The Great Commission is our Mission.
This 8-year-old computer served me in Bible ministry for several years until a couple of things went wrong and I couldn’t get it to run MacOS any more. Instead of sending it in for recycling after I replaced it, I loaded Linux on it and repurposed it as a Bibledit server. It is in active …
Read More God and Technology; 27 More Bible Translations Online!Someone I know got robbed without ever being close to the robber. It wasn’t one of the usual scams where someone convinces you to send money to a stranger. It wasn’t obvious how it happened. It took a while to figure it out well enough to figure out how to prevent it from happening again. …
Read More Remote Bank Account Robbery ThreatsThe newest repository for Bible translations for the Crosswire Bible Society’s Sword Project applications is at ftp://ftp.eBible.org/sword. It is also the largest, because it has all of the Bible translations that I have permission to distribute freely and have processed, so far (677 of them as of today). This new repository has just been added …
Read More eBible.org Sword RepositoryElephant shower, a photo by kahunapulej on Flickr. Over the weekend, I finally succeeded in getting the “free” Windows 8.1 update from Windows 8 installed on my desktop computer. It took about 7 tries. Why did I even bother? Because in the world of software development, it is kind of like dancing with elephants. It …
Read More Dancing with Elephants and Software DevelopmentI’ve been dealing with bugs a lot, lately. Not the living insect variety, but the computer bug sort. It is my job. Yes, I’m a missionary, and I do “missionary-like” stuff like living in a remote area in an exotic nation, preach in another language, and continually have faith in God to supply the needs …
Read More Bugs and User Interface DesignI was really happy to have succeeded at fixing a satellite relay station of the Papua New Guinea Christian Broadcasting Network (Wantok Radio Light) in Kainantu. The man in the picture is smiling because I just gave him a solar-powered fix-tuned radio, playing Wantok Radio Light. That nice little Galcom radio is really good for …
Read More The Great TechnicianIn a land where only about 10% of the people have electrical power in their houses, you might wonder what good such technology as electronics, satellites, radio, and cell phones might be. Actually, such technology is very useful, indeed. Technology is no substitute for living and proclaiming the Word of God. It can, however, make …
Read More Missionary Rocket ScienceOur last field term in Ukarumpa, there was no mobile phone service at all in Ukarumpa, except for bulky and expensive hand-held satellite phones. Now, there is service from two different companies! One of those (B-Mobile) has excellent signal strength in Ukarumpa but high airtime prices. The other (Digicel) has better coverage most places in …
Read More Mobile Telephone Service in Ukarumpa!When doing Christian mission work, it is often necessary to consider the effects of email and the Internet when going into areas with opposition. Much mission work goes on in technologically advanced, developed countries. (That isn’t a good description of where I work, but I did take this picture within about 200 meters of a …
Read More Missionary Email Security in Sensitive AreasAnother missionary working in Papua New Guinea (and currently on another island) told my wife that they only got a newsletter out about once or twice a year. It is hard, and they just can’t “whip one out like [Michael] does.” I have a confession. I don’t just “whip out” a newsletter. OK, maybe a …
Read More Behind the ScenesIt turns out that my journal entries were not totally obliterated, just temporarily inaccessible. With a bit of labor, I was able to recover all of the posts in my blog. In the process, I decided to move the blog from the Rainbow Missions leased server to a “free” account on WordPress.com. Although this has …
Read More Blog RestoredYou would think that after more than three decades of working with computers, I would be better about backing up my data. Apparently, I’m not. I’m OK with regular files, but I hadn’t gotten around to setting up a proper backup system for MySQL data on my server, including my WordPress blog entries. A software …
Read More Backup!