Chris Whisonant Blogs

ESV Study Bible Out This Week

2008-10-11T20:14:37-00:00

The ESV Study Bible is now available for purchase online. It hit the stores on Wednesday, but you can pre-order it from the link above. I've been using this translation since it was first published in 2001. It's very readable, literal, and has taken advantage of many of the advances that the translators of the KJV desired to see so that their work of improvement on previous English translations would be still further improved. You can read from this version here.

Go check out this Study Bible - there are tons of resources available in it (check out the Blog section of the Study Bible site for many of these). I plan on getting one soon (probably for Christmas). Along with the resources available in the Bible, everything will also be available online at no additional cost if you own a copy of the Study Bible. Here is a video demonstrating some of the features:

Some more iPhone apps for Lotus software

2008-10-11T20:14:36-00:00

Last week, Kevin Hansen posted about some iPhone applications starting to appear - specifically iNotes Ultralite and NotesCal. Before I saw his post I was perusing the AppStore and decided to search for "lotus". Here&os;s what I see - the links below are directly to the iTunes Store description of the app. Also note that I have not tested any of these.

iAnywhere Mobile - If you have an iAnywhere Mobile Office server, this application will allow you to view your Corporate Directory (i.e. your Domino Directory). Sounds fairly promising. This is also free!

Speed Shop - ummm... This is just a shopping list application and it mentions "lotus roots"

Notes Calendar - This is the NotesCal app that Kevin was talking about. The $2.99 price tag is not bad at all for this one.

iClink - Allows for synchronization of PIM data (basically everything but e-mail). The $39.99 price sounds like a lot. But that&os;s before you read that you also have to purchase the CompanionLink Professional desktop software as well for $99.95. This software supports synchronization for ACT!, Outlook, Notes, GroupWise, GoldMine, and Palm Desktop, so it&os;s fairly versatile.

ebf.timeconnect - This $4.99 app also looks very promising. This version, however, is the little brother. From the description, you can do some basic project management from here and have it send an email with a csv file. According to the documentation, big brother is on the way: ebf.connector. I just have 3 words to describe the big brother: Notes. SAP. iPhone.

As one commenter in the AppStore stated: "Keep the Notes apps coming!" Indeed...

7

2008-10-11T20:14:37-00:00

Around this exact time of day 7 years ago I was sitting at work when my mom called to tell me that a plane just crashed into the World Trade Center. I thought she was crazy until I turned on Fox News in our server room and got my colleagues in there watching. Then hearing reports that the Pentagon was hit. Then the second plane hit the other tower and a plane crashed in Pennsylvania. Then the towers fell... It was really surreal and words can't describe it. Last year, I took the picture below. It's a shot of two flags standing at the site of the World Trade Center with a plane flying just overhead...

And here was a shot of the construction that's happening at Ground Zero:

It was really odd to see this site nearly 6 years later. I wish they had it a little more open - there was a wrap around the fencing and you could only find gaps to look through.

For the past few years I've posted the lyrics to Dream Theater's Sacrificed Sons about 9/11. It's a pretty powerful song. You can find those lyrics here.

And here is a video of them playing the song live in Rome.

Direct your browsers to Port 1352

2008-10-11T20:14:36-00:00

I would like to introduce you all to David Brown (that guy who sits beside me at work!) and his new blog Port 1352.

By the way, did you know modem files aren&os;t installed any longer with Notes 8.5? Yep, go to David&os;s blog to check it out!

Welcome to the blogosphere, David (it&os;s about time lol)!!

Use BleedYellow to Plan Your Lotusphere Sessions

2008-10-11T20:14:36-00:00

Are you looking for a central location to manage the planning of your Lotusphere Session proposals? Feel free to do so using the Activities section of BleedYellow.com! This can be very beneficial just for single presenters, but if you are planning on presenting with others this can work exceptionally well!

And, to make things simpler, we have created an Activity Template titled "Lotusphere Session Planning":

If you wish to begin using it immediately, just click "Start an Activity from this Template". You can then make your own activity and manage membership. I recommend that you create a separate Activity per Session. New with Connections 2.0 is something called "Sections". We have added 4 sections to this template - comment back here if you think of some other things that could be added!

Proposed Session Titles - create new entries in here for different session title ideas.
Proposed Session Abstracts - create separate entries for different abstract ideas. You may be extremely creative and would like to have multiple ideas. (Hint, if you want others to be able to "vote" on your Abstract ideas, just add them to your Activity and ask them to comment on the various titles or abstracts.
Links - This is pre-populated with a link to the official Lotusphere website. Add more links inside this entry to other sites related to your topic.
Session Slides - Create an entry in here and attach your presentation file. (Hint, even though you may like to do that all locally, consider posting one here anyway for a hot backup in case anything goes wrong at &os;Sphere with your laptop and/or usb drive!!)

