The Naked Green

I added downloadable sermons to Life Spring’s website today and polished the site up a bit. One thing I had to ask myself was, “Why are you using HTML?” So, I switched over to XHTML 1.0 Strict which was not all that difficult.

In XHTML, you have to close all tags. So, I went through and replaced <br> with <br /> and did the same (manually) with the image tags.

Remember that all html tags have to be in lowercase when coding in XHTML due to the fact that XML is case sensitive. When I uploaded my pages, all the text was big and when I validated, I found the culprits. For some reason I had two meta tags that were capitalized.

As usual, Thanks to W3Schools for their XHTML tutorial!

I’m a little late, but I noticed yesterday that WordPress 1.5 has been officially released. Unfortunately, I won’t have time to update my blog for a little while. There is a new blogger in the blogosphere since yesterday running 1.5, though. Jamie and I gave my brother his own domain, blog and hosting yesterday for his birthday. It’s at Stevish.com where there is sure to be some great witty humor and profound thoughts to come.

In setting up his blog, I got to play around with the new WordPress some and it is cool. It will take some getting used to as a lot has changed. I would say much of the change is for the better with brand new goodies such as Themes, SPAM spam and comment controls, a user system, a “dashboard”, static pages and better plugin support. I was surprised that the installation was actually easier and smaller than 1.2! Is that even possible?

I was sold on WordPress from my first research spree and have not found anything that’s more appealing since. It just got better and I’m excited to download it and play! Good programming like this is what makes it hard to stay on task…which is what I’ll try to do now.

Have fun playing with your new toy, Stephen!

I’m home from work today for President’s Day, but instead of vacationing, I decided to do some other work. It’s in preparation of my last day at my job this Friday when I’ll be free from the “nine to five” and will have to cajole myself into the self-discipline of the foreboding “freelance” work.

I’m working today on our church website as well as cooking, cleaning, and preparing for guests tonight. Of course I have to do some obligatory “work time” blogging as well.

The saga continues and Michael Bates has more about Tulsa Whirled’s utter stupidity on his blog. Tulsa World has a confusing web editor, a wacky owner and even bullies web hosts. What I can’t get over is the continual stupidity. You would think they would just cut their losses and go back to “reporting news” not making it. Instead, Robert Lorton, the president of Tulsa World, spoke to ktul, Oklahoma’s News Channel 8 about some PDF nonsense.

Tulsa World’s policy is that you may only copy an article with their permission, and you have to copy the entire article. Apparently you can link to their website, but too many people are doing it and they want it to stop…right now! I think they need to figure out what their policy is, realize what century it is and just shut up.

Michael of BatesLine has been sent a “nasty-gram” by a local newspaper called Tulsa Whirled (I mean, World) to stop quoting their articles or linking to their website or get sued. He happens to be “the opposition” of many of their apparently opinionated articles and occasionally mentions his disagreements with full credit to their stupidity and a complimentary link to their website. Michael says:

… The threat is empty, an attempt at using intimidation to silence my criticism of their editorials and news coverage.

Why would a big ol’ daily paper, with over 100,000 daily circulation, send a nastygram like this to someone who gets about 1,000 visits a day? And why now? Here’s a little background, especially for you out-of-towners:
–more–

That they are stupid I take for granted based on their lengthy “cease and desist” letter that Michael received stating their “demand that you immediately remove any Tulsa World material from your website, to include unauthorized links to our website”. What they hoped to accomplish by their bullying of a local “insignificant” objector I don’t know, but they have gained the blogosphere’s scorn and derision and have given Tulsa World’s foe a much larger audience.

It does bring up an interesting point about copyrights, though. I remember some talk related to the Napster saga that spoke of linking as possible copyright infringement. The reasoning behind it was that by viewing a web page, you are essentially copying it to your hard drive. Thus in linking to it, you are aiding and encouraging copyright infringement. Of course that reasoning doesn’t really mean much seeing as that’s what the internet is and how it functions. Apparently, that’s what a Federal Judge, Harry L. Hupp, decided: Hypertext Linking does not violate Copyright
. Michael notes this as he comments on another Tulsa World attack over linking rights.

For my obligatory quote of the newspaper, I turn to Tulsa Whirled’s Copyright Statement where they inform us that we may not “display or store any part of its Material for purposes other than the User’s personal, noncommercial use.” They said it themselves! It’s not copyright infringement if used as “criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research” as stated in Section 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use of Title 17 of the United States Code. Of course there is limits to “fair use”, but I think that this case is a clear case of MSM bullying.

