jonnybaker

firefox extension for del.icio.us

if you use firefox and del.icio.us then the firefox extension for del.icio.us is wonderful. as i type this i'm thinking what a geek i sound - sorry! (thanks daniel)

Technorati Tags: applications, del.icio.us, firefox, tag

top 50 videos of 2005

this will keep you going for a while...

top 50 videos of 2005

let me know what ones you think are worth watching...

(be warned aphex twin is pretty disturbing - no surprise there)

thanks to bob for the tip off

Technorati Tags: 2005, music, videos

top 5 of 2005

bob carlton is rounding up peoples top 5 blog entries of 2005 on his top 5 blog. hard to narrow down but 5 i ended up picking were:

1. for ed
2. preaching:throwing a hand grenade in the fruit bowl
3. india talkie 3 isn't christianity a foreign religion?
4. worship trick 45 - underground projections
5. far i have come far i must go

Technorati Tags: 2005, blogs, top 5

tag

well it seems the pressure is mounting on tags. i have subscribed to technorati and am no 3 in the emerging church tag stakes and no 1 in the alternative worship tag stakes at the moment! andrew jones has a post enthusing about tagging for 2006 whilst jordon is more ambivalent (though he still tags). here are my issues:

1. i'll do it if it's easy! i have subscribed to technorati which immediately gives me an option of 20 general tags - easy - i'll do that...
but adding tags to every post manually seems a chore. i do use ecto though and that provides an easy way of tagging. the only issue for me is that i don't always use ecto - i prefer to manipulate the code and images in typepad itself. so i think the easy route may mean i tag some posts if it seems important and i'll use ecto for those... this is my first post with tags via ecto. i'll see if it works. can i be bothered to go back through my blog posts and tag them? i doubt it...

2. i enthused about del.iciou.us a while back and have since been using it as a way of bookmarking via tags. it is so simple and that is the beauty of it. everyone should sign up and use it. i confess my use of it has been pretty lame - see my tags here, but it will grow in 2006 and i'll start to use the inbox feature

3. flickr is my big new discovery (ok i know i am behind many of you on this). flickr is a free online photo album piece of software. i'll blog about it separately in terms of why i love it. but where it comes into play with tagging is that you can tag any photos you like. once a lot of users are doing this it becomes a very neat way of finding photos of your own (e.g. with a place name or person's name). to give an example punters at greenbelt could tag their photos with greenbelt festival. then in flickr you can do a search on that tag and find everyone who has photos... - fab eh!

4. my big question is how this will all cohere? i love typepad photo albums - in an ideal world there should be one code for tagging so that i could tag my photos there and not just in flickr and one way of searching images (incidentally i have asked typepad if there are plans to develop tagging as part of the service). for example i had photos of greenbelt but not in flickr so someone looking via tags would not have found me. now maybe something like google image search will head this way? but i am way out of my league here. i've no idea where it is all headed. will tagging develop more coherence or am i missing something?

5. is tagging a fad or will it be a long term way of organising data on the web? i.e. are we wasting our time worrying about it? blogs seem to feature pretty well in search engines already which is the way most people search for stuff. what is tagging adding that will last?

if all this is putting you off blogs and blogging then just ignore it. but do try out at least one new thing. it's good to learn and push new avenues once in a while. it's no big deal though. as jordon says at the end of his post:

Basically what I am saying is that while tags are useful, I wouldn't get stressed out if you don't have them.  I don't think they make big difference in most weblogs.

update: i received this reply from typepad to my query about tagging:

TypePad doesn't have a built in tagging system currently but that is a feature we'll be looking to add as part of a future release.