Again, this is a work in progress - feedback is welcome!! We are also working on making some other templates available, so if something changes with our recommendation on this template, we&os;ll let you know!

A Courageous Story

2008-10-11T20:14:37-00:00

One of the few podcasts I listen to is Albert Mohler's, and he has a great blog too. Way back on May 6, 2008, he posted a blog titled Welcome to the World, Trig Paxson Van Palin about Governor Sarah Palin's pregnancy and the birth of her son with Down's Syndrome. I urge you to go read it and the AP article to which it links.

She loves her baby boy and is proud of him. "I'm looking at him right now, and I see perfection," Palin told the Associated Press. "Yeah, he has an extra chromosome. I keep thinking, in our world, what is normal and what is perfect?"

Trig Paxson Van Palin has an extra chromosome, two proud and loving parents, four very happy siblings, and he will bring his own joy to untold numbers of lives.

He will face some unique challenges, but he has a loving family who will face those with him. They will learn together the wonder and beauty of a Down syndrome child and will learn to see the glory of God in his trusting face.

Mothers Day 2008 is certain to be a special day in the Alaska Governor's Mansion. What an unspeakable tragedy that so many other homes will have aborted that joy.

Anti-Obamanomics

2008-10-11T20:14:37-00:00

Just reading a good article at Mises.org titled: Anti-Obamanomics: Why Everyone Should Be in Favor of Reducing Taxes on the "Rich" Generally, the economists at the site don't post about particular candidates. But with so much focus on the election now, I urge you to go read some from it. It's actually a response to an article in the New York Times Magazine:

Are the American people being primed to elect as President of the United States a home-grown version of Hugo Chavez, in the person of Barack Obama? This is a question one can come away with after reading "Obamanomics," the featured article in this last Sunday's (August 24, 2008) New York Times Magazine. Written by Times' columnist David Leonhardt, the article provides insight into Obama's thinking on economics and the economic policies he would be likely to pursue if he were elected President.

Some of the highlights are as follows:

Two major impediments make it difficult for people to recognize the fact that everyone would benefit from reductions, or, better still, the total abolition of all of these taxes on the so-called rich — made possible, of course, by equivalent reductions in government spending. The first is simply massive ignorance of economics, especially of the general benefit from private ownership of the means of production. People have not grasped the profound insight of Mises that, in a market economy, in order benefit from privately owned means of production, one does not have to be an owner of the means of production. This is because one benefits from other people's means of production — every time one buys the products of those means of production.

I think I know a lot of extremely smart people who say they just don't "get" economics. I don't "get" a lot of things (like chemistry or physics), so that's understandable. But when we're talking about massive redistribution of wealth, this affects us all, so people should try to comprehend economics. And to pre-empt the comment that the Republicans are the ones who have allowed spending to get out of hand - I cede that point. I don't agree with that, but I'm a Conservative and not a Republican. There is a difference! Further, and with more pre-emption in mind, take a look at Senator Obama's acceptance speech. I was going to go through and count the new programs he's wanting to instate that "the government" will pay for, but could not stomach reading past the first few paragraphs of partisan politics and pandering. But you can go here or here for more information on how he's misleading us and how he will increase spending as well. Until Congress decides to buckle down, we'll have to keep raising taxes to pay for the pork.

The redistribution of wealth is allegedly necessary to enable an individual who does not own the wealth presently owned by others to benefit from that wealth. Only as and when their property passes to him can he benefit from it, the redistributors believe. This is the kind of "largesse" Obama intends to practice. It is taking funds from those most prodigious at accumulating capital, capital that would benefit all, and then giving the funds to others to consume. Meeting the needs of the poor with the consumption of capital is Obama's formula for prosperity.

Small business owners will have a hard time growing their businesses when their capital is further taxed. Less growth also means less new jobs. And further, increased taxes on businesses will likely lead to increased cost of goods - which leads to increased prices at the counter. So while the personal income taxes may be less for a person, how much will that be offset by the increased costs incurred because the manufacturers of goods and services now have higher costs?

Starting with tax cuts for the so-called rich — based on equivalent reductions in government spending — is the only hope for the resumption of significant economic progress, indeed, for the avoidance of economic retrogression and growing impoverishment. Because of this, it is actually the quickest and surest road to any major reduction in the tax burden of the average wage earner. It holds out the prospect of the average wage earner being able to double his standard of living in a generation or less. The average standard of living would double in a single generation if economic progress at a rate of just 3 percent a year could be achieved. Such economic progress would also mean a halving of the average wage earner's tax burden in the same period of time — if government spending per capita in real terms were held fixed, for then he would have double the real income out of which to pay his present level of taxes. And then, of course, once all the taxes that most stood in the way of capital accumulation and economic progress were eliminated, further reductions in government spending and taxation could and should take place that would be of corresponding direct benefit to wage earners, that is, show up in the reduction of the taxes paid by them.

