Category: Web/Tech

I have a very open friending policy over on Facebook. I accept friend requests from almost everyone. The only exceptions are those who seem to be up to no good (e.g., anti-Catholics who want to friend me so they can access my list of friends and spew anti-Catholic stuff; or that Middle Eastern guy with the suicide-bomber-looking stuff on his profile).

But some of the most unusual friend requests I've had are from antipopes. So far I've received friend requests from not one but *two* antipopes.

While I'm not opposed in principle to dialogging with antipopes, FB doesn't really strike me as the place for that, so I turned those down. It seemed like an effort to get in front of my friends to advocate their antipapacies or something.

BTW, I still have about 2800 friend slots of a maximum of 5000 available (so that's 46% of them left).

When I first mentioned that there would be a redesign of the blog coming, one reader mentioned that he hoped there would be an updating of the permaposts.

There has been.

I've now included a section in the new nav bar across the top for permaposts. This allows me to re-order the permaposts and put them in different categories (previously the software required that there be only one category), it allows me to update them much more easily than before, and it allows me to include a larger number of them without clogging the left margin.

So I thought I'd ask you–the readers–what you think ought to be a permapost. Is there a post from the past that you find yourself searching for whenever a particular question comes up–either here on the blog or elsewhere? Is there something you thought was especially informative/interesting/entertaining/funny that you'd like to receive special attention rather than just sitting there in the archives?

I'm open to suggestions! I may not take every single one, but I'd like to make the blog more user-friendly by letting the users weigh in on what they think ought to go in the specially-called-out, easier-to-find category of permaposts.

Nominations are now open.

Make your nomination in the combox or email me at jimmyakinblog@gmail.com. 

Oh, and please include a link to your nominated post(s)!

. . . the changes that I mentioned a week or so ago have now been implemented.

I had TypePad add a bunch of new features and do some redesigning, while still keeping much of the look and feel of the original design.

I still have some additional tweaking to do, which I should have accomplished in the next couple of days.

Hope folks like and take advantage of the new features.

Lemme know what you think!

Just wanted to say that I'm sorry I haven't posted for a few days. It's been a busy time for me, and one of the things I've been busy with is a significant update for the blog (which may or may not be visible at the time you read this). I've been working with the folks at TypePad to increase the blog's functionality and to solve some issues that have been long-standing annoyances.

Once the new version of the blog rolls out there will still be some fine tuning I need to do, but I wanted to let y'all know what I've been up to and what the plan is.

Hope you find the new functionality useful!

I want to apologize to everybody for going silent on the blog for so long. If you've been keeping up with me on Facebook (you can do that, if you want) you know that of late I have been working virtually non-stop on the revision of my book Mass Confusion.

The new title will be Mass Revision. It focuses on the new translation of the Mass that is about to come out, updates for the last 12 years of liturgical law, and has a bunch of new features the old version lacked.

But it was very labor intensive to produce, and I had only two months to do it in, so I was working from as early as 6 a.m. to as late as 9:30 p.m–including on Saturdays and Sundays (the latter of which I'm really hesitant to do), having to cancel dance events and getting other callers to sub for me, etc.

As a result, I got behind on blogging (both here and at the National Catholic Register) and e-mail. I meant to get a note up here about what was going on, but didn't.

So I want to apologize. Will endeavor to keep it from happening again.

Fortunately, I shouldn't hit another "crunch time" of that severity for a number of months–at least! (Future projects are likely to be on a less time-compressed schedule.)

So I now have two books in the production pipeline (meaning: out of my hands and at the publishers'): The Fathers Know Best: Your Essential Guide to Early Church Teachings and Mass Revision: Your Essential Guide to the Changes in the Liturgy. Both should be out in a matter of months. Will keep you posted.

In the mean time, the blog is now open for business. What do y'all want to talk about?

I just thought I'd do a little lunchblogging to let folks know what's going on with the blog right now.

I am writing on deadline to finish a major book project, and it's spilling over my work time and into my free time, so for the next couple of weeks blogging is likely to be lighter than it has been of late.

I'll still put up some things when I can get a few free minutes, but the more sustained, longer posts will likely have to wait until the book manuscript is done.

A particularly frustrating thing is that this weekend I typed out my review of the series finale of Galactica, and just as I was proofing it and about to put it up, it vanished entirely–and irretrievably–leaving me with only a small portion of the beginning of it.

The good news, though, is that I just have to re-type it when I can get the time. I've already processed my thinking on the subject, and the re-written version is likely to be better than the original draft, anyway.

So . . . that's coming.

Well, Lent is now over and my blog-every-day-but-Sunday Lenten resolution has now expired.

I think I more or less made it, with the possible exception of one or two posts (I haven't done an exact count). 

So what now? Do I plan on stopping to blog, or to blog only on rare occasions?

Not in the slightest!

For a start, I haven't finished my Theological Connections series (that got delayed, in significant measure, due to the time sink that the current priestly sex scandal has created–wow has that required a lot of research!).

But even beyond that, I want to keep blogging at an increased rate, and so the current plan is to blog every weekday, or at least the great majority of weekdays. 

I may miss days here and there, but then there also can be days with multiple posts (like today, which has two).

I've been getting requests via e-mail for more sci-fi blogging (as well as fiction blogging in general), so I'm going to be doing some of that (as well as finishing Theological Connections, considering various moral and canonical problems, and doing lead-ins to my Register posts, which I hope to make value-added when I can).

In particular, I plan to do my long-promised review of the finale of Battlestar Galactica (the final three hours of which I have just re-watched to refresh my memory), as well as telling you about the sci-fi series I am currently watching.

Enjoy!

TypePad is having problems with the comments on some blogs, including this one.

I've communicated with them about it, and they say they are working on it and should have it fixed soon.

My apologies to those who have been trying to comment but who have been unable to do so.

I'll let y'all know once it's fixed.

In the meantime, I'm going to put up a couple of posts for your reading enjoyment.

I wonder what y'all'll say once the comments are fixed . . . 😉