I have been operating for a little over five years under the moniker of Pactum Web Services, a title borrowed from my publishing company that I formed in order to release Feed My Lambs. But that stopped making sense over the course of time; for one thing, I’m one person, and I would rather do creative work under my own name. At least as important, I do a lot more than web development now – I have designed logos; drafted print work such as letterhead, business cards, and even lawn signs; and I’ve jumped into custom imagery such as 3D characterization.

This little venture, begun as a small side income in January 2005, has grown a bit every year. As my mother has deteriorated and construction work has become unpredictable, I have more and more sought to make this primary for my income. It would be so beneficial for Mom if I can work from home full-time. Please pray that in 2010 this can happen.

So anyway: Pactum Web Services is no more. Tim Gallant Creative is at timgallantcreative.com. Take a look, join the mailing list, become a Facebook fan….

Simple rules… lead to complex behavior. Complex rules, as with the tax law in most countries, lead to stupid behavior.

http://grandeprairiechristian.com/

The idea here is to help local believers expand their social circles and get to know fellow Christians from the neighbourhood. Introduce yourself online with a profile, get to know one another by participating in forums and chatrooms – but don’t leave it there; once you’ve made new friends, since the whole constituency will be local, you can make arrangements to get together in real life.

So if you’re (1) a Grande Prairie area resident; (2) at least 20 years old; and (3) a Christian – please join up and join in!

Thank you for your concern regarding HTN1, which is apparently a Technological variant of H1N1 (also dubbed “influnetza”). We assure you, the pandemic is of grave concern to all of us.

We have been in contact with our host, and have been assured that all of the component parts of each server are taken out daily and scrubbed with soap and water. This has had only a minor affect on uptime.

You asked whether we could provide a numerical IP address in case parts of the internet shut down. You should know that IP addresses are in fact most vulnerable to the pandemic, moreso than domain names. This is because there are only ten numbers, while there are twenty-six letters; thus the pandemic spreads easier. We have been lobbying the U.S. government for some time for a larger spectrum of numbers to resolve this issue.

Meanwhile, we are  extensively masking domains. Unfortunately, this still leaves the problems of domain propagation undealt with, and there is always the threat of proliferation due to the common practice of “forwarding.”

To date, we do not believe our sites have been affected, although it can be hard to discern, as computer use invariably involves headaches at the best of times.

We prepare for the worst case scenario, of course. We are aware that hacking is very hard on the system, and once that level is reached, a “hands-off” approach is no longer appropriate.

Thank you once again for your concern. Please be assured that, as long as we are healthy, we will do all we can to keep our corner of the internet running.

Yours sincerely,
_____________

http://www.changeinthewind.ca

For various reasons, I have recently had occasion to start thinking about matters related to sociopolitical issues.

On a couple earlier occasions in my life, first as a late teen (when I actually contemplated going to university to major in Political Science) and then later when I was in my Reconstructionist period, politics were very high on my interest list. But when, for exegetical/biblical-theological reasons, I moved away from Reconstructionism/theonomy about a decade or so ago, I largely stepped away from those concerns.  I suppose part of that was due to the fact that, upon moving away from a directly theonomic approach, I wasn’t entirely sure how to think about politics.

I certainly do not claim now to have all the answers, but this new site is aimed at becoming an educational/discussion resource to help Canadian (in particular) Christians work through what we should be aiming for on a sociopolitical level,  as well as to help stimulate ideas for how we can serve our country on a less directly political level.

The site features four main sections: (1) Articles section dealing with various matters of principle, policy, values, etc; (2) Special features section for focusing on current events; (3) Categorized links library to help Christians find valuable articles etc around the web, as well as other web sites; and (4) a blog for keeping up conversation and commenting on current events or whatever. I am hoping to draft a few more contributors, as well.

At this point, the articles section has four articles available, dealing with foundational matters as well as economics and a summary piece on marriage/family/sexuality. There are a couple of substantive posts on the blog, and the links library has a modest beginning. As of yet, there are no special features on current events.

Anyway, do check it out, and pass on the news.

Read the alert.

… and the workarounds either don’t work or can’t be performed as Microsoft themselves explain them.

This convenience came into play again for me today. One of my clients was attempting to send me floorplans. Trouble was, the only image file type their floorplan app would save to was .bmp… and it was doing something to the .bmp file so that, while the bitmap would open nicely in the program itself, the image was just a black box everywhere else.

So I had my client download CutePDF and print from the floorplan app. Bingo. Nicely optimized to send me via email (all the files saved at between 25kb and 70kb each). I opened them up in Acrobat, saved them as PNG files, and presto! I can display them as is.

I’m quite excited about this concept. Now for the work of getting the word out.