Introducing MorningAndEvening.me
Hooray Public Domain!
For many years I've enjoyed reading Charles Spurgeon's Morning and Evening. A couple weeks ago I was reminded of this work's value (as well as realizing it was in the public domain) and decided I would make a website for it. I know there are many sites out there that offer it up to read, but to be honest, they all bothered me. I wanted to treat this amazing work with a great deal of respect and create the best looking site I could muster. So I set out to make something that was elegant, easy to read and most importantly, distraction free.
It's still a work in progress, so there are some kinks to work out still. I'm building it to work well on mobile devices as well and that is were it needs to most polish. I think that it's useful now in its current state so I'm setting it loose. I desperately hope that it will prove useful for people.
Please let me know what you think!
“I could end the deficit in 5 minutes. You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP all sitting members of congress are ineligible for reelection.
“Baio is yet another victim of the United States’ dysfunctional legal procedures surrounding intellectual-property laws, which ensure that nearly any barely-credible threat can extract a settlement from its target, even if it would never hold up in court, since only the extremely rich can afford to actually defend themselves in court.
“The biggest waste is to do that thing you call work, but to interrupt it, compromise it, cheat it and still call it work.
Making the most of javascript bookmarklets
How I easily add content to many online services without memory hungry extensions
I love using the bookmark bar in chrome and firefox. It's a quick and easy way to access sites without taking up too much screen space. I'm also a huge fan of using javascript bookmarklets. Specifically, the ones that allow me perform some action with the page I'm currently looking at. This could be saving an article to instapaper to read later, posting a link to twitter or bookmarking the site to pinboard.
There are two problems with this: the more bookmarklets you use, the more cumbersome it becomes to find the one you want because they all tend to be named differently. They also just plain take of a lot of space on the bookmark bar. One option is to use browser specific extensions but they rarely offer an improved experience and increase the instability and memory footprint fo the browser.
A couple months ago I came up with a really simple way to manage the clutter and I've been really happy with it. Since most of my bookmarklets have to do with adding the current page to another service, I created a folder named "+" at the far right of my bookmark bar. I then renamed each bookmarklet to "+
Like I said, really simple. No rocket science here...just a way to organize things that wasn't completely obvious to me at first. So I figured I'd share. I hope it's helpful!
“Fundamentalists and atheists both assume that increasing scientific knowledge decreases our need for God. This leads fundamentalists to reject science and atheists to reject god. The fatal flaw on both sides is the assumption that god is only the explanation for what we don't yet understand. But if God actually is creator, sustainer and lover of the universe and our souls, science becomes a reveler of the divine mind and knowledge strengthens our faith, rather than erodes it.
Cranking by Merlin Mann
What a fantastic post! When this was written a week ago I hadn't read it because I didn't have time to read all of it. Now, a week later, and I'm glad I did. Merlin Mann thinks a out loud about his priorities, about where they've been and where he wants them to be. It is an encouraging and perspective re-aligning read.
“Some where there is a balance for people where moderation and proper tools help us process information in a more meaningful way. I’m not sure what that is, and I hope I can figure it out before I pull all my hair out trying to keep up with all the awesomesauce pouring out of our community.
Mark Otto does a great job breaking down, simply, the problem of our information saturated age. I've been thinking about this a lot the past couple months. I even have a draft of an article about how I help process all the information I come across that I've never finished. Anyway, it's worth the time to read his thoughts. It's thoughts I think we all need to start engaging.
“The drive-by technorati are well-informed, curious and always probing. They're also hiding... hiding from the real work of creating work that matters, connections with impact and art that lasts. I love to hear about the next big thing, but I'm far more interested in what you're doing with the old big thing.
Aaaaa...Seth Godin. I love the clarity and foresight that he thinks with.
A little bit of spring cleaning
A new design, Drupal 7 and a burst of motivation
Spring is a busy time. Full of preparation and excitement of all that is about to come over the next couple months. I don't think I intentionally planned it this way, but this website has been swept up in the excitement as well.
I attempted to upgrade the backend of the site to drupal 7 about two months ago. That was not a fun process. Transferring over all the CCK information was just a hassle. Some settings were saved, others weren't. I should of waited about couple months before I upgraded to give all the modules some time to mature. But that is behind me now and here we are.
With the upgrade, I decided it was time to clean up the theme, since I would have to recode most of it anyway. The new look is the result of work done over 48 hours...probably a total of 8 actual hours of work. So I know for a fact there are some rough edges. The ones that bother me, I will get to eventually, the ones that don't I won't.
Anyway, I've got a backlog of things I was hoping to write about and had been holding off until I finished the upgrade. It's time to do some real writing!
Also, Feedback! I'd love feedback.
This is definitely one of the times where I think a good, cut throat business practice is a perfect solution for government.