I am attending the BlogWorld Expo in Las Vegas today (Fri. 10/15) A great time to meet new people, see old friends, find new programs and apps. and re-evaluate everything you are doing online. Its like on big ‘Time-out’.

The day started with a ‘key note’ discussion about how blogs and new media are affecting politics and particularly the mid-term election cycle we are currently in the midst of.

The speakers included Mark Penn, a former advisor to President Clinton and PM Tony Blair and Karen Hughes, a key advisor and Under Sec. of State for President George W. Bush. The panelists included two media folks, Hugh Hewett, the radio talk host and law professor plus Reid Wilson of the print media.

Interesting conversation and frustrating at the same time. Not enough feedback and questions from the conferees. All agreed that the Internet and new media had changed politics forever. Mark Penn and especially Karen Hughes seemed to be lamenting that it was nearly impossible to control the message in a political campaign now as compared to the days when there were only 3 major networks to worry about plus the AP and half a dozen major newspapers across the country.

The exhibition is always my favorite part of the conference. I always find something new that I can use. New apps, new programs, new equipment, new companies serving the blogging industry, and lots of new ways to sell stuff and monetize a blog or website.

I will spend the next couple of weeks sorting through all of the brochures and info sheets I picked up and somewhere in that huge bag of goodies is bound to be something that I can really use and not live without.

Plus I was there when the largest cup of coffee was made-2010 gallons- a new Guinness world record. Not only that but the coffee was actually very good indeed.

My only regret is that there isn’t any ‘Christian’ track at this conference. In the past, there were ‘GodBlog’ sessions sponsored by Biola University along with a booth and gathering area in the exhibition hall. I miss the camaraderie of fellow Christian bloggers this time around.

They even provide code so that you can put them on your own blog:

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After checking all my databases, running ‘tracerts’ for my hosting co. and doing a bunch of different things to get a grip on the reasons for the slow load I finally figured out that the dated themes were not working very well with the WordPress 2.71 upgrade and with the latest Firefox browser which upgraded about the time when I started noticing the problem.

In the meantime, overnight I had lost nearly 1/2 of the normal traffic on my sites. I checked them all out on Internet Explorer and found that it still loaded ok using that browser, that’s why I still had at least retained half of my normal visitors. Then I checked out how this blog and the others worked on Safari and found that they would not load up on that browser at all.

After downloading the most recent version of the theme for this blog and spending a week tweeking it–it is still slower than I like but it at least loads up on every browser and my traffic is back to normal. Obviously I’m going to have to find a new WP theme soon and I really don’t look forward to all the work. You folks with Blogger and at WordPress.com can be thankful that all the upgrades are done for you.

So here is a lesson to be learned at my expense:

It is a good idea to check out how your blog or website reacts and loads on different browsers!

I have known this in the past and have noticed that by blogs look somewhat different using different browsers. My daughter alerted me one time a couple of years ago that my site looked somewhat distorted on her Mac–she was using Safari as many Mac folk do. After that I had her checking it out once in awhile. Also another time by accident I discovered that some of my blogs looked different on IE 6 than they looked on IE 7. So it is important to even check out different versions of the same browser at times.

Right now I have the current versions of Firefox, IE 8, Safari, and Chrome installed on my computer just for a quick check. However, it takes up a lot of memory. Here is a great site where you can check out how your blog or website resolves on all of the different browsers and versions currently in use:

<<<Browser Shots>>>          

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I found this on Adrian Warnock’s blog—an app. program by the folks over at Logos Bible Software: Reftagger

This program automatically provides a pop-up window that displays every bible reference in your blog or website in the version you choose. Take a look how it works, just point your curser at the following scriptures and watch how it pops up:

John 3:16     Matt. 28:18-20     Is. 7:14

What is really great, it literally only takes 5 minutes to install on most sites. There is even a plugin available for self-hosted WordPress blogs that allows you to further customize it for your site.

What a great addition for ministry blogs, particularly for teaching, preaching and Bible study sites.            *Top

By Bob Walsh (Berkeley, CA: Apress, 2007, 351 pages)

An excellent book on why one should blog and how to get started. Bob suggests that one starts by reading lots of blogs and become initially engaged in the blogoshere by leaving comments.

Next he gives suggestions about getting started publishing a blog with Blogger, Windows Live, and TypePad and evaluates which blogging platform might be best for you considering your goals and what type of blog you wish to publish.

<<Read the rest of this review on my BOOK Reviews blog>>

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Now www.charismatica.com is the sole proper address.

There are a bunch of you out there which have linked to this blog using charismatica.com/blog. It still gets you here but not to the front page. A couple of days ago the link took you to a year-old post–now you will end up on the Vineyard Blogroll page. From there you could always click on the name at the top to get to the current front page or maybe you might find it more convenient just to change your link.

