This is the best one I’ve ever seen.
I installed two new plug-ins – and hopefully they will add to vastness of my technology 😉
The first is the Lifesteam plug-in. You can view my Lifestream page here.
Lifestream allows me to share my scrobbled songs from Last.fm, interesting RSS feed items I would like to share — without having to write a whole post about them, my Tweets, Flickr additions, postings and assorted other gagetty fun.
The second addition is SMS Text Message from SemperFi. You will find a test messaging sign-up in my sidebar. I will use this plug-in to send out text messages for upcoming PNCC events and happenings. For the most part these will concentrate on events in New York’s Capital Region and Diocesan wide events. Feel free to sign-up if your interested in getting texted — and no, I won’t be texting you day and night. Any information you provide to enable this service is covered under my existing privacy policy.
Thank you to the WordPress plug-in developers who built these. They work as expected and without issue. Your efforts are appreciated.
Invite Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Contest into Your High School’s ELA Classrooms!
Register your school to participate in Poetry Out Loud!
Poetry Out Loud is a national program that encourages the study of great poetry by offering educational materials and a dynamic recitation competition to high schools across the country. Poetry Out Loud uses a pyramid structure. Beginning at the classroom level, winners will advance to the school-wide competition, then to the state capital competition, and ultimately to the National Finals in Washington, DC. More than 100,000 students are expected to take part in Poetry Out Loud this year!
Upon registration, teachers will receive dynamic teaching tools that will invoke students’ excitement about literature and poetry recitation, including sample lesson plans, audio CDs of poets reciting their own famous works, publicity materials for school competitions, and a DVD of winning student performances from the 2007 Poetry Out Loud National Finals.
If you would like to bring Poetry Out Loud to you school, download a registration form.
Registrations must be received by October 31st!
For more information about registration, contact Sharon Scarlata.
ALMIGHTY God, who hast given us this good land for our heritage; We humbly beseech thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of thy favour and glad to do thy will. Bless our land with honourable industry, sound learning, and pure manners. Save us from violence, discord, and confusion; from pride and arrogancy, and from every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitudes brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues. endue with the spirit of wisdom those to whom in thy Name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that, through obedience to thy law, we may show forth thy praise among the nations of the earth. In the time of prosperity, fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble suffer not our trust in thee to fail; all which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN. — A Prayer for Our Country, BCP, 1925.
From the BBC: Hi-tech criminals target Twitter
Micro blogging site Twitter is the latest target of cyber criminals who are increasingly finding fertile ground on social networks.
A fake Twitter profile with a malicious payload has been spotted by security firm Kaspersky.
It purports to link to a pornographic video but downloads a fake version of Adobe Flash which installs programs capable of stealing data.
The attack is believed to be the first to target Twitter.
Social net
The attack is believed to have originated in Brazil because of the language it uses, the servers it calls on to download trojans and the e-mail address used to collect stolen data.
The fake profile has a name that means “pretty rabbit” in Portuguese. It tries to convince users to download the fake Flash video viewer in order to watch the associated video.
It comes as Kaspersky also releases details about two worms that target social networking sites MySpace and Facebook. More variants of these worms are also starting to turn up…
From a friend, Dr. Felipe Korzenny, Professor and Director of the Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication at Florida State University
After three successful semesters, the online course in Hispanic Marketing Communication will be offered again this fall by the Florida State University Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication. The Center, headed by Dr. Felipe Korzenny, is pioneering education in Hispanic Marketing online to reach a national audience.
The online course is available to anyone interested and is particularly recommended for professionals currently addressing the Hispanic market, or those who would like to start a Hispanic marketing initiative. The online course is also available to Florida State University students not currently residing on the Tallahassee campus.
Cathy Colmenares, a former student states: “The Hispanic Market is constantly evolving so I took the Hispanic Marketing course at FSU to gain a deeper knowledge of trends, research, and resources. The course provides valuable case studies, research studies and insights from industry experts. The instructor not only facilitated interactive discussion throughout the online course, but also integrated offline discussion among students. As a result, I made numerous contacts that have proved beneficial in my role as Sr. Director of Integrated Marketing at Todobebe Inc.”
The Fall session has a duration of fifteen weeks (classes begin August 25 and end December 5) and includes topics such as cultural identity and its impact on consumer behavior, language use, Hispanic cultural insights for marketing, and case studies relating to Hispanic marketing. The course will also address research and marketing strategies.
A certificate of completion will be issued to all non-degree seeking students who satisfactorily complete the course, and eligible students can receive three hours of undergraduate/continuing education credit.
For application information contact Danielle Kress. Ms. Kress may also be reached by telephone at 850-645-5639.
Over the past two weeks I’ve been making my final moves to the Mac. I’ve been running Boot Camp with a copy of Windows XP because I needed to run a few programs. The things I delayed moving to the Mac platform were:
- Quicken
- Legacy Family Tree
- Paperport
- Publisher (I was using this to do my parish’s bulletin which our new pastoral administrator will do now. No need for this app because I have iWork)
- Homescan
I had delayed in moving these because they had tons of data and take a bunch of work to get moved.
