obey--- whether to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness.

Every day, we make the choice not to "be good" or "be bad", but to serve God or serve sin. (I recommend serving God, even if I'm not always the best at it.)

PHP from the Windows command line, for Fun and Profit!

PHP is not just limited to the browser! You can actually write command line scripts and launch them with PHP!

Three primary ways to launch a PHP app:

1. Open a command shell and type c:\path\to\php.exe c:\path\to\script.php
   
2. Using shortcut commands
   
1. add PHP to your system path
   
2. open a command shell
   
3. navigate to the directory of your script
   
4. type php script.php (where script.php is the name of your php script)
   
3. Create a batch file that does step 1 for you and double-click it!
   

script.bat:

@echo off
c:\path\to\php.exe c:\path\to\script.php

We'll start with step 2's method since it makes it easier to debug scripts. When you double-click a batch file, it just goes away once the script is done executing, and if it errors out, so it is hard to get started and comfortable with command line scripting.

Let's make a typical Hello World! script.

1. Make a new file with your favorite text editor called helloworld.php
   
2. put the following code in it:
   

helloworld.php

echo("Hello World!");
?>

3. now go to the command line and type php helloworld.php
   

There you go! Your first PHP command line script!

---

Let's make an interactive script.

Now, what if you wanted it to say hi to you personally? Let's have it ask your name.

1. 
   Make a new file with your favorite text editor called hello.php
   


2. 
   put the following code in it:
   

hello.php

<?php

echo("Hey, you... I totally remember your name... but how do you like it spelled? ");

$name = trim(fgets(STDIN));

echo("\n\nAwesome " . $name . ", I'll be sure to remember that!\n");

?>

3. 
   now go to the command line and type php hello.php
   

Sweet!

But how else can we send data to the PHP scripts? What about all those crazy command line parameters that other tools use?

Let's modify hello.php to let us tell it our name:

1. 
   Open up hello.php again in your favorite text editor.
   


2. 
   Add the following lines to check for command line arguments:
   

hello.php

<?php

if(isset($argv[1])) {

echo("Hey " . $argv[1] . ", how's it been?\n");

} else {

echo("Hey, you... I totally remember your name... but how do you like it spelled? ");

$name =trim(gets(STDIN));

echo("\n\nAwesome " . $name . ", I'll be sure to remember that!\n");

}

?>

3. 
   now go to the command line and type php hello.php
   

---

Let's make a double-clickable script!

1. 
   Create a new file in your favorite text editor called hello.bat
   


2. 
   put the following code in it:
   

hello.bat

@echo off

c:\path\to\php.exe c:\path\to\hello.php

pause

3. 
   Now find that file and double-click it!
   

Now, let's take some drag and drop-able command line arguments!

1. 
   Open hello.bat in your favorite text editor
   


2. 
   Add "%*" to the end of the second line:
   

hello.bat

@echo off

c:\path\to\php.exe c:\path\to\hello.php %*

pause

3. 
   Now drag a file on top of hello.bat and let go!
   

Sermon notes on the Biography of God

20081026 bio of God

Psalm 19

Difference between General and specific revelation.

General: nature and what we see around us.

V1 David is looking up at the stars, the regularity of the seasons, etc.

V2 it pours forth speech. Those stars are like preachers pouring forth
sermons pointing to a loving creator.

We need more info to know this God, such as why are we here, where are
we going.

So now David goes from the "World book" to the "Word book". Pointing
to God's law and commands.

God's word tells us the rest of the story. We need more than just
hugging trees to know God, but nature is enough to tell is there IS a
God.

V7- the Law is perfect, converting the soul. It will bring us back,
restore us to God. It is complete, we are incomplete without God's word.

More than enough cause to read daily and write notes, circle words. It
is a tool.

It can 1 save your soul, 2 satisfy your mind.

5,750 manusripts of the New Testament. No spiritual facts are lost in
translation. Other books of the time, like Plato or Shakespeare only
have 18 copies from much later than the original writing.

Dead sea scrolls verified many of our books with only a few
punctuation or letters out of place.

The bible is reliable hisory. There are events, people and places that
are provable by many other secular writings.

The message of the Bible is consistent from begginig to end despite
the change in time, author, background, location, language, etc.

Nowhere else do we see this many authors agree on the same critical
and controversial issues at length.

God also spoke of things that had not happened yet, and they happened
with perfect accuracy.

3: it will satiate the heart. (rejoicing the heart)

4: stabalize your future.
It is pure, lightening the eyes.

V8,11,19 the truth that got me through yesterday and is getting me
through today will be there and will be effective tomorrow.

David's prayer is that God will speak personally to the worshipper.

The world speaks, the word speaks, now let the Lord speak through me.

How often do I pick up the bible and let it govern my life.

