Swap Blog

Our blog is still experiancing database problems when accessing older / past posts and posts off of the first page. The data seems to be in the database, but it is not accesible. To me that seems to infer a table issue. Due to our hosting plan though we are not able to personally maintain or work on the database, so we are patiently waiting for “engineering” to resolve our issue.

Two local Knoxville hospital “systems” are merging. Both hospitals will keep their names, but their management company will change names. My only hope is that Baptist will hire enough people (from custodians to nurses) to actually make their river side location function correctly. The last few times I have been in the hospital I have been shocked by how understaffed and how unmaintained the hospital has been. Since my father prefers Baptist to other hospitals I am personally interested in seeing it improve. I hope St Mary’s - with their capital infusing and better management - can get Baptist back up to where it should be.

Following Database problems on Tuesday, our blog counter seems to be malfunctioning now. Not sure why…we will be checking into it.

Like it or not Google’s Android platform will be a player in the mobile phone market, if for no more reason then they are giving away the development software and offering money for the best apps (story here). Any long term reader of this blog knows that I am not a iPhoney fan. The thing just does not have the chops to be a full feature smart phone. It is a great device, and it is lots of fun, but it is closed and it does not have some basic smart phone features. I am on a Windows Mobile HTC / AT&T branded smart phone and like it. I It plays music i.e. MP3’s not Itunes,it takes / stores pictures, it syncs with Outlook, it sends texts, and oh yeah it takes calls. Oh yeah it cost less then half of a iPhone too.

Bottom line though, be it iPhone, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, etc they are all relatively (I did say RELATIVELY) closed developed platforms which are only made worse by carrier locked phones. A open platform phone that can go carrier and which allows average programmers to develop apps with little to know investment is going to impact the mobile phone market. Competition is good for the consumer. It is good for the carrier, developer, and manufacturer as well as it pushes them to improve and innovate.

At the end of the day Apple will always make great tech toys (be it the iPhone, the iPod, or the iMac), but the real work of the world is being done on Linux and Windows based boxes. Microsoft is never going to be a open and friendly company to competition. Doubt that look at Microsoft and their decade long argument that Windows Media Player and Internet Explorere where vital to OS, until the EU ruled that they had to go or Microsoft would have to pay huge daily fine. Then suddenly Microsoft figuired out how their OS could run without WMC or IE. Moving on, IBM, Google and Sun do help competitors in their core markets either, but at least these three allow people to work around their products by using their products to make better tools for the masses. Think how bad the Internet would be if Microsoft designed it, and think how few people would be using it for anything other then music downloads if Apple controlled it. Bottom line, I will always be for more competition and for open development of future products.

Well IBM is still working on improving / rolling out it’s Symphony suite (story here) before it completely releases it. Symphony is a FREE office suite (based on OpenOffice). It is based on the open document standard, but can read and write word compatible files. Personally I have mine set up to auto save in .doc, .xls, and .ppt where I do not have to remember to do SAVE AS vs SAVE. The option to do that is in the tools menu.

Anyway, I know Open Office / Symphony is a great solution for non profits, small business and home users. I personally have deployed it in all of those environments and Open Office / Symphony all run nicely. At first the different menus may take a few minutes for some hardened Office users, but after a few minutes every user seems be able to handle it fairly well.

Yesterday morning I woke up thinking about how we all NEED God. The simply fact is that every person, regardless of race, color, sex, creed, etc, NEED God. After pondering that a few seconds, I determined the real question is if we WANT God.

To WANT God we must seek Him and His way. If we WANT God we work to serve Him, not because it earns us salvation, but because we want others to have the same peace, joy and future we HAVE!! If we WANT God we want His goals, His will, His ways, His wisdom, His guidance and His eyes.

So today when someone tells you, or you think, that you or someone one else NEEDS God know that it is true. The real question though is if you / we / they WANT God and all that means to serve and be with Him. The unfortunate answer is that many today do not WANT God as they want their will, their way, their terms, and their goals more then they WANT the will, way, terms and goals of God for them.

Just something to think about as you go through the day.

This came in via email and I thought it was worth sharing. Hope it brings a smile to your face.

Backfield-in-Motion - Making a trip to the back (restroom or water fountain) during the service.
Benchwarmer - Those who do not sing, pray, work, or apparently do anything but sit.
Blitz - The rush for the restaurants following the closing prayer.
Draw Play - What many children do with the bulletin during worship.
End Run - Getting out of church quick, without speaking to any guest or fellow member.
Flex Defense - The ability to allow absolutely nothing said during the sermon to affect your life.
Halfback Option - The decision of 50% of the congregation not to return for the evening service.
Halftime - The period between Sunday School and worship when many choose to leave.
Instant Replay - The preacher loses his notes and falls back on last week’s illustrations.
Quarterback Sneak - Church members quietly leaving during the invitation.
Staying in the Pocket - What happens to a lot of money that should be given to the Lord’s work.
Sudden Death - What happens to the attention span of the congregation if the preacher goes “overtime.”
Trap - You are called on to pray and are asleep.
Two-minute Warning - The point at which you realize the sermon is almost over and begin to gather up your children and belongings.

Well this is a must win game for Phil Fulmer. Lose this and he has less then a 50% chance of staying I think. Lose this one and another (i.e. Kentucky) and he is gone.

Anyway, today UT has to come out fast, score first and look like they did against Georgia. If they do not expect a LONG day from Darian MacFadden (DMC what does it mean? D is for dirty, MC is for mostly clean…sorry had a RETRO 80’s moment there). Anyway, I think this is a game that UT has to dominate quickly or it will get out of hand and it will be ugly.

If UT scores first this is a tight game and UT wins by 3 to 7. If UT comes out flat and Arkansas gets moving UT loses by 18 or more. This game really could go either way.

Sorry for the recent inactivity here. Been busy with some other projects again - some at work, some at home, some on the web, etc. Anyway, hope to be back to regular blogging soon. Thanks for your patience.