Crumpled Notebook

California just ruled Prop 8 as unconstitutional…

mfelkins — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:18:40 +0000

California just ruled Prop 8 as unconstitutional. If you are unfamiliar (perhaps been under a rock?), Prop 8 was the State's, voter-approved, ban on same-sex marriage in California.

What are your thoughts on the matter?

Court: CA Gay Marriage Ban Is Unconstitutional

A federal appeals court on Tuesday declared California's same-sex marriage ban to be unconstitutional, putting the bitterly contested, voter-approved law on track for likely consideration by the U.S. …

7 Tips for Scoring SF Giants Tickets

mfelkins — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:56:47 +0000

7 Tips for Getting SF Giants Tickets

Roseanne Barr, President of the United States?

mfelkins — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:50:17 +0000

So the question is this? If you had to choose between say, Sarah Palin as President or Roseanne Barr as President, who’d you rather?

Just proves it does get ~~better~~ worse.

Roseanne Barr Files Official Docs to Become President

Roseanne Barr — who famously butchered the National Anthem — has filed official documents to become the Green Party’s nominee for President of the…

Brilliant!

mfelkins — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 21:58:24 +0000

Brilliant!

Girl Says Any Word Backwards

mfelkins — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 21:58:24 +0000

Pretty incredible actually.

Girl can instantly say any word backwards

Silly but remarkable…

Salinas gangs hit New York Times

mfelkins — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 21:58:23 +0000

Salinas gangs hit New York Times.

"People in California generally know two things about this agricultural city nestled among lettuce fields east of Monterey’s beaches and hotels: John Steinbeck was born here, and it has a big problem with gangs."

In Salinas, Fighting Gang Violence on a Shoestring

Aggressive measures helped reduce gang violence in Salinas, Calif., a city that is notorious for it. Then the budget cuts came.

Native.php WordPress Hack

mfelkins — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 00:36:52 +0000

Came across a file in my WordPress files tonight that I didn’t recognize. I was looking through because I noticed I was getting search results for pharmaceutical drugs. This file was located at /wp-content/themes/theme name/native.php.

So, if you come across this, delete it…it’s bad and make sure your all up to date and your site is locked down.

Facebook as an Office Tool?

mfelkins — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 23:32:54 +0000

I like Facebook. I admit it. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t love them by any means. They do a lot of things I think are downright stupid and evil, but unfortunately, it’s become the best way to communicate with people in a lot of ways. I like that Facebook allows me to communicate daily with people I wouldn’t otherwise have the chance to do. Sure, you always get the people you don’t want to communicate with, but that’s your fault for allowing them into your world. (Facebook User Tip: Use the privacy controls. They actually work.) I’ve noticed more recently though that I’m using it for more things. For instance, this week I’m on vacation. I have a part-time seasonal employee working for me. She doesn’t have an office space or anything, but she’s young and therefore pretty techy. Instead of giving her a list, emailing her or passing information along other ways, we’ve been communicating via Facebook. I’ll send her what I need done. She communicates back about status or other things going on. It takes me all of 10 seconds to respond and I don’t have to be in the office or check my work email to do it. I also have another example from this week. I’m a youth pastor to a group of teens. We haven’t met in a couple weeks because of the business with Christmas and I always worry about what they are off doing. Kids minds can change in an instant and sometimes, if there isn’t constant reminders of Hey, we’re here for you, come hang out. Behave, they can move on to the next thing and before you know it, you haven’t seen them in 3 months. During this break time I’ve been casually communicating with them via Facebook. Trust me, I know nearly every thing they’ve done during Christmas break–at least if it showed up on Facebook, and the way they and their friends post things, it’s more likely than not. I generally leave them in the background and make mental notes about things we need to have a lesson on like dating, using bad language, alcohol, bullying, depression, etc…. This week though, rather than wait to see what they were doing, I tagged them all in a post and told them to watch these videos about Ben Breedlove. They all got notified and within a few hours, some of them started commenting on it. Not just that’s cool kind of stuff, but they really watched and took it in and made some good observations about it. In that moment, Facebook really was a great ministry tool and will have them prepped for what we’ll start on when we meet again.

Granted, using it to communicate with kids and young people is different than a workplace. But consider this, what if Facebook had a business side of it. Kind of like Facebook groups or whatever, but just a little more official and business. It could work. I know some businesses have a “cloud” or bulletin board or whatever where they share information, but most small businesses or non-profits are able to have those kind of things because of the cost and technical aspect of having it set up. Anyone can set up a Facebook group or workspace if you will. It surely allows more communication than email in the workplace does.

I’m not saying I think Facebook should do that or even that it would be a “good” idea. I’m just throwing it out there from the aspect of now that I’ve started using it for work communications, the possibilities are pretty great for other uses.

Ben Breedlove’s Courage

mfelkins — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 01:16:28 +0000

These videos tell an amazing story of Ben Breedlove’s life. There isn’t much more to say except watch this this two part video.

Part 1

Part 2

It also tells an amazing story of his death. Ben Breedlove died this past Christmas, 2011, just one week after posting these videos on YouTube. To me, it seemed as if he knew there was another place for him; a better place, and that he was as ready as any 18 year old kid can be. What an amazing and courageous young man.

Ben, you’re my hero.

Manage Facebook Page on Android

mfelkins — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 02:38:26 +0000

Maybe I’m behind, or just chalk this up to me being incredibly dumb, but when I first heard about Facebook’s update to their Android App a few months ago and that it contained a way to update Pages, I was really happy. That is, until I tried to figure out how to do it. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure it out. Someone said you needed to find it in the update stream and access it that way. However, if it wasn’t in the stream, there didn’t seem to be a good way to access it.

Lo and behold, I found it! If you’ve been looking too, it’s like this.

Go to the Facebook menu page that gives you the news feed, friends, profile, etc.. options
Click on “Friends”
Click “Pages” at the bottom and your pages (the ones you are an admin on) should show up

It seems pretty easy and in reality, I didn’t put a ton of time into it other than a simple Google search after I didn’t initially figure it out. What I’m wondering though is why they just didn’t create a menu item like on the iPhone.

At any rate, hope that helps someone.