Author: Brian

“URL vs. URI” = “Caving vs. Spelunking”

aka “URL vs. URI vs. URN”
aka “What does URL stand for?”
aka “What is a URI?”
aka “What is a URN?”

A little bit ago I decided to get to the bottom of the why WordPress (and I think VBulletin) refer to URIs rather than URLs.

And it turns out that the answer is Sociology and Peer Pressure.

See, we all have the need to feel cool and knowledgeable. I suffer from this same affliction. I, too, am a self-proclaimed sciolist (look it up).

It’s a character trait/flaw I have and it is probably one of the reason I have this blog. We all want to better ourselves and get patted on the back for it. It’s human nature.

One place that this can be prominently seen is the caving world. (And YES this does related back to URL vs. URI. just be patient…) When someone first takes you caving, and you like it, you tell all of your friends about visiting a cave. If you do it a few more times, you’ll quickly label yourself a “caver”.

At that point, the caver often starts to do some reading and learns that (“ooooo!”) the scientific term is called spelunking. So, you start calling yourself a Spelunker and talking about how you so enjoy spelunking that you spelunk every chance you get and you’re a guru spelunker because you know the $10 word.

Well, as it turns out, caving by any other name does not smell so sweet. (That phrase works so much better for roses…).

Anyone with a lot of caving experience, who isn’t writing journals that have to sound pretentious in order to get funding, does not call the activity spelunking. Those that do it all the time, the dedicated hobbyists and professionals alike, don’t go spelunking. They are once again going caving. Why? Because spelunking is the word used by relatively new cave geeks.

I’ve got the impression that this whole URL vs. URI thing is following the same pattern. Only this time, URI is the term used by relatively new PHP geeks.

Here’s the low down in one sentence – URI (Uniform Resource Identifiers) are divided into two categories: URLs (Uniform Resource Locations) that describe the location of a something, and URNs (Uniform Resource Names) that identify something but don’t specify the location or method to get to it.

So, what has happened is that in the growing world of PHP whiz kids and Web 2.0 excitement where EVERYONE knows what an URL, someone learned that a URL is really just a type of URI. SO the blogged about a something using the term URI in big fancy sentences. People saw that and then said “oooo, I’m cool too! I’m gonna call these things URIs.” “URL? That’s so Web 1.0 of you!”

Back in the real world, one can almost guarantee that EVERY field you fill in, that asks for a “URI”, is asking for an address not an identifier. It’s asking for a location: a URL.

What we have in the self propogating blogosphere is all of the blogs, CMS sites, open source and public domain projects that are supported by weekend warrior coders referring to URIs because it was deemed by someone to be more correct. Meanwhile, all professionally developed products will ask for URLs. That’s because professionals know that they REALLY want to have a URL and not a URN.

They know asking for a URI is wrong if you cannot accept a URN.

They additionally know one more thing through experience. The professional DOES NOT want to make the user think. If the user has to stop their process (filling in a form or whatever) and ask themselves what the software expects them to do, the developer has failed.

Now, you might be asking yourself: OK, great – at the start of this I just wanted to know what a URI is, now what the heck is a URN????

I’ll answer that, but if you want it in geek speak, look here:

faqs.org
W3

If you want it in plainer English read on, for it is really easier to see it in examples. I can find no other place on the entire net that explains it in the detail I plan to here, so I hope this is helpful.

What is a URI? A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is a standardized way to explain the name and/or location name of a resource.

What is a Resource? A resource is a collection of information in any form. It could be a website. It could be a blog. It could be your mother’s 1953 Betty Crocker Cook Book. It could even be this post you are reading now. A resource does NOT have to be related to computers.

There are two types of Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): URLs and URNs.
The first type I’ll cover is the easy one: the URL. We all know that URLs are used to point to a location on the internet. What you may not also realize is that as they are telling you where on the interenet something is, they also tell your computer the method that must be used to reach that location. That’s the “http://” or “ftp://” part of an URL. It’s the part of the URL called a “scheme”.

