Irreproachable Honourableness

Flock

I've been using the Flock web browser for several weeks now.  I first saw it recommended in Andy Clarke's Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design.  Clarke recommended Flock as a tool to collect images for getting design ideas.

Flock provides a media bar for viewing images from Flickr, Facebook, and select other websites.
. Clarke suggests using the Media Bar to search Flickr (or the other supported sites) for ideas for the "mood" of a proposed design.  For instance, one could search for "purple" (for a website for one indigo-infatuated friend of mine) or for "flame" (lots of chaff to sort through there: anything that can possibly be part of the name of a band will get you lots of fan photos).

In any case, Flock also provides a Web Clipboard: you can drag selections of text, photos, whatever, over to the clipboard and save them.  I have a "mood" folder there, full of images that (in me) evoke the response I would like my website to give…someday, when I have time.

But beyond that, Flock has become my default browser. It has sidebars that provide live interfaces to Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, news feeds (granted, I still use Google Reader); there's a photo uploader; there's a blog editor. It has a few problems, still being resolved, and is chasing a moving target: every "Web 2.0" site is probably changing their site interface weekly, so interactions with Facebook broke down for a day or so a few weeks ago, and Google has made some changes to Gmail that have still not been overcome. But the Flockers are doing well, and it's a tool I enjoy using, and that has made using the web's social networks more enjoyable.

Tags: flock, browser, web, transcending css, css, mood

On Bible Study, Translation, and Reading

It is no virtue to make something easier than it actually is, or to leave out or change meaning in order to make it palatable to less diligent students. Reading and understanding the Bible is often very hard work! As the philosopher Spinoza put it, “All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.”