Top 10 posts of 2010

As another year comes to an end, I must say, I’ve really enjoyed another year of blogging here and elsewhere.

Here’s a look back at the top 10 posts on my blog…

Ustream videos not working? Fixed! – Apparently I wasn’t the only one having this problem. Several sites linking to this post for their users hasn’t hurt it’s popularity either.

How I’m running a G1 on AT&T with Android 2.2 – One of the great advantages to the Android OS is it’s ability to be customized – just like upgrading the first Google phone to the (at the time) latest and greatest OS.

Texas foster care statistics for 2009 – Glad to see this one in the top 3. Hopefully it inspires action.

Caedmon’s Call Raising up the Dead – Initial Thoughts – A review of Caedmon’s Call latest release.

13 great starter apps for Android – Another tech post for fans of the Android OS.

Review: The Sovn Oxygen Pillow – This was a fun process of doing a review of something I knew very little about but was anxious to find out about.

11 Kingdom Bloggers to watch in 2010 – A list of recommended bloggers for 2011. Still stand by the list – a great group of bloggers.

Ways to give aid for Haitian relief – There’s still a need and still ways to help.

1 Timothy 5:8 – How do you read it? – Some thoughts on Mark Driscoll’s hard stance on men and women and working outside the home.

Jesus is a liberal Democrat and Stephen Colbert is a genius – Stephen Colbert at his best — reminding us that “either we’ve got to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition — and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.”

Looks like tech related posts continue to be my most read but I’m glad to see issues like foster care and helping others in Haiti take a prime spot in the top 10 as well.

Perhaps a tech blog should be in the future? Probably not – but still looking forward to seeing what 2011 will bring.

So what was your favorite blog post this year? On my blog or elsewhere?

Welcome to February

February 2010 wall calendar ~ happy valentine's day ~

Welcome to February!

Well, not quite I suppose — depending on when you read this.

But a few things to look forward to this month:

  • It’s Black History Month & the DCCCD African American Read-In
  • My sister Kara turns 25
  • Valentines Day
  • I turn 31
  • We’re scheduled to close on our new house in Forney at the end of the month…. YIKES! We still need a solid contract on our house!!!!

And a few things to look back on — aka the top posts from January 2010.

Honorable mention:
Top songs of 2009 – This was actually one of the top 5 viewed posts for the month, but it didn’t make the official list since I wrote it on Dec. 29, 2009 — it’s sooo last year 🙂

Did you miss any of those? Were there other favorites that didn’t make the list?

What would you like to see more of?

Here’s to more great conversations in 2010!

web 2.0 rant

[rant]

So I love this idea of ambient intimacy. I love that I can get to know the folks in my community better and better through things like twitter, and facebook status updates and even their blogs.

I love that I can learn so much about people in short 140-character thoughts and quotes and comments throughout the day.

But I’m also getting annoyed that twitter is starting to become a “link dump” and/or a “read my new blog post!” @tonyjones twittered about this last week and I originally thought, well that’s a bit unkind – then I realized how many text messages (aka noise) I get throughout the day that are nothing more than “read my new blog post!”

I hate it because while I don’t mind seeing these things in facebook’s news feed or on my twitter friend feed I also see them in my RSS reader. So having an announcement about them show up on my cellphone as text messages really bugs me.

I know, I know – everyone just wants to plug their stuff — and honestly I’ve plugged a blog post here or there too. But I guess what gets me about the whole scenario is that for those folks I chose to go the extra mile in getting to know and actually opt-in to get their tweets sent to my cellphone (rather than just following them via the web). I don’t need a reminder to check your blog. And the fact that you automatically send me announcements every time you update your blog (rather than just highlighting the really good stuff) — or send a mass of tweets 3 or 4 times a day that share all your blog posts from the last several hours — makes me that less interested in following you or subscribing to your twitter feed. All the automatic posts just add to the noise and turn me off.

Am I making any sense? Maybe not — but I guess that’s why it’s a rant.

In full disclosure, the encounter blog and website are setup to automatically post a tweet anytime and every time a new blog post is updated and/or we post a new announcement or podcast to the website. So you can probably rant and rave about that and argue that I’m being biased (maybe this is where my rant/argument falls apart). However, I would argue in response that both the blog and the website are updated on a fairly limited basis and I’m/you’re not following the encounter twitter feed because you want to get to know someone better – it’s setup as a “news/announcement/prayer feed” for folks interested in encounter.

So there you have it. What say you?

[/rant]

I better post a link to this via twitter to be sure everyone knows about it and responds. 🙂

[rant continued]

update :: I also hate reading RSS feeds that don’t show the entire blog post. I don’t want to have to click “read more” or “this post continues elsewhere.” Just put the entire blog post in your RSS feed — PLEASE! I’m dumping a lot of RSS feeds right now that make me click on another link to read — it makes the entire point of RSS rather pointless.

[/rant]