There is a difference between getting, having, and treasuring.

We must obey God's word.

Verse 11: there is great reward in keeping (doing) the word not in
reading, underlining or even memorizing the word.

God speaks everywhere, and it should lead us to thirst for more info
and a personal relationship with God.

--
Chris Adams

Attempting to subnet the Church

At my church, we have over 200 nodes on our network, and we have a /24 subnet. This means we have very few IP's to play with, especially considering the need for a decent DHCP range for new devices.

We have about 6 buildings connected to an unmanaged megabit network, all plugged into a security gateway that enforces antivirus, blocks bad websites, and scans incoming packets for viruses. (it is also our firewall and router)

Many people have told me it would be nice to have an IP structure that reflected building and node type, such as:
10.x.y.z where:
x = building
y = node type

Of course, you can't just chop up IP ranges wherever you'd like, you've got to do it along clean binary divions. (At least that's what I'm told.) So now I'm wondering if that means I should just grab a large chunk, such as: 10.0.0.0/12 and put everything under the same subnet, but use tagged VLANs to keep things separated.

(10.128.0.0/9 is already taken up by a wireless mesh network)

To accommodate the change, we have 4 managed switches (ProCurve 2848) with one of them being dedicated to the server rack to connect all other switches (managed or otherwise) to the gateway.

Any thoughts?

Geek Brown Bag #51: Synergy - with Chris Adams

Bible Study

The more we rebel from God, the harder it is for us to listen to Him.

We have our own perspective of our lives, and we want to live the way we see fit.

Obvious Problems:

• We are usually wrong: Proverbs 14:12 - "There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death."
• We are limited in our perspective: 1 Samuel 16:7 - "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."
• We don't see all of our own faults: Proverbs 16:2 - "All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, But the Lord weighs the spirits."
  

Solutions:

• Admit that we are wrong: Pray and confess (agree with God that you have sinned)
  
• Seek after God's perspective: Read God's word, and ask for God's wisdom while reading.
• Proactively evaluate your actions: Actively search for ways to obey God, and for ways to avoid disobedience.
  

Closing Illustration

Driving behind the car with sparks.

Geek Demo - Synergy

Download: http://synergy2.sourceforge.net

Read the instructions! This is a simple yet complicated program, and it is very easy to get confused.

The Basics:

• Synergy sends mouse movements and keystrokes over the network to another computer.
• If the other computer is listening (and responds) synergy will send those mouse movements and keystrokes to the computer.
• If someone else sniffs packets, they can decipher the keystrokes. You are basically installing a networked keystroke logger!
• You can send synergy traffic through an SSL tunnel and be very secure.
  

93 Words Per Minute

93 words

Speedtest

After reading a blog entry by wantmoore about typing speeds, I just had to try it myself. I decided just to post my first score, rather than practicing or anything.

I got 2 words wrong and 93 correct in 60 seconds.

Those years of not-sports have really paid off!

The Sword of the Spirit

This week Justin Marbury continued our study on the Armor of God in Ephesians 6 by going over the Sword of the Spirit.

Ephesians 6:13-19

13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
14 Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16 above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. 17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; 18 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints— 19 and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel.

(emphasis added)

The Sword's Substance

In Roman times, swords were made of sturdy metal, were double-edged, and had a sharp point. The idea behind them was to be able to stab the enemy, piercing through the armor they had on. During the study we looked at a photo of another sword with a similar length, but it was made of cardboard and duct tape. The question posed was "Which would you rather take into battle?"

The answer is obvious, I'd rather take the real "Gladius" sword (or whatever the Roman sword was called). If we would rather take a real sword in our physical battles, shouldn't we also want to take a real sword in our spiritual battles as well?

Biblical Specs

• 66 books
• 40 Authors
• Written over a 1500 year span
• Billions of Bibles have been sold
• Translated into over 2200 languages

It has been

• Historically validated
• Archeologically supported
• Prophetically proven

There are about 24,000 New Testament manuscripts.

It also answers the most important questions in life. Why we are here, who we are, is there a God, and what does God expect of us? How do we handle the difficult issues in life?

The Bible is double-edged, is useful for every good work, and gives us God's word, which is all we need for life and godliness. This is the sturdy, durable, and effective sword to take into spiritual battle.

Feel-good books, seminars, and regular entertainment that we take in on a daily basis are like the duct-tape sword (no offense Dr. Phill), and while they may look like a sword fit for spritiual battle when highly polished, they will not withstand the battles we face in life.

The Bible has revealed truth to us. Psalm 19 gives a good description of the truth that God has revealed.

The Sword's Purpose

So what now? We have a sword, ready for battle, but does knowledge of it automatically equip us?

We need to:

• Understand It
• Believe It
• Live It
• Share It

this is commonly referred to as the Seed, the Planting, the Growth, and the Fruit.

