Attendance at Radiant Church in Colorado Springs had been declining for years when Todd Hudnall accepted the position as senior pastor. Recognizing the computer-savvy nature of their community, Hudnall and his team focused their efforts on improving the church website and using the Internet for advertising.
"Our position on Google searches was poor," Hudnall says, "so we decided to use Google Adwords. It has essentially replaced our large Yellow Pages ad; it's less expensive and seems to be more effective."
After two years of using Google Adwords, the number of first-time guests who learned about Radiant through the Internet has gone up 25 percent.
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Attendance at Radiant Church in Colorado Springs had been declining for years when Todd Hudnall accepted the position as senior pastor. Recognizing the computer-savvy nature of their community, Hudnall and his team focused their efforts on improving the church website and using the Internet for advertising.
"Our position on Google searches was poor," Hudnall says, "so we decided to use Google Adwords. It has essentially replaced our large Yellow Pages ad; it's less expensive and seems to be more effective."
After two years of using Google Adwords, the number of first-time guests who learned about Radiant through the Internet has gone up 25 percent.
read more
I don’t believe Facebook is intrinsically evil.
This is not a promising way to begin a column, but it must be said upfront so that readers don’t think I’m a Luddite. I am actually on Facebook and have a great many “friends.” And I actually visit my homepage a couple of times a week. Like many people, I’ve especially enjoyed connecting with friends I haven’t seen in decades.
Connecting is what Facebook promises. Not community as such, or even friendship. Everyone knows that a Facebook friend is not a friend in any meaningful sense, but only another Facebook member with whom one is “connected,” meaning you have access to each other’s information as compiled on your respective pages, and can, among other things, instantly get short “status updates” about what the other is thinking or doing.
Facebook is part of the larger electronic phenomenon deemed social networking, which includes text messaging, Twitter, e-mail, blogging, and so forth — all of which are said to herald a new day in human interaction. But let’s stick to Facebook as the prime example and admit that, in the end, Facebook actually sabotages our ability to genuinely connect with others. But it is an entertaining saboteur.
read more
I don’t believe Facebook is intrinsically evil.
This is not a promising way to begin a column, but it must be said upfront so that readers don’t think I’m a Luddite. I am actually on Facebook and have a great many “friends.” And I actually visit my homepage a couple of times a week. Like many people, I’ve especially enjoyed connecting with friends I haven’t seen in decades.
Connecting is what Facebook promises. Not community as such, or even friendship. Everyone knows that a Facebook friend is not a friend in any meaningful sense, but only another Facebook member with whom one is “connected,” meaning you have access to each other’s information as compiled on your respective pages, and can, among other things, instantly get short “status updates” about what the other is thinking or doing.
Facebook is part of the larger electronic phenomenon deemed social networking, which includes text messaging, Twitter, e-mail, blogging, and so forth — all of which are said to herald a new day in human interaction. But let’s stick to Facebook as the prime example and admit that, in the end, Facebook actually sabotages our ability to genuinely connect with others. But it is an entertaining saboteur.
read more
Thanks to Kar Yong for referring to this interesting article
user needs to have access through a library or personal subscription to read or download them. The obvious advantage of Google Scholar over against something like ATLA is that it is free and takes the user immediately to the access point for the article. The limitation, again comparing it to ATLA, is that there are a number of periodicals that ATLA has indexed but have little or no online presence, so they are absent from Google Scholar…
limited amount of space for storing documents, though documents are currently restricted to 500kb in size. Google Docs can import .doc, .rtf, .html, .txt, and .odt (Open Office) documents. Once imported, these documents can be edited online. Files can be exported from Google Docs to the supported import formats, as well as to .pdf. Documents can also be emailed. Every Google Docs account receives a unique email address for easy importing. All the user needs to do is attach a document to an email and send it to the Google Docs email address, and the document will be imported. Google Docs users can also enable right-to-left text in the Google Docs settings to support Hebrew, Aramaic, and other right-to-left unicode scripts. Unicode Hebrew can be imported and inputted within Google Docs. The only limitation is the small number of fonts available in Google Docs, which can sometimes make for imperfect presentation of Hebrew, particularly vowel pointing. But any potential pointing problems are solved when a document is exported and a more suitable unicode font is chosen for the Hebrew characters in a word processor. If a user imports non-unicode Greek or Hebrew into Google Docs, it will not display properly, but will revert to roman…
