Musical advert - amazing!

This advert by the Zurich Chamber Orchestra is amazing. The musical staves become a... No! I'm not telling you what they become, you'll have to view the video for yourself. I emailed the link to a bunch of friends and some of the comments so far are, 'Raise a pint of beer to creativity! Incredible!', 'I felt quite sick by the end but agree it is fun.', and 'Thanks, Chris - made me quite giddy!'

Posting to a blog from email

It's great to see that this is now a standard part of Blogger. I can just send an email to my blog address and it pops into the right place in seconds. It's a very easy way to update your blog, highly recommended.

Back to blogging

I'm getting back to this blog after a long, long absence. Blogger's management and editing systems have all changed so this is just a check to see how (if) it all works.

Another way to post a blog (SQ)

This post is my first attempt to blog using 'blogmailr', a website provided by telligent, those terribly nice guys who wrote Community Server.

It's really very clever, but like many of the best ideas it's also very, very simple. You sign up on the website, then you provide one or more e-mail addresses that you want to use to create blog posts, provide URLs and login details for any blogs you want to post to, and blogmailr provides an e-mail address for each blog. You write a mail message and sent it to the provided e-mail address and voila! - Job done.

Well we'll see, won't we. I've just typed this into my e-mail client, addressed it using the e-mail address provided by blogmailr, and now I'm going to hit the send button...

(This was my final post to the Squarespace blog. Hint - click the label 'sq' below to show only the Squarespace posts.)

Getting started with the new blog (SQ)

I've been beavering away part-time on this new site for months. My old website is years old and looks it, this new one has all the tools I need to keep the content fresh and well-structured - at least I hope so!

First off is this blog. At the outset my idea is to comment on anything in life that strikes me as interesting or noteworthy. And the first noteworthy thing I can think of is that, well, here it is at last. A brand new, scarily empty blog. Come back in a few days time and see how I'm getting on. You can use an RSS or Atom feed to keep an eye on new entries (or you will be able to when I work out how to set it up), or you can just stop by from time to time. You will be most welcome.

Maybe, with winter coming on in the northern half of the globe, we can have some nice fireside chats.

(This was the first post to a new blog built using Squarespace. Hint - click the label 'sq' below to show only the Squarespace posts.)

A handy Bible tool (KN)

Q - When you want to look up a Bible passage and you don't have a Bible with you, what do you do?

A - Find an internet connection and browse to the Bible Gateway!

There you will find the entire Bible in a number of versions. You can display a verse or a whole chapter just by entering the details in a search box. Easy!

But you can do so much more than that with this well-designed tool...

If you've already used the Bible Gateway you'll know exactly what I mean, but if you're a newbie to this clever website - read on.

Keyword lookup - A second search box is provided for looking up words, type in 'fish bread' for example and click 'Search' and up pop those gospel passages about the feeding of the thousands, along with several other verses containing the same two words.

Changing versions - Once you've found the passage you need in one translation, you can read it straight away in another. It's easy to look at the same passage again and again in different versions; and there are lots to choose from.

Sometimes it helps to search in the King James Version (perhaps you remember that version of the verses you need), then, having found it, swap to a modern translation to read it.

If you've already used the Bible Gateway you'll know exactly what I mean, but if you're a newbie to this clever website - read on.

Audio versions - There are also audio versions in a variety of languages. This gives a different kind of experience and may be helpful.

Other materials - There are some study guides here too. Not as comprehensive or easy to use as some of the Bible software available on CD or traditional print, but very useful when nothing else is to hand (when you're travelling away from home, perhaps).

Foreign languages - There are versions of the Bible here in all kinds of languages. So whether you are from Albania or Vietnam you will be able to read and search online in your native tongue.

This mini review should be enough to get you started. Visit the Bible gateway website and hunt around to see what other features are available. And watch out for the new, improved version coming soon.

Happy reading, and happy searching! Why not bookmark the website now? - There are also audio versions in a variety of languages. This gives a different kind of experience and may be helpful.