Category: Web/Tech

Hey, everyone! Tim Jones, here. Jimmy has taken a fever (not really! He’s OK! Do not send Get Well prayers) and invited me to guest blog on his excellent site, which I am only too happy to do, though I are not a righter. I’m actually working at being an artist.

I was raised a Baptist (in Alaska), but during my college years (in Arkansas) I found myself adrift in terms of faith. Apparently my Guardian Angel thought I was in need of some serious help, because I ended up becoming friends with this philosophy major who turns out to be a proto-apologist and theologian and who eventually is a major influence on me and my family coming into the Church. Neat! Jimmy is also, as you know, a fun and interesting guy with a fun and interesting blog, so in the interest of keeping your interest I’ll get to the point of this post…

Art, as you may know, had a hard slog through the twentieth century. It passed, literally, from the sublime to the ridiculous and beyond, becoming downright destructive and offensive. But, there has been a move afoot in the last decade or so (known informally as the "Derriere Garde") to revive the traditional techniques and sensibilities of the Great Masters and bring them once again into the living tradition of the present. In other words, great artwork is making a comeback. More and more artists and critics are becoming emboldened to air controversial ideas, such as to suggest that artists should be able to draw beyond a third grade level. The word "talent" has even popped up on occasion.

One of the bright spots in this new/old art movement is the Art Renewal Center (http://www.artrenewal.org). Though they are located, I believe, in New York, their main presence is on the Web, where they maintain a vast online museum of master artworks. Most of the images are available in a high-res format and can be purchased as prints as well. The ARC website also carries a wealth of educational material and articles of interest to artists. Good Stuff. Their site has definitely been an influence on my current artwork as well as on the small gallery/studio/art school that I operate in Rogers, Arkansas (I’ll post some pictures soon). I am working on my own website, as well as a blog, but I find I am more comfortable with a brush than with a keyboard. Give me time.

Two caveats about the ARC site: First, it is graphics-intense, so if you have a slower internet connection (like dial-up), you might find it equally slow to navigate around the site. Secondly, this site carries all kinds of images of classical (and present day) master paintings including some Nekkid People. Be Warned!!

To everything there is a season: A time to solo-blog and a time to group-blog.

The latter time is now here at JimmyAkin.Org.

In the last year I’ve really worked hard to try to build up the blog and make it an interesting, dynamic place. Of late I have been blogging at least six posts a day (except Saturday), which–since I write them at night–chews up a good bit of my evenings.

I haven’t burned out at that level, but I know that I need to devote time to additional things and that, eventually, I would burn out, at which point I might do what many bloggers do when life and blog begin to clash: go on hiatus. I don’t want to do that, though, nor do I want to cut back on the amount of activity on the blog, so I decided to deal with the matter before I got to the burnout point and ask some guest bloggers to join me.

Thus far, Steve Greydanus of DecentFilms.Com has done some guestblogging, particularly when I’ve been out of town, and he’s more than welcome to stop by and drop in a post any time he wants, but his own writing schedule of film reviews, etc., keeps him too busy to post regularly.

I thus decided to ask a couple of friends if they might be interested in contributing on a regular basis (at least for now), and they said yes! (I may also be adding some more guestbloggers later.)

The first guest blogger I’d like you to get to know is Tim Jones. He’s a long-time friend from Arkansas, who I’ve known since before I was Catholic. In fact, I’ve known him since before I was Christian.

The second is Michelle Arnold, a colleague from Catholic Answers. Michelle is a convert to the faith and an apologist with an uncommonly sharp eye for detail.

I’ll let both of them tell you more about themselves.

I hope y’all will join me in welcoming the two and making them feel at home here on the blog.

I know they got a lot to contribute!

Down yonder a kindly reader points out that there’s a problem with the comboxes: They aren’t remembering who folks are, so they have to re-type their name, e-mail addresses, etc.

This is a problem I’ve been having for a while, but . . . I thought it was just me.

I got a new computer recently and I haven’t downloaded Mozilla or Firefox yet, so I’ve been using Internet Explorer and I thought I’d just had a setting wrong or something.

Then the kindly reader mentioned he’s having the same problem and a buncha folks chimed in.

Sooooo . . . I contacted TypePad and asked what the deal was. They wanted to know what browser I and others are using since their techs have spotted the problem and are working to resolve it for IE. They hope to have it fixed soon.

