Jeff Geerling's blog

What happened to Life is a Prayer.com?

Jeff Geerling — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 03:53:50 +0000

I'm in the middle of upgrading Life is a Prayer.com to Drupal 7 (to the non-geeks out there: I'm changing up the structure of the site a little bit, and giving it a new coat of varnish).

So... for a while you'll probably see a few things here and there that are out of place (especially in sections like the Pictures area, where photo galleries are displayed). Please report any problems you have in the comments below, and wish me luck as I start redesigning the site to make it look even better than ever!

(This current look is only temporary - Things will be back to normal soon!).

Interview on Make Web Not War

Jeff Geerling — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 17:43:33 +0000

A recent interview focusing on my involvement in open source development (mostly centering around my work with Make Web Not War website:

Interview - Jeff Geerling - Open Source Catholic

In the interview, I speak about my involvement in Drupal, and my appreciation for a variety of different open source projects. I'm glad Microsoft is putting some resources behind sites like 'Make Web Not War', and I hope they continue to reach out into different developer communities.

They still have a stigma of being closed and have tech that's hard to develop for (which, in some cases, is true), but that could change (it is changing, but very slowly)...

Crestwood Mall - Ghost Town

Jeff Geerling — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:25:25 +0000

A week ago, I needed to drop off a package at the post office, and I noticed there was a post office inside Crestwood Mall—an old shopping mall in southwest St. Louis County. Since this post office was on my way to another stop, I decided to venture into Crestwood Mall to the once-mighty mall that was in dire straits.

When I pulled into the mall parking lot, I noticed a few things:

There were two other cars in the entire lot where I parked.
There was a huge, black crow sitting on a handicapped parking sign, watching me walk towards the door.

Not very encouraging.

Anyways, I purposely parked at an end of the mall so I could get a little mall-walking into my day (hey, when you're a programmer, and you sit 90% of your life, you'll take any exercise you can get!). My spirits weren't lifted when I tried entering the automatic doors, but was stymied:

Now, I can understand a temporary problem, but it looked to me like none of the doors had been maintained in a while; paint was falling off, locking mechanisms were detached from the push-to-open doors, and the doors felt a bit like they would fall apart when I pushed them open!

After entering, I saw not one person for the first few hundred yards. In fact, during my entire 20 minute circuit around the mall, I noticed about 8 people in total, and only three were inside stores. I felt like I was Will Smith in I, Legend! There were areas of the mall (for example, the old food terrace) where not one store was open, and every inch of storefront was boarded up. In fact, many of the mall's bathrooms looked like they'd been closed for a very long time:

Now, what if I wanted to get a few dollars to spend at one of the three or four remaining stores? Oh, sorry... the ATMs here don't work either:

What happened, I asked myself, to the glorious mall that just ten years prior boasted a Dillards, Macys, all the requisite indoor-mall stores (Auntie Anne's, Claire's, Sam Goody's, Pasta House, hundreds of cell phone stores, etc.)? It used to be a destination for southern countygoers, but no longer.

The few remaining kiosks in the mall were empty (completely!), and many of the storefronts weren't even barricaded by a dropdown metal grate, meaning people could simply walk back into the abandoned store and sit behind the counter if they wanted. It was quite eerie—especially with the echoes of music played over the PA system in a large, empty space.

Even when I walked by the Sears (the only remaining store that had any semblance of being a 'mall-type' store, but which is also closing soon), I didn't see anyone inside.

It was almost a nightmarish experience (I really thought I heard a few zombies every now and then), and I think I'll avoid the place for a while.

Inspiration and Garbage

Jeff Geerling — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:04:10 +0000

My relationship with writing is a funny thing; I've never been a 'writer', per-se, but I do love writing things from time to time. I probably write about as much prose as the average active blogger, but a lot of my writing never sees the light of day, nor is it focused in one particular area.

I blog about Drupal development and technology over on my Midwestern Mac blog, about the Church and technology on my Open Source Catholic blog, about life in general here, and about a variety of other things on various other blogs and fora.

But I think it's really important for someone who is serious about writing—and writing well—to do two things:

Stay inspired
Throw out the garbage

These two actions support and help each other; discarding mediocre writing projects and posts will allow you to take a fresh look at what you're writing, while staying inspired can help you more easily discern what's garbage, and what can be engaging and/or informative.

Just yesterday, I spent over an hour writing a post I thought would turn out funny, a bit tongue-in-cheek, and mildly informative... but it just didn't happen. Instead of wasting more of my time trying to make a mediocre post a little less mediocre, I threw it out, and started this post instead.

