iOS7: A Short-Lived Experience

I installed iOS7 yesterday and spent the evening playing around with it on my iPhone 4. While I liked a lot of the new features and updated apps, I am NOT a fan of the new bright white color scheme in iMessage, Mail, etc. It is very harsh and hard on the eyes (and cannot be changed at this point). The white on green color combination (when returning to your call on the home screen) is barely readable. Pretty much every iPhone app has this bright white background. Turning down the brightness helps a bit, but isn't much of a solution.

The icons for the Apps on the Home Screen look cheesy to me. Everything was slower (as I had anticipated), since this OS was most likely designed for the faster iPhone 5, not the 4.

Fortunately I was able to "restore" my iPhone 4 back to IOS 6.1.3. This procedure is NOT for the faint of heart and took some online research to find out just how to do this (it not as easy as "restoring" it through iTunes).

While I think iOS7 will be very popular (and obviously will be the OS of choice for the 5C, 5S, and next year's iPhone 6), it still needs some work, and I am not ready to jump in.

A valuable lesson was learned: When a major OS is released, take some time to look at the new iOS on someone else's device before committing it to yours. You may not be able to go back.

In the event you want to restore your iPhone back to iOS6, here's the link I used:

http://jailbreakmeme.com/how-to-downgrade-ios-7-to-6-1-x-in-dfu-mode-tutorial/

Santa and the Church

So I grew up, just like any American kid, loving the sights and sounds of Christmas. From the time I was a little boy, my parents would take my brother and I to the big department store in downtown Grand Rapids to visit Santa. There we would sit on his lap, tell him all the great toys we would like to have magically appear under the tree. It was part of being a kid...part of growing up. These are some of my fondest memories.

Now that I am 49, I will look forward to my kids getting married and having their own children. And I will, with great delight, enjoy bringing them down to the big department store to visit Santa and get their pictures taken, where I will proudly display them in my home.

I am so glad my parents allowed me to enjoy these times as a kid. Yet there never was a Christmas that they didn't bring us "back to center" and remind us the true meaning of Christmas.....that Christ came as a baby in Bethlehem to rescue us from sin and eternal separation from Him by his death and sacrifice on the cross.

Forward fast to 2009. So I am walking down the hall of our Evangelical, Bible-believing church where the pastors' offices reside. Each door is decorated (some to the hilt) for Christmas. Some are traditional; another is decorated with pictures of family, children, and grandchildren. Yet another is donned with blinking lights and garland. I guess this is all part of some big "decorate your door" contest.

To my complete surprise (and shock) is one door that is completely decked out with images of Santa and his reindeer. What the heck is that doing on a Pastor's door? Not only that, but I find out that this is the one that actually "won" the decorate-your-door contest.

Now don't get me wrong. I am not anti-Santa or some modern-day Scrooge trying to stuff a lump of coal on top of someone's Christmas celebration. But one place I hope that I can escape from Santa during this holy season is my church.

It was less than two weeks ago when our pastor encouraged us to focus on Christ during the Christmas season -- to get away from all the distractions and remember what we celebrate. He challenged us to spend time reading the Christmas story during Advent -- something that more of us (including I) should do.

What message are we sending to those who walk down that hall during this blessed season when they see Santa and his reindeer splashed all over the door?

Take your kids and grandchildren to see Santa. Get your picture taken with him. Post the pictures proudly on your refrigerator and book shelves. But please, please, keep Santa out of the halls of our churches this Christmas. He has no place there.

20 Years and Still Working

Hi All:

This is my first shot at a blog. Thanks for taking time out of your crazy day to indulge me.

First, a bit aboutmy personal life. I am happily married to my best friend in the world. She is the light of my life. This year we celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary! She's got me into this exercise program each night, which I (grumpily) agree to. We'll have to see if I can stick with it like she can!

I have three children: two in college (one studying abroad in Germany this semester), and a daughter who graduates from High School this spring.

My two dogs, Samson (a Golden Retriever) and Zachy (a lab mix), give me a lot of laughs throughout my day. More about them later.

For the past 20 years, I have worked for the same company, designing applications for a large insurance company. But changes are on the horizon. With Microsoft dropping support for Visual Basic 6, we are now required to move to Visual Basic .Net (hence the title of my blog). The programs that are being converted are ones that I have developed solely and know better than important dates (to my family's chagrin).

This past week I discovered that my company is, in their words, "shipping the apps overseas". I'm told that, even though I won't be involved at all in the programming, I will "play a role", whatever that means. We'll dive into that in another entry.

So starts the journey. Not sure where it will lead me, but knowing that God is in control does help me to face another day.

If you're bored, I'm sorry. I write code, not books. But thanks for investing in the time to listen to what I have to say.