LDS Tech

David October 31st, 2008

I believe that we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg where there will be opportunities in our communities where good people can make a real difference.  Our society is going to continue its downward spiral if we just sit back and watch those that have an agenda or who want to make a quick buck control the media, influence legislation benefiting special interest groups (instead of the majority), and good people fail to make a stand.

What am I trying to say?  Take an opportunity to make a difference, even if it is very small.  Don’t wait for someone else to do it. 

• Are you passionate about a political issue?  Make a stand, start a blog, contribute to political causes, research and vote!  Do something other than just let the other guys make the decision for you.  (Find your polling location at http://maps.google.com/vote)
• Have some talent or interest in software?  Set aside some time in your busy schedule to contribute to the community in whatever cause you feel to be important.  (Check out the LDSTech or FamilySearch Dev communities, if you are so inclined)
• Enjoy reading or writing but tired of all the graphic or immoral material out in the market?  Join an online community to share what you have learned and to learn from others (LibraryThing is a good one, but be careful about some of the discussion groups).  Even if you haven’t ever written a novel before, now is a good time to start.  November 1 starts the National Writing Month and there are whole support communities to help you write.  My friend, Ty, got me interested and even though I wouldn’t call myself a "writer" I’m going to give it a shot this year.  Wish me luck!

This is just a start.  There are a whole multitude of areas where good people can make a difference for themselves, their families, and their communities.  If you have any ideas or links, share them in the comments!

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David October 29th, 2008

For its inaugural meeting, the Utah Mobile Developers Group will be meeting tonight at the Salt Lake City Public Library.  Rather than focusing on a specific platform or technology, this group is open to all mobile technologies.  Tonight, there will be presentations on Google’s Android mobile platform and Apple’s iPhone. 

Personally, I haven’t done development for any mobile devices, but with more and more people with mobile internet access, this is bound to be a huge growth area for businesses.  What do you tell your boss when he wants you to start a new project that requires a mobile interface component?

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David October 29th, 2008

I continue to be amazed at the amount of controversy that has come up because of the position of the LDS Church to support the California Proposition 8 in support of marriage.  Religious organizations across California have come out in support of the proposition.  What I am most surprised about is how opponents of this proposition have come out in droves to attack anyone who supports it.  If you see any videos or articles on YouTube or the major news sites about Prop 8 which allow public comments, you will find that the negative comments number 20 to 1, filled with acusations of biotry and intolerance despite by the very nature of the commentators acting as with intolerance towards the religious beliefs of those who support this measure. 

Respectfully disagreeing because of someone’s religious beliefs is one thing but it goes to a whole new level when you slander and directly attack is another.  Like a page straight out of early Mormon persecution comes inactive LDS member Nadine Hansen (Cedar City, Utah) who created mormonsfor8.com which encourages users to identify Mormons listed from public donation sources on behalf of Proposition 8 (similar data also available at San Francisco Chronicle), or Signing For Something which solicits pro-gay users to sign a petition against Church Leaders.  From the Daily Kos, a popular liberal blog,

But when the church and its members invest millions of dollars in an attempt to write discrimination into my state’s constitution and divorce my friend Brian against his will, there will be hell to pay.

So what am I asking you to do?

Some distributed research.

There is a list of a bunch of Mormon donors to the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign (in case that one goes down, here’s a mirror with slightly worse formatting.

Here’s what I’m asking for:

This list contains information about those who are big donors to the Yes on 8 campaign–donors to the tune of at least $1,000 dollars. And, as you can see, there are a lot of them. It also indicates if they’re Mormon or not.

If you’re interested in defeating the religious right and preserving marriage equality, here’s how you can help:

Find us some ammo.

Use any LEGAL tool at your disposal. Use OpenSecrets to see if these donors have contributed to…shall we say…less than honorable causes, or if any one of these big donors has done something otherwise egregious. If so, we have a legitimate case to make the Yes on 8 campaign return their contributions, or face a bunch of negative publicity.

There are a crapload of donors on this list–so please focus on the larger ones first. $5,000 or more is a good threshold to start with.

Feel free to use Lexis-Nexis searches as well for anything useful, especially given that these people are using “morality” as their primary motivation to support Prop 8…if you find anything that belies that in any way…well, you know what to do.

If you find anything good, please email it to:

equalityresearch at gmail dot com.

Here’s the bottom line for me: if someone is willing to contribute thousands of dollars to a campaign to take away legal rights from some very dear friends of mine, they had damn well make sure their lives are beyond scrutiny–because I, for one, won’t take it lying down.

This one is for Brian and the millions like him all across the nation.

As a nation who prides itself on freedom, free speech, and respect of diversity, would you expect for people to actually attack others based on their religion? Ask Michele Sundstrom, 47, of San Jose, who has been married for 18 years and has five children.

She and her husband gave $30,000 to the Yes on 8 campaign and put a sign on their home. But in response, two women parked an SUV in front of their home, with the words "Bigots live here" painted on the windshield.

