Monthly Archives: June 2008

Go get Firefox 3!

Posted by on June 17, 2008 1 comment

Get FirefoxToday will be a day of infamy fame, err… it’ll be cool.   Ok… maybe not that amazing, but it might be cool.  The Mozilla Foundation has just released the latest version of Firefox. What does version 3 give you?  It’s faster, sleeker, consumes less memory and gives more functionality.

Today is special because they want to set a new Guinness World Record for the most downloads of a software product in a 24 hour period.  It started at 10AM PDT and is still going.

If you aren’t using Firefox instead of Internet Explorer, then shame on you.

Not only is Firefox a better, more secure and faster product, it’s also open-source. Which means several things.  Firstly, it’s free!  Yay! Secondly, it’s free!  You may say that I just said that, but there are two different uses of the word free.  There’s free when speaking of price, but there is also free when speaking of speech.  Internet Explorer is free (price), but not free (speech).  Firefox, although it is developed by Mozilla, can be changed, re-written and distributed by anybody.  In fact, there are a few other projects that liked what Mozilla started with, but didn’t like the direction or a trademark and so they started their own version of Firefox (renaming it).

Although there are offshoots, Firefox reigns supreme in the browser war as the “other browser.”  Internet Explorer has had a foothold for many years, but Firefox is changing that.  And this version brings us that much closer.

So go get it.  Let freedom ring!

Get Firefox

Book Review: Pastwatch by OSC

Posted by on June 15, 2008 No comments

Some books are great because of the characters. Others are great because of the cool adventure or through fun mystery. And still others which amaze the mind through great concepts.

There are few authors who successfully combine all these elements into a single novel as well as Orson Scott Card. He pulls it off again in Pastwatch: The Redemption of Chistopher Columbus.

In a distant future, an organization called Pastwatch has developed technology to examine the past in detail.  Through a device called the TruSite II, they can follow time lines and individuals through their lives to learn about the past (and of course learn from the past).

While watching an incident during the Spanish conquest of Mesoamerica, one of the more passionate and brilliant Pastwatch researches, Tagiri, learns that people from the past can sometimes “see” the watchers as they are watching the past.  This of course prompts the researches to believe that they might be able to change the past.  If they can communicate with the people of the past, they can change history.

In an effort to prevent slavery in America, Tagiri sets out to prevent Christopher Columbus from making his voyage west.  Eventually, it is learned that Columbus’ discovery of American was set in motion by a different historical time line in which a similar Pastwatch organization sent a holographic projection into the past to convince Columbus that God wants him to sail west.  This confirms that they can send objects (and perhaps people) into the past.  After learning that human existence is very much threatened because of all the past conflict, Pastwatch begins an effort to send individuals into the past to try to “fix” history and prevent or alter the events that lead to their catastrophic situation.

In a combination of science fiction and historical drama, Card explores the atrocities brought upon the Native American people and provides an alternate possibility of how things perhaps should have happened.  He shows how simple changes could have completely changed the political and social landscape throughout history. By turning Columbus from a gold-seeking pirate into a true Christian with dreams of world peace and unity, history is changed from being dominated by conflict and war into a peaceful and unifying dream.

An incredible story with intrigue, mystery, great characters, fantastic concepts, love, action (you even get some swashbuckling) and interesting social aspects.

Definitely and A+!

The Refiner's Fire

Posted by on June 11, 2008 No comments

There are tragedies in this world that nobody ever expects will happen to them.  It’s always someone else that experiences tragedy.  Yesterday, tragedy hit far too close to home.  My sister-in-law, Liz, and her husband, Zac, just experienced one of the most difficult tragedies.  They lost their little baby before they even got to experience the joy of holding it.

Rather than explain things myself, I’ll let you read their own accounts of how their unborn child died.  There accounts show the beauty of the Gospel and the peace that the knowledge of the Atonement brings to our lives.  The Lord has a plan for each of us.

It’s so hard to see the good in such a tragedy, but yet these two brave souls are looking for just that.  They know the Gospel and they know that the Lord watches over them.  And for whatever reason, the Lord determined that it wasn’t time for this little one to come into the world.  And they realize that!  Only through faith in Jesus Christ can this kind of peace surface in such a tragedy.  What a powerful testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel this event has brought to those involved.

And of course as a side note (with a little controversy tossed in), my wife and I both (although separately) thought of the greater (although less personal for us) tragedy that is far too accepted in our society.  We see so much pain for this couple, yet there have been between 1 to 1.7 million (yes, that’s million) abortions performed in the United States each year since 1975.

How did we get to this point, where hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of couples each year expirience the pain of loosing an unborn child while 1.7 million abortions are performed in the same time frame.  I just don’t understand.