Since this posted a while ago

Due to some server issues, migration, etc. etc. I got a tad behind on adding entries to UUpdates. One blog seems to be updated fairly regularly, and the particular post of interest is no longer current I thought I would link to it here. Check out this post on growing religion through social media.

Hosting Company Recommendations?

Anyone have suggestions for a good hosting company? My current hosting company has annoyed me for the last time. It is more than time to move on. Requirements include:

• Would be nice if they were a "green" host. Run on wind power or some such.
• Need at least 2-3 GB of bandwidth per month. Thousands of visitors and all the fetching traffic add up.
• PHP/MySQL are absolute musts fewer the limitations on number of databases, etc. the better
• Ability to host multiple domains
• Cron support (or some scheduled task) is a must
• SSH is a must
• Ability to acces at least port 80 outbound from the server
• 24x7 chat with Tech Support (for cases like now when they mess things up)
  

Anyone know anything about http://www.sustainablewebsites.com? In my quick searches they looked good.

Thanks

Minor Interruptions

There may be minor interruptions as UUpdates is migrated to a new server. The hosting company that I am currently using (I will be asking for recommendations for a new host in a later post) was bought out and the servers got migrated despite my selecting the "I will do this manually option".

Hopefully things will be straightened out shortly.

Fifth Annual UU Blog Awards

Howdy folks, a bit of a late start on the blog awards this year...

Last year I remember thinking when I saw Aaron Sawyer blog post about presenting at an award show how uninteresting an awards show would be if the accounting firm of "so and so" simply walked on stage, thanked everyone, then tacked up the winners on a poster board. This seems to me to be what I have been doing with the blog awards. Dull, uninspired. But if I got some of you good people involved….How much more exciting and interesting!

In sum, I need volunteers this year to host each award category. This is what I am thinking:

• Volunteers will respond to this blog post to claim a category (see below) It may be best not to claim a category for which you suspect you may be nominated!
• Contact me with your e-mail address
  
• Put up a post on your blog to collect nominations
• Collect, vet, and make sure we have a link for all nominations, preferably title as well. Oh, you will probably also get people saying "thanks but no thanks" that will need to be removed before being finalized.
• When nominations close send the data to me. I will handle the ballot and voting per usual. I will allow the votes to show for a while, but then towards the end voting will go into mystery mode where the results will not be revealed until the end. Unless folks think I should keep it in mystery mode the whole time.
• Once the voting is done, I will e-mail you the results to be revealed/presented on your blog.
  

Award Categories:

• Best Religious Writing or Theological Commentary (Single entry and Best of Class)
• Best Anecdote or Narrative (Single entry and Best of Class)
• Best Political Commentary (Single entry and Best of Class)
• Best Review or Cultural Commentary
• Best Design or Use of Visuals
• Best New Blog
• Best Non-UU-Themed Blog
• Best UU-Themed Blog
• Best Minister Blog
• Best Seminarian Blog
• Best Lay Blog
• Best Writing

Once we have the volunteers we can set a time line for when nominations, voting, etc. will run.

And of course, questions and comments are welcome.

Update: Life needs my attention devoted elsewhere. If anyone else wants to "host" awards this year, please do. Otherwise Philocrites started a top ten meme.

UUpdates small screen rendering

If you have checked out UUpdates in the past on a mobile phone like the iPhone, then you might want to check it out again. I won't go into the technical details (unless asked), but suffice it to say it should look much better now that I have been able to look at it myself.

I recently got a G1 Google phone and I have to say I am very impressed with the idea of cloud computing. Within minutes of signing in on the phone I had access to all my Google apps (like Gmail) and associated contacts. I imported the phone numbers that previously only existed on my phone's SIM card and now I have them in an easily editable format online. With other mobile devices the Palm Handheld there was always the big worry of making sure it got synched so you wouldn't lose your data. I trust the data integrity on Google's servers more than I do a portable handeld device.

Anyway, if there are any comments on the updated layout. For example if it broke something, or doesn't look better please let me know.