Technorati Tags: applications, blogs, flickr, technorati, tag, del.icio.us

tlb work of art

this is a photo of an art canvas that joel created as a present for my younger brother steve for christmas. my family always do a draw for christmas so that you buy one decent present for the person you get in the draw as there are so many of us now... joel got steve (who sadly got pneumonia and has been laid up in bed over christmas). he spent a day creating it via stencilling and drawing and i think it is amazing - cool as you like... click on the image to see a larger version

Technorati Tags: art

ipod nano cover

my sister in law lou got an ipod nano for christmas and knitted herself a cover for it - kind of cute eh?! it even has a little pocket for the headphones and a gap for the hold button...

snow on the beach

we spent the last couple of days in sussex meeting up with family which was great fun. today it snowed which was exciting. we don't get snow very often and i haven't often seen snow on the beach.

new baker on the blog

my son harry has taken the plunge in to the blogosphere. you can follow his blog at miniskinnybaker. he was interested in uploading photos and has tried out flickr which seems to be very cool (i've never got round to using it as typepad's photo albums work a treat for me). his first flickr set is a series of illustrations he has done including a really neat self portrait...

happy christmas!

happy christmas!

using quieter blog period constructively

darren suggests using the quieter period over christmas constructively. problogger has quickly become another success for darren. i have added it into my list of blog links. typepad now has an option in its set up for earning money via ads and a tip jar. i've no idea whether this is worth trying but noticed ads are back with tallskinnykiwi so maybe i'll see how he gets on. meantime i have signed up with technorati, britblog, and blogtopsites just to keep things ticking along. it's always difficult signing up because you have to categorise your blog - i pitched for religion and faith which is a lot of what i blog about but it's more life distilled through that lens... i confess i don't have a lot of motivation to  keep trying to get traffic or put the blog out there. it takes enough time to just write posts. but i guess it's part of the deal...

it may be that for some of you the downtime may be a time to start a blog? if so i was reminded of darren's excellent series of blog tips which would be a good place to dive in...

if you blog already have a browse through the archives of problogger

i mentioned some apps for web 2.0 recently. if you like those you might like 10 for X and best apps of 2005

Technorati Tags: blogs

advent resources 5 - worship trick 52 - magnificat

a while back doug gay sent me a version of the magnificat that he had written for the URC for advent. i loved it but assumed it was for a written publication. but i wondered the other day if it was online so typed doug gay magnificat into google and sure enough it is there and was top of the list as part of a site called commitment for life. simply click on the resources button to download a 4 page pdf with a range of things for advent including two pages by doug with a wonderful prayer of invitation and the magnificat which i have cut and paste below (and made worship trick 52)...

Hail Mary, Mother of God. Sister of the church.
Sing for us now and in all the hours of life.
Blessed are you among humans,
Blessed is the source of your song, Jesus.

Sing to name God for us,
For us who doubt God’s power in times when justice seems so weak.
Sing out that God is Saviour, Mighty, Holy, Mercy
Sing for us now.

Sing and Sing glory up to God,
When our sad souls and spirits shrink, reduce, grow small with waiting,
Sing out for joy to magnify the great God of small things
Sing for us now.

Sing of God’s past,
We are the ones who hardly still believe tomorrow can be new creation
Sing loud God’s mighty acts, God’s arm stretched out to turn worlds upside down,
to overpower evil and sing quiet of
God’s hand cupped soft to shield the dying flame,
to break the sparrow’s fall
God’s faithfulness to broken Israel and beyond –
to Sarah’s children and to all the rest of us, children of Hagar and Keturah’s bairns.
Sing for us now.

Sing of God’s food,
While people still live and still die in hunger
Sing of the God of milk and bread and wine, God’s body pouring life into the world
Sing for us now.

Sing for us now – sing out and bend the notes
sing Zaghareet and Daqqaqat
sing gospel out of blues
sing jazz to shift the minor scale to major
sing like Mahalia or Makeba,
sing like the girl next door sings to her babby of her fierce commitment to his life.
Sing for us now,
Sing for us now,
Sing for us now and at the hour of death and on the resurrection morning too.
Sing for us now.

darren has posted some TOLLS advent liturgies/service outlines

i found this a striking image of mother and child

and tim morgan, a friend and colleague at CMS sent me his reflections on bethlehem (word file) sparked by two visits he has made there. in it he speculates...

Today Bethlehem is a Palestinian town in a territory occupied by the Israeli army.  So let us imagine for a moment that Mary and Joseph are Palestinians and that today they had to leave Nazareth for their home town of Bethlehem.  Would they, Arjan asks, manage to arrive in time for their son's birth?  Would they arrive at all?

Technorati Tags: advent, worship, worship tricks, alternative worship, liturgy

kranky records podcast

if you like your music experimental, ambient, post rock (yes apparently it is a genre) then subscribe to the kranky records podcast. october's was a taste of their fall/autumn releases. december's is a dip into the archives. i came across kranky records because of the amazing dead texan album. i've added the kranky podcast feed to my list of podcasts. makes me think that maybe we should do an occasional proost podcast?...

if you've not listened to a podcast before the easiest way is to subscribe in itunes. simply go to the advanced menu and click subscribe to podcast and type the feed address in.

Technorati Tags: music, podcast

ice skating and santas ghetto

we finally got round to visiting santasghetto yesterday which was the usual mix of artists wares including the likes of banksy and jamie hewlett. having been the last two years i think the stuff makes less impact but it was fun.

then it was ice skating at kew gardens which has become something of a tradition now with my sister and our friends the roses (if we do something twice it soon becomes a tradition...)

park(ing) space

cheryl blogged about this a while back. this is real tricksterish inspiration... park(ing)

an art collective rebar in san fransisco wondered what you could do with a parking space in your allotted two hours? more info and pics are on the rebar site...

They began to consider that metered parking spaces were like short term leases. You pay the meter and the space is yours for the designated amount of time. Of course, normally people park their cars there and go off to work, but they wanted to explore the limits of what could happen in a parking place.

Because certain areas of downtown San Francisco are underserved by public green space, Rebar decided to do the city a favor and increase the amount of green space in the area for two hours on November 16th, 2005. They did this by building a park in a 20-foot metered parking space.

Technorati Tags: art, art installation

the lords prayer

mark has an interesting translation of the lords prayer

O Breathing Life, your Name shines everywhere!
Release a space to plant your Presence here.
Imagine your possibilities now.
Embody your desire in every light and form.
Grow through us this moment's bread and wisdom.
Untie the knots of failure binding us,
as we release the strands we hold of others' faults.
Help us not forget our Source,
Yet free us from not being in the Present.
From you arises every Vision, Power and Song
from gathering to gathering.
Amen -
May our future actions grow from here!

Technorati Tags: prayer, alternative worship

grace party pics

grace party on sat was fab - mark has uploaded some pics

Technorati Tags: grace

20 points!

i don't blog about football much because some people aren't into it and it's too tempting to gloat when you win, but occasionally you just have to...

i remember last year blogging when arsenal lost to bolton and chelsea went 10 points clear. that was the day i was finally convinced chelsea would go on to win the premiership which of course they did. well yesterday chelsea beat arsenal 2-0 in a good contest, but ultimately one in which chelsea looked the better side in virtually every department. it seems astonishing that chelsea are now 20 points clear of arsenal and it's not even christmas! seems like man united and liverpool are the only two sides who have any chance of stopping chelsea making it two titles in a row.

the champions league has put chelsea against barcelona again. i hope to get tickets for the home leg in feb. i love the big european games - some of the most exciting i've ever been to...

come on the blues!

Technorati Tags: chelsea

klf manual

the klf manual (how to have a number one the easy way) which is hard to get is online. i have completely forgotten where i spotted this a few weeks ago so apologies if it was you and i haven't credited you?....

julian opie

julian opie has a rather nice site...

when i was in new york i liked a couple of his animated people that were on big screens. there's an image of them at the moment on his front page titled public art fund NY.

24 character test

which 24 character are you? (via matt)

i came out as george mason...