robertnew

Honduras ready!

noreply@blogger.com (Bob New) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:53:00 +0000

We had our last real team meeting for our mission trip yesterday. Next Sunday our church will do a commissioning service for us and get ready to send us on our way. Yesterday's meeting was long, but there was a lot of last minute stuff to take care of. Some last minute changes in travel plans to iron out and such. But I think we got everything done that we needed to do. I don't know about the rest of the team, but I'm pretty excited about going.

We are leaving late Thursday night, July 10 and driving straight to the airport in Knoxville, TN. We'll probably have some time to kill at the airport waiting, but that is ok, I doubt we'd sleep much that night anyway, and I'd just as soon stay up anyway. I know my son feels the same way. I'll just make sure the old iPod is charged and loaded with some songs, a couple audio books and some podcasts.

I have my laptop I'm taking to do our blog ready to go. I actually loaded the latest Ubuntu distro on it. It is sweet. I've only put on it what I think I'll need down there to blog and do some photos. I expect we'll take lots of photos, I'm going to do a photo spread and article for Wings of Hope Magazine. I'll probably spend some time working on it, they are letting me miss their article deadline by a couple of days since I won't be back in time. They are great. Check them out.

In a couple of days I'll post our itinerary and what we will be doing. Please keep us in your prayers.

Catching Up

noreply@blogger.com (Bob New) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 01:05:00 +0000

I haven’t posted in a few weeks; we’ve been extremely busy getting ready for our Honduras mission trip. There have been projects at work to finish up, fund raising for the trip and preparation meetings. We have another one tomorrow.

There is a total of 15 of us going, all ages and types. A very broad range of experiences too. It is going to be very exciting. We have almost all of our money in and that is a huge relief. The airport we were to fly in to was closed indefinitely and our arrangements had to be changed. But that all that has been taken care of.

We are going to do blog from there, you can check here for my personal blog, or you can check our group blog. I’ll be updating frequently now as things are happening fast, so check back both places.

Thanks in advance to all those who have already supported us with their thoughts and prayers, as well as their donations. All of this could not happen without you.

New Book Review

noreply@blogger.com (Bob New) — Thu, 29 May 2008 14:23:00 +0000

I haven’t done a tech blog in a while, and while this is technically not a tech blog post, it does pertain to tech. How’s that for politico fence straddling?

This week I read Sarah Lacy’s new book, Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0. If you are at all the least bit interested in the internet or tech companies or the behind the scenes of the tech industry, this book is a must read. Sarah talks about the bursting of the dot com bubble and how it affected not only the companies, but personalities behind those companies. She does a fantastic job telling about the entrepreneurs behind such companies as Facebook, MySpace, Digg, Six Apart, and others.

She has been reporting on technology and Silicon Valley for several years and uses the contacts and resources she has garnered to her advantage. Many people buy into the notion that a lot of the successful companies and the money made in Silicon Valley are overnight successes, but this book shows that they are anything but that, going deep into the struggles and sweat of the start-ups. She tells stories of fortunes made and lost and made again. Of huge deals and acquisitions, of private funding and IPO’s, and of personal tragedies and triumphs.

This book is one of the best I have read in a long time and I highly recommend it. Kudos to Sarah for a job well done.

More Food in the Fridge

noreply@blogger.com (Bob New) — Tue, 27 May 2008 16:43:00 +0000

I purposefully held off on writing and posting this until after the weekend because I had a specific topic I wanted to write about. In our small town there are two high schools, the community high school and one of the county high schools. As you can imagine these two have quite the sports rivalry. But at our church we have kids from both schools in our youth group. During soccer, football, or basketball seasons you can imagine the good natured ribbing that goes on. But put that aside and these kids really pull together. I have witnessed that on a lot of different occasions as I have worked with the youth in our church for some time. I’m not the youth director, we have an excellent one of those, but I have always been a chaperone on various mission trips (you learn a lot about kids while driving them to Florida in a church van) and music festival trips.

Even before our kids were old enough to be in the youth group we were among the parents who took the youth places. That continued through my daughter’s tenure in junior high and high school youth and throughout my son’s time in the UMYF. He is a junior this year, getting ready to start his last year of high school next fall. Hence, the reflective nature of this post.

We have seen many kids come into our church youth group and many leave. Some went on to become youth leaders themselves for a time. Some who were in the youth group when my wife and I first started working with the kids are now married and have kids of their own. And we love these kids and are proud of them just as if they were our own.

