The LDS Church is now offering official audio and video Podcasts of general conference! Now you can receive individual talks in your feedreader, iTunes, or podcatcher (I use Google Reader).
Official Audio Feed
Official Video Feed
During recent sessions of conference I have been linking to the Podcast available through KSL.com.
I apologize for two tech related posts in a row, but this was just too good to not share.
I was reading an interesting article on a usability design method they call “Paper Prototyping” and the first comment on the article was pure geek gold. In order to truly appreciate it let me give you the context first.
Paper Prototyping is a inexpensive, low-tech method of brainstorming, or of testing the usability of proposed designs for a software interface. Basically, you print out the various aspects of the proposed user interface on paper or cards. You cut out individual elements of the interface design with a pair of scissors if necessary. Then you sit down with the end user and you take the place of the computer.
Today my company has arranged for me to attend the first Utah Open Source Conference .
I will be posting my notes on the sessions I attend in a subsequent post when I get a moment. However, it may have to wait until after the Weird Al Yankovic concert at the State Fair tonight.
Over the last couple of years I have been approached by various individuals looking for a programmer to develop an LDS blog portal.
There are, of course, already a couple of popular portals for keeping up with blogging by LDS members, but there have sometimes been those who are dissatisfied with the blog selection. Some feel that too many apostate and borderline apostate blogs are included, while others don’t feel they are included enough.
Well now anyone can, with a very small amount of effort, create and host his or her own public or private LDS blog portal.
I am not really interested in maintaining my own LDS blog portal to compete with existing portals, even though the code upon which the most popular of these, ldsblogs.org, is available for free from its creator, Russ Johnston.
However, I do have an interest in new technology, and as a personal challenge, I wondered if I might be able to create a near clone of his portal, using only XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript in conjunction with the nifty new Google Ajax Feed API .
I’ve linked to it already in my Recommended Links list in the sidebar, but I wanted to draw additional attention to the mesmerizing new computing platform from Microsoft: Microsoft Surface.
The idea is that that users interact with the computer through muti-touch surface displays where you can interact with objects by touching them.
To see what I mean, go and watch the video on the PopularMechanics website right now:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4217348.html
I was checking out the impressive new www.mormon.org website, with its streaming videos and live missionary chat, and had an idea for some new technological directions for church web content.
The “user created content” aspect of web 2.0 has received a lot of attention among modern web companies. YouTube, Digg, and Blogs are all poster children of this new era. The first official public web forum of the LDS church is a great example of how the church is experimenting with tapping into that resource.
The LDS church has created an exciting new official website for LDS technology at ldstech.lds.org . Not only does it have information about upcoming technology use in the church, but it sports a forum where those interested in technology and the church can participate and interact.
They are also holding a free Tech Talk in Provo on Tuesday January 23rd for system engineers, software developers and testers, interaction designers, and other techies to discuss how the church uses technology to build the kingdom.
In the Republican Primary elections back in June, I had my first experience voting using Utah County’s new electronic voting machines. The process itself was smooth and voting using the machines was easy to understand and even pleasant.
However, my experience as a computer programmer has taught me a healthy distrust of technology and of people using technology.
Implementing proper security in any system takes an exceptional amount of effort, and even then, hackers are unbelievably resourceful and will often find ways to infiltrate the system despite a well implemented security process. What a lot of people unfamiliar with the topic don’t realize is that hackers excel at not only software engineering, but at what we call Social Engineering, or manipulating people using their expectations of technology.
I have been performing puppetry with my troupe, Maxed Out Puppetry, for about eight years now. We perform fairly frequently at various venues in Utah county, and periodically in the Salt Lake valley. This Friday, September 1st, we will be performing for at the acclaimed Timpanogos Storytelling Festival at 5:30pm for about 45 minutes.
In order to help those interested, I’ve added an embedded Google Calendar to the blog sidebar on the right that displays upcoming events where I will be performing with my troupe.
For those of you who have not yet discovered, or don’t care to discover the wonders of Feeds and Feed Readers, I have added an email subscription service near the top of the sidebar to help you to effortlessly stay aware of new content on Sixteen Small Stones.
A few of the videos produced by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have been released for free on Google Video.
Members of the church can now help spread the message of the Gospel by displaying watchable videos about the Restoration right on their own websites and in their blog posts. Anyone who visits your blog can learn more about the gospel simply by clicking on the play video button and it will play right there on your page.
Like this:
You can place the video on your blog in a few simple steps:
