I’m back on Picasa, 99%.   Picasa Web Albums, now known as the photo section of Google+, have fixed most of the “sharing” features I decried (it’s now the CORE of the social network).  They’ve also taken care of the organizational aspects.  No longer am I stuck with a one-off app that does photo uploading at a throttled speed. Google+’s photo section now uses a gorgeous AJAX-based photo uploader that is the promised simplicity of drag-n-drop.

There’s still a couple of things that would seal-the-deal for Picasa Web Albums Google+:

• Enable the oEmbed functionality that Flickr and YouTube have.  Being able to post a link to the album in a blog and have it automatically embed the slideshow / gallery view would be appreciated.
• Give an option for Downloading Full Album.  Right now I post the higher-res versions of photos to my Amazon S3 account and send a link manually.  Giving a Download All option in Google+ like you used to have in Picasa Web Albums would also clear that issue.
• Prepare for Apple TV.  I realize this is probably a port Apple made on their end with the iOS version of Apple TV … but flickr has a section, why can’t I see my Google+ photos as my screensaver rather than my flickr photos?  Do that, and I’m yours … 100%.

People have asked me, “why flickr?” or “why Google+?”  “Why not Facebook?”  While Facebook has more of my friends than any other network — Picasa reached me first.  When I was studying abroad in Italy during college, Picasa was there, ready to share my photos with my friends / family back in the USA.  Once I had over 30 albums in Picasa, the conversion hurdle became too great.

In the end, all of those photos I’d migrated over to flickr … I stayed with my Google+ and in one click, I was back to the beginning.

Ping me (ask me) if you have questions or need advice for your church’s image hosting setup.

It is common today to locate one’s “true self” in one’s leisure choices.  Accordingly, good work is taken to be work that maximizes one’s means for pursuing these other activities, where life becomes meaningful.  The mortgage broker works hard all year, then he goes and climbs Mount Everest.  The exaggerated psychic content of his summer vacation sustains him through the fall, winter, and spring.  The Sherpas seem to understand their role in this drama as they discreetly facilitate his need for an unencumbered, solo confrontation with unyielding Reality.  There is a disconnect between his work life and his leisure life; in the one he accumulates money and in the other he accumulates psychic nourishment.

…

On the other hand, there are vocations that seem to offer a tighter connection between life and livelihood.  Can such coherence be traced to the nature of the work itself? …

I’m off!

As I seem to only update this blog on vacations, I wanted to recap/foreshadow my experiences.

I just got back from officiating my cousin’s wedding in Sundance, Utah.  Not only was it scenic, but the couple (Jenny + Jake) are themselves exemplars of beauty.

Heidi and I are mid-trip for a fun week with friends in Portland, Maine. This is the second year in a row that we’ve taken this trip and it’s GREAT. While the “reds” in the tree leafs aren’t as vibrant as in the past, the friends and food are even better than we remembered (both here and on the way here …).

Here’re shots from the train:

So I dropped the ball. In announcing all the sites I rolled out and launched for different organizations in the fall, I forgot to tell about my pet project.

DiscipleShare

(click on the pictures and zoom to see full-resolution screen shots of DiscipleShare’s evolution)

Way back when … (2003)

It originally started as “DisciplesDocs” when we launched it in January, 2003. The we was Bill Spangler-Dunning and I. I was in the middle of my first year of college, doing this project while taking computer science and religion classes at TCU. Bill was wanting a way to distribute camp curriculum to counselors. The idea grew: what about all of the other curriculum that leaders around our region were writing? Couldn’t that be shared too? The site was static HTML pages linking to the curriculum. We also had it link to author profiles — but everything had to be written into the HTML by hand. (I don’t miss those days at all).

Here’s what the profile page looked like. Sweet table action, huh?

The rest of the site wasn’t much better. Here’s the loop (if only I’d known how to write a loop at that point.

And notice how strict and legalistic the language is for the submission procedure. Ugh.

