One of the things that attracted me most to them was their iPhone app.  It made it a snap to keep your Tumblr blog updated (you can check out my Tumblr blog here).  However, for some reason, they lacked the ability to upload video, which is absolutely essential for us iPhone users that don’t want to write all of the time.  Thankfully, just today they released that capability, and ooooohhhh man is it cool!

There is one downfall though, in order to actually upload your videos to your blog, your iPhone needs to be connected via wi-fi.  That kind of sucks, especially when you can upload YouTube flicks all day over the 3G network.  Oh well though. The app is free, and beggars can’t be choosers.

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Post tags: blog, blogging, tumblr, video, vlog

I ended up being surprised – to say the least – at how much I enjoyed the speaker that I supported. His name was Michael Cumbie, and he was an ex-Southern Baptist minister that came to the Church. I am not going to go into his story in this post, but you can check out my review of him here.

Basically, the point of this post is to say that you should check out all of the speakers and bloggers that supported this. It’s pretty amazing, and a great resource if you are looking for some great Catholic media.

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Post tags: blog, blogging, Blogging, catholic, catholic cpeakers, catholic speaking, michael cumbie

“Dean, I need my own blog…….STAT! I have things on my mind that I need to get out! Help a sista out!”

Needless to say, helping a sista out is where I excel.  Okay Laura, you want to enter the 21st century and hop on the web 2.0 bandwagon, girlfriend?  Well, here is how you are going to do it.

There are two ways to go about this: the easy way, and the hard way.  Both have their advantages and disadvantages, but what content you expect to produce will determine the route that you should take.

The Easy Way

The easiest way to create a blog is to use one of the many web hosted platforms that are out on the interwebs.  There are quite a few of them, and all of them have their own strengths and weaknesses (go figure).  But the cool thing about all of them is that you really don’t need any technical experience to use them, they are absolutely free (for the most part), and they usually have mobile apps that allow you to post from anywhere around the world using your phone or email.  I love free…

• Tumblr – This platform is quickly becoming my favorite.  It’s light, it’s a social network, and it’s very customizable.  The great thing about Tumblr is that it allows you to reblog posts from other Tumblrs, which is  great for community building and getting traffic to your blog.  They also host custom domain names (i.e. www.queenlaura.com).
  
• Wordpress.com – Wordpress.com is another free platform that is decently customizable and pretty user friendly.  I like it, but never really got into it.
• Blogger – Probably the most well-known free blogging platform out there.  It’s good, but whenever I run across a blogger site I have a negative reaction to it – I am not sure why.  Maybe it’s because most of the templates used are so similar.
• Posterous – Very easy blogging platform.  You email your posts to Posterous and it does the rest.  Although it’s great, I prefer Tumblr and I gave my reasons for my choice in a previous article.  Plus, Gary Vaynerchuk from tv.Winelibrary.com agrees with me too (I just finished his book “Crush It!” and I’ll be doing a review on it soon!).
  

The Hard Way

Sometimes you want to have a bit more control over your content.  In that case, I recommend a self-hosted Wordpress blog (this is not the same as a Wordpress.com blog).  With a self-hosted blog you can customize themes any way you want to, have your own domain name (i.e. www.laurarocksdahouse.com, instead of www.laurarocksdahouse.blogspot.com), and you can do pretty much whatever you want.  It’s harder, but anything that is worth doing is going to be difficult.  Without going into great detail, here is how you do it:

• Purchase some shared hosting – I’ve been using Bluehost and they’ve been pretty good, and their customer service is great.  They run about $5-$7 a month.
• Buy a domain name from a hosting service – I know that Bluehost will give you one for free, but they typically cost around $8-$15 a year.
• Log into the Cpanel at your shared hosting site and use Simple Scripts or Fantastico to install Wordpress.
• Check out 140+ free Wordpress templates that you could start off with.
• Go to http://wordpress.tv/ and start learning how to use it.

Okay, I’m done.  Hopefully that answered your question!

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Post tags: blog, blogging, creativity, ideas, imagination, simple blogging, Web

Anyway, the platform that I am using for my new project is Tumblr.  Now, there has been a recent battle between Tumblr and Posterous about which platform is the better “simple” blogging tool.  Late last week I was asked by Mark Alves  of ChurchMojo about why I chose Tumblr over Posterous.  Well Mark, the answer to your question has drawn nigh (and deserved a video, no less).

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Post tags: blog, blogging, blogs, posterous, simple blogging, tumblr, Writing

Anyway, my love for Wordpress aside, there is a relatively new site out there called Wordpress.tv.  Now, rather than having to rely on sifting through a plethora of documentation, you can watch recorded video tutorials from the developers and elite users of Wordpress.  It’s a great way to get started, quickly!

Wordpress.tv – The Best Wordpress Tutorials Ever! via MakeUseOf

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Post tags: blog, blogging, tutorials, web, wordpress

When I first saw Matthew Warner’s call to help support a Catholic speaker, my first reaction was to find Peter Kreeft and do a write up on him.  I was excited, ecstatic, and all those other words to describe my feeling of giddiness at the thought of telling the world about my favorite Philosopher.  To my dismay, my dreams were smashed by another blogger who was far more quick on the draw than I.  Mournfully, I perused around the list of speakers looking for another to support.  Not thinking too much of it, I randomly picked the name of an orator that I knew absolutely nothing about. To my surprise, I found more than I had bargained for.

Who is Michael Cumbie?

Michael Cumbie is an ex-Southern Baptist preacher that converted to Catholicism after 23 years of being a Pastor.  Think about it, he gave up his livelihood that supported his family, his passion of preaching the gospel, and pretty much his entire life that he had spent 23 years building.  His willingness to give it all up amazed me. But what truly made an impact on me was the fact that, although he thought that he would never preach again, he is now traveling the world sharing his story and the truth about Catholicism.

When you hear Michael Cumbie, the first thing that you will notice is that he sounds like a Southern Baptist preacher (go figure).  However, the funny thing is that, although you expect someone with his fire and zeal to be preaching about protestant theology, it is almost uncomfortably pleasurable listening to him speak about the Church and the sacraments.  With Michael, you feel a joy about the Church that can only be expressed by someone that was without it for a long time.  His humor, his intellect, and his emotion take you along with him on the roller coaster that he felt during his conversion.

Click here to view the embedded video.

More Than Your Average Speaker

Michael Cumbie has a great way of explaining a lot of what the Church teaches in normal, every day language.  Yet, you can tell that he had been studying the Scriptures all of his life by the masterful way he ties the Church and the Bible together, and shows how the two are complementary and not contradictory.

There was only one thing that bothered me while checking out Michael’s ministry, and that was that there wasn’t much out their on the Internet that you could listen or watch in long durations.  I had to find bits and pieces here and there (and even do a little Google hacking) to fully enjoy his inspirational talks.

Conclusion

I highly recommend Michael Cumbie to anyone that desires to know more about the Catholic Church and wants to have a great time laughing and thinking along the way.  He is a phenomenal speaker, and when I contacted him about a possible interview for this post, he was very accommodating and kind, but was unable to do so because of prior engagements.  Perhaps in the future I will update this post with an interview with him.

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© Dean Soto for Productive Catholic , 2009. | SOTO9438 | Read the article at the blog! | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: apologetics, catholic, catholic speaker, conversion, michael cumbie, scripture, speaker, Theology

Photo by notsogoodphotos

My Catholic Blogging Friends

• Jeff Geerling – Jeff is a web development wizard and maintains Life Is Prayer, Open Source Catholic and LOL Saints.  He is also making an aggregated Catholic news feed site called Catholic News Live.  He is a great guy, and you can follow him on Twitter via @geerlingguy. (Send him a tweet letting him know how Joomla is a far better CMS than Drupal)
• Suzanne Sadler – Suzanne is an ultra-successful-yuppie-turned-entrepreneur.  Her site, The Entrepreneurial Catholic just got established, but it is already off to a great start.  It’s dedicated to helping stay-at-home moms, and moms in general, find ways to make money by being their own boss.  She helped me to get going on Plurk, and now it is one of my favorite social media platforms!  She is also on Twitter @SuzanneSadler.
• Mark Alves – Any blog that has an Atari 2600 in the header has to be good! Mark runs the ChurchMojo blog, and man is it awesome.  It’s a bit of tech mixed in with a bit of business.  One thing that you’ll notice right away is that he is on top of his game when it comes to Twitter, offering digests of some of the best Twitter posts that he finds.  Follow him @MarkAlves.
• Matthew Warner - He is the author of Fallible Blogma, and he is leading the charge of getting Catholics on board the social media bandwagon.  He developed flockNote, a Catholic social networking tool for Church ministries, and TweetCatholic, a Catholic Twitter community.  Not only that, every now and then he sponsors events that support the Catholic media community.  For example, this month he is doing an event in which bloggers support a specific Catholic speaker by interviewing or reviewing the speaker’s program.  It’s a pretty awesome idea to build up the Catholic speaker and blogger community! (By the way, he still needs 9 more bloggers as of writing this!) You can catch him @MatthewWarner.

Non-Catholic Blogging Friends

• Jun Loayza – I met Jun at a  Brazen Careerist meetup for Southern California bloggers.  He is a very bright guy and always willing to help other bloggers to develop the look of their blog, their content, and their social media presence.  It is amazing to see how, even though he is busy with his entrepreneurial blog and other business ventures, he is still willing to drop everything to help.  Check him out @JunLoayza.
• Jenny Blake - Jenny works at Google and is a real go-getter.  If you want to find ways to do what you are passionate about, rather than what you feel you have to do to make money, you should really check out her blog.  Her enthusiasm is contagious, and her passion is obvious.  Not only that, she is extremely smart.  Also, if you have the chance, check out some of the Google Docs templates she has developed, she is seriously the template queen.  Of course, her Twitter profile is @jenny_blake.

I didn’t forget you…

If you are a blogging friend of mine that I didn’t mention, don’t worry I didn’t forget you.  I want to save you guys for later so I don’t have to cut everyone’s bio short.

To all of the friends that I’ve met, thank you for your support and for just being you. You are all an inspiration to me, and may our Lord Jesus Christ bless you!

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Post tags:

Photo by KevinZim

Don’t Worry About Grammar and Spell Check

Just write!  Write as though you are speaking.  You don’t make a correction every time you are speaking to someone do you? Well, maybe you do, but stop correcting yourself when you are typing! Let your mind flow like water and get everything out that you want to say and let the automatic spell check fix your mistakes.  If you are really concerned, and you have Wordpress, you can always install After the Deadline.

Learn to Touch Type

Seriously, you can’t write a full blog post in under 15 minutes if you are still using 2 fingers to type on the keyboard.  I made it through high school and college doing that, but time seems to get shorter and shorter and 2 fingers just doesn’t cut it.  If you don’t know how to touch type yet, you can check out Keybr.com, a cool touch typing tutor online.  It beats paying for Mavis Beacon software.

Don’t Worry about links or formatting

I used to spend an hour trying to hunt down pictures and links.  Don’t worry about them!  They can always be added later.  All you will do if you worry about those things is ruin your train of thought.  Sometimes you’ll end up not even using them after you’ve reviewed your first draft.

Your First Draft is Crap

That’s right!  No matter what you do, your first draft will be crap.  It sucks, it’s the worst thing ever, and it should be shot on sight.  Don’t worry about it! Unless you have the writing ability of C.S. Lewis, you won’t be able to write near-perfectly on the first go around.  Just write down your thoughts and know that they are nothing but a raw piece of what you want to present.

Conclusion

I have less than 3 minutes left on the clock, and I can assure you that my first draft of this post was garbage.  But hey, I finished it, and all I have to do now is proofread it, add some cute images, and links to some relevant content.  Don’t try and be perfect and you can write some great posts in a short amount of time!

Note outside of the 15 minute window: If you want proof that I wrote this piece in under 15 minutes, here is a pic of my iPhone stopwatch app.  See, it can be done.  Now stop calling me a liar!

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© Dean Soto for Productive Catholic , 2009. | SOTO9438 | Read the article at the blog! | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: blog writing, blogging, speed writing, touch typing, typing tutor, Writing, writing fast

Do you know where i can find a widget for inserting a U.S. Holy Days of Obligation reminder on my blog?

Well Tim, I think I have just the thing for you.  Unfortunately, there wasn’t a specific plugin out there that had all of the holy days of obligations listed, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t jury rig a little sompin’ sompin’. 

Photo by Panoramas

Okay, so the first thing that you will need to do is download the WP Web Scraper plugin.  The plugin comes with a widget feature that we will edit to make our plugin.  In essence, the scraper plugin will scrounge another site’s HTML source code for the information that we want. So really, we could use the plugin for just about anything.  Of course, I recommend that you give the credit to the site you are going to scrape from for the information that you are scraping, since they wrote it.

Alright, so after you have downloaded and installed the WP Web Scraper plugin, go to the widget menu under the appearances menu in Wordpress and add a text box into your sidebar.

Once you’ve done that, title the text box however you like and add the following code into the text box:

<ul><li>[wpws url="http://www.catholicusf.org/holydaysofobligation/" selector="li:eq(0)" clear="" cache="9000" output="" agent="" timeout="1" error=""]</li>

<li>[wpws url="http://www.catholicusf.org/holydaysofobligation/" selector="li:eq(1)" clear="" cache="9000" output="" agent="" timeout="1" error=""]</li>

<li>[wpws url="http://www.catholicusf.org/holydaysofobligation/" selector="li:eq(2)" clear="" cache="9000" output="" agent="" timeout="1" error=""]</li>

<li>[wpws url="http://www.catholicusf.org/holydaysofobligation/" selector="li:eq(3)" clear="" cache="9000" output="" agent="" timeout="1" error=""]</li>

<li>[wpws url="http://www.catholicusf.org/holydaysofobligation/" selector="li:eq(4)" clear="" cache="9000" output="" agent="" timeout="1" error=""]</li>

<li>[wpws url="http://www.catholicusf.org/holydaysofobligation/" selector="li:eq(5)" clear="" cache="9000" output="" agent="" timeout="1" error=""]</li>

<li>[wpws url="http://www.catholicusf.org/holydaysofobligation/" selector="li:eq(6)" clear="" cache="9000" output="" agent="" timeout="1" error=""]</li>

<li>[wpws url="http://www.catholicusf.org/holydaysofobligation/" selector="li:eq(7)" clear="" cache="9000" output="" agent="" timeout="1" error=""]</li></ul>

What this does is list all of the holy days of obligation for 2009 and 2010.  It will change as the site’s author’s change it, so you shouldn’t have to worry about it being updated as long as they update their site.  Because the plugin is scraping the content of the Catholic Student Center of USF make sure that you copy the code above exactly.  The reason is that the information above caches the information for long time so that your site doesn’t constantly have to look for updated content every time someone visits (that’s why the cache is set at 9000 minutes).  If it weren’t, your site and Catholic Student Center of USF would be bogged down by requests every time your site was accessed.

Anyway, hopefully this helps and you are able to use this as a means of reminding your readers about U.S. holy days of obligation.  Let me know if you need anything else. Maybe I’ll make a real plugin that does this if I get enough people asking for it.

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© Dean Soto for Productive Catholic , 2009. | SOTO9438 | Read the article at the blog! | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: catholic, holy days of obligation, holy days of obligations, obligation, plugins, wordpress plugin

Anyway, go and vote.  You can pick up to 10 candidates, and there are a lot to choose from!  But if you don’t choose either Peter Kreeft or Christopher West I’ll be very disappointed in you – and you don’t want that, do you?

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Post tags: c s lewis, catholic, contest, peter kreeft, poll