Here are some examples of URLS with schemes:

ftp://ftp.idsoftware.com/idstuff/quake3/source/Q3A_TA_GameSource_132.exe
gopher://marvel.loc.gov/11/locis
http://www.TheCodeCave.com
mailto:Brian@thecodecave.com
news:alt.caving
telnet://melvyl.ucop.edu/

The Uniform Resource Name (URN) is the second, less common type of URI. Basically a URN is a unique code that identifies a resource. That code will ALWAYS identify the resource even after that resource no longer is available. It does not tell you where you can find that resource. It doesn’t mean that there is only one of that resource available. But if a URI is identified in a document, the reader will know EXACTLY what the author was discussing. Specification documents often have a URN. If I refer to RFC 2648, that has specific meaning. It refers to a specific “Request For Comment” held by “The Internet Society” (I’m sure I have their card in my Illuminati card deck…). If I want to put that reference in the form of an URN, that would be: urn:ietf:rfc:2648

There is a very short list of official URNs. They are:
URNs: Official (according to the RFCs):

‘ietf’, defined by [RFC 2648], URN Namespace for IETF Documents
‘pin’, defined by [RFC 3043], The Network Solutions Personal Internet Name (PIN): A URN Namespace for People and Organizations
‘issn’ defined by [RFC 3043], Using The ISSN as URN within an ISSN-URN Namespace
‘oid’ defined by [RFC 3061], A URN Namespace of Object Identifiers
‘newsml’ defined by [RFC 3085], URN Namespace for NewsML Resources
‘oasis’ defined by [RFC 3121], A URN Namespace for OASIS
‘xmlorg’ defined by [RFC 3120], A URN Namespace for XML.org
‘publicid’ defined by [RFC 3151], A URN Namespace for Public Identifiers

You may not have heard of any of those. However, there are a large number of unofficial or pending URNs that you will have heard of.

ISBN – The International Standard Book Number (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISBN) allows you to identify a book with an URN. I’ll show the URN first and then a url to get information about that resource.

Here are some example ISBN:

URN:ISBN: 1-5562-2637-3 identifies this book (not the website) Advanced Graphics and Game Programming in Delphi
URN:ISBN:1-5920-0733-3 identifies this book (not the site): Advanced 3d Game programming All in One

Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Read about this one here: http://www.doi.org/ and here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifier

ALEXA’s ASIN: Amazon has its own code that will probably never become an officially adopted URN, however it is common on the internet as it is now used to rate websites through Alexa. ASIN stands for Amazon Standard Identification Number. Almost every product on our site has its own ASIN–a unique code we use to identify it. For books, the ASIN is the same as the ISBN number, but for all other products a new ASIN is created when the item is uploaded to our catalogue. Read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASIN &
What is an ASIN?

Here are some example ASIN:

URN:ASIN:B000F2CVYG
URI that is an the URL containing the URN: in this link
URN:ASIN:B000F1J35C
URI that is an the URL containing the URN: in this link

Did you know that songs also have unofficial URNs:

ISRC International Standard Recording Code
ISRC:USPR37300012 – The song “Love’s Theme”, from US’s “The Love Unlimited Orchestra”.
ISRC:BRBMG0300729 – The song “Enquanto Houver Sol”, from the Brazilian group “Titãs”

I think that should make it all clear, but feel free to ask any question you might in the comments. And if you use this info anywhere, please refer back to The Code Cave.

So, back to WordPress and it’s prompt for a URI. It should be clear at this point that when it is asking for the “WordPress address (URI):”. It will not and DOES not accept any old URI. In fact, it will ONLY accept an URL. And THAT’S what it should ask for. But then we wouldn’t have thousands of people blogging about the differences between a URL and a URI would we?

The other Code Cave

Greetz!

This is a support article for my (soon-to-be) new About page. It explains one meaning of a “Code Cave”. It also shows you how to use a Code Cave that was left in Notepad to hack in some new functionality.

You can (soon EDIT: OK, I guess I lied -b) see the about page for an even better description of a Code Cave. I’ll summarize here by saying that taking advantage of a code cave is just one method commonly used by gamers to get past anti-cheat/PunkBuster measures in multiplayer games like Quake I-IV, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Call of Duty and others.