The world wants us to think that the material world is all that there is, that the "Here and now" is all there is to life, and that it is all about us. But the Bible tells us that there is both the material and spiritual world, that there is the "here and now" as well as eternal life, and that it is all about God, not us.

Our Enemy

Our enemy is spiritual, not physical. We waste our time if we fight against people. Jesus died for everyone, and we should love everyone, not fight them. But we should, however, fight fiercely the spiritual battles that are all around us.

Fighting against the harvest will only rob them of a loving relationship with God. Nobody will be won over by being defeated. We must defeat the lies of the enemy and fight against the enemy's tactics, but not against the people the enemy (the Devil) has deceived.

When can we start using email as a memo replacement?

Over the past few months I have had more email support requests than anything else, and one of the primary reasons is because apparently using email to send audio, video, and photos does not always work.

Sometimes sending files will be blocked by:

• Sender's Mail Server due to outgoing policies
• Sender's Mail Server due to storage constraints
• Sender's Spam Firewall due to outgoing policies
• Sender's Mail Virus Scanner due to false positive
  
• Recipient's Mail Server due to incoming policies
• Recipient's Mail Server due to storage constraints
• Recipient's Mail Client due to Junk Mail settings
• Recipient's Spam Firewall due to incoming policies
• Recipient's Mail Virus Scanner due to false positive

Not to mention network outages anywhere along the way, and our favorite "User Error".

I have had no problem with my 7KB text emails in the years of working at this organization, but when users start sending mass emails from their mail clients to keep their ministries up-to-date, especially while sending photos of the previous event or a special book they recommend, our Mail Server gets sluggish, our Spam Filter has to work overtime, our users run out of storage space, and sometimes our IP gets blacklisted.

Apparently, using email as a text-based communication device does not have these side effects, and there are plenty of alternatives for transferring files (such as the File Transfer Protocol). For some reason, our users, and many many many outside organizations insist on sending EULA's, PDFs, manuals, radio spots, video previews, etc. etc. via email.

When can we stop sending cars in the mail and start sending letters as to where to go pick up the car? Meaning, send me a link to a website that manages EULA agreements, lets me download radio spots, lets me preview videos, and lets me download large files?

I understand there are services like constant contact for sending bulk mail out, and YouSendIt for uploading large files and emailing a link to them, but when are businesses going to start using them?

I'd love to simply block all non-text-based email if I could. Then again, I think it should be borderline illegal to use frames on a website or require a specific browser or operating system to view a web application...

/me votes for simplicity

Armed for battle: part 1

This Saturday we had a great study on the armor of God. One of the
key points that gets overlooked is that in the scripture on the armor
of God (Ephesians 6:13-17) the first item mentioned is the belt of
Truth. We often loose sight of the fact that all of our pieces of
armor are held together by the Truth in God's Word.

If we let ourselves believe things just because they make us feel
better, then we deceive ourselves and will not be effective in our
battle. We can't believe things just because we want to, we need to
seek out the truth and test the spirits and take joy in the service
our Lord has called us to.

Not taking notes

Despite the coffee, I find it easier to blog than take notes during
meetings at times.

Expelled preview

I had the opportunity to watch a preview of Expelled: no intelligence allowed. It was a very enlightening movie that was presented in a very mature fashion. I also, however think that if Christians want to be heard, we also need to be willing to listen. I have seen too many Christian arguments that have no thought behind them. I agree with my fellow Christians most of the time, but I still wish the debates we start would allow the opposing side the same respect we demand of them, as was presented in this movie.

What makes this movie so easy to relate to is the fact that it is not making a religious argument, but rather that the debate on evolution should have two sides. A one-sided debate is pointless and stifles growth and knowledge. I think anyone in favor of free speech and the freedom to think should watch this movie. Anyone who does not agree with the freedom of thought should continue to yell at people who don't agree with them, and should not be surprised when one day we give up entirely on searching for truth in favor of making the world fit our preconceived notions of how we think it should work.

Paper templates for my podcast

I decided to finally start working on the geekons podcast again by
printing and cutting some forms for my planner. For some reason I have
gotten on a "write everything down" kick in an effort to keep things
simple. To see if it works, check out geekons.com over the next few
weeks.

Truth-Land Security

"Truth-Land Security"
2 Timothy 4:1-4

One of the subthemes of this passage is apostacy, or a falling away from the truth.
The emerging church: claims there are no absolute truths.
Illustration: a cow only has 4 legs, even if you call the tail a leg.

2 timothy 1-3 goes over all of the signs of apostacy. 1 john 2:13, revelation 2-3, and many others show examples of churches falling away from the truth. Churches have always been at the forefront of the battle for truth. The church is ground zero, which is why we always
have to be on guard.

