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Posted via email from Ben’s posterous

Ammo. Finally.

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from Ben’s posterous

No, it’s not anything like that…  MyNakedPastor.com is a website that my church is running.  Our Pastor, Troy Gramling, has been online via webcam 24/7 for almost 3 weeks now.  There are about 2 weeks left.  It has been very interesting to watch.  From his house, to his speaking gigs, there has been a lot to see and you can quickly get the picture of what he is up to with this website.  You will see that he and the other pastors and leaders of the church are down to earth and really try to live the life they teach on the weekends, yet they struggle like you and me.

I was lucky enough to do a tiny bit of ajax work on the site for them, I hope to do more work for them in the future.  Arturo De La Mora is the tech guy behind it.  He got to spend the first week in the house changing camera views.  Then the next week he was on a road trip to Orlando for a speaking engagement.

If you get a moment in the next two weeks, I highly suggest checking it out.  The 8pm “Naked Couch” segments have been the most interesting to me.  But the whole thing has been very interesting and really gives you a behind the scenes look at how one man is dedicating his life to grow Flamingo Road Church in South Florida and around the world into one church where you are.

Yes, that’s right, I took the plunge and went to my new favorite store and bought a MacBook. I got the Black Mac with 2gig of ram. I have to say, I am totally impressed with this machine.

I owned one other PowerBook G4 in the past, but ended up never using it. There were too many compatibility issues and I just didn’t like it. So why did I go back to Apple again? This computer works. Simple as that. I don’t need any accessories. It has the built in isight, which me and my son made a cute little video with yeserday on te first try. With my windows laptop, it was just not that simple.

I haven’t rally had time to mess around with much else, but I have my email, installed twitteriffic and hopefully will be able to get it to work tethered to my Cingular 8525 for mobile internet connection if necesarry. If that doesn’t work, it won’t be the end of the world since this computer also seems to have the bes wirelees integration of any of my past lap tops too. My Toshiba doesn’t ever want to work out of sight of our WAP. I can work at our dining room table with this one.

I will write more as I have more experiences with it. My only advice now is, if you don’t want to part with the $$, don’t visit an Apple Store.

 I have been flying since I was a little kid.  I have been around the world.  When I was in 6th grade, my dad took me to Japan and Taiwan for the first time.  It was a long, long trip, but I loved every second of it.  I flew on all types of planes on that trip alone.  I was even on a 747 that hit such bad turbulence, the panels between the upper deck and first class were falling down.  The flight attendant held them up with a broom handle until they were able to snap them back up.  It didn’t even faze me.  I thought it was fun.

I flew all over the US too.  I have flown on tiny prop planes and large jumbo jets.  I never once had a problem with it.  Then one flight ruined it all for me.  My wife, her sisters and I flew to Wichita, Kansas to visit her dad around 1997.  The flight there was great.  I flew on a regional jet for the first time which was excellent.  Had a beautiful view of St. Louis while flying from Cincinnati to Wichita.  I was ready to find out where else they were flying these jets so I could plan my next trip to be on them if possible.  It was the dead of winter in Wichita, which is unbelievably cold.  There was tons of snow and bad weather the week we stayed there, but I never thought twice about it.

Our trip came to an end and we had to leave.  We were flying an airline I had never heard of before.  It was an affiliate of an affiliate of Delta.  We were flying back through Dallas instead of the way we came and the plane was a little prop job that sat about 20 people.  No big deal, I had been on them before.  It was a couple hours and we would be on a jumbo jet heading to Ft. Lauderdale.  Well, not so fast, this would be the flight that would change everything for me for the next 10 years.

As we boarded, it began to rain, freezing rain.  Cool, never see that in Florida.  We taxied and took off.  A bit bumpy, but it’s a small plane, what do you expect.  Then it began to get a little bumpier.  It was also getting dark.  There would be no drinks on this plane, the flight attendant was told to stay seated.  Than it began.  The wind was constantly pushing the plane to the right.  I mean pushing it like we were getting hit by a Mack truck every few seconds.  It was ok the first few times.  I figured it will stop in a minute and I can go to sleep.  Well 10 minutes later, we’re still rolling to the right, and it is getting bumpier and bumpier.  By this time, there were a few screams during the bigger drops.  I was watching the flight attendant, I always figure if they aren’t scared, there is no reason for me to be scared. She wasn’t giving any hints if she was scared or not.  I couldn’t tell if this was ok for her or not.  But hey, it couldn’t get worse than this could it?  You have no idea.

After about 20 minutes of this, I figured we aren’t going to go to Dallas, the weather is getting worse the further South we go.  We should be looking for somewhere else to land.  To make me feel better, the pilot decided now would be a good time to start checking the wings with a spot light from the cockpit.  This is not what I needed to see.  I never did figure out what he was looking for, but he checked the wings the rest of the flight about every 5 minutes.  I joked with my wife that he was making sure the wings were still there, but now I wonder if that wasn’t so far off.

