A chapter a day...

Here at Living Rock Church we are just starting a new Bible reading programme together as a whole church. Over the next 89 days we will be reading a chapter of the Gospels every day. Starting today in Matthew 1 and finishing on 14 December in John 21.

What excites me, is not so much the reading programme, but its purpose: to meet with Jesus. To encounter the Jesus of the gospels and allow him to transform our lives again, as he always does whenever we truly meet with him.

To help members of the church, and anyone else who would like to join us on this "short but significant journey." I have adapted my old "Ephesians Every Month Reader" into a shiny new "GospelReader."

I have written it to work on a rolling 89 day cycle. So if you get blessed by reading through a chapter of the gospels every day, you can carry on doing so indefinitely, and incorporate it into your existing reading disciplines and devotions.

GospelReader 1.02 requires Java Runtime Environment(JRE)

Cheaper than Skype!

Voip (Voice over internet protocol) has been around for a while now, and Skype has some stiff competition.

There is much I could say on this subject, since I have recently converted our home phones to call out over the Internet using a service provided by Voiptalk and in the last 27 days have saved £24.73 against the same calls made on the landline (and £4.19 against Skype). But I fear if I went into the fascinating (for me! ;-)) details, I would loose all but my most loyal readers (those who have still stuck around despite my recent lapse in regular blogging!)

However, I would like to draw your attention, if you use SkypeOut, to one possible alternative, that requires no technical setup, no specialist harware, and runs out-of-the-box with its own software application (just like Skype).

VoipBuster, hails itself as Skype's biggest rival and has its sights set on stealing its customers. And offering international rates as low as 1 euro-cent (~0.7p) a minute; 5 hours of free calls a week to the USA (including mobiles), Portugal, Germany, Spain, Luxemburg, Norway, Austrailia, New Zealand, etc, and unlimited free SMS messages to mobiles in your country... I'm surprised they haven't stolen more!

I have been using this service for the last week and can confirm it works: free means free (though you do have to register and buy some credit with them first, and you stop getting free calls after 4 months if you do not buy any additional credit)

Blogger Recent Comments Widget

A friend recently asked me to install the code for my "Recent Comments" widget on his Blog. One of the benefits of the new Blogger layouts and feeds, meant it was relatively easy to do. I have had a Recent Comments section for some time, but I used to have to jump through some pretty clever hoops to do it, involving a separate server running helper scripts.

But now anyone can have one! To prove how easy it is, if you are on the new version of Blogger using Layouts, then all you have to do is to click the button below. Yes, that's all. And you too can have a Recent Comments section exactly the same as mine.

Enjoy.

 

Now available in Java

For anyone who is interested in reading through the book of Ephesians Every Month. If you were put off using my EEMReader because you were unable / unwilling to install the .NET framework V2, it may interest you to know that this handy little application of mine to assist you read this great book is now available written in Java. This means it should work on all versions of Windows, Linux, Solaris and MacOS.

Enjoy

EEM Reader

Ephesians Every Month Reader Current .NET Version: 1.0.0 Download (Microsoft Windows XP only) Current Java Version: 1.00 Download (All platforms)

From time to time on this blog, I like to point out pieces of free software that I consider to be of use or interest to my readers. Some of you will know that I am a professional software developer myself, so this time the software is my own.

EEM Reader is designed to be a small lightweight application to help anyone who is interested in reading through Ephesians Every Month. It displays the text of the current daily reading in your choice of version. It will automatically update, and can be configured to pop up from the taskbar when a new reading is received. Just read the text and then minimise again - how much easier could it be?

The .NET version is for Microsoft Windows XP only (My apologies to all discerning OS users!). Requires .NET Framework 2.0. Written using SharpDevelop.

The Java version should work on any platform [I have only tested it on Windows and Linux]. It requires the Sun JRE (Java Runtime Environment)

History

18/07/06	.NET Version 1.0.0
22/08/06	Java Version 1.00-b22

Google Spreadsheets

Google Labs have just released another web base application for beta testing. This time its an online spreadsheet. It's great if you have spreadsheet data that you need to access from home and at work, or if you want to collaborate on the data. You can specify other users by email address who can edit or just view your data. Perhaps this is the future for church rotas? You could see the actual "live" version, rather than a paper copy that is already out of date by the time you get it. ;-)

Sign up for it here: http://www.google.com/googlespreadsheets/try_out.html

Google Notebook

Another incredible useful tool, hot off the press from Google: Google Notebook allows you to collect clippings as you surf of links, text and images into your own scrapbook, embedded into your browser but available to you from any computer. Very useful indeed if you are doing any kind of research on the internet and want to keep a track of what you found without trawling through your search history.

http://www.google.com/notebook

Google Calendar

Your own web-based diary with all the power of Google behind it. Get it while it's hot!

http://www.google.com/calendar

Nice to see you!

If you didn't know already, the latest version of Skype (v2.0) now has built-in video functionality. So if you have a webcam, you can not only talk to your Skype contacts for free, but you can also see them too! I tried this with my Dad in Edinburgh the other night and it worked great, by far the best of all the video conferencing tools I have tried.

Skype is free to download and free to use, but if you buy some credit you can also use it to for calls to regular phones. It has very cheap international call rates (the call goes over the internet to the local phone network of that country). We now use it for all our international calls. If you don't have Skype, and you do have friends, I recommend you download it. It's one of those programs that once you use, you wonder how you ever lived without it.