It's hard to stay inspired, but simply clearing away distractions helps (very rarely do distractions aid in inspiration). My favorite writing is often done after I've taken a break from coding or playing a game (or something else that involves a bit of concentration), and simply read a book, watched a video, prayed a short prayer, or did nothing at all.

Routines and Marriage - Keeping it Together

Jeff Geerling — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 23:47:27 +0000

My wife and I have crossed the one-year threshold; after achieving this milestone, she told me, "Once we get past a year, we're set for life, right?"

Christmas 2011: I'm trying to look normal, I think. Didn't work.

While it's not true that strengthening the marriage bond gets easier over time (it's always a challenge—but in the best possible way!), it is true that seemingly-insignificant things (like doing the dishes, emptying the trash, and saying daily prayers) we do in our marriage help a lot.

Our faith, for instance, needs constant attention and care. We have already had periods in our married life where we've fallen short of our committment to pray the Rosary daily, or to attend daily Mass more often. We continually struggle to make faith a priority in our relationship. But we push through, and keep on getting back into good habits of prayer—together as often as possible.

Keeping up with chores is another area where routine is important, but often done haphazardly. We have a wonderful chore spreadsheet, and we often go on 'cleaning rampages' where we complete a bunch of chores in a day (well, that's more me than my wife... she usually does her chores regularly), but we also skip chores some weeks due to a busy schedule. We're not living in a dump, and nothing is unsanitary, but things tend to go downhill quickly once you let the routines slip away too far.

Routines may sound boring, but they are important for a strong relationship.

Giving a kiss or hug and saying 'goodbye' every time we depart each other's company helps us remember that we are always looking forward to seeing each other again soon. Going to Sunday morning Mass together, even when one of us is really tired, or would like to sleep in, reminds us that we need to approach our relationship with God hand-in-hand. Watching a movie or reading together on a regular basis lets us learn to relax together (of course, too much media consumption can be harmful!).

These routines firm up the foundation of our married relationship. Some of the routines will change over time—especially when children enter the family—but many will be a stable bedrock of our marriage for the rest of our lives. If we let them slip away, we risk losing an important part of our love for one another. The covenant we entered more than a year ago is important enough that we are both vigilant about the 'routine' of loving each other.

Bullfrog best at eating virtual ants, cameramen

Jeff Geerling — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 15:35:54 +0000

A short while ago, the world was introduced to the ant-catching bearded dragon... and it was pretty entertaining.

But today, a new creature (this time more amphibian than reptilian) has conquered the art of phone gaming, with a better ending:

Things are working out good

Jeff Geerling — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 02:02:47 +0000

My wife came back from the grocery store today and recounted a heartwarming interaction with the bagger in the checkout line:

Wife: "I like that you're always so happy and smiling."

Bagger: "Well, I just like living, you know? Jesus is nice. Things are working out good."

I think this would be a pretty good prayer of thanksgiving during this consumeristic season.

HostGator Cyber Monday Deals [sponsor]

Jeff Geerling — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 13:30:00 +0000

I got an email from HostGator yesterday alerting me to some really awesome deals for their web hosting services; for Cyber Monday, they're giving half off pretty much all their hosting plans:

Shared hosting: As low as $4.95 Now only: $2.48
Reseller Hosting: As low as $24.95 Now Only: $12.48
VPS Hosting: As low as $19.95 Now Only: $9.98
Dedicated Servers: As low as $174 Now Only $87

I've been using HostGator for a few of my less-trafficed websites for over three years now, and have had less than 10 minutes of measured downtime. I also use a cheap shared hosting plan to simply store backups of my other sites (they give you limited SSH access to cheap plans—which is awesome!).

I highly recommend HostGator; unlike most other low-cost hosts, their support team is top-notch, their plans are priced perfectly, and their servers (even for cheap shared hosting) are super-fast, compared to other hosts I've used (1&1, GoDaddy, Dreamhost, etc.).

Please consider using my HostGator affiliate link to sign up for the best deal you're ever (probably) going to get for website hosting.

This deal will only last for one day (Monday, November 27, 2011). Even if you don't sign up today, think about HostGator for your hosting needs. They're good enough that I have recommended their hosting to almost every one of my small business clients throughout the years.

Advent Wreath - Vector Illustration

Jeff Geerling — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 18:26:01 +0000

I was recently inspired by Jeffrey Miller's embeddable Advent Wreath widget to try my hand at illustrating and animating an advent wreath in HTML5 with the <canvas> element or by animating an SVG.

My heart was in it for a while, but I ultimately gave up on the project due to the fact that I had already spent a couple hours on it and wasn't happy with my progress...

