May 2009
41 posts
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buzz does not equal popularity
If we learned anything from American Idol this Spring ‘09 season, we learned that buzz cannot be equated with popularity. I thought both finalists were very talented in amazingly different ways. One performer got all the buzz, and the other won the competition. The press was “shocked,” some were “outraged” and the press reported that the “underdog” had...
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a design challenge: 22 chairs
Can you design several different chairs? Chairs that help capture a certain essence yet blend into the background? Pixar did this with at least 22 chairs in one movie, and it’s Incredible.
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killing eBay one social networking site at a time
A few years ago when people had time to kill (or even if they didn’t) they dinked around the Internet on eBay. Now it seems that other sites grab their attention instead. Read here about how Facebook, MySpace and and YouTube killed eBay.
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boldly going
I saw “Star Trek” and loved it. But I expected to love it. I have been following the press in Entertainment Weekly for some time now. It sounded like a bold idea. A great vision. A great director at the helm. Fresh, qualified actors. I expected to love it.
The opening sequence was particularly outstanding. And what I didn’t expect was to FEEL. Something about the...
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iFlipr Flash Cards: Basic Bible Comprehension
Do you know a lot of the Bible but get tired of forgetting where certain passages or ideas are located? Over the past few months I’ve been creating a large deck of flash cards for myself (and anyone else) to learn the basic location of key verses, issues and topics in the Bible. The deck is called Basic Bible Comprehension.
I’ve shared my deck so if you create an iFlipr account...
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website redesign
Recently a web designer had a negative (and I mean negative) experience with the American Airlines website and so he redesigned it - just the homepage. Just looking at the old and the new is a worthwhile educational opportunity for all of us. Be sure to click on his example of the new site. It’s incredible.
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fasting from local church ministry
My wife recently fasted from local church ministry and is writing a bit about it.
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effective online marketing through social... →
How do you increase sales through online marketing? Well, in the case of P&G, they created an online community for 13-year-old girls and then market their products throughout that community. Click on the link above to watch the video about P&G selling tampons to consumers who generally don’t want to talk about tampons.
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“Off we go on a 30-year bender. We call it love. We call it marriage and...”
– C. Baxter Kruger, in Across All Worlds, on when Christians run from their pain.
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WatchArchitecture + LED coolness + Music = wow factor
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weisure
More and more Americans are blurring the lines between work and play - called weisure - and checking their social networks during meetings, checking their e-mail during family time. The definition of being “fully engaged” is changing. I don’t have some profound statement to make on this - partly because I don’t think it’s always or necessarily a bad thing. But...
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Wolfram|Alpha: a search-engine game changer →
I couldn’t embed the video but you can watch the search engine at work. Compared to this, Google is weak! Amazing.
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“The 3-D presentation gives it a real boost, but this film is airborne because of...”
– Film critic Peter Bradshaw, reviewing Pixar’s “Up” at the Cannes Film Festival. You can read more about the reaction at Cannes on CNN.com.
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“[The Internet] creates a permanent puberty of the mind. We get locked in so much...”
– Shane Hipps, author of Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith, interviewed by Christianity Today
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packing to go
Friends & family of mine know that I keep a standard packing list (in Evernote) and every time I travel I get it out and use it as a tool so that I can pack quickly.
It works amazingly well - and on my recent trip to Lake Tahoe I discovered something I never added to my list. I’ve added it now, and should be set for my next trip. (FYI, what I added was CD’s for the rental car...
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air force one photoshopped?
True, the newly released photo of Air Force One flying over The Statue of Liberty does look pretty awesome. And the fact that it really happened does make it seem more realistic. But there’s also this sad reality - that it looks a bit photoshopped. Which begs the question - why not photoshop it in the first place if it’s going to end up looking staged anyway?
amazing day
I’ve had such an amazing day, connecting with friends and putting voices together with faces. I’ll post more in a few days but suffice it to say that it was a great day!
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new legislation idea: standardized receipts
I would probably support any politician if he or she vowed to pass a law that every establishment had to print the date and total of a receipt in the same spot with the same font.
Everything else can be different - I don’t care - but having the date and total in the same place would be downright beautiful.
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new legislation idea: blind copy
I would probably support any politician if she or he vowed to pass a law that suspended an e-mail account for 30 days if that account holder cascaded an e-mail to a large group of people without sending it blind copy.
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Missing the Mark
The clear majority of women don’t want a touchy-feely Mothers Day teaching this weekend but the majority of churches think that they do. Why not start a new teaching series this weekend instead? Added bonus: breaking from traditions is always a great time to teach about the vision of your organization.
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comparing HD camera with SD
For my work with EduPlex I’ve recently been using a Canon VIXIA HV30 camcorder that shoots in HD. I’ve really enjoyed trying it out and it does an amazing job. It puts my standard-def digital camcorder to shame! For fun I pieced together an informal field test putting footage side by side to compare the two cameras.
If you’re considering buying the Canon, you won’t be...