This site is not going to get into hacking very much. I’ll probably just explain a few website vulnerabilities, just because they are cool and the fact that other sites published them has taught me how to write good code – and that IS a subject covered by this site. So, here is the OTHER meaning of a Code Cave and why I get some stray hits from people searching Google for hacking tools!

NOTE: if you do look for original versions of this article, be aware that:

  • it is full of MS html spam
  • the files it links to are infected with a virus
  • I also censored the language so I could keep my General Audience/Safe for kids rating on my site.
  • the files some how download from the link even though you hit cancel. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself. I am CERTAIN I hit cancel because I didn’t get a save as dialog even though the infected file appeared in my internet cache.

That’s just a BIT bothersome. So, you might want to avoid it all together.

Continue reading The other Code Cave

The Islamic Muslim rational for web censorship

I’m making this a different post from Web censorship in Saudi Arabia because it more has to deal with differences in the Qur’an and the Bible than SA’s take on censorship.

Usefulness of Filtering:

God Almighty directed humanity in the Nobel Qur’an in the words of His prophet Joseph: “He said: My Lord, prison is more beloved to me than that to which they entice me, and were you not to divert their plot away from me I will be drawn towards them and be of the ignorant. So his Lord answered him and diverted their plot away from him, truly, He is the All-Hearer, the All-Knower” Yusuf(12):33-34

This reasoning Seems to be the basic “If your eye offends you, pluck it out” logic extended to include “If your neighbor’s eye might offend him, pluck it out.” That may sound harsh, but there is a certain logic to it. If it is certainly better for you yourself to get to heaven with 1 eye than with none at all, wouldn’t the choice be the same for a loved neighbor? It takes a first party statement and moves it to third party. The side effect however is that with this specific verse as the example, it specifically has the state of Saudi Arabia taking on the place Allah in its people’s lives. In the Bible, though Christians are told to give unto Czar what is Czar’s, the government taking on the role of God is not supported. In fact the protestent and anabaptists movements were both started in part because the Church was taking on the role of God.

Though Saudi Arabia’s internet service also provides secular reasoning based upon scientific research done in the United States, their actions are based, religiously, upon two verses of the 12th chapter of the Qur’an. That Chapter/Book is called Yusuf.

Yusuf largely parallels the story of Joseph from Genesis 37 & 39 with, from my perspective, a few twists, details, motivations and editorials added in. Christian and agnostics alike will probably recognize the story as that of “Joseph and the coat of many colors” (or the Joseph and Technicolor dream coat if you only know of the Bible through Broadway Musicals).
Continue reading The Islamic Muslim rational for web censorship

Web censorship in Saudi Arabia

An exausting but good day…Yeesh… just got a chance to breath. was supposed to make some phone calls when I got home tonight but after getting the kids in bed it was too late.

I just checked the logs at on my wife’s site Knitchat.com and she’s had another incredible day. four days ago, she shot up from an average of 850 unique hits (using the most generous of three unique hit log analyzers) to 5995. The past couple days she’s been up at 1300. So, whatever happenned, it seems to have stuck.

A large number of the hits are from Saudi Arabia. That, to me, at first screamed “anonimizer proxy”. There are many services that will give you fake IPs from all around the world, but I can find no trace, so far, that these are not legit people. I guess I need to get the actually times and IPs of the visitors and see if they are at regular intervals or something, but without digging straight into the logs, this all looks legit.

Anyway, I went over to the website that the various SA addresses resoved to and it was this www.ISU.NET.SA the main internet service provider for Saudi Arabia.

I thought I would share some of their views on the internet with you:
http://www.isu.net.sa/saudi-internet/contenet-filtring/filtring.htm

Introduction to Content Filtering
What is this service?:

The Internet Services Unit oversees and implements the filtration of web pages in order to block those pages of an offensive or harmful nature to the society, and which violate the tenants of the Islamic religion or societal norms. This service is offered in fulfillment of the directions of the government of Saudi Arabia and under the direction of the Permanent Security Committee chaired by the Ministry of the Interior.