Quicken to Moneydance
The toughest was Quicken. The Mac version of Quicken is notoriously difficult and not everything transfers smoothly. In fact there are no programs out there that convert Quicken data easily or cleanly (i.e., don’t be fooled by anyone’s claims).
The other issue with Quicken is that the Mac version is way past its prime. They keep discussing a new version “coming soon” but I still think that they have not invested enough in their Mac line to make Intuit the software of choice.
In switching you just have to look at the scale of difficulty involved in all the available options and read a lot of reviews, hopefully locating the one that entails the least amount of pain. I chose Moneydance 2008. It took about two days to clean up all the transactions (note that they went back to 1993!!!) In the conversion there was limited duplication of entries. The biggest, most significant problem was with accounts where balances were brought forward from an archiving process in one account (like a checking account) and where the same transactions were not archived in the second account. To clean everything up I created a “Prior Transactions” account and moved the unmatched and duplicate transactions there. At the end I simply zeroed the Prior Transactions account balance. Not very elegant, but it worked. I just have to accept it as a one-off problem. Note too that I did not delete transactions because doing so makes the situation worse. If you have any accounting background think “T” accounts and having unmatched entries.
In the end I am finding Moneydance easier to use than Quicken. There is less in-the way and you get a clearer picture of your financial status. Quicken had simply evolved into bloatware. A lot of fancy bells and whistles that get in the way. Moneydance is simply clean, inexpensive, core Quicken – the Quicken I fell in love with years ago.
Legacy Family Tree to Reunion
Genealogy programs tend to transfer data easily. Gedcom files are the standard and most of the programs on the market, whether proprietary or freeware, export and import smoothly. No problem here. 2,535 individuals, 1,896 families all cleanly transferred.
The Reunion interface is much like the Legacy interface so it lends to a sense of familiarity. I like Reunion’s Mac look and feel. It also makes taking stuff to your local LDS Family History Center or National Archives Centers easier because it ports to your iPod.
Paperport to Yep!
This wasn’t a bad transition. I used Paperport for years, probably going back to version 9 or something earlier. Can’t quite recall. Anyway, I used it to store those all-too-important documents like explanations of medical benefits, bank statements, appliance manuals, etc. It helps to keep the paper down and I really dislike digging through old file folders.
In the newer version of Paperport those items are all stored in pdf format, but the older Paperport files are .max files. Paperport 11 has a batch converter so I changed all the .max files to pdfs. Yep! stores pdfs and is a the sort of application any blogger would love. It used tags to ID documents!!! It is great because you can get to documents through a tag cloud. You can also use as many tags as you like to describe a document. It allows new documents to be scanned in and is really easy to use.
On importing all my existing pdfs it automatically tagged them using the directory structure of the imported files (I simple copied over the “My Paperport Documents” folder and deleted all the extraneous files, i.e., those that were not pdfs).
Others
Publisher is gone – as I noted above I no longer need it. I’ll use iWork (even though I have Mac Office) for all my document publishing needs.
Homescan is the last holdout. They’ve been promising a Mac version of their apps. I hope that they hop on it. Mac users – let them know. Actually I would think that they would want to capture the Mac demographic.
Just upgraded to WordPress 2.6. Lots of new features – most of which I had been hoping for for some time. Here’s a video tour.
From Mathematica Policy Research: Collaborating with Faith-and Community-Based Organizations: Lessons Learned from 12 Workforce Investment Boards (PDF format)
The public workforce investment system aims to serve all job seekers, but many of those most in need of help do not use it. Language barriers, dislike or fear of government agencies, limited awareness of available services, and difficulties using self-directed services are some of the challenges that may limit the accessibility of the system. While not traditionally partners in the workforce investment system, small, grassroots faith-based and community organizations (FBCOs) may be well positioned to serve people who do not currently use the public workforce system. Some job seekers may be more likely to access services from FBCOs because they typically have earned the trust of local community members and understand their needs. Moreover, FBCOs often provide personal, flexible, and comprehensive services that are well suited to people who face multiple barriers to employment.
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has recognized that by filling a service gap and serving some of the neediest populations, FBCOs have the potential to be valuable partners in the workforce investment system. Collaborating with FBCOs may also allow the government to leverage its workforce investment funds by taking advantage of the volunteers, donated goods and services, and other resources FBCOs are often able to access. Moreover, an FBCO’s knowledge of its community and its needs may help workforce investment agencies plan and deliver services more effectively…
These efforts are important, especially as we face increased unemployment and skills gaps. Churches need to take up efforts to address the employment and training needs of their congregants – and these relationships are a great effort in that direction. I encourage pastors, deacons, and parish leaders to read this Mathematica report.