Research & Development Logs

$100 Laptops

It is amazing to see what the Lord is doing in this day and age. MIT has just created a prototype laptop that would cost $100 so that kids all over the world has access to a computer. They are days like these whereby I wish I could talk with the clergy and the church about the potential for ministry through technology, especially through the web.

http://laptop.media.mit.edu/

Teaching Library

The teaching library has been designed to house all the current sermons that are online at Apostles. I am still not quite sure where this will be implemented. The library will allow sermons to be added or changed without having to know anything about web languages. The search engine still needs some work. The RSS feed and also Podcasting is very close to finishing. This is one of the most satisfying projects I have ever done.:
http://www.outreachtechnologies.com/teaching/

Podcast A Success!

Outreach Technologies Podcast feed was sent to Apple iTunes on August 12. It was finally approved on August 19. The podcast is showing up in iTunes Podcast directory and also in iTunes Music Store. The feed to the Podcast directory is updated instantly but the feed to the Music Store is updated daily. The link to the iTunes Music Store is:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=78737153

10 Easy Ways to Keep Me from Visiting Your Church Because I Visited Your Website

A interesting article about how not to design a church web site:
http://www.outreachtechnologies.com/research/news/2005/20050514.shtml

Web Design and Gender Bias

An interesting article by the University of Glamorgan Center, Wales, UK about what catches the eye on the internet according to gender differences:
http://www.outreachtechnologies.com/research/news/2005/20050802.shtml

RSS

Create a RSS page with Terrell Glenn's sermon using XML technology:
feed://www.outreachtechnologies.com/sermonfeed.xml

Hopefully this will translate into Podcasting.

U.S.'s E-Readiness

I was moved deeply by a statistical report that came out on April 20, 2005 conducted by IBM and The Economist. The report ranks the U.S. as No. 2 in terms of e-readiness, No. 1 being Denmark. God's vineyard is so very ripe for harvest. The report can be downloaded from http://www.outreachtechnologies.com/research/news/.

Customization of Online Library

Changed /templates/search.html to indicate AMiA branches. Spelling for "approve" was changed in /polerio/module/lib/transaction.php

Prayer Network

It has been over 3 years since I revisited this project. This was my very first "Father-daughter" project that I worked on--Father being my Heavenly Father. It sure brought back a lot of memories, some good and some bad. I am glad that all the scripts are still working. I would very much like to convert this from Perl to PHP/MySQL. The prayer project is divided into two categories: by organization and by small group. The Small Group version is not as elaborate as the Orgnization version. The Organization version is found at http://www.outreachtechnologies.com/prayer/org/generic/ and the Small Group version is found at http://www.outreachtechnologies.com/prayer/smallgroup/generic/. The word "generic" is used because it can be replaced by the name of the organization or the small group.

Room Booking System

This will be great for a big church or a network of churches to reserve venues. Downloaded the latest version.