New additions to SSL

Some of you may have noticed SSL went down for a few minutes this morning. Have no fear. It was just a simple WordPress upgrade from 2.1 to 2.2.2.
I also upgraded Laurie’s blog as well as the encounter blog at the same time.
Something else you may notice as a trial feature here at SSL is the Holy Scripturizer plug-in. I’m trying it out to see how I like it and may extend it to Laurie’s and the encounter blog if it’s so requested but you’ll notice during the trial that anytime I give a Scripture reference, say, Eccl. 3:1, John 3:16-17, or 1 Peter 3:15, a link will be created, giving you the option to read the passage from Biblegateway.com.
I have my site set to default to The Message, but you’re more than welcome to view any number of versions that are available through Biblegateway.com
Let me know what you think. Is it annoying or is it a benefit? We’ll see how it goes.

Crazy stats

Just how popular is Flickr?
I just did a quick browse of a couple pages and saw this stat:
There were 3,499 photos uploaded in the last minute. (as of 9:47 a.m. CST)
Why aren’t you sharing your photos with friends and family and the world on Flickr? Why isn’t your church or ministry sharing photos on Flickr?
It’s easy to set up a free account to share photos of your events – or set up a free group so your members can post their photos and then share them in a common photo pool. It’s free publicity and a great way to build community among your members. And on top of that – Flickr has AWESOME slide shows already built in to any group of photos that can easily be added to your website.
clickable.jpg

Flickr improves web uploading

…And a big “Yesssssssss!” was sent up from Casa de Blundell.

Our “friends” over at Flickr have improved the method of uploading photos from the web.
Acorording to the Flickr Blog, here’s what they’ve improved on…

  • A snazzy new interface! Designed to show you clearer progress for your uploads.
  • More files at once. Only six photos per upload? Ha! Now you can select a bunch of files all at once (using shift-click) and upload them all together.
  • New batch operations. Once your photos have arrived safely, add tags to the batch, or add them all to one of your sets.
  • Magic pixie dust. Helps your photos upload faster!

Anyone give it a try yet? Looks like I for one will enjoy the improvements.

No blogging this weekend

Just an early heads up – our web host is upgrading his machines so CasadeBlundell.com will be down Friday evening through Sunday evening (likely). If everything goes as plan we’ll be back up for sure by Monday morning.
This means casadeblundell.com, casadeblundell.com/jonathan and casadeblundell.com/laurie as well as our casadeblundell.com email accounts will each be down for the weekend.
Thanks for your understanding – if you need to get in contact with us, I guess you’ll need to do it the old fashioned way – by telephone 🙁

What should a camp do?


With cell phones, text messaging and more how do kids and families adapt to a week away at camp with no electronic connections?
Maybe the camps adapt instead.
Camp Chinqueka in Connecticut offered computers as part of a journalism program last year, but now they’ve taken them away. “The girls were staying indoors too much.”
Instead the camp now offers photos and information online for parents to check in on their kids (password protected of course). Other camps are offering services like podcasts and live video streaming
NPR has information on the camp and the online services the camp and others are offering.
One thing that intrigues me though is the idea of camp lasting more than one week. Apparently it’s more common than I would have thought – but growing up we were never at camp more than four or five days a week.
What about you? Did you stay longer than a week? What were the advantages or disadvantages?