Picasa 3 is fresh out of beta. Google says that key goals were a faster and more stable photo organizer/editor/sharing software.
If you use Picasa, update now. If you have not tried it, check out the new and improved features of Picasa 3. It's free software from Google.
An example of a Google Knol is "Money-saving tips for photography enthusiasts". Google defines a Knol as "an authoritative article about a specific topic."
Johns Hopkins researchers have found that babies learn better with chunking -- grouped data. While that's news, it's not really so new. After all, web content experts have been advocating chunking of text for quite a while.
Breaking up text into bite-sized chunks in different ways makes it easier to quickly scan for information. No matter how good your content, you can improve it by separating the text into logical chunks -- chunking.
Some good ways to chunk and organize your text include:
ScribeFire is a blogging tool for FireFox users. Some of the ScribeFire features I like the best:
I used ScribeFire to upload this as a draft post to the blog. Then I checked the code with the Blogger editor. Here's a couple things I learned:
In short, the tool is quite handy, but you may want to do some code cleanup before posting to your blog. I'll use this due to its ease of use but will publish only as a draft. I'll do code cleanup in Blogger. That's annoying for such a potentially great tool.
Our church has been seeking a Content Management System (CMS) and new Web Hosting for over a year. The frustration is palpable.
In the process, though, we have come across a couple of very useful sites that let you compare CMS software features and even give them an online trial.
We have also had time to look closely at our list of required and desired Web Hosting features. While that list seemed great at the time, after looking at a feature comparison at CMS Matrix, we revised the list to add specifics about the CMS. The list below shows our current features list for both Web Hosting and a CMS.
OpenOffice version 3.0 is about due for release and the OpenOffice.org Ninja blog has a decent article on some new OOo 3.0 version features.
Just try to ignore some of the fanboy rants (both pro- and anti- Microsoft Office) in the tons of comments. My take: OpenOffice is definitely improving but I'd like to see more and enhanced features along with an improved look and feel (user interface). That would make it an easier sell to more managers in the business community.
Also remember that Sun's StarOffice is free software you can grab as part of Google Pack. Installed that for my mother-in-law and she's never asked for any help with it -- a great sign of ease-of-use for the basic user.
A recent Barna Research group study, "Social Networking, Online Entertainment and Church Podcasts" has some interesting results. Christians use technology in the following most common ways (in decreasing order of use)
The challenge for churches is to better relate its message to the current generation. When Paul said, I am all things to all men" he meant that he couched the message of Christ in terms and in a way that the particular audience could best grasp it.
For churches today, that means seeking ways to better communicate using the web tools available to us. That also means keeping up with newer methods as they become available. At the same time, we must remember to help safeguard the privacy of our members and web site visitors. Until Facebook and similar social networking sites become more secure and users a bit more savvy about not divulging personal data, I'll stay away from using it as an integral part of the church's online presence.
You may want to read the full Barna report.
What is "new media" and how can we use it in our church ministries? Aaron Linne has a few videos online about this topic. The introductory one, "New Media for Ministries: What is It?", is below. Here are links to the other videos on Vimeo (so far):
Usability expert Jakob Nielsen says Web 2.0 can be bad. "Before throwing spending money at "2.0" features, make sure that you have all the "1.0" requirements working to perfection." He says that most web sites don't yet use terms in headlines and page titles that their visitors would use.
What's the message to church web developers? Before you leap into trying to adopt fancy new techniques, make sure you have done your best using the older methods. Few churches have a lot of time and funds to devote to web work, so make the most of what you have. For example, do you meet all the below criteria on every web page of your current site?