This analysis makes clear that an essential flaw of so-called supply-side economics — the policy both of the Reagan administration and of the present Bush administration — was the failure to face up to the need to reduce government spending. While the policy of reducing taxes by both administrations was perfectly correct, most of the potential benefit of the tax cuts was lost through the corresponding enlargement of federal budget deficits. Regrettably, both administrations and their supporters lacked the courage required to abolish government spending programs to make those tax cuts possible without deficits.

Their failure to have done so explains why the great mass of the American people have not benefitted from the tax cuts as they should have. The explanation is that, absent equivalent reductions in government spending, the tax cuts did not translate into increases in capital formation, but the opposite. Instead of there being more demand by business for labor and capital goods, there was less; instead of more rapid economic progress and rising real wages, there has been economic stagnation or outright decline, along with stagnant or falling real wages.

Of course, in a further display of their ignorance and blindness, members of the Left will undoubtedly characterize the line of argument I've presented in this article as the "trickle-down theory." There is nothing trickle-down about it. There is only the fact that capital accumulation and economic progress depend on saving and innovation and that these in turn depend on the freedom to make high profits and accumulate great wealth. The only alternative to improvement for all, through economic progress achieved in this way, is the futile attempt of some men to gain at the expense of others by means of looting and plundering. This, the loot-and-plunder theory, is the alternative advocated by the redistributionist critics of the misnamed trickle-down theory. The loot-and-plunder theory is the theory of Obama, of the Democratic Party, and of much of the Republican Party. It is time to supplant it with the sound economic theory developed by generations of intellectual giants ranging from Smith and Ricardo to Böhm-Bawerk and Mises.

What to do after installing Notes 8.0.2...

2008-10-11T20:14:36-00:00

This actually applies to all Standard versions of Notes and, really, any other Eclipse-based app that has tons of files installed.

Get Defraggler. Now.

Then use it to defrag your Notes folder. After uninstalling an 8.5 Beta and installing 8.0.2 Gold, there were over 2,000 fragmented files in my Notes path! If you want to scrounge every bit of performance out of Notes, you should defrag the folder. Sure, Notes 8.0.2 will load faster without doing this, but fragmentation is a performance killer - especially on slower laptop drives. Defraggler, and some other tools I&os;m sure, provide the ability to do this. You can defrag single or multiple files (ahem, VM images) or highlight the path the file is in and defrag all files in that path. This gives you a rather quick defrag without having to wait for the entire drive to be defragged.

Great points from Dick Morris

2008-10-11T20:14:37-00:00

I find it rather humorous that the DNC is still thinking they have to run against George W. Bush. A little reality check - he's not in the race! Here's a great article from Dick Morris:

A STRATEGIC OPENING FOR MCCAIN

The truth is, of course, that McCain is the most unlike Bush of any of the Republican senator. (When Obama’s people claim that Bush and McCain voted the same 94 percent of the time, they forget that most of the votes in the Senate are unanimous.) The fact that McCain backs commending a basketball team on its victory doesn’t mean that he is in lockstep ideologically with the president.

The issues on which McCain and Bush differ are legion:

* McCain fought for campaign finance reform — McCain-Feingold — that Bush resisted and ultimately signed because he had no choice.

* McCain led the battle to restrict interrogation techniques of terror suspects and to ban torture.

* McCain went with Joe Lieberman on a tough measure to curb climate change, something Bush denies is going on.

* McCain opposed the Bush tax cuts when they passed.

* McCain urged the Iraq surge, a posture Bush rejected for years before conceding its wisdom.

* McCain favors FDA regulation of tobacco and sponsored legislation to that effect, a position all but a handful of Republican senators oppose.

* McCain’s energy bill, also with Lieberman, is a virtual blueprint for energy independence and development of alternate sources.

* After the Enron scandal, McCain introduced sweeping reforms in corporate governance and legislation to guarantee pensions and prohibit golden parachutes for executives. Bush opposed McCain’s changes and the watered-down Sarbanes-Oxley bill eventuated.

* McCain has been harshly critical of congressional overspending, particularly of budgetary earmarks, a position Bush only lately adopted (after the Democrats took over Congress).

Remember that McCain ran against Bush in 2000.

McCain’s Republican advisers need to realize that they won the primary and that they do not need to cotton to the delegates at their convention or to appease the Bush White House. The more they respond to Obama’s and Biden’s attacks on Bush by saying, “It ain’t me, babe,” the more he will moot the entire purpose of the Democratic convention.

It is a rare opportunity to nullify the entire Democratic line of attack, and McCain should seize on it.