Scientists Discover Subterranean 'Ocean' Under Eastern Asia

FOXNews.com is reporting that scientists have discovered a underground ocean in Eastern Asia. I couldn't help but think of the Genesis Flood when I read this as the Bible refers to the "fountains of the great deep broken up". I wondered if this underground ocean is part of those fountains the Bible mentioned in Genesis 7. Makes for an interesting read.

"In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights."

Genesis 7:11-12

From Lifehacker: Use Gmail to push e-mail to your cell phone

If you are every on the go or traveling out of town and you don't have a laptop or a smartphone, you could use your cellphone to access your email. Lifehacker posts about using your Gmail account to create a filter that will forward your emails to your cellphone. This could be the perfect help especially if you are a heavy email user. The messages arrive to your cellphone via SMS so you're kinda limited, but SMS is usually cheaper then a data service. Follow the link below to learn how you can make Gmail work for you!

Source: Lifehacker

Computerworld Editorial on Palm, Inc

I love my Palm Lifedrive, but I'm finding myself longing for an update/upgrade. I've had the device for 2 years. That's my longest time with one PDA. At this time, the Apple iPhone is looking like my next device. It's just hard waiting.
Palminfocenter is one of my favorite Palm oriented websites. It was one of the first I found on Palm devices and I check it almost everyday. PIC recently posted about Computerworld's editorial on the current state of Palm and a bit of looking back at Palm's history. I've taken a look at the article and it does do a good job covering Palm from the beginning to now. I hate saying it, but Palm has seen its golden years come and go. If they don't do something, I do fear that the Apple iPhone and others like it will crush Palm. The Treo is a great device and it has set the standard on many accounts, but it's reign could very well be coming to an end. Take a peek at the article, it's a good overview of what's happened at Palm. BTW, you might want to grab some Pepsi as this is a long article.

"The once-mighty Palm Inc., still successful on paper from the momentum of past glories, is doomed to decline and failure. It wasn't always thus. Here's my preemptive postmortem.

About 12 years ago, I met with a man I didn't know, who worked for a start-up I was unfamiliar with, to see a product I'd never heard of.

The man was Ed Colligan. The start-up was Palm Computing (though it had recently been acquired by modem maker U.S. Robotics). And the product was code-named Touchdown, later to be branded the Palm Pilot.

At the time, I was executive editor of a computer magazine, and Palm was just one of a dozen or so companies scheduled for meetings that week. Most of those meetings were forgotten minutes after they concluded. But the Touchdown one was a revelation. Colligan, now president and CEO of Palm, left me a device to test."

Source: Palminfocenter

Reading sermons.

Last week, I posted an audio sermon recommendation. This week I wanted to post about a publication called the Sword of the Lord. I'm not sure how often it comes out, but I've subscribed to it in the past and it is well worth the $15 yearly subscription. The Sword publishes several sermons and other useful preaching and pastor tips, illustrations, etc. It's perfect for anyone that teaches or enjoys reading sermons of yesterdays and todays preachers.

I really think it is important for preachers, teachers, missionaries, students to read sermons as well as listen to them. It will help you in your personal studies and even in your message preparation. With all the gadgets we long after and read about, it cannot hurt us to work on our spiritual health. I hope you take a look at the Sword of the Lord and if you have any suggestions of places that you read sermons online or another publication, please share it with the rest of us!

You can download a free preview copy of the Sword of the Lord here.

Advanced WindowsCare Professional for free!

Giveaway of the Day is giving away for free - Advanced WindowsCare Professional. I missed this earlier today, so your time is very short on this one. You must download install and activate the software in the next 6 hours at the time of this posting. I've used the freeware version of this software from IObit and it has helped my PC run a lot smoother. The best part about it is you can just about set it and forget it. Hope you get the chance to get this freebie!

iPhone Commercial (UPDATED)

Last night during the Academy Awards, Oscars, Apple released a commercial of their upcoming Apple iPhone. If you were like me and didn't watch the Academy Awards, you can view the commercial at Apple iPhone Review.