[btw. if anyone wants my Skype contact details, drop me an email. I'm not going to put it up for the world to see ;-)]

Home, Sweet Home

Just discovered another very cool feature from Google. If you go to to www.google.com/ig, you can customise your own Google Homepage. As well as the usual Google Search (which you need all the time!) you can add various news feeds, your local weather, the films showing at your local cinema (along with an average reviewer star rating), a quote for the day, your latest Gmails, your own favourite links, etc. etc. You can even add your own custom feeds so you can see links to the latest posts in your favourite blogs.

Have a go, and don't forget to add http://chrishamer-hodges.blogspot.com/atom.xml to stay up to date with yours truly!

It's good to talk

Google have released a new Instant Messaging service that is free to all its Gmail users: Google Talk.

"Why do we need yet another Instant messenger?", I hear you say. We already have MSN, AIM, ICQ, and Yahoo messengers. What's different about Google's offering?

Well there are a number of things that make it very nice:

• It's very lightweight. Blink and the download is over.


• It's simple and uncluttered. No adverts or huge information panels.


• As well as instant text communication, it offers crystal clear voice communication too: ala Skype (in fact they are using the same technology)


• It works as a Gmail notification too. As you want to keep informed of new email messages anyway, it's no extra bother to have all the nice IM features thrown in for free too.


• Custom status messages: You can set your own status. Not just the same old boring "Available" or "Away", you can add your own like "Gone fishing" or "Deep in prayer!"

The downside is that you have to be an existing Gmail user to use it... and you can't get a Gmail account without an invitation... but fear not. If any of you would like to try Gmail and Google Talk, just pop me an email (address is at the bottom of the page) and I'll send you an invite. Gmail has some great advantages - more than 2Gb of storage, POP and webmail access, and advanced Google searching on all your old mails (all free!).

If you are already a Gmail user, just visit www.google.com/talk and download it.

To the Ends of the Earth

For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea. (Hab 2:14)

Another of the great truths that kept coming again and again at the Bible Week, was that the whole earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God. Our view of the end times, it not one of doom and gloom (though we do not deny there will be hardships and trials) but of the ultimate victory of God's Kingdom in God's earth.

This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. (Mt 24:14)

It's great that as I write members of our local expression of Jesus' church are fulfilling this call to go into all the earth. Two members of our cellgroup left to go the the Philippines for a missionary visit with YWAM last week. Several others from the church were already there, and some more are flying out today. They will be delivering clothes and bibles to needy people. Providing education in basic health care. Spending time in a boys' prison where 18 boys accepted Christ last year. It's a great work - it's God's work. He wants the whole of his earth to be blessed and reached by his people.

They will be based at a place called Cagayan De Oro. If you have Google Earth you can find it here:cagayan.kmz. If you haven't got Google Earth, and you have broadband it's well worth a download. Whether you want to pray for God's earth, or just entertain yourself with a fantastic free interactive atlas with real satellite imagery that you can zoom as far in as the cars on the streets in some places! And as you zoom around and in and out just consider - it's all destined to be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God. Amen!

More Free Software

A couple more great free software applications to draw to your attention.

w.bloggar

Desktop blogging tool for Windows. Allows you to jot down your thoughts as and when they come to you in a Notepad like editor, and then automatically logon and publish them when you are ready with a single click. Essential tool for the busy blogger.

pdfCreator

Convert almost any document to pdf accurately and for free. Works by creating a psudo-printer. When you select this printer from Word (or whatever other application you are using) instead of printing it creates the pdf document after prompting you for the filename.

See also:
Free Software

Free Software

There are some great applications available for free. Here are my top tips for free software.

FireFox

The latest and greatest web-browser. If you are still using Internet Explorer, download this and see what you have been missing. Once you have used tabbed browsing, you'll never look back.

Thunderbird

If you aren't hooked on Outlook / Outlook Express, try this email client. It has automatic spam filters that learn as you move messages in or out of the Junk folder. Within a week or two you can forget all about those annoying spam messages.

AVG

Everyone knows that you need an anti-virus program to keep your computer safe, but not everyone knows that you can get a professional 100% detection automatically updated Anti-Virus program for free! (for non-commercial home users)

Agnitum Outpost

If you are on Broadband, a Firewall is a must. This award winning Firewall has a version available for free. It's great. It has loads of features and doesn't slow your machine down delivering them.

Skype

Voice communication over the Internet. Like having an extra telephone line for free. What is more, calls to other Skype users anywhere in the world are free, and worldwide calls to landlines are at local rates. My wife called her parents when they were in Singapore and had a 44min conversation for just 73p. (Requires microphone)

SharpReader

RSS aggregator. Displays the latest posts from all your favourite Blogs and other news feeds.

Trillian

If you use Instant Messaging to communicate with your friends online, you must try this. It supports AOL, MSN, ICQ, Yahoo, and IRC all simultaneously, and all without adverts. It's skinable too, so you can make it look just how you like.

Open Office

A full office suite (word processor, spreadsheet, presentation manager, and drawing program) all for free. It's a monster of a download though. Not to be attempted without Broadband! But definitely worth the wait.