Blogging | Nerdlets

Follow Me on Twitter

Sep 252008

OK, I’m taking the plunge. Follow me on Twitter, especially if you want to keep up with this blog (and don’t want to subscribe).

If you haven’t heard of Twitter, it’s a “micro-blogging” (or “life-streaming”) service that allows you to post mini-updates about your current state of being. It has a variety of uses–from simply telling your friends where you’re at, to informing the world that you have a new blog post, to reporting news and current events. This flexibility is the result of its simplicity: posts have to be short and sweet, and the more abbreviations (lol, afk, .02, asaygt, awgthtgtta) the better, and you can post from anywhere (email, internet, cell-phone, etc.), and because it’s all so easy people post enormous amounts of material (which is both an advantage and a disadvantage).

Using twitter is easy. You simply create a (free) account, and then update at will (you can use any one of a number of twitter clients to make this easier, and plugins are available for almost every platform imaginable (from email clients to other social platforms such as Facebook, MySpace, and FriendFeed). Once you are set up and “tweeting” you can start following other Twitter-ers, and they start following you. It’s less headache than blogging, less social than Facebook/MySpace, but it lets you keep others easily and instantly informed about what you’re up to on your blog, at your work, and in your life.

To be honest, I resisted Twitter for awhile, especially because of a slew of problems they have had recently. But those problems have recently been fixed, and so I’m taking the plunge. Time will tell if its useful. In the mean time, I need the followers!.

RefTagger Creates Bible Verse Popups for your Blog

Software 4 Responses »

Sep 132008

If you run a WordPress Blog you may be interested in Logos Bible Software’s RefTagger. It’s a handy little tool that automatically highlights and hyperlinks any biblical references in your blog. So if, for example, I begin to ramble about Heb. 2:9, the plugin will provide my readers with a popup so they know what I am talking about. Clicking on the link takes you to BibleGateway.com.

RefTagger is free, and has a number of wonderful options. You can select your preferred Bible Version (a global setting; you can’t change it on a case-by-case basis). You can also include links to the Libronix libarary, though I don’t have this software so cannot test it. Options are available for installing on other blogging software, but it is more difficult (copy/paste code in the right location).

Give it a run. It makes posting Bible-related content that much easier.

A Pixel Ruler for you Computer Screen

Software No Responses »

Aug 212008

If you have ever designed your own website, or modified you blog’s banner, sidebar, etc., then you may have spent a good amount of trial-and-error time trying to guess how long your image should be. No longer. Pixus, an application that runs on Adobe’s new AIR technology, does that work for you. If you’re a blogger, and have spent time modifying you theme, then this app is worth a try.

ESV Banners

Webapps and Websites No Responses »

Aug 202008

The ESV blog has new banners available for your web site, blog, email signature, or any other medium that allows users to paste HTML code (facebook, myspace, friendfeed, etc.). Get the code here.

Firefox 3.0 Released!

Software 2 Responses »

Jun 172008

The much anticipated release of the excellent web browser Firefox 3.0 is available for download. Curious what all the fuss is about? Wondering if you should switch from Internet Explorer (you should, by the way)? Check out the discussion here and here for the best Firefox analysis. Wondering what’s new? Check out this list or a more in depth visual tour.

Convinced? Help Mozilla (the organization behind Firefox) set a record for most downloads in a day by downloading now! Once you have your very own copy, you can start adding extensions and customizing to your heart’s content.

In honor of this milestone in Web development, I thought I would provide some of my favorite extensions. Check them out!

Zotero of course. I have already posted a brief introduction. If you do any amount of research, Zotero is a must for organizing bibliographical material. It also generates citations in a variety of formats, including Chicago and SBL. If you are having trouble getting start, make sure you check out their online screencast, and I plan on developing my own tutorial for SBL/OpenOffice support in the near future.

Ever wish you could access your most-used internet bookmarks anywhere? Or maybe you want to share them with friends and family? Or post automatically generated links to your favorite posts on a blog (as I have in the sidebar to the right)? Well then del.icio.us is for you. The interface takes a little getting used to, and the website has the kind of interface only a techie could love, but its worth the effort. More to the point, it has a brilliant Firefox Extension.

If you’re a longtime use of Firefox, you probably already have a collection of favorite extensions. Some of them might not yet be updated for Firefox 3. Don’t worry, you can still use them: just download Nightly Tester Tools to override Firefox’s default functionality.

Gmail is wonderful, but it is even more wonderful when you install Better Gmail 2, which adds some customizable functionality to gmail’s site.

If you’re a blogger, you definitely want to check out Scribefire. Like Zotero, it runs inside Firefox, allowing you to browse and blog at the same time; no more switching tabs and juggling windows!