However, I did end up with a fairly good illustrator/vector wreath and candles (I spent a bit of time trying to get the flames looking just right), and also created a brush to create the actual wreath, making it look somewhat like an evergreen wreath.

I could spend a bit more time making things look a little nicer (everything's relatively flat right now), but I thought I'd just release this artwork for anyone to use and improve. I just ask that if you make something awesome with it, you let me know how you did it and give a link to an example :)

You can download the brush and the wreath graphic using the links at the bottom of this post.

Advent Wreath by Jeff Geerling is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at www.lifeisaprayer.com.

The Catholic Developer and Blogger Christmas Wishlist, 2011

Jeff Geerling — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 20:24:05 +0000

As we approach Christmas, I tried to think of a few gifts that others like me (namely, Catholic web developers and online content producers) could use to help them become more effective in their work.

I came up with a list of items ranging from the Catholic Catechism (I'm surprised by how many of my Catholic friends don't have a copy yet) to the Glif—a tiny but great tripod mount and stand for the iPhone 4/4S—and posted them on Open Source Catholic: The Catholic Developer and Blogger Christmas Wish List 2011.

Since a few people insist on buying gifts for Christmas, I always like to think of gift ideas that would be truly appreciated and useful, rather than simply things I or others like myself would want only for fun. Hopefully this list gives you a little inspiration!

Steve Jobs, on Pornography

Jeff Geerling — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 14:19:37 +0000

As a follow-up to my previous post on this topic: Steve Jobs on "Freedom from Porn," with more details filled in from the biography Steve Jobs:

The pornography ban [in the App Store] also caused problems. "We believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone," Jobs declared in an email to a customer. "Folks who want porn can buy an Android."

This prompted an email exchange with Ryan Tate, the editor o the tech gossip site Valleywag. Sipping a stinger cocktail one evening, Tate shot off an email to Jobs decrying Apple's heavy-handed control over which apps passed muster. "If Dylan [one of Jobs' idols] was 20 today, how would he feel about your company?" Tate asked. "Would he think the iPad had the faintest thing to do with 'revolution'? Revolutions are about freedom."

To Tate's surprise, Jobs responded a few hours later, after midnight. "Yep," he said, "freedom from programs that steal your private data. Freedom from programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn. Yep, freedom. The times they are a changin', and some traditional PC folks feel like their world is slipping away. It is."

Pin his reply, Tate offered some thoughts on Flash and other topics, then returned to the censorship issue. "And you know what? I don't want 'freedom from porn.' Porn is just fine! And I think my wife would agree."

"You might care more about oorn when you have kids," replied Jobs." It's not about freedom, it's about Apple trying to do the right thing for its users." (Steve Jobs, pp. 516-517).

Anyone who stops to take a moment and look at what pornography truly represents will realize what an anti-woman and anti-loving industry it really is. Pornography's only purpose is to turn a human being (almost always a woman) into an object instead of a person, and to give some other individual (almost always a man) a selfish pleasure.

There is nothing about pornography that helps family, helps loving relationships, or helps society. I think Steve undertstood that, and wanted to try to help society by removing one place the porn industry could dump its garbage.

Steve Jobs, on Abortion

Jeff Geerling — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 17:54:49 +0000

Steve Jobs, reflecting on a visit to his biological mother, who gave him up for adoption after having him in a non- married relationship with a man who didn't want a baby:

[Steve] wanted to reassure Joanne that what she'd had done was all right. "I wanted to meet my biological mother mostly to see if she was okay and to thank her, because I'm glad I didn't end up as an abortion. She was twenty-three and she went through a lot to have me" (Steve Jobs, p. 254).

Salient thoughts on the topic, coming from a guy who was simply grateful his mother gave him a shot at life; out of every difficult situation, a good thing may come.

Catholic News Live mobile app for Android

Jeff Geerling — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:41:34 +0000

Just wanted to announce here the immediate availability of the Android version of the Catholic News Live Mobile App. You can buy the app for your Android-powered device on the Android Market: Catholic News Live.

The Android version joins the iOS version that's been out for about a year now, as well as the website, all three in combination allowing you to follow the latest Catholic News wherever you are, on whatever platform you use! Read more about the Catholic News Live mobile app »

Here are a few screenshots from the app on an Android phone:

I'll probably write more about Android development over on my Midwestern Mac, LLC blog in the coming weeks, but don't expect much right now—I'm quite busy with flockNote and some other projects :)

Freedom from Choice (Reasons to be Catholic)

Jeff Geerling — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 14:00:00 +0000

I recently read a blog post titled 'Freedom from Choice' from the Red Sweater Blog (a blog by Daniel Jalkut, a Mac programmer) with great interest, considering the subject matter (Steve Jobs, computing, and free/open source software). In the post, Daniel speaks about how Steve Jobs' decisions to restrict certain 'freedoms' on the iOS and Mac platforms has helped Macs, iPhones, and iPads become more focused and consumer-friendly devices.

