Tech Tips for Catholic Teens

My new favorite application for Facebook is Pieces of Flair.  I noticed a few weeks ago people adding this app to their profiles, but I’m pretty picky about what I add to my profile; that was until I saw my priest’s profile page.  I thought he actually had a collection of pins and that he took a picture of it and posted it to his Facebook profile, that was until I clicked on it.  So this is Pieces of Flair, I suddenly realized.  And then I spent about three hours searching for my own flair before creating some of my own.  Below is a picture of some of my flair : )

So if you happen to be my friend on Facebook and create some cool Catholic flair, be sure to share them them with me! : )

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I just wanted to share this really neat newsletter with anyone who likes to study the Sunday Gospel readings. Each week you receive an e-mailed summary of the Early Church Fathers’ commentary on the Sunday Gospel. I find this newsletter to be quite fascinating in my study of Scripture. God bless.

Subscribe to Fatherseyes and you will be sent an email requesting confirmation, to prevent others from gratuitously subscribing you.  And that is it!

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Now I know that AppleTV Has been out for quite some time now, but I still don’t have one. Here is a look at the AppleTV complements of Fr. Geek’s Video Podcast.

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FeedValidator.org is a great tool to see if your syndicated feed (RSS 0.90, 0.91, 0.92, 0.93, 0.94, 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, and Atom feeds) ia validated.

Simply enter the address of your feed and click Validate. If the validator finds any problems in your feed, it will give you messages for each type of problem and highlight where the problem first occurs in your feed. If you’re unsure what a message means, click the “help” link next to the message for a fuller explanation.

The important thing is that your Feed comes back as Valid.  There will most likely be listed recommendations, but the main thing is that it is valid.  It is up to you if you want to make the suggested improvements to your feed.  Probably a good idea, but not always necessary.

You can find out more information about Feed Validator on the About page of their website.

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As many of you may have heard, Summize.com has been acquired by Twitter.  For those who don’t know what Summize is (was), think Google for Twitter.  It lets you search Twitter for key words or phrases.

In a post titled “Finding a Perfect Match”, on the official Twitter blogsite, they stated the following:

“We’re excited to announce that Twitter has acquired Summize—an extraordinary search tool and an amazing group of engineers. All five Summize engineers will move to San Francisco, CA and take jobs at Twitter, Inc. This is an important step forward in the evolution of Twitter as a service and as a company.”

Below is a before and after shot of the Summize interface.

As you can see, there really isn’t much difference.

Want to search Twitter?

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So I decided to give a new downloadable software a try.  It is called TweetDeck!  What is TweetDeck you ask?  Well, according to their website, “TweetDeck is an Adobe Air desktop application that is currently in public beta. It aims to evolve the existing functionality of Twitter by taking an abundance of information i.e twitter feeds, and breaking it down into more manageable bite sized pieces.”

Here are just some of the features I love about this little program:

• It enables users to split their main feed (All Tweets) into topic or group specific columns allowing a broader overview of tweets.
• Being database driven TweetDeck allows the user to continue twittering even when offline or when Twitter is down.
• Resize TweetDeck as either an unobtrusive column, full screen or anything in between.
• Especially useful running full screen on a separate monitor.
• You can filter tweets from up to 1 hour to the last 7 days using the Timeframe bar.
• Auto updates from the Twitter API.
• TweetDeck is available for Mac OS X, Windows (Vista & Windows XP), and Linux (manual installation).

I asked the TweetDeck Team if there will be skin/theme capabilities or different color options, as well as what other types of things are in the works?  The Developer & Co-Founder of TweetDeck, Iain Dodsworth, answered with the following:

“You’ll be pleased to know that there is a version of TweetDeck coming which will have multiple themes. We are also looking at notifications, support for different languages, integration with TwitPic. Then we will start with integrating other social networks, more about that nearer the time!”

If you are really into Twitter, this might be a program you will want to try for yourself.  Feel free to comment.

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The Faith & Family bi-monthly magazine has just released a new blogsite!

Enjoy a FREE trial issue of the printed edition by clicking here!

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This past weekend, a friend and I went to Borders bookstore to browse around. As I skimmed the magazine isles, a cover of a particular magazine jumped out at me. I had never heard of Atlantic magazine, but Nicholas Carr wrote an interesting article where he asks the question “Is Google Making Us Stoopid?” Not just Google, but the internet in general. Are our minds being reprogrammed, so to speak?

“My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle…And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski…” - (Nicholas Carr, the author of the article).

As he explores the facts and philosophies behind this question, Nicholas brings up some pretty interesting things. I would encourage you to print out this article and really read it (not just skim a couple of paragraphs like your newly reprogrammed mind will want to do ; )

In my own life, I too have seen how my mind is being effected by the new technologies of today. For instance, when I am reading a book, I keep forgetting that I don’t have the Ctrl+F feature built into my brain. Then I get sidetracked for minutes, thinking about how cool it would be to have this power to search the text in a book by just thinking of a key word or phrase. By the time I realize that I have drifted off, I have forgotten where I left off. So I can totally realate to this article, “Is Google Making Us Stoopid?”.

How is the internet effecting your mind, habits, or lifestyle? Post a comment.

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For the past few months, I’ve enjoyed using Twitter.com to stay in touch with friends. A few times a day (ok, more than a few), I take a break from what I’m doing and pop over to Twitter to see what my online buddies are up to. Since I work from home, Twitter has made my workday feel a bit less isolated. But those of you who use Twitter know that, as of late, it’s been down more than it’s been up, with repeated service outages.

So today, I finally took the leap and followed a few of my friends over to Plurk.com to check it out. Since I’m a type A personality, Plurk’s funky timeline approach is a bit chaotic for me. I’ve started posting, but will admit to feeling a bit more at home in the “mobile” view which replicates Twitter’s more linear approach.

The big question for a Personal Productivity blogger is this - does use of either of these social networking applications contribute to or detract from getting things done? I think the answer lies in a person’s self discipline - if you can master your ability to use these types of sites as tools to communicate and occasionally socialize, then sign up and get started using them. If, however, you find yourself distracted by the constant barrage of cross-chat to the extent that you can’t get your work done, you’re better off not venturing anywhere near them. The more “friends” you connect with in these sites, the more information there is to keep up with. Another important thing to note is that these communities flourish and do well as communication tools only if you play your part. Use them to share information that is helpful for your contacts and don’t abuse their intent.

For me, the jury’s still out on which quick update site will win my vote - for now, I’m going to try to update both a few times a day and watch what happens. More importantly, I’m going to see which site - Twitter or Plurk - ultimately adds to my ability to get things done.

Do you have a preference? Chime in - I’d love to hear from you! And if you’re on either site, feel free to follow/friend me:

Twitter / LisaHendey
Lisa on Plurk

This post is courtesy of the Productivity @ Home Blog.

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“The Orthodoxy Centennial”
June 12-14, 2008

A Chapter-by-Chapter Look at Chesterton’s masterpiece, Orthodoxy. Plus Chesterton and Shakespeare, Chesterton and Pascal, Chesterton and Jane Austen!

O’Shaughnessy Education Center
University of St. Thomas
St. Paul, Minnesota

Register online here! or print out this registration form and mail it to them.

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