As we got closer to Dallas the plane ride began to smooth out.  I looked around at other people on the plane and most were in tears.  My wife’s sisters fell asleep before we took of and somehow slept through the whole thing.  The flight attendant was writing something on a pad of paper and never once looked up at us.  I think maybe it was her will.  The pilot finally came on the speaker and I thought for sure they would say we are sorry for the bumpy ride, now that we are out of the weather, we will land at the next airport we can, but that wasn’t the case, they simply said we were 20 minutes out and would be landing shortly.

To this day I don’t know if that was a typical bad weather flight on a plane that small or we were close to crashing at some point.  There were a few rolls to the right that I am sure the plane was closer to being upside down than right side up.  The pilot smiled as we got off the plane and we flew home on a nice large Delta Jumbo.  But something bad happened that night.  I lost my nerve.  I didn’t want to fly any more.

About a year later, my wife and I were married and we went on our honeymoon to Antigua.  It was about a 3 hour flight from Miami.  Not bad, but I was actually dreading it.  For the first time in my life, I didn’t want to get on a plane.  We went and sure enough, we had another bad flight.  On the way back from Antigua, we arrived in South Florida to find all the airports were closed due to thunderstorms.  We circled over the everglades, slow and low, for about an hour.  Right over the value jet crash site.  I could see the hole and the flags marking it off.  Not a good view for somebody that doesn’t want to be flying in the first place.

We had received first class tickets from my dad as a Wedding present so we were in the bulkhead seats, right in the first row.  Back then, nobody thought twice about the cockpit door being open.  It was open now and the flight attendant was talking to the pilot while we circled.  She came back out to us and says “We are running out of fuel, so we are going to our alternate airport.”  What?  Out of gas?  Alternate Airport?  Ok, I can deal with this set back.  We will go to Palm Beach and I will get out and drive home.  No big deal.

After powering back up and launching through the Thunderstorms we were trying to avoid, I see we are over the ocean again in no time.  Why over the ocean?  Well the pilot answered that for us.  Turns out our alternate airport was not just up the Interstate an hour.  It was across the ocean an hour.  We were on our way to Nasssau, Bahamas.  Well that’s nice.  We get to nassau safely, land and sit for about two hours.  Oh, and we are not allowed to leave the plane due to customs regulations.  So we refuel, go to Miami, land, and I don’t get on a plane again for almost 10 years.

That brings us to about 2 weeks ago.  Someone walks in my office and tells me I need to go to Puerto Rico for business.  I’m the boss, I have to go.  It will be fine.  I smile and say ok, then spend the next two weeks freaking out.  I thought of fifty reasons why I couldn’t go every night.  Everyday I went to work planning on telling them I wasn’t going to make it, someone else would have to go, but I sucked it up and didn’t say much to anybody.  Some people at work thought it was funny to leave images on my computer of crashing planes etc.  A little over the top for my taste, but most people don’t think of flying as being dangerous at all and thought I was being a bit of a wimp.  Maybe so, but… I hadn’t flown in 10 years.  That was the biggest mistake.

I went ahead and flew to Puerto Rico.  I think I hyperventilated for the first time in my life, but after about 10 minutes in the air, I was fine.  I actually enjoyed it.  The landing was fine, heck the whole experience was fine.  I wish I did this 9 years ago.  We’re already planning our next trip.  Unfortunately, our kids have never flown and they know daddy didn’t like it too much, so I am convincing them now it will be fine and I think they want to go now too. 

So if you have a fear of flying, don’t let it make you miss out on travelling.  There is so much to see out there and you are safer on a plane than on the street.  Get on a plane and suck it up and enjoy your trip.

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I’ve been on twitter for a while now, just laying back and following a few people.  I stick in my 2 cents here and there.  I have to be honest though, I didn’t quite get it at first.  I had heard about it and been to the site a few times since it’s inception, but never really participated.  If you don’t realize what’s really going on there and just look at the front page, also known as the public timeline, you may just chalk it up as strange and leave.  It’s when you start following people and see the conversations evolve that it really starts to open your eyes to how useful it is.  It really brings people together that are geographically spread out.

I am surprised how much I have come to rely on it for tech news (I’m a tech news junkie).  For some of the bloggers that I follow, I get their blog posts instantly thanks to them posting a link on twitter when they are done, or posting it through twitterfeed.  I’ve seen stories on there that don’t get blogged about for another day and don’t get reported on the general news for days.

So I decided that twitter would be a great tool for me to use for work to communicate with customers.  I have over 10,000 customers receiving emails now with special prices on products, new products, etc.  These are opt-in lists that have been growing for years.  We have one list for each major product category.  Twitter is the perfect replacement for these mailings.  Not right away of course, but over time.  As it stands now, I compile specials and new items over the course of a week and send them out on Mondays.  By then the specials from the Tuesday before may have run it’s course.  Well, why not send a tweet (twitter lingo) right when a new item arrives or right at the instant an item goes on special?  Makes sense, right?  I am sure there are companies already using it for this.  I follow JetBlue and Woot who both are sort of using it in this capacity.