Is anybody encountering the problem who is not using IE?

JOIN THE FESTIVITIES.

A reader writes:

Jimmy, would you please comment on Podcasting and its implications for the New Evangelization.

I would.

First, some helpful definitions:

• Mobile blogging or moblogging is blogging when you are away from a computer. It is often done by a cell phone, camera phone, or PDA.
• Audioblogging is what it sounds like (literally! ;-P). It is the use of audio files on a blog. People stop by the blog and listen to or download the files. Audioblogging may be regular blogging (sitting in front of a computer) or moblogging. Often the latter is done by someone calling from a cell phone and recording an audio file that is automatically posted on their blog.
• A feed is an internet tool that allows people to be notified when you have put something new on your blog so they don’t have to keep coming back to check. When you put something new on your blog, a notice of some kind (typically part or all of the post) goes into the feed. A reader who has subscribed to the feed then gets notified that there is a new post for him to read. The references you see online to RSS and XML are references to feeds that people may subscribe to.
• The person who subscribes to the feed either uses an aggregator (a service or a piece of software) that aggregates the different feeds he has subscribed to.
• An iPod is a portable listening device used to play audio files.
• Last year somebody got the bright idea of combining these things and slapping a label on them (even though they were already coming together informally). That label was podcasting. Podcasting involves the creation of audio files which are then pushed via feeds to aggregator-like services and programs so they can then be listened to online or downloaded to devices like iPods. Since it’s "broadcasting for iPods," it got called "podcasting," though really you don’t need an iPod to listen t a podcast.

Some savants differentiate podcasting from audioblogging, noting that many podcasters produces more sophisticated audio files that are modelled after radio shows (with music and all). Some radio shows are now getting into the podcasting market as technology is forcing changes on the radio industry. By contrast, audiobloggers often just use their cell phones. Other savants do not divide podcasting and audioblogging by their content, though, and consider any audio files pushed via a feed to be podcasting.

Now, as to new evangelization potential: There are already some religious (and Catholic) podcasts,

LIKE THIS ONE BY A DUTCH PRIEST.

I think that podcasting has new evangelization potential comparable to web sites and similar doo-dads. It will make it easier for people to get religious content than in the prior age (the third age of human communications, to anticipate  post I’ll put up soon). Now that we are in the fourth age, people can get info much more easily than they could before. But there’s a catch.

You have to want the info.

In the old days, the Old Media basically had a captive audience. You got exposed to the info that your local newspaper or radio station or TV station wanted you exposed to. That’s why the MSM is lamenting their loss of control over the distribution of information in our society. They don’t like it that people now have the ability to choose what information they want. The MSM liked its information monopoly. It let it push its agenda on us and manipulate the public.

But in the fourth age, people pick their own info, and so if someone is to be evangelized via a website or a blog or a podcast or an as-yet-undreamed-of-thing-that-will-come-out-next-year, he has to request it.

So I’d say that podcasting adds more bandwidth to the new evangelization (and the new anti-evangelization) in a way comparable to what web sites and blogs did.

For right now, there are also some limitations in getting into podcasting that still need to be worked out. One of the biggest is that the folks running podcasting services are geeks and, as such, they don’t know how to explain things to ordinary people and they don’t know how to sell themselves and their services.

I’ve been thinking about doing some podcasting (to anticipate another soon-to-be post–and no, this is not one of the Secret Projects), but the services I have checked have really poor explanations and don’t do basic salesmanship-type things, like giving you links to sample audioblogs so you can see how the end product would look. Others advertise that they work with TypePad (my bloghost) but then don’t tell you how to use the two together.

This kind of info is crucial for getting new customers. I recently e-mailed one such service to try to get some of this kind of info, but a customer shouldn’t have to ask for that info. It should be present on the service’s web site as part of its sales pitch.

Eventually, though, people who understand marketing will start working for these services and the geek factor will recede into the background, allowing more people to get on the podcasting bandwagon.

The other day I posted a request for folks who send me news stories to blog to please be sure to include a link to the story to make it easier on me to point people to the original source.

I’d like to make another request that I’ve been thinking about for the last couple of days. It also would make it easier for me to respond to questions folks have. Here’s the situation:

1. Sometimes in the comboxes people will raise an issue and say "maybe Jimmy can address this."
2. I see most of the comments that get posted (though a few get away from me), and so I (usually) see these requests and make a mental note to respond, BUT–
3. I usually can’t compose a response at the time. There are only certain hours of the day I have free to actually compose posts (though I have more liberty in reading what people are saying or posting my own comments).
4. Therefore, I end up forgetting either the request itself or where it is located. As a result, despite my best intentions, I end up not responding.

