Life & Hope, Faith & Reality
Normal service has kind of been resumed.
Last week was week 1 of ACC’s Funhouse and I thought I may show you a treat. Here’s one of the intro videos that we made.
Also, for those of you who wonder what exactly is involved in a Sunday morning setup at ACC then check out the video below which was shot by Thai Blogger, ACC member and all round good guy Adrian Oliver.
Amongst very little fanfare Dell launched its latest Mac rival (And, no this isn’t going to be a post that laughs at Windows users.) the Dell Hybrid Studio. Now, fair play for them to launch it they’ve obviously found that quite a few people use there Mac Mini’s as a media centre and they probably want a slice of that too.
Except, I can’t quite figure out why you’d buy one. I priced one up, to rival my Mini (all bar the Hard Disk) and it came out to an incredible £573! Before people start to shout at me, I’ve done it properly; No keyboard, mouse, or hard disk just like the Mini. For, fairness I priced up a Mac Mini with exactly the same specification and it came up as £530. Where does the extra £43 go?
They do look, asthetically, pleasing. So, if you’d like to find out more please click here
I’ve had my iPhone 3G up and running for just over a week. And, while it isn’t acting as my main phone yet it giving me a chance to play with all the new features!
A lot has already been written on a lot of websites about it. So, I don’t need to cover any ground there.
So, I’ve been hugely impressed by some of the features, sadly o2’s 3G network isn’t amongst them.
Maps + GPS has been a revelation! It made finding an address on foot in London an absolute breeze! Though I’m seriously hoping that they’ll add Turn-by-Turn in the near future!
3rd Party Applications are a big bonus. As I only have an 8Gb I’m not going OTT on anything! Having said that I’ve got a few favourites Facebook, WordPress, YouVersion’s Bible and Super Monkey Ball.
My final iPhone bonus is MobileMe - Yes, it costs extra and yes, it took it’s time to get up and running. And yes, it isn’t fully “push” like advertised but there’s just something great about modifying a contact or adding a calendar event and instantly seeing it on your Mac/iPhone/Web Browser!
It may be a couple of weeks before normal service is resumed so I thought I’d post something to keep you entertained.
I really think that James Blunt should be praised for managing to get the word hypotenuse into a song.
So, it’s nearly the middle of July and it’s been a bit quiet on the blog. And you know what I’ve kind of enjoyed this mini-blog break. It doesn’t mean nothings being going on, on the contrary - plenty has just I don’t want to reveal it until I’ve had a few more discussions and done just a little more writing.
Just as quick side note - I’m still waiting for my iPhone to activate and it seems I’m not the only one. An article found online says that people have been told they face waiting until Thursday before there phones are activated. It could be me but that’s quite a bit longer than the 2 or 3 days claimed by o2! Oh well…as the Guinness adverts have said for years: Good things come to those who wait.
I have restrained myself from posting this for long enough.
I have an iPhone 3G, but it doesn’t work…yet. I had originally placed my order with o2 online but found out on Thursday night that an iPhone wouldn’t be arriving on my doorstep on Friday and I could cancel the order and join the crowds on Friday morning. Which is exactly what I did.
So, it’s at this point I have to admit that at 06:00 on Friday 11 July 2008 I got up made myself a cup of coffee and then made my way to Worthing’s o2 store. Where I arrived at 06:30 I joined the 16 people infront of me. It wasn’t long before I was joined by 18 and 19 and at about 07:00 number 20+ joined the queue. We all did the British queuing thing.
There was plenty of geeky chat, plenty of discussion about how a coffee stall would be most welcome and plenty of wondering whether everyone would get an iPhone (and if so, what size and colour but more on that later)
At about 07:30 things started coming to life, First one member of staff said that there would be enough 8Gb iPhones for all, but there were only eight 16Gb iPhones (with none in White). Then o2 staff started walking down the line handing out precious numbers and checking people knew which tariff they wanted. Number 17 - relief I would be getting one; it would just be a matter of time.
08:00 - From outside in to the store and then…stop. Outside we’d been told there’d be two express tills and we would be called by number. Numbers 1 and 2 got through quickly followed by a disaster, just like the online experience, the entire o2 retail system buckled under the pressure of so may new contracts, and upgrades, being set up.
08:30 - No one is going anywhere while the staff decide what’s going to happen. Except that is for those who’ve been waiting two hours and have to move their cars before they end up with a parking ticket. I’m one of those so cheekily fly into Carphone Warehouse to see if the situation is any better. It isn’t they’ve sold out of phones and are waiting for the last two credit checks to go through. Oh well, time to move the car. At least I can go straight back into o2.
08:40 - Car moved it’s time to wait again. Things really are completely stuffed, the system is down and isn’t coming back up any time soon. So after a frantic call to the area manager things started to move forward. Everything was going to be done manually and put through later.
09:20 - My processing finally begins. ID is taken and froms are filled in. By the time it gets to me all the 16Gb iPhone are gone - oh well I can cope with an 8Gb one.
09:30 - I’m now in another queue this time at the checkout ready to go through and pick my iPhone up. Activation will have to wait - And I’m warned it could take up to 24 hours. Great!
