07.23.05

Coming Along

Posted in Uncategorized at 21:35

I shall spare the reader tiresome details about the progress of my website, however, I thought it worth mentioning that jackalblog now has a project page at SourceForge:

http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/jackalblog/

There are no files there yet, but an alpha release will accompany the grand opening of my site.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to pitch trackbacks. What are trackbacks? They’re a nifty feature that facilitate blogging as a conversational medium. On the respondee’s blog, trackbacks appear very much like comments, however, they are actually posts in the respondent’s blog. Why not just write a post about someone else’s post? Well, you could, but then the respondee would probably never know about it. Then why not write a post and then comment on their post with a link to your post? You try telling another blogger’s readers that they should read your blog and tell me how it goes ~_^ Plus that’s a lot more work. In many cases, trackbacking is as simple as including a link to the post you are replying to. So how do you get trackback if your blog doesn’t support it?
There are a few options:

  • use a different blogging service
  • discover that your blogging service does support them afterall (yea!)
  • use an external comment/trackback service like haloscan (my current solution)
  • gripe (politely) at the developers of your blogging service
  • if you coded your own blog, maybe it’s time to start coding again or to
  • get jackalblog (when it comes out (sorry, I couldn’t resist)) or a similar project or even just
  • read the code of jackalblog (when it comes out) or a similar project to understand the mechanism.

For further reading:

http://www.movabletype.org/trackback/beginners/
http://www.sixapart.com/pronet/docs/trackback_spec

07.20.05

Posted in Reflections at 21:58

Do you ever read something, and then hear God speak? Not exactly like He spoke through what you read, but as though the words you read somehow opened your ears to hear His voice about something very specific. As though the words were alive. The idea behind the words takes on a coherence that looks into your soul and knows you better than you know yourself. The significance of the words’ essence to your circumstances comes into focus, and just then, a familiar Voice begins to talk in perfect synchronisation with the coherent significance, until only the Voice remains. It penetrates all doubt. You are convinced of what you heard.

07.10.05

My Prayer

Posted in Reflections at 01:08

I’ve seen bad stuff happen to people. My friends have faced things I would never want to face. And I know I have it pretty good. My friends have it pretty good. But that doesn’t make their pain any less real, nor does it mitigate the severity of it. I have a vision for them. I see them facing tragedy and loss, physical pain, regret, defeat, hopes crushed and dreams utterly destroyed. But I see in their hearts something like a flame unquenchable. It’s a joy that caresses their cheeks as they grieve, that lifts their chins when they run out of strength to hope, that holds their hands when they aren’t sure they can go on. It’s a joy that brings a weak, yet genuine smile to their faces with the assurance that even in the midst of complete ruin, just as with Job, God can still make the latter end more blessed than the beginning. And that He will do just that.

I’m not prophesying hardship over my friends. Their births did that. I can’t give my friends this joy, because I don’t have it. And it’s not something so simple as salvation, or the baptism of the Holy Spirit, or even faith. I don’t know what it is. This is my prayer: that my friends would be overcomers, filled with the Joy of the Lord, and unbreakable of spirit. Amen.