A Framework’s Beginning (2005)

I did a computer programming internship at a firm in Seattle in the summer of 2003. There, I learned C# and ASP.NET language techniques. During summer 2004 I was taking a Theological German course in New England and had some extra time to keep dreaming about other features people would want it to include. What if camps could share pictures, videos, blogs – and network with other camps going on at the same time around the country? (Remember, this was before Facebook). What if the site was built on a relational database model where users could enter the curriculum themselves? That summer (2004) I developed the prototype. In August 2005, we deployed the new version on a server I managed at TCU (aristotle.rel.tcu.edu). At that point, it was just the curriculum sharing.

Then, during summer 2006, between my time at TCU and starting my MDiv at UChicago, I developed the camp/conference section.

While DiscipleShare was about curriculum sharing at it’s core — it expanded to include those features that would eventually become commonplace in social media. Here’re the different layout options camps could choose from (depending on what features they wanted):

And here’s what it looked like for the camps/conferences. This page was for the Servant Leadership Network retreat, led at Eureka College in July 2005, for different regional youth councils around the midwest.

Transition to Kentucky

During my first year at Chicago, our access to and reliance on my TCU server left us vulnerable to the site going down (sometimes for over a week at a time) without having someone on-site to restart and reset the server.

So we transitioned the site to a server at the Christian Churches in Kentucky. Michael Davison, on Kentucky’s regional staff at the time, found a spare box we could use. A fun, weekend-long trip down I-65 and DiscipleShare was back online at its new home.

Ironically, the same thing happened during summer 2009. When Michael moved, our access to that server went. Thankfully I had a backup of the install / database before the server went down.

But DiscipleShare at that point was old and clunky. The open source (software) movement had helped revolutionize internet technology. For DiscipleShare to keep trudging along on an open source curriculum movement, it needed a better framework.

On to WordPress (2010)

In January 2010, I started as Regional Minister for Communication for the Christian Church in the Upper MIdwest. Two months before that, I joined the Disciples Youth Ministry Network (DYMN) planning team. DiscipleShare was going to become DYMN’s as part of a grant they’d received the previous year. My regional position structured some of my time to transition DiscipleShare over to WordPress, an open source content management system. (We also used the Genesis Theme Framework so I didn’t have to re-create the wheel, yet again …)

I “threw the baby out the with bathwater” for the camp/conference sharing. Frankly, Facebook does a better job of that than we ever could. But the curriculum sharing is working better than it ever had before. We also moved it to a cloud-hosting solution and our own domain name. Score!

Here’s the author view:

Our WordPress solution was everything we’d dreamed about from the beginning. And it’s just beginning …

In the coming months you’ll read on this blog about the new features we’re rolling out — including another very soon.

126166172885 — for those wondering, that’s the number that matters.  (Actually, that’s up for debate).

That number is our regional church’s facebook page ID.  Normally you wouldn’t see it — it’s not referenced in the page’s address (http://www.facebook.com/umwcc), nor is it listed as people search for “Christian Church in the Upper Midwest.”  But it’s what makes the link.

So how was I, a peon in the social media universe, supposed to link my Facebook page to my employer?  I wasn’t the only one with that question, so with the help of a blog article, I connected the dots.  Hopefully Facebook builds this in to the ajax-suggesting text box so it doesn’t take a hack to identify your employer (or college, or favorite non-profit projects) correctly.

Here’s the social media checklist I used for my region:

• Facebook page
  • Make sure Facebook Page has address (http://www.facebook.com/umwcc)
  • Link my profile and other staff members’ profiles to our page rather than the community-based, auto-generated topic
  • Create a custom profile picture + avatar so the page has our identity (see this article for the photoshop template)
• Twitter
  • Follow our hashtag (#umwcc) in Tweetdeck so I can follow conversations during events.
  • Buy umw.cc domain name
  • Create our bit.ly pro account for free and link it so our shortlinks look like us and still go to the regional website (example: http://umw.cc/dEbDty)

Next up: retrofitting the regional website to link to and integrate with our social media presence.  Also next up: teach ministers and congregations how to use it!

