aroona

Im really enjoying what X-Marks enables for me.  X-Marks is software which when installed on your devices will synchronise your web browser bookmarks.  More than that though, it also synchronises across the PC and Mac browsers and bookmarks are always accessible online.

I was a Delicious.com user for a long time but like how X-Marks makes my bookmarks available whether Im on my desktop, laptop or Macbook. With my iPhone I can browse to http://my.xmarks.com/mobile/ and access my saved bookmarks through their “designed for mobile” website but Safari on the iPhone once connected to my Macbook Pro will sync the browser bookmarks.

One of the features I only discovered today is that X Marks will show ratings and a rank number in a Google search on Firefox, depending on X-Marks user reviews.  I dont see this feature in Safari yet.  And while it will even synchronise open tabs between Firefox browsers it doesnt yet sync open tabs between Firefox and Safari.  I like it.

We’ve just started a teaching series on the book of Acts in church today.  I created a Wordle out of all the text in Acts 1 – 28 just for interest.  Wordle is a free online tool for creating “word clouds” out of a selection of text. The frequency of a word in the text being ‘wordleised’ determines it’s size in the resulting Wordle.

Interpret it below:

What impressions do you get when visualising the entire text of Acts in a Wordle?

Campbell and others in the MAF Learning Technologies team (www.maflt.org) are exploring how to take advantage of mobile phones in ministry. In Papua New Guinea, Arnhem Land and Bangladesh mobile phones are very common with phone companies providing cheap, basic handsets in order to build their customer base.  In Bangladesh it is very common for people to have more than one mobile phone!

We are researching the options for installing Bibles onto mobile phones and also ways in which learning opportunities for isolated Christian leaders can be facilitated.

In New Zealand, Australia and other developed countries life can be very convenient.  From our smartphones we can access the internet, we have applications which connect and provide us with virtually whatever information we want to subscribe to.  I subscribe to podcasted sermons – these sermons arrive on my phone without me doing a thing, so that all I need to do is listen.

They connect us in community also – communities like Facebook and Twitter send updates to our phones and connect us to our friends and family wherever we are.  The world can certainly be small for us.  My teaching pastor lives in California.

But in un-developed countries like Papua New Guinea there are Christian leaders isolated geographically, socially and economically.  If we can help remove the barriers they have through the application of sustainable technology then we strive to.

Please pray that we will be discerning in assessing the needs of isolated Christian leaders and be wise in partnering with them and training organisations so that technology can enhance their opportunities for spiritual growth and the growth of the people they shepherd.

David Hussey took a blinder on the boundary in a one day game against Kolkata Knight Raiders last night. Its the catch we imagine taking on the boundary – it went over the rope, he bounced it back and caught it in play without stepping outside the boundary.