I put together a website, www.HeroNU.com to help my church’s outreach plan for a sermon series my Pastor is presenting this summer. It’s called “Heroes: An Old Testament Teaching Series”.

When Pastor Dan presented the opportunity, I jumped at it because, the best way to learn about building web pages is to build web pages.  As you may know from a previous posting, I just started to learn Drupal, so I figured this was the perfect opportunity to “go live” with it.

As you can see, this is basically a one-page site, and comes no where close to using Drupal’s true power and scalability. But that is the good thing about Drupal, too. You can have an extremely complex site with multiple sections and menus, or you can create a simple site like this as well. Sure, I could have just used some static HTML, but I would have lost a learning opportunity as well.

In fact, I did learn a great deal about simple things like nodes, blocks, themes, permissions, user rights, etc. So it was a win in my book.

Now I’m thinking about how I can add to what is already there.

Any ideas?

I took the first step today and joined the Drupal community!

For those of you who are thinking, “You joined another social network?!?!” Relax. Drupal is a powerful Content Management System (CMS) that I’ve decided to learn. I’m relatively comfortable with Wordpress, which is primarily a blogging platform, but I want to be able to build a solid website from scratch now.

Why? Am I interesting in becoming a web designer?

No.

It’s just one of those things that I just have the urge to learn. 

I’ve been listening to two great podcasts  that have been feeding my hunger and teaching me a lot. “The Lullabot Podcast” and “Geeks and God“.

The Lullabot Podcast is purely about Drupal news and how-tos. They talk over my head at times, but bring to light a lot of topics that I later go on to research.

Geeks and God is a podcast about technology and the church. Matt and Rob use Drupal to design their churches’ websites and the sites of the businesses and individuals who hire them in their respective companies. (I’m contemplating going to their conference in July)

Both have been tremendous resources for me and I highly recommend them.

So, I’ll be posting my progress and lessons learned here as I get to know and understand all that is Drupal.

Any tips, suggestions, or resources for a noob like me?

Sigh…I was hoping for a bit more from today’s Google announcement about it’s foray into the mobile phone biz. A part of me was hoping for the much rumored gPhone. No luck.

Truthfully, part of me was hoping that it would be all rumor, so that I could stop researching and go ahead and make a decision on buying a new phone. My two-year Verizon contract is finally up and the market is wide-open. But I don’t want to be locked into a single phone for the next two years either and then the next must-have phone comes out four months in and I’m stuck for another year and a half.

My current plan is to downgrade to one of those pay-as-you-go track phones until I decide on my permanent carrier. I don’t need anything special. Just a number to be reached at by friends and family.

So…then why do I need a fancy phone you ask? Good question.

Maybe its just the consumerist in me. The gadget freak.

Here are the key features that I “need”:

• Phone (duh)
• Good web browsing experience
• Better than average camera
• Google Map integration

Sure, that sounds like an iPhone, but I don’t want another MP3 player. I want my Zune 30 and Zune 8 to handle that. Having another MP3 player would seem like such a waste.

The journey continues, I suppose, stay tuned…

NaBloPoMo #5

I came across a great search tool built specifically to search postings within Twitter call “Terraminds“. (hat tip to Shashi)

This is a great research tool if you’re looking for specific resources for a specific project. For example, I’m always on the lookout for poets to showcase on my poetry podcast “Cloudy Day Art“. I do a simple query for “poetry” (click to try it) and lo and behold I get tweets like (real finds):

I just saw your reply on Nov2. Thank you ^^; I used to do some slam poetry competitions so sometimes maybe it comes out.

i need some poetry that conveys the general message of ‘go aftwr what you want.’

So I came to Starhucks to handle a few clerical things…but it turns out hat I came on poetry night. Poetry night is just a subtle way to stand on a soapbox. Annoying!!!

It can also be a great tool to use to find Tweeters to follow who share your same interests. Looking for fellow kayakers to follow? Search for “going kayaking“. “58 finds in the last 2 months”. Cool.

NaBloPoMo#4

I saw the new Zune ad during the previews before Lisa and I went to see Tyler Perry’s “Why Did I Get Married” tonight.

And, as I mentioned during my NaPodPoMo post, I’m really excited about the potential for the Zune. Not since the iPod have I seen such community build around an MP3 player. The iRiver community built up a lot of steam a few years back, but that seems to have subsided some, but that may be because I’m not as involved anymore.

Or it can be the whole concept of “if you desire something, then the more that desire manifests itself in your life”. Like when you start researching a new car–suddenly they’re everywhere!

Well, here’s the new Zune ad. Welcome to the Social!

Yesterday, at Podcast Academy 6 in Ontario, Canada, Marantz revealed its new portable recorder the PMD620.

I was immediately excited when I read the headline as I’ve been looking for the perfect recorder for my portable podcasting tool bag. Unfortunately, for me, this is not it.

From the Podcast Academy blog:

The PMD 620 sports a pocket size form factor, easy to use menu interface buttons, internal mics, and a convenient built in speaker. It is designed to be used in many markets, including podcasting and broadcasting.The top of the PMD620 houses a pair of high quality omnidirectional condenser mics for convenient recording. This device also provides an 1/8″ input for external plugin mono or stereo microphones, with +5v phantom power for electret condensers. The PMD620 can record 16 or 24bit resolution audio [mono or stereo] direct to SD flash memory in the WAV or MP3 file formats.

Ugh…no TRS/XLR inputs!

Basically, it sounds like Marantz’s own version of the Edirol R-09 or the Zoom H2.

Won’t somebody please make a device for under $400 that has the combo TRS/XLR inputs AND a 1/8th jack! Is it really that difficult? The flexibility of that unit would be amazing.

I could even settle for paying slightly more than $400 for a hardware with those specs. That’s why I’m still torn between Samson’s Zoom H2 and Zoom H4.

*sigh* The search continues…