I will chronicle my journey implementing this and share any helpful information I can, both the pros and the cons.  I believe over the next year or so, many, many businesses will be looking to twitter to do something similar.

Do you have any stories of using twitter for your business?  Leave them in the comments.

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I made my first trip to an Apple Store this past weekend.  Big Mistake. I don’t want to like the nice smooth, clean, simple lap tops.  I didn’t want to see that the iPhone actually is as nice as it looks in commercials.  I didn’t need to know that the iMac has grown up and is a real computer now rivaling any PC.  There were so many things I have basically ignored over the past few years.  Being a long, long time Windows user and programmer, I have all but ignored the Apple revolution.  I have used them, but always with a slanted view.   I was always looking at the limits, but they seem to be gone now..

There were a few things that really caught my attention.   First I’ll cover my thoughts on the products.  I will be writing another post about the customer service, which is just a step above everybody.

1. iPhone

First, let me say I was not impressed with all the iPhone hype.  I have a Cingular 8525 that I am still happy with.  I didn’t even consider the iPhone.  Then I used one.  Damn it…  I want one now.  I think I can overcome this urge though.  Like I said I am happy with my 8525, even though it compares to the iPhone like an Atari 2600 compares to a Wii. (but a real fast 2600 ;).  I also am devising a plan to make my wife really want one so I can get it for her as a gift.. (I hope she doesn’t read this.

2. iMac

This is just a slick computer now.  I have a couple of the older ones floating around.  My daughter has one of the large and clunky one and I never really have used it.  I also have one at work on a shelf that has the bowl turned upside down base with a monitor on an arm sticking out.  Nice, but again, never really used it.

3. MacBook

Here’s where they hooked me.  What a sweet setup.  Small, powerful, full of useful software, built in camera, fast, shiny.. Wow they really did hook me.  Now I tried to make the switch a few years back and just couldn’t hack it.  There was too much software I needed for windows.  I have a powerbook G4 that I just could never get used to.  I don’t know if this will be the case now.  There is actually software out there now that I want that is only available for the mac..  What?  I never thought that would happen.

My wife swears by her G5s.  She doesn’t like using anything windows.  So now I have to eat crow for the last 5 or 6 years of getting on her Mac every chance I got.  Now I just can’t do it anymore.  There is nothing to make fun of.  Since I started on a Apple ][e, I guess I will be coming full circle.

If you haven’t been to an Apple Store yet, I highly recommend it.  It is quite an experience to see this much excitement around computers and gadgets.

Any of you have any experiences good or bad switching from a pc to a mac?  Tell me your stories in the comments.

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I am on Plaxo checking out the new features.  I really was hoping to find a Facebook killer, but I have to say, so far all I’ve found is a mini feed clone.  It does have a great interface, but after a few minutes you can see how the open platform is benefiting Facebook and until there is some more options to choose from, Plaxo should just keep doing what they do best, and that’s syncing your contacts and calendars.

Once you’ve added your friends, you’re done.  You wait for them to update their YouTube videos, Blog, Twitter or Pownce feed.  I imagine when they add events to their calendar, they may show in your feed too, but I haven’t been that deep yet.

You can differentiate between friends, family and business contacts which is a huge plus that everyone has been asking for on Facebook.  But what good it does on Plaxo as it stands now remains to be seen.

I’m sure these guys aren’t done yet though.  I am sure this is just the beginning.  They probably have more up their sleeve.  They just better hurry or it will be too late to matter.

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As a developer since 1996, I have dealt with my share of writing web apps so they work well with different browsers.  This has cost countless hours of unnecessary work.  If the standard was followed, we may all be a little further along now.

Now, with Facebook opening up its API and word of MySpace and others soon doing the same,  are we going to be writing apps that not only work in different web browsers, but with different social websites too?  Will we soon be making sure we have apps for all the social networks as each one becomes the next “shiny object”?  And if so, is this a good thing, or a bad thing?  If you’re a company that has to pay for these different apps to be developed, I guess it’s not so good, but if your a developer, you better keep up with the changes that are coming, it may get busier…

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Robert Scoble has a post tonight where he says out of the 1,048 blog posts he shared on his link blog, only 490 came from the top 35 blogs.  Well one of the other 558 shared items was a post from this blog.  Though my blog has been around for a couple of years, I have bascially ignored it until recntly.

That one post that ended up in his link blog via Google Reader’s shared items.  It probably ended up there because I had his name in it, but he found it interesting enough to click ’share’.  It was only one of my first few posts since I started taking my blog a little more seriously. 

This is the beauty of the blogoshpere.  If you have something interesting to say, it will get out there.  You don’t have to blog for months and develop a following as it seemed to be in the past.  Google is indexing blogs in minutes, even seconds now.  You have something to say?  Say it.  People interested in it will hear you.