Tag: internet

Apple brings networks to their knees

This afternoon around 1 p.m. iOS 7 went live (in our area at least).

Shortly there after our organization’s Internet came to a crawl (or so I hear – I was working from home).

I dropped a quick email to our network admin:

iOS 7 anyone? 😉

(I’m at home so don’t blame me)

Sure enough – later tonight I got an email confirming my suggestion. iTunes was using roughly 400MBits or more than 40% of our organization’s Internet connection.

I think @Saddington was right to be impressed that Apple’s network could handle the load of all those downloads.

Going dark

Croatia Internet - http://www.flickr.com/photos/notrealistic/3434937007/

It’s no secret that I enjoy being online and connecting with others.

But being on vacation last week — primarily in international waters — forced me to forgo my daily habits and go dark online for the extent of our trip.

I loved it! It was a nice change of pace for sure. Granted there were several time when I thought — ooh I should Twitter that — but the high price of phone service kept me in check.
Continue reading Going dark

On the verge of something big

distributed christianity

Boy if there’s ever a week that things really seem to be aligning this might be it. Maybe it’s just my limited perspective.

I’m not sure where this post is going so bear with me.

More and more across our country – and around the world – groups are coming together to declare their independence. There’s a restlessness afoot. People are growing weary of institutions of all shapes and sizes.

And the Internet seems to be bringing many of these forces together in ways not seen before.

Just like the invention of the printing press – when suddenly every person could own a copy of Scripture, or the latest pamphlet or newspaper – now everyone can own those things, as well as create and distribute their own versions.

You’ve likely heard much said about how Obama should credit much of his success to his campaign’s use of new media and the Internet. And putting great tools like my.barackobama.com to use gave every Joe Democrat with a computer a voice and a platform to share it on.

People had grown tired of the institution/administration that was in place and they saw Obama as their savior (we’ll leave that up for later debate).

And now, on the other side of the aisle, tea parties or tea baggers (depending on which side you’re on) mounted protests around the country to declare they’re no longer interested in paying taxes that bailout Fortune 500 Countries or social welfare programs. They organized via the Internet and social networks with no clear leadership. They even refused the “professional politicians” opportunities to speak at the protest rallies.

When Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele asked to speak at the Chicago tea party, his request was politely refused by the organizers: “With regards to stage time, we respectfully must inform Chairman Steele that RNC officials are welcome to participate in the rally itself, but we prefer to limit stage time to those who are not elected officials, both in Government as well as political parties. This is an opportunity for Americans to speak, and elected officials to listen, not the other way around.” – WSJ

Alongside the tea parties, Gov. McDreamy jumped in and told folks he supports a bill that would lead Texas to succeed from the Union. Could be an interesting idea – as long as we don’t simply replace Washington D.C. with Austin, Texas.

(And BTW – I’m with Mike Morrell, in asking “Where were these folks during the last eight years when the government continued to rack up ginormous debt for a war in Iraq and took away our personal freedoms and securities in the name of ‘National Security?'” Why aren’t they also calling foul when we’re about to send another 30,000 troops to Afghanistan? But I digress…. be sure and read Mike’s great post on this topic as well.)

Today, I saw news about two new local Farmer’s Markets in the Dallas area. One is opening in Mockingbird Station, the other has already started in Oak Cliff.

And in that spirit, I also watched a trailer for Food Inc. That seems to discuss the institutionalizing of our food supply. (see also Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma)

Of course if you’ve followed this blog or my podcast for long you know I’m a fan of organic churches and the empowerment of the priesthood of believers.

I was told this week that a group of youth from our tribe discussed the future of the church during their weekly gathering and after dividing up into separate groups they each came back with very similar ideas…

  • small groups meeting in homes
  • no church buildings
  • very relational
  • reaching out to the community
  • “contemporary” music without the big band or production
  • elational music with one or two guitars

Sounds pretty anti-institutional to me. Love it! I hope they start seeing that as they move into “leadership positions.”

And this theme just continues to grow in more and more areas. It’s exciting and scary at the same time. I can’t wait to see where it all ends up. Something big is coming down the pipe. Are you ready?

What about you? Do you see other stories that line up with this realm of thinking? Do you think its a good course? Dangerous course? What side do you want to be standing on?

Google to launch new browser

Google announced today that they will release a new Internet browser tomorrow – Google Chrome.

On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple. To most people, it isn’t the browser that matters. It’s only a tool to run the important stuff — the pages, sites and applications that make up the web. Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go.

Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today’s complex web applications much better. By keeping each tab in an isolated “sandbox”, we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. We improved speed and responsiveness across the board. We also built a more powerful JavaScript engine, V8, to power the next generation of web applications that aren’t even possible in today’s browsers.

This is just the beginning — Google Chrome is far from done. We’re releasing this beta for Windows to start the broader discussion and hear from you as quickly as possible. We’re hard at work building versions for Mac and Linux too, and will continue to make it even faster and more robust.

We owe a great debt to many open source projects, and we’re committed to continuing on their path. We’ve used components from Apple’s WebKit and Mozilla’s Firefox, among others — and in that spirit, we are making all of our code open source as well. We hope to collaborate with the entire community to help drive the web forward.

I’m a huge fan of open source and Mozilla Firefox. Don’t know if Google’s new browser will take the place of Firefox – but I’ll be downloading it for sure. I can guarantee it will beat Microsoft’s new IE8.

What do you think?

Zac Browser

This is a cool example of finding a way to make things work – when there’s not (many) other options available.

From USA Today:

John LeSieur is in the software business, so he took particular interest when computers seemed mostly useless to his 6-year-old grandson, Zackary. The boy has autism, and the whirlwind of options presented by PCs so confounded him that he threw the mouse in frustration.

LeSieur tried to find online tools that could guide autistic children around the Web, but he couldn’t find anything satisfactory. So he had one built, named it the Zac Browser For Autistic Children in honor of his grandson, and is making it available to anyone for free.

The browser is geared towards kids with autism but looks like it could be a good way for other kids to learn the web and computers as well.

Download the software here.

Internet Power

In case anyone’s missed it (doubt that’s the case if you’re reading this), there’s a new technology available for learning, fun and communication – I believe they call it the Internet.

Find out more via this 1995 video:

Just 12 years ago and the top weather site mentioned in the video was “The Weatherman.” There’s also not even a single mention of Google in the video – my how things change.

Thanks to CommonCraft for the heads up.