The world council of churches claims churches need to get past the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

The emerging church came from a desire to update the church, but wound up giving up on absolute truth.
The same thinking was happening when 2 timothy was written. Because of this, Paul was focusing Timothy on the truth, ensuring that regardless of what was going on around him, he needed to preach the gospel because Jesus is coming back, and we will be judged, and we need to be ready for it.

The bottom line: we know too much to fall for this line of thinking.

Paul reminded Timothy that people would exchange truth for a lie and fall away from the church, but he still (in view of the second coming) charged him to preach the Word (the truth of the scriptures). So he may lose members of the flock, but it is better to have pure truth
than a big following.

How we feel is becoming more important than what is true, and we need to change that.

We want to be the most well fed church, which is why we dig into the word to get to the truth of God's word.

Blogging photos directly from the iPhone

To continue my series on using my blog as an excuse to play with the
iPhone, I have decided to share a photo of some plates.

The iPhone just has to have center stage.

ok, I am getting better at typing with the iPhone keyboard. It gets much easier when you learn the simple shortcuts, like hitting space twice to enter a period, or allowing yourself to make mistakes, hoping that the autocorrect will catch it ( it usually does).

The new thing I am discovering about the phone is that using the wifi feature too close to a cordless phone will knock out both my iPhone and the cordless phone. Weird.

Of course the solution is to simply unplug the cordless transmitter for the house phone, but for some reason I don't think my wife would be too happy about that.

making a change, not a switch

I just got an iPhone and a MacBook for work. To give you an idea of how fun it is to blog with an iPhone, I think I'm going to stop now. I'm sure I'll get used to it at some point, but I'm just too used to keyboards. It is kind of weird, sometimes the keyboard is incredibly slow, and sometimes I can type pretty quick.

Well, this turned out to be pretty boring. I'll post more later about broadening my platform horizons when I have a proper keyboard.

In search of the ideal home office

As a code designer and graphic developer, I've found myself to have acquired a geeky sort of body type. The type that encourages nice cloths and activities involving popcorn. (Not quite the type that encourages bathing suits and protein shakes.) I've also developed a nice bezier curve that makes reaching the keyboard and monitor much easier than sitting straight-backed.

Apparently I have discovered this to be more a result than a development, so I'm trying to remedy the situation. (Primarily because I keep reassuring myself that the remedy does not include giving up coffee or more money, which could be spent on coffee.)

I am currently typing this while sitting on an exercise ball with my laptop on a snack tray. (Better a laptop than pizza, eh Steve?) . The only problem I have with the current situation is that my snack tray is just a tiny amount too tall and is angled down (great for snacking, bad for typing).

Well, that and the fact that I can't easily plug in my computer speakers, so I'm stuck with the laptop's built-in speakers. They aren't bad, but a nice 2.1 set are so much better.

I'll give this a day of designing code and see how well it works.

Is ignorance worth the bliss?

I currently administer an Active Directory domain, and am learning how to via on-the-job training. This usually works really well for me, but I've discovered group policy objects, organizational units, and login scripts... which all make administering the network much easier.

Imagine.... I can write a GPO to install software that will report back all of the software and hardware settings of each computer within an organizational unit... and I can look in a single window and see a list of all the computers on my network along with a brief description of each.

Unfortunately, this means that when someone decides to purchase non-standard hardware/software, I now know what I'm missing... I know that the new iMac won't identify properly on the network. OS X Leopard did add on an official "Active Directory" feature in the Directory Utility, whose sole purpose in life, apparently, is to prevent the computer from binding to an Active Directory Domain. So the fact that I knew Tiger could bind to AD makes Leopard even worse.

Now, the question I'm presented with is whether or not ignorance is worth the bliss.

Should I stop learning all the amazing things we could do with our resources, knowing that we will slowly be migrating to equipment that lack these features? Would it be better to throw in the towel for everyone, or attempt to manage 2 networks. I would imagine that the "fun" and trendy network with no rules and shiny animations would beat out the boring network that is managed and secure.

On a scale of "Bad=> OK => Best" if "Best" isn't even an option, would it be better to be ignorant of all the "Best" methods and benefits?

This situation brings up a lot of frustration which breeds bitterness. Bitterness is sin. In order to have a positive attitude about it, I only see two options; 1: be ignorant of what we could do and be happy with mediocrity, or 2: find another job.

The next problem is, are there any jobs that don't enforce mediocrity? Previous experience indicates that at most companies the non-technical staff make decisions (in an effort to add cool and useful features) that prevent company-wide coolness and usefulness. Most IT staff will look at that, laugh at the irony, and check their monster.com account for any leads.

I think I'll stick with where I am, and just pray that God will get rid of my bitterness. Now I just need to make sure this feeling of defeat isn't sinful as well.