Update: With all the reading, I forgot where I got there from. Thanks to Eric at The Fire Ant Gazette!

It’s time again for that award ceremony that touches your heart and tickles your knees. The award that plucks a blog from obscurity (or even fame) to…even more obscurity! Yes, it’s the not-so-famous-but-still-really-cool- because-it-wisely-uses-the- best-color-ever Green Cite. Bloggers the world over unknowingly compete for this honor and it’s time to bestow the second virtual trophy of wise color usage.

Once again, without further ado (except of course for the obligatory parenthesis to annoy the reader, belabor the point and work up suspense…again), I announce the winner: Ourgreenroom, “an interactive community of spiritual seekers”! Congratulations, Chris!

Ourgreenroom led me to Real Live Preacher who led me to the next nominee for the illustrious Green Cite…which you will have to wait for, of course.

Brought to you by Mr. Green. All contestants will receive “really cool points” just for qualifying. Stay tuned for more wonderful greenery right here on The Naked Green.

The Naked Orchestra:

Do you know what it’s like to be able to see through someone? To see them naked in a sense, not in the sense of having no clothes and of seeing their naked body, but in a much deeper sense as if you can see right inside their flesh, the movement of their soul, the ebb and flow, the light and shade of their inner self.
–more–

It’s a sad story, but any author that can use the word naked so many times and not once hint at sex has got something to say as far as I’m concerned. He would understand “The Naked Green” perhaps. He talks of it, actually, which is how I found his sad story:

Now, there’s talent, there’s originality! Not a fiddle player anywhere to be seen on the naked green…

It reminds me of the movie, Kolya.

I’ve been seeking God’s direction in my life for a while now. I just don’t seem to hear what He’s saying. I realized before that He wasn’t being quite, but I just didn’t have the ears to hear, so to speak. I’ve come to a different conclusion recently, that it isn’t about not hearing His voice, but not recognizing it.

Our small group has been going through a video series by John Bevere called, Drawing Near. One thing that hit me was what he said about God wanting us to learn to discern His voice. God wants intimacy with us and real communication. He can certainly let me know something even if I’m outright trying to ignore Him, but perhaps He wants to be a bit more subtle…to draw me to Himself. That helped me a lot allowing me to seek after relationship with Jesus in the ways I know how, speaking to Him and listening…though I still don’t feel I hear clearly.

There are two sorts of beliefs and I can’t quite separate them nor find their roots. One is more about choosing your path by the grace of God, according to your understanding of His will. The second is listening for God’s direction and obeying. As I said, these are very much intertwined, but it seems that a Christian comes from one side or another in making decisions. The problem for me is I seem to be stuck in the middle…or on both sides, actually. Perhaps I’m making more of it than it needs to be.

I believe that we can’t sit around waiting for God to speak. Love and obedience means action and we must be that moving car (in a worn out analogy) for God to steer us. I also believe that God speaks directly to His children through the Holy Spirit, The Bible, others, etc. This may not even be a problem, but it causes me much confusion. I don’t think or feel that I know Him well enough.
(more…)

I sent an email to my boss on Friday with that magical phrase: “Two weeks notice”. I believe it’s time to move on and I’m looking forward to what God has in store for me.

There will be plenty to do as I have my first paying client for web design and others on the horizon. I will be working with my Dad who just started a flooring business and of course, snow plowing when it comes. I’m also looking forward to taking some of the load off of Jamie with house work (can you believe it?).

This move will give me much more flexibility to explore different venues of work and education. I will remain open to missions work in the near future and be able to work toward that. I’m excited about the change! Hey, change is good (if it’s smart change).

This is the first semi-regular (as opposed to weekly or daily or some sort of nonsense like that) “Green Cite”. It’s where I recognize bloggers with love for, or some sort of obsession with the wonderful color green. Ooh…ahh!

So, without further ado (except of course for the obligatory parenthesis to annoy the reader, belabor the point and work up suspense), I announce the winner of this grand and unknown award: Queen Green!

Of course my wife is going to win the first one with a title like that. I mean, she’s my wife after all. Her love for the color green is based more on her love for the person (Mr. Green), I think. Congratulations, Jamie!