Therefore . . .

If you raise something in the comments box that you’d like me to respond to, could you send me a quick e-mail and do one of two things:

1. Include a link to the comment (which you could get in the Recent Comments sidebar), or
2. Paste the text of the comment into the e-mail so I’ll have the text of the request handy.

Thanks much! This should make it much easier for me to respond to such requests, it being easier for me to keep track of what’s in my (single) inbox than in (numerous) comboxes.

BTW, I wanted to thank all the readers who have been sending links to stories and other items of interest for the blog. I can’t use them all, but I really appreciate them.

I do have one request, though: When sending a story, can y’all be sure to include a link to the original story rather than just the text of the story?

Makes it a lot easier, as I frequently can’t quote the whole story in a blog post and need to link to it (in which case I have to find it on the web if I don’t already have a link to it).

Much obliged, folks, and thanks for your contributions to making the blog a better, more interesting place!

(I’d love to give readers credit by name for stories they send in, but last time I broached the subject of changing Rule #15, folks seemed to like things the way they are. If I actually use an e-mail as a guest blog, though, I’ll contact the author to see if he’d like me to suspent Rule #15 in a single case.)

Guest blog from guestblogger <Rule #15 Suspension>Tim Robles</Rule #15 Suspension>:

A couple of days ago, I heard a news report on the radio (Fox News) about the recent elections in the Ukraine. A youth who demonstrated there said that The United States Policy of "Spreading Democracy" and in general, freedom, was an inspiration to their cause. The youth also noted that the internet played a large part in their ability to spread the word of their cause. He warned "…just wait and see what happens in Russia next").

This new found strength and use of the internet can be also found in Lebanon where the people there have had enough. The use of the internet to spread the word I’ll bet can also be found there as a major tool. In China the faith is spread there….you guessed it through the internet. I personally know of an elderly gentleman of Korean decent who sneaks into North Korea to pastor a church there. He communicates via…..once again … the internet.

It’s typical for many people to pour themselves that morning cup of coffee, and instead of opening up that newspaper (…the only time I open a newspaper now-a-days is to line the bird cage. My bird has a preference for the Los Angles Times Editorial page) we check one of our favorite Blogs or news wires on the internet. News is instantaneous today. If we want to converse with a friend or an acquaintance, whether local or on the other side of the world, we can text message or login to one of our favorite Forums (CA Forums are the best!) We can talk about anything under the sun, from religion to politics. My sending this thought to share with you and others (…possibly) is a good example of one of the freedoms we enjoy, without much thought on a day to day bases.

Enter the Dragon: China now thinks that where should be some controls on that freedom and it wants it controlled by the United Nations. One can imagine the "Internet Control Committee (…ICC for short) comprising of Syria, Iran, Congo, Russia and headed by China.

Your thoughts?

My thoughts?

It’s our Internet. We developed it. We bought it. We paid for it. We’re keeping it.

If others don’t like it, they can go develop their own Internets.

The China angle just shows that the much-vaunted Great Information Wall of China (whatever they call it) is cracking.

GET THE STORY.

This morning we crossed the third of a million hits mark since moving to TypePad ten months ago.

These hits do include people going to the comments boxes, but they are page calls and do not include individual file calls (e.g., images on the page).

At this rate, we’re on track to hit the million mark in about 8 months. (If the blog keeps growing, though, we’ll hit it in less than that.)

THANKS, Y’ALL! THAT’S Y’ALL’S DOING!

(NOTE: The "Today" field really isn’t today. It’s everything-since-yesterday-midnight.)

Down yonder, a commenter writes:

Congrats, buddy [on your fixed blogiversary]! You have been an inspiration to me for a long time, and now I have been inspired to start my own blog concerning Christianity and the arts (esp. Catholicism and Visual arts).

Any advice?

Yes, three pieces:

1. READ THIS SERIES OF ARTICLES (Cowboy hat tip: Southern Appeal)
2. Get a real blog that has permalinks and automated archives, not one you design yourself. (Hear me, In Light Of The Law?)
3. Be sure to blogroll me and link to me a lot. Thanks much!