iMurphy

Flock seems like a cool idea that is almost all there. The goal is to have a web-browser that combines all the savy, open-source coolness of Firefox, and a heap of Web 2.0 smarts (it automatically links up with your Flickr library and Delicious account). There are just a few kinks left in the system, but it’s at a stable beta release and will soon be enterprise ready. I wish they’d use Flock or Firefox at my work. It’s bad enough being trapped behind a lousy firewall, but it’s worse to have to use an outdated, incorrigible web-browser as I’m trying to re-layout my website. Ugh.

technorati tags:flock, web-browser, firefox, internet, web-2.0, open-source

Blogged with Flock

I just had a very strange thing happen. Allow me to tell you the whole story.

Since I upgraded to Mac OS X Tiger (10.4), I have been looking around for cool Dashboard Widgets. One of my discoveries was Daily Verse which shows a Bible verse per day. For some reason, I clicked on the letters NIV in the bottom right corner of the app, hoping to change the Bible version I was reading (to NKJV). Instead, I was taken to ChristNotes dot org and their page about the KJV. I know, it’s not right.

Continuing with the bizarre coincidences, I clicked on the first Google ad I saw. Why? It said “Homosexuals Forgiven: God’s New Law Welcomes the Gays”, and I was curious. This contentious subject is especially interesting to debates amongst Christians, so I thought I’d see what they had to say. It turns out that End Bible dot com exists solely to sell or host Tim Fleming’s personal Bible. This crazy add-on to God’s Word is Tim’s insane ramblings about his own experiences seeing God in person and hearing Him revise His own Word. I couldn’t form any concrete picture about Tim’s goals from the work, and he doesn’t seem to have any agenda. It’s kind of like reading a first draft of the Book of Mormon.

Anyway, there were no links to follow up with and nothing in the source code of the pages to suggest that there’s an organized cult somewhere, so I decided to dig a little deeper. I did a WHOIS on endbible.com and found the owners address and phone number. Again, a weird whim struck me, and I decided to call the number. I wasn’t really expecting an answer, but, strange luck, Tim Fleming himself answered the phone.

“Hello?”
“Uh, hello. … is this Tim?”
“This is Tim Fleming.”
“Did you write this, online EndBible?”
“Oops! Gotta go!” click

How weird is that? I called him back and left him two voicemails, one asking him why he advertised and what he meant in his wacko Bible, and another giving him a chance to reply before I posted everything on the web. While I was doing that, I found his number also listed on Toasted Spam dot com as both a spammer and an illegal telemarketer. His other website, startnewlife.com, seems to be dead.

I just thought I should post about this guy, so that the world will know. Hopefully, every decent website will pull his nutso’s ads off their sites!

    I subscribe to many RSS feeds in my attempt to not have to re-surf the entire internet each day. Even so, I can still end up with way too many feeds and too many posts to read, everyday. Recently, I removed my old favorite, VersionTracker, from my RSS reader (NetNewsWire Lite) and decided to just go with Apple’s Mac OS X downloads page, so as to not get the same stuff twice. I am currently wrestling with several news site’s feeds in an attempt to whittle down the four mountains of stuff I get every hour. I could probably simplify further in other areas as well.

    I have just decided to no longer subscribe to Christdot anymore. For one thing, their name reveals that they are just a reinterpretation of Slashdot, which itself is often 1800 pounds of lame opinions per teaspoon of usefulness. No issue is approached with the assuredness of Truth that is our’s as Christians to claim. I assume that they are attempting to cater to Catholics, Pentacostals, Anglicans, Homophiles, Universalists and Mormons all at once, so they end up sounding no different than the liberal media. A moment ago, while scanning their FAQ, I was appalled to discover that they cannot even answer such basic questions as to the meaning of our lives. Yuck!

    The World Magazine Blog is not as expansive, and doesn’t cover every issue that Christdot touches on, but what they do cover, they cover from the Christian perspective. I wish I still got the magazine, but the wallet is thin and there’s enough free stuff on the Net to satisfy anyone. World’s sub-blogs on the evils of the TNIV and movies are worthwhile too. I think their RSS feed will keep me busy enough.

    As an aside, the one thing Christdot said that I agreed with concerned the use of ‘X’, as in X-mas or Xian. I have heard people decry this practice for a long time, saying that those who write this way, even for shorthand purposes, are “as bad as heathens trying to take Christ out of Christmas”. Give me a break! TheΙΧΘΥΣ (fish) bumper-sticker we all support abbreviates Christ with the Greek ‘X’. Ban the bumper sticker before you ban ‘X-mas’.