Recently in Computing Category

In an idle lunch-break moment having eating some loaves and fishes (very biblical don't you think, even if it was, in truth, a tin of Mackrel and a couple of bread roles) I decided to investigate bing.

I'd read somewhere that bing was a new type of search engine but couldn't remember exactly what was superiorly-non-google about it. I typed a series of test topics and questions into Google and into bing and was hard pushed to spot a difference. I therefore asked both of them "What is bing?"
Interestingly, Google provided the answer while bing pointed me in the first instance to a great article on 'Chandler Bing' of Friends!

Back in the day I used to use "Alta Vista" but starting Googling not long after it's launch, I'm wondering when I should start binging? advice please

There's been quite a bit of discussion on the blog here about Social networking sites and how/if to use them best for youth work and ministry. The overview so far is that they are a great tool AND an obvious point of connection BUT there are some very real boundary issues to consider.

Youth work and Web 2.0 Meister Tim Davies has written a useful paper which I'm reading at the moment.

Here's the link if you would like to have a read too.

Captain's log supplemental: Some helpful reflections from Mark Tiddy

I've just discovered there has been an enormous problem with the comments on the blog.

There is a kind of electronic Gerbil that runs around the site sniffing out Spam and eating it before it appears on Youthblog. The Gerbil is normally quite compliant and happily ingests anything to do with Viagra, Russian brides or Time Share holidays. For reasons that escape me, its appetite has grown enormously and for the last week or more it has been eating EVERYTHING. If you've commented, then frustratingly, the Gerbil has gobbled it up.

I've managed to get it to regurgitate the last four days worth (and they are now on the blog) but anything before that is now just electronic Gerbil poop and unrecoverable.

I'm especially concerned that comments to the Where are they now post may have been lost. If you commented PLEASE could you re-scribble the gist of your thoughts.

Enormous apologies if yours is one of the comments that has not appeared, and please be assured that I have done some re-training of the Gerbil in order that your comments are food for thought and not fodder for the rodent.

(Fortunately the Hamster in charge of system power management is still performing well)

I mentioned the CofE had put together an application for sending Christmas Cards to Facebook friends, well here it is. For a rundown or commentry, see Cartoon Dave or the Press Release.

For any Youthblogerites who are students or are pursuing part time studies, then have I got an offer for you! The FULL version of MS Office (yep everything including publisher) for £38.95! You will have to have an e-mail address ending in ac.uk to qualify!

Blog Update: Spam continues to be a problem (Grrrr) and I've had to switch off 'comments' from some older entries, this goes against the grain a bit but it is effective. The anti-Spam-bot on Moveable type needs to gain a few extra I.Q points as it lets quite a bit of stuff slip through, you'd think "Nice Site" would be a dead giveaway but the software doesn't.

Encouragingly though, Youthblog had visits from 52 different countries in the last 10 days, weird but Cool! I added a widget thingy on the sidebar that records where people virtually arrive from. Admittedly some will have only come to half-inch pictures BUT it's funky anyway! I'm hoping that Luxembourg and Ecuador will put in an appearance today :-).

Have you noticed that Technorati has changed? They no longer put "number of links" by the data on how many sites link to you, instead they put, "Authority". This made me laugh as it seems a bit like, TOP TRUMPS. So if you are playing a game, Youthblog: Authority 82 This sounds quite good until you look at the other Top Trump data and find there are over 56,676 blogs that are more interesting than this one, LOL!

I dropped my PDA this weekend :-( and the Screen has gone Pete-Tong, this is BAD news from an organisational point of view! I thought you should know as you can then watch my general descent into chaos as I try to keep an Outlook diary and a paper diary sync'd :-) I did like this possible recycling idea though that would at least maintain its calculator function:

I had a quick play on VISTA this morning and I really like the interface, however this Video does make a very accurate point .......