Types of Materials Blocked:

The types of materials which the ISU is directed to block are few, most noteworthy among them are pornographic web pages which consist of 95% of all blocked web pages. As for the other categories, they consist mainly of pages related to drugs, bombs, alcohol, gambling and pages insulting the Islamic religion or the Saudi laws and regulations.

How are they filtered?:

KACST maintains a central log and specialized proxy equipment, which processes all page requests from within the country and compares them to a black list of banned sites. If the requested page is included in the black list then it is dropped, otherwise it is executed, then the request is archived. These black lists are purchased from commercial companies and renewed on a continuous basis throughout the year. This commercial list is then enhanced with various sites added locally by trained staff.

Performance:
The difference between filtered and unfiltered web page retrieval reaches on average no more than half a second, which is too miniscule a timeframe for most humans to perceive.

Usefulness of Filtering:

God Almighty directed humanity in the Nobel Qur’an in the words of His prophet Joseph: “He said: My Lord, prison is more beloved to me than that to which they entice me, and were you not to divert their plot away from me I will be drawn towards them and be of the ignorant. So his Lord answered him and diverted their plot away from him, truly, He is the All-Hearer, the All-Knower” Yusuf(12):33-34

Confirmation from modern scientific studies:

In a study by Cass Sunstein in the Duke Law Journal it was found that countries which impose strict laws relating to prevention of pornography enjoy a reduction in the rate of rape and murder and vice versa. Similarly, in a study conducted by the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography and another conducted by the University of New Hampshire it was found that those states trafficking most heavily in pornography saw a similar increase in the rate of rape. Specifically, Alaska and Nevada were the two states with the highest rates of pornographic materials (five times that of other states), accompanied by a similar increase in rape activity (eight times that of other states).

Interesting…
You may now discuss the aspects ethics of National Internet Censorship…

On a much lighter note…

Chris and John went duck hunting for the first time.

They took decoys, shotguns, and camouflage hunting suits. Before they left, a friend suggested that they bring a “dog to get the ducks”. They took his advice and off they went.

As noon time rolled around, the other hunters on the lake were heading back with boats filled with ducks, while Chris and John had not a single duck.

Chris asked “What do you think we’re doing wrong John?”

John replied “Maybe we’re not throwing the dog high enough”…

Buh dom bom… Sorry I couldn’t resist that one… It so reminded me of jokes from the Prarie Home Companion Joke shows. But they are always Sven and Ole (Pronounced Ollie)… Like this one from 2004

Swen and Ole go duck hunting and Ole is very excited to show off his new hunting dog. They are out in their duck hunting boat and a couple of ducks fly over. They fire and a duck them drops. Ole sends his retriever out to get the duck. The dog jumps out of the boat and runs across the water picks up duck and hops back into the boat. And much to Ole’s dismay, Swen doesn’t say word.
Another couple of ducks fly over. They shoot and another duck falls. Ole sends his dog out again. The dog again runs across the water, picks up the duck, and runs back and hops into the boat. Still, Swen doesn’t say a word.
This happens several more times and finally Ole smugly says, “So Swen, do you notice anything unusual about my new dog?”
“Ja, he can’t swim.”

Obituary: Tom Green / Christian television program producer

UPDATE: I’m getting a lot of traffic from searches for Rose and Tom. Please leave a comment or shout out here. I’d like to see where you all are coming from. It might also be nice to turn this into a tribute page for Tom, Thom and/or Rose (even though she’s not dead yet 😉 – Hmm maybe I’ll do another post for her and put up a few pictures from 20 years ago 😉 I think I might have one or two of her at Creation ’86 with a towel wrapped around her head).

Also, if you are just looking for the song “Forty Brave Soldiers”, here’s how to get it…
(This links directly to LightMusic.tv. I don’t get a cut or anything like that. You’ll exit my site when you hit buy now…)


Thanks to the generosity
of Candy Green and the Green family, we are now offering “40 Brave
Soldiers” for download (mp3). Proceeds will benefit lightmusic.tv, which is
dedicated to preserving Tom’s memory. We accept Visa, MasterCard, American
Express, and Discover. Thank you.
$9.99

I came across a friend’s obituary again today. I thought I would post it. Tom Green was a good man. Set a good example and lead a life that lead others. To him, I was probably just some teenager he knew by name from a church he visited off and on and went to retreats with. But he’s one of the people that showed me early what a successful life truly meant…

I was already in a bit of a weird mood since I was looking at three somewhat related websites and trying to figure out what I thought of them. One is Slacktivist, another is BadChristian, and another is Anabaptist Monk (which has two mirror urls that are censored for nudity at the office for some reason I do not understand he’s a baptist preacher after all…). Discovered in that order. They’ve in this whole subculture of liberal Christians and I’ve been trying to decide where I come down one each of their sites.