09:45 - Heading to the car park. I have my iPhone but I’m going to have to wait
10:00 - Am home. It’s going to be a long 24 hours!
I’ve been trying out a new website called Animoto, which aims to create 30 second video’s. I’m still playing around with it but I’ve embedded one of the videos in here:
Yes, yes. I must be the slowest person in history to have discovered Apple’s Spaces in Leopard but, I never saw a need for it. That was until now. Following some hefty, and occaisionally geeky, conversations with a good friends of mine, Chris, who is, by trade, a freelance web developer I’ve been shown the error of my way.
So, with an hour, or two, to spare I set about playing with Spaces (and VMWare’s Fusion, as an alternative to Boot Camp). Why? Well, it just seems nice to be able to use Microsoft Access alongside iTunes or Dreamweaver. And it works, though VMWare took quite a while to sort itself out!
The other stuff? Well that’s totally geeky and no one wants to read that, all I’ll say is that my iPhone is now beautifully customised and it wasn’t THAT scarey.
Having confessed this comical but true story to Jon earlier today I’m going to open myself to more ridicule. At work we have a temporary new member of, voluntary, staff to help out with some of the Childrens & after schools clubs as well as the Church’s playscheme.
Sadly, Jon couldn’t make her induction so it was left to, primarily, my boss, Steve, but I’d been asked to help make her feel at home. It, however was a normal work day so I set about about doing the day to day tasks that I have to do. And that’s when it happened, I had a mental block over a word and foolishly said:
I’m having a blonde moment, how do you spell examining?
Now unfortunately, for me, the new member of staff is naturally very blonde and doesn’t speak English as her first language. I went very red. D’Oh! This was added too by Steve suggesting that I might like to explain what I’d said. More redness, and gneral embarassment as I realised I couldn’t leaving him to explain.
I have learnt a lesson. I looked it up on Wiktionary.
blonde moment (plural blonde moments)
A momentary lapse in concentration, resulting in an embarrassing situation.
So, you could say that my blonde moment resulted in a blonde moment. Still, I won’t forget the spelling of examining for a while.
A couple of weeks ago I co-wrote some teaching notes for Arun Community Church’s Ignite and Fuel. I think now is the right time to post them.
Aim:
To learn about Christians who are persecuted for their faith and understand how God encourages and inspires us in difficult situations.
Activity: Survivor!
Give everyone a pen and paper, then ask them to write down (or draw) their three most important possessions. Once everyone has decided, explain that there has been an huge earthquake and their houses have been destroyed. They have a few minutes to grab ONE of their items to carry with them. Which one would they take and why?
When everyone has shared, tell the group about the underground churches in places like China and North Korea. In these places, God’s word is their most treasured possession with people risking their lives to smuggle Bibles and share the good news with others.
How does this make them feel? Did anyone think of taking their Bible with them?
Background:
Following Peter and John’s healing of the crippled man at the Temple (Acts 3:1-10) they were arrested for preaching about the good news of Jesus. The Jewish leaders believed that the disciples were committing blasphemy (speaking untrue things about God) and they were thrown in prison overnight. Even though the believers were scared of what might happen to them, their numbers grew from 3,000 to around 5,000 men (Acts 4:4)!
Reading: Acts 4
Your group should have read the chapter in advance. Take a few minutes to recap on its content for those who haven’t.
Illustration: Brother Yun
Take a few minutes to look at the life of Brother Yun (author of The Heavenly Man) whose story represents an example of the persecuted Christians in China
Seen as a rebel among some Chinese for not joining the ‘official’ government-controlled Christian organization, Brother Yun was imprisoned and tortured by the government authorities. He was finally arrested and sentenced to many years in prison. However, Yun continued his ministry while in prison, with miraculous results. As a result, many prisoners and even some prison officials became born-again.
Apparently, while he gained increasing favor from some officials, he also became a target of increased persecutions by others. He was repeatedly beaten and became severely malnourished. After many years, he escaped from Zhengzhou Maximum Security prison. He described how he heard the voice of the Hoy Spirit, telling him to simply walk out the heavily guarded prison gate. Risking being shot to death on the spot, he wrote later that he obeyed the voice, and walked straight through several prison doors that were somehow left open in front of many prison guards, across the prison yard and finally out of the main gate. Yun stated that it was as if he had become invisible to the guards who stared straight through him. Although many expressed doubts that such a thing could happen, some prison guards had apparently lost their jobs for this ‘embarrassing mishap.’ It is reported that the official investigation by the Chinese Government concluded that “Yun received no human help in his escape.” It is claimed that these reports have been also confirmed by numerous prisoners who occupied the same prison cell as Yun. Apparently, he remains the only person to have escaped from this notorious maximum security prison!
Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Yun
You can watch a 10 minute testimony by Brother Yun on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDpDRTvRYZ0
Discussion:
Prayer:
Challenge:
This week, you should try to overcome your own fears and share the good news of Jesus with some friends! Ask God to give you boldness even when people are rude to you because of your faith. Remember, if people laugh at you because of Jesus, you are in great company!
Further Reading: Genesis 39:20-23
Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined. But while Joseph was there in the prison, the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph’s care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.
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