The commercial doesn't show much about the iPhone at all. So if you are hoping for new interesting specs or something along those lines you will be disappointed. I do want a Apple iPhone to replace my aging Lifedrive. While I most concern about the iPhone's battery life, I really think it could be my next mobile device. I am hoping that theblack area on the backside of the iPhone is a battery cover. While it's hard to know for sure, I cannot understand why Apple would not have a way to switch out the battery. I mean you have to have a place to put the SIM card, so it makes sense to have a replaceable battery as well. Time will time and I'll have to wait closer until June to find out.

UPDATE: Apple now has that commercial posted to their website. You can view it here.

How to pack lite/right when you travel.

This is a good tip and help when you are travelling. Lifehacker points to Travelite FAQ web site and their list of helping packing tips. Traveling in the ministry is quite common and I'm sure most of you are world-wide speakers. ;) You might be preaching out, on a mission trip, and other personal travel (i.e. vacation, weekend trip, etc.) To help make these trips less stressful and more enjoyable, it's good to have a system to your packing. It helps avoid forgetting things, know which bags hold what (this is great if you've lost luggage- been there done that! Several times even), etc.

Over the years, I've improved as a traveler and for most part have developed my own packing method. It's called my wife. JUST KIDDING! She does pack our family or me when I travel alone, but I have a list of what I need when I travel. It's a help to her and it's a help to me eliminating any buying of things I forget once I/we get to where I/we are going. If you are flying, it's also important to checkout the TSA rules for fliers. It'll be a huge help.

Another attack on Christianity: Jesus wasn't resurrected.

As is common with Christianity, folks constantly attack it. We, Christians, know this is to be expected. For many centuries, Satan has attempted to discredit God's Word and foil God's plan. Satan tried this in the Garden of Eden and it didn't work. Despite knowing his very end, Satan continues to try and foil the will of God. While no man or devil can do this, some people are once again attempting to foil the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

James Cameron, a Hollywood movie director/producer(yes, I know what you are thinking), and his director, Simcha Jacobovici, are claiming that they have found Jesus' coffin and 9 other coffins that are part of Jesus' family. They say they can prove this through "DNA tests, archaeological evidence and Biblical studies." How they can figure out the DNA was Jesus' is beyond me? How could a poor carpenter family afford stone caskets for their family is once again puzzling? How they say Biblical studies has further confirmed their findings is also quite amusing. Not sure what Bible they are reading or referring to, but my King James Bible says Jesus died, was buried and rose again the third day. It later speaks of His accession into heaven. So, it stands to reason that much- OK all of this is hogwash. That said, we as Christians must realize that people will attack this way and it shouldn't shake our faith, but rather strengthen it.

"This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."

1 Timothy 3:1-7

Source: Time Blog and Drudge Report

Youth Activity: Snow Tubing

If you live in an area that has snow, some of the best activities for your young people is snow tubing, skiing, snow board, etc. Today, I took our youth to the Holiday Valley Tubing Company. The weather could not have been better for tubing. The sun was out and the teens had lots of fun. Some even complained about it being to hot! The temp out there was around 25 degrees maybe a little less. Unfortunately for me, I could not participate with the tubing as I'm still on the mend from my ACL reconstruction surgery. So, I had to watch them tube from a snack shop. Eating nachos and a hot dog. It was rough, I know! ;)

FireFox updated.

Mozilla has released an update to FireFox. The latest version now is 2.0.0.2. You can also view the latest known issues and other release notes here.

PC World's Windows Vista FAQ

Windows Vista FAQ from PC World is an excellent resource for all you Windows Vista hopefuls and those who have taken the jump already like me. Unfortunately, my video card is waiting for a new driver to be released so I stop getting stop errors. Vista is constantly telling me that I need new drivers, but nvidia says they will have them down the road. Hopefully they do.
In the meantime, I've read thru this FAQ and it does offer some clarification on Vista. I build my own PCs as it is a hobby of mine. However, buying a new PC would be the best way to go if you want Vista on it. I'd also recommend Vista Home Premium instead of Windows Vista Basic. Basic would be a waste of your money as it lacks the really neat features of Vista. If you do decided to build your own PC, be sure to check the manufacturers website to make sure that particular product does support Windows Vista. I've learned that one the hard way.