I gave up on that for the night and moved on to trying to find an mp3 or a track of Tom Green’s song “Forty Brave Soldiers”. I’d really like to sing it in church or at least hear it a few more times if I can’t get an accompaniment tape. So, I stumbled across his obituary again. I’d found it out of the blue about a year ago and it was a bit of a shock. The shock tonight was less, but I’m still shocked at how strong an emotion it pulls out of me.

I still think about Tom on occasion as as another person that was equally influential in my early life can be heard on the radio every morning Rose (Somma) Tennent co-host with Jim Quinn in their “war room” http://www.warroom.com. She actually helped put Lightmusic on the air. I guess I feel protective over Rose as I considered her, and still do though we haven’t spoken for two decades, a very close friend. She was one of our youth group’s (The Cornerstone Crusaders) leaders and a good person. Some of Quinn’s attitudes and demeanors are not, shall we say, founded on intellectualism. I think Rose could do, and deserves better. I’m always melancholy when I listen to their morning show. So I usually don’t. But like I said, I’m a bit over-protective.

Oh jeez, I went out to http://www.lightmusic.tv to find a picture of Rose and found out that someone else I knew just died in a car accident. Thom Hickling, co-creator of light music and the man who hosted “His Place” from 1989 to 2003. You can read about him here: http://www.dailyreckoning.com/Featured/Thom.html

Now, Lightmusic was nationally sindicated and was one of the driving forces of Christian Music as it is today. Some of you may have heard of Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith? They can, in part, thank the chocolate chip cookie loving Tom Green for their success. If you haven’t heard of “His Place”, that might be expected, it was more of a Pittsburgh thing as far as I know. I sort of missed out on it as I was away at college for the first few years it was around…

OK, I just saw that the song is available for 9.99 from Candy (Tom’s wife. Nice woman.) I listened to the first 15 seconds. That’s all I can do right now. It’s the kind of song that makes your hair from your arms all the way to the back of your scalp rise, and your heart catch in your throat even when you aren’t giving it your full attention.

I’m going to bed before anything else even more emotional happens…

For Tom Green, one of the brave soldiers:http://www.post-gazette.com/obituaries/20030709green0709p3.asp
Obituary: Tom Green / Christian television program producer

Wednesday, July 09, 2003

By Ann Rodgers-Melnick, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Tom Green, 55, a creative force and lovingly scathing critic in Christian media, died Friday after heart surgery in New Zealand, where he has lived since 1997.

Mr. Green was a longtime producer for Cornerstone Television in Wall, where he was best known as the host of the “Lightmusic” video show. He was also a co-creator of “His Place,” a soap opera and talk show set in a diner.

With his wife, Candy, he wrote and recorded many songs, including “Forty Brave Soldiers,” a Christian radio hit about Roman soldiers who were left to die on a frozen lake because of their faith.

“Tom was a groundbreaker, both as an artist back in the late 1970s and certainly as one of the pioneering Christian music video shows,” said John Styll, president of the Gospel Music Association. “He was a real innovator who took chances.”

Born in San Francisco, Mr. Green in the 1960s ran the lights at the Troubadour, a club on Hollywood’s Sunset Strip. Many of the elite folk and rock artists who played there also came to see the art theater that Mr. Green produced.

After moving to Vermont, Mr. Green, who was Jewish, became a Christian, along with his wife.

“They almost instantly became Tom and Candy Green, the guitar-strumming evangelists,” said Thom Hickling, a friend and co-worker.