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David October 15th, 2008

It is amazing to see how technology has changed how we communicate beyond our immediate friends and family in just the last few years.  Now whole movements can be launched and efforts coordinated between people who haven’t ever met in person.  The Gay Marriage proposition in California (Prop 8) has really sparked a lot of emotion both by those for and those against it, to the point where the millions of us outside the state of California are learning more about the issue and how it might affect us locally.  (Yes, don’t think that because you live outside of California that it can’t affect you!)

Even if you don’t agree with the proposition or understand the issue, here are a few good sites that will help you learn more about what is at stake and what you can do about it:

http://www.preservingmarriage.org/

http://www.protectmarriage.com/

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David October 14th, 2008

There are three community development projects currently managed by the LDS Church.  Rather than calling them "open source" projects, these are still Church projects but offer an opportunity for the development community to serve in a meaningful way.  Existing Church resources are limited from many possible projects because of limited time and money but external resources can be leveraged where possible.  Here are the current projects currently under way:

• Home Teaching / Visiting Teaching Application
• EBuilder Application
• Church Historical Timeline Application

General information regarding volunteering and additional opportunities can be found at LDSTech Wiki.

• General Technology
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David October 14th, 2008

Despite being a free service to its users, Google invests a lot to improve the services and quality of its mapping service and to distinguish themselves from their competitors’ mapping services.  Most recently, this investment has included a new orbiting satellite, GeoEye-1, that captures photos previously only available to government sponsored intelligence agencies.  But even with their own satellite, the US government has legally restricted their resolution to 50cm.  (I’m sure that the military doesn’t want Google or other companies taking high resolution aerial photos of secure locations)

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David July 9th, 2008

Ancestry.com has recently redesigned its home page to make its site easier to navigate.  They have combined elements from the old home page and the My Ancestry tab to provide the following information:

• Summary of recent activity on your family tree
• List of new historical records made available
• Links to flagged records in your data for easy retrieval
• Links to often used resources
• Personal research tasks
• Recent searches and records viewed on the site

This type of redesign follows a common trend of popular site to provide personalized content for users.  The display of recent family tree activity stops shy of offering a full-fledged social networking support, but this type of functionality may not be far away.  Already About.com lists nine other sites which support more interactive communication between researchers.  Traditional social networking sites such as Facebook offer plug-in applications such as We’re Related to offer limited genealogy research functionality.  This plug-in is being used by nearly 6 million users and was acquired in June 2008 by FamilyLink.com for an undisclosed amount. 

• Genealogy
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David June 19th, 2008

This week the LDS Church has launched a beta for the new meeting house locator at http://beta.maps.lds.org.    The current site at http://www.lds.org/basicbeliefs/meetinghouse has been adequate, but the new site utilizes both Microsoft and Google mapping technologies to provide the kind of mapping experience that most of us have come to expect from online maps.  Here are a few features that really seemed to stand out, beyond the expected address lookup, mapping, and directions:

• Ability to switch between Google and Microsoft maps.  Some locations are more current with one map versus the other.
• Ability to switch to Microsoft 3D view of the current location if Virtual Earth 3D is installed (also in beta)
• Even if you don’t know the address or your address isn’t found, you can use your mouse to place a marker on the map to identify your location.
• Not only will the application return the closest meeting locations, congregations and times, but it will provide a local contact name and number if you have questions.

I noticed a few bugs switching between maps, particularly when my connection was running slow, but for a beta launch it looks very promising!

• General Technology , Internet Content , News
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David May 20th, 2008

The LDS Church has received great appreciation for its efforts from Hurricane Katrina.  President Henry B. Eyring even mentioned a personal phone call from Pres George W. Bush to Gordon B. Hinckley at a recent multi-Stake Conference address, admiring the quick and effective efforts of local church members.  But even the best organizations would be amiss if they didn’t take advantage of what they may learn from others.

With thousands of people affected by the Sichuan, China earthquake, Google China staff members rolled up their sleeves and joined other rescue organizations.

At the request of the government, we obtained new satellite images of Sichuan province (Earth KML) to help them better focus their recovery efforts. We developed and launched a “lost loved one” search based on our Custom Search Engine (CSE). To populate the CSE index, hundreds of Googlers worked around the clock looking through published tables, hospital records, news reports, and community sites. We tuned our Chinese news search, video search, image search, blog search, and oneboxes. We also partnered to build community sites, and launched both homepage promotions and a map-based information page. Google China has an extremely dedicated and passionate team and I am deeply honored to work alongside them.

Google has also set up a donation page so that you can donate directly towards recovery efforts.  Similarly, donations can be made on the LDS Philanthropies donation page for any of the humanitarian projects around the world or using a donation slip at your local congregation.

• Genealogy , General Technology , News
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David May 16th, 2008

For just a bit of fun on a Friday, take a look at this guy who created jet powered wings (from CNN). He needs the help of a plane to take him to a high enough altitude (rather than taking off from the ground) and he uses a parachute to land.  Now that would certainly come in handy for a 72 hour kit! 

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