Wii Tips and Tricks

I was searching for tips and tricks for our Nintendo Wii yesterday and I came across the site Wii Chat. They have listed in their forums over 50 tips and tricks for Wii users. They tell of a freeware program that converts video that is playable on the Nintendo Wii, a place to pick up a game case for the Wii Sports game disc that will match other Wii game cases. I found most of them to be quite helpful and I think it's worth checking out if you are a Wii owner.

Nintendo's Wii top seller in January, beats out PS3 and Xbox 360

Nintendo's Wii tops both Xbox 360 and PS3 in the United States for January. Looks like a lot of people are warming up to the Wii. I know that it is quite hard to find in the Buffalo area. Many of the Wii's accessories are also sold out. You can usually find games just fine, but extra remotes, nunchucks, etc. are hard to come by. I'm sure the price of the Wii makes for a better sell and I think folks are really interested in a new way to "game".

"SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s <7974.os> Wii was the best-selling video game console in the United States in January, and the Japanese company also boasted four of the top 10 games, data released on Wednesday showed.

The figures from market research firm NPD showed that U.S. shoppers snapped up 436,000 of the Wii, which debuted in November for $250 and features a motion-sensing controller that has helped build buzz for the machine."

Source: Reuters

Apple, Cisco reach agreement on iPhone name

The iPhone name will be used by both companies. That's right- everybody is winner with Apple and Cisco! Well, I guess Cisco realized that their iphone looked nothing like the iPhone. I'm just glad this saga is over. Time to move on!

"NEW YORK (Reuters) - Network equipment maker Cisco Systems Inc. and Apple Inc. on Wednesday said they have reached an agreement that allow both to use the "iPhone" name, after Cisco sued the iPod maker for using it for a new multimedia phone."

READ MORE

Install other operating systems on your PC with Virtual PC from Windows (Freeware)

Virtual PC is a freeware program that allows you to run other operating systems on your PC. It's kinda like Parallels. You can't run the Mac OS X with it, but you can run another version of Windows, OS/2, and some folks have certain versions of Linux running with Virtual PC. Now why would you talk about this on TGP? Well, it's not just because it's free.

Our school uses the ACE curriculum and some of the ACE software needs either Windows 95/98 which means I've got to keep older computers running and both those operating systems are no longer supported by Microsoft. So, I'm hoping to install Virtual PC on a Windows XP computer and then install Windows 98se on that computer to hopefully support the aging software. I'd rather see some updates to that part of the curriculum, but it could be a bit before we do. In the meantime I'm hoping this creative solution will work. I'll let you know hopefully later this week.

Coud this be the SlingLink Turbo?

Sling's upcoming SlingLink Turbo leaked? Engadget reports on the "next" SlingLink which apparently a eagle eye consumer caught on Amazon.com. It's still a rumor at this point, but a rumored release date is Feb. 27th.
If you are not familiar with SlingLink, it is a device that will allow you to watch your TV on your mobile device or laptop computer. So if you are away from home and watch to catch your local news, you can do that with Sling Media. I personally like the idea, but really don't see the reason to have this device as going on vacation or traveling, I usually don't watch much TV anyways. Nonetheless, it's a cool device and for those of you who would be interested in such a device you can check it out here.

Calendar Magic (Freeware)

Calendar Magic has several useful calendar features which could be helpful when you are studying or preparing for a lesson/sermon. You can compare the Hebrew calendar with our calendar. It makes for any interesting comparison, but there are a few odd things that come with it. Mainly to do with zodiac and biorhythm stuff, which most of us aren't interested in. However the other features I've found to be helpful and useful. Try and decide for yourself.

Here are comments from PC World. You can also download the app from them as well.

"There must be a lot of calendar geeks, because Calendar Magic is a perennial favorite, even though it's more of an educational tool than a scheduling tool. Any interest in calendars beyond the January half-price sales is amply rewarded by this program, which offers an astonishing 23 calendar systems for use, study and comparison. There are also numerous tools that calculate and convert data, from a global distance calculator to a pregnancy calculator.