After their first child was born, Mr. Green became head of the theater department at televangelist Jim Bakker’s ill-fated Heritage University in North Carolina. They entered that world of clean-shaven Southern evangelicals as “a couple of hippie types from the Jesus movement,” said Roger Wilson, a close friend and co-worker there and at Cornerstone Television.

Mr. Green was never comfortable in the evangelical media industry.

“He didn’t care about fund raising and making a commercial appeal to the donors. Tom wanted to make good television that people who didn’t love God would be willing to watch and maybe it would have an impact on them,” Hickling said.

Cornerstone Television received complaints that he ran secular videos like Phil Collins’ “Another Day in Paradise” on “Lightmusic.” Mr. Green insisted that Collins’ message about homelessness was biblical. After the show was nationally syndicated in 1985, not-yet-disgraced televangelist Jimmy Swaggart threatened to pull his preaching from any station that carried “Lightmusic.”

“[Mr. Green] was on the cutting edge of contemporary music, not afraid to disagree with [the president] or the general manager or anyone about what we had to do if we wanted to reach young people,” Wilson said.

In 13 years, Mr. Green produced more than 3,000 episodes of “Lightmusic.” But he complained that too many evangelical hits sounded like last year’s secular hits with the name “Jesus” inserted.

“The difference between art and propaganda is often blurred in Christian videos,” he wrote. “Propaganda tells us what to think. Art allows us to come to truth on our own. Propaganda keeps everything easy. Art forces us to confront issues that we perhaps would rather not think about.”

“Lightmusic” won three consecutive Billboard magazine awards for best Christian music video show, but in 1997, Mr. Green was offered the opportunity to run a pioneering Christian station in Christchurch, New Zealand.

The Christchurch station did not feature preachers. It ran old American sitcoms like “Leave It to Beaver.” Mr. Green produced specials designed to make the faith appealing in a highly secular society.

When the station was purchased by American evangelicals, Mr. Green believed that his creative wings would be clipped. He left to produce independent videos. While he was preparing for a working trip to Antarctica, a physical revealed a leaky heart valve.

There was a lag of months before surgery, and he was extremely weak by the time of the June 30 operation, Hickling said.

During his last days, New Zealand was hit by the coldest blast of Antarctic air on record, Candy Green wrote.

“At the time of his dying we were not only praying for Tom but we prayed for the peace of Jerusalem and peace in the world. Our children had spoken forth great words of faith and prayers of healing for their father. It is now our prayer that these words were caught up with this blast of air which takes 10 years to travel around the world. I am going to be looking for answers to these prayers.”

A local memorial service is planned for sometime in August. Details will be posted at www.lightmusic.tv.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Green is survived by two daughters, Shoshanna Hill of King of Prussia, Montgomery County, and Hadassah, at home in Christchurch; two sons, Joe and Nate, both of Christchurch; his mother, Dottie Green of California; and one grandson.

——————————————————————————–
Ann Rodgers-Melnick can be reached at arodgersmelnick @post-gazette.com or 412-263-1416.

PASSING OF Tom Green, PIONEER CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIAN BROADCASTER
Date Sunday, July 06 @ 09:00:38
 The Fourth of July 2003 was Tom Green’s Independence DayBy V. Glen Megill
Special to ASSIST News ServiceHUNTINGTON BEACH, CALIFORNIA (ANS) —
Tom Green, former host of the award winning Christian music program LIGHTMUSIC, died Friday (New Zealand time) in Christchurch, New Zealand from complications following open heart surgery. July 4, 2003 was Tom Green’s Independence Day.


After surgery on Monday to repair a leaking heart valve, Tom’s heart could not be restarted. There was no option but to keep him on the heart-lung machine, and the prognosis became bleak. (Pictured: Tom Green).

As news reached the US, friends around the world covered Tomand family with a blanket of prayer. Finally on Wednesday morning his heart began to beat with the help of a pacemaker, and everyone rejoiced. During this time Tom’s mother and daughter, Shoshanna, were able to travel from the US to be at his bedside. Tom’s heart was beating, but he was not out of danger.

