September 2009
How To: Protect Sensitive Data
Submitted by brhoads on Wed, 09/02/2009 - 14:57
We mostly post completely new content here that is generally not terribly technical. But one thing that is particularly important to missionaries serving in closed countries is the security of their data.
TrueCrypt is a very useful program which will encrypt an entire hard drive or even a USB thumb drive. I just stumbled upon this article that explains how to use TruCrypt, so I thought I'd share it.
Note that part of the process is specifying a password. I suggest that you use a "perfect password".
I posted the article because it's fairly short and readable. But you can do more with TrueCrypt than the article explains. So I'd suggest you also read the documentation, especially the information about Plausible Deniability.
Learning DEScribe Session 3 - Getting to Know It
Submitted by jmanley on Fri, 09/11/2009 - 10:40Now comes the fun of poking around a new program.
Connecting again from the coffee shop, I found DEScribe listed in the Program menu. After opening and loading, I created a project entitled, “How to Blog on the MAF-LT Website.” But that seemed too long. “How to Blog” sounded better.
I couldn’t find any easy way to rename the project, so closed the project, opened Windows Explorer and navigated to a folder entitled, “My DEScribe Projects.” Under that folder, I found my project and renamed it, “How to Blog.” That folder contains two items: a sub-folder called, “My Package” (holds the project assets), and the master project file named, “How to Blog.ltproj." When I reopened DEScribe, clicked on the File menu and then “Open Project”, my project “How to Blog” sat there ready to use (At this point, notice came that version 1.2.4.0 was available for download. My comments reflect that upgrade.)
SALT & MAF-LT Work to Multiply Latin America Leadership Training
Submitted by bfaller on Tue, 09/15/2009 - 10:22
As Gil Kinch struggles to reach rural and largely undeveloped areas of South America with Christian outreach, he often thinks there must be a more efficient and effective way.
Kinch, the Associate Director of SALT (Support and Leadership Training www.saltleadership.org), knows the challenge of reaching largely untrained pastors who struggle with the physical challenges, time and cost of travel. Also, he realizes the importance of keeping pastors as close as possible to their homeland, thereby decreasing the chance they will leave after gaining an education.
With these challenges in mind, he is seeking ways to increase by perhaps 10-fold the number of pastors currently reached by SALT (about 1,000) in Peru, Argentina, Paraguay and Chile.
DEScribe 1.2.4 Release
Submitted by thetrick on Thu, 09/03/2009 - 16:03MAF-LT is excited to announce a new release of DEScribe! DEScribe is a course authoring application that supports exporting to DEViewer. This release of DEScribe includes a task panel, an HTML exporter, and numerous enhancements:
- Added a task panel (see image below). This allows the user to add task items that are associated with particular pages within DEScribe and assign a priority to the task. This task panel was built entirely by a volunteer!
- Cascading style sheets (CSS) can now be edited directly in DEScribe. Clicking on the CSS file will open it in a new tab. Once the changes are made and the file is saved, the changes take place immediately.
- Added Expand All and Collapse All items to the Project Explorer context menu. This allows the user to collapse or expand all child items of the selected item in the tree.
- An HTML exporter has been added. The content in DEScribe is displayed in a browser allowing the user to save it to the computer, or print it to PDF. The HTML page contains a table of contents of the items in the Project Explorer tree within DEScribe
A set of completed tickets for this release is located on the DEScribe Trac site for release 1.2.4.0.
For more information and to download DEScribe 1.2.4, please visit the DEScribe product page.
African Partner Ministry Gives His View of MAF-LT
Submitted by jmanley on Fri, 09/04/2009 - 10:07We partner with ministries all around the world. And, while we divide our work into separate disciplines, most projects require a mix. In this letter, Bramuel Musya, Africa Director of The God's Story Project, describes his view of MAF-LT's part in the Great Commission.
"Dear Friends of MAF-LT,"
"With so many people in Africa still un-reached, some un-engaged, many more un-churched and others un-discipled; the goal of finishing the task of the great commission is far from being realized. In order for us to aggressively move towards that direction, we must rethink our human resource capital and strategy appropriateness. One of the best ways to address this situation has been to empower, equip and release nationals for the work of ministry amongst their own people groups and within their cultures.
"In the last 3 years, MAF-LT has helped our ministries in Africa to achieve this goal through the following means: In Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, Liberia, Nigeria, Ghana, Togo, and Ethiopia, we have stationed hard drives with digital resources carrying training material for leaders and the laity in audio, video and book formats. These are loaded onto smaller MP3 players that are checked in and out of the libraries (resource stations) by the respective users. As these leaders grow in the Word, so do their congregations.
How Social Networking Works
Submitted by brhoads on Thu, 09/10/2009 - 11:30Social networking works. Here's part of an email I just received, as an example:
Brad - I stumbled across you through an Amazon book review (Missions in the 21st Century), discovered you are now working with MAF-LT, and then, via your blog, saw that you will be in AZ sometime in October. Depending on where you'll be in AZ and when, I'd enjoy the opportunity to connect with you. ...
Using Drupal as a Social Oriented Content Platform - Part 2
Submitted by thettinger on Thu, 09/24/2009 - 10:44
Learning Technologies is researching the web based content management system called Drupal. We are looking to use Drupal as a hub for a collaborative website featuring forums, wikis, static content and a library. This story is a continuation of a previous story.
One of the details we were going to research further into was the use of breadcrumbs in the wiki. Breadcrumbs would allow for navigation of Drupal wiki pages in an intuitive manner. After doing some research, I found that Drupal has this ability built into it in the form of the Book module.
Do they remember your sermon on Monday? Tips for making sure they do.
Submitted by bward on Thu, 09/24/2009 - 13:50Many good sermons are delivered each Sunday but how many listeners can remember what was said on Monday? How many of those actually choose to do something different as a result of the sermon? I suspect that the number is fewer than the speaker would have hoped for. This short article presents some ideas for changing that.
