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Saturday Miscellania
- 11/03/07
- 13
It has been a busy weekend…and it’s only Saturday afternoon. Yesterday evening I took my son and one of our young neighbors to a hobby show where an old friend was working. We had fun watching the planes, trains and automobiles on display. We got home late and then spent the morning preparing for my daughter’s birthday party. We’ve just returned from building a craft and celebrating her birthday at a nearby store. Now the kids are playing with new toys, the baby is napping, and I’m catching up on email and blogging.
Early this morning I made some mostly-unnoticeable but important changes to this site. I finally went ahead and upgraded the site’s hosting, so it’s now on a faster and better server. I’ve said goodbye to budget hosting forever, I hope. I also upgraded to the latest version of the Movabletype software that runs this site. It was quite a smooth move, but there are bound to be bugs here and there. So I apologize in advance if you run into any strange problems when using the site.
Fonts and Browsers
I also took the opportunity this morning to change a few of the fonts so that those of you who happen to have Calibri installed will now see that as the primary font (and if not it will default to Georgia—the font it has been for the past few months). If you don’t have that particular font (i.e. if you don’t have Windows Vista or Office 2007) you can download it and a few others by clicking here to get the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack. Calibri is Microsoft’s replacement for the somewhat tired Times New Roman font that has been the default Windows font for a long, long time now. It’s a great font.
As I was making a few changes to the site I did some testing in Internet Explorer 6 and have concluded that if you use Internet Explorer 6, it’s time to upgrade to either Firefox or Internet Explorer 7. Both are free and both are worlds better than the older version of the browser. Do yourself a favor and upgrade. You’ll be surprised at how much better things look!
Reformation Day Symposium Winners
Last week’s Reformation Day Symposium was a great success (I thought). When it came right down to it, it was difficult to choose winners. In the end I really chose somewhat randomly as I really didn’t feel there were three posts that stood head and shoulders above the rest. There were plenty of good contributions. Having said that, here are three that I thought merited a bit of recognition. Each of these three people will receive a free print from Reformation Art.
Musings of the Dings - The strategy here worked—brownie points were awarded for including a five-year old in the symposium.
Wiser Time was one of a few people to focus on John Huss. This brief biography of Huss was one of my favorite posts.
Allen Mickle wrote a good post asking and answering “Are Baptists Part of the Protestant Reformation? His brief history of the baptist involvement in the Reformation made a unique contribution.
So congratulations to the three of you. Drop me an email and I’ll get the prizes on their way to you.

I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a husband to Aileen and a father to three young children. I worship and serve as a pastor at
Releasing on April 1, The Next
Comments (13)
Ah just for the day?
And how do us Mac users get these fonts?
And how do us Mac users get these fonts?
Good question. I know you can, but don’t know how…
And how do us Mac users get these fonts?
The two ways I know of for PC users is the one I outlined above and one where you can download the Powerpoint 2007 reader. I don’t know if you can do either for Mac…
“Why, oh why won’t it work the way it’s supposed to…”
Maybe you should hire a professional.
The american way kick em when their down. Hope you get it figured out. You do well Tim. :)
Hi,I don’t think it’s good to expect readers to install a font or download a new browser to view your web site the way you want it viewed. Most people are clueless when it comes to these things.
I use Firefox and use my own font preference to override web sites that specify a font so that I don’t have to view their preference.
Here is a link I found about Calibri:http://tinyurl.com/28uqmh
I know this all sounds very critical.
I love your blog and read it every day. Thank you.
Hi, I don’t think it’s good to expect readers to install a font or download a new browser to view your web site the way you want it viewed. Most people are clueless when it comes to these things.
I don’t expect people to. People without Calibri will see things just fine and it will look just like it did before. Those with Calibri will just see things the way I prefer to! :)
True Tim. It looks fine here.
I use the Subscribe via Email link so I don’t miss anything and it works great.
I hope your book does well.
I look forward to the developments at Discerning Reader.Jeff
How funny! I just found Calibri last night - I used it for some graphics for a project for my wife. I really like it! Looks nice…
Hmm… so I’m searching Google for a source for the Calibri font, and I found a posting that says the following:Calibri font - be GONE !!almost a month ago I posted about the annoyances of Calibri font if you don’t have font smoothing and clear type turned on. Sadly, I’m seeing it more and more even in some mailing lists as people try out Office 2007 and Vista. What’s worse is I don’t think people realize just how friggin bad that font looks without font smoothing.. here’s a hint .. IT’S FRIGGIN UNREADABLE !!!
No without doubt it’s not the user’s fault, it’s clearly Microsoft’s. They designed it to be that way. You think they’d at least have a system that was smart enough to say… oh, font smoothing isn’t turned on, let’s fallback to a reasonable font. But no, this is one of those force the change on everyone kind of #$@% moves that just disenfranchises people bit by bit. Can you tell that I’m annoyed yet?…
So, I turned off ClearType, and…he’s right. Your Calibri font looks REALLY grainy without font smoothing…
Anyone notice that Frank Schaeffer is now an atheist…er, an agnostic…?
He concludes his new book, Crazy For God, with the revelation that “maybe there is a God”, “who knows”.
After bragging about all his self study…he dissed college…that is what he comes up with.
A real genius;
Tim,Speaking of the appearance of your blog, is there anyway to get a margin on the left side? Your text appears right up against the side of the window. It makes it a little hard to read. Most blogs have a small margin between the window bar and the text. Keep up the good work.