Tim Berners-Lee, considered the "inventor of the Web" and knighted for this contribution in 2004, recently published a research paper in the prestigious journal Science. The article is very technical (and access to it requires a subsription), but here is a bit that caught my attention because it relates to the use of blogs on the UUCP website:

Web science is about [...] engineering new infrastructure protocols and understanding the society that uses them, and it is about the creation of beneficial new systems. It has its own ethos: decentralization to avoid social and technical bottlenecks, openness to the reuse of information in unexpected ways, and fairness. [...] Web science is about making powerful new tools for humanity, and doing it with our eyes open.

The key phrase for me, as the currnet UUCP "web master", is the decentralization ethos (avoiding social and technical bottlenecks). It expresses very well the purpose of the blog section of the UUCP website.

Petr

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We've added a photo gallery to the church website. This is made possible by a vastly increased storage space on our new web server.

Our previously created photo gallery on Flickr.COM (established when we could not "afford" a gallery on PalouseUU.ORG) will be used as an overflow repository, and for secondary storage.

If you have pictures from church events you want to have posted, please contact Petr at (509) 332-2409.

Here is what Rachel had to say last Sunday, January 8, when Von Walden talked about our connection to the Earth and about climate change.

I (Petr) did not quite know where to put Rachel's piece on the church website, so here it is in the Web Group blog.

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UUCP Pledge Drive Moment
January 8, 2006
Offered by Rachel Clark Caudill


Etty Hillesum, a Nazi concentration camp survivor, wrote the following in her journal:

There is nothing else for it. I shall have to solve my own problems. I always get the feeling that when I solve them for myself I shall have solved them for a thousand other(s). For that very reason I must come to grips with myself.

Imagine the power for positive change gathered here... right now!

Last Sunday I sat in the back row, having just read the UUCP newsletter before coming to Church. I read that we have met last years pledge drive amount, but that we are still 17% away from our goal for fair compensation. The words I read asked me to look inside myself and consider what was important to me, in terms of how I wanted to contribute of myself to this community. Could I afford to make fair compensation a priority for our staff and new minister? Or was this goal overly ambitious for me after all? Maybe a 17% increase was just too sudden for my pocketbook.

Last Sunday - enlightened by the tender, warm tones of a cello sonata - I sat in the back row and dug around in my purse for a piece of scrap paper. On it I wrote a pledge for an additional 17% of the pledge I had already made, and tucked it into the basket as it went by. For years my family lived with uncomfortable debt. Now we are lucky enough to be able to give. Now we want to repay other sorts of debts to the world.

Last Sunday I lit a candle of joy for my family - and in doing so, I also publicly embraced this community as part of my family.

Last Sunday I read words in front of this congregation from Gandhi, about how crucial it is that we give the world what it needs.

Last Sunday - as I stood in front of you as I do now - I felt in my whole body the trust, safety and love that have opened inside my heart because of this haven, this sanctuary... because of you.

Make no mistake: Last Sunday I pledged my heart in abundance and trust that the world needs our truth. My truth tells me that fair compensation is merely a shallow wisp of the meaning beneath my pledge. My pledge also symbolizes my growth into a person no longer willing to remain silent or immobilized about my needs for inclusion, fairness, equity, and justice for all of us, not just our minister and staff.

My pledge is a visible act to honor the sanctity of our connection to the web of all existence. (Something I dare say we'll here more about today!) And in the energy of that pledge, that act, my heart hammers with the gratitude and joy that come from empowerment and contribution. I yearn to make a difference in this world, and I am deeply thankful to this church for giving me such an easy, immediate, and momentous way to do so!

Last Sunday I resolved to get up today and share my joy. I now invite you to join me in that joy, and when the basket comes - as it does with every choice we make - to flood it with whatever comfortably flows from your heart.

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Over the New Year's holiday, this website has physically moved to a new facility provided by Hurricane Electric (he.net) in Fremont, CA. Take a tour of the building we are located in.

Main improvements in available technology:

• Availability of a secure server (SSL)
• Our own .htaccess file
  
• Increase of storage space from 75 MB to 1,000 MB
• Corresponding increase in allowed monthly traffic
• Availability of PHP/MySQL, CGI scripting
• Many more technical features

What can we do with this:

• Create secure (encrypted in traffic, and password protected) directories to store meeting minutes, membership directory, and other materials with "members only" status.
• Create interactive databases (R.E. teacher and student sign-up, "Good For" list, service auction, library catalog, etc.).
• Post large audio and video files (e.g., the most recent sermon in MP3 audio).
• And much more.
  

We have now added RSS feeds (in the XML/Atom format) to all UUCP blogs, not just to the Ministerial Search Commitee blog.

If you are not familiar with RSS, it is a way for you to subscribe to a blog (such as this one). The result is that you could be are instantly and actively notified ("push" technology) about any changes in the blog.

To subscribe, point an RSS-enabled web browser (such as the Opera browser) to a web page in a special XML format. The special XML page corresponding to this blog happens to have the address [http://palouseuu.org/blog/web/atom.xml].

Very often, you will see this standard icon offering you to subscribe to the given blog by clicking on it.

The UUCP Social Action Committee now has a blog of their own. The contact person is Peggy Jenkins (see contact information in the Church Directory).

A few photos from the November 5, 2005, Pledge Drive Dinner were posted to our Flickr photo gallery:

• http://www.flickr.com/photos/palouseuu/

The UUCP now has a photo gallery on Flickr.COM. Our gallery's address is http://www.flickr.com/photos/palouseuu/.

This is the free account, so we have two kinds of limits:

• Maximum 200 photos shown at any given time.
• Maxiumum 20 MB "upload bandwitdh" per month.

The bandwidth is not very serious: if each uploaded picture were first resized to approximately 100 KB, then we could upload up to 200 pictures a month.

The "pro" account, costing $24.95/year, imposes no limitations on either the total number of pictures, or on how frequently they are uploaded.

A blog is an abbreviation of web log. It is a way to create web pages not requiring practically any expertise in computer technology.

The most frequent use of blogs today is to express personal opinions, or share a personal diary. However, personal use is not the purpose of blogs on the UUCP website. Instead, we are creating UUCP blogs to allow committees and groups, rather than single individuals, to share their collective work with the larger congregation.

For more information about blogs see the Wikipedia.