Trying to grasp social media is like taking two steps forward, one step back.

Like many of my friends, I ran an analysis of the top words used in my Facebook statuses in 2010.  While many of my colleagues had their spouse’s name, an affirming adjective, and a time of day in their words — mine were strictly work-related.

1.  www.

2.  uppermidwestcc

3. .org

Not good, Adam!

As Heidi said on my last post: “Adam, that was indecipherable …”

I’ve taken the first step by disconnecting my Twitter account from automatically importing to my Facebook status.  Tweeting a computer programming accomplishment became demoralizing as so many of my church friends said “speak English” or “what?!?”  No need for a part of my ministry to get lost in translation.

And I’m not sure what’s next in my journey to de-clutter my social media presence.  It’s not like I want to give it up — far from it! — it’s part of my ministry.  But when several minister friends are just now getting onto Facebook, and think Twitter is irrelevant and unnecessary, I’m not sure them knowing I speak in multiple languages in multiple social media worlds is helpful.

So for now, I’m taking adding an extra step to the communication … hoping to confuse less people.

(And to not let my statuses betray my real priorities … even though the 2010 Top Words algorithm was off in at least two ways!)

I had to laugh at this article from CNN:

They describe most NGOs, religious movements, and social service organizations.  That line thrown in by the CNN Wire staff is classic.  True.  And yet, I hope it’s successful (in whatever way that might mean …)

I’ve spent a couple weeks’ free time building a custom Bible verse tagger for curriculum on DiscipleShare.

It’s close, but not close enough that I can post the code for other developers to use.

Right now I’m keeping it out of the WordPress structure.  It’ll eventually be its own taxonomy plugin for a WordPress database — so users can tag with scripture verses and have them database-searchable.  But for now, it’s just a simple Javascript/XML parser (with some wicked CSS to make it great amongst all web browsers).

As you can probably guess, the “green” box is to set the starting verse; the “red” box is to set the ending verse.  Yep — there’s a problem in the logic.  Two steps forward, one step back.  

More to come.

Wow!

The Society for Biblical Literature released a new text. While it may not seem big to most people, for biblical scholars, this may mark a critical point in the influence of technology on biblical studies as an academic discipline.

To paint a picture, here’s how fast the field has advanced in the past 30 years:

• Prof. Margaret Mitchell, Dean of the University of Chicago Divinity School, wrote in the latest Circa that she used William Rainey Harper’s Greek textbook while studying for her PhD in the 1980s.  (Harper died in 1906)
• I started using Greek computer software in my first year of undergraduate.  I’ve never had a “pure” Greek education where I only used paper resources (note: completely tongue-in-cheek).  In my 4 years of study, and 4 years now of non-study but casual reading, I’ve used two software packages, and I’m about to start using a third.
  • Gramcord was the first.  It was out of date, even when I started using it.  But it was still exciting.  Programmed by a true amateur (= one who loves it for its own sake), it didn’t need the latest bells and whistles of the newer operating systems to do its task.  I especially liked the morphology searches – as Daryl Schmidt taught me to use them on one of my exegesis papers on Mark.
  • Bibleworks was my second.  Ironically, it’s a Windows-only piece of software that I used on my slow Macbook running Windows XP in Parallels.  And even though it was slow, I loved copying and pasting to my note software (OmniOutliner).  In my “Old Testament in the Gospel of John” course, Prof. Klauck pointed that we could go through more of the cross references because I was quickly able to find  some of the obscure books.  Bibleworks was powerful, but I didn’t need it for most of its power.  The only time I taxed its processing power was to look up every reference of “ego eimi + article + participle” in its massive library of texts.
  • I’m looking for new software, but can’t decide which to pursue.  I’m working on so many different computers and platforms that none of them quite fit.  Heidi uses OliveTree reader on her iPad.  I’m looking at Logos and Accordance for my Mac, but am not willing to drop that amount of money for a software-based system.  I’m even considering a hybrid approach of Bibleworks on my Windows laptop and setting up a web service to pull texts when I need them.  (Although that would probably violate Bibleworks’ Terms of Service).
• Until this SBL announcement, the current frontier I saw in technology for Biblical Scholarship was to complete the transition to Unicode formatting for texts.  I didn’t even know the SBL had a font (I’d always previously Gentium from SIL).
• Now I’m wondering if the next frontier for technology in Biblical Scholarship will come from the computer science field.  One of my classmates in undergraduate studies at TCU is now doing his PhD at Carnegie Mellon and working on advancing language-analyzing supercomputer systems.  We may come to know more about the rhetorical patterns and wide variety of influences in the Hellenistic world from the studies of computer scientists than those of Biblical scholars.

