Web Hosting Confusion

I'm not sure what I want to do. To explain what I want to do, let me give one example. I want to have a website that has threaded discussions. (It isn't like a chat room where everybody sees everybody typing each time. Instead there are subject headers and replies to subjects so you can follow the conversation more easily.

There are free places to get this. Such as Bravenet. The problem is I think these are confusing. If we want to start community and create culture, the last thing we need is a confusing discussion board.

However the discussion board at Easum Bandy (which I don't think you can see without a subscription to the site) is much better. It is intuitive. It is intelligent. It is hand written.

So I find myself asking, what do I need to do? What does God want me to do? Well, I do have a college degree in Computer Engineering, and mostly I did Computer Programming with that degree. Maybe God wants me to write my own. Maybe.

I had coffee with a teenager from my church this afternoon, and while I was there I saw a guy who I had introduced myself to before. He is new to town. He looked busy, but I saw a book on his table -- Java script for something. So I went over and asked him some questions, and he explained some stuff about websites that I hadn't understood.

I really want an overall picture of what this web stuff looks like. What does it take to write my own code to do discussion boards. I even think the code used for the Easum Bandy boards is available for free and I could customize it. How much time commitment am I talking about? Is this what God wants me to do with my time? He's giving me mixed signals.

I did find this site - Affordable Internet web site hosting packages for Windows 2000, NT and Microsoft FrontPage from Winsave webhosts - that does seem to have affordable hosting with MS Access database. Do I need SQL? Will Dreamweaver write in Access? This site does support Flash, which I may be able to afford with the non-profit price.

Enough. Smoke is coming out of my ears.

Spam Solution

According to jordoncooper.com :: more living, less punditry:

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know about my constant struggle with spam. I have tried a lot of products but I think that I may have found the perfect one. Mozilla's Thunderbird. If you don't know what Thunderbird is, here is a short description

Thunderbird is a free, open-source and cross-platform mail client for most operating systems including, but not limited to, Windows, Linux and Macintosh. It is based on the Mozilla codebase. It is a robust and easy to use client, similar to competing products like Outlook Express, but with some major advantages such as junk mail classification.

It is the junk mail filters that make it so amazing. Within a day or two, it has captured most of the spam I am getting. It is free and a safer alternative than Outlook Express. I am in the process of ditching Outlook for it but am looking for a more suitable calendar program. Anyone recommend a really good PIM?

I'm going to try it. Also the Firebird browser looks interesting too.

Dreamweaver at Non-Profit Price

I was drooling over the possibilities but sweating over the price. I saw there was an education price and was tempted to see about my wife buying it. She's an educator. I decided not to do it because... well that would be wrong. The purchase wouldn't be for education. Still, I looked at the prices... and then I saw non-profit!

I can get Studio MX 2004 Education for $US 199 or Studio MX 2004 with Flash MX Professional Educational $US 249. This is like $700 cheaper!

Macromedia - Educators : Education Price List

More... I want more!

Also: You have to have a 501C3, which we are in the process of getting.

Driscoll is teaching an Easum Seminar on Men

I need to be a part of this conversation: Manly Men: An Urgent Plea for Young Men

Blogging Tip

Darren has been printing a lot of really good blogging tips. Here is one from me.

Be careful of the rant. When people start blogging, it seems the first thing they can think of writing is a rant. They don't like this about the culture. They don't like that about people. The rant is not a great blog.

It is ok to vent a bit. It is ok to express some opinions. But What It's All About is to lead people toward Jesus. It isn't about getting people to have the same opinions. That may sound surprising. But my assumption is that as people grow closer and closer to Jesus, our opinions will begin to be surprisingly similar.

There is only way to God... and that is through Jesus Christ. But if Jesus is pictured as a mountain, then still we will approach Him from many different directions.

Blog Tip # 1: Don't distract people from the real issue -- Jesus Christ, the Risen Savior.

Brant Hansen Worth a Read

Brant Hansen is the one the best thinkers on culture I know. I know that from this link Lance will probably start reading Brant faithfully. If I can find the intellectual guts, I might have to start commenting on Brant's blog to see how my own thinking matches up to a master.

Friday Five

A little late, but better late than never.

1. What was your first Halloween costume? Not sure. The earliest I remember is a strong man. I had a leopard print over the shoulder shirt, and a fake set of barbells. Pretty cool. My mom always made my costumes. They were so cool.

2. What was your best costume and why? Pretty sure it was Batman. I was probably 5th or 6th grade. I remember going to the school party. I had a mask on underneath my cowl (Batman's hat) and no one knew who I was (or so they said). I wore it the whole next year just to play. So cool.

3. Did you ever play a trick on someone who didn't give you a treat? No. I was extremely naive. And I don't think anyone ever didn't give me a treat. We just went to family's houses. I don't remember going to anyone I didn't know.

4. Do you have any Halloween traditions? (ie: Family pumpkin carving, special dinner before trick or treating, etc.) We carved pumpkins. Sometimes we would TP (toilet paper) people's trees.

5. Share your favorite scary story...real or legend! Not really into scary stories. Though I did have people tell me the end to ... oh what was that called, where they were lost in the forest and it was shot with their own cameras? Anyway I knew the ending and then saw the ending on TV. Freaked me out. Also the first Halloween was pretty intense.