Approximately 16 functions in the program deal with calendar- and date-related information. You can also chart the positions of the sun and moon relative to your physical location. Four tools deal with time: an alarm clock, a stopwatch, an addictive reaction timer, and another that reveals the current time almost anywhere on the planet. Five more tools manage your personal notes and event reminders, while another ten are primarily concerned with mathematical calculations and conversions. Kids in particular will enjoy the "Magic Square" calculator. One final button is mysteriously labeled, "For later use."

You could pay for other programs that provide some of the features in Calendar Magic, but you won't pay for Calendar Magic, because it's freeware."

Computer and desk stretching exercies

Computer and desk stretching exercise can help you avoid joint and other muscle problems when you use computers for a long time. These exercises can easily be done at your desk. You might even suggest this your secretary or other staff who use computers for long periods of time. Eye strain, carpal tunnel, and back problems are just some of the issues that plague frequent computer users.
Be sure to take a look at this and the next time you are at your computer make sure you take a break and stretch a bit!

Print your own PDFs for free.

On a weekly basis I send out a basketball standings report to the coaches in our boys and girls league. Once the report is done I email it to the coaches. Just to make sure that everyone could read the document, I print it off as a PDF document. How you may ask? With a simple program called PrimoPDF. It installs a virtual PDF printer on your computer. So instead of sending the document or spreadsheet to your paper printing, you select your PrimoPDF printer and it "prints" a PDF file for you. You can view it with Foxit PDF Reader or Adobe Acrobat Reader. The software is free and works great on my PC. I've even installed it at our church and school's computers. The secretary uses it to print out the church bulletin so it can be easily read by our website readers.
I also have used this to print off our yearbook pages so I could send it to the printer. Works great with my Publisher documents. Occassionally I have come across a format error with Publisher documents, but a little tweaking usually fixes the job. This is definitely a must if you send out documents from programs that others cannot open, but they need the information. Here are some features of the software.

• FREE PDF Converter - not a trial version.
• Print to PDF from virtually any application.
• Create PDF output optmized for print, screen, ebook, or prepress.
• No annoying pop-up ads, no registration requirement - no catch!
• High-quality, easy to use PDF creator for all users.
• NEW! Double byte character support, enhanced support for Microsoft Windows 98, ME, and NT, PDF viewing support for non-Windows environments, and full support for 64-bit machines (download separate installer here).
• Secure PDFs with 40-/128-bit encryption, allowing the highest level of security for your PDF files. Settings include password to open, password to change, disable printing, disable text/graphics copying, disable commenting, disable text editing, disable page addition.
• Add document information (e.g. title, author, subject, keywords) to converted PDF files, resulting in faster and easier searching of PDF documents.

We bought a Wii.

This past week, our family bought a Nintendo Wii. While I'm spending more time on it then my boys, although they chomp at the bit for their turn, I must say that it is a cool device. I love the interaction of the device and that you have to move in order to play games. It's a lot better then sitting in a chair or on a couch mashing buttons.
The price of the Wii is a whole cheaper then the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. I paid only $250 for the Wii. I see that as being affordable for more families. If you have a Game Cube, your Game Cube games can play on the Wii. The Wii also supports parental controls which means you can control what kind of games that are played on the Wii based on the games rating. I think this should give parents more comfort over what their child is playing. You are also able to download older Nintendo games from past game systems like Sega, NES, Super NES, Nintendo 64, etc. While not all games are available from those systems many are and cost from $6 to $10. Again not a bad deal at all in my opinion. The Wii also comes with Wi-Fi which helps you download the games and surf the internet. I'm just impressed that the device only cost $250.
To me, it seems that Nintendo is attempting to reach families with this new game system. Learning to play the Wii wasn't hard at all and my wife who doesn't play a lot of video games found it fun and easy for her to learn. Even my oldest who is 5 has been able to play the Wii. It could definitely offer some family fun.
I would recommend the Wii. It's graphics are good and I like the I have more control over the games on the Wii. The Wii also gives a report at the end of the day how much time was spent on the Wii and it's broken down by activity as well. This is store in a message inbox and cannot be deleted as far as I can see. Which means you see how much you child is really playing on the Wii. Games are still expensive for it in my opinion, but compared to other gaming systems not so much. The Wii is still hard to find and you might do well calling around before you go out shopping for one.