essible place. After installing the plugin for Firefox or Internet Explorer, the user will see an access link to Google notebook in the lower left part of the browser. With a single click, users can now store information into their notebook. The collection process is very simple: highlight a portion of text in the web browser, right-click the highlighted portion, and choose the option to "note" the information in Google Notebook. The selection of text, called a clipping, is now in the user's Google Notebook. Clicking on the link to the Google Notebook in the lower half of one's browser will open a mini-window and show the item(s) most recently saved. From there, users can make a quick comment about the clipping in the comments section, if they so choose. Google Notebook attaches the reference (the URL) of the clipping, so users are aware of the source of the information. Unfortunately, Google Notebook does not yet put a timestamp on the clipping so a user can know when the information was copied. Users can also type their own notes directly into Google Notebook…
e, but users can also import a large list of books by uploading a plain text, Excel, or EndNote file. Aside from the sheer amusement that this tool can bring for bibliophiles, LibraryThing is also described as the social network for the intelligent, for several reasons: (1) LibraryThing lets one know if other users have the same or similar collections; (2) one can join discussions surrounding books; (3) one can get a sense of what others think about certain works; and (4) it can also help users find books that had previously been unknown — both by browsing other users' collections and via LibraryThing's recommendations. If a user maintains a website, LibraryThing also comes with a number of tools that can be used to display cataloged books (see an example here). LibraryThing also connects to a service called Ottobib, which can generate a book's information in APA, MLA, or Turabian format. A user's collection can be exported to disk in an excel-supported document… Thanks to Kar Yong for referring to this interesting articleuser needs to have access through a library or personal subscription to read or download them. The obvious advantage of Google Scholar over against something like ATLA is that it is free and takes the user immediately to the access point for the article. The limitation, again comparing it to ATLA, is that there are a number of periodicals that ATLA has indexed but have little or no online presence, so they are absent from Google Scholar…limited amount of space for storing documents, though documents are currently restricted to 500kb in size. Google Docs can import .doc, .rtf, .html, .txt, and .odt (Open Office) documents. Once imported, these documents can be edited online. Files can be exported from Google Docs to the supported import formats, as well as to .pdf. Documents can also be emailed. Every Google Docs account receives a unique email address for easy importing. All the user needs to do is attach a document to an email and send it to the Google Docs email address, and the document will be imported. Google Docs users can also enable right-to-left text in the Google Docs settings to support Hebrew, Aramaic, and other right-to-left unicode scripts. Unicode Hebrew can be imported and inputted within Google Docs. The only limitation is the small number of fonts available in Google Docs, which can sometimes make for imperfect presentation of Hebrew, particularly vowel pointing. But any potential pointing problems are solved when a document is exported and a more suitable unicode font is chosen for the Hebrew characters in a word processor. If a user imports non-unicode Greek or Hebrew into Google Docs, it will not display properly, but will revert to roman…essible place. After installing the plugin for Firefox or Internet Explorer, the user will see an access link to Google notebook in the lower left part of the browser. With a single click, users can now store information into their notebook. The collection process is very simple: highlight a portion of text in the web browser, right-click the highlighted portion, and choose the option to "note" the information in Google Notebook. The selection of text, called a clipping, is now in the user's Google Notebook. Clicking on the link to the Google Notebook in the lower half of one's browser will open a mini-window and show the item(s) most recently saved. From there, users can make a quick comment about the clipping in the comments section, if they so choose. Google Notebook attaches the reference (the URL) of the clipping, so users are aware of the source of the information. Unfortunately, Google Notebook does not yet put a timestamp on the clipping so a user can know when the information was copied. Users can also type their own notes directly into Google Notebook…e, but users can also import a large list of books by uploading a plain text, Excel, or EndNote file. Aside from the sheer amusement that this tool can bring for bibliophiles, LibraryThing is also described as the social network for the intelligent, for several reasons: (1) LibraryThing lets one know if other users have the same or similar collections; (2) one can join discussions surrounding books; (3) one can get a sense of what others think about certain works; and (4) it can also help users find books that had previously been unknown — both by browsing other users' collections and via LibraryThing's recommendations. If a user maintains a website, LibraryThing also comes with a number of tools that can be used to display cataloged books (see an example here). LibraryThing also connects to a service called Ottobib, which can generate a book's information in APA, MLA, or Turabian format. A user's collection can be exported to disk in an excel-supported document…