This year is extremely tough as a lot of the kids, both in the youth group at church as well as other kids who are not but still hang out at our house are graduating. Last Friday night was the graduation for the community school seniors and our youth group had 3 seniors cross the stage. All going on to college and I venture to say all 3 will be extremely successful. I was very proud of them all.

Next Friday is the graduation of the county high school and there will be countless kids we know graduating there. Kids not just from the church, but from the soccer team who always hung out at our house making sure the food in the refrigerator never got too old, kids who my wife had years ago in second grade that she still sees around town and still speaks to her, and kids from families we just are friends with. Oh yeah, and my nephew who I’ve watched grow into a fine young man.

This next school year will be a very different place around our house I’m sure as a lot of the familiar faces there will be away at college. But what I wanted to let these guys know, and I know there are some who are reading this, is that we are very proud of you and we will still be praying for you even though you aren’t hanging out here anymore. And you guys can rest assured that you can come back next year and clean out the fridge any time you want.

A Special Project

noreply@blogger.com (Bob New) — Tue, 20 May 2008 04:21:00 +0000

This weekend I had an opportunity to spend some time with my dad building a new deck on our house. It has a been a long time since he and I have had a chance to spend this much time together working on a project and I had almost forgot how special those memories are.

My dad is a special guy. He was an engineer on the railroad. I like to joke that I followed in his footsteps and became an engineer, but where he drove trains, I drive computers. When he was working he would be gone for 3 or 4 days at a time, taking trains of coal cars deep into eastern Kentucky or West Virgina and back again. Because he was gone so much my mom had to do double duty raising my sister and me. But still, we had a great family. I have the two greatest parents in the world. I'll tell you about my mom later on.

My dad still had time for baseball, coming and watching my Friday night football games, and coming to my band concerts in school even when listening to the band was not his thing. If he could possibly be there, then he was, never complaining. I learned from that, and I've tried to do that with my son. When he wanted to skateboard, we put up bars in the driveway, went to skateparks in freezing weather. When he started playing soccer I've been to every game I could possible make. I worked in the concession stand, video taped games, gotten as involved as I can. All because my dad came to games when I played and games when I sat on the bench.

We got the deck finished, something that has needed done on my house for a couple of years. But you know, I think the time was right now to do it. Funny how that worked out. He had the opportunity to come and spend a few days here, I had some time off to work with him. We got to work together, and in the evenings we were both tired and didn't talk a lot, but we both knew this was a special time. And he got to spend some time with this grandkids who he only gets to see a couple times a year. Hopefully they enjoyed it too and realize how lucky they are to get to spend time with him. I know I'll cherish it for the rest of my life.

Thanks dad, I love you.

It's a Small World

noreply@blogger.com (Bob New) — Mon, 12 May 2008 03:41:00 +0000

We often hear the term it's a small world. And we know that through technology the world is shrinking, at least communication wise. If you've read my blogs before you've no doubt read about the small town in central Kentucky I live in. Berea is home of Berea College and is quite a unique town. For a town our size we have a tremendous international presence.

We regularly have visitors from Denmark coming to our town and we are always sending people there learning and performing traditional folk dancing. We have quite the African percussion ensemble who performs at our various festivals. For the past 18 years we have participated in a sister city exchange with the Yatsugatake region of Japan. We also have young residents from Russia, China, Japan, Africa, and South America.

This past weekend we had the Berea International Festival. It was a great spectacle to behold and kudos to the people who worked so very hard in putting this on.

We not only had local talent playing music, but we had Viking Age reenactments with swords, shields, tents, stories and jewelry making, we had several native American story tellers and displays, we also had Middle Eastern Dancing demonstrations. There was something for everyone and the weather cooperated very nicely for the most part. Some of my favorite was the Celtic music and the salsa dance band.

Berea College has an inscription on its seal that reads, “God has made of one blood all peoples of the earth”. This could not have been displayed any better than this weekend at the Berea International Festival through the sites, the sounds, and the smells that permeated our down town. I hope this festival catches on and becomes an annual event, it was a nice break and a chance to get out and walk around, visit friends, and catch a glimpse into the world beyond our boundaries.

WCNC using Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Bob New) — Wed, 07 May 2008 01:58:00 +0000

Lately I've become a Twitterholic. I admit it. I'm not ashamed of it. Actually, being the tech junkie that I am, I'm kind of proud of it. I have unlimited texting on my Treo, I might as well use it.

Frequently I get asked why and what good is it. Well, I follow a lot of news services, especially tech related news. And I get a lot of early leads on stories for the radio show/pod cast I frequently sit in on, TechTalk with Chad Hembree.

Tonight, while looking around the Internet following the NC and IN primaries, I found a link to WCNC from Charlotte, NC. They actually had reporters at different locations around the state reporting via Twitter and had a live Twitter feed on their website. I think this a great use of microblogging technology. They not only reported on the presidential primaries, but other local elections and referendums that were being voted on around the state.

I don't know if there are other news stations doing this, but kudos to WCNC for being innovative and an early adopter of a new technology!

The Tech President

noreply@blogger.com (Bob New) — Fri, 02 May 2008 14:42:00 +0000

This week I discovered a web site that I found was very interesting. It is http://www.techpresident.com/ and is extremely interesting to look at, especially in these days of the presidential primaries and upcoming elections.

This site follows all the presidential candidates and their tech views. As well as where you can find them online, recent statistics such us Facebook and MySpace followers, and one of the best things, recent YouTube videos.

From looking at their site, it is apparent that Obama has capitalized on using technology in his campaign far and above the other candidates. As of this writing and according to the web site he has over 800,000 Facebook supporters compared to 153,000 for Clinton and 120,000 for McCain. Quite a difference. On MySpace the numbers are much smaller, not surprising since it seems as late Facebook has been leaving MySpace in the dust. On MySpace Obama has 360,459 friends against 199,044 for Clinton and only 49,648 for McCain. Interestingly here is that Ron Paul has almost 3 times the MySpace friends as does McCain with 131,081.

On YouTube, Obama again leads the pack with a staggering 43,267,679 views compared to 12,391,931 for Clinton and only 3,361,060 for McCain.

And on the increasingly popular Twitter, Obama is number one among all Twitter users with 27.591 followers. We have to all the way down to 84th place to find Clinton with 3,575 followers and McCain did not appear in the top 100 (per http://www.twitterholic.com/).

It will be interesting to see if McCain can close these numbers in any of these categories since now Carly Fiorina (former HP CEO) and Meg Whitman (former Ebay CEO) are on the campaign.

There are a lot of good resources on the internet that tells how the candidates feel about issues relating to technology, I urge you to check them out. Maybe we can get a president blogging and twittering from the Oval Office!

Tech in a small town

noreply@blogger.com (Bob New) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 00:16:00 +0000

Last night, as we do every Thursday night, we met at Mario's (http://www.marios-blondies.com in Berea for dinner. I was the first to arrive and our usual waitress was at the counter when you first walk in. No menu, didn't even need to sit down, she handed me a glass as I walked in and said, “Your usual Bob?” I said yes and handed her my money. I walked past the drink machine and got my diet Coke then went over to our usual table and sat down to wait on the rest of the TechTalk crew and whoever else might happen to show up.

TechTalk with Chad Hembree (http://www.chadhembree.com/) is a local radio show we do. It airs on the Tri-City AM network of Wallingford Broadcasting in Richmond, KY on Saturday mornings at 10am. We record on Thursday nights, Chad edits on Friday and the radio stations play it on Saturday. So every week we meet at Mario's, eat dinner and discuss our stories for the week. After dinner we head to DataStar computers and record in their offices.

We've done TechTalk with Chad Hembree for a couple of years now. Chad Hembree is the host, I am usually on there, and we have others who appear pretty frequently. Jack Cates, a fellow World of Warcraft player, member of our guild, and good friend has become a regular. Jamie Poff, another guild member and school teacher joins us when he is in town. I am not sure how many people listen, but there must be quite a few because when Chad goes on vacation and we miss a week or two, there are complaints.

Our show is not scripted, it is not recorded in an expensive studio, and sometimes you can hear Chad's servers or someone who is hanging out at DataStar in the background. But we have fun doing it and like I said, we do have a few listeners. Lately Chad has been uploading them to iTunes and we have people downloading it and listening to it. If you'd like to listen to it, you can download it at either iTunes, just search for Chad Hembree in the search bar, or you can to Chad's webpage (see link above) and download it. Let me know if you listen and we are always open to suggestions.

