Spy Journal 3.0 Filtering the web for you

These links are to good advice around creating email policies for your organisation.

• Email Policy
• Internet and email policy

Level Up – an interesting website for 8-12 year old girls around purity and other teen girl issues – relevant for me with a 13yr old and 11 yr old daughter

Photography

Focus stacking tutorial – something to learn from

ZFlick – a cool lightweight app on the Adobe Air Platform for searching Flickr – very cool visual effects.

Zior Photo – some pretty cool photography

What stormtroopers do on their day off

11 tips to succeed with a Photo365 Project. See my 365 days of Bokeh photos on flickr

And some of my latest pics suitable for use as desktop backgrounds – If you want to download them just click on them to get the full size file. then right click to download to your computer.

Our family fitness has taken another leap forward this last week with our joining in a virtual race across Australia. For us its more of an amble than a race and we are not in it to win it, but for the fitness.

Jadeen and Erin and Mercedes also received their first mentions for running on the web – though Jadeen was published in the news paper for her running a few weeks back.

I bought a Garmin 310XT training computer watch gizmo and Jude and I have been using this to track our heart rate, speed and distance, and cadence for running and cycling. Here’s the list of our activities on Garmin Connect – you can see the maps, distances and all the details by opening up any of the specific activities. You can even use the player feature to overlay the different metrics and see them play out over the whole course. See the SheepStation Creek course I did on Sunday with Mick.

Photography stuff

After reading this article about 7 ways to get your photos seen, I created a book of photos at Blurb. It is coming soon. You can preview and purchase the book here if you are interested – it makes a great coffee table book.

I have published more photos in our Dreamcoat Photography family portraits section on Flickr. We are in the process of developing our new website for this and are now taking bookings for clients.

Swearing an Oath

Finally, I have sworn an oath this week after following the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd’s lead. We have both made this oath and encourage other men to do the same.

I swear:
never to commit violence against women,
never to excuse violence against women, and
never to remain silent about violence against women.
This is my oath.

Clearing the browser from all the links to cool tools and content for today.

Microsoft Stuff

• Windows Home Server Power Pack 3 BETA – Includes enhancements for Windows 7-based computers
• Seadragon.com – Convert Any Image On The Web Into A Deep Zoom Image
• Deep Zoom Composer Updated To Fix An Export Related Bug
• Streaming Media in Windows 7 – Streaming your collection over the Internet – unfortunately this doesn’t work if your Windows 7 machine is joined to a domain
• Sneak peek of what’s coming in Windows Live Movie Maker
• Live Video Streaming: Guide To The Best Broadcast Services To Stream Your Video In Real-Time
• What's new in Windows 7: Tour Windows 7
• Get a Live-Updating Bing Wallpaper Windows 7 Theme – i did this it worked really easily
• Megawoosh Slide for Microsoft Project – this is a funny little video that has gone viral in Europe. Heads up from Duncan’s blog.

What has been a surprise this week is the explosion of news about rape and football players. Well maybe it is not a surprise to some. Many thought this sort of thing was in the past what with the sordid details of the last few years. To have it out in the open again this year shows that there are still underlying issues that are not being addressed. We have had in the last few years numerous public cases of footballers and women who are attracted to them getting themselves into messy situations. Most involving copious amounts of alcohol. Most of these involve the women making a complaint of sexual assault against one or more players. Football clubs and police cooperate fully, and there seems to no longer be the “code of silence” amongst players and clubs about “what happens on the footy trip stays on the footy trip”. Yet these incidents keep occurring.

I think Karen Willis, the manager of the NSW Rape Crisis Centre, has written a very good article for the Sydney Morning Herald calling for ethical responses by men – who have to be leaders – in this area. And while I agree with her fully, I want to add a couple of additional elements.

It is hard to write about inane gadgets and web stuff while the horrific conflict in Gaza continues. I hope Israel can rout out the monsters who use innocent civilians and children as human shields while they perpetrate their hatred.

As some commentators have asked, which generation will decide to end the hatred? It must take so much resolve for Israel to go in and brave the international outcry from uninformed bigots and even attacks from within their own country. I hope they do not bow to pressure and stop until they have destroyed both the infrastructure for terror and the leaders of this organisation. Maybe then the mothers will have a chance to teach their children forgiveness and tolerance without the rabid fanatics brainwashing them with hatred of their neighbours. Some pictures if you have the stomach for them.

Anyway – here’s the round up of stuff I haven’t got time to review individually but wanted to share.

Helpless: A New Tilt-Shift Time-Lapse Video by Keith Loutit - This one is named “Helpless” and features the daily activity of everything happening at a Bondi beach in Australia.

Qik has Support for 20+ NEW phones so you don't miss any holiday moments!

Between New Worlds has two interesting articles about technology:

• The Implementation of Technology and Its Dangers for Our Soul
• Toward a Christian Philosophy of Technology

Facebook Trojan Virus... Not a problem if you have a Windows Home Server.

Speedtest for your internet connection. Other cool internet IR related tools there as well – email trace, IP trace, IP Whois proxy checkers etc.

I have belatedly created a last.fm account so you can track my music collection and listening preferences. It seems skewed a little, but that is maybe because i listen to random play all a lot.