Note also, if you have linked to some of my posts in the past and you want to maintain those links, erase blog/ from the permalink and it will still work. For example, here is a past article that many have linked to which continues to receive considerable traffic:

Bill Johnson and Bethel Church: A Revival Culture

The new permalink is: http://www.charismatica.com/2007/06/23/bill-johnson-and-bethel-church-a-revival-culture/

As compared to the old:
http://www.charismatica.com/blog/2007/06/23/bill-johnson-and-bethel-church-a-revival-culture/
(I have highlighted the difference)

Also, please note Vineyard Bloggers: The links to The Vineyard Directory and Blogroll pages have also slightly changed—-blog/ has also been dropped from all of those addresses.

Blessings,
Michael

The database that I ran Charismatica out of had a entire ‘PMA’ book store running off of a subdomain that a hacker had created. Didn’t really give me much of a ‘positive mental attitude’.

The feed for my Answers For The Faith blog was redirected so many times (20+) that Feedburner couldn’t track them all. Still don’t know how that happened and still trying to get it back to normal.

The only help and suggestion my host gave me was that I needed to flush the database and start over. The problem was that the backup programs were infected somehow and not working properly on 3 of my blogs.

At that juncture I decided if I had to start over it might as well be somewhere else with another host since my host had been no help at all and very unresponsive in the midst of my attack. The move created other problems and I ended up getting some help in the process.

Well finally my 9 blogs are up and running again though each one still needs some major tweeking here and there. I should be able to get it finally done and behind me over Memorial Day weekend.

Michael 

In the process I decided to move this blog to a new host. That has complicated matters and will somewhat delay everything being put back together.

If you are running on a WordPress program, I would strongly suggest that you upgrade to the 2.5.1 program as soon as possible. Supposedly they have closed all the gaps that hackers used to gain access to this blog and database.

Blessings Michael

 This actually makes me a ‘tweener’ in the blogosphere. The ‘ancient sages’ came before 2003, the ‘mature’ webloggers started in 2004-5, then came the popular deluge of blogs starting in 2005-6 -’the adults’. The path was already well worn when I started in 2006, yet so much has happened since in the blogosphere it will be interesting to see what comes next–we are really still at the beginning of this web genre.   

This was actually my 2nd blog. I started blogging at ANSWERS For The Faith a month earlier on March 5, 2006.  My original idea for CHARISMATICA was to make a website with referral links (See: “Referral Pages: Revival Ministries-links”) to all the different ministries that had come through my home church at one time or another. Ministries that I wanted to keep up on.

Later, I started adding sites of ministries that they were linked to in some way or another– Revival or church Renewal was the prevailing theme that linked all these folk together. To round out this site, I started adding announcements, articles, book reviews, testimonies, and personal commentary, all with a focus on Revival. My latest project, began in December 2006, was to start a Directory of ‘everything Vineyard’ on the Internet, including a new blogroll.

The name ‘Charismatica’ came to me while I was worshipping Sunday morning April 2, 2006. I got home and found that the domain name- charismatica.com was available and grabbed it, added a WordPress blogging platform and started in.

The next day I ‘googled’ ‘charismatica’ to see what else might be out there with the same name on the web. I found a music group and then page after page of archived articles (literally 100′s of articles) that were all against anything and everything that was Charismatic or Pentecostal. All of it on a website called ‘Charismatica’ @charismatica.com—my new domain.  Apparently they had just quit that week and hadn’t renewed the domain.  I was horrified and ready to flush the whole thing.

Then I believe the Lord clearly spoke to me saying that he gave me that name and domain in order to redeem it. After all, anything named ‘charismatica’ (things of the Spirit), should be for the work of the Holy Spirit and not against it. Today if you google ‘charismatica’ all of those ‘anti’ articles are long gone.

Along the way, my original vision has expanded to include 8 different blogs.  Usually I am way over my head with all the technical stuff. Sometimes I have gotten off track and have forgotten the original vision. Sometimes it has been more like a hobby. Sometimes it has been a burden. But sometimes I remember to include the Lord in what I am doing and it is actually a blessing. It has definitely been an interesting ride so far. There have been ups and downs, but mostly ups and many blessings in the process.

The greatest blessing that has come my way has been the opportunity to meet so many of you on the web. It is my hope that in the last 2 years that something on this blog has been helpful to someone along the way. At least I can say that I’ve been richly blessed by all of you who have visited and stopped to dialogue. God Bless!  PS: I’m still hoping, looking, and praying for revival to come to this land and major revival to sweep across the nations.            *Top

Brand new for 2008, an essential book for those using WordPress in publishing a blog. <Read the Review on my Blogging Ministry site>

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