Archive for 2005-08

Healing Place Church in Baton Rouge, LA has begun a relief effort for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

It is vital that we come to the aid of the people involved in this tragedy. HPC is an awesome church that does awesome things for the work of the Lord. Missy and I are making a donation through HPC to help further what is happening there. Also, The Church At Silver Springs is supporting the relief effort there and is partnering with Healing Place to get aid where it is vitally needed and minister in the wake of this tragedy.

For more information, visit the hurricane relief section on Healing Place’s website.

Also, see Pastor Dino’s Blog for updates.

View live local coverage online via webcast from KHOU in New Orleans.

Volunteers at Healing Place Church sort materials
donated to hurricane victims.

Here’s an awesome site that delivers beautiful panoramic views of The Louvre.

The images take a few seconds to load completely so if it’s a little blurry at first, just give it time to load. There are several galleries that are viewable, though I’m not sure how comprehensive the list is. It’s incredible to be able to view this from here. Disabled or financially challenged people could really benefit from this type of technology. I am sure that in the future of the web, we will be able to tour any historic landmark in the world instantly. Awesome.The 360° panoramic view of The Louvre.

Wikipedia has become a hub for Internet traffic looking for information on Hurricane Katrina.

Near the bottom is a list of television stations with a local view of what’s happening regarding the storm.

Live webcast hurricane coverage on NBC6 in New Orleans.

In the midst of all the media coverage of Hurricane Katrina, a CNN News Anchor lost his cool. This is GREAT.

Clip of Weather Anchor losing it.

Thanks Digg.

I thought I would introduce a new weekly feature for davidblog, a “Highlight of the Week.” So without further adieux, this week’s highlight:

Just got through chatting with Scott Hodge fellow blogger and Lead Pastor of Orchard Valley Community Church in Aurora, IL. Scott is a great guy and runs a great blog that everyone should tap at least once a week.

Check out Scott Hodge.

Forever Geek just released a link to a video preview of Windows Vista.

I’m not sure how sold I am on the looks of it. It’s nice, but not awesome. It is still beta of course, so I wonder if there will be a few tweaks before the release. I do like the consistency in the navigation–as with all Windows releases, it will not be difficult for the typical consumer to move from XP to Vista.

The narrator of the video highlights most of the important changes in this OS, duly noting that Microsoft has taken several cues from other companies and their products including Apple and Mozilla Firefox, evident in both the OS and in IE7.

Windows Vista Video Preview.

The third podcast is in the can. (That means it’s done.)

This week’s podcast (9:46 - 3.7MB)

Show Notes:

0:23
Welcome to #3.

0:35
Vacation.

2:50
John Hope - Guest

3:30
Skype.

4:44
Google Talk.

5:25
Conspiracy Theory.

8:24
Creg Darby.

Josh Sargent over at the LeadershipBlog just posted an interview with Terry Storch. While brief, it offers some good insight on Terry’s life.

Sarge and I also chatted via Google Talk last night along with the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of other folks who climbed aboard the new Google Talk machine. Of course, we didn’t talk with the other people, just each other, because *gasp* no conferencing in the Beta version. Still, good to connect with Sarge after reading his blog for so long.

The Terry Storch Interview.

RELEVANT Magazine released their podcast along with the site redesign. The podcast provides a look-ahead at upcoming issues and samples of music as well as “the stories behind the stories.”

Get more info.

Subscribe via iTunes.

Subscribe via XML (copy/paste).

About 10 p.m. CDT last night, Google posted a link to Google Talk, a new VoIP & IM client.

They have yet to release the link in Google Labs nor have they published a press release as of the writing of this article. They have also replaced the link on their index page with a link touting Desktop 2 that came out Monday. So, as of right now, it’s a little difficult to actually find this information from Google, but I promise it is there. And davidblog brings it to you.

After a 10-second install of the client from Google (900KB), it took me literally 5 seconds to be logged in. On broadband, the entire “first impression” experience took less than 30 seconds, from download to literally chatting with a friend. The buddy list must have been integrated from my Gmail address book as the login uses the same information from a Gmail account to authenticate the service. The interface is unsurprisingly Google-esque, neat and clean with few “extras.” I am chatting with John at the moment and the IM feature seems to function about as I would expect it to. Somewhat between Trillian and Skype, with a little less style.

John and I just tested the VoIP side. It sounds great. It’s faster to me than Skype and the sounds are a little more polished. I do not have a mic here at the office, so we could not converse, but I could hear him very clearly and it sounded very responsive with little lag (as his responses to my text were timely.)

Well, all I can say is get it. Is it a Skype-killer? Too early to tell. But Skype did release some information for developers this morning to get their platform involved more deeply in multi-platform clients and web interfacing (the IM not the VoIP feature.) Reuters article.

Good luck, Google.

http://www.google.com/talk/

Special thanks to Slashdot for publishing a blurb about logging on to the talk.google.com network early using a Jabber interface. I was able to successfully connect about 7:00 p.m. last night using my Gmail information and GAIM, but of course, there wasn’t much more to it until I could get some of my Gmail friends on. This should allow Linux and Mac users who don’t have a client yet to get on board. Look me up, davidarussell on Google Talk. (davidarussell AT gmail DOT com) If you didn’t believe me earlier when I said you needed a Gmail account, shoot me an email and I’ll get you an invite.