It is nice living in a small town. You go to the store and you see people you know. You can ask them about their family, how their kids are doing. We go to a local restaurant to eat, and like Mario's, we usually don't have to look at the menu and we probably know the waitress. I can be at work in about 7 minutes, 10 if traffic is bad. People like to say they couldn't live in a small town because there is not a lot to do culturally. Well, we have the Spoonbread Festival (http://www.spoonbreadfestival.com/) every year. And when the weather is good, we have a lot of local musicians get together on the front porch of the cabin down by the train station and play. People bring their chairs and sit out and listen.

Now, before you think we are Mayberry, it is not that bad. I give these examples kind of tongue-in-cheek. We are very near Lexington, KY and can be to either Louisville, Cincinnati, or Knoxville in two hours. I can be to Gatlinburg, TN in two and a half, Nashville, TN in about three and a half, and Asheville, NC in about 4. Berea also has a lot of cottage industry here. It is the Arts and Crafts Capital of Kentucky and has several crafts fairs throughout the year. Also, Berea College is located here so we have a lot international festivals and visitors come through.

So if you find yourself traveling down I-75, tune in to TechTalk and stop by and pay us a visit. You might just want to stay a while.

Is There a Tech Link to This?

noreply@blogger.com (Bob New) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:24:00 +0000

This morning we woke up to an earthquake. An earthquake. This is Kentucky, not California. We usually wake up to rain, thunderstorms, a rare tornado or snow fall. But an earthquake! One time when I was a kid in southern Ohio we had an earthquake. It put a small crack in one of our walls. My dad came home and got mad because he thought I had been playing ball in the house. Now I have a son who plays soccer in high school. I guess if I came home and there was a crack in the wall, I'd suspect him over an earthquake. Especially since he is always kicking a soccer ball through the house.

I watched the news today, but never saw the report that blamed the earthquake on global warming. I'm sure it is out there, I just missed it. I had to because based on the news lately global warming is responsible for everything. As you can tell I'm not a big fan of the global warming theory. I have my own global warming theory. My theory is that we have probably been in a global warming cycle since the end of the ice age. I mean, something had to cause all those glaciers to melt.

On a serious note though, I'm really glad it wasn't worse than it was. At the point of writing this I have not heard of any serious injuries, and that is a good thing. I also hope that there is not a lot of serious damage to structures as I doubt most people in the Midwest do not have earthquake insurance. The other day Jane Wells over at CNBC ( http://www.cnbc.com/id/24111567 ) blogged about her earthquake insurance, I'm not sure you can get it around here even if you wanted it.

Natural disasters are a serious concern to everyone. Some people view some as a sport, snow storms make for good skiing or snowboarding, sometimes before a hurricane you see people out surfing the waves ( I always question the sanity of that), and some people like chasing tornadoes, my son and I are guilty of this one. But the truth is they are not a sport to the people who suffer damage to their homes or injury, or even death or the loss of a loved one.

This is a good time to make sure your family has an emergency plan in place. Be it fire, tornado, flood, earthquake, or whatever. Have an exit strategy, a meeting place, an emergency contact. The Red Cross has one on their web site. Here is the link: http://www.redcross.org/services/disaster/beprepared/fdpall.pdf

I hope this finds you safe and you have a fantastic weekend coming up.

Virtual Flying

noreply@blogger.com (Bob New) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 21:06:00 +0000

Last week I had the opportunity to go to Florida for Spring Break. OK, opportunity may have been the word if I were still in high school or college, now it was more of an obligation. We have some friends who are hosting a German exchange student. One of the things he wanted to do was to visit Disney before he has to return home.

I reserved one of the presidential suites at the Wyndham Bonnett Creek resort so we decided to stay there. It has 4 bedrooms and sleeps 12 people. We had extra rooms so ended up taking two more German exchange students who also go to school with my son. I figured, the 4 of them would have a great time, which they did.

Now, you might be wondering what this has to do with my tech column, and it is kind of a stretch, but while there I went with the kids the day they went to Epcot. I'm not a big Disney World fan, we used to live close to there and I've been dozens of times. But I love Epcot. I like the interactive displays, the shows they have, etc. If you haven't been in a while, the ride inside the Epcot ball, sponsored by Siemens, has been revamped and is fantastic. When you sit down in the car there is a touch screen in front of you. It asks you to pick where you are from on a map (they didn't have Berea, KY surprise, surprise so I picked Louisville). When the rid starts out they take your picture. At the end of the ride, you answer some questions on the touch screen again and they put together a little presentation of the way life will be in the future depending on your answers. Your face is on the character in the presentation. It is very well done. Then as you are exiting, there is a big map, and all the people's faces on the ride are there and they fly in to your city with a dot showing all the cities people are from on the map. Oh, and during the ride, look for the animatronic Woz working on a computer in his garage.