The reason for this is that the user no longer has to worry about making a thousand decisions to accomplish a simple task.

Daniel said that Richard Stallman, a staunch 'everything must be free' software programer, "paints Jobs as a robber of freedoms, first and foremost, while neglecting to acknowledge the many liberties he brought, for example to those of us who can’t, or don’t want to build our own computing infrastructures."

This is readily apparent and admitted by those in the computing world who realize that giving people a command line/terminal and telling them to go to town is a very bad idea. Most people I know would (and do) quickly ruin their computers because of the level of control they have over them. How many people do you know have laptops that are always locking up, shutting down, or messing up due to software people installed on them, additions people made, or simply the little things people have done to their computers for the sake of making them 'their own'. (It's the same with many Android phones, in my experience...).

Is it not the same in our personal lives, in the realm of morals and faith? Everyone subscribes to some moral system or faith/religion (whether it's formalized or not), and some people (like me) choose to belong to a faith (Catholicism) which helps us make the decisions that will help us be better humans, free of the 'malware' and ailments that eat at our souls and self-images.

A lot of people don't believe this, but take the example of abortion: With the option of abortion on demand, women in desperate situations seem to have two options:

Have an abortion to solve the problem of an unwanted pregnancy.
Struggle through a nine-month, inconvenient pregnancy, and either give the baby up for adoption or struggle through raising a child, and generally live a more difficult life*.

Many people would choose number 1... it gets rid of the problem, right? However, if you're Catholic, and you realize that there is no option 1 (the ends don't justify the means), you begin to open your eyes to the additional possiblities that result from choosing life:

You could learn to make ends meet, and become a better person by dealing with the situation and raising a child as well as you can.
You could give a great gift to a family hoping and praying for a child by offering your baby for adoption.
You could learn about the miracle of life developing inside the womb, and cherish that life, and increase the amount of love in your world by sharing yourself with the new life through love and nurturing.

Often, restricting your 'choices' leads to new and unforseen freedoms; on my iPad, I'm free to spend more time reading articles and news, and interacting with people, since I can't give into the temptation of constantly configuring inane system settings or managing 25 open applications like I do on my Mac. In my life, I can spend more time loving my wife and building our relationship (instead of harboring bad feelings or feeling remorse), even when it's tough to do so, because I know that divorce is not a choice.

When you give up the idea of freedom to do any possible thing, you free yourself to make easier—and better—choices.

*To every man in the world: if you're going to have a sexual relationship with a woman, deal with the consequences like a man. It's your duty to love and nurture that child, not to abandon the mother and child. Real men don't ignore the consequences of their actions. (This, ironically, is another reason why the Church wants people to wait until marriage to have a sexual relationship... it helps keep people honest, at a minimum!).

St. Louis Coalition for Life Launched 11/11/11

Jeff Geerling — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 21:44:36 +0000

Last night I was in attendance at 40 Days for Life St. Louis' Benefit dinner, and was happy to hear about a new initiative, the St. Louis Coalition for Life, to help put an end abortion in St. Louis (and Missouri!), and to raise awareness about other life issues.

Browse around their website and check out some of their upcoming events. This coming year, the 39th since the passage of Roe vs. Wade, promises to be interesting, as Missouri is one of the states with only one Planned Parenthood providing abortion 'services' (the one at Forest Park Pkwy in the Central West End.

The Coalition for Life will be working with the Archdiocese's Respect Life Apostolate, Thrive, Birthright, Project Rachel, etc. in their efforts.

Jeff Geerling's blog

What happened to Life is a Prayer.com?

Tags:

Interview on Make Web Not War

Tags:

Crestwood Mall - Ghost Town

Tags:

Inspiration and Garbage

Tags:

Routines and Marriage - Keeping it Together

Tags:

Bullfrog best at eating virtual ants, cameramen

Tags:

Things are working out good

Tags:

HostGator Cyber Monday Deals [sponsor]

Tags:

Advent Wreath - Vector Illustration

Tags:

The Catholic Developer and Blogger Christmas Wishlist, 2011

Tags:

Steve Jobs, on Pornography

Tags:

Steve Jobs, on Abortion

Tags:

Catholic News Live mobile app for Android

Tags:

Freedom from Choice (Reasons to be Catholic)

Tags:

St. Louis Coalition for Life Launched 11/11/11

Tags: