I’ve been playing around a bit with Twitter lately. I’ve actually been tweeting since last May, but I was never really comfortable with the Twitter interface. I didn’t see the point in watching a web page refresh as an endless stream of tweets flowed by. In either case, it wasn’t a means of two-way communication for me. I would occasionally visit Twitter.com, post a tweet and hightail it the heck out of there before something bad happened. I certainly never expected anyone to respond!
Enter Ping.fm. I can’t really remember who it was that first turned me on to this glorious website, but it was love at first sight. Like a lot of you, being a bleeding edge adopter of all things web 2.0 and social media, I had amassed more than my fair share of social networking accounts. I rarely, if ever, visited any of them. But I kept collecting these accounts every time a new service came out. Certainly there had to be an easy way to manage all of them?
Ping.fm allows you to cross-post status updates to most, if not all, of your social networking sites. The only social networking website I was visiting on an even semi-regular basis was Facebook.com. What Ping.fm allowed me to do was add all my social networking sites, including Twitter, and update all of them with a click of the mouse. Sweet!
How I started Twittering more is this: in late February, my 84-year-old mother (who lives with my wife and I in Chesapeake, VA) had a heart attack. As I sat in the hospital waiting for word from the doctors, all I could think to do was post updates to my social networking sites via Ping.fm on my iPhone. Imagine my surprise when I started receiving responses not only from my Facebook friends, but also from total strangers expressing empathy and concern on Twitter!
Since then, I’ve discovered the joys of Tweetdeck (via Chris J. and Donna A.) and life has never been the same! As you can see from the first chart, my Twitter use has gone through the roof in the months of February and March! And now, Tweetdeck has integrated the ability to update your Facebook status as well as read the status updates of your Facebook friends. It just doesn’t get much sweeter than that!
Yeah, I’m using Ping.fm less and less these days, but to tell you the truth, Facebook and Twitter are the only sites I really use anyway. It would be cool if Tweetdeck could do what Ping.fm does, but it doesn’t really matter all that much to me. Not really.
Technorati Tags: web 2.0,social networking,Ping.fm,Twitter,communication,Facebook,Tweetdeck,website
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Going to give blogging another shot
I haven’t blogged since last August, which is a pretty long time if you want to have any kind of following. But I’ve never really been about having followers. Blogging for me has always been more about having a place to record my thoughts and ideas than about having other people read my thoughts and ideas. I like having a place where I can “think out loud” and store topics I may want to revisit at greater depth later.
In either case, this is my first blog post in over seven months. I’m hoping to get the creative juices flowing again!
Technorati Tags: followers,ideas,depth,topics
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More on the Lakeland Outpouring
I’m sorry I haven’t written more (not really), but I’ve simply been far too busy enjoying the summer and my semester off from school! I’ve been getting a lot of recreational reading done (check out my "Visual Bookshelf" on Facebook for details), though you’ll probably have to ask me to be your friend before you can look at it and I reserve the right to deny the request if I don’t really know you.
My wife and I are hitting the road tomorrow and heading to North Carolina to visit old friends from New Jersey and to check out the Todd Bentley event at MorningStar on Friday. As I’ve written elsewhere on this blog, we’ve been tuning in to the goings-on in Lakeland on GodTV on and off for the last couple of months.
It’s been interesting watching the debate on Todd rage back and forth on the internet. I have a friend at Regent whose opinion I respect and value highly who is very concerned for Todd and his ministry. While he’s certainly not in the camp of those calling Todd a heretic, he believes there are some theological "issues". Personally, while I appreciate Todd and his ministry, it’s not entirely my "style".
I’m looking forward to spending some time at MorningStar and ZHOP and checking things out up close and personal! I thought I’d post links to some interesting articles on the Lakeland Outpouring I’ve run across recently.
Pete Greig (of 24/7 Prayer fame) - Lakeland, Florida, Barack Obama & Burma: A Call to Respond to The Signs of the Time
Billy Kennedy - Rumours of Revival
Jason Clark - Navigating New Moves of the Spirit
Bonus Article!: Frank Viola - Stripping Down to Christ Alone: Rethinking the Gifts of the Holy Spirit
The last article by Viola isn’t really about the Lakeland Outpouring but has some good stuff to say and it somehow seems to "fit". Enjoy!
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Now that’s what I’m talking ’bout!: Jesus for President!
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Everything
Another song that’s become a mantra for me.
++Jesus be my everything!++
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God of Justice
This song has been haunting me for quite some time now. I was talking on the telephone today with an old friend and as I mentioned it to him, I realized this song encapsulates everything I want my life to be about. What I most love about the song is that it includes the realization that we can do none of it without God. Our good intentions count for naught and will only result in burnout unless our good intentions are backed up with the awesome power of God’s Holy Spirit!
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A Good Way to Learn How to Invest in the Stock Market
A good way to learn how to invest in the stock market is to play stock market games such as the one currently at CNBC.com. They give you “play” money and let you invest it any way you want, even currency trading!
Play around with a stock screener such as the ones found on Yahoo’s, Google’s, and MSN’s finance websites (great sources of finance news, as well). Personally, I use the stock screener at Smartmoney.com, but it’s a paid service at $58/year. There’s another stock screener at CNBC.com as well.
Screeners can be a bit confusing at first if you have no clue what you’re looking for, but most screeners will have “preset” screens that will enable you to figure out what are the numbers that matter. I found the one at Yahoo to be the most user-friendly for a beginner. The one at Smartmoney.com is really good, too, but again, you have to pay for that one and I would never tell a finance noob to plunk down cold, hard cash for a tool they might not like or ever learn to use.
But here’s how you learn: join a game, screen for some stocks you think might be winners and invest your play money. Sit back and watch your portfolio grow (or shrink). Watch for how things like current events in the news impact the market and try to become aware of the different “cycles” involved.
There are some good books and TV shows that can help you learn how to become a better stock market investor. Try reading How To Make Money In Stocks: A Winning System in Good Times or Bad or Jim Cramer’s Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World. Cramer’s book gives you a good overview of sound stock market investment strategy while O’Neill’s spells out the details of his CANSLIM method. Both are great reads.
You should also tune in to CNBC and FoxBusiness (if available in your area. Cox didn’t carry it, so I had to switch to DirecTV to get it!). There’s a terriffic two-hour block of finance shows on regular Fox News starting at 10 am (EST) every Saturday morning. So start watching!
Tags: CANSLIM, canslim method, CNBC, Finance, finance websites, fox news, FoxBusiness, how to invest in the stock market, how to make money in stocks, jim cramer, portfolio, smartmoney, stock, stock market games, stock market investment, stock market investorRelated posts
I Miss Classic Vineyard!
Check out this new video for the 25th Anniversary of the Vineyard!
Vineyard USA 25th Anniversary from Vineyard USA on Vimeo.
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If I had money to burn…
I’d look into these companies:
Cardica Inc. (CRDC)
BioSante Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (BPAX)
Tumbleweed Communications Corp. (TMWD)
Parlux Fragrances Inc. (PARL)
North American Galvanizing & Coatings Inc. (NGA)
TRANSMERIDIAN EXPLOR (AMEX: TMY)
NAVARRE CP (NasdaqGM: NAVR)
PRIMUS TELECOM GRP# (Other OTC: PRTL.PK)
180 CONNECT INC DEL COM (BB: CNCT)
Kintera, Inc. (KNTA)
Pharmacyclics Inc. (PCYC)
If played right there could be some winners in this bunch!
Tags: 180 connect inc, amex, biosante pharmaceuticals inc, BPAX, cardica inc, cnct, crdc, GRP, kintera inc, knta, nasdaqgm, navr, NGA, north american galvanizing coatings, north american galvanizing coatings inc, PARL, parlux fragrances inc, pcyc, pharmacyclics inc, primus telecom grp, prtl, tmwd, TMY, transmeridian, tumbleweed communications corp, UncategorizedRelated posts
Lakeland, FL Healing Revival
I’ve been watching a bit of this on GODtv. Todd Bentley is a wild man! My wife and I experienced his ministry at a church in Mt. Ephraim, NJ in 2002 or 2003. We also saw him during one of our visits to the IHOP in Kansas City, MO.
As I watched, I couldn’t help thinking to myself, "This is the first ever globally televised revival!" Technology has brought us to the place that not only the good news of salvation but healing can be transmitted over the airwaves. Reports are coming in from all over the world of people being healed as they watched the Lakeland meetings on TV. Amazing.
Tags: Current Events, GODtv, healing, ihop, kansas city mo, Kingdom of God, Lakeland, lakeland fl, Pneumatology, revival, Technology, todd bentley, TV, Uncategorized