But the big attraction I love there is the Soarin' ride. This ride originated at Disney in California and was put in at Epcot for the 50th birthday celebration at Disney. It is a ride that simulates hang gliding across California. When you sit down there are 3 rows of theater seats. But as the ride starts, the seats actually pivot so that the 3 rows are vertical. Row 1 goes to the top, row 2 the center and row 3 just off the floor. There is an 80' domed projection screen. Breezes blow across you and the seats gently move creating the effects of really flying. If you go to Disney, you have got to do this ride. It is an experience like only Disney can bring you. But be warned, this ride is very popular, so get a fast pass!

Soarin' is located in the Land pavilion which houses some of the most popular eating places. So going during the time when most people are eating lunch just adds to the crowd. Dining at Epcot is an experience all to itself. Our German friends wanted to eat at the German restaurant there, maybe they are getting a little homesick. They had a blast talking to all the waiters and waitresses, and told us that the food was very authentic and good. So if you like German cuisine, check it out while you are there.

Next week we'll get back on the tech bandwagon. Until then, happy Twittering!

noreply@blogger.com (Bob New) — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 21:32:00 +0000

Always On!

Ok, I finally got my Treo 700wx up and running and I have to admit, I love it. Now I carry one device that was smaller than my original PDA, and it replaces my PDA and my cell phone. Coupled with the Motorola H800 Bluetooth dangling from my ear, I’m always connected. I’m not sure I fully understand the implications of that, but I do know where the off button is!

Now I’ve been experimenting with all the applications I’ve been reading about for quite a while. Some I’ve installed and kept, some I’ve tried out and deleted. From time to time I’ll probably mention some of them here. One I’m playing with now is Twitter. I really don’t know how to fully explain Twitter yet, but everywhere I turned the past few months, people were talking about it.

Basically you have a list of friends on Twitter that you follow. You can set it up to send messages to your computer or phone about what your friends are doing each time they post an update to their account. I use to think that I really didn’t care to know what my friends were doing every minute of every day. But now that I have started using it, I can see where it is a great convenience. If a friend is working from home, they can put that out on their Twitter and everyone following them knows they are not at the office. Someone is in town for some meetings, they can send out a Twitter message and any of their other friends know they are there and can get in touch with them for dinner.

You can do the same thing with email or text messaging, but this is such an easy way to get the word out to multiple people. Is it a necessity for doing business today? Maybe not yet. But in this world of social networking and traveling so much, it is a fantastic way to keep in touch with friends and associates.

If you have a smart phone, oh, and unlimited messaging, then try it out. If you want to get in touch with me, I’m at www.twitter.com/robertnew.

Until next time, stay connected.

WOHMag to host Second Life Conference

noreply@blogger.com (Bob New) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:04:00 +0000

This Saturday on the Wings of Hope sim inside the virtual world of Second Life, the Wings of Hope Magazine staff will be holding a conference for anyone interested in learning more about the business world inside Second Life.

The conference will have two speakers, Second Life businesses displaying what they do, and a party with a DJ afterward. The staff will be giving away prizes throughout the conference.

For those not familiar with Second Life, it is a virtual world developed by Linden Labs. Linden Labs was founded by Phillip Rosedale in 1999. Phillip Rosedale was the former CTO of RealNetworks. What makes Second Life so unique, is that the virtual environment is actually created and scripted by the inhabitants. You are actually only limited by your imagination.

Second Life has its own currency, its own economy, its own land, whatever the residents create. It offers very unique opportunities and the possibilities of this 3-D world are only now being explored. Many large corporations have established a presence in Second Life and are experimenting with how this technology can be used in the future. Modeling, visualization, and conferencing are only a few of the areas these corporations are testing.

Another large group investigating this technology is the education community. Online education certainly seems to be the wave of the future and Second Life lends itself perfectly to this trend.

Wings of Hope is a Christian magazine, started inside the virtual world in 2006. They published their magazine totally online, but were approached last year by a publisher interested in taking their magazine into the traditional “physical world” of print publications. Their first issue is set to be released July 2008. If you would like more information on attending the conference or on their magazine, you can visit the web site at http://www.wohmag.com/.

For more tech news check back often. Or you can check out TechTalk with Chad Hembree. The podcast version of his radio show is available for download at his website, http://www.chadhembree.com/.