Wednesday and Thursday Tomwent on and off the heart-lung machine. He was not able to sustain sufficient blood pressure for a long period of time. After a series of ups and downs, Tomlost the battle Friday morning. He had never regained consciousness following his surgery.
Tom’s father had died in his early forties from a genetic heart defect. Ten years ago Tomdiscovered he carried the same defect and had a heart valve replaced. This recent problem was only revealed during a physical examination in preparation for a trip to Antarctica to film a documentary.

Tom Green and his family have lived in Christchurch, New Zealand for the past seven years where he had worked for a Christian television station, and as a freelance filmmaker. He was born in 1947 and is survived by his mother Dottie, wife Candy, and children, Shoshanna, Joseph, Nathan and Hadassah. The birth of his son Joseph’s first child just two months ago had made him a grandfather for the first time.

Tom Green was a pioneering music missionary. When some saw Christian rock music as rebellion, Tomsaw the gospel translated into a new language. Contemporary music was a language that many people in darkness would listen to, and Tomembraced this new opportunity to share Jesus with missionary zeal.

Tomcreated LIGHTMUSIC, the groundbreaking contemporary Christian music program, featuring music and videos for a dark world. He produced and hosted over 3,000 daily half-hour broadcasts in over thirteen years with Cornerstone Television and received “Best Contemporary Christian Music Video Show” honors from Billboard Magazine for three consecutive years.

B.E. Taylor, LIGHTMUSIC music director remembered, “Some people thought Tomwas radical. He just didn’t fit into the norm — but God called Tomto radical ministry. He was called to take the gospel into streets of darkness. When we received letters from people on the verge of suicide that were alienated from the church, it was powerful! That is what Tomwas all about. It was simply about being obedient to God and letting God use you.” (Pictured: LIGHTMUSIC Music Director B.E. Taylor with Tom Green).

Gregg Cooper, cameraman and creative consultant to LIGHTMUSIC said, “A long time before the term ‘seeker sensitive’ was even mentioned, that was pretty much Tom. He would reach out to people that were alienated from the church. That was Tom’s ministry.”

Tom Green’s remarkable personality had a powerful impact on many people. Rose Somma Tennent former co-host and associate producer of LIGHTMUSIC said of Tom, “The relationship I had with Tom Green has become the yardstick by which I have measured all subsequent friendships. Tomwas unique in that he was one of the few people I know that had a gift for identifying talent in others and encouraging and aiding its development. Some people seek to be large by diminishing those around them. Wiser men become large in the shared gifts and talents of their peers. Tomwas a wise man, but he didn’t think so, and that was part of his charm.”

Gregg Copper added, “Tomwas really good at helping people soar to their God-given potential, and he was just always there for us. That was one of the most difficult things in going through this. Tomwas always there when we needed him, and when he was going though this most difficult time, he was in New Zealand and we couldn’t be there for him”

Friend and colleague, Thom Hickling said, “Many people know Tomas a broadcaster, but Tomwas also an accomplished musician. Tomand his wife Candy recorded about thirteen albums, including the powerful and moving ballad ‘Forty Brave Soldiers for Christ’ that was recorded in the late seventies and still receives much airplay.”

Only God knows how many lives were impacted by this contemporary Christian music pioneer. The impact of his untimely death will undoubtedly ripple through the lives of many more. Tomproudly carried the torch for Jesus to a dark world and has now completed his assignment. I am grateful his path crossed mine. I will carry that torch with renewed energy. Only God knows how many lives were impacted.

Tom Green ended each show saying,” God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” God loved Tomand had a wonderful plan for his life, and we are very grateful Tomfaithfully answered the call.

——————————————————————————–
B.E. Taylor served as music director for LIGHTMUSIC and is currently a recording artist and performer living in Wheeling, West Virginia. He can be reached at: http://www.betaylor.com

Gregg Cooper was a cameraman and creative consultant to LIGHTMUSIC and is currently production manager for Orchard Hill Church in Wexford, Pennsylvania http://www.orchardhillchurch.com

Rose Somma Tennent was co-host and associate producer of LIGHTMUSIC and is currently a radio personality and co-host of “Quinn and Rose in the Morning” WRRK-FM, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania http://www.warroom.com