What I find super-interesting about this announcement is that the SBL paired up with a commercial group to release the text.  Logos is a player, no doubt about it.  But I wonder what percentage of SBL members actually use Logos.  Those market share numbers would be interesting.

And I’m also thrilled that the released the raw text for free so other Bible software programs could use it.  Michael Hanel already ported the new critical text over to Bibleworks.

But now I wonder: is this just an opening in the floodgate of Biblical Criticism texts?  No doubt the Jesus Seminar could release the critical text they made for their latest project, The Authentic Letters of Paul?  Could each school create their own text?  I’m not saying the Nestle-Aland/United Bible Societies (and in particular the German Bible Society) should have priority or special ownership of the most commonly used edition.  But how will this release change scholarship?

Will it become as fragmented as our modern political discourse?  Will certain text choices shut off discussion amongst scholars?

In any case, the more accessible and high-quality texts, the richer the discussion.  I’m excited to start looking at some of the variances.

My denomination, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) almost treats our chalice as a sort of “flag pin.”  It can be our visual litmus test.  With so many congregations across the United States and Canada calling themselves “Christian Church,” we distinguish ourselves by our visual logo.  (Note: my reading on our church’s history is that our founders’ emphasis on unity would go against this litmus test — but, alas, we’re no longer the same group as when we began …)

There are many drawbacks to having this logo.  To read more about its history, visit the General Church’s page.  In practice, however, the logo is often confused as a MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) logo.  The St. Andrew’s cross is interpreted as a mark of a rule or something forbidden.  Are people in our church allowed to take communion?  Not knowing the history behind the logo, you’d think the answer is “no.”  (The answer is an exclamatory “YES!,” but that’s one of our Gospel messages we’re still practicing).

So earlier this year I tried to find a way to “mess” with the Chalice to create a different studium:

• I wanted its message to reflect our Region‘s identity: “Disciples Together”
• It shouldn’t just involve communion — identity change through baptism is also who we are
• At our core, Disciples know that our relationship to each other and to the whole church (beyond our brand of Christianity) is who we are
• It must be scalable — large and small it should be clear who we are.

Here’s what I came up with. Click on the image for a full-sized version.

Even though I’ve marked the Final versions — I’m not sure it’s finished.  Several of my colleagues and fellow ministers said, “it’s fine, but what about our geographic location?”  I’ve worked with a version to make the shapes of our states (Iowa, Minnesota, South and North Dakota) into a table or plane that the chalice rests on.  But it still doesn’t quite work.

So I guest preached at a congregation this morning and when I finished, I found this note by my camera bag:

While I’m against un-signed notes on principle, this one’s kind of funny.  And it’s an instant classic if you look at the way it’s written on the prayer card.  I’m thrilled someone was paying enough attention to the sermon that they noticed this.

My question: is the person correct?

I did some searches, wondering if there was a difference between written style and oral pronunciation.  Wikipedia’s entry seems to back up this note.

Let me know what you think!

PS – the line in the sermon was:  Who’s honest?  Who’s dishonest?  That’s not even the question or the moral of Jesus’ story.