Check out Ed Stetzer's Twitter feed as he documents some of the wares on display at this year's International Christian Retail Show (formerly known as Christian Booksellers Association convention).
My wife is there but coming home today. Maybe she'll bring me some of those cool "Christian" sunglasses.
DC is getting shelacked by Marvel in the movie department. Granted, Superman and Batman are big deals, but where are the rest? There's a whole Justice League chock full of hero goodness ripe for the plucking. Marvel has been digging through the comic basement for lesser known heroes to do movies about. I think it's time that DC gave it a shot. Come on guys. How about this one? (Hint: you MUST watch to the end. I promise, it's worth your time.)
We interrupt our normal blogging for a crass commercial.
There's a new version of Bloo available, Bloo version 1.10. If you're one of the three people on earth who hasn't already got themselves a blog (or gotten and abandoned a blog, or two, or six), and you want to have one that is hands-on, meaning you upload the code, create a database, configure it, etc. Bloo might be for you. Thinklings is powered by Bloo, for instance.
Plus, I work on the development "team" for Bloo, along with my fellow geeks me, myself, and I, and I'll be your best friend if you start using it. 1
You can download it by following the instructs here. It's free, of course.
And there are some new themes available for Bloo too, with more coming . . . You can see all themes on the Bloo Themes site.
1 That was meant to be funny, not desperate-sounding. 2
2 OK, I lied. That was meant to sound desperate, not that I am 3
3 OK, I lied. I am.
The latest release of Bloo is now available. This is the first full production release of Bloo and I'm so excited I'm snorting. This is huge news!
[Bill yells over his shoulder] "This is really huge news, right honey!?"
[Bill's wife replies from the next room] "What's really huge news?"
[Bill hollers back] "You know, silly, the first full production release of Bloo!"
[Bill's wife, quizzical] "The first full what of what?"
Oh well, I think it's pretty cool. :-)
Actually, Thinklings has been one of my test sites, so as features were developed they were deployed here; in other words, nothing huge is changing around here since we're already on 1.00. But if you're a Bloo user on a previous version, there's lots in this release that's an improvement over what you have, so you might want to download the latest version and do an upgrade. Once uploaded to your site, the upgrade takes just seconds.
And if you're not currently a user of Bloo, what's wrong with you? It's free, and getting better all the time. Be counter-cultural, people, and use Bloo. All the cool people are! (Plus, I'll be your best friend).
For a full list of new features and fixes, you can check out the Bloo Development Blog.
Below is a summary of some of what's new:
- Commenters can edit their latest comment for a period of around five minutes, even if they aren't logged on.
- Static pages are here! The bios and history in the left navbar are static pages.
- Bloggers can create Private posts, viewable only by other posters and administrators logged into the blog.
- If you're have a userid and password on the blog and you lose your password, the blog gives you a way to get a new one, quick and easy.
- We have a Contact extension SnapOn now, which allows you to contact the Thinklings via email (even though you won't be able to see our emails). It's in the left navbar.
- You may not have noticed, but the main page now has navigation links at the bottom to page backward and forward in the posts.
- Created the Favorite Posts extension SnapOn, which you can see in the left navbar.
- Fixed our RSS feed problems.
- Added a Comments RSS feed (both feeds are in the left navbar).
- Bloo now has a new logo (up at the top of this post)!
- Now we can send trackbacks as well as receive them (does anyone do trackbacks anymore?)
- Plus lots of other bug fixes and enhancements.
There's already lots of thought going into version 1.10, coming soon (hopefully).
Sorry for the commercial. You may now return to your regularly scheduled blog.
Tim LaHaye is on Benny Hinn's show talking about what gridlock will be like in Los Angeles after the rapture.
LaHaye's giving instructions on what to do if you find yourself left behind. "You may be guillotined," he says to prospective tribulaters.
"That's the best advice I've heard," Hinn responds after LaHaye's spiel.
I don't watch much TV, but when I do, I always wish I had cable. :-)
A while ago I solicited a bunch of ideas for a Bloo logo, and I came up with this one:
It's really a poorly done logo. I like the concept, but not the execution.
Does anyone out there want to try to do this one better? It doesn't have to be exactly like this, but I like the puzzle concept, the color family (blue, for obvious reasons), etc. But I'm sure someone could maybe take this one or two steps closer to something that looks halfway decent. Or you might have a completely different idea that is totally cool. I'm open! I'm getting near the first full production release of this software (this blog is running under the release candidate 2 version) and want to upgrade the logo.
If any of you are interested in taking a shot at this, send me your ideas to Bill AT NotMyEmail.com, but replace NotMyEmail.com with outofthebloo.com (kapiche?). If I use your concept/logo, you'll get full credit for it.
Thanks!
Bloo version 1.00 release candidate 2 is now officially available. As you may (or probably may not) have noticed, Thinklings was upgraded to this release recently.
You can read the full release notes here. But the stuff Thinklings readers and posters would care about is below:
