csummers.org

The morning is still and dark and peaceful and hopeful and renewing.

I try to start my day with the Lord. It doesn't always happen, but I cherish when it does. This is one of those mornings.

Being the computer geek, I don't grab my Bible or a book. Instead, I go online. Here are some of the resources I use:

• English Standard Version: Great interface for searching and reading.
• Daily Light on the Daily Path: A daily medley of topically similar verses throughout the Bible. I usually end up clicking through all of the references to read the verses in full context.
• Classic Bible Commentaries
• The Spurgeon Archive: A collection of material from C.H. Spurgeon
• Wikipedia: What? Yep, Wikipedia is a vast resource for researching the historical perspective on Christianity. For example: Christian theology

What do you use?

I can't stand MySpace. Ugh. I just hate it. Here are some of my reasons:

• Fosters poor web design. Just about every profile looks completely atrocious. You would think that a company that sold for $580M could implement a simple theme system? I'd love to see a unified theme across a person's profile, blog, pics, etc.
• The wall is a circa 1995 guestbook reborn. People posting nothing of value just to "holla atcha, baby, woot!"
• The blog is lame. I think the number one reason a person might come back to your site is the blog. Make it better!
• Security problems
• Due to the security problems, MySpace is recommending users upgrade to Flash 9. This means that Linux users are left out in the cold for anything that will require Flash 9: currently, only Flash 7 is available for Linux users. Also, the Flash 9 player for Intel Macs is not released yet (it's in Beta). [update: As of 8/8/06, Flash 9 is available for Intel Macs.] (The irony in all of this is that you probably don't want to add to the visual chaos with any additional Flash-driven content, so maybe this is a good thing?)
• And, my number one gripe: MySpace tarnishes the meaning and value of the word "friend".

So, do I have a MySpace account? Yep. Pffff. I can't believe it. I wanted to see what all the fuss was, and I was researching the "social networking" aspects of it for a site I'm working on. However, I've tried to minimize the MySpace visual pain. WARNING: If you use Internet Explorer, I recommend not visiting MySpace.com ever.

http://www.myspace.com/curtissummers

Am I way off base here? What compels people to do the MySpace dance?

UPDATE: If you can't get to MySpace, they are apparently having some problems today. Maybe I broke it. Or, maybe they decided I was right and took it down for the good of mankind.

Also, if you're using Firefox in Windows and MySpace asks you to download a file named "exp.wmf", DON'T! It's a virus. Thank you MySpace!

I'm enjoying the new Macbook. The last time I used a Mac was programming in Motorola 68k assembly language on System 8.0 in college. This experience is a little more fun. Even so, every operating system/environment takes a little patience and tweaking. Here's a list of things I've noticed so far:

• Trackpad Settings - The default trackpad settings are just whack. I went to Apple Menu > System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Trackpad and turned on clicking & dragging, two finger scrolling, and two finger tapping for right-click. I also maxed out the trackpad speed. Most useful is the two-finger tapping for right-click–I need my context menus!
• Delete Key - The "delete" key on the Macbook keyboard acts like a Backspace key. It deletes characters to the left of the cursor. So, where's the real "delete" key? Fn+Delete will delete characters to the right of the cursor. For reference: Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts
• Command+ - I'm trying to train myself. Command+c instead of Ctrl+c for copying, Command+v instead of Ctrl+v, Command+Tab instead of Alt+Tab for switching apps, and so on…
• Firefox - Safari's cool, but Firefox is my browser of choice
• Color Calibration - There are some colors in the light greens and yellows that appear darker on my Macbook than they do on my Linux and Windows machines. I've attempted to calibrate the LCD, but it's still the same. I'm tempted to think the other machines are wrong and the Macbook is right, but who knows? Suggestions?

It's here! I'm amazed at how fast it got here once it shipped out yesterday. I won't say much about the Mac experience thus far. I'm soaking it in–that and not much time has been spent with it yet.

The obligatory photo:

There is a weird web crawler going around called Linkie Winkie. It's somewhat of a mystery, but from what I gather it crawls the web looking for references to itself. If it finds it on your site, it might wink at you–which means linking to your site. This, in turn, drives traffic to your site. Very interesting.

The Linkie Winkie website says its a "social experiment". I haven't been crawled just yet. Maybe I will be. We'll see. I'll report back.

I have joined the Apple craze and bought a Macbook. It's currently en route from China.

Of course, this is strictly a business purchase. I need to be able to test the web app I'm building in Safari. (Ok, so not wanting to become an Apple fanboy, I still think it's going to be uber-cool!).

Any Mac tips?