Thom Hickling was formerly with Cornerstone Television and is currently a journalist living in Baltimore, Maryland. He can be reached at: thombomb@hotmail.com

LIGHTMUSIC was produced at Cornerstone Television located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Cornerston TV http://www.ctv.org/lightmusic/

Additional information on LIGHTMUSIC and Tom Green will be posted at Light Music Tv

“13 years of Christian Video: Enough Already?” (an interview with Tom Green)
Crown Vider

“My Favorite Christian Music Videos” (an article by Tom Green)
http://www.crownvideo.com/vpJan72000.cfm

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V. Glen Megill is Director of International Outreach for the World Bible Society www.worldbible.org. He also serves as president of the Rock of Africa Mission, an outreach to sub-Saharan Africa. www.rockofafrica.org. Glen can be reached in Huntington Beach, CA at vgmegill@rockofafrica.org.

This article comes from Christian-Connection
http://www.christian-connection.orgThe URL for this story is:
http://www.christian-connection.org/article.php?sid=258

How to: Creating a unique temporary file and determining the working drive and path

This is a demonstration of how to use a TempFile in a .BAT or .CMD file. The goal of this example is to determine the relative path of the current working directory and assign it to a variable.

Concepts Demonstrated:

  • Generating a unique file names
  • Creating a temp file, using the Windows Naming convetion, and deleting it when done
  • Calling support subroutines in a batch file
  • Using GOTO :EOF to end exit a subroutine but not the batch file
  • Use of the command line “FOR” routine
  • Using Variables with “for /F”
  • How to get the current directory
  • Verbose and Quiet modes for a batch file

Temporary files are incredibly useful in batch files. When used in combination with a “For” loop, you can accomplish some amazing stuff from the command line.

In this example we assign a new file name to the TEMPORARY_FILE variable and then export the current working path to that file by echoing cd environment variable to it:

call :GETTEMPNAME
echo %cd%>%TEMPORARY_FILE%

Once our temp file has contents, the For routine can be used to parse each line and execute a command with the result. So, we use the For command to divide the working directory, lets say it is “C:\WorkingDir” into several peices (aka tokens):

FOR /F “tokens=1* delims=:” %%G IN (%TEMPORARY_FILE%) DO set RelativePath=%%H

Literaly we are telling it to break the line up at every colon ( : ), and to assign the first token to the variable %G. The asterisk (*) indicates that each token after that should be assigned to a new variable letter (H,I,J, and etc.). In our example, our %H will contain “\WorkingDir”.

“For /F” is really most usefull with larger files containing multiple lines. Since our file contains only one line with two tokens, the process stops there but you could, for example, parse all the names of files in a directory (dir *.xyz /b > %TEMPORARY_FILE%), or the contents of a registry key exported to that file using (REG QUERY […] > %TEMPORARY_FILE%). I’ve used both of these methods in the past to do some really neat things that might have otherwise involved creating a custom executible. One advantage of doing it from teh command line is that it keeps the registry clean of all the garbage left behind by Windows anytime you run an exe.

Oh!

Something that is not often emphasized in “For /F” documentation is that it can parse variables as well as files. This could greatly optimize this example. Instead of parsing our file, we would simply put our %CD variable in quotes and call:

FOR /F “tokens=1* delims=:” %%G IN (“%CD%”) DO set RelativePath=%%H

We will get exactly the same results and can cut our batch file size in half! Of course, then we wouldn’t have a good example of temp file usage would we? So, we will do it the hard way.

Thus:
Continue reading How to: Creating a unique temporary file and determining the working drive and path

Are you ready? Did you miss it this morning?

Early this morning, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the
morning, the time and date was 01:02:03 04/05/06.

That’s coming up again this afternoon. For my readers in Europe, you’ve got a month and a day yet! Get ready!

If you miss this one, you’ll have ruined your whole century for 02:03:04 05/06/07 and 03:04:05 06/07/08 just won’t feel the same will they???

Man, had I thought of this earlier I’d have created a website for pictures of people’s clocks and conspiracy stories people have heard. Like:

“A bug in Microsoft Windows XP will cause the year to start incrementing the year instead of the second afte the date time reaches 01:02:03 04/05/06.”