I was excited to design a new site for my mother’s ministry. She is a Christian speaker, and has traveled twice recently to Africa (Kenya) – where hundreds have come to know Christ through the message He has had her share. Occasionally I’ll design a site that I am pretty proud of (aesthetics and functionality). This is one of them!
PLATFORM: WordPress

My wife completed a 50,000 word novel as part of the 2009 NaNoWriMo challenge (write a novel in 1 month). Her site for the project will deliver the book through blog format by listing entries every day or so until the end of the story (10 month story). If you’d like you can purchase the book for $8 (PDF document) and not wait it out. 1/2 the proceeds go directly toward missions.
PLATFORM: WordPress

I’m writing this knowing that I’m not the only one living a crazy life at the moment. Millions of people around the globe wish there were more hours in the day. While trying to clean up my work schedule / pace, God has brought a possible opportunity of change into the picture. More on that in the coming weeks. I thought I would take a few minutes to connect with you. Ask you to pray for that possible change, and for the things below if you wouldn’t mind. If you have anything that you’d like prayer for, I’d love to hear those as well!

Speaking at BibleTech and Apple Headquarters
I’ll be returning to BibleTech again next month (this time in San Jose, CA) and sharing what God is doing through the Digital Disciples network. An employee at Apple Headquarters in Cupertino, CA (in the San Jose area) and I have connected online a few times. There’s a good chance I’ll be stopping by and sharing about God’s Mac and Digital Disciples with Christ-followers within the organization – and anyone else who shows up. Their group is called Apple Christian Fellowship. Must be fun to be a part of that group!

Restructured presence on the web
I’ve previously had two personal sites, my personal blog here and my design portfolio. You might not have noticed (hopefully), but I have moved most of my newest projects in the portfolio onto the blog here. Hopefully confusing people less about what I do, and letting you get a glimpse of my personal life via the regular blog posts – as well as the “professional” side of things with the design blog posts. All in one location. Easier to manage, and allowing you to see more of what God is doing through me. That’s why I’ve done it really. What I do isn’t separate from who I am.

I’ve transitioned the Twitter account to my personal @GabeTaviano account, and the previous @GodsMac account is used for the podcast now.

Shortened / More frequent podcast
Enjoy technology or creativity? Love to hear how God is moving in the lives of people across the globe? Confused at times, like many are, with how God wants us to be using technology? Our podcast has been around for over 3 years now, including 54 episodes that most ran over an hour in length. It wasn’t acceptable, so we’ve changed it up. To be more fair to each person or topic that is a part of each episode, we are now providing episodes that are easy to listen to. Yesterday we just aired a second episode in the new format, an interview with the 2000 Olympic gold medalist, Laura Wilkinson. You may receive the podcast in iTunes, alerts via email – RSS – Twitter – Facebook (and easily listen to the episodes using the audio player on the site).

Enjoying photography
I haven’t missed a day yet. 55 days in a row of taking 1 Photo Per day. It’s been a new project that’s had my eyes peeled and always looking for a subject / object to capture.

Our podcast, God’s Mac, has been around since August 26, 2006 and we’ve launched 54 episodes. It was time for a shorter podcast format and a new interactive site, powered by WordPress. We’re really looking forward to releasing much shorter episodes more frequently, and interacting more with listeners.
PLATFORM: WordPress

There’s quite a bit of buzz flying around about Google’s new social network (Google Buzz). Many people instantly thought that it was an attempt to kill Twitter. I guess they could still think that, since it’s only been around for a few days. It functions a bit like Twitter, but also quite a bit unlike Twitter. Yesterday I was checking it out, and realized that it’s actually MUCH more like FriendFeed (purchased by Facebook not too long ago). It’s not just a status update, like Twitter.

I would consider it more of a lifestream / grouping of quite a few of your blog, website, and social networking feeds (RSS, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, etc..). Which is exactly what FriendFeed does, but FriendFeed does MUCH better. How? Wouldn’t it be nice if Buzz provided an RSS feed, or even allow you to group your contacts into one URL (wall of discussion) for a focused dialogue? FriendFeed does this. Another thing FriendFeed has over Buzz is that its status updates can be carbon copied to also be your Twitter status. And the sign-up process with FriendFeed is open to everyone, not just users within a certain email system (as Buzz is with Gmail).

Google sure tanked with their Wave project, and I believe Buzz is an attempt to repair that mess. Conclusion – Buzz is a nice added feature for Gmail users, but is definitely not a Twitter killer. Feel free to connect with me on Buzz, Twitter or FriendFeed. Your thoughts?